Farthest Reach lm-2

by Richard Baker

  He came to a small stream trickling through the woods, and looked and listened for a long time before breaking out of the ground cover. Curnil had learned his woodcraft from some of the best, the moon and wood elves of Elventree, a hundred miles to the north. Nothing but the burbling of the stream greeted his ears. Curnil drew a deep breath, and slipped out of the bushes to the stream bank, looking for a print that might show whether his quarry had continued on or turned aside there.

  It only took a moment for him to find the end of the track. The creature’s footprints simply ended in the wet sand, as if it had taken to the air or just vanished outright.

  “That’s impossible,” he muttered, brow furrowed in confusion. “What in the Nine Hells vanishes into thin air?”

  He grimaced-the Nine Hells indeed. The pieces fit together all too well. Something wicked, something strong, something that disappeared without a trace. Myth Drannor was not far off, and he’d heard plenty of stories about the horrible devils that haunted the ruins. But they were supposed to be trapped within the old elven mythal, weren’t they?

  “Some idiot set one of those things loose,” he decided.

  Some cruel new plot on the part of the drow who lived in the shadows of the forest? Or a stupid blunder by some glory-hunting adventurers in Myth Drannor. Who would set such a creature free?

  For that matter, why assume that only one was loose in the forest?

  Curnil looked around at the silent woods, and shuddered. He was sure that he had not seen the last of the monster he’d just tracked to the empty streambed, and he didn’t look forward to finally meeting it. He didn’t look forward to that at all.

  The structure above the chamber in which they fought the ghost turned out to be a mausoleum of some kind, buried deep in a forest unfamiliar to Araevin. Starbrow believed it might be one of the woodlands near old Myth Drannor, possibly the old realm of Semberholme in western Cormanthor. Araevin had never visited the eastern forest, but the fact that it was near dusk when they emerged gave him reason to believe that the portal had carried them a fair distance to the east of the mountaintop stronghold.

  “Why would the folk of Myth Glaurach or Semberholme have built that mountain stronghold we first explored?” Ilsevele asked Araevin. “Are you certain the portal-builders were elves?”

  He nodded. “All the portals we’ve seen so far have shown the same workmanship and design. I suppose it’s possible that someone carved newer portals and attempted to match the workmanship of the older ones, but the spells that bind the portals together all seem to be about the same age, too. I favor the simpler explanation that the whole network was constructed at one time-most likely by mages of Myth Glaurach who wanted to join their city to several distant destinations.”

  Starbrow studied the forests, rubbed at his jaw, and said, “You know, it might have been mages of Myth Drannor who built this portal network. They were masters of such magic, and created portals to many distant places. Myth Glaurach might have been a destination, not an origin.”

  Eventually they all decided that it didn’t matter very much, since Filsaelene’s divinations revealed that the daemonfey had not emerged from the portal network there. Instead, their adversaries had fled through the second of the two portals in the chamber below. They rested for the night in the forest above the mausoleum, and returned to the vaulted chamber beneath the empty tomb.

  Araevin cast his spells of portal sensing again, and studied the doorway they had passed by before. As he suspected, it was another keyed portal, requiring nothing more than a simple phrase in Elvish. However, the magic guarding it was intermittent. Once opened, the portal would not work again for hours.

  “All right, I am opening the portal,” he told the others. “The portal will remain open for a short time, just a few moments likely, and it won’t open again for hours. You must follow me quickly.”

  He spoke the pass phrase, and watched the old lichen-covered lintel glow brightly. He reached out and tapped the blank stone of the door, and felt the familiar dizzying sense of moving without moving. All went dark for an instant, and Araevin found himself looking on a small forest glade. One side of the glade ended in a stone wall, in which the portal’s archway stood. The morning was young there as well, the sky pale gray and streaked with high, rose-colored clouds.

  “Neither east nor west this time,” Araevin observed.

  He stepped away from the doorway, and studied the dark forest looming around him. The broken fingers of slender stone towers rose a short distance away, glimmering softly in the coming dawn over the treetops.

  Behind him, Starbrow emerged from the portal, followed by the others in short order. The moon elf warrior halted in surprise, a look of consternation on his face.

  “I know this place!” he said. “We’re near the Burial Glen, only half a mile or so from Myth Drannor.”

  “Myth Drannor! Are you certain?” Ilsevele said. She quickly drew an arrow and laid it across her bow, scanning the vicinity for any enemies.

  “Trust me,” Starbrow said. “I know this place.”

  “Aren’t the ruins supposed to be overrun by devils and dragons, monsters and ghosts of the worst kind?” Maresa asked, obviously uneasy.

  “So it is said,” Ilsevele replied.

  “Myth Drannor… of course,” Araevin said.

  Where else would the daemonfey go? Saelethil Dlardrageth and the rest of his accursed House had arisen in the ancient realm of Arcorar, which had become Myth Drannor. He’d already seen that Sarya knew how to use mythals to anchor demons to Faerun and compel their service-and there was a mythal here, one even more powerful than the mythal that had stood over Myth Glaurach. And mythals often served to absolutely block scrying, which would explain why no one had been able to divine the whereabouts of Sarya’s defeated army.

  “Be careful,” he told the others. “I think there is a very good chance we have found Sarya’s hiding place.”

  “So what now?” Ilsevele asked. “Make certain that they’re here, or return and report what we’ve found so far?”

  “Press on,” Araevin said at once. “If nothing else, I need to get a look at the mythal spells and see if Sarya is manipulating this mythal as she did the other one.”

  “The mythal stone is in the heart of Castle Cormanthor,” Starbrow said. “I can’t imagine how we can reach it, if the whole fey’ri army is here.”

  Araevin looked at Starbrow. “You know Myth Drannor well. Mythal stones are usually hidden with care.”

  “I’ve spent some time here.” Starbrow shrugged and looked away, searching the trees for danger, Keryvian’s hilt in his hand.

  “I don’t need to see the stone itself, at least not right this moment. I just need to be within the bounds of the mythal’s influence.”

  “That’s easier, then,” the moon elf said. “We need only walk a couple of hundred yards in that direction-” he pointed toward where the old spires could still be seen over the trees-“and we’ll be within the mythal.”

  “We might be walking into the middle of Sarya’s legion,” Maresa said. “Anything could be in there. Hells, even if she isn’t here, I’ve heard enough stories about Myth Drannor to think twice about setting foot in that place.”

  “I’ll conceal us, at least for a short time,” Araevin promised.

  He drew out a tiny pinch of spirit gum from his bandolier of spell components, and plucked out one of his eyelashes, wincing. Pressing the lash into the gum, he carefully spoke the words of a spell. The forest around them seemed to grow dimmer, more distant.

  “Araevin, what did you do?” Filsaelene asked.

  “A spell of invisibility. It covers all of us, but you must remain close to me. If we run into enemies, do not strike unless you’re sure it can’t be helped, because you’ll break the spell if you do.” He looked over to Starbrow. “Lead the way, since you know where we’re going.”

  Starbrow nodded grimly and took the lead. They followed an old, winding path that led from the port
al glen toward the city, taking pains to move quietly and avoid talking. Many things could pierce a spell of invisibility, but if they were quiet and careful, they might be able to avoid trouble of that sort.

  They reached the outskirts of the city, and took cover behind a low stone wall. Araevin sensed the moment they entered the mythal. His skin tingled with the power of the ancient magic.

  “Let’s stop here. I have a couple of spells to cast, now that we’re inside the mythal. Keep watch for me.”

  Ilsevele crouched beside him, an arrow on the string of her bow. Starbrow stood behind a tall pile of stones, sword in hand, watching the ruins with his face set in an unreadable expression. Maresa and Filsaelene guarded the other side.

  Satisfied that they were ready, Araevin first cast one of his divinations. Myth Drannor’s magical aura made scrying impossible, but he hoped that a different sort of divination might work. He spoke the words of the spell that conjured up unseen drifting eyes, hovering above his head like a halo.

  “Spread out and search for the daemonfey,” he instructed them. “Return when you sight any.”

  The intangible sensors whirred away out of sight, each dodging and darting its way into the ruins and the forests around him.

  He waited patiently for several minutes, as his spell-creations went about their searches. Then they began to return, one by one. Araevin caught each in his hand as it came back, closing his eyes to see played out in his mind’s eye the things the magical eyes had seen. He glimpsed buildings with broken windows, fallen-in roofs, and piles of masonry inside; streets overgrown with vines and wild trees; proud old manors and schools still surprisingly intact, though their windows were dark and empty. And he also found the daemonfey-glimpses of fey’ri companies bivouacked in whichever buildings were best preserved. The demonspawn were hard at work in repairing their weapons and armor, forging new weapons, drilling with spell and blade, or simply patrolling the ruins, fluttering from building to building like oversized bats.

  “Well?” Maresa asked.

  “Yes, they’re here,” Araevin said. “This is the fey’ri army, I’m certain of it.”

  “We have to leave, then,” Starbrow said. “I have to get word of this back to Gaerth and Seiveril.”

  Araevin nodded. “In a moment,” he said. “There is one more thing I want to see here.” The others shifted nervously, watching the ruins for any sign of approaching enemies, but Araevin moved his hands in arcane passes and murmured the words of another spell, the spell of mythal-sight that Saelethil had taught him.

  He closed his eyes, and when he opened them he perceived Myth Drannor’s ancient and mighty mythal as a golden vault filling the sky, a huge dome of drifting magic threads that slowly orbited the whole city. The beauty and power of the thing astonished him. Araevin trained his vision closer in, studying carefully to see what the mythal’s effects were. He glimpsed protections against scrying-well, he knew about those already, didn’t he? — and wards to suppress spells of compulsion and domination. There seemed to be no modifications to the drifting strands of magic.

  Sarya hasn’t figured out how to manipulate this mythal yet, he decided. Maybe it takes her a while to determine how to attune herself.

  He allowed himself a confident smile, and spoke the words of a spell that would allow him to gain access to the mythal so that he could raise defenses against Sarya. But even as he spoke the last syllable and reached out to grasp at the magical strands he saw around him, he realized that he had made a mistake.

  From the drifting golden strand hovering in arm’s reach, a shimmering red-gold thread suddenly emerged, appearing from nowhere. Araevin yelped and stumbled back, but not before the new strand hummed angrily. A scarlet veil descended over him, dancing across his body in a thousand motes of painful pinpricks, jabbing and sharp. With each pinprick, a spell vanished from his mind, draining away at a horrendous rate.

  “Araevin!” Ilsevele cried.

  She sprang to her feet and backed away as he jerked and flailed in his crimson cocoon of light motes.

  The great golden dome of Myth Drannor’s mythal wavered and faded from Araevin’s view. He desperately tried to speak a counterspell, but before he had even said the third word of the enchantment, the spell was sucked out of his mind in mid-casting. He tried to quickly think of another, but then there was no more time-every spell he held prepared in his mind was gone, drained away.

  I am powerless, he realized. Sarya set a trap for me!

  “Araevin! What’s wrong? What has happened?” Ilsevele asked. “Are you hurt?”

  “Not physically,” he managed. He steadied himself against the wall. “But I’ve been drained of magic. I have no spells. We have to flee, before the daemonfey come for me.”

  Starbrow drew back from his post, and glanced at Araevin.

  “Can you walk?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Araevin answered.

  He hugged himself, feeling a strange ache in the center of his body, as if something had been torn out of him. He wasn’t sure exactly how he’d been injured, but he prayed to Corellon that it wasn’t permanent. He couldn’t imagine being powerless for the rest of his days.

  He forced himself to look up at Starbrow and say, “Yes, I can walk. But I think we ought to run.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  21 Mirtul, the Year of Lightning Storms

  “Lord Seiveril Miritar, Your Highness,” the major domo announced, ringing her ceremonial staff once on the stone floor.

  Seiveril inclined his head to acknowledge the courtesy, and strode into the Dome of Stars amid the golden glow of the fading daylight. The dark marble of the floor caught the pale rose sky and mirrored its serried colors, so that the council table drifted in the darkness between gold-glowing floor and brilliant sky, a white ship adrift in the shadows between the two. Seiveril almost hesitated to set foot on the floor before him, as if he might disturb the sky’s reflection with a careless step, but he continued without a pause and approached the high table where he had sat in council for so many years.

  Amlaruil greeted him with a cool smile. The queen wore a silver gown, and her face shone like moonlight in the shadows.

  “Welcome, Lord Miritar,” she said. “We did not expect you this evening; what brings you before us?”

  “I am afraid something has come up, my queen,” Seiveril replied. He halted two paces before the outswept arms of the council and bowed to Amlaruil. “I must conclude my business here in Evermeet and return to Faerun immediately.”

  Amlaruil met his eyes, and her brow creased. “What news from Faerun, my friend?” she asked.

  “I have received a sending from Lord Vesilde Gaerth, Your Highness. He tells me that a hidden portal network has been found under Myth Glaurach, portals through which Sarya Dlardrageth’s army may have made their escape.”

  “Portals?” said Keryth Blackhelm. The stern-faced marshal frowned. “Why, the daemonfey might be anywhere by now!”

  “The portals are being searched even as we speak. Rest assured I will not give up until we have destroyed the daemonfey root and branch,” said Seiveril.

  “The daemonfey have been defeated, have they not?” Ammisyll Veldann asked. “How much longer will you persist in this interminable folly, Miritar? While you chase after ghosts and garrison gloomy old ruins, Evermeet itself remains vulnerable to attack!”

  “Clearly, Evermeet was vulnerable to attack before I called for my Crusade,” Seiveril replied. “My efforts in Faerun are your best defense, Lady Veldann.”

  Veldann scowled and began to frame a response, but Amlaruil interceded.

  “The Dlardrageths are the enemies of all the elf race,” she said. “I will pray to the Seldarine for your success.” The queen did not glance at Ammisyll Veldann, but the highborn sun elf frowned and subsided, leaning back in her seat. Instead, Amlaruil studied Seiveril. “Have you given more thought to Lady Durothil’s proposal, Lord Miritar?”

  Seiveril glanced up at the pale sky overhea
d. An empty chair stood at the foot of the left-hand side of the table, opposite the seat occupied by the high admiral.

  It would be easy to take my place there, he thought. I would certainly wield power at least equal to the power I held as Lord of Elion-perhaps even more, since I would hold a high office indeed, with no one within three thousand miles to countermand my commands. I could do a great deal of good, if I chose to take that seat.

  But how long would that good last? he wondered. Evermeet might set a shining example for the young human lands of Faerun to follow, but ultimately Evermeet is a refuge, a retreat. All the troubles that were foremost in his mind-the daemonfey, the phaerimm, the assaults on Evermeet, even the fall of the realms of Eaerlann and Cormanthor hundreds of years ago-seemed inextricably linked with the pattern of Retreat and flight that had been established for a dozen elf generations.

  The empty seat at the table was inviting. It was familiar, comfortable. And it might undo everything he had accomplished so far.

  “Lady Durothil’s suggestion has great merit,” he finally said. “I wholeheartedly endorse the notion of appointing a minister or a marshal to sit on this council and speak for those of the People who remain in Faerun. But I respectfully decline to hold any such office, or to answer to anyone who does.”

  “I don’t understand,” Keryth Blackhelm growled. “You tell us to raise up a councilor for the east, and you say you will pay no heed to him? What is the point?”

  “If I accepted the seat you offer, I would be honor-bound to answer to Evermeet’s authority and conform my actions to the will of the throne and the council. I do not have confidence in this body’s ability to take the actions I deem necessary in Faerun. Therefore I must decline to be so bound.”