Farthest Reach lm-2

by Richard Baker

  Next, she’d visit the same terror on the Sembians. Then she’d turn her infernal hordes against those wretched humans in Mistledale or Shadowdale, and Evermeet’s accursed army. There would be no disaster at the Lonely Moor to save Evermeet’s traitors from destruction at her hands. With each sunset her armies grew stronger. More and more demons and yugoloths answered her summons and poured through the gates she’d opened in Myth Drannor. The next time Sarya met Evermeet in battle, she did not intend to be defeated.

  Maalthiir will not elude me forever, she decided. She had other things to do that night, and she had harried Hillsfar enough for the time being. Sarya called for her captains and demons, and strode out of Maalthiir’s burning tower into a night that had turned red with fire.

  “Well done, my children! Well done!” Sarya cried. She looked back on the inferno that had been Maalthiir’s tower, and the firelight danced in her malevolent green eyes. “Now come away. We have more slaying to do tonight.”

  The first three steps into the swirling gray mist seemed harmless enough, though Araevin’s ankles crawled at the sensation of the thick vapor tugging at him as he moved deeper. It felt as if he were wading into a sea, warm and thick as blood. He could see the white tree trunks and silver-green boughs behind him, the fair green hills of silver-tasseled grass rising not far behind him, the pale mossy stones of the road leading back into the luminous depths of the twilit forest. Then Araevin took another step, and he plummeted into darkness.

  He cried out and flailed, his senses reeling, transfixed in a moment of endless falling-but then his foot fell on the next step of the road. He stumbled to his knees and found himself on all fours on a path made of dull paving stones covered over with thick, oily black moss. The stink of wet rot assailed his nostrils, and he looked up into a pallid, festering jungle. Sildeyuir’s silver starlight was gone, leaving only a humid, cloying blackness, broken only by the sickly green phosphorescence of huge, rotting toadstools.

  The trees are dead, he realized. The great silver-white boles of Sildeyuir’s forest still surrounded him, but they were leprous and gray, choked by more of the black moss and sagging under the weight of parasitic fungi. He had not left Sildeyuir, not really. The gray vapors marked the border of a creeping blight, a monstrous disease consuming an entire world.

  His gorge rising at the smell of the place, Araevin pushed himself to his feet and wiped his hands on his cloak. The foul moss left long black smears on the elven graycloth. He turned to look for his companions, and for a horrible moment he saw that he was alone-until Ilsevele suddenly appeared in midair, only an arm’s-reach from where he stood. She gasped aloud and reeled, but Araevin caught her arm and steadied her.

  “I have you,” he said. “The disorientation will pass.”

  “It’s horrible,” Ilsevele gasped.

  Araevin didn’t know if she referred to the smell or appearance of the place, or her own nausea, but he held her while she found her feet. In the space of a few moments the rest of the company joined them, each appearing one by one. Donnor Kerth set his face in a fierce scowl and said nothing. Maresa winced and found a handkerchief, binding it over her nose and mouth.

  Nesterin stared around the poisoned forest in horror. “This is what the nilshai have brought to us?” His voice broke, and he hid his face. “Better that it had been unmade entirely, than to be corrupted like this!”

  “Nesterin, is this the road to Mooncrescent? Do we continue?” Araevin asked.

  The star elf studied the landscape. “It could be. The lay of the land is right. But this is not Sildeyuir. It is a foul lie.”

  Araevin was not sure if the place was as unreal as Nesterin believed. Some great and terrible magic was at work, that much was plain to see. Maybe Sildeyuir’s corrupted lands had acquired the traits of the nilshai world through some unforeseen planar conjunction. The creeping blight could have been a terrible spell or curse created by the nilshai to change the star elves’ homeland into a place where they might exist comfortably. Perhaps some other force was at work-the presence of a malign god, the corruption of an evil artifact, something.

  Whatever it was, Araevin knew for certain that he did not want to remain in the rotting forest a moment longer than he had to.

  “Let’s go on,” he said to his companions. “The sooner we find the tower, the sooner we can leave.”

  They set out at once, picking their way along the overgrown roadway. The paving stones were slick and wet and made for difficult footing. Bulging, fluid-filled fungi dangled obscenely from the branches of the dying trees along the roadway, some overhanging the road itself. The whole place dripped, stank, and seemed to almost murmur and hiss with the rustlings and clicking of unwholesome things that wriggled and crawled in the slime and putrefaction of the forest floor. From time to time they encountered huge mounded balls of green-glowing fungus blocking the road, and when they set their swords to the stuff to clear a path, it broke with soft popping sounds and disgorged emerald streams of foulness across the path.

  “We must put an end to this,” Nesterin said. “When we return, I will have Lord Tessaernil send for the other great mages of the realm. Together they may be able to stem this foul tide. Or, if they cannot, perhaps they can rescribe the borders of Sildeyuir, excluding the corrupted parts.”

  “If I can help you, I will,” Araevin promised. “This is an abomination.”

  “Shhh!” hissed Maresa. She stood still at the rear of the party, looking back the way they had come. “There is something following us.”

  “What do you see?” Kerth asked, peering into the darkness behind them. His human eyes did not fare well in the thick shadows and witch-light of the place.

  “It’s not what I see, it’s what I hear,” Maresa said. “It’s big, and it’s coming closer. Can’t you hear the toadstools popping back there?”

  They all fell silent for a moment, straining to listen. Araevin caught the sound almost at once, a distant slopping or squelching as if someone had filled a bellows half full of water and was working it slowly. And as Maresa had said, there was an awful wet popping sound that preceded the other thing. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what might make a sound like that, but there was no doubt that it was coming closer.

  “Gods,” murmured Jorin Kell Harthan. “What is that?”

  “I prefer not to find out,” Ilsevele answered. She tapped the ranger on the shoulder and pointed down the road. “Come on, let’s pick up the pace. Maybe it’s moving across our path instead of following us.”

  “Optimist,” muttered Maresa, but the genasi did not disagree when Jorin and Ilsevele set off at an easy trot, pressing on down the road. They made another mile or more, by Araevin’s reckoning. Abruptly they emerged from the closeness of the forest, and Araevin felt a great open space before him. He strained to see in the darkness, and gradually realized that sickly green luminescence marked out the great ramparts of a dark citadel before them.

  Even though he could only catch a glimmer of its shape, Araevin recognized the place at once. It was the empty citadel he’d seen in his vision, the tower that Morthil raised long ago. Morthil’s shining door was near, and with it the secret of the Telmiirkara Neshyrr. A lambent gleam stirred in the heart of the Nightstar, and sibilant whispers of ancient secrets gathered in the corners of his mind. Saelethil knew he was close, and the evil shade was watching him from the depths of the selukiira; Araevin could feel it.

  “Is this the place, Nesterin?” Jorin asked.

  The star elf gazed on the citadel’s moss-grown battlements and said, “Yes. That is Mooncrescent Tower.”

  “Why in the world did your mages build it so close to the edge of your realm?” Maresa asked.

  Nesterin grimaced. “It was not always like this. I think things have been slipping toward the mist for some time now. The tower disappeared from our realm decades ago. I suppose it has been here all that time.”

  “Inside, and quickly,” Ilsevele said. “We are not alone out here.” />
  They followed the road to a steep, climbing causeway that wound up the face of the low hill on which the tower sat. The air was warm, humid, and still, so thick that small sounds vanished in the darkness. At the top of the causeway, a great dark gate yawned open, leading into the lightless depths of the ancient stronghold.

  “Be careful,” Nesterin said to the others. “There were powerful spells in this place long ago, and the nilshai are drawn to magic.”

  Araevin drew his disruption wand from his belt, and paused to review the spells he held ready in his mind. Donnor Kerth slid his broadsword from its sheath, and shrugged his battered shield off his shoulder, while Maresa cocked her crossbow and set a bolt in the weapon. Then Araevin spoke the words of a minor spell, and illuminated the tower’s open gateway. The surrounding darkness quickly smothered the light of the spell, but it carried a short distance at least.

  Mooncrescent Tower was better described as a large castle than a simple tower or keep. High curtain walls and strong ramparts enclosed a broad courtyard in which a number of once-elegant buildings stood. At the far side of the bailey stood the keep proper, a sheer edifice of graying stone that disappeared into the oppressive darkness above Araevin’s feeble light. The courtyard beyond the tower gates was choked by an orchard of once proud old fruit trees, all dead and rotting. Hanging curtains of green-black moss fouled the elegant arcade of arches that ran along the foot of the walls, and the trees were black with dank, sagging bark.

  “This place is huge,” said Jorin. “Where do we start?”

  “The front hall of the keep,” Araevin answered. “That’s the place I saw in my vision. Morthil’s Door is there.”

  They crossed the courtyard carefully, brushing through the wet hanging branches of the dead trees. Weed-choked fountains and mold-grown statues were hidden in the dark foliage, a reminder of the elf artisans who had once raised the place. At the far side of the orchard, they climbed up a broad flight of steps to the keep’s doorway. Like the castle gate, it stood open, lightless as a pit. Araevin could hardly make out anything more than the silhouettes of his companions in the heavy darkness, despite his light spell. He couldn’t imagine how Jorin or Donnor could see a thing.

  He led the way up the steps and into the keep’s hall, the Nightstar whispering in his mind. Once the place had been a great chamber indeed, with a soaring arched ceiling and high galleries overhead. The walls were painted with rich frescoes, but the foulness of the corrupt plane had had its way with the paintings and the majestic old tapestries. Thick gray lumps of gelatinous mold left the paintings mottled and leprous, and the tapestries drooped to the ground.

  The shining silver door was nowhere in sight.

  “Araevin, what are we looking for?” Ilsevele asked. “This is the right place, isn’t it?”

  “One moment,” he said. He was certain the Door was there; visions did not lie, though it was possible that he had not understood what he’d seen. He fought down his sudden panic at that thought, and carefully pronounced his seeing spell, weaving his hands in the precise mystic passes of the casting.

  The murk of the room lightened before his eyes, and the original shape of the ruined paintings and tapestries became clear to him. He had no attention to spare on the room’s ruined splendor, though-before him, revolving slowly in the air, a spiral of dancing silver light shimmered with ancient magic.

  “Morthil’s Door,” he breathed.

  It was there, as his vision had predicted, simply hidden from hostile eyes by the star elf’s old wards.

  Araevin stepped forward, admiring the artistry of the ancient spell, but then he heard something strange. From the shadows overhead came a soft, fluttering, piping sound like the quick trill of a flute, followed by an odd crumpling or dull snapping beat. Araevin froze and stared up at the dark galleries in the top of the chamber, searching for the source.

  “Beware!” cried Nesterin. “The nilshai come!”

  The black hallways leading into the chamber erupted with the twisting blue-black forms of the alien nilshai, darting and swooping as they poured into the room. In the space of five heartbeats a dozen of the monsters appeared in the darkness, burbling and calling to one another in their weird piping voices.

  Maresa’s crossbow snapped, and one nilshai balled up in a dark tangle in midair, shrieking in anguish around the quarrel embedded in its wormlike body. Ilsevele and Jorin began to fire as well, sending arrow after arrow up at the creatures. But the nilshai were not so easily driven off. Two of the creatures flared their wings and hovered, stabbing down at Araevin and his companions with brilliant bolts of lightning. Araevin leaped aside and rolled on the flagstones, his cloak smoking from a shower of hot sparks, and the rest of his companions scattered.

  He found his knees and hurled a blazing fireball up into the middle of the chamber. A great burst of crimson flame blossomed overhead with a frightful roar, blackening the old tapestries and sloughing the gray mold from the walls. Nilshai reeled wildly and shrilled in anger, but before Araevin had even climbed to his feet the monsters resumed their attack. One struck at Donnor with some kind of illusionary threat that only the Lathanderian could see. The human knight cried out in dismay and began to fend off an imaginary attacker with desperate parries of his heavy blade, backing across the hall and leaving his companions to fend for themselves. Another of the monstrous sorcerers created a whole writhing nest of blind, sucking lampreylike maws right at Nesterin’s feet, and the star elf battled furiously to pluck the slavering mouths from his limbs as the things fastened themselves on him. “Get them off me!” he shouted.

  Arrows hissed in the darkness, and more nilshai trilled in pain or lunged out with their awful magic. Araevin spied one of the monsters hovering back out of the fight, engaged in a great summoning spell that it was completing with fearsome quickness.

  I don’t want to see what it’s trying to conjure up there, he decided.

  He threw out his hand and barked the words of a powerful spell, and before the nilshai finished its terrible conjuration a great golden hand materialized around it. The giant-sized fist closed around the monster, cutting off its spell and crushing the flying worm against the far wall, slowly grinding the life from the thing.

  Araevin whirled to look for a new foe, but another of the nilshai seized his body in a telekinetic grip and hurled him into the air. He heard Ilsevele shout in terror, and the room spun end-over-end. As quick as he could, Araevin began a flying spell to save himself from the fall, but he was too slow-he hit the cracked flagstones with a bone-jarring impact before he finished. His skull bounced on the stone floor, and everything went black for a long, cold moment.

  Damn, he thought. They’re quick.

  He started to fight his way back up through the darkness to his battling comrades, distant and strangely high above him. With a groan Araevin managed to roll over onto his elbows and knees, and pushed himself upright. His head swam and his left arm dangled at his side with a searing hot pain burning in his forearm.

  He staggered to his feet and pointed his wand at the first nilshai he could see, barking out the command word for the device. A terrible shriek of tortured air split the darkness as the frightful blue bolt of disruption ripped the ancient hall, bursting one of the nilshai asunder and tearing the wing from another one behind the first. Araevin whipped around to blast at another one of the aerial sorcerers, but he missed the creature-in the blink of an eye it simply vanished from sight, teleporting away.

  All around him, the sounds of battle slowly faded. He looked around, and realized that the nilshai had broken off the fight, fleeing back into the black depths of the old tower. Half a dozen of the monsters lay crumpled on the dark flagstones around the party, some burned, some riddled with arrows and bolts, one hacked into pieces.

  “They ran off!” Maresa cried. “Come on back whenever you’re ready, you foul flying slugs!”

  “Is everybody all right?” Ilsevele asked. She straightened up, still searching the dark galle
ries overhead for any sign of the flying monsters.

  Araevin glanced around. Nesterin bled freely from the ugly sucker bites on his legs and arms, and Jorin was hunched over, his clothes smoking from the lightning bolts the nilshai had thrown. But they all seemed alive, and no one terribly hurt. He looked down at his left arm. His hand trembled and ached when he tried to close his fist.

  “I think I broke my arm,” he said.

  Donnor Kerth sheathed his sword and came over to examine his hand. “So it seems,” the Lathanderian agreed. He chanted a healing prayer, setting one big hand firmly over Araevin’s injured arm, and the hot ache faded somewhat. “It will trouble you some for a day or two, but you should be able to use it now,” Kerth said.

  “Thank you,” said Araevin. He flexed his arm and made a fist. It hurt, but not as badly as before.

  “Now what, Araevin?” asked Ilsevele. “Where do we go from here?”

  “Morthil’s Door,” Araevin replied. He spoke a few arcane words, and revealed the floating aura for his companions to see. Nesterin’s eyes widened in wonder. “What I’m looking for is in there.”

  “Do what you came here to do, and do it quickly,” Jorin advised. “The damned nilshai might return at any time.”

  “Go ahead, Araevin,” Ilsevele said. Her bow was still in her hand, and she shook the hair out of her eyes. “We will stand watch.”