But—independent of the fact that the cult's plan meant no safe place existed to run to—she found she could not abandon her companions now. She felt a responsibility to them and to their mission. Her mission. The fate of the world as they knew it rested in their hands. For once in her life, she was part of something greater than herself. She would not back away.
When they were finished, when they had defeated the cult and destroyed the pool, then they could use those smaller gates to leave Myth Drannor. They could go home. She could collect her cache—perhaps even a reward from Elminster—and set herself up for a life of ease. After all this, she'd earned it.
With new conviction, she assessed the situation once more. Somehow, they had to pass through that main gate. "Ghleanna, perhaps now would be a good time for those remaining invisibility spells," she whispered. Corran, Athan, and Durwyn remained unseen. "Cloak yourself and Faeril—I can sneak past the guards."
Ghleanna, her clawed face partially healed by a blue-glow moss potion, shook her head. "I have developed a modified invisibility spell of my own. We can all pass through unseen."
"First we must close the other gates," Corran said, "to stop the influx of cultists."
"If we do that, how will we ever get home?" Kestrel wished she could see Corran's face and not have this conversation with a disembodied voice. "After we stop Mordrayn, and ..." She caught the expression in Ghleanna and Faeril's eyes.
None of them were going home.
"You've been saying all along that this quest is suicidal," Ghleanna said gently. "I think we must face the possibility that in destroying the pool, we may also—"
"No!" Kestrel shook her head vehemently. "I won't accept that." She couldn't accept it—her survival instinct was too strong. "I know what I said before, but I don't intend to die a martyr's death. We are going to confront Mordrayn and the dracolich, we are going to annihilate that damnable pool, and then we are walking out of here alive. Do you hear me? Alive. All of us."
Her new-found optimism surprised Ghleanna and Faeril. In truth, it surprised her, but she had worked hard to get to this point, fought harder than she'd ever fought for anything in her life. No one—not Mordrayn, not Pelendralaar, not every member of the whole despicable cult-was going to rob her of telling this tale in her old age.
A strong, unseen hand touched her shoulder. "Let us leave one gate open, then," Athan said, "to go home."
Ghleanna's forked lightning bolt stunned the sorcerer standing guard and collapsed one of the small gates in a crackling implosion of electricity. All eyes turned to the bolt's point of origin just in time to see a second bolt race forth to disable the gate opposite and shock that guard as well. The bolts seemed to spring from thin air—Ghleanna's improved version of Jarial's spell enabled her to remain invisible while spellcasting.
Kestrel rejoiced in the gates' easy destruction. At last, events were going their way. All that remained was to quickly dart through the main portal and into the pool cavern, then collapse the portal behind them. The party could worry later about how to return to the great hall to exit through the remaining gate. For now, they preferred to protect their backs from the arrival of reinforcements as they confronted the archmage and dracolich.
By this point, Faeril and Durwyn should have reached the other side of the main gate. The invisible pair was to pass through before Ghleanna's spells drew attention to the party's presence. Corran and Athan flanked the sorceress, in case Ghleanna's untried invisibility spell exposed her during casting after all. Kestrel was stationed at the main gate in the event its guard got any ideas about closing the portal before the whole party passed through. Each of her unseen companions was to sound a low whistle while entering to alert her to their movements.
It was a perfect plan. In theory.
The cultists, however, didn't cooperate. The cult sorcerer guarding the main gate immediately unleashed a spell aimed at Ghleanna—or at least, where one would assume she stood while summoning the lightning bolts. Kestrel prayed that her companion had moved in time to avoid the spell. To her horror, the half-elf materialized a moment later, unharmed but fully visible. The cultist's spell had counteracted hers.
A squad of cult fighters advanced on Ghleanna as the two remaining gate guards prepared to sling more magic at her. Kestrel sneaked up behind the closest sorcerer and slit his throat Something slipped from his hand—a crumpled roll of paper. She let it drift to the floor, more pressing matters drawing her attention.
Seeing a fatal knife slash suddenly open in his comrade's neck, the final sorcerer diverted his spell at the last second to aim it at Kestrel. She used the cultist's body as a shield, letting the corpse absorb the enchantment. The body disintegrated in her hands.
She looked up from the dust to see Ghleanna hastily retreating toward her. Corran and Athan—exposed to sight by their strikes against the closing cult fighters—followed close behind. Ghleanna flung a final spell at the cult sorcerer before diving into the gate.
Her fireball sped toward the guard, but at the last moment veered away into the gate. The portal immediately imploded, disappearing in a puff of smoke.
They'd lost their way home.
Cursing, Kestrel dropped to the floor in time to avoid the sorcerer's next attack. How was it that he could see her? His spells were aimed with deadly accuracy. As a crackling finger of magical energy sped across the room, she realized she was not his target at all—he was aiming at the gate.
The enchanted bolt struck the portal. She rolled away as sparks flew and electrical feedback seized the opening. The gate collapsed.
Damn it all! Dread swept through her. Everything was falling apart. Half their party was on the other side of that gate, including both their spellcasters. Kestrel didn't know whose predicament was worse: those now in the pool cavern facing Mordrayn alone or those left behind with all these cultists.
Corran and Athan still battled their way toward her. She glanced wildly around the room in search of a likely exit. As she tried to rise to her feet, her left hand slid on something—the piece of paper the sorcerer had dropped.
Damn that cultist to the Abyss, anyway! Damn them all. She picked up the paper, crumpled it in her hand, and nearly hurled it in frustration before two words caught her eye: Summon Gate. It was a scroll, a magical scroll with the incantation to open the gate once more.
And Ghleanna was gone.
Kestrel looked to Corran. Could the paladin work one of those miracles he'd talked about and somehow cast the spell off this scroll? Beyond him, she saw the cult sorcerer prepare to throw more magic. Corran and Athan approached but not quickly enough. Another squad of cult fighters closed in.
She glanced at the paper once more. There was no one to read the incantation in time. No one but her.
Her voice shaking with desperation, she uttered the first few words. When no pillar of magical flame consumed her for presuming to work the arcane arts, she continued. Corran and Athan edged closer—as did their foes. The cult sorcerer raised his hands and pointed a sinister finger at the warriors.
She read faster, her tongue tripping over the unfamiliar syllables. Suddenly, a ball of light burst into being and grew steadily to the size of a door. She'd done it! She'd opened the gate.
"Corran! Athan! Now!"
The warriors heard her cry and retreated toward her. As the cultist unleashed his spell, the three of them dove into the portal.
The gate collapsed.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
She couldn't breathe.
"Kestrel? Is that you?" Corran rose, lifting his heavy bulk from where he'd landed on top of her. She struggled to inhale some air. His weight had knocked the wind right out of her lungs.
"Y...es."
Though she could barely gasp out the word, she would not have spoken louder if she could. They'd spilled out of the gate just as it imploded and wound up sprawled in the corner of a dank, earthen room. No cultists occupied this small antechamber, but she could hear h
undreds of voices chanting nearby.
"Thank the gods you all made it here," said another familiar voice. Ghleanna picked up Corran's shield and handed it to the paladin. "We had begun to fear we'd have to take on the archmage alone."
"We?" Athan asked. "Faeril and Durwyn are here as well, then?"
"Right here," responded Faeril's disembodied voice. Durwyn also spoke up, though both invisible speakers used muted tones.
Kestrel passed her hand in front of her eyes to test the sorceress's spell. Fortunately, she too remained invisible. With a deep breath, she rolled off her stomach, sat up, and assessed their surroundings. The rough-hewn room appeared to have once served as the entryway to a vast chamber beyond. The pile of rock and rubble on one end suggested that they'd arrived on the other side of the cave-in Pelendralaar had caused earlier. Through the sole doorway drifted a monotone mantra droned by countless voices.
Above it, in macabre counterpoint, rose an all-too-familiar babble of lapping water. The Pool of Radiance.
Kestrel's collarbone vibrated in time with the sinister chant as she crept to the doorway. Corran approached even more cautiously, taking care to stay as hidden as possible. The sight that greeted them stole her breath once more.
The antechamber opened into a vast cavern. The floor of the cavern was well below the antechamber, joined together by a long slope. At the cavern's center lay the Pool of Radiance. Amber light infused its water, which gently lapped its banks in a peaceful motion that belied its lethal nature. Hundreds of cult sorcerers and fighters lined the pool's perimeter, their squads assembled with military precision.
At the far end of the cavern, on a recessed ledge overlooking the pool, stood Kya Mordrayn. The Gauntlets of Moander hung from a belt at her hips. Beside her, a stone pillar rose out of the ledge to about waist level. The Sapphire of the Weave rested atop it, pulsing with brilliant blue light. The illumination dappled the cavern walls and bathed the archmage's face, lending it a deathly paleness that contrasted sharply with the expression of intense concentration she wore. Her eyes stared unblinking at the gem as she cupped it with her dragonlike claw.
Mordrayn was locked in communion with the Mythal. Tiny blue-white flames danced around the edges of the Sapphire, bathing the gem in supernatural fire. The flames also licked Mordrayn's claw, but the archmage either did not feel their heat or could not respond. She stood entranced by the sapphire's aura, her mind one with the Weave.
There was no sign of the dracolich Pelendralaar. Yet.
Kestrel listened closely to the sounds emanating from the cavern. The sapphire—at least she thought it was the gem from this distance—emitted a low hum. The cultists droned in time with the stone's pulsations. Though Kestrel couldn't distinguish the arcane words, they resonated with blasphemy.
She backed away from the opening, her heart racing. This was it—their only opportunity to destroy the Pool of Radiance. There would be no second chances.
"We are so outnumbered I don't even want to think about it," she said as she and Corran returned to the others. "The cavern is filled with cultists. And all of them stand between us and Mordrayn."
Corran removed his helm. He ran a hand through his dark locks, grasping the roots at the back of his head and closing his eyes. He looked as weary as Kestrel felt.
"We need not defeat them all," said Ghleanna. "We just have to get someone on the ledge to touch the sapphire and speak the Word of Redemption."
"Destroying the gem is only our first objective." Corran opened his eyes and let his hand drop to his side.
"Afterward, we still need to defeat Mordrayn to get the Gauntlets of Moander and destroy the pool."
"Not to mention deal with the dracolich if he makes an appearance," Kestrel added. Her collarbone tingled so much she could barely stand still.
"He will," Athan asserted. "If Mordrayn summons him or we harm her, he will come."
Corran knelt and traced a representation of the pool cavern in the dust, marking the positions of the pool, Mordrayn, the sapphire, and the cultists. "Ghleanna is right about the gem being our first priority. We must create a distraction to enable one of us to get up on that ledge. There's a section of dry floor between the pool and the ledge wall." He glanced up from his tracings. "Kestrel, do you—"
He stopped short staring at her. She squirmed under his scrutiny. "What? What is it?"
"Your invisibility is wearing off."
Kestrel looked down at her body. It appeared translucent, like those of Anorrweyn or Caalenfaire, but solidified more each second. A glance at the others showed Faeril reappearing as well. Only Durwyn—cloaked by the original invisibility spell, not Ghleanna's modified version— remained unseen. Kestrel swore under her breath.
"No matter," Corran said calmly. "Better now than unexpectedly during battle. We'll work around it."
Somehow, in the face of everything, Kestrel found Corran's matter-of-fact tone reassuring. For all their differences and the grief he'd given her, the paladin had proven himself a valuable comrade-in-arms. She wondered if the party ever would have made it this far without Corran's steadiness and faith in their cause. Certainly not if it had been left up to her.
Corran drew an X in the dust. "We are here. I suggest five of us create a distraction in this part of the cavern—" he traced a circle—"while one person skirts the perimeter and scales the wall to reach the gem."
At the party's nods of agreement, Corran continued. "This room provides both cover and a good view of the cavern. Faeril and Ghleanna, cast as many spells as you can from here until the range of your remaining magic forces you to move to more exposed ground. Athan, Durwyn, and Kestrel, once the cult realizes where the magic is coming from, the spellcasters will need your defensive help. With luck and Tyr's favor, I will have reached the sapphire by then."
Kestrel frowned. Corran darting through cultists and scrambling up a wall? She was far better suited for the assignment than the brawny paladin. Once again he was underusing her skills. "Corran, that ledge is at least forty feet high. I'm smaller and lighter, not to mention more experienced at this sort of thing. I can scale it in half the time it would take you."
"That's true." His gray eyes met hers. "But Mordrayn will be waiting for whoever reaches the top."
Well, of course she would. That went without—
Kestrel's thoughts stopped abruptly as she realized the paladin's motive. He was taking the most dangerous assignment upon himself. Looking back, she realized that many of their arguments had arisen because he had tried to sacrifice his own safety first.
"I know she will," Kestrel said. A week ago she never would have volunteered for the job, never would have put herself at greater risk than she had to—certainly never would have offered to face an evil archmage alone. Still they could not fail, and she knew in her heart that of them all, she had the best chance of reaching the sapphire. "This is my battle, too. Let me fight it to the best of my ability." As she spoke, her collarbone vibrated so hard it ached. Had she just written her own death sentence?
Corran searched her face for a long moment. Respect lit in his eyes. "All right, then."
At his words, the tingling in her collarbone subsided, and with it her fear. Courage washed over her, chasing away the shadows of self-doubt and cynicism, filling her with the belief that victory was indeed possible. Despite the incredible odds, they might just pull off their mission.
She regarded the paladin with a mixture of surprise and new understanding. This must be the aura of which Ghleanna spoke—the reason the others had followed Corran almost without question from the beginning. The sorceress had been right. Until now, Kestrel had never allowed herself to feel it.
Their circle broke up as each person made individual preparations. Ghleanna readied her spells, Faeril and Corran offered devotions to their gods, Durwyn arranged his arrows near the doorway for easy access. Athan paced impatiently, eager to wet his sword with cult blood.
Kestrel withdrew a small pou
ch and sprinkled white powder onto her hands. The chalk would help her maintain her grip as she scaled the wall. Her rope and grappling hook hung from her belt, but she hoped to find enough natural holds in the rock to free climb. Mordrayn might be entranced now, but once the sorcerers set off their fireworks, Kestrel didn't want to risk the archmage kicking her grappling hook loose while she dangled from a rope.
She went to the doorway once more and studied the cavern, plotting her course. Fewer cultists gathered on the west side of the pool, but approaching the ledge from that direction required her to leap over a stray arm of the vile amber liquid. The east side held no water trap but twice as many human obstacles. She would dart west.
Behind her, Corran drew near. "Don't let even a drop of the pool touch your skin," he cautioned.
She gazed at the insidious lake, recalling the horrible fate of the bandits she'd observed in Phlan. "I've seen what it can do."
He leaned on his sword and cleared his throat. "I was thinking ... perhaps I should follow you to the ledge. In case the cultists spot you. And so that when you face Mordrayn—"
"No." She turned toward him, struck by the look of genuine concern she discovered in his eyes. "You will slow me down, Corran. Or attract attention." Besides, she preferred to work solo—at least, she always had before. As tempting as she found his offer to cover her back, she shook her head. "If I'm to succeed, I must do this alone."
Reluctantly, he nodded his agreement. "After you destroy the sapphire, the rest of us will close in as quickly as we can."
Quickly enough to save her from a cruel death at the archmage's hands? Standing here with the paladin, she actually believed it was possible. "I'll see you there."
"Take care, Kestrel."
She shrugged. "Always do." But as she walked away, she cast one last glance at her former adversary. "Corran," she called. The paladin turned. "You, too."
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