The Realms of the Elves a-11

by Коллектив Авторов

  Cythara was no help. She paced back and forth, cast spells-divinations, he guessed-and Yldar had the presence of mind to realize that she only did so when it was least likely Twilight would notice.

  After a moment, he asked again. "Are you sure-?"

  "Yes, Brother," Cythara said softly. She spoke in Common, which Yldar marked as unusual. "Magic abounds from that wall. There is almost assuredly a door."

  Twilight narrowed her eyes at Cythara distrustfully. Then she shrugged. "My thanks, Your Highness. Almost there…" Her fingers found a groove, then an indentation, and she clicked her tongue in victory. "Got it." Her right hand dipped down to her belt and obtained a pair of wire lockpicks from a hidden pocket. "Now…"

  In a breath or three, the door gave a shudder and the stones began to shift. Twilight leaned back, admiring her handiwork. The bricks rippled and spun and a portal yawned in the wall, like a demonic maw lit from within by strange, dull flames-torches, Ylar hoped. The scent of rotting flesh and congealed blood came from below.

  How appropriate, Yldar thought, fighting the nausea.

  "Now remember," Twilight warned. "These cultists worship a demon who stands for seduction, betrayal, and perversion for the sake of dark power. Quite the vilest people you can conceive. If they catch you, it'll be worse than death-much worse, I would imagine."

  The hairs on the back of Yldar's neck rose. "Cheerful. What precautions do we take?"

  Twilight shrugged. "Don't get caught."

  They descended into the darkness, Twilight leading the way and searching for pitfalls and guards, then Cythara with her spells of detection, followed by Yldar with a hand on his sword hilt.

  The temperature slowly increased as they descended, so much that, even with the elves' resistance to extremes of temperature, a thin sheen of sweat broke out on their foreheads. Twilight made her way down the steps slowly, cautiously, searching the walls with sensitive eyes and the tips of her fingers.

  Several times, she motioned to Cythara and Yldar to avoid a certain step, or move away from the wall at a certain point. Sometimes she fiddled with a mechanism Yldar hadn't noticed, disarming a trap or removing a ward he could hardly sense even with seven decades of magical training. She had a remarkable facility with magical traps, which often eluded his largely self-taught thieving skills. He made a mental note to ask about her technique later.

  After fifty steps, the stairs ended in a rounded anteroom with half a dozen identical sets of reinforced oak double doors. Yldar immediately began the overwhelming task of deciding which one to investigate first, but Twilight did not hesitate.

  "No lead on these doors," she murmured. "Unlocked, too. I should lodge a complaint."

  She went immediately to the door that was second from the right and listened at it. After a breath, she nodded and motioned Cythara and Yldar forward.

  "How do you know where to go?" Yldar arched an eyebrow.

  Cythara studied Twilight silently.

  "I… well… it would take some explaining. Suffice to say-I can sense this Bracer. Call it a gift. Shows me exactly where to go. Like magic." She snapped her fingers. When the others did not join in her smile, she laughed nervously. "Only not."

  "I'm familiar with that spell," Cythara said. "As is my brother. In order to find something unique, as Ynloeth's Bracer is, you must know it firsthand. Is this not true?"

  "I didn't knowyow knew any Art," Twilight said shortly to Yldar, ignoring his sister.

  "We're elves," he said quickly, trying to deflect her accusatory tone. "It comes second nature to us."

  "Well, not to me," said Twilight coldly. "Never been comfortable around mages."

  Yldar's face flushed and he cursed his sister for including him in those ranks, which lowered him in Twilight's eyes. He didn't know why that upset him so, but it did.

  "So, answer my question," Cythara said. "How do you know where the Bracer is?"

  "I'll explain later," said Twilight. "Let's make haste. I don't know if you find this place comfortable, but I really don't. Reminds me of the Abyss-but I guess that's appropriate, since it is Graz'zt's temple…"

  "Agreed," Yldar said. He glanced at Cythara, who bit her lip, and let the matter go for the moment. He stepped to the door and opened it slowly.

  Within was the altar chamber of Graz'zt. Torches smoldered in wall sconces about the place and put off a hazy purplish light, producing a strange, surreal atmosphere. Musk and blood mingled in the air. Crude murals defaced the walls, depicting disgusting, horrifying demons and acts of violence and lust. A huge obsidian altar dominated the room, piled all around with skulls and bones. Something metallic glinted from it, and Yldar's eyes lit up.

  "The Bracer!" he exclaimed despite himself. He would have continued had not Twilight slapped a hand over his mouth to silence him.

  "Easy there, Goldie," she said, gesturing around the room with her sharp nose.

  Indeed, though they had not seen them before in the dim haze, black-robed bodies lay scattered about the chamber, all breathing shallowly. Most of them were half-unclad and entwined with one another. Cowls and shadows obscured the faces, but the elves were certain they were sleeping. Yldar could only imagine what their ritual had involved, and his gorge rose.

  "Let's just get it and go," Yldar whispered.

  They moved slowly into the room, ever alert. Cythara cast a spell to make their movements silent, and they picked their way carefully over sleeping bodies.

  It was not until they were halfway into the room that Twilight perked up and furrowed her brow. She stopped and reached for Yldar's shoulder, but he was already a step out of reach. She caught Cythara instead.

  "What, thief?" Cythara asked.

  "That's not it," Twilight replied.

  Yldar had not paused. He had just reached the dais and gazed upon the silver Bracer, plain of ornamentation but engraved through with delicate strands of three pointed leaves. It was, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful works of craftsmanship he had ever seen.

  He traced his fingers through a detection spell, searching for traps or wards. There seemed to be none, but he detected an aura about the Bracer-one of illusion. Perhaps that was its own magic, meant to shield the wearer. Just to be sure, he decided to dispel it; he doubted his minor talent with the Art would permanently damage such a powerful relic. Yldar began the spell.

  "The Bracer," Twilight said. "That's not-Yldar! Stop!" turn to catch her by the arm.

  "Oh, let him." There was newfound self-confidence in her voice. "Have you not done enough?"

  "But-but it's not real," Twilight said, confused.

  Cythara leaned in close and whispered something in Twilight's ear. The moon elfs eyes widened and she drew her rapier.

  "Yldar!" Twilight shouted the same instant Cythara cried, "It's a trap!" and began a spell.

  As one, all the cultists in the room surged to their feet, wavy daggers or swords in their hands. The elves were surrounded.

  In the same breath, Yldar's dispelling did more than suppress the Bracer's magic: it twisted and warped the false relic. The silver armguard dimmed, shriveled, and became a disembodied human hand, one that leaped up and clamped down on his wrist as though alive. Yldar shouted and shook his arm furiously to dislodge the fiendish claw, but it was in vain. The blackened, filthy nails drove into his flesh, through the mail hauberk he wore.

  He chanted through clenched teeth a spell that would wrench it free, and barely managed to draw in time to defend himself against two burly cultists who hacked at him with flamberge swords. Letting his spell fizzle, Yldar sidestepped one slash and parried the other, but the strength of the blow sent him staggering. Combined with the lingering pain in his left arm, the ringing feeling in his right made Yldar dizzy.

  Meanwhile, a cultist stepped out of the horde, pointing a zigzagging long sword in the direction of the two elf maids. "Surrender or die!" he rasped.

  That one got Twilight's crossbow bolt between his cowled eyes. At the same time, the moon elf th
rust at Cythara, but the mage's ruby-studded bracelet flashed and the dusky-bladed rapier sparked off a shield of golden magic that surrounded her.

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  Cythara countered with a spell, bringing her hands- blurring with energy, bolts of electricity arcing between them-together and lashing them apart. Twilight's eyes widened and she dived aside, twisting in ways that seemed impossible.

  Crimson lightning erupted from Cythara's hands and lashed over and around Twilight, cutting down three hapless cultists. The bolts sprang from the smoking bodies back toward the moon elf, but she dodged again with seemingly unnatural grace. As though it gave up, the lightning went for another of the demonists, who screamed and blackened.

  Twilight landed and rolled over the fallen cultists, coming up just in time to parry a swinging axe and dance away. Cythara's lightning ripped and flew freely around the chamber until a spell from one of the chanting cultists caught it harmlessly in a patch of icy darkness.

  Meanwhile, Yldar had managed to elude one attacker by skirting the other. With only one sword to face, his fencing lessons came back in a flash, and he shuffled back, varying the distance. When the two-handed sword whipped out, predictably short, Yldar leaped in with a thrust and slash that cut deeply into the cultist's black cloak. The man went down with a grunt. Apparently, the cultists wore little in the way of armor under those robes.

  He had a breath before the second swordsman came lumbering over his fallen comrade, and he dared a glance around the chamber. What he saw widened his eyes.

  There Cythara stood, surrounded by hacking blades that bounced off her magical shields, weaving and lashing out with the fearsome powers at her disposal. Yldar knew it would not be enough-not with a quarter of the cultists chanting counter spells. The chain lightning had been one of her most powerful spells, and that had failed to fell the primary target: Twilight.

  Twilight, who even then dipped and dodged cultists' slow strikes and parried their quick ones. Her bladework was excellent, her slim sword circling around blocks and parries as though the point had a life of its own, but her dancing footwork was nothing short of amazing. Yldar did not envy her opponents the chore of landing a blow upon her.

  In that breath, Yldar watched as Twilight spun her blade in circles around a wild, jerking parry, leaped to the side even as she feinted, and ran the cultist through.

  Then Yldar had to turn back to his foe, sidestepped, and barely avoided having his head chopped in two like a cabbage.

  "Yldar!" Twilight shouted as she parried and leaped away from a cultist with a short, jagged sword. "We have to get out of here!"

  "No!" Cythara shouted, beads of sweat running down her bronze skin. "Don't listen to her, Yldar!" She cast another spell, and five spheres of energy burst into existence around her, each with a different color, like rainbow marbles. They whirled around her head like tiny orbiting worlds. "She's a traitor!"

  Twilight growled and parried a blow high and sent in a low riposte that had her opponent scurrying back. "She's the traitor, Yldar! Don't-" She might have said more, but the clashing of steel cut off her words.

  Yldar's head spun. Who did he believe? His sister, who had stayed with him loyally through all his adventures since Evermeet, or Twilight, a mysterious, caustic, and deceptive woman-a thief by her own admission?

  On the surface, the choice seemed perfectly obvious, but something in Yldar rebelled against it. What was this feeling that surfaced within him?

  Then Twilight made the choice for him. Near the exit a feral-faced acolyte raised a hand to call down a slaying spell upon Cythara's faltering shield, thus revealing the glint of silver on a very feminine arm.

  "The Bracer!" Twilight shouted.

  A sudden leaping lunge drove her opponent from his feet, but Twilight made no move to follow with a strike.

  Instead, she broke away and made a mad dash for the lady acolyte. As she ran, the shadows coalesced around her like a gathering cloak.

  "Stop her, Yldar!" Cythara'shouted between spells. A wand she had drawn from her hip flashed, sending an ochre beam streaking at Twilight, but it struck a demon thrall instead, dropping him, melting, to the floor. "She's getting away. Stop her!"

  A cultist loomed in her path, but Twilight didn't slow. She leaped into the shadows a pace before him and reappeared, a heartbeat later and ten paces distant, near the exit.

  A shadowdancer, Yldar thought. This maid is full of surprises.

  Yldar parried his opponent into a stone pillar and ran after Twilight, heedless of any attack. He bore down on the demonist mage at the exit and a hulking cultist with a wicked spear.

  Twilight leaped upon the lady acolyte like a pouncing fox, bearing her to the ground and going straight for the Bracer on the hooded woman's wrist. The acolyte's guard brought his spear back.

  "No!" Yldar shouted as he charged, drawing a shocked glance from Cythara.

  Then reality flickered, and Yldar thought he heard light laughter from somewhere, like that of an elf child who was entirely too amused by his own joke.

  Twilight rose and caught the spear solidly beneath the left breast. Her eyes opened wide as the shaft carried her back and pinned her against the wall. Twilight convulsed and blood trickled from her mouth.

  His eyes bleary, the world gone red, Yldar threw himself at the spear wielder with his sword slashing. His furious rush sent the bodyguard staggering down, and a great blow to the right shoulder made the arm flop uselessly at his side. The brute roared and spat at Yldar, but the sun elf did him one better. He rammed his sword through the hulking man's chest.

  Yldar turned from the slumping body. The thief seemed dead upon the wall, her face even paler than normal, but Yldar clutched at the spear to pull it free anyway.

  Twilight's eyes snapped open and she gave a cry of more discomfort than pain. "Careful with that!" she chided. "Hurts, you know."

  Yldar was stunned. He had expected the moon elf to be dying, if she wasn't dead already, but talking? And calm?

  He yanked the spear out of Twilight and she grunted. Blood trickled out. Somehow, it must have missed all her vital organs. Yldar wondered how such a thing was possible.

  "Come!" she snapped. "Let's-"

  "Traitors!" Cythara shouted. Deep in another spell, she sent her five orbiting spheres streaking after them with a flicker of will.

  Yldar shouted a warning and shielded Twilight with his body. The spheres burst against his back, scorching him with fire, splashing him with acid, jolting him with electricity, and stunning him with a burst of discordant sound. One got through-the blue sphere, which exploded with chilling energy against Twilight's shoulder. But a ring on the thief s hand flashed and the deadly cold faded away. Teeth clenched, Yldar sagged.

  "Come!" Twilight shouted again. Slinging the limp Yldar's arm over her shoulders, she made a break for the stairs. "Put your head down!"

  They ran toward the door.

  "Stop!" Cythara shouted.

  She snapped off another spell and a sheet of flame fell across the exit, ringing the room, but Twilight and Yldar were already through, crashing through the oak doors.

  "Yldar!" was Cythara's last, lingering shout.

  The two elves lay stunned on the anteroom floor outside a wall of flame, struggling to think. It took a breath to recover the skill. Yldar looked back at the burning curtain that separated them from the cultists and mouthed a single word: "Cythara."

  For Twilight, it was a different word.

  "Up," she said, hauling him that direction. Yldar's injuries flared, and he staggered. He would have fallen had she not caught him.

  "What happened back there?" Yldar asked. "I thought I'd lost you!"

  "Erevan won't let me go that easily." Twilight gritted her teeth and hauled Yldar up the steps. She was obviously in pain, but at least she could walk-he could not make the same claim.

  "Erevan…" Yldar gaped. "Erevan Ilesere? The Fey Jester?"

  "By the black bow, goldie," Twilight cursed as she strug
gled to haul him away. "How much do you eat, anyway?"

  Through the pain, Yldar managed to cast a strengthening spell on Twilight, such that she could lift him like a sack of feathers.

  The sudden might caught her off guard, though, and when she kept pulling, she slammed him against the low ceiling. The world went dark, and Yldar knew no more.

  Cythara dropped her hands with a look of anguish. As though it no longer mattered, she let her defenses fall, all except the wards that kept anyone from approaching within five paces. Standing in the center of the altar chamber, she felt very weak, very frail, and very alone.

  But the cultists did not regard her thus. Instead, they eyed her warily and kept their weapons out. The instant any saw an opportunity, Cythara knew her blood would spill.

  Then there was a strange sound, one that started off weak but grew in intensity until it echoed around the chamber: Cythara's laughter.

  It only lasted for a breath, but it was quite enough to send a visible chill through every demonist present. There was nothing uncertain or mocking about the laugh-it was quite mad.

  Then, stifling her giggle, Cythara assumed an imperious stance and lifted her chin. "Your leader," she said. "Who gives the orders in this coven?"

  A thickly muscled man stepped forward. "I do," he said. "And who might you…"

  A ray of amber light shot from Cythara's fingers and struck him in the chest. A hole appeared through the cultist, which spread in a flash. He twisted in agony as more and more of his flesh melted and disintegrated before their eyes. In a heartbeat, only dust remained.

  "Who truly leads?" Cythara asked.