The portal was locked, forever.
The wrath of beings older than Lord Ao splashed against the Far side of the Far Manifold. They gibbered and shrieked with harmonies so dire the least tremolo would blast asunder a mountaintop. All for naught. The last Key of Stars had fulfilled its function.
Raidon collapsed.
He lay on his back. His gaze traced up the side of an ice-smooth, unmarred crystal face.
A thin column of white smoke swirled up from his chest, where the Cerulean Sign had tattooed him. It was gone.
He lifted a hand, one finger pointing to the heavens. A sapphire spark like a firefly swirled down from the high air and lit on his finger.
Raidon Kane breathed out his last breath.
The spark lifted into the sky.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
The Year of the Secret (1396 DR)
Citadel of the Outer Void
Thoster helped wrap Raidon in fabric Anusha formed of dream silk. For all his bulk, he could manipulate objects with surprising delicacy.
“We’ll honor his last wishes,” said Anusha. “We’ll bury him in Faerûn, in Nathlekh.”
“No honor is too great for him,” said Japheth. He reached for her hand, and she gave it to him.
“If you would permit it,” said Taal, “I would like to see Raidon laid to rest. If not for his wisdom, I might not have broken Malyanna’s thrall.”
“Of course,” said Anusha. Her voice had gone hoarse. Thoster wondered how that was possible, given that she wasn’t real, but figured now wasn’t the time to ask. The monk’s sacrifice was too fresh. It just wasn’t in him to crack wise.
They left the pristine face of the crystalline disk behind and descended the ziggurat stairs.
An armored capsule lay at the base of the pyramid.
“Time to wake up,” Anusha said, and disappeared. The gold capsule melted away, revealing the same woman, but now she wore sturdy clothes and her hair was pulled back in a fraying braid.
“Good to see you in the flesh again,” said Japheth.
She took his hand.
“The fog returns,” said Yeva, pointing.
The mist rolled back like a typhoon wave of white. The sound of thunder boomed from somewhere across the plain. The fog converged on all sides, until it broke upon the ziggurat, rushed up its sides, and enveloped them.
Except for the sounds of their breathing and footfalls, especially Yeva’s, silence closed around them, quieting the distant clamor.
By all rights, they should be skipping with joy, reflected Thoster. The world had escaped a horrific finale, something so beyond imagining that even the gods had failed to understand the threat and act.
Assuming Raidon’s intercession, and all their actions for that matter, hadn’t been divinely inspired. It was hard to know with gods.
They walked unmolested from the Citadel of the Outer Void and across the befogged plain. The only monster remaining below the haze was himself, Thoster thought.
He recalled the pain of assuming his bulky shape. And, to some extent, the process. He thought he could probably manage it in reverse.
He trailed a little behind the others, dropped his belongings, and put his hypothesis to the test.
He regarded his shadow, and tried to find within it his original shape.
It took all his concentration, and not a little pain, but eventually Thoster found his shape of old. He grunted and collapsed into his pile of clothing. But he was grinning. All the disfiguring scales that had so beleaguered him during the previous months were gone!
Thoster rose, and dressed in his underthings, coat, and boots, and girded his sword at his side. And, most important for last, his hat.
He grinned. It felt good to have his regular-sized teeth back.
But the blood of Dagon remained in his veins. Thoster suspected that if he wanted, he could call on that incredible power again.
If he dared. Some of the imagery and odd fragments of lore that stole into his head while he had fought the aberrations as a huge scaled monster were unsettling. It was probably a shape he should call upon sparingly. He resolved, should he ever manage to return to Faerûn, to learn all he could regarding the ancient demon called Dagon.
He caught up to the others. Anusha saw him and said, “Good for you, Thoster.” He chuckled.
They reached the splintered remains of his ship. A group of eladrin camped in the lee of the starboard hull. Griffons stood in loose picket around the ship. The beasts raised their beaked heads to stare at the newcomers and loosed eagle cries.
The eladrin jumped into action, but quickly recognized they were not aberrations.
“Hail!” yelled one in flamboyant mage’s robes.
“Dayereth!” said Japheth. “You survived!”
“Can you believe it?” the wizard replied. “It was touch and go there for a while. I’ve never seen so many horrors …” His voice trailed off, and he wiped at his brow with a shaking hand.
“But you persevered,” the warlock said, prompting him.
“Yes, thank the Lady of the Moon,” said Dayereth. “And so did you. And you found new friends! Where … Oh.”
The wizard’s eyes had found Yeva, who carried Raidon’s draped form.
“He gave his life for the world,” said Japheth. “Erunyauvë will be told of her son’s heroism.”
Dayereth dropped his gaze and said, “Given her power, I imagine she already knows.”
A long moment passed. All present stared at the half-elf’s shrouded remains. Thoster recalled again how the monk had stepped confidently to the buckling crystal and had done what needed doing without hesitation. He felt tightness in his throat and coughed.
“When the mists returned, the creatures attacking us fled upward,” said the wizard. “Those that couldn’t fly dissolved on contact. After that, we decided to wait and see who might return from the Citadel.”
“Got anything to eat or drink?” Thoster asked.
“We have a little,” replied Dayereth. “Should we break out rations before we try our luck returning across the void?”
“I could eat a horse,” said Anusha. Japheth chuckled, and she smiled at him.
A knight handed Thoster a wineskin. He upended the bag, drawing down most of the contents in a single swallow. It was wonderful. Of course, he’d have preferred ale, but eladrin spirits would do in a pinch.
His eyes drifted across the plain as he wiped his mouth.
“Hey!” he said, pointing. “Where’d Xxiphu go?”
All heads turned to the crater where the aboleth city had rested. It was vacant.
“By the Nine!” exclaimed Japheth.
“It departed,” said Dayereth. “When the fog began to return, it rose straight into the sky on a pillar of noisome gas. The thunder of its going rocked the entire plain. Did you hear it?”
Thoster remembered the thunder that had accompanied the mist’s return.
“Then what?” said Anusha.
“It plunged into the discontinuity,” replied the wizard.
“Then we should depart quickly, in case it threatens the Watchtowers,” said Anusha.
“The time disparity between here and Forever’s Edge means years have streamed by at the Edge,” said Dayerth. “Whatever Xxiphu did or didn’t do has already happened long in the past.”
“Time disparity?” said Thoster and Anusha in chorus.
“Erunyauvë explained how time moves differently here,” said Japheth.
Taal spoke up. “Past the periphery of the Feywild, time moves slower than in the world,” he said. “The farther one travels from the border, the slower it passes. Even at Forever’s Edge, the effect is noticeable. The upshot is that though I’ve only spent about fifteen years in Malyanna’s service, several centuries have passed in Faerûn. Out here, beyond the Edge, the differential is even more pronounced.”
“Then we should leave here at once!” said Anusha. “How much time has passed in Faerûn?”
“Difficu
lt to say,” said Dayereth. “But I take your point. Knights! Prepare your mounts and chariots for departure!”
Anusha returned to her dreamform, and encased her body within the protective capsule once more. The passage back through the discontinuity and across the void might be dangerous. Even though Raidon had locked the Far Manifold, hopefully for good, leakage from the portal was still an issue, as were the existing aberrations.
From a separate chariot, Japheth watched Anusha secure the golden encasement.
She joined him in her dreamform, dispersing her golden armor. In its place she imagined herself in a demure but fashionable green gown. Fashionable when she’d left Faerûn, anyhow.
“Well met, fairheart,” Japheth said. “You’re going to ride with me?”
“Where else?” she said. He smiled, and she stepped into his embrace.
She was so very glad to see him again. More than glad—a tangible feeling of connection warmed even her dream.
“I missed you,” she said. It was true, though she had been so caught up in events she hadn’t realized it until that moment.
“I’m happy to hear that,” Japheth said. “When you insisted we separate, I’m afraid my feelings were hurt, child that I am.”
She cupped his face and shook her head. She knew how he felt about her—it was written plain across his features. Not to mention how he’d endangered the world to save her. What surprised her was she realized she felt the same.
Seeing the Far Manifold shudder open and a universe of madness nearly spill through and consume everything you’ve ever known has a way of rearranging your priorities. She chuckled.
“What?” Japheth asked.
“I was just reflecting about what’s important,” she said. “At least, what I once thought was. And … Well, I’m thinking a little differently now, is all.”
“Mmm,” Japheth said, touching his lips to her forehead.
“You held the Far Manifold from breaking open completely after Malyanna unlocked it,” she said.
“Yeah. I didn’t know if it would work. I had to use the star pact to forge a connection. If I hadn’t had the gloves, I would have been lost. And Neifion, even as he fell to Malyanna, lent me a last gasp of fey strength too, if you can believe that.”
“Did you know I was on top of the ziggurat?”
“No. I didn’t know for sure where you were. For all I knew, you’d been killed.” Remembered concern pinched his mouth for an instant.
“But you did it anyway. You put the world ahead of yourself. You’re not a child. You’re a man. A man I love.”
He ducked his head and pressed his lips to hers. Japheth’s kiss was warm and tasted like him.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
The Year of the Ageless One (1475 DR)
Nathlekh, Faerûn
I still can’t believe it,” Japheth said.
“Believe what?” said Anusha.
“How in some ways, not much has changed,” he replied. “But in other ways, everything must be different.”
He waved one arm in a gesture meant to illustrate his point.
“Hmm. Really?” said Anusha. “I think the Shou remembered their dead in this fashion a lot longer than we’ve been gone.”
They stood in Nathlekh’s odd graveyard. With them were Taal, Yeva in a concealing cloak, Captain Thoster sporting his cleaned-up hat, and even the eladrin noble Erunyauvë. They were surrounded by short markers resembling beehives. The markers were scattered in small clusters. In each grouping, smaller markers spiraled around the larger. More traditional tombstones poked up randomly, but those were the exception.
Japheth laughed. “No, not the city of the dead; Faerûn!” he said. “The sky’s the same, the rise and fall of the land, mostly. The general shape of each city, I’m sure. But the particulars!”
“I know; I was teasing,” she replied.
“Everyone we knew must either be dead or changed so much we might not even recognize them,” he continued. “Seren, Behroun, all the librarians I knew in Candlekeep, tavern and shop keepers we used to see every day—everyone!”
The enormity of what Japheth was saying threatened to make his head spin. He closed his eyes, and thought back to their journey “through time.”
When the knights had winged back to Forever’s Edge, the few star spawn and aberrations they’d encountered in the void had been dazed and inactive, as if shocked by having their victory yanked from them so precipitously.
Everyone was relieved to find the Watchtowers waiting on the other side of the gulf. Xxiphu was nowhere to be seen.
They later learned that several decades had passed since they had first set out across the void. Xxiphu had reappeared about halfway through that span. The skeleton forces remaining behind along the towers panicked, but the aboleth city had only approached close enough to slip back through the aperture of its initial appearance, which hadn’t completely healed over. The millennia Xxiphu had spent below the Sea of Fallen Stars had given it an affinity for the world. When Malyanna had released her hold on it, the city had been pulled back to Faerûn.
The Eldest, half petrified though it was, likely had something to do with that, Japheth reflected.
They and the surviving knights enjoyed a hero’s welcome. A revelry lasting three full days, as well as long rests in sumptuous quarters, went a long way toward renewing all their spirits. Anusha in particular was glad to shuck her dreamform and walk again in her own skin for the entire time they stayed with the eladrin.
She and Japheth had been given separate quarters. Of course, he hadn’t done more than look into those they showed him. When they were not attending the ongoing revelry, he and Anusha spent the majority of their private time in her suite.
Whatever darkness had lurked between them was forgotten. They celebrated their survival and each other.
But a shadow still lay on them. Raidon’s sacrifice was an omnipresent fact. Everyone felt the monk’s final request shouldn’t be put off long, especially given the time disparity that continued to widen the gap between Faerûn and everyone remaining in Forever’s Edge. Though not as extreme as the differential past of the discontinuity, it still pushed the calendar forward in a way that made Japheth slightly giddy when he considered it overlong.
The Lady of the Moon herself led them back into the world. The Throne of Seeing had, upon their return, given up its claim on her. She would remain warden of the Spire of the Moon until such time as someone else groomed for the title took the seat.
An expedition set out from Forever’s Edge across the blasted heath, toward the glimmering horizon. The Lady of the Moon preceded them out of the darkness and into the light. She led them through a glimmering wood, which gradually lost its fey qualities to become “merely” a forest of the natural world called Gulthandor.
Erunyauvë explained that many places had grown strong connections with Faerie since its return, especially Forest of Amtar in Dambrath, the Forest of Lethyr in the Great Dale, and several others the warlock didn’t remember. But one was Gulthandor on the Dragon Coast.
As the eladrin had obviously known, Nathlekh was visible from the eaves of Gulthandor Forest. Or rather “Nathlekh City,” as they had learned upon entering the architecturally striking metropolis. Since they’d been gone, the city had become the capitol of a Shou-dominated region called Nathlan.
They spent a tenday preparing to have Raidon interred. Thankfully, stories of xenophobia in the city must have been only tall tales. That, or in the decades since—
Somewhere beyond the gravesite, a city bell tolled.
“It is time,” said Erunyauvë.
Japheth blinked and focused on the present.
“Let us lay my son to rest,” the eladrin continued.
They gathered close to a newly constructed hardened clay marker. A plaque upon it read “Raidon Kane. Beloved son, friend, and hero. He saved everyone.”
A smaller, much older marker was next to Raidon’s. It belonged to the monk’s long-dea
d adopted daughter.
“The door is closed,” the Lady of the Moon said. “All the Keys are destroyed. The Sovereignty will not launch a thousand more seeds like Xxiphu across Toril as the Far Realm’s vanguard. The aboleths sought to collapse the wall between creation and madness, but failed.
“Thanks to Raidon Kane.
“My son. I was with him for the first ten years of his life, and after that, I was with him in thought. I loved him as much as any mother adores her child. He was my legacy, and now I’ve survived him. But without his sacrifice, none of us would be here now. It was a necessary sacrifice. Still, my heart is broken. I go back to Forever’s Edge diminished, knowing Raidon is gone. Knowing I could have saved him, had I not given him the Key of Stars, and set him on his path.”
Erunyauvë stopped speaking. Her cheeks glistened with tears.
Anusha knelt before the marker. “Good bye, Raidon,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”
She traced Raidon’s name on the plaque, then rose and stepped back.
Japheth knew he should say something, but his throat was tight. He forced out, “Raidon conquered foes of every sort. Not just monsters, but ones he battled inside himself. In the end, he defeated them all. He found peace. Not many can claim that. He is an inspiration. I’ll never forget him.”
He wanted to say more, but shook his head and stepped back instead.
Anusha took his hand.
Taal produced Angul.
Like Raidon, the blade had fallen silent when the Key had turned. Its fires were permanently doused.
“I saw a tiny light rise from where Raidon fell,” Taal said. “I believe that spark was the spirit of a hero that wouldn’t be denied a fit reward for his labors. We were told that those who died past the discontinuity are gone for good. But not Raidon! Like Japheth, Raidon inspired me. I’ll always remember what he did.”
The man stepped forward and held out the blade. Erunyauvë uttered a chant, and golden sigils appeared around her head. She touched Angul’s tip, and the glowing runes streamed from her to the sword. Taal raised Angul high, then drove it into the marker stone. A reverberation like a cathedral bell rang out across the city.
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