by James Wyatt
“You’re right,” Tempest said. “That is strange. But a trap?”
“I think someone lit the fire in hopes of drawing people here to fight it.”
“So what do we do?”
Roghar thought for a moment, then dismounted. “Leave the horses,” he said. “Once we clear the forest, we make a wide circle around the inn and see if we can catch whoever is lying in wait.”
Tempest slid out of her saddle and nodded. “Let’s do it.”
Roghar took her reins and led both horses off the road, where he draped the reins around a low tree branch. It would keep the horses in place for a little while, but if he and Tempest didn’t come back, they’d free themselves eventually and find their own way to safety. He patted his stallion’s flank and left the horses.
They hugged the forest rather than walking along the road, alert for any sound among the trees, but not even a squirrel or bird rustled in the leaves as they drew closer to the burning inn. Tempest signaled a stop just before the road left the shelter of the woods, then she drew the afternoon shadows around herself in a concealing cloak and stepped to the edge of the trees.
The inn had its own fire apple orchard, and two small farms shared the clearing on this part of the river’s west bank. The road ran straight to the inn and then forked, with the left branch crossing the Five-Arch Bridge into Hightown and the right passing the farms before winding down the bluff toward Aerin’s Crossing.
Tempest scanned the clearing and then waved Roghar forward. He moved as quietly as he could, but he was under no illusions about his capacity for stealth-his bulk, the weight of his armor, and the tendency of the metal plates to clank against each other despite their padding combined to make him easy to spot and especially easy to hear. He chose a path through the fields, aiming to pass close by the two farmhouses on the west side of the road.
“You don’t want to keep to the shelter of the trees?” Tempest asked.
“If they’re hiding in the farmhouses while they watch the road and the inn, maybe we can catch them off guard. At the edge of the woods, we’ll be too far away to see them.”
Roghar felt the tension in every muscle of his body. This was not his preferred way to face danger-he would rather have charged at top speed toward an obvious foe, sword in hand and divine power at the ready. Sneaking around didn’t sit well with him, and waiting for enemies to reveal themselves made him anxious. Tempest seemed much more at ease, moving swiftly and all but silently through the fields, barely even making the corn sway as she passed. For all her earlier trepidation, she was facing imminent danger without a moment’s hesitation.
They reached the first of the farmhouses without incident. Roghar peered in the back windows and found the home dark and apparently deserted. It seemed intact, though, so he doubted that attackers were lurking inside. After a cursory glance, he nodded to Tempest and they moved on.
As they drew near the second farmhouse, Roghar heard the sounds of fighting-the clash of steel, explosions of magic, and a great deal of shouting. It was distant, coming from somewhere off to the south, roughly where the road wound down the bluffs. He looked at Tempest, and she smiled at him.
“Sounds like your kind of fight,” she said.
He returned the smile. “Let me make sure there’s nothing in this farmhouse, then we’ll see who’s in trouble on the bluffs.”
“It’s the first sound of other living creatures we’ve heard in the last half hour,” Tempest said.
Roghar nodded and broke into a run. Even before he reached the second farmhouse, he could see that it was the same as the first-dark, abandoned, empty. He signaled to Tempest and changed course, running full out toward the sounds of fighting. His body started feeling better at once, the exertion of the run soothing the tension from his muscles.
As soon as he reached the bluff and looked down, he saw the fight raging-and recognized two of the fighters. “Shara!” he shouted. “Uldane!” His friends were locked in a struggle with dark figures of shadow laced with the same glowing red liquid that was becoming all too familiar. A white-haired, dark-skinned man in black leather fought alongside them, but it was obvious that he was using his last reserves of strength-and Shara and Uldane weren’t doing too well, either.
Rather than wind his way carefully down the road, Roghar slid down the bluff with a yell, bouncing and rattling as he went but thrilling at the battle ahead.
My kind of fight, indeed, he thought, smiling.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
As Kri grumbled, arms folded across his chest, Albanon paid the princely sum of sixty gold pieces to the boatwright in exchange for a simple wooden rowboat. Calling plenty of attention to his own generosity, the boatwright threw in the oars and a coil of sturdy rope for mooring at no additional charge. Kri shook his head all the way as he and Albanon wrestled the boat out the door and down to the quay.
“We should have paid a few silvers for a ride,” Kri said as they lowered the boat into the water.
“But there were no rides to be had for silver or gold,” Albanon said, shrugging. “The money doesn’t matter.”
“It should. A frugal nature is essential to the development of good moral character.”
Albanon stared at Kri.
“It is!” Kri protested. “Do you want to be one of those prodigal adventurers who returns from every expedition laden with cash and proceeds to spend every copper piece in a fortnight, drinking up the town’s supply of ale and enriching its thieves and con artists?”
Albanon knew exactly the kinds of adventurers the old priest meant. He’d often sat in the Blue Moon Alehouse listening to their tales and dreaming of their adventures. In fact, he would have put Roghar and Tempest into that category before he got to know them. It didn’t seem like such a terrible life, as he thought about it.
Kri continued his rant. “Do you think such people spend their days in careful study before carousing through the town at night? Do you think they’re prepared for the dangers they face, the dangers that threaten the world? How long do you suppose such adventurers tend to live?”
“N-not long, I suppose.” A brief, glorious fire burning in the night.
Kri fixed him with a level gaze. “A true hero will light the world for ages, Albanon.”
Albanon started. Did I say that out loud? he wondered. He half-expected Kri to answer his unspoken question, but the priest had returned to the work of coiling the rope.
“I don’t think I ever imagined myself as a hero,” he said. “I just wanted excitement.”
Kri looked up from the rope. “But you’ve grown up since Moorin’s death, haven’t you?”
“I suppose I have. I’ve grown in so many ways.”
“Nothing is holding you back now.”
The thought quickened Albanon’s pulse. What might I accomplish now? What heights of power might I reach?
Together they lowered the boat into the water. Albanon clambered down into it, then held the boat steady as Kri stepped in. Albanon wrangled the oars into position and pushed off from the quay, out into the dark water.
“Do you suppose there are demons in the water?” he asked Kri.
“Use your senses.”
Albanon blinked in surprise. “I didn’t even think of trying that outside the Feywild.”
“Magic flows through the world as well. It might not be as strong or as vibrant, but it’s there.”
Albanon stopped rowing and closed his eyes. He felt it immediately, a current of power that ran through the river, as real as the current of rushing water. Kri was right-it wasn’t as strong as what he’d felt at Sherinna’s tower, but with a deep breath and an effort of will he was able to sense the weave of magic and the bright spots that marked his place and Kri’s in that weave. No dark tangles of demonic power stood out in his view, but he noticed something different about Kri’s brightness, a different hue or tone to it that he couldn’t quite define.
He opened his eyes and found Kri staring at him.
�
�What did you see?” the priest asked.
“I believe the river is safe,” Albanon said, looking away from Kri’s penetrating eyes.
“Not if we go over the waterfall.”
Albanon looked around and saw the torches lining the Five-Arch Bridge much closer than they had been. He started rowing again, fighting against the current to take their little boat away from the bridge and back on course toward the island.
“Can you see the island?” Kri asked.
Albanon nodded.
“That’s good. I can’t see a thing out here.”
“Eladrin eyes.” For some reason Albanon started thinking of the mural’s depiction of Sherinna in her power and grace, the opalescent blue orbs of her eyes shining with wisdom. “Kri, who inducted you into the Order of Vigilance?”
“I had two teachers. The first was a paladin of Pelor named Channa. She was killed while trying to reclaim Gardmore Abbey from the orcs that hold it now. So a knight named Harad completed my training. The members of the order were more numerous then, so it was not difficult to find a new teacher.”
“How many generations of teachers and students have passed down Sherinna’s legacy?” Albanon asked.
“That’s not easy to measure. Sherinna, along with Brendis and Miri, taught eight disciples, the founding members of the order. One was an eladrin who taught an eladrin student who only died a decade or so ago-so that’s only two generations. Traced back through Harad, my lineage is more like six generations.”
“I wonder what she was like.”
“Sherinna?”
“My grandmother, yes.”
“Well, I would imagine that she was something like your father and something like you.”
Albanon tried to imagine what such a person might be like, searching for the qualities he most admired in his father-his magical power, his authority-and what he thought were his own best qualities, his adventuresome spirit and his loyalty to his friends. He decided that Sherinna had led her little adventuring band with a firm but compassionate hand, that her magic had proved the decisive factor in their many battles, and that Brendis had harbored a deep but forbidden love for her.
Smiling at the image he’d constructed, he steered the rowboat into a little cove on the island. He handed the oars to Kri, picked up the coil of rope, and jumped for the shore, falling a few feet short and landing with a splash in ice-cold water up to his hips. Bracing himself against the cold, he waded to dry land and pulled the boat close, coiling the rope around a large rock. He held out a hand to help Kri to shore, then worked a simple magic cantrip to dry his clothes.
“Welcome to the Tower of Waiting,” Albanon said.
“Excellent. I hope the demon is still here.”
Albanon remembered the demon’s strength when, in the form of a halfling even smaller than Uldane, it had grabbed and held Tempest, digging its fingers into her neck. He remembered the cracks around the halfling’s eyes where the red liquid oozed and glowed, and the terrible wounds all over the body, filled with the same substance. And he remembered the demon flowing out of Tempest’s nose and mouth as she lay dying. He could not echo Kri’s hope, as much as he longed to be the kind of hero the priest had described.
Albanon conjured a light at the tip of his staff to illuminate their path to the tower’s gaping entrance, knowing it would attract attention to them but unwilling to consign Kri to stumbling in the darkness. An overgrown gravel walkway led from the cove up to the crumbling tower. Swallowing his fear, Albanon led the way, holding his glowing staff high. Shadows seemed to flit at the edge of his light, sinister shapes manifesting in the darkness but never venturing close enough to be clearly seen.
“They say the Tower of Waiting is haunted,” Albanon said.
“Do they?”
“It was a prison once, more than a century ago, a place where the Lord Warden would put members of noble families who were too powerful or important to be killed. Supposedly some young princess was arrested on charges of demon worship and locked up here, but she hanged herself-or some say the demon she served appeared and killed her himself. Come to think of it, I’ve heard a lot of stories about her, most of them pretty sordid.”
“And hers is the ghost they say haunts the tower?”
“Yes.”
“There is often a nugget of truth to such stories, Albanon. But there is rarely more than a nugget. Vigilance demands discernment, the ability to sort the truth from the exaggerations and elaborations.”
Albanon frowned, feeling puzzled. “But we are not here to deal with a ghost.”
“Aren’t we?”
“Well, I did wonder if perhaps the demon has used this place as a lair long enough to be the nugget of truth behind the ghost stories.”
“Exactly. That kind of reasoning will get you far.”
Albanon shrugged. “I’m not so sure. The demon broke into Moorin’s tower looking for the vial of the Voidharrow that Moorin inherited from the order. If it had been in Fallcrest long enough to start ghost stories, why wait until this year to attack Moorin?”
“One way or another, there are three hundred years during which the demon’s activities and whereabouts are a mystery, between the time that Sherinna first encountered it and when it appeared in Moorin’s tower. If it was not in Fallcrest, where was it? Wherever it was, why did it wait until this year to recover the Voidharrow from Moorin’s tower?”
“What have you learned about the Voidharrow, Kri? What is it?”
“Another time, young wizard.”
Albanon stopped and turned to face Kri, his feet crunching on the gravel. “No,” he said. “Moorin kept information from me all the time. ‘You’re not ready, my apprentice,’ ” he said in a mocking singsong version of his old mentor’s voice. “No more secrets. I’m ready for whatever knowledge you have. You have to share it-both our lives could depend on it.”
Kri looked taken aback by the passion of Albanon’s appeal, and Albanon almost apologized out of reflex. But he held his ground, trying to look confident and mature, ready for whatever terrible secrets the priest might decide to bestow on him.
Finally Kri nodded. “I apologize for giving you the impression that I was trying to shield you from any of the reality of what we face. In truth, I was just thinking that this was perhaps not the best spot for this particular conversation, and the urgency of our errand makes it also not the best time.”
Albanon felt his face redden. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I guess I’m a little sensitive about that.”
“Of course you are,” Kri said, clapping his shoulder. “Moorin held back your growing power in so many ways. Please know that I don’t want to do that to you. You deserve all the power you can claim-and the knowledge that will help you attain it.”
“Thank you, Kri. Moorin taught me a great deal-”
“Of course, of course.”
“-but you’re right. He was holding me back. Nothing is going to hold me back anymore.”
“That’s exactly right,” Kri said. “Nothing can.”
A shadowy form loomed up right behind Kri, great black wings rising up behind the priest like a dark angel. Crimson eyes smoldered like hot coals in its face, and veins of scarlet crystal flowed through its body, suffusing the whole creature with dim red light. Albanon yelped and loosed a bolt of arcane force that struck the monster and tore wisps of its shadowy substance away.
Kri’s eyes widened in surprise, but his body froze as the shadowy demon’s hands clutched at his head. At the same time, a second creature swooped out of the darkness at Albanon, stretching huge, dark claws toward him. Albanon felt irrational fear surge through him, chilling his body and setting his pulse pounding in his ears.
The demon seemed energized by his fear, and some part of his mind that clung to rational thought in the face of it could discern how the creature was drawing on his fears and shaping them into a weapon to wield against him. Understanding the process didn’t help him face it, however, when his nightmares took shape b
efore him, where a moment before the shadowy demon had stood.
He saw a towering figure, rippling with muscle and covered in skin like the thorny flesh of a rose’s stem. Its face was covered with a mask made from a beast’s skull, but the demon’s smoldering red eyes peered out through the mask at him. Enormous antlers rose from the figure’s skull, and it clutched a hunting spear with a jagged head like a whaler’s harpoon. The baying of fey hounds surrounded him, and Albanon’s fear sapped the strength of his legs out from under him. He scrambled on the ground, trying to get away from the nightmare huntsman.
“Albanon, my son,” the huntsman said, “you are a disappointment to me.”
Albanon spread his fingers and bathed the figure in fire, but it strode forward as if completely oblivious to the flames, its flesh showing no signs of scorching. It lifted the spear and aimed the terrible point at Albanon’s heart.
A burst of light like the dawning sun exploded around Albanon, tearing through the huntsman in front of him. As Albanon stared, its thorny flesh came off its bones in long ribbons as it howled its agony. Then it was only the shadowy demon again, and it appeared significantly diminished by Kri’s radiant assault.
The light drove Albanon’s fear away as well. He found his feet and drew in a breath, sensing in an instant the location of both demons-no, all three-another one was approaching. He paused a moment, until the third demon was close enough, then engulfed them all in an inferno of arcane fire that spread out from his outstretched arms and washed harmlessly around Kri. The demon nearest him crumbled away to ash, leaving a scattering of red crystal dust in the air that blew away in the wind.
The two remaining demons scattered to the edges of Albanon’s light, gathering their strength or reassessing the threat that he and Kri posed. Albanon laughed at them and sent another magic bolt streaming into the nearer demon. “You don’t want to fight us,” he said. “You can’t handle us.”