The Mark of Nerath: A Dungeons & Dragons Novel

by Bill Slavicsek

  Falon thrust forth Arande, holding it out like some kind of talisman. It did incorporate the holy symbol of Erathis within its design, so maybe the allusion held more truth than hope. Suddenly, Falon’s sword, the sword of Nerath, blazed like a miniature sun. Divine light radiated from the blade, spreading out in all directions. As the divine light sliced through the shadows, it touched the invading skeletons. Some of the undead creatures exploded at the touch, raining bits of bone and tattered rags across the deck. Others simply doubled over in agonizing pain, leaping away from the light and back into the churning water.

  “That’s got them! Well done, Falon!” Darrum exclaimed as he continued to smash the nearest skeletons into pieces.

  Falon was about to return an excited exclamation of his own when he noticed something new in the water off the side of the ship. It was a skeletal skiff, like some old wreck returned to the surface in much the same way that the undead were. It streaked toward the ship, and riding atop it was a figure in dark red robes. The figure pointed directly at Falon, and a bolt of dark energy flew from its fingers and slammed into the young cleric. Falon tried to twist out of the way, but the dark bolt caught him in his shoulder and spun him around. He dropped to the deck of the ship, wracked by a horrible pain that was concentrated where the bolt hit but was radiating throughout the rest of his body.

  Darrum didn’t hesitate. He grabbed a line from one of the crew and leaped over the side of the ship. He landed atop the speeding skiff as it turned away from the merchant vessel. Falon couldn’t hear what the two were saying because of the distance and the still-howling wind, but he watched as Darrum’s hammers blocked one bolt of darkness, then another, and then the old dwarf brought both heads to bear. He struck the robed figure with two solid, simultaneous blows. The robed figure crumpled, and at the same time the few skeletons still in the battle crumpled as well.

  “Darrum,” Falon tried to call out, but he was still suffering from the effect of the bolt of dark energy. He could only watch as the ancient skiff began to fall apart beneath the old dwarf. At the same time, skeletal limbs reached out of the water, grabbing hold of the robed figure even as they wrapped around Darrum and pulled him under.

  As fast as it began, the churning water stilled. The wind died away, and silence descended over the dark lake.

  Except for a single, mournful cry.

  “Darrum,” Falon called, finally finding his voice as the pain from the dark bolt faded away.

  28 THE WITCHLIGHT FENS, NIGHT

  Kalaban stood on one side of Magroth while the golem held position on the other. They stood on the deck of a small air skiff, an ancient and magical conveyance that Magroth had recovered from the ruins of his imperial palace. The air skiff was about the size of a small row boat, though it was perfectly round, shaped more like a basket than a vessel designed to ride through the water. A single sail, a colorful triangle of cloth covered in magical runes, seemed to be what held them aloft and propelled them through the night sky at fantastic speed, but Kalaban didn’t completely understand the intricacies of magic.

  The confined space was made even smaller thanks to the presence of the golem stoneguard. It was a huge construct, and it barely left enough room in the air skiff for Kalaban and his master. Luckily, the golem only moved when commanded to. Otherwise, it remained unnaturally still. In many ways, it reminded Kalaban of the massive statues that had adorned the steps of the Imperial Palace in Nera. Come to think of it, perhaps what he had assumed had been statues were simply more of the stoneguard, protecting the emperor by hiding in plain sight.

  Magroth stood before a narrow pedestal made from a dark, solid wood. He held the Necropolis Stone atop its flat surface, letting the chain attached to the amulet hang down so that it jangled against the pedestal. The noise didn’t seem to bother either the golem or Magroth, but it was making Kalaban’s skin crawl. He tried to ignore the sound, concentrating instead on what Magroth was up to.

  The top of the pedestal was inscribed with a magic circle, a smaller version of the one that had transported them from Kalton Manor to Nera, but it was obvious that it used a different type of magic. The emperor studied the dead glass, then looked out to see where they were flying. He constantly touched different parts of the runed inscription and whispered words of power that Kalaban couldn’t understand.

  “Interesting,” Magroth said as he continued his work. “Orcus’s priest was correct. I can use the dead glass to find the one she called Sareth. Apparently, this Sareth is hiding in the Witchlight Fens.”

  “Weren’t we just there?” Kalaban asked ruefully.

  “Mind your manners, knight-commander. You should follow the example of my golem and only speak when spoken to.”

  The golem turned to gaze on Kalaban with its helmetlike face. The knight-commander couldn’t be sure, but it seemed like the golem was gloating.

  The air skiff slowed as it descended into the fetid swamp. It came to rest a few paces from a circle of stones located deep within the Witchlight Fens. There were nine stones set within a circle, each about three feet wide and eight feet tall. In the darkness, Kalaban couldn’t see any inscriptions on the standing stones, but he assumed that they were marked in some manner. The circle of stones stood beside a small rise in the earth, a more or less solid hill in the otherwise marshy fen. “The magic is gone, but the air skiff has served its purpose,” Magroth said as he exited the basket and strode boldly into the center of the standing stones. The emperor examined the ancient site, studying each stone in turn as Kalaban and the golem stood guard.

  “Ingenious, I must say,” the Mad Emperor muttered, more to himself than to either Kalaban or the stoneguard.

  Magroth held the Necropolis Stone high, letting the moonlight stream into its faceted depths. Light flashed within the dead glass, sending reflections back at five of the nine stones that formed the ancient circle. As the light struck each of the five stones in turn, intricate runes on each stone’s weathered face momentarily resonated with an arcane glow. As the glow faded, the nearby rise rumbled, and an opening yawned wide in the small hill.

  “I don’t know what kind of creature this Sareth might be, Kalaban,” Magroth said, his eyes sparkling with purpose and excitement, “but we must destroy it if Nerath is to rise again.”

  Kalaban followed Magroth as the dark sky began to brighten. Dawn was coming.

  “Now, my knight-commander, we hunt.”

  29 KALTON MANOR, NIGHT

  Albanon stood back, studying the female halfling who had leaped out of the shadows and grabbed Tempest around the neck. He tried to keep his mind calm, detached. He needed to approach the situation as though it were any of a hundred tests that Moorin had surprised him with over the years. If he remained in control, logical, he could find a solution to the problem at hand. He had to. If he couldn’t, Tempest would die.

  Just as Moorin of the Glowing Tower had.

  The young wizard was certain that they weren’t dealing with a halfling. At least, there was more going on here than appearances would indicate. First, the halfling had showed no signs of being able to use arcane magic. She showed no particular knowledge of such workings, either, as far as Albanon could tell, yet she had invaded a warded wizard’s tower and had killed its master. Second, the halfling appeared gravely injured. There were strange cracks in the skin around her eyes. These cracks were filled with a red glow. She was also bleeding from a dozen different wounds, including several slashes on her hands and forearms that were open clear to the bone. Just looking at the gaping cuts was enough to make Albanon’s stomach lurch, but the wounds seemed hardly to bother the halfling. In fact, she appeared supernaturally strong, as her hold on Tempest, who was easily two feet taller than she was, clearly indicated.

  The halfling regarded the young wizard, peering at him through milky eyes that seemed to be having trouble focusing. “You are a wizard,” the halfling said, though her words were clipped and hesitant, as though she were searching carefully for each word she
uttered. “Make the circle work, or this one dies.”

  Roghar took a few measured steps to the left. He was trying hard not to be noticed, and he was failing spectacularly. The halfling snarled at him. It wasn’t a sound that Albanon normally associated with the small folk—or with anything this side of the Stonemarch Mountains, for that matter. Roghar stopped, nodding his understanding to the strange and twisted creature.

  “There’s no reason to threaten anyone,” Albanon said, sounding imminently braver than he felt. He stepped over to the magic circle inscribed in the stone tiles, briefly letting his eyes fall away from the halfling’s unblinking gaze. He found her gaze to be very disconcerting.

  “I killed your master,” the halfling said, “and you followed me from the town. I believe we threaten one another, don’t you?”

  The circle was an ancient design, but Albanon recognized it for what it was. It was a permanent teleportation circle, probably dating back to the time of the empire of Nerath. Most major temples, many cities, and some towns—including Fallcrest—had permanent teleportation circles, and Albanon had been schooled in the use of such magic. Travelers could step from one circle to the next, provided they knew the series of sigils that linked to a particular location. Albanon could make this one work, but he wasn’t sure which sigils had been accessed when it was last operated.

  The halfling, her hair hanging in tangles and crusted with drying blood and dirt, positioned herself so that she was holding Tempest between herself and Albanon. She had already apparently dismissed Roghar from her attention and was completely focused on the eladrin and what he was doing. “Open the portal,” she said, speaking as though the words she was using were unfamiliar to her, although Albanon could detect no hint of an accent or other indication that she was from beyond the Nentir Vale.

  Nothing, that is, other than the abnormal strength, the ability to ignore pain, and a general appearance of being half dead.

  “Where do you want me to send you?” Albanon asked, noticing for the first time a strange crystalline substance oozing from the halfling’s wounds. It looked very much like honey mixed with the halfling’s blood, though instead of amber the substance was a translucent red that pulsed with a faint inner light. Streaks of silver and flecks of gold were suspended within the substance. It bubbled, thick and viscous, ululating in and out of the wounds in time with the halfling’s breathing. The substance seemed familiar to the eladrin wizard, but he couldn’t quite remember where he had seen anything like it before.

  “Send me?” the halfling asked, a hint of suspicion rising in her voice. “I wish to follow the one who took the Voidharrow from the tower, the one who got to the Voidharrow before I did. I wish to go to where the thief and his master vanished to. That is where you will send me. Now. Or I will kill this one, take the dragonborn’s form as my vessel, and then kill you.”

  Albanon had no idea what the halfling was talking about. Had someone else been in the tower last night? Who or what was the Voidharrow? Albanon wanted to scream. He wanted Moorin to appear to help him through this, to tell him what to do. But that wasn’t going to happen. Moorin was dead. This thing had killed him. And if he didn’t do something quickly, it was going to kill Tempest and probably the rest of them as well.

  “Careful, apprentice,” Splendid the pseudodragon cautioned from her hiding place in the shadows. “This murderer smells wrong. Alien. It doesn’t belong in this world.”

  “Quiet, Splendid,” Albanon said, trying to keep things from getting more out of control than they already were. He didn’t need the pseudodragon, or Roghar, for that matter, making a move that was going to get Tempest’s throat torn out.

  The pseudodragon sighed loudly, but otherwise settled down and stopped talking. At least for the moment.

  “Make it work now, wizard,” the halfling said again, anger beginning to creep into her otherwise expressionless voice.

  “I just need to pour the magic elixir into the circle to start the flow of magic,” Albanon said, retrieving a waterskin from his pack.

  The halfling continued to watch him, but she displayed no indication that he had just described a nonsensical procedure. His hunch was right. Whatever she was, she had no real knowledge of arcane magic or the spells and rituals performed by wizards. Perhaps his plan had a chance of working. Perhaps.

  “Please get on with it, Albanon,” Tempest said, her voice raw as she struggled to get the words out while the halfling continued to tightly hold her by the throat. “This foul creature smells rather terrible, and I’m afraid I may soon lose that wonderful meal we shared on the trip to this wonderful location.”

  Albanon wished he had known Tempest longer, or that this would all work out and he would get the chance to know her better. He had never met anyone like her, and he couldn’t stand that she was in terrible danger. Of course, they all were, but Tempest was the one with the thing’s hand around her throat. He concentrated, beginning the ritual that would open a portal to someplace else.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” Roghar said, adjusting the grip on his sword.

  “I’ve known young Albanon for many years,” Splendid muttered from the shadows, “and I’ve never gotten that impression from him.”

  Albanon ignored both of them as he allowed his will to flow into the magic circle. The runed sigils flared in the sequence he had prescribed, and a glowing hole opened within the circle.

  “There,” the eladrin wizard declared, turning toward the halfling. “Let Tempest go and follow whoever used this before you. I don’t care where you go or why, just let my friend go.”

  The halfling considered Albanon’s words, tilting her head to the side as though trying to find their meaning. Then the halfling leaped, still gripping Tempest tightly, and bounded into the glowing portal.

  “No!” Albanon screamed, diving toward the magic circle.

  Roghar grabbed the young wizard around the waist, holding him back.

  At the same time, Splendid flew out of the shadows and landed just outside the inscribed circle. She waved a paw over the runes and whispered a few words of power that she had learned in her service to the wizard Moorin.

  With the spell disrupted, the portal winked out of existence.

  “No,” Albanon said again, this time his voice softer and full of defeat. “I sent them … away.”

  30 LAKE NEN, NIGHT

  Falon stood at the railing of the merchant ship, looking for any sign of Darrum within the dark water. Just moments before, the water of Lake Nen had been churning like a whirlpool, but now a calm had settled over it with a suddenness that Falon found as disturbing as the skeletons that the lake had disgorged to attack Hammerfast’s Boon. The ship was safe now, as far as Falon could tell. But Darrum, the old dwarf he was traveling with—the Imperial Shield, if the story that Darrum and Falon’s mother had told him was true—had been dragged beneath the surface after he had defeated the robed figure who had apparently been controlling the undead.

  “The old dwarf’s line,” a nearby member of the Hammerfast’s Boon’s crew said, catching Falon’s attention. The crew member was powerfully built, even by dwarven standards, and he wore his beard in twin braids that fell neatly to his waist. “The line’s gone taut. He’s run out of rope.”

  “Line?” Falon asked, stepping over to where the crew member was examining a thick rope that was secured at one end to a stanchion jutting from the deck. The other end disappeared into the water, exactly where Darrum had gone under.

  “Yes, young master,” the crew member said, “he grabbed the line before he leaped out of the ship.”

  Hope rushed in at the crew member’s words. Falon handed his sword, the one his mother named Arande, to the ship’s captain, Stonehome. As he shrugged out of his chain mail shirt, he looked deep into the captain’s eyes. “Take care of that for me,” Falon said, slipping a sunrod from his pack. Amazing things, sunrods, he thought. It was a minor magic item, available in any well-stocked general store, that could be
activated with a simple command. “Light,” Falon said, activating the magic light as he held it in his left hand. Then, without another word, the young cleric climbed over the ship’s railing, gulped a big breath of air, and dove into the water.

  Lake Nen was cold and dark. Falon almost cried out as he splashed into the icy lake, barely managing to keep hold of the sunrod. He controlled himself, however, and quickly reached around to find the rope line as he let his dive carry him away from the surface. He had a momentary panic when he didn’t immediately touch the line, but then his right hand found the rope. It was pulled tight, as though Darrum had gone as deep as the line would allow and was trying to go deeper still. Falon used the rope as a guide and followed it down into the bitter-cold water.

  He took a small amount of comfort from the glow of the sunrod. He was just glad he hadn’t made the dive in total darkness. Still, the light from the minor magic item did not penetrate very far into the darkness surrounding him, and all he could really see was the portion of the rope illuminated by the sunrod’s light. It was kind of like a prestidigitation trick he had seen last summer at the traveling fair. The seer, who had about as much real arcane power as Falon’s small toe, had somehow made a six-foot coil of rope float above the ground and stretch itself to its full length as it reached for the sky. That’s how the rope line looked to Falon, or at least the section of it that he could see. It disappeared into the darkness beyond the circle of light cast by the sunrod so that all he could see was a ten-foot section of the rope, pulled tight by unseen forces somewhere above and below him.

  Falon began to pray to Erathis, asking his god to protect him and see him and Darrum safely back to the surface. As always, Falon had no doubts about whether or not Erathis heard his prayer. He was just never certain as to the form the answer he received would take, or if he would even recognize it when it appeared.