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  A flutter of wings behind her caught her attention. “Lady Sarya, Teryani Ealoeth has returned from the Sembian camp,” a fey’ri said, bowing before her. “She craves an audience with you.”

  Sarya frowned. Teryani was her spy and assassin in the midst of the Sembian army. Each time she ventured to leave the Sembians and report, she risked discovery … but Teryani was not the sort to waste Sarya’s time.

  “Very well. Have her join us.”

  The messenger thumped his breastplate in salute and sprang back up into the air, winging back to his post. He quickly returned with a strikingly beautiful fey’ri in tow. Teryani had a finely shaped face with large, dark eyes, hair of silken midnight, and a soft, coy smile that could incite men to kill when she willed it. She knelt before Sarya, and said, “My queen.”

  Sarya smiled coldly at the deference the girl showed, and motioned for her to rise. “Teryani, my dear. What brings you here?”

  “I have news that seemed important, Lady Sarya. I saw Ilsevele Miritar ride into Tegal’s Mark with the champion Starbrow, a little more than a day ago. They are waiting for an audience with Miklos Selkirk.”

  “Did you learn what business they have with Selkirk?”

  “Miritar’s daughter has been sent to work out a truce with the Sembians,” Teryani said. “Moreover, I think she may hope to make an ally of Sembia.”

  The daemonfey queen hissed in irritation and shook out her wings with a quick snap. Without even thinking about it, she began to pace restlessly, a habit she had formed since escaping from the imprisonment of millennia. Teryani simply awaited her queen’s will with equanimity, hands folded in her lap. She did not lack for courage, Sarya noted.

  “You did well, Teryani,” she finally said. “We must find some way to keep our enemies from collaborating against us.”

  “The Sembians are close to breaking, Mother,” Xhalph observed. “Many of their mercenary companies have given up the battle already. As long as we refrain from attacking Sembia itself, there is little reason for the fat merchants who rule that land to pour more of their precious treasure into the Dales. Miritar will waste her time trying to convince them otherwise.”

  Sarya turned to gaze at her son with some small surprise. It was not often that Xhalph discerned a point at which restraint became a virtue, but he was right about Sembia. As long as she did not directly threaten the Sembians in their rich cities to the south, they would be inclined to write off the Dalelands as a bad investment.

  “If they are as close to giving up the campaign as you think, then we should help to decide the issue for them,” Sarya said. “Leave them be for now. While they count the costs of their campaign, we will turn our full strength against Miritar. But we must see to it that their negotiations lead to nothing.”

  “What do you wish me to do, Lady Sarya?” Teryani asked.

  “If you can slay Miklos Selkirk or Ilsevele Miritar, and make it seem like an act of treachery by one side or the other, that should fix things nicely,” Sarya said. “I suspect it would work better if you arranged for Miritar’s death and affixed the blame to the Sembians.”

  “It will be as you wish, my queen.” Teryani bowed again, acknowledging the command. Then she looked up to Sarya. “Neither the palebloods nor the Sembians will find cause to believe that we had anything to do with it.”

  “Good. I think I may have the perfect instrument for you to use in this work.” Sarya smiled cruelly, implications dancing in her mind. “I will place at your disposal the services of the Cormanthoran drow. Use them to handle the slaying, and see to it that they are found to be in the employ of Sembians who wished Ilsevele Miritar dead … but did not want to be caught at it.”

  Teryani’s dark eyes danced with mischief. “If I may be so bold, my queen, that is a subtle and brilliant ploy indeed. I will endeavor to carry it off as you have commanded.”

  “I have every confidence in you, Teryani,” Sarya told her.

  Despite Donnor’s healing spells, Galdindormm grew weaker. The small gray gnome passed in and out of consciousness in their small refuge against the darkness outside. Whenever he passed out, his arms and legs began to move with an awful life of their own. Araevin suspected that if they had not restrained the poor wretch, his own traitorous limbs would have dragged him to the edge of the precipice and toppled him over the edge in answer to the sinister call that still gripped him.

  Araevin essayed a spell to break whatever curse lay over the gnome, but his magic did little more than reward the mortally exhausted gnome with a respite of peaceful sleep. And so Galdindormm died not long after crawling to their refuge, body and spirit spent beyond any hope of resuscitation.

  Donnor arranged the deep gnome’s limbs as best he could, and spoke Lathander’s prayers over the body in the hope that death had brought some sort of release for the broken creature. When he had finished, he turned to Araevin and asked, “Do you know how his people would inter him, Araevin? I don’t like the idea of leaving him with nothing more than a blanket to cover him.”

  “I don’t know much about the svirfneblin, but I would guess that they are content to sleep under stone,” said Araevin. He glanced around the alcove, and sighed. “Let’s loosen some rock from the walls of this niche, and use it to build a cairn for him.”

  When they had finished, the gnome’s body was covered with a mound of stones. Doubtless his own folk would have done better, but Araevin judged it as good as they could do given the materials at hand. He did not like leaving Galdindormm only a few feet from the oppressive darkness outside, but he resolved that if they ran into any more of the deep gnomes, he’d tell them where and how Galdindormm was buried. They would improve on the arrangements if it was important to them.

  With Galdindormm seen to, Araevin took out his shard of the Gatekeeper’s Crystal and weighed it in his hand. Perhaps it was the absolute quality of the darkness around them, but it seemed to him that the shard’s pearlescence was brighter and more marked than before. A sign that the second shard was close? he wondered. To make sure, he cast another divining spell, seeking some sign of the shard’s twin. The resonant tone in his mind was clear and close.

  It was also straight down.

  “Well,” he murmured, “I suppose I was expecting that.”

  “The shard’s somewhere down there, isn’t it?” Maresa said, nodding at the still blackness beyond their narrow ledge. The genasi heaved a deep breath and smacked one fist against the stone floor. “Damn it all, I just knew it.”

  “I’m sorry,” Araevin told his friends. “The signs are clear to me. I will have to descend into the abyss.”

  “You will try one of the stairways?” Jorin asked.

  “I hesitate to rely on a flying spell. If I wandered a little too far from the wall, I might become lost in the void, unable to find my way back to the side. And eventually my flying magic would be exhausted.” Araevin shrugged. “Besides, it seems to me that the stairs must lead somewhere. I would not be surprised to find that the second shard is there. It seems more likely to me that the shard would appear near some kind of feature, as opposed to a completely random spot on the floor of this great void.”

  “If it has a floor,” Maresa interrupted.

  “In any event, the shard is somewhere below, and the stairs lead down. If I don’t find the shard at the foot of the stairs, I’ll try my divining spells again. It’s merely a matter of persistence.”

  “What about this Pale Queen the gnome whispered of?” Nesterin asked him. “He said that he climbed to escape from her. Descending the stairs would seem to lead us into her domain, whatever that might be.” The star elf glanced at the cairn of stones they had raised over the corpse. “It wasn’t the climb alone that killed poor Galdindormm. He was under the influence of some dark and deadly curse, I am sure of it. Neither you nor Donnor could break it, and that gives me no small amount of concern.”

  “What if she has the shard?” Donnor rumbled. “If she is a being of knowledge and power, she wo
uld surely recognize the importance of the thing, wouldn’t she?”

  Araevin nodded. “I think you are right, Donnor. I think I will find that this Selydra has the shard. Somehow I will have to get it from her.”

  They set out back the way they had come, heading for the last staircase they had passed. Araevin guessed that it was not more than three or four miles behind them. After they had walked for a timeless period through the silent darkness of Lorosfyr they finally came to the squat, oddly shaped pillar that marked the place where the steep stairs plunged down into the unthinkable darkness. Araevin hesitated a moment, staring down at the steps, and he began to descend.

  The stone steps were cut into a sloping notch or crease hewn out of the abyss’s wall. The staircase was about eight or nine feet in width, the steps about a foot tall and a foot deep. They were noticeably worn in the center, each step seeming to sag beneath the wear of the countless feet that must have passed that way—though who or what could have walked the dizzying path so frequently, Araevin could not say. He quickly realized that the simple act of descending the stairs required all of his attention. One careless step could result in an unimaginable fall. And it was more than a little physically demanding, so that not long after they started Araevin’s thighs and calves burned with the effort of the descent.

  “The question that occurs to me,” Nesterin said softly as they shuffled and picked their way ever lower, “is how long it will take us to climb back up these stairs when we wish to leave. That is something I am not looking forward to.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Maresa told him. “If climbing these damned stairs means leaving this place behind us, I think I’ll find a way to manage it.”

  After a seemingly interminable descent, they came to a landing or switchback of a sort. Two more of the squared-off pillars marked the spot, each covered with more of the mysterious runes. The small company rested for a time at the landing, but it was bitterly cold, and their exertions had rendered them all too susceptible to the creeping numbness of the frigid stone and air. And worse yet, they were absolutely entombed in the dark—blackness above, blackness below, blackness all around them—with only a tiny little circle of cold and cheerless rock revealed by their inadequate lights. Araevin found himself entertaining the curious delusion that the world simply ended beyond their dim little sphere, and that the endless stairs were nothing more than an invention of the dark that faded back into nothingness once they had passed by. It was not a thought he cared for at all.

  They tried to make a small meal of the rations they carried, but no one was very hungry. The weight of the abyss around them pressed close. Implacably silent, the stillness was like some awakened glacier of pure night. There was a conscious malevolence to the place that encouraged the mind to wander into despondency. After a time Araevin realized that the company had fallen still and silent again, straining to hear the sound of the darkness. Somehow he shook himself to motion again, and roused the rest.

  “Come, my friends,” he said. “I think it is not good to stay here too long.”

  “What did the gnome call this place? The Maddening Dark?” Jorin said. “I can see how it earned its name.”

  They started down the next great turn of the stairs, and dropped farther and farther from the level of the road’s ledge. Each step jarred the legs until it seemed that the whole body dreaded the next footfall, but still they pressed on, winding deeper and deeper into the dark. Finally, when Araevin began to despair of seeing anything other than the few steps ahead and the few steps behind, the stairs reached a sort of broad ledge or shelf in the side of the abyss. It was impossible to see the full extent of the place, but strange old stone buildings brooded here in the darkness, guarding another switchback leading even farther down. Like the pillars above, the buildings were squat and square, with carefully worked geometric reliefs cut into the stones from which they were built.

  “Some sort of guardhouse?” Donnor wondered aloud. “A watchpost to keep enemies from descending any deeper?”

  “Whatever it is, it will have to serve as a campsite,” Araevin decided. “We’ve been descending for too long, and this is the only shelter we’ve come across. I think we should rest before we attempt the next turn of the stair.”

  Nesterin studied the silent ruins looming up out of the lightlessness around them. “It seems an ill-omened place to me, Araevin.”

  “I know, but I don’t want to be forced to make camp in the middle of the stairs. This will have to do.” Araevin chose a structure that backed against the wall of the abyss, as opposed to one that stood on the open side of the ledge, and carefully peered into the square doorway. The chamber within was empty and cheerless, but at least the floor was level and it did not offer the opportunity to miss a step and plummet to one’s death. “We’ll sleep here, and press on when we’re more rested.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  5 Eleasias, the Year of Lightning Storms

  Lord Miklos Selkirk sent for Ilsevele early in the morning of their third day in Tegal’s Mark. A finely dressed Sembian officer delivered the news, requesting Lady Miritar and her retainers to follow him to the Sharburg—the town’s small keep—after they had breakfasted and dressed. Ilsevele accepted the invitation with a gracious nod, and saw the courier to the suite’s door.

  After he withdrew, she turned to Fflar and said, “Well, it seems that Lord Selkirk has returned.”

  “I was beginning to wonder if the Sembians wanted to talk with us or not,” he answered. In fact, he had found himself wondering whether the Sembians intended to hear them out at all.

  “I trust there has been a good reason for the delay. Until I know otherwise, I choose to believe that our host has been absent.” Ilsevele withdrew to her bedchamber to change, while Fflar found a handsome blue cloak to throw over his own tunic. Ilsevele soon emerged from her room, attired in a beautiful gold-embroidered dress of deep green over a chemise of sheer pale gray silk. Her long red hair was free to her shoulders, wavy and alluring, and she wore a slim tiara on her brow. The dress went well with her eyes, Fflar decided. Very well indeed. He couldn’t recall ever having seen Ilsevele dressed up, and the effect was stunning.

  She noticed his gaze and smiled awkwardly, smoothing her dress. “Is something wrong?”

  “Not a thing,” he admitted. “Lord Selkirk doesn’t stand a chance.”

  She looked down and blushed. “Thank you, Starbrow,” she murmured. “I simply want to let the Sembians know that I take them seriously.”

  They went down to the inn’s common room, where the Sembian messenger waited, along with a small escort of half a dozen human guards. The Sembians had arranged for several carriages, even though the Sharburg was not much of a walk from the Markhouse. In a matter of minutes they rolled into the broad dusty courtyard of Tasseldale’s chief castle, which had been crowned by the pennants of Sembia.

  I wonder what the mairshars think of that? Fflar asked himself. The Sharburg was the stronghold of Tasseldale’s constables, guards, and lawkeepers … but it seemed that the Sembian lords had evicted them when they chose the Sharburg for their headquarters.

  “If you get the chance,” he said to Ilsevele, “I think you should press the Sembians about their occupation of this dale. Don’t let them think that you don’t care that this town belongs to Tasseldale.”

  “I will not forget the citizens of Tasseldale, Starbrow,” Ilsevele replied. She looked up at the pennants floating overhead, and drew a deep breath. Then the carriage door opened, and a coachman extended a hand to assist Ilsevele from the carriage.

  A small party of Sembians waited for them in the courtyard, surrounded by a number of vigilant guards. At their head stood a tall, dark-haired man who wore lace at the cuff and collar. His hair was carefully arranged in tight ringlets, and his goatee was trimmed to an exacting point just a little below his chin, but Fflar could see at once that the man was more than a dandy. The rapier at his belt was a fine piece of steel with a well-worn hilt, and the se
t of his shoulders and easy confidence of his black eyes marked him as a man who knew his own strength.

  “Good morning, my lady Miritar,” the Sembian lord said, and swept off his hat in a gracious bow. “I am Miklos Selkirk, of House Selkirk. I am sorry that I could not meet you before now, but events in these troubled lands kept me away until a short time ago.”

  “I understand, Lord Selkirk,” Ilsevele said. “It is those same troubles that led my father to bring his Crusade here.”

  She’s very good at this, Fflar decided. Ilsevele possessed a natural poise that few elves could match, let alone humans, but at the same time she was sincere and direct. It made for a disarming combination. He quietly studied the Sembians observing her. They stood mute and unmoving, eyes wide, rapt. If they’d had suspicions about her, or duplicity in their hearts, those things were forgotten for the moment.

  Ilsevele exchanged a few simple pleasantries with the Sembian lord, and Selkirk bowed and led them into the castle’s hall. The windows were thrown open to the fine summer morning, and an impressive buffet was spread out on long tables along one side.

  The Sembian made a point of helping himself to several small slices of cheese and a goblet of wine—demonstrating that it wasn’t poisoned, Fflar guessed—and said, “Please, refresh yourselves if you like. I haven’t had much opportunity for good meals lately, so I certainly intend to do so.”

  Ilsevele inclined her head and accepted some wine from a steward. “You are most kind, Lord Selkirk.”

  Selkirk studied her for a moment, then said, “While I am delighted to entertain such a beautiful lady of the Tel’ Quessir, Lady Miritar, I am afraid I do not know what I can do for you. What does your father have to say to me?”