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  “Lord Miritar, not all of the Dales hold to the old Dales Compact anymore,” High Councilor Malorn said. “The four Dales represented here still abide by the promises made fourteen centuries ago by our forefathers to yours, but the Compact is not remembered with much fondness in Archendale, Tasseldale, or Scardale. Even Harrowdale is questionable.”

  “And there are powers encroaching on the borders of Cormanthor that never agreed to any Compact with the elves,” Lord Theremen pointed out. “Realms such as Zhentil Keep and Hillsfar-or Sembia, for that matter-are not at all unhappy with the elves’ Retreat. They might resist your Return to Cormanthor.”

  “I have no designs on their lands,” Seiveril protested.

  “No, Seiveril Miritar, but they certainly have designs on yours-and ours,” Storm Silverhand said. The silver-haired bard turned back from Lake Sember and fixed her eyes on Seiveril. “Cormanthyr long shielded the Dales and the forest lands from the ambitions of kingdoms nearby. But since the final Retreat of the Elven Court thirty years ago, the realms surrounding the Dalelands and Cormanthor have been growing ever bolder. In the absence of the elves’ strength and determination, the forest has become a great borderland, a frontier that all are eager to claim.

  “Fortunately — ” Storm smiled humorlessly as she spoke-“we live in interesting times. The Zhents would have overrun the northern Dales long ago, but they have murdered each other in at least two great bloody purges. They have now recovered from those feuds, stronger than ever. The Sembians might have bought Tasseldale and Featherdale and who knows what else lock, stock, and barrel-but Cormyr under King Azoun would have none of that. Well, Azoun is dead now. Hillsfar was a city friendly to the Fair Folk, respectful of the old Compact. Now it is ruled by the tyrant Maalthiir, a man known to hate elves.

  “For a decade now, the only thing keeping the aspirations of these ambitious powers in check is the fear that should one of them move too quickly, the others would certainly join forces to drag down the leader from behind.” Storm frowned at Seiveril, her eyes narrow and thoughtful. “Now you tell me that there’s an army of demonspawn in Myth Drannor, who no doubt plan to seize a realm to rule for themselves.”

  “That, at least, I mean to prevent,” Seiveril replied. “As for the other realms, I recognize that the years have passed since the Standing Stone was raised, and that a new Compact may be necessary. But I see no human cities standing here on the shores of Lake Sember, or rising in the silver groves of the Elven Court. I will not be told that elves cannot raise a realm under Cormanthor’s branches.”

  Storm sighed and looked over at the glimmering lanterns and campfires of the elven army, which were beginning to flicker into life as the twilight deepened.

  “Before the Retreat, no one would have dreamed of challenging an elven army in Cormanthor,” she said. “I do not think you can trade on that old fear and respect any longer. Whether you meant to or not, Lord Miritar, you have brought war to Cormanthor, and I cannot yet see who will take up arms against whom.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  4 Kythorn, the Year of Lightning Storms

  Saerloon was one of the busiest ports on the Sea of Fallen Stars. Two days after Araevin and his companions arrived in the city, they boarded Windsinger, bound for the city of Velprintalar on Aglarond’s northern coast. Windsinger was a graceful three-masted caravel under the command of a captain named Ilthor, a wiry, sun-darkened Aglarondan. She had carried great tuns of wine, cords of fine hardwood, and small coffers full of rich amber from the Yuirwood to Saerloon, and was taking on Sembian pewter, ironwork, copperwork, and tooled leather to carry back home again.

  The day was warm and the skies streaked with rain as two longboats pulled Windsinger from Saerloon’s wharves. Once in open water the caravel let down her sails, and set her course south-southwest for the whole day in order to clear the great southern cape of Sembia. Then, with a northwest wind at their back, they turned due east and made for the Isle of Prespur, sighting its town-dotted shores early on the third day of sailing. After that Ilthor turned Windbringer sharply to the northeast, striking across the mouth of the Dragon Reach for the city of Procampur, on the northern shore of the Inner Sea. It would have been far swifter to simply continue due east for Aglarond, crossing the center of the Sea of Fallen Stars, but the Pirate Isles and the dangerous shoals south of Altumbel lay astride that course, and Ilthor had no intention of trying his luck with either.

  Araevin found the sea voyage an easy way to travel. There was little room to spare for passengers, and the deck was cluttered with cargo and stores, but the voyage offered ample opportunity to find a cargo hatch or coil of line to sit on, watch the sea or the distant shorelines, make entries in his journals, talk with his friends, or simply sit and reflect. Windsinger was too small to boast cabins exclusively for the use of passengers, so Ilsevele and Maresa shared the pilot’s cabin in the sterncastle, while the pilot bunked in the forecastle with the other crewmen. Araevin and Donnor were given the best sleeping places on the open deck. Covered from the weather by the quarterdeck overhead, the after deck was actually quite pleasant in warm weather, if not particularly private.

  By night Ilthor found various small anchorages along the coastlines, dropping anchor each night in a different cove or bay. Only once did he run at night, when he crossed from Prespur to Procampur.

  “The sea is too cluttered with islands and shoals to sail in the dark,” he explained. “Out on the Sword Coast or the Shining Sea, they’ll keep their course by day and night. But here I drop anchor when it gets dark, unless I’m certain I’ve got an open pitch of water all around me or the moon is bright enough to sail by.”

  For the next few days they sailed eastward along the shores of Impiltur, passing cities such as Tsurlagol, Lyrabar, and Hlammach. Then Ilthor turned southeast, striking across the mouth of the Eastern Reach for Cape Dragonfang.

  On the seventh day of their voyage, Araevin found himself sitting with Ilsevele at the stern. He studied his spellbooks in the bright sun, puzzling over the notations and concepts of a spell he had recorded months before but had not yet mastered, while she gazed back at the green shores of Impiltur, slowly sinking into the sea behind them. Her ivory skin had acquired a golden bronze hue in the past few days, as sun elves often did in warm climes. Even the fairest tanned quickly and easily, unlike moon elves, who could never gain more than the faintest hint of color to their skin. After a time Araevin realized that Ilsevele had been staring out over the sea for a long while, her brow faintly furrowed, her eyes distant.

  He set down his spellbook and reached to place a hand over hers.

  “What is it, Ilsevele? You’ve been staring at the sea all morning. Where are your thoughts?”

  She didn’t reply for a long time, long enough that someone who didn’t know her as well as Araevin might have wondered whether she had heard him. But finally she took her eyes from the bright horizon, and looked down at the slender white wake streaming from behind Windsinger ’s rudderpost.

  “Where will we marry?” she asked. “Where?” Araevin blinked, considering the question. In truth, he hadn’t given a single thought to any sort of wedding preparations-and especially not since the night the daemonfey had raided Tower Reilloch. “Your father’s palace at Seamist, I suppose. Everyone in Elion will want to come.” He managed an awkward shrug. “I hadn’t really thought about it.”

  “Do you think we will return to Evermeet in time for our wedding day? It is less than two years from now-Greengrass in the Year of the Bent Blade. That is the promise we made in the Year of the Prince.”

  “I remember,” Araevin said. “Why wouldn’t we return for our wedding day?”

  “What if my father’s army is laying siege to Myth Drannor? Or the daemonfey escape again, and we pursue them to some even more distant land? What if your search for high magic takes you to some realm on the other side of the sunrise, a road whose end you won’t reach for years and years?”

  “Even if all those things hap
pen as you say, Ilsevele, I don’t see why we could not stand in the arbor at Seamist and speak our promises before the Seldarine,” Araevin said.

  “So we would abandon our battles and our journeys for a day, in order to honor our betrothal?”

  “If that is the way we must do it, then yes.”

  Ilsevele sighed. “And back to your studies, my father’s battles, whatever desperate journeys and adventures we must face. That is not much of a marriage, Araevin, and not much of a life together.”

  Frustration hardened his words more than he intended, but Araevin spoke anyway. “If it is all we are to be permitted now, it will have to do. In time there will be years for us, Ilsevele. We won’t always be called away.”

  “It isn’t enough.” Ilsevele glanced up at the cloudless sky overhead, her eyes as bright as emeralds in the sunshine. “When we met, Araevin, there was such passion in our hearts! There is nothing we would not abandon for an hour in each other’s company, stealing away for a walk in the glades of the forest, an evening’s dance in the wine rooms of Elion, a morning together in the woods by the sea… but when was the last time we did something like that?”

  “You came to find me at the House of Cedars only a few months ago,” he protested. “For a few days, at least, I certainly did not think of anything other than you.”

  “So you say. Yet even then you were aching to set out for Faerun again. I would catch you staring off to the east at sunset, looking out over the darkening sea toward Faerun, wishing with all your heart to tread those roads and wander those lands again, even though your mind did not want to hear your heart’s whispering.”

  “If you had asked me, Ilsevele, I would have stayed. You know that.”

  “If you had stayed, you would have wished I had not asked you.”

  Araevin looked away, gazing at the empty sea as the breeze played with his hair, listening to the soft sound of water slipping past the hull, the ruffling of the sails in the breeze, the rhythmic creaking of lines and tackle as Windsinger rode the waves.

  “But you came with me,” he said. “You have seen only a thimbleful of these lands, Ilsevele. We could roam the world for a hundred years, and still you would not have seen it all.”

  She smiled and said, “I am not a roamer, Araevin. I have enjoyed our travels-the parts that weren’t difficult or deadly, anyway-and I am not done with them. But my heart turns to home, to familiar places, to the people I love. You, on the other hand… when you are at home, wherever that is, your heart turns to the things you have not seen. Tell me the truth: Can you close your eyes and imagine our life together? Can you picture fifty years in the House of Cedars, an end to your journeys, a life of being instead of a life of doing?”

  He started to tell her yes, but Ilsevele held up her hand. “Try it before you answer.”

  “All right, then.”

  He closed his eyes, and did as she asked, imagining days of springtime sunshine in the House of Cedars, the sea storms of fall and the dark clouds of winter, the sound of the surf in his ears, nothing to do but pass his days a perfect and complete hour at a time. He might spend a hundred years there, two hundred perhaps, with Ilsevele and the children that might come. Yet he could not seem to envision Ilsevele in that house, or himself for that matter. He frowned and tried again. He was a high mage, and he wandered the halls of Tower Reilloch or the courts of Leuthilspar, while Ilsevele stood at her father’s right hand or perhaps even sat at the council table in the fullness of years. But that left the House of Cedars empty again, and he could not fill it with all his imagination.

  “You can’t do it, can you?” Ilsevele said. “I can read it on your face.”

  Araevin opened his eyes and looked at his betrothed. There was strength and unflinching wisdom behind her eyes, so bright and perfect. She had changed in the years of their betrothal. Wisdom and confidence, poise and determination, had gathered around her since he had first met her. She was not the timid young woman who had once been content to lose herself in his love, swept away by his stories of far-off places and the restlessness he had learned from a century among humankind.

  There, on the sun-bleached deck of Windsinger, it occurred to Araevin for the first time that Ilsevele perhaps held a destiny and a passion that might eclipse his own, even if she had not yet found it.

  “Give me a year,” he pleaded. “Let me walk a few more miles down the road I have to walk. When I know that the daemonfey have been dealt with, when I know that your father has done what he has set out to do, things will be different.”

  “How do you know?” Ilsevele said. She looked away from him, her red-gold hair gleaming in the sunshine.

  “Because you are waiting for me, and I would have to be a fool to let you slip through my fingers.” He pulled his hand away from hers, standing up slowly. “I have only a little farther to roam, Ilsevele. Then I will be coming back with you.”

  Ilsevele pulled herself to her feet, and searched his face for a long moment.

  “I know,” she said. “I know.”

  She leaned on the rail, gazing at the sea astern of them. Araevin followed her eyes. Nothing but empty ocean and sweeping sky surrounded them, and they remained there, looking at nothing for a long time.

  “I can’t see the land anymore,” Ilsevele finally said.

  Araevin nodded. He had long since lost sight of Impiltur’s capes.

  “We’re well in the Easting Reach now,” he said. “We should sight the shores of Aglarond tomorrow.”

  The street lanterns of Hillsfar glowed orange in a light evening smog of smoke from thousands of homes, the banked furnaces and forges that had burned all day long, and the cold sea mist from the dark Moonsea, less than two miles from the city walls. Sarya Dlardrageth contemplated the cluttered streets and ramshackle buildings as her hired coach clattered over the gleaming, wet cobblestones.

  “What a stinking sty of a city,” her son observed. The hulking swordsman wore the aspect of a tall, broad-shouldered human, but the daemonfey lord had little liking for hiding his true nature in a lesser guise. “Do all human cities reek so?”

  “Mind your manners in the First Lord’s Tower, Xhalph,” Sarya said. “Maalthiir is a cold and arrogant man, quick to take offense. I want him as an ally, not an enemy.”

  Xhalph scowled, but nodded. Sarya glanced out the coach’s window. The driver pulled up before the First Lord’s Tower, set the brake, and hopped down to open the door for Sarya and Xhalph-two foreign nobles, as far as he knew. Sarya descended, Xhalph at her side, and they climbed the steps to the tower.

  “I am Lady Senda Dereth,” she told the guard captain. “Lord Maalthiir does not expect me, but I believe he will wish to see me.”

  The guard captain consulted his order book, then looked up sharply. “The first lord will be notified of your arrival,” he said. “You will await him in the banquet room.”

  He gestured to four of the red-plumed guards, who led Sarya and Xhalph through the keep’s winding passages and broad halls to a large room with a great table of oak and dozens of chairs arrayed neatly behind it. The windows were mere slits only a hand’s-breadth wide, and the two sets of doors leading into the chamber were made of four-inch thick oak bound with iron bands.

  “Do they think this will hold us, if we should choose to leave?” Xhalph muttered to her, as the door closed behind the guards.

  “I doubt it,” Sarya said. “Maalthiir at least knows that I am a mage. I suspect that the first lord simply wants to remind us of where we are.”

  To Sarya’s surprise, Maalthiir did not keep her waiting. After only ten minutes, the first lord threw open the doors and strode into the banquet room, flanked as before by the four pale swordsmen with the dead black eyes, as well as two more Red Plumes. There was another lord with him, a heavyset man with an exquisitely trimmed mustache and goatee to go along with his long, curled locks of black hair and dark, narrow-set eyes. Sarya decided that he had the look of a warrior who’d let himself go. Despite his evident
paunch, the man’s shoulders were broad, and his hands were large and strong beneath the delicate lace cuffs of his tunic.

  Maalthiir paused on entering, studying Sarya intensely, and motioned to more guards stationed in the hall. The thick oak doors swung shut, and the first lord smiled coldly.

  “Good evening, Lady Senda,” he said. “You left without answering my questions last time you visited my tower. I hope you will not do so again tonight.”

  Sarya inclined her head to the human lord. “I hope I will not need to, Lord Maalthiir,” she said, ignoring the threat. “May I present my captain-at-arms Alphon? He advises me on military matters.”

  Maalthiir studied Xhalph for a moment, and his lips twisted into a small, humorless smile.

  “Captain Alphon,” he answered, then indicated the dark-bearded lord who had accompanied him into the room. “This is High Master Borstag Duncastle of Ordulin. He represents Sembian interests concerned with trade, settlement, and industry in the Dales and the Moonsea.”

  Sarya nodded to the Sembian lord-more likely nothing more than a jumped-up merchant, she reminded herself-and looked back to the First Lord of Hillsfar.

  “I hope you have had an opportunity to confirm for yourself the incursion of Evermeet’s army to these lands?”

  “I have indeed. The elven army was exactly where you’d said I would find them.” Maalthiir crossed the room to the head of the large, empty table, kicked out the chair there, and sat down in an unconcerned slouch. The oddly pale swordsmen who accompanied the first lord moved to stand behind him. “My spies added some important details you neglected to mention, Lady Senda. They spoke with Dalesfolk who in turn spoke with emissaries of the elven army, and they learned that the leader of the elves-a Lord Miritar, I believe-has discovered that an ancient enemy of elf-kind has occupied Myth Drannor. Apparently these foes of the elves recently waged a furious war in the vales of the Delimbiyr, attacking elven kingdoms in the High Forest, but fled to Myth Drannor when they were defeated a month or two ago.”