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  Maresa rolled to her feet, and grinned fiercely. “This one’s done!” she called.

  Araevin parried another spell from the one that remained, but then the creature managed to slip a spell through by virtue of its uncanny quickness, trapping him in a bitter, freezing fog of silver mist. He fumbled with his disruption wand with fingers that were suddenly stiff and numb, and fought to utter the words of a dismissing spell, but then he heard a high, clear voice ringing behind him. A brilliant white arc of magic swept out of the old stone ring and lanced upward to blast the remaining nilshai, scouring the monster’s dark flesh with silver power.

  Araevin struggled to look over his shoulder to see what had happened, and he saw the elf they had rescued standing within the stones and singing, hands clenched at his sides, eyes fixed on the winged horror overhead.

  The winged worm hissed and tried to climb out of the reach of the arcing magic, but then a pair of arrows from Ilsevele brought it down. Its wings folded in midair and it dropped to the ground like a stone. The rider held his song for one more moment then allowed the eldritch music to fade. He leaned against a menhir in fatigue.

  Araevin finally managed to shake off the clinging silver fog that had numbed him. He turned to Jorin and dispelled the shadow-web with a quick word and motion of his hand, then looked at his companions.

  “Is anybody hurt?” he asked.

  “Singed a little from that acid, but I’m fine,” Ilsevele answered. She looked down at her side, where a handful of holes in her tunic still smoked.

  “I can tend to that,” Donnor said. He picked his way back up the hillside and began to chant a healing prayer to Lathander, holding his hand over Ilsevele’s side.

  The rider straightened and turned to face Araevin. “I don’t know how you came to be here, sir, but I am indebted to you,” he said. His Elvish was a little strange to Araevin’s ear, due in no small part to the remarkable voice the fellow possessed, a rich tenor in which every word held music. “I am Nesterin of House Deirr, and I believe that I owe you my life.”

  “I am Araevin Teshurr of Evermeet. This is my betrothed, Lady Ilsevele Miritar. Our companions Maresa Rost of Waterdeep, Dawnmaster Donnor Kerth of the Temple of Lathander, and our guide Jorin Kell Harthan of Aglarond.”

  “I am pleased to meet all of you, especially considering the circumstances.” Nesterin bowed to each of them. “Might I ask what brings your company to Sildëyuir? We rarely see folk of other races here.”

  “I guided them here,” Jorin said, stepping forward.

  “You are of the Yuir?”

  Jorin nodded. “I am. They have an errand of some importance. The Simbul’s apprentice decided that they needed to speak with the star elves.”

  Nesterin studied Araevin and his companions more closely.

  “Very well,” he said at length. “The masters of the Yuirwood do not lightly give strangers their trust, and I am indebted to you all in any event. My home is only a few miles away. I would be greatly pleased if you would allow me to offer you the hospitality of House Deirr.”

  The First Lord’s Tower gleamed in the sunset, tall and slender as a sword blade over the center of Hillsfar. The evening was warm and still, and the lamplighters hurried through the streets to perform their duties as the city’s bustle and commerce guttered out for the day. A whisper of magic danced in the air, and Sarya Dlardrageth and Xhalph appeared on a balcony amid a dull thump of displaced air.

  As before, Sarya and Xhalph wore their human guises. She glanced at the balcony around them, and nodded in approval. As promised, Maalthiir had left it bare of any awkward spells or arcane defenses so that she or her messengers could simply teleport directly to his home. There was even an iced ewer of wine by the door leading into the tower. Sarya approved; the less she had to see of the human squalor surrounding Maalthiir’s tower, the better.

  Two Red Plume guards stood nearby, straightening to attention and smoothing the surprise from their faces.

  “I see we’re expected,” Xhalph noted.

  Sarya looked at the nearer of the guards. “You, there—tell your master that Lady Senda and Lord Alphon are here, and desire a few words with him.”

  She went over to the table and poured herself a goblet of wine, first taking a moment to work a minor spell to reveal any poisons that might be waiting for her.

  The Red Plume muttered a word of assent, and ducked through the door leading into the tower proper. He returned a few minutes later with a short, burly human warrior in fine court clothes. The fellow dressed like a dandy, but his eyes glittered coldly within deep, dark sockets.

  “Lady Senda,” he said, bowing obsequiously. “I am Hardil Gearas, High Warden of the First Lord’s Tower. If you’ll follow me, I will lead you to Lord Maalthiir.”

  “Of course,” Sarya purred.

  The high warden bowed, and led her into the tower. They proceeded through sparsely furnished hallways of polished stone, eventually reaching a conservatory of modest size that seemed like it had seen little use. Though the harps and recorders in their fine glass cases showed not a hint of dust on them, the whole chamber seemed too carefully arranged for actual recitals. Besides, Sarya doubted that Maalthiir was much given to music, let alone practicing or performing himself.

  She composed herself for a lengthy wait, but Maalthiir swept into the room almost on her heels, his four pallid swordsmen a pace behind him, and another pair of Red Plumes following. The first lord was dressed in a scarlet coat emblazoned with a Draconic emblem, and he carried his dark iron dragon claw scepter in his hand. He paused in the doorway to study Sarya, and something less than humor creased his stern features.

  “Lady Sarya,” he said. “To what do I owe this unexpected call?”

  “Lord Maalthiir.” Sarya kept her voice neutral, and did not lower her gaze an inch from Maalthiir’s dark eyes. “I am concerned by the progress of our campaign in Cormanthor, and I hoped you might be able to reassure me.”

  “I am widely regarded as the very font of optimism,” Maalthiir rasped. “What specifically concerns you, Lady Sarya?”

  “Evermeet’s army has marched west a hundred miles in the last three days, in order to meet Fzoul’s Zhentarim army descending on Shadowdale,” Xhalph answered. “We have dispatched several messengers instructing you to bring the Red Plume army north of Mistledale westward, so that you and Fzoul might combine and effect the destruction of the elven army. Yet Hillsfar’s army has not yet moved.”

  Maalthiir’s eyes flashed, but he kept his temper in check. “Of course. I have not ordered them to march.”

  Xhalph squared his shoulders, a low growl rumbling deep in his throat, but Sarya set a hand on his arm and silenced him. She folded her arms and paced across the room, finding the space confining and small.

  “This is an excellent opportunity to destroy the elven army, Maalthiir,” she said. “Your Sembian friends have led Seiveril Miritar to leave a good quarter of his strength sitting in Mistledale. Between your Red Plumes, the Zhentilar, and my own warriors, we can crush Miritar. However, if you do not move, you will expose Fzoul to defeat in detail.”

  “Lady Sarya,” Maalthiir said, “that is exactly what I intend. It would suit my purposes very well indeed if Evermeet and Zhentil Keep were to maul each other in Shadowdale. Therefore I see no reason to send help to Fzoul Chembryl.”

  “I do not care about your petty little spats with Fzoul!” Sarya hissed. “I will not allow your machinations to upset my opportunity to destroy Miritar. Betray Fzoul later if you like, but today I need your army in Shadowdale, and you will not delay an hour longer.”

  Maalthiir measured Sarya for a long moment, making no reply. His coterie of dead-eyed swordsmen stood unmoving at his side.

  “I am not your servant, Sarya,” he said. “In fact, I see no reason to continue our association. Should Evermeet and Zhentil Keep fight to exhaustion in Shadowdale, my Red Plumes and Duncastle’s Sembians will be the only powers left in the Dales. I see no reason to shar
e that prize with a hellspawned harpy such as yourself.”

  “You treacherous dog,” Sarya snarled. “You have no idea of the might I have gathered at Myth Drannor. I will destroy you for your perfidy!”

  “You would be better advised to save your strength for Evermeet’s army,” Hardil Gearas sneered.

  “If you will not take the field against Evermeet, then I will,” Sarya promised. “I will crush Miritar with my own power, Maalthiir, and I will use Fzoul Chembryl to destroy you!”

  She snapped out the words of a teleportation spell, reaching out to take Xhalph’s arm. But to her astonishment, nothing happened; the spell simply failed, leaving her standing in the middle of Maalthiir’s conservatory.

  “The chamber is warded against teleportation,” Maalthiir observed. He smiled, a hard and cheerless expression that did not touch his eyes. “I have no idea whether you can even begin to make good on your threats, Sarya, but as I have said before, I take few chances. Prudence would dictate that I not allow you to leave this room alive.”

  With a curt gesture of his dragon-clawed scepter, Maalthiir vanished from sight, and the swordsmen swept out their blades as one. Sarya bared her fangs and crooked her hands to cast a spell—but an instant later she was battered by a whole array of deadly magic, as Maalthiir suddenly reappeared, surrounded in a shimmering spell-shield. A scintillating blast of vibrant colors embraced her in magical destruction, sending sheets of crimson fire racing over her body, while at the same time a sinister black ray struck her over the heart like a spear of ice, draining life and power from her, and a dancing sword of emerald green energy appeared above her head and slashed at her with dizzying speed. Xhalph was struck by a yellow ray that sent crackling yellow lightning racing over his body, charring and stabbing him.

  He froze time to cast all those spells! Sarya realized. The sudden assault filled her with anger beyond measure. The fires burning on her skin troubled her not at all. She was the daughter of a balor lord, and no flame could harm her, magical or otherwise. But the other spells were dangerous.

  With a savage snarl, Sarya conjured an orb of hell-tainted fire and detonated it in her hands, scouring the whole room with the sinister flames. The cabinets exploded in shards of hot glass, and the Red Plumes were virtually incinerated before they even took a step. But Hardil Gearas threw himself into a corner and survived, and Maalthiir’s swordsmen, while scorched badly, did not even break stride or show the slightest reaction to the clinging hellfire that burned on them. Maalthiir himself stood unharmed, protected by his spell-shields.

  “You will have to do better than that, Sarya,” he called.

  Xhalph abandoned his magical guise with a roar of rage, instantly gaining two full feet in height as his scarlet-scaled form appeared. He leaped straight for Maalthiir, sweeping his swords out in one quick motion, but two of the pale swordsmen interposed themselves with uncanny swiftness. The daemonfey lord tried to simply bull his way through the unearthly guards, but their sword points darted and stabbed, drawing blood at thigh, hip, and shoulder before Xhalph even began his first parry. The daemonfey swordsman whipped around to confront one of the pair and drove four swords into the fellow at once, ripping the blades free with a shout of bloodlust—but nothing except strange black mist came from the wounds, and despite being almost ripped apart, the pale swordsman made no sound. He only staggered a bit with the force of the blows, and came on again, moving a little slower and more awkwardly as slashed tendons and rent muscle failed him.

  Sarya found the other two swordsmen closing on her, while the blazing blade of green energy slashed and darted at her face. She quickly backstepped and managed to dispel the emerald sword before it did more than give her a couple of shallow cuts, but while she did that, Maalthiir intoned another spell, hurling a deadly blast of scathing cold at her. The thin white beam grazed her left arm and turned a solid foot of her forearm white and dead. Sarya screeched in pain, and nearly died on the sword point of the first of Maalthiir’s strange guardsmen to reach her.

  Maalthiir cannot be beaten here and now, she realized. The First Lord’s Tower was the heart of his domain, and he had prepared for a fight, while she had not. As much as she longed to rip the human dog to pieces with her own talons, she risked destruction with every moment she remained.

  “Xhalph!” she shouted. “The window!”

  Xhalph wheeled away from his antagonists at once, and hurled his heavy form at the row of narrow windows along the wall. They were not large enough to permit him to pass, but Xhalph’s strength was immense, and he was caught up in the fullness of his wrath; nothing could stand in his way. Lowering his shoulder, he battered the lintel with such force that he sent a shower of masonry out of the tower’s side and burst through into clear air.

  Sarya darted after her son, abandoning her human appearance in midstep. Swords slashed and hissed through the air only a step behind her, and Maalthiir’s last spell—a great, golden hand of magical energy that tried to snatch her out of the air—faltered and broke against the power of her demonic heritage, fizzling into nothingness. She spread her dark wings wide and soared away from the tower.

  “I will tear him to pieces with my naked claws!” Xhalph bellowed, hovering in the air. “I will feed his entrails to rutterkin while he watches!”

  “Yes, but not today,” Sarya snapped.

  She caught hold of Xhalph’s hand and barked out another teleport spell. In the space of an icy instant, they hovered in the air above the green vastness of Cormanthor, with Hillsfar’s spires and towers dimly visible in the warm haze far to the north and east. Sarya glared at the distant city, her eyes glowing red with pure hate.

  “I should have known better than to try to find a use for stinking humans,” she muttered. “Maalthiir thinks he is strong enough to defy me? He will learn otherwise. I will teach the humans to fear the wrath of House Dlardrageth!”

  As he had promised, Nesterin Deirr led Araevin and his companions toward his home. They walked over silver-grassed hilltops beneath the open, starry sky, leading the star elf’s mount and Donnor’s packhorse. As they walked, Nesterin questioned them about their presence in Sildëyuir and their travels in the realm—though he was fairly courteous and indirect about it, so much so that Araevin doubted whether any of his companions other than Ilsevele noticed that they were being skillfully interrogated as they walked.

  Araevin decided to turn the tables on their host after Nesterin succeeded in drawing out of Maresa a good account of their meeting with the Simbul’s apprentice and their journey through the Yuirwood. As the company fell silent for a moment, he asked, “What were those monsters you were fleeing from, Nesterin? We saw several others like them in the forest.”

  “They are the nilshai, and as you have seen, they are formidable sorcerers. They haunt the lonelier stretches of our forests.” The handsome star elf glanced toward the dim line of trees, a dark tide washing against the hills by starlight, miles behind them. “It does not surprise me that you met them on your way here. They have been trying to poison our realm for many years now, loosing monsters in our forests and pulling the outlying reaches of Sildëyuir into their own sinister realm.”

  “Where do they come from? What do they want with you?” Ilsevele asked.

  Nesterin shook his head. “We do not know. Some of our sages say that the nilshai are creatures of the Ethereal Plane, the spectral reality that infuses all the rest of existence. But Sildëyuir was disjoined from the Ethereal when our mages created this domain long ago. I cannot fathom why they would go to such lengths to bore gates into this realm, when the daylight world that you all come from is far more accessible to them.”

  “These things are even closer to our world than they are to yours?” Maresa asked. She shook her head. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “What business did you have in the forest we passed through?” Ilsevele asked Nesterin. “It seemed to be wild and desolate. You are the first person we’ve seen since crossing over from Aglar
ond.”

  The star elf was slow to answer. Araevin glanced over his shoulder at Nesterin, who was leading his horse as he walked alongside the rest of the company. The mage wondered for a moment whether Nesterin intended to keep his errand a secret, but it seemed that the star elf was simply organizing his thoughts.

  “I had ridden out to the seat of House Aerilpé, where my cousin Leissera has lived for many years,” Nesterin began. “It is a strong tower far to the south, overlooking the Shimmersea that marks the bounds of our kingdom in that direction. The nilshai have always been strong in that region, and their taint has filled vast tracts of the forest there with strange and dangerous creatures—things like plants or great funguses, but alive and hungry, and monsters to suit.

  “I followed a road I thought to be safe to Aerilpé, but a few miles from the tower I found that the nilshai had been busy since last I passed that way. The forests were choked with creeping, groping tendrils and pallid, eyeless beasts that hunted in the shadows. And the very realm itself seemed to be, well … fraying. Sluggish streams or rivers of bright gray dust sliced through the landscape, and as I struggled to find my way through to Tower Aerilpé, the damnable stuff would close in behind me, trying to surround and trap me.

  “In any event, I managed to find my way through to Aerilpé, but I found the tower utterly abandoned. Everything seemed as it should be—furnishings stood where last they had been used, clothes still filled the chests and drawers, food still lay almost fresh in the kitchens—but there was not a sign of another living soul. I lingered no more than an hour in that place, because it was simply so unnerving to be alone amid such silence, then I set out at once for home.

  “I decided to try a different road on my return—the path that led past the old gate ring two days’ walk behind you. The nilshai caught my trail, though, and they pursued me closely for the better part of a day.” Nesterin glanced over at Ilsevele, and shrugged. “So there is my tale, Lady Ilsevele. A great House of our people has vanished, the distant reaches of my world seem to be coming undone, and I cannot explain why or how.”