Farthest Reach lm-2 Page 29

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  26 Kythorn, the Year of Lightning Storms

  Araevin and his comrades set out from the citadel of House Deirr on the day following Araevin’s conversation with Lord Tessaernil. The elflord provided them with mounts for their journey; the horses of Sildeyuir were lightly built and graceful, with spirited manners. Donnor Kerth looked on their destriers with some suspicion, not entirely sure that the horses could keep up a good speed on a long ride, but the star elf mounts proved quick and enduring. They soon showed that they could outpace the heavily armored Dawnmaster, even if they were several hands shorter than the big roan Kerth had brought with him.

  Nesterin rode at their head, leading the way along dim, shadowy roads of moss-grown gray stone that wound through countless miles of dusky forest. Araevin and Ilsevele rode behind the star elf, followed by Maresa and Kerth. Jorin Kell Harthan brought up the rear of the party, keeping a careful eye on the shadows behind them as they rode on. Tessaernil had warned them that no part of Sildeyuir outside the walls of an elven citadel was truly safe, and the Yuir ranger had taken the warning to heart.

  They went on for several days, as near as Araevin could tell, halting to rest in the hours when the gloaming was at its deepest and the stars shone brightly in the velvet sky, then rising as the pearly gray of the lighter hours began to seep back up into the sky. From time to time they crossed over rushing streams on bridges of pale stone or came to silent crossroads in the forests, places where dim roads led off into the shadows beneath the silver trees. They even passed by several lonely citadels or towers, isolated keeps whose gleaming battlements looked out over the forest from rugged hilltops or slumbered in broad, grassy vales. Some of the towers glimmered with lanternlight and song, but others were dark and still, long abandoned.

  As they rode past another of the empty towers, Maresa gazed up at the shadowed tower and shuddered. “Is this whole realm desolate?” she asked aloud. “We’ve gone sixty miles or more from Tower Deirr, and we haven’t met a single person on the road. We’ve passed more empty keeps than occupied ones!”

  Nesterin glanced back at Maresa and shrugged. “Most of the realm is like this,” he said. “My people built true cities long ago, but our numbers have been dwindling for centuries. With the whole plane to ourselves, we never saw a need to crowd together into narrow lands and teeming towns. But I fear that the distances between our keeps and towers and towns are growing longer with each year.”

  “Do any towns or keeps lie ahead of us?” Ilsevele asked.

  The star elf shook his head. “Our road doesn’t take us near any towns,” he said. “We are heading out toward the edge of the realm. In fact, I know of only one more keep on this road before we reach the place where Mooncrescent Tower once stood.”

  As it turned out, the keep that Nesterin remembered was also abandoned, with no sign of its People. Its walls were pitted and charred, as if by acid.

  “The nilshai,” the star elf said bitterly as they studied the ruins. “They must have come here, too.”

  “You are under attack, Nesterin,” said Donnor. “Your foes are destroying you one by one. You must gather your strength, and soon, or you will be lost.”

  “We are not as warlike as you humans,” Nesterin protested. “Sildeyuir has never had need of an army. We are the only realm on this plane!”

  “War has come to Sildeyuir, whether you are ready for it or not,” Ilsevele said.

  Nesterin bowed his head, and did not answer.

  They managed another day and a half of riding before they came to the first of the gray mist rivers. The road dropped into a dark, shallow dell, and in the bottom of the small hollow a silvery mist or dust flowed sluggishly across the road like a low fog. At first glance the stuff seemed innocuous, but as they drew closer, the horses stamped nervously and refused to set foot in it.

  “Is this the mist you encountered when you rode to Aerilpe?” Ilsevele asked Nesterin.

  The star elf frowned. “Yes, it is. But I did not expect to meet it so soon. We’re many miles from Mooncrescent yet.” He glanced around the shining forest, his eyes dark and troubled. “Aillesel Seldarie! What is becoming of my homeland?”

  “It’s just a little mist,” Maresa snorted. “Just ride on through, and have done with it!”

  “The horses don’t like it at all,” Ilsevele said. “And now that I’m here, I find that I don’t like it either. Ride on through if you like, but I think we should look for a way around it if we can.”

  The genasi tapped her heels to her mount’s flanks, and urged the animal forward until the mist lapped over the horse’s hooves, and strange tendrils or streamers of the silvery stuff seemed to wind around its legs. The horse began to shy in fright, its ears flat along its head, its eyes wide and rolling. Maresa struggled with the animal, but then she gasped and drew away, backing the horse quickly away.

  “The mist tried to grab me!” she exclaimed. “I didn’t see anything,” rumbled Donnor. “Are you sure?”

  “I felt it,” Maresa insisted. “It’s thick as molasses in there. And it was trying to pull me in deeper.” She shuddered, her white hair streaming from her face as if she stood in a strong wind. “Have you ever stood in a high place and felt as if you might fall? As if you were about to slip over, but you didn’t really want to stop yourself? It’s something like that.”

  Nesterin nodded in agreement. “That’s how I recall it. I discovered that I didn’t dare cross more than a few feet of the mist, not even when the nilshai were on my heels.”

  Ilsevele looked over to Araevin. “What is this, Araevin? Do you have any idea?”

  The wizard studied the weird, silver-gray mist, streaming slowly through the hollow’s floor.

  “I am not sure,” he said. “One moment…”

  He murmured the words of a seeing spell and studied his surroundings, searching for signs of magic. His companions all glowed brightly, armed as they were with various enchanted weapons or protective spells. Araevin ignored them and bent his attention to the sluggish silver-gray river of dust-or mist or smoke-that flowed across their path. Slowly he realized that the whole forest around him, and the sky overhead, was a vault of deep and powerful magic, a great silver artifice of staggering size.

  High magic, he thought. Of course! Tessaernil said as much. The plane of Sildeyuir was called into being by high magic.

  He couldn’t even begin to imagine the difficulty and precision of the high magic ritual that had called a whole world into being, but the evidence was before his eyes. He tore his gaze from the faint silver vault of flowing magic that filled the sky and shaped the ground, and looked again at the gray stream of dust.

  It was a crawling black gate, a ghostly portal that flickered and shifted beneath the mist. And it was growing. Whatever it touched was consumed, taken out of Sildeyuir to some other place. When the mist dissipated, its contents might return-or they might not. Like a great boring worm, the mist was chewing its way through the homeland of the star elves, devouring the magic and the very existence of the plane itself.

  “Corellon’s sword,” Araevin whispered.

  “Well, what do you see?” Maresa asked.

  “You did well to turn away from the mist,” Araevin answered. “It’s a portal to another dimension, and if I am any judge of such things, not a dimension you would want to visit. We will have to avoid any such rivers we come across.”

  “That will become more and more difficult the farther we venture from Sildeyuir’s heart,” Nesterin warned. “In the farthest reaches of the realm, there is nothing but this cursed mist.”

  They turned their horses from the road and climbed up the side of the dell, simply circumventing the silver-gray pool roiling across the road. But as they continued on their way, they began to meet with more and more of the glimmering streams. Sometimes long tongues or arms of the mist seemed to shadow their path, twisting through the trees and glades of the forest beside the road. Other times pools or streams blocked t
heir path, forcing them to detour away from the road and feel their way forward through the forest. The woodland fell ominously silent, with not a hint of birdsong or animal movement. Araevin realized that most of the forest creatures had long since abandoned the mist-haunted districts of the forest, seeking more wholesome environs.

  At the end of Sildeyuir’s dim day, they made their camp atop a small knoll in the forest. Araevin had observed that the silver mist tended to cling to low-lying areas, and it seemed prudent to seek a camp in some high place so that they would not be overcome while they rested. When they rose in the morning and studied their surroundings, they found that the knoll afforded a good view of the country around them.

  A great gulf of silver-gray mist lay only a few miles away, carving its way through the forested hillsides like a fog-shrouded arm of the sea. Other inlets and channels glinted in the bright distance ahead and on all sides, as if they were approaching a sea coast of sorts.

  “It’s closing in behind us,” Jorin murmured, looking back the way they had come. “I don’t know if we could retrace our steps.”

  Araevin followed the Yuir ranger’s gaze, and saw that large parts of the road they had passed along in their travel of the day before seemed to have been swallowed by the pearly streaks. He steeled himself and turned back toward the land ahead.

  “We will find a way through,” he told Jorin. “I know some spells that may help.”

  They broke camp quickly, unwilling to risk being stranded on the hilltop, and continued toward the edge of the realm. During the last hour of their ride great arms of silver-gray nothingness came to surround them on either side, so that it seemed that they were riding along a low, treacherous peninsula jutting out into a misty sea. Small patches and pools of mist began to appear in the road and in the woods to either side, slowly growing larger and more frequent as they pressed on, until they met and merged together. Finally they came to a place where they simply could go no farther. Ahead of them lay nothing but endless silver-gray mist, cold and perfect.

  They halted and stood still for a time, looking out over nothingness. Finally Araevin shook himself and looked over to Nesterin.

  “How much farther to Mooncrescent?” he asked.

  The star elf looked around, studying those landmarks that hadn’t been swallowed yet. “Five miles, I think. But there’s no other way through. It’s gone.”

  Araevin stared at the mist, and remembered the pure shining fountain he had seen in his vision many days and long miles before. The Nightstar was cold and hard in his chest, a dull aching weight that seemed to transfix his heart. He could almost hear Saelethil’s mocking laughter, as this strangest of all obstacles checked his path toward high magic and the knowledge he needed to contest Sarya Dlardrageth’s power in Myth Drannor.

  I am not about to let Saelethil Dlardrageth laugh at me, he told himself.

  Without glancing at his companions, he dismounted from his horse and began to undo the animal’s saddle belt.

  “Araevin? What are you doing?” Ilsevele asked.

  “The horses are terrified of the mist,” he said. “We can’t take them in there.”

  “To the Nine Hells with the horses!” Maresa snapped. “We can’t take us in there!”

  “Nevertheless,” Araevin said, “I am going forward. I ask no one else to come with me.”

  The rest of the company stared at him for a long moment, and Ilsevele slid wordlessly from her saddle and began to remove the harness from her own horse. A moment later Donnor Kerth and Jorin followed suit, and Nesterin as well. Finally Maresa swore and swung herself down from the horse.

  “You’re all mad,” she snapped. “This is the worst idea I’ve heard in a long time!”

  “I know,” Araevin said. He tossed the saddle into the grass at the side of the road, and patted his horse’s neck. “But it’s the only one I have right now.”

  The First Lord’s Tower gleamed above the thin blanket of mist, smoke, and lanternlight that pooled in Hillsfar’s streets. Despite the late hour, the city was not entirely asleep. The distant sounds of raucous shouts and bawdy singing drifted from those taphouses that were still open, apprentices worked to keep ovens and kilns stoked in workshops that needed their fires throughout the night, and folk were already rising to go to bakeries and smokehouses and begin their work for the morning. Squads of Red Plume guards patrolled the streets and kept watch from the battlements of Maalthiir’s keep.

  Sarya Dlardrageth looked over the rooftops of the human city and bared her fangs in a malice-filled smile. She’d spent days preparing her counterstroke to Maalthiir’s treachery. Through her mastery of Myth Drannor’s mythal she had summoned hundreds of yugoloths and demons to her banner. She commanded the allegiance of scores upon scores of Malkizid’s devils, outcasts from the Nine Hells who followed the Branded King. Gathered around her was a small horde of infernal monsters: demons and devils stronger than ogres, and invulnerable to anything other than magic spells or enchanted weapons. Some were armed with fearsome claws, fangs, and stingers, others with brazen swords and cruel axes forged in the fires of the pit, and each of them was capable of summoning scathing blasts of hellfire, blinding, choking, or stunning their foes with words of evil power, or calling on even more terrible supernatural powers. And close beside her were three hundred of her most dangerous fey’ri warriors, skilled sorcerers and swordsmen who could fight with blade or spell with equal adeptness.

  Maalthiir, the First Lord of Hillsfar, was about to wake to a city far less peaceful and secure than he’d imagined.

  “Slay every soul you find in the First Lord’s Tower,” Sarya called to her fiendish horde. “Then tear it down and set the city afire. Now fly, my warriors! Fly!”

  With a thunderous beat, Sarya’s fey’ri warband leaped into the air as one. Those demons and yugoloths that could fly followed her fey’ri warriors, while the others simply teleported themselves directly to the battlements of Maalthiir’s citadel. With the swiftness of a stooping dragon Sarya’s winged warriors arrowed over the stout city walls, streaking toward the high tower gleaming in the moonlight.

  Fireballs and gouts of hellish flame began to burst down in the city itself, and screams rose in the night as people awoke to a nightmare of fire and claws. Despite her orders, more than a few of her summoned demons had chosen to simply attack the sleeping city. Sarya scowled, but she didn’t try to recall the fiends. Random slaughter and chaos in the streets would serve to confuse Hillsfar’s defenders as to the true nature of the attack.

  She and her winged warband reached the First Lord’s Tower, and Sarya alighted on the high terrace that Maalthiir had formerly set aside for use in teleporting to his keep. An ironclad door sealed the tower interior from the open battlements. Sarya gestured to a nycaloth hovering nearby.

  “Through there!” she commanded.

  “Yes, my queen!” the monster hissed.

  It dropped down in front of the iron door and clenched its great talons in the iron plate. With a mighty effort, the hulking creature wrenched the door from its pintle and hurled it across the battlements, sending it crashing to the street. Sarya watched the heavy door shatter the stone steps at the tower’s gate.

  Down below the battlements a large band of fey’ri stormed Maalthiir’s front gate, leaving a dozen Red Plumes dead on the steps, hacked down by daemonfey swords or charred by daemonfey spells. More bands of fey’ri and demons assaulted other entrances to the tower, or simply teleported inside.

  The nycaloth ducked down and pushed its way into the tower, but a terrible flash of blue light suddenly flared in front of the creature, and a potent symbol shone brightly before it. The nycaloth screeched once and staggered back, its talons raised in front of its eyes-and it froze, motionless, its green scaly hide suddenly growing clear and translucent. In the space of an instant the monster was turned into glass.

  Sarya motioned to her fey’ri. “Get rid of that,” she snarled.

  A pair of vrocks wrestled the glass nyca
loth out of the way, and hurled the petrified creature from the battlements in the same spot where the iron door had been dropped. The nycaloth exploded into countless shards of flying glass below, but Sarya paid the creature no mind. She turned her attention to the symbol guarding Maalthiir’s tower, and she chanted the words of a powerful cancellation spell. The symbol glowed once under the force of her magic before it vanished.

  “A potent defense, Maalthiir, but not sufficient to repel my attack,” Sarya gloated.

  She stepped aside, and her demons and hellspawned warriors poured into the fortress. Great gouts of hellfire exploded in the doorway, and she heard the ring of steel on steel and screams of terror. Maalthiir doubtless had many arcane defenses within his tower, but he likely had never planned on fighting off the attack of hundreds of demons and hellspawned warriors at one stroke. Towering constructs of stone and iron animated in defense of the first lord’s sanctum. Yugoloths and demons shattered the living statues with their fearsome hellfire. Red Plume guards fought desperately to drive off the attack, only to fall by the score under fey’ri swords and demon claws.

  “Find Maalthiir! Slay him!” Sarya cried. “Leave no one alive!”

  Powerful spells and wards appeared to slay or block Sarya’s minions, but she and her most skillful sorcerers struck down Maalthiir’s defenses or simply overwhelmed them by hurling yugoloths and demons into the shrieking arcs of destruction until the spells were exhausted. Daemonfey magic shattered walls, broke open vaults, and set the tower burning with hellish red flames that leaped and spread, dancing through the First Lord’s Tower.

  For half an hour Sarya and her warriors tore Maalthiir’s burning tower apart, searching for any sign of the first lord or his elite guards. But finally Sarya grudgingly gave up on destroying Maalthiir in person. Even if he had been present at the beginning of the attack, she had no doubt that he would have fled rather than stay to defend his citadel against her attack. She watched over the destruction, delighting in the screams of terror. Maalthiir would not soon forget her visit. And better yet, Xhalph was at that very moment leading an even larger attack against the Red Plumes encamped near the Standing Stone, fifty miles to the south. She had no intention of giving her foes any more set-piece battles, not when she commanded thousands of hellspawned warriors and demons who could appear out of thin air or strike like dragons out of the night sky. Xhalph was under orders to slaughter, not fight-to rake the standards and pavilions in the heart of the Red Plume camp with hellfire and deadly spells, then withdraw with chaos in his wake.