by James Wyatt
Kri extended his hand to the eladrin as well. “I’m Kri Redshal,” he said.
Immeral shook Kri’s hand but never shifted his attention from Albanon. “In Celduilon?” he asked. Celduilon was the eladrin city closest to the other side of the Moon Door, and the most common destination for travelers from Moonstair. A longer journey through the Feywild was not something most mortals undertook lightly.
“No,” Albanon said, glancing at Kri. The priest’s frown was barely noticeable, but Albanon got the message. He didn’t trust Immeral’s curiosity. He fingered his wine glass, trying to decide how to deflect the eladrin’s questions. “Our business …”
“Our business is nothing anyone else would find interesting in the least,” Kri interjected, smiling broadly and shifting his chair closer to Immeral’s line of sight. “But what of you, my friend? No doubt you’re returning home to Celduilon.”
Albanon saw a look of annoyance flit across Immeral’s face, but the eladrin wrenched his mouth into a polite smile as he turned to Kri. “My home is not within the city, but yes. My lord’s business has kept me in Moonstair for entirely too long, and I am eager to rest in my own chambers tonight, Sehanine permit it.”
Albanon stared into the overcast sky again, grateful to Kri for distracting Immeral’s attention. He’d rarely spoken to another eladrin since leaving years ago, and he found the subject of his Feywild home distinctly uncomfortable. Kri led Immeral through a conversational labyrinth, to a range of topics safely distant from their business in the Feywild, and Albanon lost himself in the play of moonlight filtering through the shifting blanket of thick clouds.
He was dimly aware of the two men discussing the history of Moonstair when he realized what he was seeing. “The clouds are parting!” he blurted, interrupting Kri’s discourse on some ancient troll kingdom in the region. The moonlight was growing brighter, and as he glanced at the river he saw colored lights beginning to shift and swirl in the air over the rocky island that held the Moon Door. “The door is opening!”
His words sparked a bustle of excited activity on the porch and inside the inn as travelers gathered their belongings, settled their accounts, and said their farewells. Albanon lifted his pack to his shoulder, dislodging Splendid, who took to the air in a flurry of wings before settling back on top of his pack. He swallowed the last of his wine and hurried after Kri to reach the portal before it closed once more.
“You’re determined to go through with this, then?” Splendid said in his ear.
“Nothing has changed, Splendid. Moorin would have wanted me to do this.”
“Moorin was content to stay safe in his tower and teach you there. I still don’t understand how you can let it lie vacant like this. That tower should be yours.”
“If it’s mine, I can choose what to do with it. I’ll go back to it eventually. You’re free to wait for me there.”
“And eat what? The rats that are certainly crawling all over the place now?”
Albanon smiled. “Well, someone has to get rid of them.”
“I am not a mouser!”
“Oh, well, I’m sure you’re good for something.”
Splendid hissed and fell silent on his pack, sulking.
A gravel pathway led from the inn’s porch around the small keep that served as the mayor’s home and out to the series of rocky islets that gave the town of Moonstair its name. As they reached the rushing water of the river, the face of the moon appeared full and bright in the sky, and the aurora over the river blossomed into a riotous explosion of color.
Albanon helped Kri jump from one islet to the next until they reached the rocky slope of the last island. A well-worn path took them to a tiny plateau encircled by a ring of moss and dotted with flowers that retained their spring bloom despite the autumn chill. Silver and blue light danced in sheets and ribbons through the air above the faerie ring like a cascade of moonlight spilling from the sky. Where the light touched the ground at the center of the ring, it formed the faint outline of a doorway, the Moon Door.
Immeral rejoined them, now mounted on a dusky gray horse with dry brambles woven into its mane. “Well, Albanon,” he said, “perhaps I’ll see you on the other side and we can continue the conversation we never quite began.” He reached down to shake Albanon’s hand, then turned with a smile to Kri. “And Kri Redshal, your skill at diversion and misdirection is worthy of the fey. I salute you.” He clenched a fist over his heart, nodded to the old priest, and guided his horse to the Moon Door. The light danced and shimmered around him as he rode into the portal. He paused in the center, looked around with a broad smile on his face, then spurred his horse and disappeared.
Albanon and Kri fell into a vague line with the handful of other travelers and shuffled toward the portal, waiting their turn to cross into the Feywild. Albanon felt a gnawing dread and thought one last time about turning back, going to find Shara and Uldane. They could use him, he suspected. Vestapalk’s demonic exarchs and their bestial minions were rampaging across the Nentir Vale, carrying havoc and destruction with them and spreading the abyssal plague. After leaving the Temple of Yellow Skulls, they had decided to split up—Shara and Uldane, with the drow they had rescued from the dragon, were looking for signs of the dragon’s new lair while Albanon and Kri ventured into the Feywild in search of something—anything—that might help them defeat the dragon when they found it. One of the founding members of the Order of Vigilance, Kri had explained, had been an eladrin noblewoman, and they sought her tower and her library in the hopes that they might find some knowledge that hadn’t been passed down through the order. Albanon worried what might happen to Shara and Uldane without his magic, though, and without Kri’s power and guidance.
Well, Shara and Uldane could take care of themselves, and he’d see them again. He had made a commitment to Kri to stay with him and learn more of his Order of Vigilance. He wasn’t going to fail in that commitment just because it meant traveling dangerously close to his family home.
Stepping into the portal was like settling into a warm bath, though the chill didn’t fade from the air. At first everything muted—the roar of the river around the rocks below, the chirping of frogs and crickets on shore, the evening bustle of the town behind him, and even Splendid’s yowl of alarm. A moment later, the world erupted into vibrant life. Frogs and night birds sang a chorus; the air was awash with autumn scents; the moonlight painted the flowers in iridescent blue, silver, and violet; and the rushing of the river became a complex symphony. The pseudodragon leaped from Albanon’s pack and circled him in the air, surprised and excited by the new experience.
Albanon closed his eyes and took a deep breath, savoring the bouquet of pollen, leaves, moss, earth, and mushrooms. A sudden memory struck him. As a child, he’d been tumbling down a hill, laughing, with a giggling girl beside him. They landed tangled at the bottom of the hill, her hair tickling his nose and the pungent aroma of broken mushrooms surrounding them. He smiled as he cast about in his memory, trying to remember the girl’s name. Instead, Tempest’s face came to his mind.
“Come along, lad, you’re blocking the doorway.” Kri’s rough hand gripped his shoulder and drew him out of the dancing lights. “Is it good to be home?”
Albanon drew in another deep breath as he walked. “I wouldn’t call it home any more, but I never realized how much I missed it. Everything is so different, so much more alive.”
“It suits you,” Kri said. “You almost look like you’re glowing.”
Albanon laughed. “It’s possible. I can feel the magic everywhere around me, fueling my own power.” Drawing energy from the land and air around him, he casually tossed a burst of fire into the sky. “It’s so easy here.”
“Some say it’s an advantage to study magic in the mortal world,” Kri said, “because it’s harder to work magic there.”
Albanon nodded. “Magic comes so naturally to my people that they’re lazy about it. That’s why I wanted to study with Moorin.”
“You were
n’t satisfied with the easy route.”
“I suppose not.”
Kri clapped him on the shoulder. “And that’s why I want you with me, learning beside me. You’re not going to settle for easy answers or look for shortcuts. That’s what I need, and it’s what the Order of Vigilance needs if it’s going to survive to another generation.”
Albanon swelled with pride. Since Moorin’s death, he’d been adrift. His adventures with Shara and Uldane and the others had been important, but Kri was beginning to show him hints of a greater purpose, as well as a goal for his own growth and learning. Kri would be his mentor as Moorin had been, and would teach him the things Moorin hadn’t been able to—starting with the ways of the order of which Moorin and Kri had been the last members.
The Feywild side of the Moon Door was like a distorted reflection of the world they’d left behind. Actually, Albanon supposed it was the mortal world that was distorted—the Feywild was the world as it ought to be, flowing with magic and unspoiled by the spread of cities and farms. The landscape around them was mostly familiar, but varied in a few details. A narrow strip of grassy earth replaced the rocky isles on the fey side of the door. An ancient grove stood in Moonstair’s place at the confluence of the rivers, but faerie lights weaving among the tall trees pointed the way to the pavilion that passed for an inn on the Feywild side of the Moon Door.
“I’ve been here before,” Albanon said, the memory dawning suddenly. “Midsummer’s eve, years ago now.” For a moment he could almost hear the music filtering through the trees, the laughter of the gathered fey. He laughed and shook his head clear. “This place is beguiling.”
“We’ll stay here for the night and set out at sunrise,” Kri said. “We should be able to reach the tower by the end of the day tomorrow, if we keep up a good pace.”
“Oh, it’s closer than I thought. Where is it, exactly?”
“Southeast,” Kri said. “Beyond the Plain of Thorns. You know the area?”
The smile faded from Albanon’s face. “I do.”
“We need to petition the local lord for access to the tower.”
“Indeed.” A chill dread gripped Albanon’s chest. “We should have discussed this earlier.”
“What’s wrong? You know this lord?”
“Of course I do,” Albanon said. “He’s my father.”
CHAPTER TWO
The thick air over the Witchlight Fens gave no hint of the coming winter. Sweat trickled down Shara’s back, tickling under her armor like a lover’s playful touch, but the black flies that swarmed her head kept any longing at bay. She waved her hand uselessly through the buzzing cloud. The bite of the insects was a sharp reminder of her more vexing concerns.
“There’s something moving around by that old wall,” Uldane said, pointing ahead and to the right. Shara swatted at the bugs again and peered through the haze. She spotted the wall on a low rise, part of some ancient ruin long ago claimed by the expanding swamp, but she couldn’t make out whatever Uldane had seen.
“I don’t know how you two can see anything in all this light,” Quarhaun muttered. The drow had stayed with them since they left the Temple of Yellow Skulls, but the weeks he’d spent on the surface world had done little to ease the discomfort he felt being out of the dark and confined tunnels of the Underdark.
Shara sighed. “I can’t see it, Uldane. Is it a demon?”
“Is it the dragon?” Quarhaun asked.
“It wasn’t big enough to be Vestapalk,” the halfling said. “And I lost track of it, but I think it might have been one of his minions.”
“Then let’s go kill it,” Shara said. “Sooner or later, these things will lead us to Vestapalk.”
Quarhaun spat. “Are you sure? The more we hunt the dragon’s minions, the farther we range around this valley. We don’t seem to be getting any closer to our prey—quite the contrary, in fact. We’re southeast of the temple now, and the dragon flew to the west.”
“But the demons were following the dragon,” Shara said. “Anywhere we find them, we could find Vestapalk.”
“And besides,” Uldane said, “it’s still worth doing. We’ve killed a lot of these demons, and they were causing harm to a lot of people. We’re making a difference.”
“But I’ve yet to repay the dragon for the injuries he dealt me,” Quarhaun said.
Shara gripped her greatsword and clenched her jaw. The drow didn’t seem to care much about the spread of the abyssal plague, but his hatred for the dragon was the one thing that the drow had in common with her, the reason that Quarhaun had helped her and Uldane hunt the demons that were spreading around the Nentir Vale. The dragon had killed her father and her lover, and Shara had already killed him once in exchange, or at least she thought she had. Perhaps it was appropriate that she’d have a chance to take the dragon’s life again, payment for the second companion he’d taken from her.
Her eyes burned. Slowly, over the past months, she had begun to feel alive again, secure in the belief that Vestapalk was dead. She had started to feel something other than pain and grief over Jarren’s death; she had been able, from time to time, to think of him and smile. Then the dragon reappeared, back from death and infused with the same crimson substance, like liquid crystal, that marked the demons they’d been fighting. All her pain and rage had returned, and all she knew was that she needed to kill the dragon again.
“We’ll find him,” she said. “He’s the source of these demons. If they’re coming from him, we’ll find him where they are most abundant.”
“Like a lava flow,” Quarhaun said. “The source of the eruption is where the lava is thickest.”
“Exactly.”
The drow scowled and shifted his grip on his own sword. “I suppose I am willing to kill more minions if it will lead me to their master.”
“Is that really all you care about?” Uldane said, looking up at the drow with wide-eyed curiosity rather than judgment.
Quarhaun crouched beside Uldane and put a hand on the halfling’s shoulder. “Care?” He snorted. “Where I come from, to care about something is to watch it die, slowly and in great pain, for no other reason than because you cared about it.”
Uldane scowled, knocked the drow’s hand from his shoulder, and stepped back. “I’m not a child,” he said. “And I saw this dragon kill three of my dearest friends in the world. I hate him, too, but I’m not going to let my hatred and pain turn me into a monster.”
Quarhaun laughed and straightened up. “Give it time. Let it fester long enough, and before you know it you will be a grim, merciless killer like me.” He clapped Shara’s shoulder. “And like Shara.”
Shara looked at him in surprise. His pale, pupilless eyes showed genuine approval. “I’m not sure whether to be flattered or disgusted,” she said. But it had been a long time since any man looked at her that way, and when he lifted his hand from her shoulder she felt its absence.
Quarhaun’s eyes met hers. “You know I mean it as a com—”
“Quiet!” Uldane whispered. “There’s someth—”
A horrible shriek split the air and something slammed into Shara, knocking her to the ground. Claws scrabbled against her armor and a tooth-filled maw lunged at her throat before Quarhaun hacked at the creature and hurled it off her. Shara scrambled to her feet and saw a creature the size and rough shape of a panther snarling up at her, blood running from a gash across its face. Its body was long and sinuous, as much worm or snake as big cat, tapering only slightly at the wide, flat head. Familiar red crystals grew organically from its joints and crusted around its eyes and gaping mouth.
The demon shrieked again and leaped at Shara, but this time she was ready for it. Gripping her sword tightly in both hands, she slammed it into the beast’s flank, knocking it out of the air and opening a gaping wound in its side, splintered ribs jutting out from the gash. Its shriek turned into a howl of pain, and it landed hard on the ground. Shara shifted her grip and brought the blade around to take off the thing’s head, but
it rolled to its feet and her sword bit into the soft earth instead.
The demon’s roll brought it within reach of Quarhaun’s eldritch blade, a jagged greatsword of some infernal metal as black as night. The blade thrummed with power as Quarhaun swung it at the creature’s neck, and Uldane darted in at the same moment, sinking his razor-sharp dagger into its flank. The demon roared and crouched low, its eyes darting around in search of an escape.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Shara growled, cutting a gash across the demon’s shoulder.
In answer, the demon sprang toward Uldane. Shara and Quarhaun both swung their blades as its attention turned away from them, and the two weapons clattered together instead of striking true. The demon sailed over Uldane’s head, but the fearless halfling thrust his dagger up to cut another gash in its belly as it went over. It landed with a grunt of pain but didn’t slow down, charging at full speed toward the ruined wall.
Shara cursed as she shook her sword free from Quarhaun’s blade. “After it!” she yelled, already starting her run.
She heard Uldane fall in behind her, but Quarhaun wasn’t moving. She shot a glance over her shoulder without breaking stride.
“It’s a trap,” the drow called after her. “There’s bound to be more.”
“So we kill them all,” Shara snarled back. She heard the drow sigh, then his footsteps joined hers, quickly closing her lead.
Quarhaun laughed as he passed her, less burdened by his light mail armor than she was in her heavy scale. Shara grinned in acceptance of his challenge and pushed herself harder, her breath coming faster as her legs carried her up the low rise behind the drow. The exertion was exhilarating, particularly after the thrill and terror of the brief battle. For all her effort, though, Shara fell behind as Quarhaun was the first to reach the wall.
