Final Gate lm-3

by Richard Baker

  The elflord and the Sembian appraised each other. Then Selkirk swept off his hat and bowed. “Lord Miritar. I thank you for receiving me,” he said. “Before we say anything else, I must say this: I deeply apologize for the attempt on your daughter’s life while she was my guest, and I am sorry for the deaths of her guards. I would sooner have died myself than permit harm to come to guests at my table. I beg you to tell me if there is any way in which I can begin to set this right with you.”

  “Well said, Lord Selkirk,” Seiveril answered. He reached out and took the Sembian’s hand in the human fashion. “Ilsevele sent word of what happened, and she does not hold you to blame for it. Neither will I. The fault lies with the daemonfey and their assassins, not with you.”

  Selkirk held Seiveril’s eyes for a long moment, and nodded. “In that case, please accept my condolences for those who were killed. We will be more vigilant for treachery of that sort in the future.”

  “I understand.” Seiveril turned to indicate the others waiting with him. “Allow me some introductions. My daughter you know already, as well as our battle captain Starbrow. This is Lord Theremen Ulath of Deepingdale.”

  Selkirk inclined his head to the half-elf Dalesman, who regarded him with a carefully neutral expression. “I have known Lord Ulath for some time.”

  “And this is Jorildyn, the leader of our battle-mages. Vesilde Gaerth, my second, could not be here this evening. He is leading our march.”

  Selkirk nodded to each of the elves in turn, and introduced his own companions. “My Silver Ravens,” he said with pride. “Like me, they believe that Sembia should be something more than a counting house. Perhaps someday we’ll make it so.”

  Seiveril indicated a simple shelter that had been set up in a small grove behind the ruined house. “If you’ll follow me, Lord Selkirk, I think we have much to talk about. I am afraid we did not bring much with us, but we have a little food and drink if you would like refreshment.”

  “I am grateful.”

  Selkirk, Seiveril, Ilsevele, Theremen, and Fflar adjourned to the shelter. It was simply an open-sided tent arranged over the simplest of furnishings-a pair of old stone benches left from the ruined manor, facing each other around a small table that held plates of bread and sliced fruit along with ewers of cold water and wine. Fflar found that he was more tired than he had thought, and wasted no time in helping himself to some of the food and a deep goblet of clean water. Selkirk and Ilsevele followed suit.

  After quenching his thirst, Selkirk held his goblet in his hands and looked up at the elflord. “So your army is marching east. Mine is marching north. In a day or two they’re going to meet somewhere a little south of Essembra. What happens then?”

  “I intend to turn toward Myth Drannor,” Seiveril answered. “You have returned my daughter unharmed, and I do not now believe that the attack against her in the Sharburg was any fault of yours. As Ilsevele has told you, I have no wish to fight your army. Sarya Dlardrageth is my foe.”

  “As it so happens, I intend to march on Myth Drannor as well,” Selkirk said. “The events of the last few days have convinced me that the daemonfey are simply too dangerous to ignore. I am going to do my best to drive her out of Myth Drannor.”

  “It would seem wise to combine your efforts, then,” Ilsevele said.

  “So it would,” Selkirk agreed.

  Theremen Ulath cleared his throat. “I do not presume to speak for you, Lord Seiveril, but I must say this: Deepingdale will not fight alongside Sembia so long as Sembian soldiers occupy any of the Dales. Mistledale, Battledale, and Shadowdale hold the same opinion.”

  “These are your lands the daemonfey are terrorizing,” Miklos Selkirk said sharply. “You will not fight for your own countrymen?”

  “We will not fight to deliver our countrymen from one conqueror to another, Lord Selkirk.”

  Miklos Selkirk straightened up, and anger flashed in his eyes. Fflar exchanged a quick look with Ilsevele and read his own fears clearly enough in her face: Hope for an alliance against the daemonfey has come down to this. Selkirk gathered himself for a sharp retort but held back, considering his words. He studied Theremen Ulath closely, and after a long moment, he spoke. “I do not like to be compared to the daemonfey, Lord Theremen. But you should know that I will withdraw our armies from the Dales once the daemonfey are dealt with. You have my word on it.”

  Theremen frowned, weighing Selkirk’s offer. Fflar held his breath, hoping that the lord of Deepingdale would not find that the right occasion to speculate about whether Selkirk was the sort of man who would honor his word.

  Finally, Theremen asked, “Your Ruling Council will allow you to withdraw, Selkirk? They have paid well to hire the army that occupies Tasseldale and Featherdale. I must believe they will insist on a return for their investment.”

  “Some will protest,” Selkirk admitted. “But I will not lose the argument, for two reasons. First, Borstag Duncastle was leader of the faction in our Ruling Council advocating a more direct… involvement… in the Dales. As it so happens, he no longer has much to say on the subject.

  “Second, and more important, it is apparent to me that the Dales are much more valuable to us as trading partners than troublesome conquests. Sembian policy follows Sembian gold, Lord Ulath. As long as you refrain from throwing Sembian merchants out of the Dales, we’ll refrain from using our soldiers to guarantee their interests.”

  “It isn’t likely to be as simple as that,” Theremen said in a low voice.

  “I know it,” Selkirk said. “There will be quarrels, differences, difficulties… But I’d much rather deal with Lord Miritar than Sarya Dlardrageth, and Lord Miritar would much rather have me for an ally than an enemy. Keep those two truths close to hand, and we’ll manage.”

  “Does that satisfy you, Lord Ulath?” Ilsevele asked.

  The lord of Deepingdale looked to Seiveril. “Will the elves stand with us if Lord Selkirk’s countrymen fail to honor his word?”

  The Sembian lord scowled, but he kept his silence. Seiveril did not look at him. “We will guarantee the freedom of the Dales,” he told Theremen. “But I am confident that it will not come to that.”

  “It won’t,” Selkirk said. “But I must warn you that if you ask each and every Dale if they’re willing to let Sembia help them fight their war, we will spend the rest of the year talking over this table. Now, do we have an enemy in common or don’t we?”

  “Remember Mistledale,” Theremen said to Seiveril. “That must be answered too.”

  “Mistledale?” Selkirk asked.

  “Mercenaries in Sembian employ pillaged portions of the middle Dales. More than a few Dalesfolk were robbed or killed by your sellswords, Lord Selkirk,” Fflar explained. He’d seen the aftermath of the fighting during the retreat to Semberholme.

  “The Sable Wyverns of Arrabar,” Selkirk said. He stood and gazed out over the long shadows of the sunset. “I know what you are speaking of. For what it is worth, I gave no orders for the pillaging of these lands. But I can’t say that Borstag Duncastle-or his ‘advisors’-did not. I should have done more to put a stop to that.”

  “The sellswords responsible must be dismissed from your service immediately,” Theremen said. “They are murderers and thieves. Dalesfolk fighting under my banner will fall on the Sable Wyverns at the first opportunity.”

  “As I understand it, Dalesfolk have already fallen on the Chondathans, Lord Theremen,” Selkirk said. “The folk of Glen delivered a sharp defeat to the Sable Wyverns before the daemonfey unleashed their demons against us. But I will have the survivors placed under arrest. I deplore their atrocities as much as you do.”

  Seiveril glanced at the lord of Deepingdale. “Is that enough, Theremen?”

  The lord of Deepingdale grimaced, but he nodded. “You have no idea of what I will have to do to explain myself to my neighbors. But I am satisfied. I will march with you.”

  “Then I consider myself satisfied, too,” Seiveril said. He looked over to Fflar
. “Starbrow, what is the best way to attack Myth Drannor?”

  Fflar took a deep breath. He had anticipated that question for days. He had half-hoped that Araevin would return with some potent magic to make the task easier, but he didn’t know if they could wait on Araevin’s mission any longer.

  “Give me parchment and a quill,” Fflar said. “I’ll start by sketching what I recall of the city.”

  The empty chamber on the other side of the wall led to one of the long, lightless passageways of the palace. The still, cold air was stale, and dust lay thick on the old mosaics of the floor. Araevin and his companions looked up and down the passageway, but they did not see or hear any signs of pursuit.

  “Which way now, Araevin?” Jorin asked.

  “I am not sure,” the mage answered. “The second shard is still below us, but I don’t know where we can find a descending stair.”

  “Pick a direction and go!” Maresa snapped. “It won’t take Selydra’s slaves long to figure out where we must be.”

  “Left, then.” Araevin set out at an easy run, loping down the hallway with a wand gripped in his left hand. He could already feel his strength returning, but he would not care to fight another magical duel yet.

  Is that what happened to the swordwights? he wondered. Did the Pale Sybil consume them too? That would make her centuries old, perhaps millennia. Who could guess how long she had ruled over the cold, changeless dark of Lorosfyr?

  Araevin’s guess was better than he thought, for the travelers came to a spiraling staircase leading deeper into the palace.

  “This way,” he said, and started down cautiously.

  It was possible that Selydra might think he was heading for the Long Stair and the way back to the surface world, but he had to believe that the Pale Sybil would expect him to try for the shard and seek to stop him.

  They were halfway down when the muffled blasts of vast wing beats followed them into the stairwell. Araevin hesitated, then turned to face the threat pursuing them, whatever it was. Donnor Kerth drew his broadsword and moved to the topmost step, crouching behind his shield. Jorin unslung his bow and laid an arrow on the string.

  “I don’t like the sound of that,” the ranger muttered.

  “Steady, my friends,” Araevin said.

  He took a deep breath, and their pursuers appeared. The things were taller than ogres, with black batlike wings and faces of rumpled, eyeless flesh. Nests of fanged tentacles sprouted from the center of their hunched torsos, writhing and snapping. The horrors dropped down on the small company in a single swift rush, clawed fists and slavering lamprey-maws reaching out of the darkness.

  “Courage!” Nesterin cried, and he loosed an arrow at the nearest of the monsters.

  The white-fletched shaft sank into the blank, rugose head, and the beast sagged to the steps. It floundered awkwardly, plucking at the arrow, but Donnor darted up three steps and hewed at it with his broadsword. Jorin peppered the next of the monsters, killing it in midair. The creature dropped heavily to the steps and rolled, sweeping Donnor off his feet and carrying him back down the stairs.

  Maresa’s crossbow sang out, and Araevin let loose with his disrupting wand. A bright blue beam of shimmering thunder blasted back up the stairwell, pulping the creatures’ foul, purple-black bodies and rending great shadowy wings. More of the horrors crumpled to the steps or floundered into the curving wall, but still others came on. Before Araevin could find another safe target for his wand, one of the monsters vaulted over the struggling Donnor and hurled itself against Maresa. It caught the genasi with one taloned hand and dragged her close to its torso so that its slick, snapping jaws could fasten themselves to her.

  “Get off me!” the genasi shrieked. She dropped her crossbow to the steps and yanked out a poniard with her free hand, slashing wildly at the tentacle-maws groping for her flesh.

  “I’m here!” Nesterin drew his own sword and threw himself into the monster’s reach to bury his point in its side. Thick black blood welled up from the creature’s wounds. It shuddered so violently that it wrenched the star elf off his feet, and shook itself free of the blade and released Maresa, flapping back up into the air. The genasi snarled a savage curse at the monster before retreating away from the winged horrors.

  A few steps above Araevin, Donnor struggled to his feet and hacked the creature fumbling at him to pieces, while Jorin ducked, dodged, and shot arrow after arrow at the hovering monsters above.

  “More are coming!” the ranger cried.

  “I see them,” Araevin answered. He dropped down a step or two and drew out a pinch of sulfur from a small pouch at his belt. Rolling the yellow powder between his fingers, he quickly incanted a fire spell and hurled a small red bead of flame up the stairs. “Fall back!” he warned his friends.

  Blades flashing furiously, the company managed to back down a dozen more steps, while the many-fanged horrors pressed down the broad stairwell after them. Then, with a stone-shattering roar, Araevin’s fiery bead detonated behind them. A searing wave of crimson fire scoured the stairwell above, consuming the creatures outright. Shrill shrieks of pain filled the stairs above, only to die away in awful, wet mewling.

  “Come on!” Araevin called to his friends. “We should keep moving before more of Selydra’s minions follow us.”

  They reached the floor below, and found a great hall with passageways leading in several directions. Araevin paused only a moment to glance down each before he chose a high bevel-vaulted passage leading to his left. He could sense the second shard, almost as if he heard some small and distant sound that he could follow if he concentrated on it. Moving with more confidence, he led his companions through several empty rooms and past strange well-like pits that punctuated the lower passages.

  They came to a dark doorway guarded by strong and terrible sigils, evil runes that glowed with power when they came too near. Araevin studied them and spoke a countering spell to suppress the door’s defenses. Then he led the company into the chamber beyond-a round conjury with a low ceiling, its floor pocked with five more of the black wells spaced around its edges. In the center of the chamber a small stone podium stood, and on that podium rested a small iron coffer. Even through the locked iron box Araevin could sense the presence of the shard.

  “There,” he said. “The shard is in the chest. I can feel it.”

  Maresa scowled at the small coffer, one hand clamped to her side where the winged monster’s lamprey-jaws had gouged her flesh. “I don’t suppose we can just walk off with that,” she said. “It’s trapped with magic, or I’m an ogre’s stepchild.”

  Araevin peered closer. “It is,” he said. He could see spell shields glimmering around the coffer… a potent conjuration held in abeyance, something tied to the odd black wells ringing the room. He did not doubt that something very unpleasant would be unleashed the instant the iron box was disturbed. “Give me a moment to puzzle out this-”

  A bone-chilling moan cut off his words. It was a horrible sound, a sort of thin high wailing that turned the blood to ice. He whirled, searching for the source of the cry, and found streamers of ebon mist surging up out of the wells. Tortured faces appeared in the foul fog, roiling and shifting in the liquid darkness. Each cloudlike entity seemed to be composed of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of the screaming souls, and as they streamed up into the room they shouted, cried, wailed, begged, and threatened in a multitude of voices, until all Araevin wanted to do was cover his own ears and try to shut out the awful sounds.

  “Araevin!” cried Jorin. The ranger pointed at the well opposite the doorway, on the other side of the shard’s pedestal. “The Pale Sybil!”

  The mage turned again, and there Selydra hovered in the air, her black eyes blazing with cold fury. A spectral wind sent her robes wildly streaming around her body, and a corona of frigid white fire enveloped her. “I am not so easily defeated, Araevin Teshurr!” she snarled. “The souls of dead Lorosfyr hunger for living flesh to consume. I have promised them yours!”

&
nbsp; Jorin raised his bow and shot, but his arrow glanced from an unseen barrier ringing Selydra. She laughed in dark scorn, and raised her arms. From all sides the streaming waves of mangled souls gabbled in hunger and rushed forward, leaping out at Araevin and his companions. Then Selydra began to chant a terrible spell, forming a spiderlike blot of inky nothingness between her hands.

  “Donnor! Light!” Araevin cried. He readied himself for the Pale Sybil’s spell.

  She hurled the living blot straight at him, but the sun elf managed to bark out a counter charm and interpose a flickering wall of tangible magic, angling the sinister missile away from it. The thing shattered his shielding spell on the instant it made contact, but it deflected away from him and plowed into the wall of the vault. A shock of outraged stone jarred the entire chamber, shattering the mosaic floor and starting a net of jagged black cracks in the ceiling above. Araevin reeled and almost fell.

  “Swordwights are coming!” shouted Maresa. Araevin risked a glance over his shoulder and saw her back by the archway leading into the vault, side by side with Jorin as they held the gap against Selydra’s undead servants. “We’re surrounded!”

  Araevin looked back just in time to see a wall of whirling black soul-stuff reaching out for him with ethereal talons, plucking at his breast. Dozens of contorted faces leered and hissed at him, a visage of pure madness. He threw up his arm to ward off the fearsome apparition-and the chamber exploded with brilliant daylight.

  Donnor stood behind him, legs thrown out shoulder-wide, his cupped hands high over his helmed head. Above his outstretched arms spun a blazing orb of molten gold too bright to look at.

  “Part this eternal night, Lord of Morning!” the cleric shouted. “Drive away the shadows that beset us, and shield us with your holy radiance!”

  The dead souls of Lorosfyr wailed in anguish and shied away, repelled by the blistering light. The looming apparitions simply dissolved into streamers of dark mist, recoiling from the cleric. Selydra threw up an arm to shield her eyes, even as she reached out with one hand to wrench her blot of destruction out of the wall. More brick and stone disintegrated as the small manifestation of nothingness worked its way free.