Farthest Reach

by Richard Baker

  “It’s a long ride from Silverymoon,” Ilsevele replied. She wrung out the hem of her cloak, leaving a puddle of cold water on the floor, and glared at Starbrow. “You had better have a good reason for sending for us.”

  Vesilde Gaerth raised his hand in greeting. “Mage Teshurr, Lady Ilsevele, welcome back! I am glad to see you. Not to speak for Captain Starbrow, but I think we have a sound reason for seeking Araevin’s expertise. Our mages have had no luck with opening the portals the daemonfey left behind.”

  “I’ll have a look first thing in the morning,” Araevin promised. “Right now we’re all tired, cold, and wet, and I wouldn’t say no to a hot meal and a mug of mulled wine, if anything like that can be found around here.”

  “That’s the best idea I’ve heard in a tenday,” Maresa added.

  “Of course. I’ll see if our quartermasters can find something for you.”

  Vesilde called for an aide, who then headed off in search of some food and good accommodations for Araevin and his companions.

  “We heard that my father went to Evermeet,” Ilsevele asked Starbrow. “Do you know when he will return?”

  “Three or four days, most likely. He said there was one more council meeting he wanted to attend before he came back—but if you find something in the portals, he’ll return at once.”

  Araevin and his friends dined with Vesilde and Starbrow, listening to the commanders’ accounts of the Crusade’s fruitless search for any sign of the daemonfey and the discovery of the hidden portals in Sarya’s buried vaults. Then they were shown to an old ruined chapel, its long-vanished roof replaced by well-secured canvas to make a reasonably warm and dry room in which to camp.

  In the dark hours before dawn, Araevin roused himself from Reverie, found his spellbooks, and chose a small alcove of the old temple to illuminate with a pale light spell while he studied his spells of portal lore. When the sun came up, he joined the others for a breakfast of dried fruit and porridge provided by the quartermasters of the army.

  “Arm yourselves for battle,” Araevin told them after they ate. “If we try our luck with an unknown portal, we might step through into the fight of our lives.”

  While they were arming themselves, Starbrow appeared in the chapel’s old doorway. He wore a long green cloak over his shoulders with Keryvian belted to his waist, and he carried a large rucksack. The moon elf looked them over, and grinned.

  “You certainly look ready,” he said.

  Araevin looked at Starbrow in surprise. “You’re coming with us?”

  “Unless you tell me not to.”

  “Aren’t you needed here?” Ilsevele asked. “My father left the army in your hands, after all.”

  “Actually, he left Lord Gaerth in command. I’m just his second. Besides, we’ve been sitting here for days. If there’s even the slightest chance that we might sniff out the daemonfey, I want to be a part of it.”

  “I’ve seen his work with that sword of his,” Maresa observed to Filsaelene. The genasi set her hands on her hips, her crimson leather armor gleaming darkly. “I’m not going to tell him we don’t need him.”

  “Very well,” Araevin answered. “Let’s have a look at these portals you found. It may be a short trip if I can’t open them.”

  Starbrow laughed out loud, then he led the small company into the streets of Myth Glaurach. A short walk brought them to the onetime palace of the city’s rulers. It was an impressive ruin, with great gaping arches and broken towers reaching to the gray skies.

  “The grand mage’s palace,” Starbrow said. “The daemonfey used it as their stronghold.”

  They climbed up the shattered steps to the open foyer, passed through into a courtyard within the overgrown walls, and there found a stone stairway deep in the palace, descending into the darkness below. Araevin frowned, and steeled himself. He knew all too well the vaults and passages beneath the palace, as did his companions.

  Starbrow’s soldiers had illuminated the dark passageway with small lanterns, and they followed the string of lanternlit hallways and stairs as they descended deeper and deeper into the cold rock of the hillside. They passed several contingents of guards, vigilant elves who stood watch in case some undetected evil emerged from a hidden depth of Sarya’s dungeons.

  “Have you had any trouble down here?” Araevin asked.

  “We’ve found a couple of magical traps—spell glyphs, symbols, things like that,” Starbrow replied. “But we haven’t found any fey’ri assassins lurking in the cellars, or demongates to the Abyss, or dragon lairs, or anything truly dangerous. I think Sarya simply didn’t have the time to cover her tracks as well as she might have liked.”

  The moon elf turned aside into a long, narrow gallery that Araevin recognized from his cursory exploration of the place a few tendays ago. Statues of grim-looking gargoyles crouched near the ceiling, leering down at them. The gallery ended in a blank stone wall, a single featureless block contained within a stone lintel carved in the shape of a winding vine climbing a trellis.

  “Here it is,” Starbrow said.

  “That’s not daemonfey work,” Araevin said at once. He pointed at the decorative stonework. “They have no use for carvings like that.”

  Starbrow looked sharply at him. “You mean this is a dead end?”

  “No, I didn’t say that. There’s no reason that Sarya and her vultures couldn’t have used a portal like this.”

  Araevin studied it, searching for any markings or lettering to read.

  “Can you open it?” Filsaelene asked.

  “Possibly,” Araevin replied. “Let me try a spell first.”

  He whispered the words of a simple detection spell, and carefully examined the flickering auras that glimmered around the ancient doorway.

  “It has the right sort of magic,” he decided. “And it’s certainly strong and well-woven enough to have lasted for quite a long time.”

  He spoke another spell, one that would divine many of the secrets of the portal. In his eyes the magical Weave ghosted into existence, bright and many-colored, each strand hinting at work done well and carefully long ago.

  “It’s a keyed portal,” he said.

  “Which means?” Starbrow asked.

  “It won’t open unless we take the right action or present the right device—a token of some kind, a password, some specific thing that would keep just anybody from opening the doorway.”

  Araevin examined the blank gateway for a few minutes longer, and he began to chant the words of a longer and more difficult spell, seeking to wrest from the portal itself the knowledge of what key would activate it.

  He finished the spell, and in his mind’s eye he caught a glimpse of a small white flower, a tiny bell only the size of a thumbnail, really.

  “That makes sense,” Araevin said with a soft laugh. “What? Have you figured it out already?” Starbrow said.

  “It’s only a matter of knowing the right spells. They’re somewhat rare, and I suppose not all that many wizards have studied them.” Araevin straightened, and reached out to tap the carving of the vine surrounding the doorway. “This vine—it is rellana, isn’t it?”

  Starbrow and the others exchanged blank looks, but Ilsevele nodded.

  “Yes,” she said. “I think it is.”

  “That’s all we need. Each of us must carry a petal of a rellana blossom and speak a short password—nesyie alleisendilie—and the portal will activate.”

  “I’ll send for some,” Starbrow said at once. He quickly trotted out of sight and called out to the nearby guards. In a few minutes, he returned with a handful of tiny white blossoms. “Here you go,” he said. “What would they do if they needed to use the portal and these weren’t in bloom?”

  “The builders probably kept a small jar of old petals somewhere near this place,” Araevin said. He helped himself to a small petal, and held it pinched between his thumb and forefinger. “Now, how do we want to do this? It might be best if I went ahead alone, in case there’s some trap I did
n’t expect—”

  “Nesyie alleisendilie!”

  Maresa said. She touched the blank stone of the archway, and disappeared in the blink of an eye, leaving nothing but a small white petal drifting down to the floor.

  “Maresa!” Ilsevele snapped, but the genasi was nowhere in sight. The noblewoman snarled. “Now what do we do?”

  “She doesn’t like to waste time, does she?” Starbrow observed. “Well, let’s hope that Araevin can get us out of wherever we wind up.”

  He plucked a single petal out of the handful he held, dropped the rest into Araevin’s hand, and followed Maresa into the portal. With a sigh, Ilsevele snatched up a petal and hurried after him, followed by Filsaelene a moment later.

  Araevin took a moment to scoop up the whole handful of rellana flowers, just in case there were multiple portals on the far side that made use of the same key. Then he followed his comrades into the unknown.

  Sarya Dlardrageth studied the founding-stone of Myth Drannor’s mythal, dreaming of the things she could do with its power. Unlike the stone in Myth Glaurach, which was a massive natural boulder, Myth Drannor’s was a well-shaped obelisk of deep rose-colored stone on a plinth of granite. Golden light seemed to glimmer in the translucent stone, hinting at power waiting to be harnessed.

  The daemonfey queen carefully swept the rest of the chamber with the most acute detection spells she could manage, making absolutely sure that she knew precisely what was or wasn’t enclosed in the mythal chamber. It was a relatively large and airy room, a spacious vault with a high, graceful arch to the ceiling. By some ancient artifice six bright columns of sunlight shone down into the room, relayed through Castle Cormanthor’s upper floors by hidden shafts. The floor was a complex design of intersecting circles rendered in several different varieties of marble, covered in a thick coat of dust from centuries of disuse.

  Satisfied that no scryings or magical traps awaited her, Sarya returned her attention to the mythal stone. “I am ready,” she announced.

  “Excellent,” replied someone from within the mythal’s living fountain of magic. Melodious, even beautiful, the voice was masculine and perfect. “Open your gate, then, I will join you there.”

  Sarya raised her hands and began to declaim the words of a very powerful spell, one of the most dangerous she knew, a spell designed to breach the barriers between the planes and create a magical bridge into another realm of existence. The mythal thrummed in response, the intangible pulse of the old device taking on a new and different note. Sarya ignored the mythal stone’s change and pressed on, finishing her gate spell with skill and confidence.

  “The gate is open!” she cried. “Malkizid, come forth!”

  Before Sarya a great ring or hoop of golden magic coalesced from the air. Through it she glimpsed the realm of Malkizid, an infernal wasteland of parched desert, windswept rifts, and black, angry skies torn by crimson lightning. Then, through the gate, the archdevil Malkizid appeared. With one smooth step he crossed from his infernal plane into the mythal chamber.

  He was tall, well over six feet, and sturdy of build. His skin was marble-white, even paler and more colorless than that of a fair-complexioned moon elf. His hair was long, black, and straight, and his eyes were large and absolutely black, with no hint of pupil, iris, or white. He wore a long crimson robe embroidered with gold designs, and he carried a large silver sword point-down in one hand, keeping it close by his side. A small trickle of dark blood ran down his face from some unseen injury in the center of his forehead, but Malkizid paid it no mind.

  “I am here,” he said.

  “So I see,” Sarya replied.

  She let her gate lapse, and immediately spoke the words of a second spell. Beneath Malkizid’s feet a complex summoning diagram flared into existence, encircling the powerful devil with a barrier of impenetrable magic.

  Malkizid glanced down, and his mouth twisted in a cold imitation of a smile.

  “What is this, Sarya?” he asked.

  “A binding diagram that should hold even you, Malkizid. Simply a precaution in case you were not forthright about aiding me once summoned.”

  “It is hardly necessary, I assure you. I have come to help you, after all. What could I possibly gain by betraying you now?”

  “I have no idea, but I see no reason to invite treachery.” Sarya watched Malkizid carefully, a spell of dismissal only an instant from her lips.

  Malkizid shrugged. Blood dripped from his wounded forehead.

  “As you wish, then,” said the devil. “I can instruct you just as well from within this diagram. Now, will you speak the spell of mythal reading? You will need to make visible the threads that bind this artifice together.”

  Sarya hesitated. “Is there any chance of warning the mythal’s creators by casting that spell here? Several of those who raised this mythal are still alive. I can think of at least one who wields Mystra’s silver fire.”

  “I know of whom you speak,” Malkizid replied. He did not name the wizard Sarya was thinking of, for it was well known that Mystra’s Chosen could hear their names spoken anywhere in the world, and any words that the speaker uttered after the name. “I do not fear him, but then again, I am protected inside this exceedingly thorough summoning circle. However, the first thing we will do is silence the mythal’s alarms and prevent it from sending out any kind of warning to its creators. I will show you how.”

  “Can you be certain that it will work?”

  Malkizid’s dark eyes flashed, and a frown creased his noble countenance.

  “Sarya Dlardrageth, I forgot more about mythalcraft ten thousand years ago than those who raised this stone managed to accumulate in all the time since. This mythal was raised by mere novices. Long ago I taught the Vyshaanti how to build wonders you could not conceive of! In the days of Aryvandaar’s glory mythals were weapons of war, and mythalcraft was the grandest and most terrible of the martial skills. Of course I know how to conceal my presence from such a device!”

  Despite herself, Sarya took half a step back. For just a moment she glimpsed the ancient anger that Malkizid hoarded beneath his calm demeanor, and demon queen that she was, she still took note.

  “You have had access to this mythal for nearly twenty years,” she observed. “If you are so knowledgeable, why haven’t you subverted it already?”

  Malkizid grounded the point of his silver sword in the smooth stone floor and glowered at her. “First, I am not an elf, nor the recipient of any special blessing of Mystra’s. You still possess enough elf blood in your veins to deceive some of this mythal’s defenses, Sarya, while I do not. Second, I dare not set foot in the bounds of this mythal through any use of my own power. The wards raised by the Zhents two decades ago trap devils within the mythal’s bounds. I will show you how to modify that stricture soon, but until I found you, I had no one to bring me to this place who would not instantly trap me here.”

  “You could be trapped here now,” Sarya said, nodding at her binding circle.

  “Only if you wished to betray me,” Malkizid replied, “and I would advise you to carefully consider any such course of action, for the consequences would be severe. If nothing else, you would find me much less forthcoming with my secrets of mythalcraft if you thought to coerce me.”

  Sarya weighed the devil’s words, comparing them with what she thought she knew.

  “I will not betray you, Malkizid. I only seek to protect myself.” She indicated the mythal stone with a flick of her wing and asked, “Now, how do we proceed?”

  “First,” said Malkizid, “I will show you how to inspect the mythal’s very structure and identify the properties that are useful, those that are dangerous, and those that you can modify with some work. Then, we will make you the mistress of this mythal, so that no one else can contest your mastery of the device or sever you from it in the way Myth Glaurach’s mythal was taken from you. Now that we have learned that your enemies can do such a thing, I see no reason to allow it to happen again.”

&nbs
p; CHAPTER FIVE

  19 Mirtul, the Year of Lightning Storms

  The first portal led to a ruined chamber high on the shoulders of an icy, windswept mountain. The bitter cold struck Araevin the instant he stepped through the magical gate, and the sting of wind-driven snow and the roar of the storm left him barely able to see or hear at all in the first moments after he arrived. He threw up one arm to shield his eyes, and peered at the old stonework around him.

  “Araevin!” Ilsevele shouted to make herself heard above the wind. “Where are we?”

  “I don’t know!” he called back.

  Araevin finally blinked his eyes clear. The others stood around him, backs to the wind, holding cloaks close around their throats as the garments flapped and fluttered. Narrow window slits looked out over a scene of magnificent desolation, a cloud-wracked sea of black peaks and deep valleys. The chamber—and presumably, whatever structure it was a part of—actually stood well above the cloud layer. Sunlight streamed into the room, painfully bright.

  About the same time of day as before, Araevin noted. We haven’t moved terribly far to the east or the west. What mountains of such size stand near Myth Glaurach? The Nether Mountains, but they are not so tall. The Spine of the World, or maybe … ?

  “I think these are the Ice Mountains,” he told his companions. “Two hundred miles north of Myth Glaurach, perhaps? It’s only a guess, though.”

  “We can’t stay here long,” Starbrow replied. “Can we return through the portal?”

  Araevin turned to examine the blank stone face of a gateway, framed by a similar rellana vine device.

  “Yes,” he replied, “but we’ll need rellana again. I’ve got the rest of the blossoms if we need to go back.”

  “It’s not so bad here,” Maresa observed. The genasi seemed more at home in the frigid air and howling wind than Araevin could believe. Her cloak hung from her shoulders, ruffling gently in the wind that streamed the others’ cloaks like pennants behind them, and her long white hair drifted gently. She was a creature of the elemental air, and she was well suited for high places and strong winds. “So what do we do now?”