Did the nilshai corral the creature to send it at us? she wondered. Or did it follow us of its own accord?
“Everyone, move to a new place,” she called softly. “They’re expecting to find us where they saw us last.”
She followed her own advice, and darted across the hall to stand hidden in a narrow alcove. Maresa simply leaped up and levitated to the highest gallery; as a daughter of the elemental wind, she could take to the air when she liked. Donnor moved beside a pillar where he could watch the doorway leading back out to the courtyard of the keep. Nesterin flashed a quick smile at Ilsevele, and found an alcove opposite hers.
They waited in silence, listening to the approach of the unseen monster. Ilsevele laid a pair of arrows across her bow, and whispered the words of a spell to set them both smoldering with arcane power. The horrible squelching drew closer, and she heard the abominable piping voices of the nilshai, several of them warbling to each other in the black tunnels around the banquet hall. Peering into the dank gloom, she finally caught a glimpse of the massive creature drawing near.
Its skin glistened a translucent pink in the dim light of the glowing doorway in the room’s center. Its flesh oozed and rippled as it heaved itself closer, and Ilsevele glimpsed the indistinct outlines of a wormlike body and a ring-shaped mouth surrounded by small, rasping teeth. The thing was the size of a small inn, and she exhaled in relief. It was so large that it couldn’t fit through the archway leading to the courtyard outside.
“Thank Corellon,” she murmured, and straightened up.
The thing quivered for a moment, blindly groping for a way inside. Then it found the archway and began to press forward. Its flesh was so malleable that it squeezed through with ease, pouring itself into the room like a viscid stream of slime.
She looked over to Nesterin in horror, and found the star elf looking back at her with a similar expression on his face.
“I thought it couldn’t get in!” he protested.
Ilsevele raised her bow and shot. Two arrows flew as one, each flaring into brilliant fire in mid-flight under the power of her spells. They struck the blank wall of glistening flesh and vanished, sinking deep into the monster before coming to rest with the fletching completely submerged. The shafts hung in the thing’s body for all to see, burning with bright white light in the worm’s snout. The creature quivered and recoiled, but still it groped onward.
“What in the world is that thing?” Ilsevele muttered as she drew two more arrows and readied another spell.
Across the hall from her, Nesterin stepped out of his own alcove and peppered the creature with arrows. More rained down from overhead, where Jorin shot over the edge of the gallery. And Maresa barked the trigger words of her wands, pummeling the worm’s snout with bolts of magic.
The creature hesitated for a moment then it lashed out with astonishing speed, firing a pair of long, silky strands from pores in its head right at Nesterin. The star elf ducked under one, but the other struck him in the left thigh and clung to him. Nesterin cried out in revulsion and tried to pull away, but the giant worm gave a small toss of its head and jerked him off his feet. It started to reel in the star elf, retracting its strand and dragging him in with irresistible power.
Nesterin dropped his bow and struggled to draw a knife at his belt, grimly ignoring the terrible rasping maw of the worm as he sought to free himself.
“Let go of him!” Donnor Kerth called.
He stepped out from behind his pillar and dashed over to the strand by which the worm was dragging Nesterin. He gripped his sword and struck a mighty cut at the strand. It parted with a snap, sending Nesterin reeling backward. The worm moved farther into the room and fired two strands at Donnor. Both struck the Lathanderian’s shield, and with a savage oath the human knight shook the shield off his arm before he was dragged off his feet. The shield skittered across the floor to the huge monstrosity in the doorway.
“Ilsevele!” Maresa cried. “It’s too dumb to know that we’re hurting it! What do we do?”
Ilsevele shook her lank hair out of her eyes and looked up at the genasi in amazement.
How in the world should I know? she thought. But she didn’t speak her thoughts aloud. Instead, she paused for a moment then called back, “Try fire!”
She changed the spell she was about to lay on the arrows on her bow, and instead chanted the words to a fire spell. Her arrows glowed cherry-red and began to smolder. Quickly she raised her bow and let them fly. They struck together as flaming bolts, and the worm bucked and twisted, crushing masonry and shaking the whole building. Overhead Maresa changed to her fire wand and seared a great black swath across the monster’s quaking flesh.
Donnor Kerth dashed at the huge monster, chasing after his shield. He sang out the words of a holy invocation to Lathander as he ran, and the broadsword in his hand burst into a brilliant yellow corona of flame.
“Burn!” he shouted. “Burn in Lathander’s holy fires, foul monster!”
He hacked into the worm’s snout, carving great black slashes through its body as his broadsword flared with the heat of the sun.
The worm shuddered and began to retreat, pouring itself back out of the room. It carried away Kerth’s shield, shredding the metal war board to pieces with its teeth as it moved away. The Lathanderian howled in outrage and redoubled his efforts, but the worm flowed away and retreated into the darkness outside.
“It took my shield!” he snarled.
“Better your shield than our friend Nesterin,” called Jorin from above.
Ilsevele lowered her bow and watched the creature flee. “Is everyone all right?” she asked.
“I will be, as soon as I get this damned stuff off my breeches,” replied Nesterin.
The star elf continued to saw at the remnant of the strand that clung to his garb. The stuff was like a cable made of glue, tough and sticky at the same time, and his knife blade kept catching in the stuff. Ilsevele moved over to lend him a hand.
“Thank you,” Nesterin murmured. “I hate to say it, Ilsevele, but the longer we remain here, the more likely it is that we will meet with disaster. Is there any chance you could hurry your friend Araevin?”
Ilsevele looked up to the shining mist in the center of the hall. “I would if I could,” she answered. “But for now, he seems to be out of our reach.”
Araevin streaked over a hellscape of seething lava and billowing clouds of foul vapor. For the first time he perceived what lay outside the white walls of Saelethil’s palace in the heart of the selukiira.
This is Saelethil’s soul, he realized. This is the part of himself that he preserved for five thousand years in the Nightstar, hoping that his evil might endure long after his physical defeat.
I am the failure of a dark hope nourished for five millennia.
Araevin grinned to himself. He liked the thought of disappointing Saelethil Dlardrageth.
He caught sight of white walls and golden domes glinting amid the ruddy firelight below him, and he altered his course to descend into the heart of the place. With his cloak streaming behind him he alighted in the golden courtyard of Saelethil’s palace. The monstrous mockeries of vines and flowers that filled the place shrank from his presence.
“Saelethil!” he called. “I have performed the rite of transcendence. Come forth!”
Behind him he felt a cold and sharp sensation, a gathering of malice that grew stronger in the space of a few heartbeats. He turned and watched as a column of black mist poured up out of the ground to the height of a man. It roiled violently before materializing in the shape of Saelethil Dlardrageth.
“I am here,” he said.
Araevin gazed on him without lowering his eyes, and perceived the demonic corruption of the Dlardrageth high mage. Saelethil’s very form fumed with intangible streams of spite and hatred, a black thundercloud of ancient anger hidden behind the veil of a noble-born sun elf.
I see more than I did before, he told himself. This is what the telmiirkara neshyrr has give
n to me.
Saelethil looked on him, and in that moment Araevin saw many things in his eyes: recognition, a grudging measure of respect, a bonfire of hatred and envy, and finally, a shadow of fear.
“I see you have followed the path I set you on,” Saelethil said. “You have purged yourself of the flaws with which the gods have afflicted all lesser creatures. Only the most powerful of mages learn how to set right what the gods made wrong in the first place. I suppose I should congratulate you, Araevin.”
“Save your congratulations,” Araevin answered. “I am still myself.”
The daemonfey archmage snorted. “You are no more an elf than I am. We are exactly alike, you and I. You have tempered yourself like steel in a smith’s fire. I did no more or less than that when I chose my path.”
“I am your antithesis, Saelethil.” Araevin allowed himself a cold, hard smile. “Morthil’s rite invoked the powers of Arvandor instead of the Abyss. I fear you no longer.”
Saelethil’s eyes flashed in anger. “Then you are a fool, Araevin Teshurr. You believe that you have not damned yourself with your pursuit of power, as if there were a difference between a demon’s embrace and an eladrin’s kiss! You have surrendered your soul. What does it matter to whom you surrendered it?”
“I did not come to bandy words, Saelethil. I came to study the spells of Aryvandaar, not debate your twisted views on good and evil. Now, show me what you have been hiding all this time.”
The Dlardrageth glowered at Araevin for a moment, but then his face twisted into a cruel smile.
“Ah,” he said to himself. “Now that I did not anticipate. The irony of it!”
He laughed richly, expansively, and the poisonous flowers of the garden quaked and trembled in reply.
Araevin frowned. Saelethil’s persona in the Nightstar was bound by laws the archmage had laid down long ago. That was why the selukiira had been bound to instruct him instead of destroying him when first he set his hand to the stone. Yet clearly Saelethil had discerned something new, something that pleased him greatly, and Araevin suspected that he would not like it at all.
“What is it?” he demanded. “I did not come here to be laughed at, Saelethil!”
“Oh, but you did, foolish boy!” Saelethil said. His eyes were cold with contempt as he laughed again. “You have no idea what you have done, do you?”
Araevin folded his arms and simply waited. He did not care to serve as the object of Saelethil’s humor.
“When you chose Ithraides’s path instead of mine,” Saelethil hissed, “you severed yourself from your salvation. I have not been able to destroy you because I was not permitted to harm one whose soul was marked by descent from my House, no matter how remote.” He advanced a step on Araevin, and seemed to grow taller. “By infusing yourself with the celestial essence of the eladrin, you have removed the last thin vestiges of Dlardrageth blood. I am no longer required to serve you, which means that I am free to do with you as I wish.”
Araevin stared in amazement. Then he stepped back and snapped out a potent abjuration, building a spell-shield to defend himself for a time while he figured out what to do.
The spell failed. The passes of his hand were nothing more than empty gestures, the words devoid of power.
Saelethil laughed aloud. “This is not a spell duel, Araevin! Your consciousness is enclosed entirely within my substance. Neither of us can work magic here. This is a contest of will.”
Saelethil grew larger than a giant, shooting up into the air like a crimson tower, so tall that Araevin stumbled back in astonishment and fell.
“You have placed yourself in my power!” Saelethil boomed. “Now, dear boy, I will repay the indignities I have accumulated in your service!”
He strode forward and set one immense foot on Araevin, crushing him to the hot flagstones below, leaning on him with the terrible weight of a malicious and living mountain.
Araevin cried out in dismay as Saelethil’s power gathered over him and crushed him down. Shadow rose up around him, and he felt his very substance, his life, his consciousness, compressed all around, being squeezed out of existence. Saelethil’s cruel laughter lashed him like the winds of a dark hurricane, and the malice and power of the Dlardrageth’s will filled the universe with black hate.
“Do not fear for your friends, Araevin!” Saelethil cried. “You will rejoin them in a moment-or at least your body will. I have yearned for flesh to wear for longer than you can imagine. You are not so handsome as I was in life, but Ilsevele will not know the difference, will she?”
“You will not lay a hand on her, monster!” Araevin screamed in empty protest.
Saelethil’s scorn battered him. “I will do whatever I like with you, fool! You will bring me to my niece Sarya, and I will take up my rightful place as a lord of House Dlardrageth. I may even allow you to retain a glimmer of awareness so that you can perceive the extent of your defeat. I owe you that much after the servitude you have visited upon me.”
Araevin despaired in the shrieking blackness beneath Saelethil’s will. He had stumbled into the very fate he had first feared when he found the Nightstar; the selukiira would crush his sentience and seize his own empty body for its own use. The evils that might follow sickened him. What might a Dlardrageth high mage do, with the freedom of Araevin’s own body? Destroy more of Evermeet’s high mages? Lead the daemonfey legions against Seiveril Miritar’s army? Or simply murder anyone Araevin ever loved?
He struggled to fight back, to find some purchase with which to gather his will and make a stand. For a moment he battled his way back to the palace of Saelethil’s heart, struggling on the ground with the foot of a giant pinning him to the stone. But the Dlardrageth grinned at his struggles and caught him by his throat in one fine-taloned hand.
“This is my mind, my soul,” Saelethil gloated. “Within these boundaries, my strength is limitless! Do you not understand that yet?”
Araevin said nothing, but grimly fought against Saelethil’s grip, his feet kicking, his chest crying out for air. But Saelethil drew back his arm and hurled him straight down into the ground. The palace of white walls and venomous flowers shattered like a broken mirror, and Araevin plunged into the bottomless darkness underneath, tumbling and falling away from the light.
He shouted in outrage, trying to fight his way up out of the gemstone, escape, return to his own mind and body so that he could simply drop the damned stone and get away from Saelethil Dlardrageth. But he could not stop himself from sinking, falling, drowning in darkness as thick and heavy as a sea of black stone.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
3 Flamerule, the Year of Lightning Storms
The horrors of the last two days and nights had hardened Seiveril to death in a dozen gruesome forms, but at last he looked upon something that he could not bear. Not caring who saw him or what they might think, he staggered to his knees and covered his face.
“Ah, Corellon! How have you allowed me to fail your people so?” he cried.
Demons had fallen on a small company of wood elves- his wood elves, the merry band from Evermeet’s forest who had followed him to Faerun with such pluck and bravado-and flayed alive all they could catch. Seiveril stood in the center of the carnage, sickened by the sound of flies buzzing thickly around the dead and the mewling cries of those the demons had chosen not to kill. Starbrow let him grieve for a time, standing close by with Keryvian naked in his hand in case the demons returned. Over the past few days Sarya’s infernal hordes had struck again and again, hammering at the Crusade as the army of Evermeet fought its way back toward Mistledale to rejoin Vesilde Gaerth. They were still ten miles from Ashabenford, but the smoke of the town’s burning streaked the eastern sky.
Starbrow looked at the place where a handful of Seiveril’s soldiers had fought and died alone, with no help at hand, and shook his head.
“Gods, what a scene,” he murmured. Then he trudged over and set a hand on Seiveril’s shoulder. “Come, my friend,” he said wearily. “We cann
ot stay here any longer. The demons may return to attack our healers, and we cannot afford to lose any more clerics. Or you, for that matter.”
“I have led us into disaster, Starbrow,” Seiveril said. “My pride brought these wood elves to this place, and my stupidity killed them. How can I bear to live?”
“The measure of a general does not lie in victory, Seiveril. It lies in defeat. To continue after the worst has happened is hard, but if you do not lead us from this place, no one will.”
Seiveril remained motionless, giving no answer. But then he slowly came to life again, and he nodded once. “If only we had been closer…”
“Frankly, Seiveril, it is a miracle you have kept the army together as well as you have,” Starbrow said. “Many have fallen, yes. But many have lived, too. We are not defeated yet.” He looked around at the bloodstained clearing, and the gray-cloaked healers who worked silently among those who could still be helped. “Come. You can do nothing more here.”
Seiveril followed Starbrow to the far side of the clearing, where Adresin and the rest of Seiveril’s guard waited with their mounts. They climbed up into their saddles and rode away, passing through a narrow belt of trees before emerging into the open fields and groves of the Dale proper. The weather had warmed quickly since the fight at the river, and the day was hot and humid. Seiveril could smell a thunderstorm gathering in the air. Doubtless Sarya’s demons would strike again in the storm, falling on some other part of his harried army to maim and kill and burn, melting away before he could bring them to battle. That had been the way of it for days.
“We should join up with Gaerth and the companies we left here soon,” Starbrow offered. “That’s almost two thousand bows, plus many of our best champions. Even Sarya’s demons will be deterred by that.”
Seiveril suspected that the moon elf was speaking simply to set Seiveril’s mind on something other than the horror back in the clearing, but he allowed his friend to pull his thoughts to a new course.
“Vesilde has had an easier time of things than we have,” he admitted.
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