by C. M. Carney
“And what path do you walk my son?” Lassendir said, and a look of concern crept into the older elf’s eyes.
Myrthendir looked down on Sillendriel as love battled purpose in him. “I can see what is to come as she can, but I know this, my path will take me through the darkest of nights, but if I can find my way to the other side, I will change the Realms as we know them. The burden of a new age weighs on my shoulders.”
Lassendir gripped his son’s shoulder. “How can I help you with this burden?”
“You cannot, father. I wish that you could, but it is a journey I must make on my own.”
The Regent sighed knowing his son spoke a deeper truth. Then he nodded and stood. “Ultimately we all walk our path alone. I wish it were not the way of the Realms, but it is. Yet, know this my son, I will aid you in any way that I am able no matter the cost.”
Myrthendir looked up at his father and tears sat in the corners of his eyes. “I know you will, father.”
With a squeeze of his son’s shoulder, Lassendir turned and walked to the door. He turned back to his son, whose eyes already drifted to the woman he had loved and lost. "Walk your path, my son, and find your way back to us." He turned and exited the room, closing the door behind him with a small click.
Myrthendir reached a hesitant hand out, ready to stroke an errant hair from Sillendriel’s brow. As he came close, his hand shook, and he pulled it back, forming a fist. After a moment the shaking stopped and the tall elf stood. He looked down upon Sillendriel. “I’m sorry,” he said in a barely audible voice.
◆◆◆
Lassendir entered his chambers to find the Steward waiting for him. The half elf stood and bowed. The Regent waved an irritated hand at the Steward. “How many times have I told you to dispense with formalities when we are alone Gartheniel?”
“Many times My Lord.”
“Yet you seem incapable of remembering so simple a command.”
“Yes, My Lord. I do not know what has happened to my memory,” the Steward said with a small smile.
“Your memory is as perfect as it was the day I made you Steward, so stop playing coy. I have so few that treat me as a man and not a lord. I do not need less, so stop being so damn formal.”
“As you command My Lord,” Gartheniel said.
Lassendir laughed and indicated the Steward take a seat. Reluctantly the man sat, and the Regent sat opposite him. “What have you found?”
The Steward opened an ancient tome, crusted with dust and yellowed with age. “This is Kurgan’s History of the Alliance, the last known testament of the Thalmiir before the Alliance took to the skies and the Outer Realms. In it, he relates the last conversation he had with Grimliir, the chief artificer of Dar Thoriim.” The Steward cleared his throat and read.
Grimliir came to me awash in fear. He told me the Stone King was dead by his own hand. It shocked me to my core, and I prepared to have my old friend arrested for regicide, but Grimliir told me a tale of the madness that had led our liege to unleash the Khaz Eraam, the final weapon. Grimliir told me to evacuate the city. He and his team would stay behind to ensure that they contained the weapon. He told me no matter how the final battle against the Dark Ascendancy went, Dar Thoriim was forever lost. To open its gates once more could mean the end to all the free peoples of the Realms.
Gartheniel snapped the book shut and placed it on the table between the two men. Lassendir rubbed his temples, trying to ease the tension that was ever-present these days. After several moments he looked up at the Steward. “So it is settled, the seal must be destroyed.”
Gartheniel nodded and reached down, placing Gryph’s worn satchel on the table between them. “You will force this player to give you the seal?”
Lassendir nodded. “And the eggs. I do not relish the sentence I may have to pass, but if this Gryph does not heed the demand, then Conclave gives me the right to force him to do so. I hope he is smart. I take no pleasure in taking life.”
The Steward nodded and stood. “Then I will take my leave of you. Get some rest Lassendir,” the Steward said.
But Lassendir was lost in thought and noticed neither his Steward’s use of his common name nor the slight click as he closed the door behind him. Minutes dragged by as the Regent pondered his options. No obvious answers were forthcoming to the morass of decisions and choices that confronted the elder elf. Not for the first time in his life did he wish that the burden had fallen on another’s shoulders. The revelation that the High King would never return to relieve him of the burden only heightened that feeling. No point in tossing useless wishes into the aether, Lassendir thought.
So absorbed with his worries was the suddenly old looking elf he did not hear the soft footsteps that approached him from behind until the last moment. A soft whisper of a boot on stone reached his ears, and he turned with a small jump. The startled look turned to horror and then pain as the sharp blade of a dagger found its way between his ribs and into his heart.
The knife wielder held the Regent as his life ebbed from him. Blood dripped down the blade in a slow trickle and seeped over the sapphire eyes of the dragon that formed the guard and grip, staining the black leather of the gloved hand that held it. The older elf’s eyes were wide in shock and pain and he opened his mouth to speak. His voice was thin and low, and a single word fell from his lips before his eyes went blank.
“Why?”
◆◆◆
The figure with the knife eased the Regent’s body to the ground and closed the eyes that no longer held the light of life. The murderer wiped the blade against the Regent’s robes, cleansing it of blood, and spun it into a waist sheath.
The figure grabbed the satchel that belonged to the player named Gryph and placed it on the floor. It was a plain thing, with a strap and a clasp that held it closed. Leather clad hands tried to pry open the clasp, but despite the strength applied to the seemingly simple task, the bag would not open.
“Guess that would have been too easy,” a strangely altered voice said. If there had been another person there to hear the voice, they would have been hard pressed to identify it as male or female, and certainly could not attribute it to anyone, even a loved one or trusted friend.
Hands widened and low murmurs rose from behind the mask that shrouded features and voice alike. Gray light flowed down the arms and into the bag, snapping and writhing across its surface. A muffled grunt of pain burbled forth and the outstretched hands shook with exertion. A drop of sweat fell onto the bag.
The hands shook violently as the pain rose in the figure. Every nerve ending screamed for release, but the murderer could not, would not stop now. Heat charred mind and body as more of the silver power pushed into the clasp.
The figure turned its head towards the ceiling and a roar of agony burst from lips hidden behind the mask of silver terror. The noise pulsed through the tower, only partially muffled by the mask.
The figure collapsed forward, the scream and the flow of silver light stopping abruptly. Ragged gasps bent the murderer over and after a few moments the sound changed to the sound of frustrated weeping. “No. Dammit, no.”
The figure picked up the bag and smashed it to the floor as the last bits of silver energy sparked across the bag’s surface. The figure caught its breath and was about to stand when a nearly inaudible click drew his attention to the bag. The clasp flipped open, and the figure laughed in triumph. A gloved hand opened the bag and reached in, pausing for a moment as it searched a mental inventory of the bag’s contents.
Thunderous heartbeats pounded inside the figure’s chest, and slowly it pulled the hand back out of the bag. It held a five-inch diameter circle of metal and stone, intricately carved with ancient Thalmiir runes.
A laugh of relief and joy emerged from behind the mask as the figure tucked the Seal of the Dwarven King into the folds of the robes it wore. The hands moved towards the bag again, but the clasp of the soul bound satc
hel snapped shut like the snapping maw of a predator.
The figure grunted in surprise and shook the bag violently. “No, no, no,” it spat, tossing the bag to the ground. Shaking hands hovered over it once more, preparing to begin the process again. Tendrils of silver light flowed down the black clad wrists and into the fingers. Another grunt of pain escaped from behind the mask as a powerful will forced itself into the clasp.
The sudden knock at the door jarred the figure.
“My Lord are you alright?” came the voice of the Steward. There was a pause and then another, more urgent knock. “Regent?”
The figure stood and looked around in panic. The job was unfinished, but even if the toll of breaking the soul bound bag’s protections had not drained the figure of much of its stamina, health and mana, it would need time to force the bag open a second and third time to retrieve the arboleth eggs. The handle to the door turned, and the figure cursed, berating itself for not locking the door.
◆◆◆
“My Lord, I am coming in,” the Steward said, and the door opened. The Steward’s eyes widened when he saw the corpse of the Regent cooling on the ground and the shrouded figure standing over him. The silver mask bore a horrid alien visage and an inhuman howl of rage erupted from behind it. The form turned and ran through the Regent’s sitting room and towards his bedchamber.
Without hesitation the Steward raised a hand and fired a bolt of searing blue lightning at the murderer. It punched the fleeing form in the right shoulder and a muffled grunt of pain emerged from behind the mask as the figure’s arm seized. The bag, the soul bound satchel that belonged to the player Gryph, fell to the floor as the murderer dove into the Regent’s private sleeping chamber.
The Steward activated one of the powers of the amulet that hung from his neck. It was the badge of his office and it would send a mental alert to every guardsman in the palace. Soon the room, and the palace would swarm with fierce elvish warriors.
But, the Steward could not wait for their aid. It is time I dusted off my own skills, the Steward thought and began a casting as he rushed after the assassin. The Steward ran into the Regent’s private sleeping chamber, ready to send another bolt of jagged electric death at the shrouded figure, but the sight of the empty room stunned him.
“How?” the Steward asked himself in stunned incomprehension, looking back and forth. He saw the armoire pulled away from the wall. “Impossible,” the shocked half elf muttered. The Regent’s room had a secret door, one designed to allow the Regent to come and go in secret should the need ever rise. It also provided an escape route in the unlikely event that anyone, or anything, ever got this far into the palace. But the only two people on the face of Korynn who know about this door are me and the man now lying dead on the floor, the Steward thought in shock and fear.
The Steward ran to the armoire and pushed it further open. Behind it was a dark passage that curved downwards. The Steward knew the terminus to the secret passage lay far below and opened to a dozen more passages and hallways. Many led beyond the wall that protected the Spire. Even if he alerted the guards now, they would not be able to seal every exit before the murderer escaped. He still sent the order.
The Steward conjured a glow sphere and entered the steep stairs of the passageway. He didn’t even make it to the first turn when a hidden ward exploded under his foot, sending him flying backwards. He collapsed in a heap, unable to even scream as the energy scoured his body, and was unconscious before he hit the ground.
11
The sudden smash of the doors to their suite flying open roused Gryph from his trance. Within seconds a dozen low globes surged to blinding life and what seemed to be the entire palace guard surrounded them, all pointing deadly sharp spears at them.
The captain of the guard marched in. “Get to your feet, all of you!” he bellowed in a voice filled with barely controlled anger. Gryph and his friends stood, holding their hands before their eyes to shield them from the intense glare of the magical lights.
“What is going on?” Gryph asked.
“Come with us, now! Make no aggressive moves. I will not hesitate to skewer you where you stand!” the captain bellowed.
Gryph exchanged looks with Ovyrm, Wick and Tifala, all who returned glances of suspicion. They don’t trust me, Gryph thought. I guess I cannot blame them. He turned back to the captain and several guards moved aside with practiced military perfection, opening a path for them to the door. Gryph walked and as he passed the captain, the man raised his spear and used it to push him in the back. Gryph stumbled but kept his footing.
Several minutes later they were back in the throne room. A large crowd stood around the dais, shrouding all but the Twined Throne from Gryph’s view. As the guardsmen approached, the crowd parted giving them a clear path to the dais. They moved through the sea of faces. Some bore the red eyes of crying while others the deep scowl of anger. All of them glared at Gryph and his friends.
The crowd parted revealing the Steward standing at the foot of the dais. Myrthendir stood, tight-jawed and furious behind the empty throne where the Regent should have been sitting. Gryph’s heart leapt into his throat when he noticed the regal elf was not in his customary place. Sillendriel sat to the right of Myrthendir in a wooden chair. Her eyes were red from tears and her already fragile mental state seemed near to breaking. Her urgent mental warning came back to Gryph like a thunderclap
Something has happened. Gryph thought.
As they got close to the dais, the Steward stepped forward. “Halt,” he yelled and Gryph and his companions stopped. The Steward’s gaze turned from Wick to Tifala to Ovyrm and then settled on Gryph, where he held his icy gaze for several long moments.
Myrthendir walked down the dais and stood in front of Gryph. Ice and flame filled the man’s gaze as he stared into Gryph’s eyes. After a moment he moved on to the others and took his place next to the Steward.
“My father is dead,” the Prince Regent said. “Murdered in his own chambers.”
Tifala gasped and Wick muttered a curse under his breath. Ovyrm was predictably silent. Gryph looked at Myrthendir and was about to speak when the Prince Regent’s hand snapped up silencing him. “I know that you did not commit this heinous act. Both the guards and the wards on your rooms prove you never left, but that does not mean you are not responsible.”
A heavy silence hung in the throne room as several dozen pairs of eyes bored their anger into Gryph. Myrthendir held Gryph’s bag aloft. “This was found near my father’s body. The murderer used an unknown force to open the bag. The murderer took something from the bag, despite your soul bound protections.” The Prince Regent tossed the bag to Gryph, who snatched it from the air. “You will tell me what.”
Gryph gazed around to see every eye in the room was glued to him. A nervous energy built in him, accompanied by a twinge of guilt. Am I responsible for this? He returned his gaze to Myrthendir and saw in him all the power of his father, yet precious little of the self-control. He is on a knife edge, and I cannot say I blame him.
With no other option Gryph accessed his Inventory. He first checked on the arboleth eggs and was more relieved than he would have believed was possible to find them still there. It did not take him long to discover what was missing. “The Seal of the Stone King is missing.” Gryph said aloud as his eyes came back to Myrthendir.
Myrthendir’s jaw clenched as he met Gryph’s steady gaze. “So it is true,” he said and glanced down at the Steward whose jaw muscles tightened.
“I do not believe it, My Lord. I will not,” the Steward said in an adamant tone.
“It is the only conclusion that meets all the facts Gartheniel. I am sorry,” Myrthendir said in a voice tinged with regret. “Barrendiel is the only one of us unaccounted for. If he were innocent, then why is he not here?”
A gasp of disbelief escaped from Gryph before he calmed himself. The ranger captain? But why? Gryph’s mind flashed back to the argument between the Re
gent and the intense ranger, and he could not make sense of the idea. Sure Barrendiel had been passionate, desperate even, but Gryph had known many a warrior in his time and every fiber of his being told him that the captain was a fierce protector of his people, and his Regent. That he would resort to murder was … unthinkable.
The Prince Regent descended the steps to the Steward and placed a kind yet firm hand on the man’s shoulder. “I am sorry my old friend. Barrendiel was a son to you as he was a brother to me, but I need you with me. I need your counsel now more than ever.”
The Steward seemed to deflate before Gryph’s eyes as the truth of Myrthendir’s words took root in his soul. After a moment the half elf regained his composure and stood tall once again. He looked to his new liege and nodded.
Myrthendir turned his attention back to Gryph and his companions and the kindness he had shown the Steward drained from him like water from a dropped bucket. He walked straight up to Gryph.
“You will give me the arboleth eggs.”
Gryph’s eyes flashed to Sillendriel who had eased herself forward despite a whispered warning from the nurse at her side. Gone was the grief and the fear from those eyes as the vision she had shared with Gryph bored into his soul again. He turned to his friends’ eyes on him. With a deep sigh he turned back to the Prince Regent.
“I am sorry, but I cannot,” Gryph said.
Fury bubbled up inside Myrthendir and he took several steps forward and brought his mouth to Gryph’s ear. “I will kill all of your friends, one at a time if I must, but you will give me the eggs.”
The rage beneath the calm voice was like a coiled viper ready to strike, and Gryph knew the Prince Regent would follow through with his threat. Gryph looked with sadness to his friends. Ovyrm’s eyes narrowed as he understood the thoughts moving through Gryph’s mind. Tifala gripped Wick tighter. Only Wick spoke. “What are you doing man? Give this bastard the eggs and maybe, just maybe we’ll be allowed to grow old and crotchety.”
