by James Wyatt
“Albanon!” Kri snapped.
Albanon made sure his face was blank before he looked up at the old priest. Kri stopped and searched his eyes as Albanon stared straight ahead.
“Perhaps Albric was right,” Kri said at last. “Your mind was stronger than I gave you credit for. It seems that Moorin was not a total idiot after all.”
A spark of anger flared in some shattered corner of Albanon’s mind, enough to make him realize that Kri was trying to provoke him, testing him.
“Did you see Shara back there, Albanon?” Kri asked. “Did you hear her call out to you?”
Another test. Albanon kept his face a mask and didn’t answer, didn’t even allow his mind to pursue the questions that surfaced in his mind. Who is Shara to me? Should I care about her?
“Come along, Albanon,” the Doomdreamer said, apparently satisfied. “We have work to do.”
Two hundred thirteen, Albanon thought as he started walking again. He had stopped counting steps as he contemplated Nu Alin’s mathematics of blood, and counting again was the only way he could keep his mind away from the madness contained in those formulas.
Two hundred and fifty-six steps—sixteen sixteens, the square of a square of a square—brought him to the threshold of Moorin’s tower. Crossing the threshold brought another wave of memory, the trepidation he felt entering the tower the night of Moorin’s death, seeing that the tower’s wards had been disabled. He pushed the memories away and counted the seventy-seven remaining steps up to the top of the tower.
“Be gone!” Kri shouted when he reached the top of the stairs.
Albanon looked past him and saw a squad of soldiers, staring wide-eyed at Kri.
“The defense of this tower is no longer your concern,” Kri said.
“But Captain Damar—” one of the soldiers began. Albanon recognized only that he should know the name—no further memory would come to mind.
“Tell your captain that the guard is no longer welcome in the Glowing Tower. We will deal harshly with trespassers.”
“Our orders—”
“Sergeant, if you utter another word you will become trespassers.” Albanon felt power gathering around the Doomdreamer, dark and dangerous.
The sergeant must have felt it, too. He nodded to the other soldiers, who immediately filed to the stairs, casting nervous glances at Kri and Albanon as they passed. The sergeant was the last to leave, and he dared a parting word of defiance as he started down the seventy-seven steps. “You’ll hear from the Lord Warden about this.”
“Be gone!” Kri roared, and the force of his voice seemed to drive the sergeant forward, making him stumble on the stairs. Only the quick reaction of the men in front of him kept him from tumbling down to his death.
“Now to work,” Kri said. “First, disable the ward on the teleportation circle.”
Albanon followed an arcing path across the room where, months ago, Moorin’s blood had traced a line of very precise curvature. He closed his eyes as he walked, seeing in his mind the spray of blood and feeling the flow of power that still followed that line. He sidestepped the table he knew lay in his path, but kept his hand in the flow of magic. What did Nu Alin create here? he wondered. And does Kri know it’s here?
He reached the teleportation circle and suddenly remembered arriving there with Kri just hours before. How did I forget that? he thought. The shimmering dome of the ward that kept them in until …
Disabling the ward was trivially simple, barely an effort of calculation. A guard had let it down before, so whoever established it—the High Septarch, he realized—must have created a control even a fool could use from outside the circle.
“Excellent,” Kri said, appearing behind him. “Your power has grown, quite dramatically, now that you’re free of Moorin’s fetters.”
You have not yet seen how my power has grown, Albanon thought. But you will.
Kri reached into the folds of his robes and withdrew a chunk of reddish crystal followed by a glass vial holding a tiny sample of the Voidharrow. He strode into the center of the circle and closed his eyes, reaching out to sense the magical energy that flowed through the patterns and sigils. Albanon did the same, his mind flooding with formulas and arcane syllables as he did. He bit his tongue to stop himself from giving voice to the magic he felt, not even consciously aware of what the spells would have done if he’d unleashed them.
Kri was right, he realized—his power had grown. In the Feywild, he’d been struck by how easy it was to access the magic that flowed through everything there. Now, the same power—no, even more power—was at his fingertips in the world, practically leaping from his fingers and spilling from his tongue without his conscious effort.
But can I control it? he wondered.
He opened his eyes again and saw Kri’s brow furrowed in concentration. Now he sees Nu Alin’s magic, too, Albanon thought. Will he fathom its purpose?
Kri opened his eyes and looked down at the items in his hands. “Just as Albric did, so we now do. Together, the Voidharrow and the fragment of the Living Gate will open a portal like none ever seen before in this world.”
“The Vast Gate,” Albanon said. Words echoed dimly in his mind—a new Vast Gate, construction and opening. To guard against it, he remembered suddenly. The Oath of Vigilance.
Kri frowned. “You remember,” he said.
“I remember,” Albanon blurted. “Alak tashar—”
“That’s enough,” Kri said. “I can’t decide if your mind is too whole to be safe or too broken to be useful.” His eyes dropped to the fire still dancing across Albanon’s fingertips. “Or perhaps too broken to be safe.”
Kri had asked no question so Albanon gave him no answer, but he let the fire that had sprung up unbidden fade from his hands.
“But I need you,” Kri continued. “I can’t kill you, and I can’t risk shattering your mind completely. So as long as you remain … pliable, I suppose we will carry on as planned.”
With a last searching look at Albanon, Kri lowered himself to his knees in the center of the circle. He laid the chunk of crystal on the floor. “Chained God, guide me,” he breathed. He lifted the tiny vial and strained at the stopper with a visible effort. He thrust the vial at Albanon and growled, “Open this. Carefully!”
The stopper was stuck fast. Peering into the vial, Albanon noted that the glass had fused together somehow, as if the substance within had heated like a furnace and shaped a new orb around itself. Albanon formed his finger and thumb into a ring around the neck of the vial and concentrated for a moment, creating a thin plane of magical force within the ring that made a clean cut through the glass.
The substance within surged up the sides of the vial and out the mouth, defying gravity as if thrilled to be free, and splashed onto his hand. It was cool and slick, and it spread quickly into a thin film covering his whole hand.
“No, you fool!” Kri shouted. “Get it onto the shard!”
Albanon stared, transfixed, at his red hand and wrist. A distant memory surfaced in his mind—a serpent of red crystal snaking out of Tempest’s dying body, surging onto Falon’s flesh, reaching for the young cleric’s face and forcing itself into his mouth. Like the demons he’d fought, the red liquid was a dark snarl in the fabric of magic, out of place even in the more tangled weave of magic in the world.
Kri was on his feet now, clutching the crystal and holding it up near Albanon’s hand as if its mere proximity would draw the substance away from Albanon’s flesh. Sure enough, a drop of the Voidharrow fell onto the shard. A flash of brilliant light cast stark shadows all around the chamber, and Albanon imagined that he saw the trails of Moorin’s blood in the darkness.
A more recent memory fought its way into his awareness. The thing that had been Vestapalk, the dragon that was now a demon, looming over him and drooling the Voidharrow onto his forehead, infusing him with the substance of its corruption. Then Kri tending to him before the red substance took him completely, purging his body clean with divin
e light.
A formula took shape in his mind and rolled off his tongue, and his hand began to glow. First red light shone in an orb around his hand, but then the liquid began to burn away and the pure white light shone through, growing steadily brighter.
Kri snatched the crystal away before the light could sear it, shouting, “No! You’re destroying it!”
Albanon allowed the light to die and examined his hands. None of the substance remained, either on his skin or in the vial.
Then Kri’s fist slammed into his jaw, knocking him backward and jumbling his thoughts. He felt like he’d been on the cusp of an important realization or insight, but it was gone, like a word that vanished from the tip of his tongue.
“I would kill you where you stand,” the Doomdreamer said, “but now is the moment I need you.”
The Voidharrow had fused with the shard and expanded around it. Albanon closed his eyes and extended his other senses, and he felt and understood the crystalline structure forming around the shard, matching its internal structure, channeling magical energy in a precise pattern. He also noted that the liquid was replicating itself, like a living creature, forming more of its substance from nothing.
Kri thrust the shard toward him again, holding it in both hands as it slowly expanded. “Place your hands on the Vast Gate with me and help it grow, shape it with me.”
The liquid slithered over the surface of the crystal, expanding it and fusing with it so Albanon couldn’t tell where the original shard ended and the new substance began. He was hesitant to touch it, for fear the liquid would try to fuse with him again, but he didn’t want to—no, he couldn’t disobey the Doomdreamer. He placed both hands on the crystal and felt the magic surging through it.
Kri stared at him and spoke in a tone of firm command. “We are shaping the Vast Gate, forming an archway, creating a pathway between worlds. Keep those thoughts in mind and no others.”
As they guided its growth, the crystal expanded into a slender column that they soon had to rest on the floor. They shaped it up and over into a curving arch, then—with agonizing slowness as the amount of liquid flowing over the surface diminished almost to nothing—back down to touch the floor again.
Albanon heard the soft pop of air as an unknown landscape, a dark and forbidding castle on a high promontory, appeared in the archway. The scene then disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by a foam-washed seashore.
The Vast Gate was open.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Roghar led his new ragtag army—the handful of soldiers who had helped him and Tempest defeat the fire demons—on a triumphant march through the shattered doors of the Silver Unicorn. Smoke still wafted around near the ceiling—more smoke than usual, anyway. Besides the front doors, a few other windows and doors were crashed in, curtains and bedsheets scorched or incinerated, and timbers here and there were blackened with fire, but the inn had escaped a far worse fate thanks to their efforts. To her credit, Wisara Osterman acknowledged that fact, promising that the “heroes of Fallcrest” could drink at the Silver Unicorn for the rest of their lives, on the house.
“She obviously doesn’t know you very well,” Tempest whispered to Roghar.
“I’m not sure I want to do my drinking here, anyway,” Roghar said. “It’s sort of a dump.”
Uldane stalked in a few minutes after they got settled and silently took a seat at the table.
“No luck?” Roghar asked.
Uldane shook his head with a glance at Tempest.
“Where are Shara and the drow?”
Uldane shrugged.
“What’s the matter with you, Uldane?” Roghar said, clapping the halfling on the shoulder. “We won, didn’t we?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” The halfling crossed his arms and seemed to fold in on himself, turning away from Roghar.
Shara burst in then, scanning the room, and the drow loomed at her shoulder. “Where in the three worlds is Albanon?” Shara said.
“Albanon?” Roghar said. “I haven’t seen him since …”
“He was there,” Shara said, storming to the table. “I saw him, and Kri as well, talking to him.”
“Kri was talking to Albanon? Who’s Kri?” Roghar asked.
“They were both talking to Nu Alin!” Shara said. “They let him get away!”
“You found Nu Alin?” Tempest asked, leaning forward.
“He got away,” Uldane said. “I’m sorry, Tempest, I tried to catch him.”
“He would have killed you,” Roghar said. “None of us is strong enough to handle him alone.”
Quarhaun rubbed his throat, where several lighter spots in his dark skin marked recent wounds only partially healed by magic. “True enough,” he said, his voice hoarse.
“But he got away,” Uldane said.
“I can’t believe Albanon would let him go like that,” Tempest said. “He hates the demon almost as much as I do.”
Roghar scratched his chin. “Is it possible he didn’t recognize Nu Alin?”
“Maybe at first,” Shara said. “But he watched the demon hit me and he didn’t lift a finger. Then he just walked away.”
“I’m sorry to say it,” Roghar said, “but I think we need to treat the elf as an enemy until we know what’s going on.”
“Eladrin,” Tempest said automatically.
“Whatever. But perhaps Nu Alin has powers of mind control we’re not aware of.”
“Or else Kri does,” Shara said.
“Tell me again who this Kri is?” Roghar said. “A priest of Ioun, you said?”
“Yes. Kri helped us deal with another demon, another servant of Vestapalk. He knows more about the threat we face than anyone, and he said he was the last member of an order that Albanon’s mentor also belonged to. After we destroyed that other demon, he took Albanon into the Feywild, looking for a weapon we could use against Vestapalk.”
Roghar rumbled as he absorbed this information. “You think he was lying?”
“I don’t know,” Shara said. “I trusted him—I think we all did. But he seemed to be doing most of the talking with Nu Alin just now.”
“Imagine,” Quarhaun said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “A trusted servant of the gods turns out to be not so trustworthy after all.”
“What in the Nine Hells is that supposed to mean?” Roghar said.
“You think only priests of the Spider Queen are capable of treachery? I am not so naive.”
“If you expect treachery from every quarter, you’re certain to find it.”
“And if you don’t expect it,” Quarhaun said with a wry smile, “it will find you.”
“So you won’t be surprised to hear that I don’t trust you outside the reach of my sword arm,” Roghar growled.
“But a dagger in the ribs comes from inside that reach.” The drow was still smiling, but there was a look in his eyes that Roghar found even more threatening than his words.
“You’re right,” Roghar said, rising to his feet. “I don’t trust you at all, and I wouldn’t miss you if I never saw you again.”
“Roghar, sit down,” Shara whispered, glancing around at the soldiers and citizens who had paused from their celebrations to listen to him. “Quarhaun’s just toying with you.”
“Like a cat toys with a mouse before it pounces,” Roghar said as he lowered himself back down to his chair. “But I warn you, drow, I’m no mouse.”
Quarhaun shrugged. “And I’m no cat.”
“Stop it,” Shara said to the drow, squeezing his hand. “And you, too,” she added with a sharp glance at Roghar. “This whole thing started with Albanon and Kri. They’re the ones who let Nu Alin escape, not Quarhaun.”
“Well.” Roghar took a deep breath, biting back another angry retort for Shara’s sake. “The important thing is that we’ve scored a first victory. We killed a lot of those demons, and showed the citizens of Fallcrest a ray of hope. Now we take the fight to them and retake Lowtown!”
The nearby s
oldiers cheered, and the inn patrons who’d been dragged from their beds in the middle of the night joined in, and Roghar felt, however briefly, like a proper hero. But a glance at Shara, Tempest, and Uldane showed him that he’d failed to inspire them in the slightest.
“Fine,” Shara said. “You can be the hero of Fallcrest. But I have a dragon to kill. I’m tired of facing his exarchs and letting him mock me through them. I need to find him and take him out, once and for all.”
“What, and leave Fallcrest defenseless?” Roghar said.
“Cut off the head and the body dies, too,” Shara said, with a glance at Quarhaun. “Nu Alin isn’t the head. It’s Vestapalk. He’s out there, somewhere to the west, and I mean to find him.”
“Is Vestapalk the head of Kri and Albanon as well?” Tempest asked.
“I assume so,” Shara said. “Why?”
“What if he’s not? What if there’s another head behind them both? When does it stop?”
“Sooner or later, we’ll find whoever’s in charge of all of this. I think it’s Vestapalk. Do you have a better idea?”
“I’m just trying to say that it’s not necessarily a good idea to ignore these evils just because they’re not ‘the head,’ you see? If we discovered tomorrow that Vestapalk and Nu Alin and Kri were all servants of Tiamat, for example, would you abandon your quest for vengeance against Vestapalk and go hunt down the dragon queen?”
Shara frowned. “No,” she admitted. “But this is different. Vestapalk—not Tiamat, not any other evil mastermind, Vestapalk has taunted me through the mouths of two of his demon pawns. I’m through fighting pawns.”
Roghar glanced around the room. Soldiers and citizens alike were talking quietly among themselves, their initial fervor after his pronouncement fading quickly. “Listen,” he said. “A moment ago, half the people in this room were ready to charge out the door with me and drive the demons out of this town. With every second we spend bickering, that number drops. If we want to use their excitement, we have to act now.”
