Key of Stars

by Bruce R Cordell

  They backtracked. First there was a smell of sour oranges, but soon enough, the revolting odor was turning the warlock’s stomach again. It put Japheth in mind of an undead whose flesh was nearly sloughed off. In their case, though, it was the world’s facade ready to fall away.

  They skirted the bole of a large, tree that stood dead center in the spellplague pocket.

  In a hollow between two of the tree’s massive roots, a sinkhole created a natural stair that apparently provided an entrance into the forest’s understory down steps of dead roots, boulders, and raw earth. Another root curled over the top of the hollow, creating a natural lintel.

  Japheth advanced, one hand extended before him. When his boot heel touched the first rocky step, the “lintel” and the hollow beyond it burst into blue flame. A streamer of fire separated from the blaze and reached for him.

  Japheth yelled and threw himself back. His cloak, sensing his desire to escape, automatically tried to pull him into its protective embrace.

  Like the head of a striking cobra, the streamer of spellplague lunged. It speared Japheth through the gut and retracted, pulling him through the arch and in an explosion of blue flame.

  Raidon leaped for the trailing hem of the warlock’s cloak. His fingers brushed the fabric, but it jerked away like a live thing.

  The filament of fire retracted, and Japheth disappeared in sapphire light. The Sign on Raidon’s chest tingled in sympathy.

  The monk’s unsuccessful leap put him on the lip of the hollow.

  The light of the roused spellplague pocket danced before him. Through it he saw past the arch to the hollow’s far wall. The warlock was not inside the tree.

  A disconcerting sense of loss swept over Raidon.

  Had Japheth found an active portal into the Feywild, or had he simply been dissolved by the roused plague? Dissolved, like the people in the trade caravan taken by the fire during the Year of Blue Fire. Just like Hadyn, the youth who’d died trying to gain a spellscar in the Plaguewrought Lands. Just like …

  He wrenched his mind from the trap of contemplating the death of his adopted daughter.

  Instead, Raidon made fists capable of breaking stone. But no foes offered themselves for him to sate his urge to hurt something.

  Angul murmured and shifted on his back, as if imploring the monk to take some foolhardy action anyhow.

  He forced his hands open. He had to think, and not let emotion channel his decisions—especially the part of himself that hoped the warlock really was dead, burned to ash by remnant wild magic. It would be a fitting punishment for the man responsible for keeping the threat of the Eldest alive.

  Only one way to find out what had really happened. He would have to pass through the natural arch himself.

  “So be it,” he said. He’d survived contact with spellplague on more than one occasion. Perhaps he had developed resistance. He touched the Sign on his chest. Once more the image of his mother came to him, stronger than ever.

  Not a bad thought to go out on, he thought, and walked into the hollow through a screen of flame.

  Warmth brushed his skin, like the sun’s caress on a clear day. Colors, mostly blue, swirled before his eyes. One more step, and he was someplace else.

  The scent of cedar and loam sharpened. The air was cooler too. It was like a draft of cold water on a hot day, refreshing and bracing, and just slightly intoxicating.

  He was still surrounded by forest, but one whose majesty exceeded the Yuirwood in every way. The trunks here were massive. They marched away like pillars in an emperor’s throne room whose lofty ceiling was a canopy of mists, leaves, and dancing firefly lights.

  He stood on a granite step draped in a fall of autumn colors. A nimbus of blue fire played at its periphery. Japheth sprawled half on, half off the platform. The warlock wasn’t moving, and smoke curled up from inside his cloak. Despite everything, Raidon was relieved to see his companion still in one piece.

  The half-elf bent and placed a finger along the fallen man’s neck. He detected a pulse, slow and steady. Raidon pulled Japheth all the way onto the platform so that his feet weren’t dangling over the residual tongues of blue flame. As far as he could discern, the warlock hadn’t suffered any obvious burns from the fire. Nor could he discover any sign of a spellscar. Maybe the warlock has passed through the portal too quickly to be affected. On the other hand, sometimes spellscars took time to manifest …

  A rustle of leaves drew Raidon’s attention to the forest.

  A gnarled mass of tree roots stepped out of the undergrowth, revealing itself to be a man made of bark and boughs. He looked like a rougher, cruder version of Grandmother Ash, the entity who’d guided Raidon across the Plaguewrought Land. If the creature was so close to a spellplague-infested portal, perhaps it was touched by the same wild magic.

  “Who are you?” said Raidon.

  The creature snarled “Desecrator!” in the fey language Raidon’s mother had taught him, then charged.

  The monk slipped to the outside of the creature’s massive clublike arm, then sidekicked it in the neck. The snap of breaking branches ricocheted through the forest, and the woodling dropped like the felled tree it resembled.

  Two more woodlings appeared on the edge of the clearing. They studied the tableau. One murmured to the other. Its rough voice was too soft for the monk to make out distinct words.

  “We are not here to fight you. I’m sorry about your companion here,” called Raidon in Elvish. “But we will defend ourselves if attacked.”

  The creatures returned their attention to the granite step. One said, its voice louder, “Then you’d best prepare your strongest defense.”

  The woodlings melted back into the forest.

  When he was satisfied the two creatures were not preparing an immediate offense, Raidon stooped and pulled Japheth up onto his shoulders. He stepped over the first crumpled fey creature and off the low platform. The faint play of flames surrounding the platform doused itself.

  The monk made his way to the base of the closest tree trunk. He studied it for signs that it might suddenly animate into a far larger tree monster like the one the Lord of Bats had briefly called below Marhana Manor.

  He detected no telltale signs of an imminent threat. He carefully rolled Japheth off his back and arranged him to a sitting position.

  He produced a wineskin. He took a swig of the wine himself, then bent over the warlock. Raidon wet Japheth’s lips before pouring a tiny portion of the red fluid into the man’s mouth.

  The warlock coughed and opened his eyes. “What’re you … Oh,” he said. Japheth looked around, taking in the forest, the platform, and the unmoving man made of branches.

  He abruptly glanced down at himself, his hands, arms, and torso. He was looking for something, but seemed afraid to find it.

  “The spellplague didn’t care for your taste, it seems,” Raidon said. “It happens. You’re fortunate.”

  Japheth blew out a breath. He returned to scanning the surrounding panorama. He smiled and nodded as if satisfied in what he saw.

  “This is Faerie?” said Raidon. “Or, what was Sildëyuir, merged back into Faerie?”

  “Faerie, at the very least,” said Japheth. “A forest vista like this one is visible from the cave mouth where Neifion laired in the Feywild.”

  “And Malyanna?”

  Japheth closed his eyes and cocked his head to one side. He raised a finger and pointed off through the trees. “That way,” he said. “I can sense her as clearly as if she were standing right there. She’s close.”

  “Close?”

  “The veil is gone,” Japheth replied. “She’s within this realm, and no more than half a day’s walk, if that. But be on your guard. I’m pulling on the thread that leads to her. Unless my luck changes for the better, she’ll feel the tug, and know we’re coming.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  The Year of the Secret (1396 DR)

  Green Siren, Sea of Fallen Stars

  The cool wind off th
e water tumbled Anusha’s hair. The salty tang smelled like childhood.

  Mist clung to the wave tops. Green Siren’s prow swept a lane through the fog as the ship pushed across the sea.

  Anusha was not a sailor, but she was the daughter of a shipping merchant. When she was a child, she’d spent years aboard the small fleet of craft Marhana kept. That familiarity allowed her to note the newer boards interspersed with original planking, the fresh sails, recently cleaned surfaces, and dozens of other small improvements to Green Siren’s demeanor. Anusha could tell that each repair had been done with masterful attention to detail.

  The captain stood next to her, his weathered hands on the wheel.

  If Lucky had been aboard, he would have been standing between them, probably licking Anusha’s hand looking for a treat. But she’d decided to leave the loyal hound at home, in the care of the servants. She’d become too attached to the mongrel to put him in harm’s way. It was different for her, the captain, and the crew. They knew what they were getting themselves into.

  “So, what do you think?” said Thoster, nodding across the deck.

  “Stonekeel’s work?” Anusha asked.

  The captain smirked and nodded.

  “You must have paid through the nose to get her on such short notice,” she said. “I can’t think of a shipwright with a longer backlog.”

  “Karna Stonekeel and I go back, ’s all,” the captain said. “I paid her a king’s ransom, aye, but she owed me too.”

  Anusha decided not to ask what the shipwright could possibly owe a pirate.

  “Last time I put out of New Sarshell,” said the captain, “it was Japheth on deck, and you stowed away in the hold, not that I knew it then. With you up here this time, it makes me wonder; do you think we’ll find a warlock down there stuffed in a trunk?”

  “You’re funny, Captain,” she said. She smiled at the ridiculousness of the image.

  No, Japheth wasn’t on the ship. He was … where? If the wizard’s portal ritual had worked, he was deep in the Yuirwood, tracking down Malyanna.

  Using the powers granted to him by his newly sworn star pact.

  Anusha frowned.

  “You all right lass?” asked Thoster.

  Anusha drew in a breath, and nodded. “Just letting my mind reel out too far,” she said.

  “Worried about the warlock?” the captain said.

  She wasn’t worried in the way he guessed, but she nodded anyway.

  “I wouldn’t,” Thoster said. “He’s no slouch, and he’s with Raidon too.”

  “True,” she said.

  “And, I hope he ain’t worrying about you; I’m here,” the captain added with a chuckle.

  “Don’t forget Yeva,” she said.

  “Your friend the walking statue?” the captain replied. “She likes it below, it seems.”

  “Well, she doesn’t like to come on deck much because she’s afraid she’ll fall off and sink.”

  The captain grinned.

  “Also—just like you said about Raidon, I’m ‘no slouch’ either,” she said.

  “Indeed,” Thoster replied.

  Anusha laughed.

  “Japheth,” mused the captain, “comes off as a fierce sort, at least on the surface. He once told me he could curse the heart out of a demon. Trying to ruffle my feathers by way of indirect threat, I think. But … I don’t doubt he could slay a demon just so, and probably not think twice about it.”

  “I suppose,” said Anusha.

  “But I think he’s proved he’d go the last mile for you,” the captain said.

  “Yes. What’s it to you, pirate?”

  “Well, I don’t mean to be nosy, but I have to wonder why he’s there”—the man pointed east—“and you’re here?”

  “You wouldn’t understand,” Anusha said.

  The captain chuckled. “Mayhap,” he said. “But were I you, I wouldn’t throw a good thing away just to prove I could.”

  Anusha snorted. “We each took on the task suited to our strengths,” she said. “Separating was the logical choice—we didn’t choose against the relationship, as you make it sound. It’s not an either-or. Being in love doesn’t mean you do everything together.”

  The captain raised his hands. “My misunderstanding!” he said. “Didn’t mean to wrinkle your frock.”

  “It’s all right,” Anusha replied.

  But it unsettled her how the privateer had so casually pierced to the heart of the matter. Had she separated them for more than merely logical reasons?

  If so, then so be it, she thought. It had been necessary. Too many questions required answers—answers she was unlikely to get if they remained together while danger closed in from every direction.

  The question was, could she separate the man from his issues? When she was with him, forgetting her concerns was easy. Despite her fears, he’d demonstrated he wasn’t a slave to his new pact, nor even to his old addiction.

  It was when she was apart from him that all her worries returned. That’s really why she’d suggested they separate, so she could think clearly without Japheth around to confuse her.

  At this point, she had to admit her plan wasn’t working.

  If anything, with only her memory of him present, she vacillated even more spectacularly between hope and distress, back and forth over the course of hours.

  All she knew for certain was that she missed him.

  “Hold,” said the captain. His voice was devoid of the amusement it’d held moments earlier. “Listen!”

  “No, I’d rather we not discuss my love life any longer …” Anusha saw the captain’s head was cocked to one side, as if he were straining to hear something.

  The mist around Green Siren thinned. Then the fog peeled away, opening up the view on all sides.

  Streamers of black cloud swirled on the horizon, creating a vortex in the sky. Lightning danced at the storm’s hollow heart, briefly illuminating an obelisk jutting from the crown of a thunderhead.

  It was still miles away, thank Torm, but—

  A brilliant flash revealed the petrified shape that crouched atop the obelisk. The Eldest! Still unmoving and as stiff as stone … But even the glint from its pocked carapace across the miles that separated them made Anusha’s stomach heave. She flinched her gaze away, then forced herself to return her regard to the horrific sight.

  Small dots circled Xxiphu like crows around a tower. If the flying shapes were visible at such a distance against the city, Anusha realized that whatever the specks were, they must be colossal.

  “The music … it’s like smoke in my mind,” Thoster said. “Awful, yet … enticing. Xxiphu commands that we find the Key of Stars and deliver it.” The privateer clutched the amulet that lay atop his jacket. When his fingers brushed the stone, some of the tension that bunched above his eyes faded.

  Anusha swallowed. She strained to listen, but heard only the sound of the waves against the ship and the distant rumble of thunder.

  “I hear nothing,” she said.

  The captain shook his head. “It’s there all the same,” he said.

  “Does it say anything else?” Anusha asked.

  Thoster nodded. “It says, ‘Come to me, children of Toril, and serve.’ ”

  The fluting melody tattered the moment Thoster’s fingers brushed Seren’s amulet. The sound threatening to engulf his mind in a conflagration of wonder was reduced to simple, if atonal, music. The piping melody, echoing and ethereal, lost its power to command him. He let out a relieved breath.

  The magic in the talisman, which kept him from unraveling into a scaled mess, also protected him from Xxiphu’s mental compulsion.

  “Children of Toril?” said Anusha.

  Thoster shrugged, but as he did so, the image of a scaled fish person flashed in his mind. A kuo-toa. He tried to say the word aloud, but surprise robbed him of volume.

  The deck vibrated with Yeva’s approach from belowdecks. “I counsel we keep our distance,” the iron woman said.

&
nbsp; Thoster only nodded.

  “Yeva,” said Anusha, “The captain says he can hear some sort of music. But I don’t hear it, nor does the crew. Can you?”

  The woman’s metal head swiveled to regard the distant city. “A telepathic aura surrounds Xxiphu,” she said. “It carries some kind of compulsion, but one narrowly tuned to reach only a certain subset of creatures. More than that … I cannot say.”

  “Kuo-toa,” said Thoster, finally managing to make his voice work again. “That’s what Xxiphu’s after.”

  “And you can hear it?” said Anusha. Her gaze dropped to the captain’s forearm. It was covered with the sleeves of his black coat. She’d seen what was hidden beneath, though. “Would that mean—”

  “Something along those lines,” Thoster interrupted. “I’ll let you know when I figure it out myself.”

  “Mmm,” Anusha said.

  The lookout on the mainmast screamed. “Something in the water! Approaching starboard!”

  Thoster followed the woman’s pointing finger.

  A school of large fish darted along just below the sea surface, occasionally breaking above, roiling and splashing the water. The disturbance was closing on Green Siren’s position. He squinted, focusing on the approaching school. He felt his eyebrows rise when, instead of fins, he saw scaled limbs and webbed feet. Spear tips, harpoons, and other weapons gripped tight in fishy hands also flashed above the water line.

  “Hard about!” Thoster yelled, even as he spun the wheel. Too little, too late. The attackers were already too close. He wished, not for the first time, that Green Siren had a porthole installed below the waterline to afford a better view of threats that swam beneath the surface.

  “Break out arms! Repel boarders!” he shouted.

  He glanced at Anusha. “Don’t just stand there; get to your cabin and lock yourself inside your strongbox, lass!” he said. “You ain’t protected by dream!”

  Anusha ran for the stairs. Yeva stamped after her.

  Thoster lunged for the starboard railing.