by James Wyatt
Albanon’s eyes widened. “He left the Temple of Yellow Skulls on Vestapalk’s back. Where he is, the dragon probably is as well. But there’s no way he’s going to help us against Vestapalk.”
“Perhaps not,” Kri said. “But we are not the only ones opposing the Voidharrow. It may be that enough remains of Albric the Accursed to turn even Nu Alin against his master.”
“Well, where is he, then?”
“In Fallcrest.”
Albanon stared at him for a moment, then swore softly in Elven. “Shara and Uldane,” he said. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Albanon hurried into the workshop while he adjusted the straps on his backpack. He had decided to bring only the bare minimum of books from Sherinna’s library, things he really couldn’t do without while he and Kri went in search of Nu Alin, but that bare minimum had filled his backpack almost to bursting. And that was after he’d removed luxuries like rope, sunrods, and food.
“I can’t find Splendid,” he told Kri. “Have you seen her?”
“Not in days, now that you mention it. I thought it was pleasantly quiet around here.”
“I argued with her in the library last week and she slunk away. I think she must have left.”
“Whatever will we do without her wisdom and perspective?”
“Please, Kri. She was Moorin’s.”
“So let her go!” Kri said. “Along with the last remnants of your apprenticeship and your childhood. You’re not in training any more-if nothing else, the way you handled yourself at the Temple of Yellow Skulls proves that. Now you are a man-and more than a man, a wizard. Nothing remains to hold you back.”
Albanon stood a little taller, but then his face fell. “Except you ordering me around,” he muttered.
Kri turned away from the arch set in Sherinna’s workshop wall and put a hand on Albanon’s shoulder. “I don’t mean to order you around, Albanon, but we’re pressed for time. I will explain everything when I can, I promise you.”
Albanon forced a smile for his new mentor. “Thank you. I’ll hold you to that.”
“You’d better, because I’m sure to forget. The old mind’s not what it used to be, you understand?”
“Oh, I’ve noticed.”
Albanon cast a longing look around the workshop. During the week since they reached the tower, he had spent nearly every waking hour in the library, and felt as though he’d only scratched the surface of all there was to learn there. He’d had no time for the workshop, let alone all the other rooms of the tower-the room where Sherinna had displayed trophies from her adventuring life as if they were exhibits in a museum, or the greenhouse at the top of the tower, full of exotic plants. He had even wanted to spend time in the music room, with its dusty harp and collection of wooden flutes, maybe even learn to play those instruments. He’d felt, somehow, that it would bring him closer to the mysterious woman who had been his grandmother.
“Are you ready?” Kri asked over his shoulder as he made some final adjustments to the arch.
“Just a moment.” Albanon stepped out onto the landing and looked up and down the entry hall. “Splendid!” he called. “Splendid, I’m sorry for what I said. We’re leaving now, and if you want to come with us you have to come now. Please!”
He waited until he heard Kri clear his throat in the workshop, signaling his impatience.
“Splendid!” he called, one last time.
With no response, he turned and shuffled back into the workshop, ready for Kri’s journey.
“You’re better off, believe me,” Kri said. “Now, I’ve modified this arch so that it works more like a traditional teleportation circle. That means, among other things, that we’ll be able to use it come back here, without passing through the Moon Door and crossing the Plain of Thorns. After all, you never know when your father will tire of letting us walk across his lands. I have keyed the portal to the teleportation circle in Moorin’s tower.”
“In Fallcrest?” Albanon said, suddenly excited to return to the town that had been his home for seven years.
“Did Moorin have another tower somewhere?”
A thought struck Albanon. “Why didn’t you use that circle before?”
Kri blinked at him. “What?”
“When we first met. You said you came to Fallcrest by boat. Why didn’t you just teleport there?”
“Moorin never shared the sigils of his circle with me. I studied them when we were last there.”
Albanon frowned, but something about Kri’s tone made him decide not to press the question further. Instead, he turned his attention to the arch. “Are you sure it’s going to work?” He pointed to the top of the arch. “It looks like there used to be something set into the stone at the apex. Maybe it won’t function without whatever it was.”
“As I said,” Kri said testily, “I have modified the arch so that it will function in its current state.”
“Oh, right.”
“Are you ready?” Kri asked.
“Do I have a choice?”
“Of course you do, Albanon. But I thought you wanted to help me root out the source of this abyssal plague.”
“I do,” Albanon said quickly. “Forgive me. I spoke without thinking.”
A spasm of fury passed across Kri’s face, and Albanon stepped away reflexively. Then it was gone, and Kri was smiling again. “We’ll leave when you’re sure you’re ready,” he said.
“I’m ready. I’m sorry.”
“Very well. To Moorin’s tower!”
Kri raised his hands before the arch and the columns began to glow, casting the interior into strange shadows. He stepped between the glowing columns and disappeared.
Albanon took one last look at the Whitethorn Spire, half hoping to see Splendid speeding through the archway on her tiny wings, and followed the priest through the arch.
For the briefest instant he felt like he was falling, and as if some dark presence nearby was grasping at him. Then his feet stood once more on solid ground. It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the candlelit chamber, but he knew it well, and it brought a stab of pain to his heart. It was the very chamber where he had found Moorin’s corpse after Nu Alin-using the unassuming body of a halfling-had torn him to pieces. Blood had been everywhere, and for one horrible moment the memory of the smell-the acrid blood and his own vomit-threatened to overwhelm him.
“What have we here?” Kri demanded, jolting Albanon’s mind back to the present.
Magical power shimmered in the air around them, forming a dome over the teleportation circle that was inscribed on the ground. Albanon wasn’t immediately sure, but he guessed the purpose of the dome was to keep him and Kri inside. He was more certain about the intent of the trembling soldiers that surrounded the pair, pointing spears and halberds in their general direction.
“Intruders!” one of the soldiers shouted. “Get the captain!”
Another soldier, a young man who looked barely old enough for the militia, broke from the circle and ran down the stairs, presumably to carry out his sergeant’s orders.
“What’s the meaning of this, sergeant?” Kri asked hotly. “We’re not intruders-this tower belongs to Albanon, here.”
“Sorry,” the sergeant replied, “but we have our orders. You need to stay here until we can make sure you’re clean.”
“Fine,” Albanon said, cutting off what he suspected was going to be an angry retort from Kri. “But we’ve been away from Fallcrest for some time. Can you tell us what’s going on while we wait for the captain?”
“The town’s under siege. The invaders are everywhere in Lowtown and the west bank. Plague is breaking out, mostly among soldiers who have fought the creatures, but it’s starting to spread. Hightown’s crowded with refugees.”
“So what are you doing here?” Kri demanded. “Don’t you soldiers have better things to do than occupy a wizard’s tower?”
“The town’s locked down,” the sergeant said. “No one enters Hightown until we’re sur
e they’re not carrying the plague or working for the enemy.”
The young soldier returned, breathless from his run. “The captain’s here, sir,” he said with a salute.
“Thank the gods,” the sergeant breathed.
Albanon had the opposite reaction as the captain strode in. The captain was a tall human woman, with dark brown skin and eyes that gleamed like amber. Albanon recognized her-she had tried to arrest him after Moorin’s death and had testified at his trial before the Lord Warden where he was finally acquitted. The few times he’d seen her since then, he’d had the distinct feeling that she took his freedom as a personal affront.
“Well, they don’t look like demons,” the captain announced. “And I don’t see any sores.”
“No, Captain Damar,” the sergeant replied, “but our orders-”
“Moorin’s apprentice,” the captain said, stepping closer to inspect Albanon. “Your dragonborn friend blinded my soldiers and carried you away before we could arrest you.”
“I’ve faced trial before the Lord Warden,” Albanon said.
“Indeed. He decided you were innocent. But I still don’t understand why an innocent man would attack my guards and run like a rabbit.”
“Roghar and I were chasing the creature that did kill Moorin. It had taken our friend Tempest, and we were afraid it might kill her as well, so we were trying to travel fast. We didn’t have time-”
“Back up,” Captain Damar said. “Who else was present that day, the first time we tried to arrest you?”
Albanon furrowed his brow. “Who else? Well, the Lord Warden was the one who ordered me to surrender myself. The High Septarch and his apprentice, Tobolar. You and a half dozen soldiers. Me, Roghar, and Splendid, Moorin’s pseudodragon.”
The captain nodded. “They are who they say they are, sergeant. You may lower the wards.”
Albanon gaped at her, stunned into silence.
“If you were an enemy posing as Albanon-well, first, you’d be a damned fool to choose that disguise. But more important, I don’t think you’d know all the details of that day. And I see no sign of contagion.”
“So you believe I’m innocent?”
The captain scoffed. “At the time, you were the only suspect that made sense, and your explanation of a ‘foul creature from someplace else’ seemed far-fetched.” She frowned. “Now it’s all too real.”
As she spoke, her sergeant manipulated some kind of pattern on a nearby table, shifting gleaming stones around on an engraved circle. The shimmer of magic in the air around Albanon and Kri vanished suddenly.
“So what are these invaders?” Albanon asked, stepping out of the circle. He suspected he knew the answer, but he didn’t want to believe it until he heard the captain say it.
“They’re not like anything I’ve seen before,” the captain said, and Albanon’s heart sank. “Creatures of blood and fire, some of them, and others are made of shadow and nightmare.”
Albanon cocked his head. These didn’t sound like Vestapalk’s demons. “Fire and blood, you say? What does that mean?”
“They’re formed of living flame, like elementals. But they have faces in the midst of the flame, faces formed of blood streaked with silver.”
“The Voidharrow,” Kri said.
“So they are Vestapalk’s demons,” Albanon said. “But a new kind, one we haven’t seen before. And they’re all over Lowtown?”
“Oh, yes,” the captain said. “And the west bank of the river. We have soldiers and conscripts all along the walls, the river, and the bluffs to keep them from spreading, but I fear it’s futile.”
“Why?”
“A couple of people struck by the plague ended up … changed. Most of them, we had to kill. A couple got away to join the enemy.”
“They turned into demons,” Albanon said.
“Demons seems like as good a word as any. So tell me, how do you defend a town against something like that?”
Albanon stared at the floor, trying to comprehend what had happened to the town he’d called home for seven years.
Kri stepped forward. “I’ll tell you how we defend it,” he said. “We find the source of the plague and wipe it from the face of the earth.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Once they left the Witchlight Fens, Quarhaun’s recovery slowed dramatically, as if distance from the swamp prevented Kssansk’s water spirits from working their healing magic on him any longer. By the time they made camp, just a few hours outside the borders of the swamp, the drow had a high fever. He babbled nonsense as Shara wrapped him in his bedroll and forced him to lie still beside their campfire.
In the morning, his fever was worse, and she could barely rouse him into wakefulness. He’d open his eyes, say something unintelligible in Elven or Draconic or some other tongue-often with a dopey smile on his face-then close them again, falling limp in her arms.
“This is bad,” she said to Uldane, looking down at the drow with her hands on her hips.
“We’re only a few hours from Fallcrest,” the halfling said. “Do you think you can carry him that far?”
“If I do, it’ll take more than a few hours, but it’s possible.”
“We could build a raft and pole it up the river to town. That’s the halfling way, after all.”
“I wish we’d thought of that while we were still in the swamp. With the lizardfolk’s help, we could have built a raft in no time.”
“Maybe we should just let him sleep another day,” Uldane said, staring at Quarhaun thoughtfully. “Maybe by tomorrow morning, he’ll feel better and be ready to walk himself into town.”
“Or maybe he’ll be dead,” Shara said. “I’d like to get him to a healer as soon as we can. If Albanon and Kri have returned, Kri could help him. And it’d be good to check in with them.”
“Do you think it’s that serious?” Uldane said, his eyes suddenly wide. He took a few nervous steps toward where Quarhaun lay.
“Yes.” Shara ran her fingers through her hair. “I have an idea. We’ll build a small raft, just big enough for him to lie on.”
Uldane brightened, nearly jumping up from his seat. “Like the one that carried the Sleeping Prince!”
“I don’t know that story, but tell me later. We’ll tie some rope to the raft, and we can pull him upstream. We walk on the riverbank or wade in the shallows, and he gets a smooth ride.”
“You really like him, don’t you?” Uldane’s expression was serious again, a little crease between his eyebrows expressing a hint of disapproval.
“Like him? Not really, no. He’s cowardly, insensitive, snide, and sometimes mean.”
Uldane’s face broke into a wide grin. “Yeah, he can be a real bugbear.”
“But he has been an enormous help to us,” Shara continued. “So as much as I’d like to just leave him here for the ankhegs …”
“He sure likes you, though.”
“Stop it.”
“It’s a bit creepy, actually. The way he watches you, sometimes it’s like a dragon watching its prey.”
“That doesn’t make it sound like he likes me. More like he wants to eat me.”
“You know what I mean, Shara.”
Shara felt her face grow red, and she turned away. “What can we use to make a little raft?”
Uldane proved surprisingly skilled at weaving reeds around a basic frame of branches to make a simple raft. Shara knew that halflings were river-dwellers, but in all their years of adventuring together she’d never seen Uldane demonstrate the skills he must have been born into. Shara held her breath as she gently lowered a moaning Quarhaun into the raft, and she sighed with relief when it held him afloat.
“Maybe this will keep him closer to the water spirits,” Uldane said as Shara worked her rope into a simple harness.
“That would be good. Although I don’t know if the river has the same spirits as the swamp.”
“Do you suppose they’re friends or enemies?”
“Who?”
“Th
e water spirits. Do the ones in the river like the ones in the swamp? Or do they think they’re dirty, ugly, lazy spirits because they don’t flow bright and clear the way the river spirits do?”
Shara blinked at Uldane, then turned to look at the river. She felt, in a way, like she’d never really seen the river before-the way the sunlight gleamed on the water as it rushed by, the dance of the plants that grew beneath the surface as the water swirled around them, the darting fish and skimming insects. And beneath or behind all that, in a way that words couldn’t describe, the spirits of the river, laughing as they tripped along through the banks.
She stooped and dipped her hand in the water, feeling the water tug at her fingers, inviting her to join their tripping band. “Please,” she whispered, “help him.” She scooped a handful of water from the river and sprinkled it on Quarhaun, then shouldered her harness and started walking upriver, toward Fallcrest.
As they walked, Uldane prattled on about the water spirits, marveling at the sensation of the water flowing over him as Kssansk healed his wounds, speculating at more length about the relationship between the river spirits and the swamp spirits, not to mention the spirits in Lake Nen and Lake Wintermist, at the heads of the river. Oh, and the ocean spirits, or bay spirits, or whatever lay far to the south where the river, under some other name, at last joined with the sea.
Shara just let his words wash over her-like the water spirits, she decided, soothing away her cares.
After an hour or so of uninterrupted talking, Uldane suddenly fell silent. Shara thought he might have been in midsentence, but she racked her brain to remember what he’d said, in case he asked a question and was awaiting a response. Something about … oysters?
“I don’t remember that,” the halfling said at last.
Shara looked down at him, then followed his gaze off to the east across the river, where a fire-blackened farmhouse stood beside the scorched remnants of its fields.
