Farthest Reach (2 page)

“The study of high magic awaits you here if you stay, Araevin.”

Araevin smiled and said, “While I have changed much in the last few months, I have not grown fifty years older.”

“It is not an unreasonable wait,” the moon elf Anfalen said. “You would be taking up high magic at less than three hundred years of age. Very few of us do that, Araevin.”

“I know. When the time comes, I will be honored to begin my studies.” He looked at the high mages facing him and frowned. “Is there some reason I should not leave Reilloch?”

Kileontheal inclined her head. Without meaning to, she seemed to be looking down at him from a great height indeed, though she was barely five feet tall. “We have been discussing your recovery of the selukiira, and your subsequent reweaving of Myth Glaurach’s mythal. Lord Seiveril reports that your efforts resulted in the dismissal of a small army of summoned fiends, and led directly to his victory on the Lonely Moor, as well as the flight of the fey’ri legion and their daemonfey lords. You have accomplished great things since you left Evermeet a few short months ago.”

“Thank you, High Mage.”

“However,” Kileontheal said, not quite interrupting him, “We are … concerned about the nature of the high loregem you have found, this Nightstar.” She glanced at the others, and back to Araevin. “May we see it again?”

“It is deadly perilous to touch, High Mage. I have escaped harm only because of an accident of genealogy. The Nightstar of Saelethil will not spare you if you are careless.”

“We will be careful, Araevin. None of us will try our strength against Saelethil’s today,” Breithel Olithir answered. The grand mage was new in his post, having ascended to his duties only a year ago. He too was a sun elf, dignified and stolid, but Araevin still sensed uncertainty about him. So many of Evermeet’s mages had perished in the past few years, killed in Kymil Nimesin’s rebellion of six years past, or lost in the expeditions to defend Evereska against the monstrous phaerimm only four years later. Olithir would have been the fifth or sixth choice for the title he held had other high mages lived, and most knew it.

The grand mage offered a small nod, and Araevin acquiesced with a flickering frown. He reached his right hand into his shirt and closed his fingers around the cold facets of the selukiira. The gemstone slipped painlessly from the flesh over his breastbone, leaving not a mark on him to show where it had been anchored to his very bones a moment before. Araevin willed it to become fully visible, and it appeared in his hand, a fine crystal of deep violet about the size of a woman’s thumb, etched meticulously with tiny lavender runes.

He whispered a word and left it suspended head-high in the air, floating in place under the power of its ancient enchantments.

He withdrew three steps and said, “I remind you again, the Nightstar is very dangerous.”

The high mages moved closer, though none approached closer than a full arm’s length. Kileontheal pursed her lips thoughtfully as she studied the dark facets. Breithel Olithir whispered the words of seeing spells and stared intensely at the flickering spell-auras he read in the gemstone. The loremaster Haldreithen simply frowned, saying nothing.

Finally Breithel sighed and turned away from the Nightstar. “It is an old stone, of that I am certain—old, and strong.”

“That is what I told you,” Araevin said.

“Yes, but I wanted to see for myself. The selukiira might have instructed you to lie about its origins.”

“Grand Mage, I am not under the stone’s control. Examine me, if you are not sure.”

“We have already,” Haldreithen said. The scholar measured Araevin with a long look. “Just because no sign of the stone’s dominion is obvious does not mean that you are not under its influence. After all, through this thing you wielded spells of mythalcraft we did not even suspect were possible. Who is to say that this Saelethil Dlardrageth didn’t possess enchantments that we cannot detect?”

“If the Nightstar had overthrown my mind, Loremaster, why did it then permit me to strike against Sarya Dlardrageth and bar her from the mythal of Myth Glaurach?”

Araevin demanded. “For that matter, why did it not hide its identity, and invent a more innocuous origin? It could have used me to subvert one of you if it had concealed its true origin.”

“Sometimes half a truth is the best way to cover a lie,” the moon elf Anfalen said. “Still, I agree that your Nightstar would probably not have allowed you to tell us so much about it, if it really controlled your mind.”

“Even if you are not shackled to the stone’s will, you may be under a more subtle influence,” Kileontheal said. “If you are right, the Nightstar is the handiwork of a monster. Selukiira hold much of their maker in them, and it seems to me that you might be wise to put it away somewhere for safekeeping and never handle it again.”

“Better to destroy the thing outright,” Haldreithen added.

“I understand your concerns,” Araevin replied. “But consider this: The Nightstar holds spells of mythalcraft that no elf has known for five thousand years. Secrets as old as ancient Aryvandaar remain inside the selukiira. I do not understand all of them now, but in time I will.”

Kileontheal gazed on the stone for a long time, then looked up at Araevin and asked, “Is the selukiira capable of instructing you in high magic?”

Araevin hesitated. He felt the other high mages awaiting his answer. He did not want to speak the truth, but he dared not attempt to deceive them.

“Yes,” he said at last. He heard soft intakes of breath and sensed widened eyes and sharp sidelong glances around him. It was not often that high mages were surprised. “The spell I used to sever Sarya Dlardrageth from the mythal of Myth Glaurach was a spell of high magic. There are a number of even more powerful high magic spells in the Nightstar, as well as a great store of lore on mythalcraft and similar works. I have only scratched the surface of the selukiira’s contents.”

“Have you embarked on the study of the other high magic spells contained in the lorestone?” the diviner Isilfarrel asked.

“Not yet, High Mage, but it is my intent to do so.” Araevin felt the consternation of the others, but he did not look away. “Sarya Dlardrageth did terrible things with the mythal of Myth Glaurach. What else might she do, given the chance? Who else might be able to do such things, now that the daemonfey have demonstrated that they are possible? Faerun is littered with the remnants of elven wards, vaults, and gates.” He paused, allowing the high mages to consider his words. “I fear that things are stirring in Faerun, things that our forefathers buried and forgot long ago. Our ignorance may prove deadly.”

“The impudence!” growled Haldreithen. “Kileontheal, you erred gravely with this one.”

Kileontheal’s eyes flashed, but she kept her voice calm. “Araevin, you have no way of knowing what perils might sleep in that ancient lorestone. Even if you succeed in your efforts, we may all have cause to regret it later. If nothing else, your defiance of our will in this matter speaks poorly of your readiness to become a high mage.”

“I understand, High Mage. I have weighed all these factors in my decision. Whether you believe it or not, I am the best judge of the perils of the Nightstar.”

“You will not study that lorestone here,” Kileontheal replied.

“I know,” Araevin said. He offered a deep bow. “That is why I have chosen to depart the tower. As I said, the time has come for me to follow another path.”

Deliberately, he stepped forward and closed his hand around the selukiira as the high mages watched. He slipped the lambent gemstone beneath his tunic, and pressed it to his breastbone again. Then he turned his back on Kileontheal and the others, and strode out of the great hall.

*****

Patches of snow still lingered beneath the green branches of the evergreens that mantled Myth Glaurach’s rocky shoulders. Despite the bright sunshine that had lingered all day, spring did not come early to the Delimbiyr

Vale. The air was damp and cold with the snowmelt, and not far from the ruined walls and broken domes of the ancient elven city, the Starstream—second of the four Talons that fed the mighty Delimbiyr-roared and rushed with white, cold floodwaters, so loud that its roar filled the air miles from the river’s course.

Fflar Starbrow Melruth pulled his cloak closer around his broad shoulders, and gazed over the jagged stumps of a long-abandoned colonnade on the city’s southern heights, watching the last embers of daylight painting the snowcovered mountaintops and high, wooded hills with soft splashes of gold and orange. He was a moon elf, tall and strongly built, with the strong hands and long arms of a born swordsman.

“A clear night coming,” he remarked. “The stars will be out, but I think it will be cold.”

Lord Seiveril Miritar looked up from the large map he was studying on a table nearby. He was a noble sun elf with red hair showing silver streaks at his temple, a high cleric of Corellon Larethian who wore a surcoat emblazoned with the star and sword of the elven god he served.

“I think I’ve come to like the spring here,” said Seiveril. “I find it … bracing.”

As High Captain of the Crusade-even Seiveril had come to think of Evermeet’s expedition as “the Crusade,” despite the fact that he’d resisted the appellation for some time—he had chosen the ruins of Myth Glaurach’s library for his headquarters. Though the empty shell of white stone was mostly open to the sky, the building still possessed strong walls that were easily enclosed with light screens and rugged canopies. Nearly six thousand elf warriors were encamped in the city’s ruins or in the forest nearby. An elite guard of twenty Knights of the Golden Star stood watch within a stone’s throw of the old library, along with dozens of officers and aides who helped Seiveril and Fflar to keep order in the elven army.

“A couple of months ago you might have thought differently,” Fflar said. “The wood elves of Rheitheillaethor told me how bitter the winters are in these lands. Do you know the ice broke on the Delimbiyr only a tenday ago?”

Fflar was more than he seemed, an ancient hero of fallen Myth Drannor whom Seiveril had called back into life with a powerful spell of resurrection. Together the sun elf cleric and the moon elf champion had led Evermeet’s Crusade in a fiercely fought campaign to defend Evereska and the High Forest from the daemonfey legions of Sarya Dlardrageth.

“Will we still be here in midsummer? Or the fall, perhaps?” he continued.

Seiveril straightened up from his map table and looked at Fflar. “There’s more on your mind than the weather, my friend. What is it?”

“How much longer can you keep this army together, Seiveril? Araevin banished Sarya’s demons, we destroyed her orcs and giants, and her fey’ri have fled the field. It seems to me that you have accomplished your goal: Evereska has been preserved, the folk of the High Forest are safe. Your army has no enemy to fight.” Fflar turned from the open colonnade and climbed a couple of weathered stone steps to the empty shell of the library, lowering his voice. “For that matter, have I now accomplished the purpose for which you summoned me from Arvandor? What am I supposed to do now?”

Seiveril frowned. “I do not know that I have an answer to your second question, Fflar. What are any of us supposed to do?”

“You called me back from Arvandor to beat an army of demons. Now that Sarya’s demons have been defeated— through no doing of my own, I’ll add—I find myself wondering whether I am supposed to, well, go back.” Fflar looked at Seiveril and shrugged. “Do I just discorporate when I’m ready to go this time, or do I have to go throw myself off a precipice or something?”

“Is that what you want to do?”

Fflar looked at his hands for a long time. “I don’t think so. I feel alive enough right now. I miss Sorenna, I miss her terribly. But I know she is waiting in Arvandor for me, and time does not mean much there, Seiveril. In the meantime, there seems to be more of the world for me to see and more things for me to do. I just don’t know if it is wrong for me to linger now.”

Seiveril stepped close and set a hand on Fflar’s shoulder. “I think I know Corellon’s will in this,” he said. “You were not called back to live one hour, or one day, or one battle. You were called back to live, for as long as fate, chance, and your own heart allow. There is nothing wrong in tarrying here. It is nothing more or less than any of us do.”

Fflar looked up, a crooked smile on his face. “Well, good. I would hate to leave again without finding out where in Faerun the fey’ri legion has gone to ground.”

“You and I both,” Seiveril murmured. He returned his attention to the map spread out on the table. “You asked me a moment ago how long I intend to keep the army here. My answer is this: I will stay here until I am convinced that Sarya’s legion won’t return, and cannot be found. I don’t expect all of our warriors to stay that long, but I certainly hope that some number of them do. We have unfinished business with her.”

Fflar joined him at the map. “We fought her at the Lonely Moor eighteen days ago. As recently as ten days ago, she and her fey’ri were here at Myth Glaurach.” He tapped on finger on the Delimbiyr Vale, thinking. “Some of her fey’ri can teleport, but not many. They would have used that tactic in combat, if it was available to them. But they do fly. How fast could a flying army travel? Fifty miles a day? Sixty?”

“They didn’t seem to be tremendously strong or fast flyers, not like an adult dragon or a giant eagle. And they must carry some equipment with them. I expect they’ve abandoned anything like a supply train. Sixty miles a day, ten days… that would be six hundred miles from here.” He looked more closely at the mountains and forests depicted before him, and frowned. Within that distance lay tremendous swaths of the great desert Anauroch, most of the wild backcountry of the Nether Mountains, the Graypeaks, the southern High Forest, the High Moor and the Evermoor, as well as the forbidding Ice Mountains north of Silverymoon, and even the Spine of the World and the High Ice. “She could be anywhere.”

“Have you been able to divine any clues?”

“I have been casting divinations every day, with little luck. I suppose I must redouble my efforts, and ask Vesilde Gaerth and Jorildyn to have their own clerics and mages begin the search, too. Perhaps if enough of our spellcasters search at once …”