Stardeep (20 page)

Telarian shook his head. “I am sorry I was not there to aid you.” The Keeper of the Outer Bastion’s faith in his prognostication was fast approaching zero; he hadn’t foreseen such a potent emergence so soon. Still…

“But Cynosure did acknowledge the danger and helped you, if not as quickly as you desired. Are you certain he is corrupt?”

“I’m not certain of anything. I know this, though; he has suffered too many lapses of late. Have you noticed? Too many silences during critical moments in the Well. I was forced to turn off some functions.”

Telarian hissed with surprise.

She nodded, misunderstanding his response. “Yes, it was necessary, despite the danger.” “But, Delphe—”

“Telarian, listen! Add up the Traitor’s sudden flurry of activity with Cynosure’s glitches and the attack on the Causeway, and the result is trouble. It could imply an external force seeks the Traitor’s release, and worse, has managed to infiltrate Stardeep so thoroughly that Cynosure, our first and best defense, is compromised. Then again, you already knew something of this, didn’t you?”

Telarian cocked his head, guilt once again rising like gorge in his mouth.

“You knew an external force might move against us. You told me youtself you had the Knights investigate a suspicious wood elf encampment in the Yuitwood. What did they find?”

He breathed easier. She didn’t know anything. “Delphe, in all truth, the Knights found no evidence the wood elves knew anything of the Traitor or about Stardeep.” He spoke no untruths, he reflected. He wiped his brow with the back of his hand. Of course, to safeguard the presence of the Knights, the encampment had been eradicated.

“What of these that attacked recently? Were they wood elves?”

“Some wete. I’m not suie from whence they came. Certainly not from the encampment, which disbanded not long after the Knights investigated.”

Delphe nodded, considering, her eyes narrow in thought.

Telarian continued. “How do you suppose the attackers managed to corrupt Cynosure, when they’ve yet to entet Stardeep? Are you sure Cynosure’s problems are part of this conspiracy you’ve outlined?”

Delphe rocked back, shook her head. “Of course I’m not sure. But the timing is too awful to be a coincidence. Isn’t

it?” Telarian saw she was willing to be argued away from her theory.

Relief continued to cool his feverish mind like a spring rain. He knew with certainty Cynosure was not corrupted by outsiders.

No, he himself was responsible for Cynosure’s odd habits. He’d sought to gain control over the sentient idol’s abilities and knowledge. It appalled him to think his efforts might have prematurely compromised Cynosure’s ability to restrain the Traitor. If the Traitor emerged too early…

It wasn’t his plan to release the Traitor until all the ingredients of his scheme were in place.

Before then, his first priority must be to bring Cynosure back to full functions. For that, he required Delphe’s cooperation and willing aid. Though any single Keeper could decommission the constructs consciousness, only two or more could reinstate him. Telarian’s hand brushed Nis’s hilt. It occurred to him that once Cynosure was restored, it would prove best to remove Delphe’s unpredictable actions from the equation, lest she complicate his divinations. As Brathtar’s betrayals proved, even the most powerful vision of the future could be altered by too many variables.

Telarian smiled and began to speak. It wouldn’t be difficult to allay Delphe’s suspicions about the construct, the timing of the Traitor’s escape attempt, and the utter improbability of a conspiracy. She wanted everything to be all right, and would be amenable to being led to that conclusion.

Once Cynosure was back, he’d order the construct to throw wide the Causeway Gate. Telarian wouldn’t send a force out to greet Kiril; that had been a terrible mistake, one born of ego, not reason. Nis castigated him on his foolish plan. No, he’d allow Kiril to stroll of her own volition across the dimensional veil to find her destiny. He and Nis would be waiting.

Stardeep, The Causeway

Afey wind came up, blowing obscuring mist across the Causeway. Streamers of fog advanced, fused, and blotted the landbridge into a cloud of billowing gray-white. The Empyrean Knights and their mounts were leached of their color and faded, too, called back to their commanderies and stables beneath Statdeep.

“Come back!” screamed Kiril at the empty air. She dashed forward, cutting ineffectually at the ice-clogged water with Angul. “Blood!” she coughed, realizing she was too late. Stardeep had pulled back its drawbridge, leaving only the unassailable moat of misted water for her to curse. She obliged.

Stabbing pain in her wounded leg cut short her stream of invectives. Damn Angul for refusing to provide healing. Usually, it was all she could do to fight off his influence. Now that she most needed his balm, he remained dull, unconcerned metal. She savagely shoved the blade in his sheath, a bitter oath in her mouth. She groped for her flask.

The pain in her leg redoubled, pounding as if a spike were being inserted. Blood slicked het calf and clouded the icy

water with a scarlet plume. A wave of dizziness pulled at her and she stumbled.

Gage appeared at her side with a supportive arm.

“How is your wound?” he asked, concern turning down the corners of his mouth. The thief’s own injury no longer seemed to bother him… Then she saw the glint of a discarded glass vial lying unstoppered and empty along his path.

“Are you blind? What do you think? You could have saved me some of your healing draught,” she mumbled. “Help me sit.”

The thief lowered her to the ground and said, “Sorry Kiril, I was in a bad way. I didn’t think to save any.” As Gage’s gauntleted right hand guided her to the ground, her sheathed weapon finally sparked and glimmered.

She gave up scrabbling for her flask. Instead, she grasped Angul’s hilt. It was just like him. Despite himself, the willful blade couldn’t remain quiescent in such close proximity to the hellbred glove. As her fingers slipped around the hilt, warmth suffused her. It suddenly occurred to her that amputating the thief s hand then and there was probably a reasonable course of action.

Above and beyond his fraternization with tools born in hellish dimensions, Gage knew more about the Knights’ emergence than he should. What had he said during the heat of the fight? Her eyes narrowed in suspicion as she looked up at him. She gripped her sheathed sword tighter. Angul stanched her blood and fused severed flaps of skin and muscle, knitting them together as if never parted.

When she stood, her strength was renewed, and more. Her eyes burned as she roughly threw off the thief’s hand, turning to face him. He realized his peril and backstepped.

Kiril groaned with the mental effort of relinquishing her grip on Angul’s hilt. An arc of blue-bright fire persisted a moment, a connection between her hand and the blade, before

spitting and snapping into oblivion, burning her palm with petulant fury.

“Not today, Angul,” she told the blade, which quivered and audibly groaned, impotent in its leather scabbard. “Kiril, I—” began Gage.

“Quiet! I need to think,” she interrupted. But did she have time for that luxury? Doubtful. Something was terribly wrong within the bastions of her old home. How could she come to any other conclusion when the bodies of wood elves lay in shallow graves before the Causeway, and its once doughty defenders attacked former Keepers?

She mentally reached out, feeling for the planar veil and the access points that would flip the Causeway open once more—and found nothing. The Causeway Gate had been sealed from within, and no external force, not even a Keeper, could access it until those inside decided otherwise.

The half-elf martial warrior and his sorcerous companion approached. Where had they come from, and what would they demand of her? Too many thoughts competed for her attention. She didn’t need any more complications. She was close to breaking. Maybe a sip from her flask would do the trick. She grabbed the enchanted container, easily unclipping it now that Angul had mended her…

No.

No! She shook her head, so violently she saw flashes of light.

No. If Nangulis had somehow, beyond all reason, returned to Stardeep, dulled wits wouldn’t pave the road to that reunion. Quite the opposite. Better just to run herself through here and now than allow her decade-old habit to sabotage her, on the cusp of comprehension. Kiril returned her flask to her belt.

The strangers bowed their heads in greeting. Their unforeseen aid had turned the tables, or at least preserved

her life long enough until someone within Stardeep pulled back the Knights. Perhaps the newcomers had answers, if Gage didn’t. The half-elf, the one who’d fought with only his hands—his skin and hair were dark for an elf, and his features possessed a cast and shape unfamiliar to her. Yet his likeness reminded her somehow of the Sildeyuir realm.

She addressed the newcomers. “What do you know of this debacle?”

Gage held up a gauntleted hand to point. “Be easy, strangers. But answer the question.”

The half-elf spoke. “I am Raidon Kane. My companion is Adrik Commorand. Who are you?”

Kiril shook her head. “All in good time. I have a legitimate reason to stand here. I acknowledge the aid you provided and am in your debt, but I would know how you came to be here, and why?”

Raidon nodded. He said, “Mounted elves of stern visage, like those we just faced, rode from across the misted water to attack an expedition of some dozens of elves we accompanied, including a sizeable contingent known as the Masters of the Yuirwood. Adrik and I numbered among the survivors. When the defeated remnants of that force departed, Adrik and I lingered.”

“Why did these so-called masters approach Stardeep?” Raidon responded, “Stardeep? Is that the realm beyond the water?”

Kiril said, “Yes, though calling Stardeep a ‘realm’ is inaccurate—it is much smaller.” To speak so to strangers broke rules she’d sworn as a Keeper. Too bad—if these were agents of the Traitot, she would end their days soon enough.

The half-elf, his voice serene and strangely composed, said, “Some tendays now past, mail-clad elves of unfamiliar demeanor rode forth from this location and exterminated a nearby wood elf encampment. The Masters sent a retaliatory

force, thinking to extract vengeance, and perhaps seal the portal from whatever realm of discord the murderers originated.”

Kiril swore, “Bastard sons of whores!” Raidon cocked his head at her outburst. Adrik took an involuntary step back.

The Empyrean Knights were now striking out into the sun-warmed world to commit genocide? She couldn’t grasp the man’s story; she didn’t want to believe it. If he spoke the truth, then the worst may have already happened. The Traitor must have escaped his bonds and taken control of Stardeep’s forces. But if that were true, wouldn’t she know? Though a Keeper in exile, she retained sensitivities born in her years of service to the Cerulean Sign. Somehow, she thought she’d know if the Traitor ever completely slipped his bonds.

She controlled her voice enough to ask, “And you are one of these Masters of the Yuirwood?”

Raidon shook his head. “Neither I nor my companion are native. I’ve been on the road for some time, a road that has led me here, where I hope to find answers concerning the whereabouts of my absent mother.”

So saying, the half-elf drew an amulet from beneath his shirt and brandished it for Kiril to see.

She gasped, “Where did you get that?”

Kiril could scarcely credit what flashed before her in the afternoon light: a Seal of the Cerulean Sign. Thirty-six Seals once were known, or perhaps double that; Keeper histories were confused and incomplete. But the knowledge of their making was certainly lost, and as the centuries blurred forward, more and more Seals went missing, were stolen, or were consumed in use. In recent times only a single one remained to Stardeep, the one Nangulis had worn in his vigil over the Well. When Nangulis was transformed and Kiril left Stardeep, she’d left the amulet with Commander Brathtar to pass to the next Keeper of the Inner Bastion.

Raidon said, “This was given to me by my absent mother, before she returned to her people, who she claimed lived in the Yuirwood. I have followed signs and clues that led here, where I hope to match the symbol on the amulet with that said to be scribed on the gates of what you call Stardeep.”

Kiril reached out her hand for the amulet. After a moment of consideration, Raidon relinquished the stone. She peered at its convoluted textures, the Sign displayed so prominently, and along both sides, looking for the telltale marks that would identify it. No. It was not the same Seal Nangulis had carried; it must be one of the earlier Seals, returned from history’s obscuring grasp.

And it was dark. The amulet Nangulis had carried had been sky blue. She wondered if the color was a mute warning of the Traitor’s activity. Too late in coming, if so.

Kiril looked up and met Raidon’s anxious eyes. “You carry an extraordinary relic. She who gave this to you—who was she?”

The man shook his head. “I know not. I called her Mother. She left me when I was a child. Now that I’m grown, I’ve sworn to find het.”

“She was an elf,” Kiril stated. “Your fathet, a human?”

Raidon nodded. “He was an honorable man. I had not realized prior to a few tendays ago my mother was a wood elf of the Yuirwood.”

Kiril raised a single eyebrow. “Your looks argue against that, not to mention you carry a Seal unlikely to have originated in the Yuirwood. I doubt she was a wood elf of the wood. No, she came from somewhere else.”

The half-elf squinted at her, his face framing a question.

She continued, “She came from a realm behind the Yuitwood, a place called Sildeyuir.”

“Another name for Stardeep? She is one of these murdering elves?”

“No. Stardeep is a splinter of Sildeyuir, long disconnected from it. Elves dwell in that starry land—I am one. And they are not a murdering people. Normally.” Kiril glanced at the blood still staining her leg.

She allowed, “Something awful has happened, I fear…”