Farthest Reach (18 page)

The assembled captains and heroes looked to one another, as if to confirm that they had heard Seiveril’s words right. Some shouted out their approval, raising fists and bared blades in the air. Some remained silent and thoughtful, weighing the meaning of Seiveril’s words. Others were openly troubled, frowning or whispering to their neighbors.

“Has the queen given her blessing to this?” called a bladesinger who stood near Araevin.

“The Council of Evermeet frankly opposes it,” Seiveril said, “but Amlaruil has not forbidden me from asking you—each of you—whether you would consider aiding me in rebuilding a lasting elven presence in Faerun.”

“Where will you raise this realm?” asked the Eagle Knight Daeron Sunlance. “Here, in Myth Glaurach?”

“If it proves the wisest course, then yes, I will come back to Myth Glaurach to found a realm here,” Seiveril said. “But first we have unfinished business with the daemonfey in Cormanthor. Once we have driven them out of our fathers’ lands, we might find that old Cormanthyr is the place to which we will Return.”

“What of the humans? Their kingdoms surround Cormanthor. They may fight to keep us from our ancient homelands,” Sunlance said.

“We would be better neighbors than the daemonfey, wouldn’t we?” More than one elf laughed at Seiveril’s words. The sun elf lord raised his arms again. “As I said before, I ask for no one to swear allegiance to a new realm tonight. The Crusade has work to do before the Return can truly begin. But I hold this dream in my heart, my friends, and it is long past time for me to share this vision with you, in the hopes that it will kindle the same passion and determination in your hearts that it has kindled in mine.

“Now, go back to your warriors, and tell them what you have heard here tonight. Starbrow, Thilesil, and I will begin to order our march through the portal to Semberholme under the assumption that most or all will follow us against the daemonfey, if no farther. Sweet water and light laughter, friends.”

Seiveril descended from his steps, and was promptly surrounded by several of the captains, besieging him with questions or demanding to march first.

Araevin, Ilsevele, and their companions moved onto the balcony nearby as the captains and commanders walked out into the starlight, many already engaged in arguments about whose company should march first, how and when to break camp, or whether it was even possible to contemplate a march on Myth Drannor. The sun elf mage looked over to where Seiveril, Starbrow, and Vesilde stood, besieged by others who were unwilling to leave without seeking more answers.

“Your father has a talent for making trouble, doesn’t he?” Maresa asked Ilsevele, with a mischievous grin. “Didn’t any of it rub off on you?”

“It’s a skill he’s learned late in life,” Ilsevele retorted. She looked up to Araevin, who simply stared off into the dark skies to the east, his hands on the ruined balustrade. She moved up beside him, and laid her hand on top of his. “Something troubles you?”

“I think my path lies elsewhere, Ilsevele.” Araevin glanced back at his companions, and touched his hand to his breastbone, feeling the hard form of the Nightstar beneath his robes. “I have to decipher the last of Saelethil’s lore in this selukiira. If Sarya turns the mythal into a weapon, Saelethil’s magic may be the only answer we have.”

“What do you propose, then?” she asked, her voice small against the sounds of the night.

“To find out who the star elves were, and where they lived, and whether some record of what Morthil brought back from Arcorar still exists. There is a rite I must master before the Nightstar will open the rest of its knowledge to me.”

“That might be the work of years, Araevin! You are speaking of secrets that were hidden five thousand years ago. That is a terribly long time, even by our standards.”

“It might also be the work of months, or days,” he replied. He looked back up at the starry sky, watching the dance and flicker of lanternlight bobbing in the breeze. “I can always seek to invoke a vision if I turn into a blind alley. My heart tells me that Saelethil’s lore will be the key to any battle in Myth Drannor. There are many skilled wizards marching in your father’s army, but I am the only one who can do this. Even if it proves to be fruitless, I have to make the attempt.”

She sighed and looked down at her hand atop his. “Are you asking me to choose between going with you or going with my father?”

“I do not mean to.” He allowed himself a small smile. “But there is more of Faerun to see, if you haven’t gotten your fill of it yet.”

Ilsevele pulled her hand away from his, and drifted away across the cracked and weathered stone of the old balcony. She stared off into the green shadows beneath the trees, hugging her arms against her body. Araevin gazed at her back, waiting. Finally she seemed to give herself a small shiver, and turned back to him.

“All right. Now that I have seen Myth Drannor with my own eyes, I find that I cannot argue against doing everything in our power to sever Sarya Dlardrageth from the city’s mythal. But I fear for you, Araevin. I think it is a perilous path you intend to walk. I will come, if only to guard you from yourself.”

Araevin started to reply, but then he thought better of it, and kept his argument to himself.

Instead he looked over to Maresa and asked, “What of you?”

Maresa leaned against the old wall, her arms folded. Her hair drifted softly against the breeze, glimmering like silver in the starlight.

“I see no reason to walk toward a battle when I’ve got an excuse to head away from one,” she said with a snort. “And I like the idea that your magic might be a stiletto we can stick in Sarya’s back while she’s watching Lord Seiveril march his army at her fortress. I’m with you, Araevin.”

Araevin looked over to Filsaelene and asked, “And you?”

The sun elf girl shook her head. “I think I should march with the Crusade. If Evermeet’s soldiers are heading into battle against the daemonfey, many will have need of healing. Lord Miritar needs every cleric he can find.” She frowned and raised her eyes to meet Araevin’s. “But… if you ask me to help you in this new quest, I will do so gladly. I can never repay you for saving me from captivity in Myth Glaurach.”

“You helped us in the mausoleum of the ghost and in the fight at the portal glade,” Araevin pointed out. “I’m inclined to think you have little left to repay.”

Ilsevele looked at her and smiled sadly. “Follow your heart, Filsaelene. You should serve as you think best, and I am afraid you are right about where you will be needed.” She stepped forward and embraced the young cleric. “Be careful. And do not be afraid to send for us if we are needed in Cormanthor. We will come if we can.”

Maresa turned back to Araevin. “So, more portals leading into the godsforsaken wilderness? Maybe a dragon’s lair this time?”

The sun elf mage shook his head. “No, no portals this time. If you’re willing, I will teleport us to where we need to go.”

*****

Sarya climbed the steps of the First Lord’s Tower, and tried not to allow crawling disgust to mar her composed features. Hillsfar was a city of humans, a hundred miles north of Myth Drannor, on the shores of the Moonsea. It was filled with the reek and clamor of humankind, and everywhere she looked humans carried on with their senseless commerce, bickering, squabbling, and bullying each other.

She was shrouded in a magical disguise, a simple spell of appearance-changing that made her resemble a human woman—perhaps somewhat slighter of build than normal, but graceful and beautiful nonetheless, with hair of deep auburn and eyes of bewitching green. She wore a pleated emerald dress of human design, decorated with delicate gold embroidery. She had entered Hillsfar in a small coach driven by disguised fey’ri, and passed through its crowded streets unnoticed until her carriage clattered to a stop before the stern, tall citadel that stood at the heart of the city.

She glanced up at the banners and pennants snapping overhead, and frowned despite herself. In her day the humans had known their place. None dared challenge the power of the great elven realms. They had been a race of simple barbarians, suitable for use perhaps as mercenaries in the wars of greater races. Yet it was an inescapable fact of the age in which she found herself that humankind must be reckoned with.

That can be set right, she told herself. Soon I will be able to hurl an army of devils, yugoloths, and demons at any foe who dares to challenge me. I will lay this city under tribute—or have it torn down stone by stone and its people driven away from the borders of my new realm.

Six stern warriors in heavy armor with red-plumed helmets stood by the archway leading into the tower. It was more properly a small keep, really, with an interior courtyard and high, strong walls.

“Halt and state your business,” the guard sergeant demanded.

“Why, I seek an audience with First Lord Maalthiir,” Sarya said, her voice and smile cold and dripping with contempt. “I am Lady Senda Dereth. I believe he expects me.”

The man-at-arms—actually a woman-at-arms, though one could hardly tell beneath the heavy armor—turned her back on Sarya and glanced at an orders book on a standing desk in a small alcove by the doorway.

After consulting the book for a moment she grunted and said, “You’re to be shown to the Conservatory, and await the first lord there. Come with me.”

Sarya inclined her head without allowing her cool smile to slip, though the ill manners of the guard sergeant deserved a sharp rebuke indeed. She followed the stocky woman as she clomped along in her armor, passing through barren, cheerless halls that were almost devoid of decoration. Another guard followed at her back, a good three paces behind her.

“Is this truly necessary?” she asked.

“No one goes into this tower without a Red Plume escort,” the guard sergeant replied. “The first lord has made that absolutely clear. It is a standing order.”

She came to a tall, paneled door, and opened it for Sarya. Inside was a large parlor or sitting room, with several empty bookshelves along the periphery, and a number of old portraits hanging from the walls-mostly of elves, it appeared, though with the crude human artistry it was hard to be sure.

“Wait here,” the sergeant said, and withdrew to the hallway, closing the door behind Sarya.

Sarya composed herself for a long wait, and she was not disappointed. It was well over an hour before she heard measured footfalls in the hall outside, and the rough clatter of the guards coming to attention. She turned to face the door as Maalthiir, First Lord of Hillsfar, strode into the room.

He was a human of middle years, tall but thin, with a heavily lined face and a scalp shaved down to gray stubble. He wore a long goatee of iron gray, and dressed in a high-collared tunic of gleaming black, chased with dragon designs. In one hand he carried a short staff or long scepter of dark metal, with its head in the shape of a draconic claw. Four more guards followed him into the room, pale and silent warriors who seemed human at a glance, but positively reeked of planar magic to Sarya’s keen sense for such things.

“Well, you must be Lady Senda,” Maalthiir rasped, his voice completely humorless. “I’ve never heard of any Dereths around here. Who are you, and what do you want with me?”

“Who I am does not much matter,” Sarya said. “And I want nothing more than to give you a warning, First Lord.”

Maalthiir’s scowl deepened. “I react poorly to mysteries and threats. Choose your next words carefully.”

“You have a new enemy on your doorstep, Maalthiir.”

The first lord snorted and crossed his arms, tucking his scepter under his arm. “Oh, do I? And I suppose you have come to tell me all about my new adversary. Very well, then-who is this dreadful new foe?”

“Evermeet, my lord,” Sarya said.

Whatever the first lord might have been expecting her to say, that was not it. Maalthiir glared at her for a long moment, measuring her.

“What in the world does Evermeet want with me?” he demanded.

“An army from Evermeet is returning to Cormanthor. They mean to recapture Myth Drannor and restore the kingdom of Cormanthyr. I wonder what they will think of a neighbor who purged his city of elves years ago, having them slaughtered in bloody games?”

Sarya’s eyes glittered like green ice as she delivered the barb. She had not yet managed to insinuate many fey’ri spies into the lands around Myth Drannor, but it had not taken her long to learn that Maalthiir had come to the throne of Hillsfar many years ago by deposing a council dominated by elves.

A momentary uncertainty glinted in the human lord’s face before he bared his teeth in a fierce grin.

“Cormanthyr is dead,” he stated. “The elves have Retreated. It took them five hundred years to reach that decision, Lady Senda. They will never overturn it in only fifty years.”

“Do not take me at my word, Maalthiir. Investigate for yourself. You are reputed to be a mage of no small talent. Scry the woods of Semberholme and see what you find there. Or send for your spymasters and ask them what passes in the western Dales of late. You will find an army of elves better than five thousand strong—sun elves, moon elves, bladesingers and champions, mages and clerics, making ready to march north,” said Sarya. “It is a formidable array.”

“Assuming for the moment that you are telling me the truth—who are you, and why tell me?”

Sarya glided forward a step, and glanced at the expressionless guards with their black eyes.

“Do you wish me to speak freely here?”

The first lord did not even look at the black-clad swordsmen.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “Do not mind my guards. They will not repeat anything they hear, and they are completely incorruptible. I see no one alone, Lady Senda. Ever.”

“As you wish, then.” Sarya glanced at the impassive guards again, wondering exactly what they were, then dismissed them as unimportant. “Who I am is not important. As far as why I am carrying tales to you of an elven army in Cormanthyr, it is simply a matter of self-interest. The elves are my enemies. Since it seems that I must deal with them, I naturally thought it wise to consider who else might regard an elven Return to Cormanthyr as less than desirable.”