Farthest Reach (7 page)

“Just because we haven’t heard the term ‘star elf’ before doesn’t mean that no one else has,” he finally replied. “My friend Quastarte has spent years studying the realms and races of elvenkind in this world. He knows far more about the topic than I do. Perhaps he could tell us more about who these people were, or where and when they lived. For that matter, there might be information close at hand here in the Vault.”

He began reading the passage more carefully, studying the exact nuances of the text.

Ilsevele set aside the pages of the manuscript that Araevin was interested in, and continued to read ahead while he pored over the older pages. The two of them read together in silence for a short time, until Ilsevele stiffened and drew back from the old parchment in front of her.

“There is something else, Araevin.”

Araevin glanced up from the scroll. “What?”

“There’s a passage by Ithraides. He’s writing about the Nightstar here.” Her brow furrowed. “Ithraides records that the selukiira killed two mages of Arcorar. The selukiira was protected by fearsome wards, spells designed to make sure that only daemonfey wizards would be able to use the stone. In fact, Ithraides writes here that he did not dare touch it himself.” Ilsevele glanced down at Araevin’s chest, even though the lorestone was hidden beneath his shirt. “If the Nightstar is that dangerous, why didn’t it destroy you, as well? Did the deadly spells fail with time?”

“No, they’re still there.” Araevin looked down at the tabletop before him. “The Nightstar spared me because it recognized me.”

“Recognized you? What do you mean by that?”

He could not bear to look up to her face. “I mean that it found Dlardrageth blood in me. The Nightstar is not permitted to destroy a Dlardrageth—at least, not one who knows enough about magic to make use of its powers. I am related to Saelethil Dlardrageth, at least distantly.”

Ilsevele drew in a soft breath. “Araevin, I didn’t—why didn’t you tell me?”

“I did not know for certain myself until I attempted the selukiira. Oh, I suspected that I might have a distant kinship to one or the other of the fey’ri houses—a very long time ago, my family dwelled in Siluvanede, in the years before the Seven Citadels’ War. And when I spoke with Elorfindar in the House of Long Silences, he reminded me of our relationship. But I never dreamed that I could be a Dlardrageth.”

He made himself meet her gaze, and said, “I understand that you will break off our engagement, of course. I can’t blame you.”

“Break off the engagement?” Ilsevele stared at him. “Because twenty or thirty generations ago a Dlardrageth or a fey’ri married into your family? If you go back that far, we all have hundreds-thousands—of ancestors, don’t we? Who can say whether we would be proud to be descended from each of them?” She shook her head. “Why, I’ve touched the lorestone myself, and it hasn’t harmed me. I might have a Dlardrageth ancestor, too.”

“You’ve never touched it except when I was holding it. If I ever set it down, don’t lay a finger on it, Ilsevele. It will gladly destroy you. It would enjoy destroying you.”

Ilsevele shuddered. “You keep it next to your heart. How can you abide that?”

“It’s harmless to me. As long as it is bound to me, it cannot harm anyone else, not without a great deal of carelessness. And I don’t have any intention of being careless with this device.”

“Still … if it’s dangerous, and you know it’s dangerous, why wear it at all? Maybe you should return the Nightstar to that vault Ithraides built for it.”

Araevin reached inside his tunic and curled his fingers around the Nightstar. He brought out the lambent gemstone, holding it in his thumb and forefinger. The purple facets glimmered with an eldritch light.

“I can’t do that yet,” he said. “The Nightstar has taught me much already, but there is more to learn. When I master the secrets of this stone, there is nothing Sarya Dlardrageth can do that I won’t be able to undo.”

“What secrets?” Ilsevele asked. “You already learned enough mythalcraft to sever her from the mythal of Myth Glaurach. There is more?”

He hesitated, and said, “Yes.”

Ilsevele studied him for a moment, and her eyes hardened. “High magic?”

Araevin nodded. “Yes. High magic. The Nightstar can give me Saelethil’s knowledge of high magic. The high magic spells and high mythalcraft in this stone will let me defend or reweave any mythal Sarya attempts to subvert. Or any other enemy, for that matter.”

“I thought Philaerin and the other high mages directed you to wait fifty years before taking up the study of high magic.”

“I don’t think they appreciate the dangers of waiting, Ilsevele. I have spent decades roaming the human lands of the North, and I’ve seen the works of Aryvandaar and Illefarn that sleep in the wilds of the Sword Coast. They are dangerous things, and they are growing more perilous every year.”

“So you have decided that you know better than a circle of high mages?” Ilsevele was incredulous. “Araevin, did it ever occur to you that they wanted you to wait for your own good? How can you so lightly disregard their advice?”

“Because I know what this lorestone is, and what it can teach me. If I waited fifty years to study it, I would be no more ready than I am now.” Araevin gazed into the Nightstar, then sighed and slipped it back inside his shirt. “You saw what I was able to accomplish with only a portion of the Nightstar’s lore. I banished hundreds of Sarya Dlardrageth’s demons at one stroke! Your father might have won the battle at the Lonely Moor without my help, but even if he did, how many elves would have died to destroy those monsters?”

“Yes, you made good use of what you learned from the lorestone,” Ilsevele said. “But you can’t seriously be arguing that the end justifies the means! That is a very slippery slope, and you know it. What if you could have won the battle by casting some terrible spell of necromancy, animating the bodies of our own fallen warriors so that they would continue fighting? Yes, the battle would have been won, and yes, no more of our own would have died who hadn’t been killed already-but would it have been worth the price?”

“Banishing demons is hardly comparable to defiling our own dead! You know I would never do something like that.”

“Using an evil weapon to accomplish a good end is dangerous ground, regardless of the exact nature of the weapon or the end in question.”

“Of course. But the spells and the knowledge contained in this selukiira are only tools, Ilsevele. The device can’t harm anyone as long as I do not permit it to do so, and it offers me invaluable insights into spells and lore lost to the People for ages.” Araevin threw his hands wide in an angry shrug. “Someone has to study the arts our enemies might turn against us, simply to understand how we might defend ourselves when they are used against us. At the moment, I seem to be the only one who can dare this high loregem to do that.”

“But the daemonfey don’t have access to Saelethil’s lore now,” Ilsevele protested. “Why else would they have been looking for the Nightstar before? I don’t understand why you shouldn’t just put it back where you found it, Araevin. Ithraides’s defenses kept the Nightstar out of evil hands for five thousand years, after all.”

“Sarya Dlardrageth was entombed for almost all that time, so it’s not at all clear to me that Ithraides’s defenses were in fact sufficient to the task.”

Ilsevele stood, seizing her cloak from the chair back she had draped it over and throwing it around her shoulders.

“I’m not sure you understand as much about the Dlardrageths or the Nightstar as you think you do,” she said. “An ancient marriage and a glimmer of kinship don’t stain you with evil, Araevin. Flirting with dangerous and hateful powers because you think the end justifies the means—that is what you should worry about.”

She gave him one final sharp glance, and strode stiffly out of the reading room. Araevin watched her leave.

Is she right? he wondered. Maybe I should simply bury the Nightstar again, until I know for certain that I need it.

He rubbed his fingers over the small, cold facets above his heart, and sat down to read more about Morthil, Sanathar, and Ithraides, and their accounts of the device from fifty centuries ago.

*****

Scyllua Darkhope, Castellan and High Captain of Zhentil Keep, stared intently at the stronghold rising on the green verge of the forest that lay, low and distant, beyond the ruined walls of Yulash. Here on the outskirts of the abandoned city a new Zhentish watchtower was being raised, and the heavy wooden scaffolds and booms surrounding the shell of cold gray stone seemed as light and fragile as a birdcage.

It struck her as incongruous that a work of enduring strength could be born within such a light and impermanent cocoon. A bad windstorm could blow down the scaffolding in an hour, but once its work was done, why, her new tower might stand for a thousand years.

She studied the work a little longer, not really watching the indentured masons and stonecutters at their tasks, simply lost in the metaphor. Her own life could be described in a similar way, she decided. Out of the fragility and impermanence of the flesh, a stone-hard spirit took shape. Out of the weakness of her heart and her foolish early hopes, the foundations of true purpose and real clarity had been laid. When her true self had finally taken form, well, it was of no account that the scaffolding of her ideals and her former dreams had been discarded, was it?

“High Captain?”

Scyllua pulled her gaze from the ongoing construction, and turned to her lieutenant. The Zhentish officer visibly steeled himself when she glanced at him. She was not a tall woman, but she was broad-shouldered and athletic, and the black plate armor she wore with the ease of long experience only contributed to her formidable presence.

“Yes, lieutenant?”

“The wizard Perestrom is here. You asked for him after reading his report.”

“Have him brought up,” Scyllua commanded without looking at the lesser officer. She rarely bothered to look anyone else in the eyes, and had the habit of staring off over a shoulder or fixing her blank gaze on someone’s breastbone as if she might bore a hole through his heart with simple concentration. She didn’t realize that she had that habit, and certainly didn’t do it deliberately; she simply found face-to-face conversations distracting, and did not like to break the chain of her thoughts.

The lieutenant struck his fist to his chest in the Zhentish salute-not that Scyllua noticed-and withdrew briefly, before returning with a tall, vulture-faced wizard in black robes, the Zhentarim mage Perestrom.

“High Captain Darkhope,” the wizard said, offering a shallow bow as an insincere smile creased his sharp features. He looked up at the tower under construction. “That is something of a vanity, you know. The Art offers many ways to render such an expensive defense useless.”

“A tower built with care and foresight may not be impervious to a skilled wizard, Perestrom, but at least it will discourage the less competent ones.” Scyllua smiled thinly to herself, even though she faced away from the others. “And we can take steps to discourage attacking wizards, of course. For example, I have heard that our clerics have mastered a rite that would reave the life from a wizard, transforming him into a ghost, and bind him to a specific task for all eternity—for instance, the defense of this tower against enemy sorcerers. I shall have to give some thought to where I might find a wizard of suitable skill for such a task.”

“I will be happy to provide several recommendations,” Perestrom replied. If his arrogant smile faltered just a hint, Scyllua did not see it.

“Of course. Now, about your report … What were you doing in Myth Drannor, exactly?”

“I am the master of a small adventuring company, the Lords of the Ebon Wyrm. I have led several expeditions into various ruins around the Moonsea and old Cormanthyr, in search of various glimpses of arcane lore and magical treasures. A tenday ago we arrived in the ruins of Myth Drannor, intent on retrieving whatever artifacts we could find from the old city. We explored the ruins for several days, with a little success. But five days ago, late in the afternoon, we were attacked by a large company of flying, demonic sorcerers. I lost several of my fellow Ebon Wyrms before we managed to escape into the ruins.”

“Demons and devils of all sorts are known to plague Myth Drannor,” Scyllua observed. “And they often slay adventurers there. I see nothing remarkable about your tale so far, Perestrom.”

“As you say, High Captain,” Perestrom said, again offering a small, insincere bow. “However, I found it noteworthy that these demonic sorcerers had the features of elves, and spoke Elvish to one another.”

“Elves?” Scyllua glanced over her shoulder at the tall mage. “Unusual, I admit, but why does it merit Zhentarim attention?”

“Because I think there are a thousand or more of these fellows in Myth Drannor now, a whole army of them.” Perestrom’s smirk faded a bit. “They attacked several other adventuring companies in and around the city over the next day or so, and we were attacked by several different demon-elf bands during this time. We eluded most of these attacks through my spells-illusions to hide our presence, summonings to conjure up monsters that could cover our withdrawal—and I kept careful notations on the arms and devices of each such band we encountered.

“When we finally abandoned the ruins, I spent another two days spying out as much as I could about these new foes, using various spells and devices. I will be happy to share my notes, if you would care to examine my evidence in detail.”

Scyllua faced Perestrom, He had managed to seize her attention, all right.

“A thousand?” she asked. “All of them spellcasters?” “Better than half, I would say. Few as accomplished as I am, of course.”

“Of course.” Scyllua considered that for a time. “What about the baatezu? Did they destroy many of these newcomers?” That would be a good measure of their strength, anyway.

“As far as I could tell, the devils did not contest their presence. I saw no fighting between the demon-winged sorcerers and the devils of Myth Drannor. In fact, on a few occasions I saw devils in the company of the newcomers.”