Ruins of Myth Drannor (13 page)

The moment her foot touched the top of the pedestal, a series of chimes sounded. The musical notes so startled her that she nearly toppled off, but she caught her balance just as a wavering image appeared before her. The image solidified into a large two-dimensional floating oval mirror. Kestrel wrinkled her brow as her reflection came into focus. She looked like someone who’d spent the past several days traipsing through dusty old dungeons and fighting for survival. What she wouldn’t give for a bath!

Corran, Durwyn, Jarial, and Ghleanna all hastened to the pedestal. “How did you do that?” Durwyn asked.

Kestrel glanced down at the warrior. “I don’t know—I just climbed up on the pedestal and this mirror appeared.”

When she looked back at the mirror, she found her reflection fading until the surface became completely black. “Hey, what—”

A new image appeared, this one an unfamiliar face. It was a woman’s visage: piercing ice-blue eyes set under perfectly sculpted brows, angular cheekbones, and blood-red lips. Her honey-colored tresses were wound into a towering coil studded with gems. Her neck and shoulders were bare.

Durwyn let out a low whistle. “Wow. Who is that?”

Even Kestrel had to concede the magnetism of the woman’s beauty. It captured one’s attention and would not let go, seducing male and female viewers alike. Yet Kestrel sensed something predatory about the unknown woman’s charm, as if the stranger were a spider inviting her into its web. The thief’s collarbone tingled, a sensation that surprised her—in all the danger she’d faced since coming to Myth Drannor, she’d not felt the intuitive warning signal until she gazed at this woman’s face.

As they watched, more of the stranger’s body became visible. The woman reclined against some kind of dark red, leathery, curved bolster or throne, her limbs carelessly draped over its sides. She wore a red leather bodysuit slit to the navel—and little else. Body piercings on her thighs marred the otherwise smooth lines of her long legs, which ended in a pair of high-heeled red leather boots. The piercings resembled those Kestrel had seen on the cult fighters. Was this woman involved in the Cult of the Dragon?

Soft wavering light emanated from a source Kestrel couldn’t see, casting a warm but eerie glow on the white skin of the woman’s face and arms. The mysterious figure pensively gazed at the source of the glow.

Pelendralaar,said a husky female voice, barely audible above a gurgling hiss-babble in the background. Though the enchantress’s mouth had not formed the word, Kestrel was sure it had come from her.

“Child,” boomed a deep masculine voice. A bright flash of orange light bathed the woman’s face, then diminished.

The Pool has reached the port at Hillsfar.She closed her eyes and tossed her head back, exposing the curve of her throat. Her lips formed a slow, wicked smile. Can you hear the screams?

Her unseen companion offered only a deep rumble in response. More flashes of orange lit her face. The woman’s eyes opened. She turned her head and sat forward, gazing up and off to the side. Something troubles you. Speak.

“They are not fools,” said the thunderous voice. “They will send their heroes.”

The seductress nestled into her seat once more as she turned her gaze back to the source of the wavering glow. The view broadened, revealing a body of amber fluid lapping the ground nearby. They will meet the Mythal. Our Mythal. Another smile, this one more sinister than the last, spread across her features. She lifted her right arm and regarded her hand—not visible in the mirror—as if inspecting her manicure. And then they will meet you.

At the word “you,” the view expanded. Kestrel gasped, a sick feeling spreading through her stomach. The woman had no right hand but an enormous reptilian claw, far larger and sharper than any they had seen on the cultists. She stroked her razorlike talons along the curve of her throne, eliciting a deep, low groan from the mysterious masculine voice. A moment later, Kestrel saw that the sorceress sat not against an object of mortal construction but a great red dragon. The beast, however, looked horribly withered and disfigured. Its skin was dried and tight against its too-visible bones.

It was not a dragon, Kestrel realized, but the animated corpse of a dragon. The creature issued a final rumble, flames darting from its mouth.

The scene shrank, growing smaller and smaller until it appeared to be contained in a glass sphere the size of a child’s ball. The sphere rested on a wooden stand atop a circular table. The glare of the dragon’s flames illuminated several figures gathered around the crystal ball. Of them, Kestrel recognized only Elminster.

“Our heroes have already done well, taking up the fallen party’s mission as their own. If only we could send additional help…” the great mage said with a weary voice. “But the corrupted Mythal prevents us. They must seize the power of the Mythal for themselves. Otherwise, Moonsea is lost, and the Dragon Coast, and with them all our hopes.”

The other figures nodded in assent as the mirror faded to darkness, then disappeared altogether. Kestrel remained, unmoving, on the pedestal. A long minute passed before anyone spoke.

“I believe we’ve just had our first glimpse of Mordrayn,” Corran asked.

“And her pet dracolich. What did she call him—Pelendralaar?” Ghleanna said. “It seems Emmeric and Nottle were both correct about the cult’s leadership. The two are working together.”

Kestrel hopped off the pedestal so she could converse more easily with her companions. “Mordrayn said the pool has reached Mulmaster. Do you think she means another Pool of Radiance has appeared, like the one in Phlan?”

“Elminster suspected the Phlan pool was an offshoot of a larger, main pool here—not separate bodies of water, but somehow linked.” Ghleanna leaned against a statue of the notorious wizard himself, captured in bronze unleashing one of his human spells in the elven hall. “When he left Phlan, he was on his way to Shadowdale to investigate tales of another offshoot there. If the pool has indeed reached Mulmaster, there is no telling how many other cities it might threaten. We must stop its spread, or we might not have homes to return to.”

The mage’s words chilled Kestrel. Until this point, she’d believed the Pool of Radiance was a menace confined to Myth Drannor and Phlan. She’d wanted to walk away and let those cities solve their own problems, figuring she’d just start over in a new town far from the Moonsea. But if the pool could replicate itself anywhere, was there a safe place in all Faerűn?

Durwyn shook his head as if to clear it of confusion. “I don’t understand—how can the Pool of Radiance in Myth Drannor send tendrils of itself to cities tens of leagues away from here?”

“Maybe it has something to do with the Mythal,” Corran said. “Beriand and Faeril told us it has been corrupted, and Mordrayn and Pelendralaar spoke of it as being theirs.” He turned to Ghleanna and Jarial. “Suppose the cult gained control of it somehow. Could it enable the Pool of Radiance to expand in such a manner?”

“The two sorcerers exchanged grim glances. The Mythal is woven of ancient magic,” Ghleanna responded. “Such powerful sorcery holds possibilities we cannot even conceive.”

Kestrel glanced around the hall. They stood in a place of powerful sorcery, after all—perhaps the answer could be found right here. The runes on the walls were indecipherable to her, but maybe Ghleanna or Jarial could read them. Too, they had not yet explored the second floor. She peered up at the balcony. Several rows of bookcases, extending back as far as she could see, rested about two yards away from the railing. Scrolls and tomes neatly lined their shelves. A library? She pointed toward the balcony.

“The second floor seems to have a lot of scrolls and books. There might be a history of the Mythal or something.”

They climbed the stairway. The moment they reached the top, however, a cold breeze blew over them. Out of nowhere, a figure materialized.

Rather, almost materialized. A solid wooden throne appeared, but the man seated on it remained translucent, the back of the chair showing through his form. Kestrel sucked in her breath. A ghost. Her heartbeat accelerated, adding to the sick feeling that still lingered in the pit of her stomach.

Weren’t ghosts supposed to appear the way they did in life? If so, this man—an old elven sorcerer, from the look of his ornate robes and headdress—must have been ancient when he died. The spirit’s gaunt face, sunken eyes, and bony limbs lent him a skeletal mien. He rested on a cobweb-covered oak throne as gnarled as he and seemed so deeply settled into it that Kestrel wondered if he had risen from it in centuries. On his lap he held a gold bowl filled with water, and his right hand rested on a grinning skull with glowing red eyes.

The spirit did not seem to notice the party. “Now foul water freezes the guardians,” he muttered as he stared into the bowl. His voice had a tired, forlorn quality to it, as of one who has lived too long and seen too much, for whom immortality is more a curse than a blessing.

Kestrel and the others exchanged glances. She was in favor of backing right down the staircase without a word, but Ghleanna stepped forward. Before the half-elf could speak, however, the skull’s eyes flashed.

“Do not disturb the Master.”

Kestrel jumped. The skull had spoken!

“Here is the wise counsel you seek.” The skull’s feminine voice carried an eerie resonance, sending further chills down Kestrel’s spine.

“How do you know that we—” Ghleanna began.

“Your coming has been foreseen.”

Kestrel looked from the skull back to its “master.” The ghostly wizard was a diviner, then—a seer. She had known her share of charlatans who earned their living telling fortunes for the gullible, but she’d never encountered anyone with the genuine power to foresee the future.

“Master Caalenfaire instructs you to seek out the spirit of the dwarf lord Harldain Ironbar,” the skull said. “You will find him beyond the Circle of Mythan—but hold! You do not have the Ring of Calling!”

“No, we yet seek it,” Ghleanna said. Kestrel didn’t know how the sorceress had the nerve to address the skull, or even to stand so close to Caalenfaire.

“Master! Despair and woe! Your prediction has gone awry.”

The ancient diviner stirred, but still appeared entranced. He never lifted his gaze from the scrying bowl on his lap. “What? Volun, what is this you say? Where are they? I cannot see them. I cannot hear them. The fools!”

“They are talibund, Master. They have left the Path.”

Kestrel glanced at her companions to see whether they understood this conversation any better than she. The spellcasters appeared pensive, as did Corran. Durwyn looked absolutely bewildered.

“Volun, what is this ‘Path’ of which you speak?” Ghleanna asked. Kestrel noted that she gripped her staff tightly. Perhaps the sorceress wasn’t as comfortable talking with the disembodied skull as she wanted the pair to believe.

“Master Caalenfaire had worked out a destiny for you—a path you should walk. For the eventual good of Myth Drannor, if not your own.” Volun’s eyes flashed rapidly. “Instead you have become talibund. Now you walk your own path, which none can see. May Tymora help us! This is an unsettling turn.”

Kestrel edged closer to Jarial. “What’s this word the skull keeps using—‘talibund’?”

“I don’t know,” he whispered back.

“Talibund. The Veiled Ones,” Volun said. “What soothsayers call those whose destinies cannot be foretold.”

Ghleanna gripped her staff tighter and took a tentative step closer to the skull. “Is the warrior Athan talibund? Can your master say whether he still walks the path of the living?”

“Athan’s path became veiled before even yours,” Volun replied. “Master does not know his fate.”

Disappointment flickered across the half-elf’s face. With each dead end in her inquiries about the warrior, Ghleanna seemed to lose a little more of her spirit.

“Look, Volun,” Caalenfaire said. “I have captured them in my bowl once more. Or at least, their shadows—the Veiled Ones will be writ into the Song of Faerűn.”

“Nowwhat is he talking about?” Kestrel muttered. Her nerves were too frayed to withstand much more of this mysterious speech.

“The Song of Faerűn is the great tale of the world, sung by the Bard of Kara-Tur at the close of the millennium. Master, tell us more about the Song!”

“Listen, Volun, and be amazed.”

From the scrying bowl drifted the notes of a lute, soon joined by a feminine voice of such sweet perfection that Kestrel momentarily forgot her fear.

In Cormanthor did mage Mordrayn

Speak spells of greed in Words of flame.

With poison troth she soon unmade

Proud treasure of the Silver Blade,

And by her side, Pelendralaar,

Their minds as one, come from afar;

Dark creatures drown the city bright,

The dragon’s kin, the elf of night.

The Pool! The Pool! It grows, and yet

One small band against it set.

The bard continued the song, but her voice faded from hearing. Kestrel felt her anxiety returning.

“This is not what we had foreseen, Master! It gives me hope.”

Durwyn stepped forward excitedly. “What happens next? How does the song end?”

Caalenfaire, apparently back in his scrying trance, did not answer. Durwyn looked at the skull hopefully. “Volun?”

“I will not tell you,” Volun replied. “No mortals should glimpse their future. It is never happy enough, or long enough. Look at my master. Would you become like him? Do not seek out the future—it will find you soon enough.”

“How do we return to the Path?” Corran asked.

“Return? You cannot. Do not even try.” The flickering in Volun’s eyes dimmed. “We will peer ahead as far as we can and give you such help as we are able, but if Master Caalenfaire could see you, perhaps others could also. People of power. Maybe it is better for you to walk alone in the dark—”

“Not quite alone,” Caalenfaire murmured. “There is a hand over them, Volun. Whose hand, I cannot determine.”

“Can you at least tell us something of the cult?” Ghleanna asked. “How can we succeed if we don’t know who we’re up against?”

The skull was silent, its eyes dark, empty sockets.