Bruce Cordell - Key of Stars

But for all the eladrin’s amazing speed, Taal was faster. He was already inside the man’s guard. As Dramvar tried to shift a pace up the stairs and release his arrow, Taal slapped the beautiful weapon from the archer’s hands. Disbelief pinched the eladrin’s expression.

Taal stepped in closer, sweeping his other arm around. He caught Dramvar’s head on his bicep and continued twisting. As the man overbalanced, Taal braced himself on one leg and raised the other, pulling Dramvar over it. Taal threw the man up the stairs, and the eladrin flipped end over end, right onto Lady Eloar’s naked rapier.

The man’s flailing bulk bowled into Lady Eloar. They both went down hard on the stairs. Dramvar splattered blood on the marble and on his ally.

Taal took three quick steps to where they lay. He reached down to snap Dramvar’s neck. Calling on reserves of fortitude, the eladrin archer pulled another arrow from his quiver. He lunged as Taal’s fingers brushed his neck, and stabbed the sharp head into the meat of Taal’s calf.

Taal gritted his teeth at the unexpected sting, but his hands found their way to either side of Dramvar’s head-the eladrin had left himself open with his wild attack.

The castellan of Winter’s Peace sat back into gravity’s pull, and rolled over his left shoulder. As he did so, he held Dramvar’s head close like a starvling might hold a loaf of fresh bread to his breast. He rolled, and Dramvar came with him, but the eladrin’s neck snapped.

Taal released the suddenly flopping body as he rolled. The arrow still protruding from his leg snagged on a stair. Moreover, rolling backwards down stairs is hard, no matter how skilled one is. Even though he knew his aim was compromised, Taal was surprised when his head struck the arch at the base of the stairs.

He lost several heartbeats to the white flash that seared across his vision. He struggled to rise as if through a buffeting gale, and face the remaining eladrin on the stair.

During the moments he had blinked at the pain, Eloar had vanished.

Dramvar remained sprawled limply and at an awkward angle across five steps. The eladrin’s head was bent so far from true that it alone told the tale of the archer’s demise.

“What mischief are you up to?” Taal said.

Had she escaped upward, around the tower’s curve? Or had she flashed by him and out of the watchtower altogether?

He doubted she’d fled. Eloar was equal to Malyanna in power, or at least had been before the Lady of Winter’s Peace had made her alliance with the things in the void. For all his overwhelming skill, Taal knew that his best advantage against Eloar had been surprise.

Now she was ready for him. He wondered if he’d unconsciously allowed her to escape his ambush.

Taal took two strides to Dramvar’s body. He bent and checked to be sure. No pulse. He steeled himself against the wave of regret that slipped out from beneath his oath.

He rose and ascended, wary for the least hint of movement or sound.

His totem issued a low, hunting snarl. Taal whirled, not quite fast enough to avoid Eloar’s rapier. She’d been standing on the stairs the whole time, cloaked in a shroud of fey invisibility.

The rapier opened a line of blood on his right forearm. A spark of yellowish light jumped from the blade and dazzled Taal’s eyes. He retreated a step, sideways on the broad stair.

“Taal, surrender,” came Eloar’s sad voice. “You have foresworn your oath. You are a servant of the void, the very influence you swore to guard against.”

The eladrin was visible again, but the magic of the woman’s strike raced through his blood, confusing his vision and his senses. Everything blurred, and the room seemed to cant to one side. His stomach lurched in protest.

Taal raised his hands in a defensive posture and closed his eyes. The inked orbs of his tiger totem blinked.

He saw Eloar plainly, if without color. The eladrin advanced on him, her rapier ready to skewer his stomach. Her playful smile was gone, replaced by a frown of concern.

“You’re wrong,” said Taal, sorrow trembling in his voice. “I have not foresworn my oath.”

“No?” Eloar paused, watching him with skeptical eyes.

“My oath was to Malyanna, the Lady of Winter’s Peace,” he said as he darted forward.

The eladrin, apparently believing Taal overcome by her influence, was unprepared when he knocked her blade out of line and jabbed a finger as stiff as an iron nail into her throat.

The Year of the Secret (1396 DR)

New Sarshell, Impiltur

Anusha tumbled off the divan in the salon. Lucky raised his head and wagged his tail from where he still lay curled nearby.

She rubbed her eyes, looking around the empty, quiet room. The tea service was still laid out as she’d left it.

“I can wake up!”

Giddy relief engulfed her. The curse of her tie to Xxiphu was truly severed, as Japheth had promised. The fear she wasn’t actually liberated of the Dreamheart and the aboleth city hadn’t died until that moment.

That didn’t change the fact that a very angry Lord of Bats was in her cellar. She’d swept her dreamblade through the archfey. It had hurt Neifion, but not dispatched him.

She had to get back to the fight!

Anusha gave Lucky a quick pet on the head, then composed herself where she lay at the foot of the divan. The image of an elixir phial filled with purplish fluid-No! Don’t be stupid! she thought. She hadn’t required Japheth’s “sleeping potion” the first time she had ventured into the catacombs, and she didn’t need it for a second attempt.

Another deep breath. She strained for the feeling she’d achieved just moments before: a feeling of lofting away, of turning a key in the lock that opened her mind … She stepped into a construct of dream. She glanced down at her body. It seemed to be enjoying a contented slumber. She was glad she’d chosen to remain on the floor.

Anusha retraced her route from the salon to the catacombs, flashing through the mansion almost as quickly as thought itself.

She reached the entrance to Japheth’s work chamber. There stood the war wizard and Captain Thoster. Seren was just finishing a spell.

The occluding plug of water and a good portion of the wall on either side of the entrance disintegrated in a spray of pale fire. Seren and the captain flinched back slightly at the violence of the breach.

Anusha let out her breath on seeing Japheth still on his feet. Of the Lord of Bats, there was no sign.

Raidon seemed intent on hacking his way through one wall of the catacomb with his sword. Everyone, including Japheth, watched the monk’s crazed efforts for several heartbeats as if entranced.

Japheth finally yelled, “In the name of Nine, have you lost your mind?”

Raidon looked away from his task. His gaze skittered across the room, briefly touched on the captain and Seren, then turned to focus on Japheth, who stood closest. The monk’s eyes narrowed, and the fire of his blade burned the color of the sea’s darkest depths.

The sword leaped for Japheth’s head, almost of its own accord, though Raidon retained his hold on the hilt.

“Look out!” Anusha cried too late.

But the blade bit into an iron statue instead of Japheth. It almost seemed as if the sculpture had moved to interpose itself just so, but Anusha hadn’t seen it shift.

The bell-like clap of Angul on steel shook Raidon from his fury. He blinked and let the blade drop so its tip stuck in the floor.

Japheth’s hands were raised in a warding gesture, one yet gripping his greenish rod. He cautiously lowered his hands. “Are you through attacking me?” he said.

Raidon snatched up Angul and shoved the blade into its sheath as if the hilt was too hot to hold.