Bruce Cordell - Key of Stars

“What if the warlock’s death doesn’t wake the Eldest?” asked Taal. “You said a surviving Keeper of the Cerulean Sign managed to perform a ritual in Xxiphu’s crown chamber.”

The eladrin noble’s lips thinned. “Yes, Raidon Kane,” she said. “I don’t know from whence he came, or how he came by his Keeper lore. Somehow, he proved capable of scribing a Rune of Binding, using a sentient sword only Keepers could have forged as his quill, no less. He reminded me of someone. I can’t quite put my finger on whom …”

“This Rune of Binding; won’t that prevent all the Eldest’s eyes from opening?” asked Taal.

“I’ll not wait for failure, Taal!” Malyanna said. “I’d rather plan for success. However, if the worst befalls us, and the Eldest remains unresponsive, I’ll still have the Key of Stars in hand. I’ll use it in the Eldest’s place to unlock the Far Manifold.”

Taal’s eyes widened. “You would promote yourself above the Eldest?”

“I must be prepared for all contingencies,” Malyanna replied. “So gather your things. I’ll need your help in retrieving the Key. You’re coming with me.”

An odd feeling bloomed in the pit of his stomach. Surprise? Hope? It had been so long since he’d felt the latter, he couldn’t identify the sensation.

Malyanna said, “We must find the one who was lord in Winter’s Peace before I. My poor, long departed mentor, whose schemes were discovered by ancient Keepers.”

“You mean the Traitor,” Taal said. It wasn’t a question.

Taal had heard, several times, about the eladrin who had commanded the spire before Malyanna. It had been centuries earlier in the world-but not nearly so long out at Forever’s Edge, where time ran differently-when Malyanna, fresh to the tower herself, once served as castellan to an eladrin noble named Carnis.

Carnis had been as committed to the Watch as any. But the eladrin had been incautious. He had stared too long into the void. The things that stirred in utter emptiness had lost their horror for the Lord of Winter’s Peace. They had become objects of curiosity.

Or maybe his call to service had been a charade all along. He might have joined the Watch already compromised.

Regardless, he eventually showed Malyanna “the truth and the glory” that lay beyond the void, in the fearfully whispered Citadel of the Outer Void.

Instead of striking Carnis down or reporting his treachery to the other watchtowers, Malyanna had joined his cause.

The two plotted long together, and dreamt of a future twisted and wrecked, wherein they were elevated by their association with the creatures who would become the new lords of reality. Taal had never been sure how that was supposed to have worked. Then Carnis departed Winter’s Peace, intent on achieving the first awful piece of their plan.

But the Lord of Winter’s Peace was found out. He was caught and imprisoned in a splinter realm of Faerie called Stardeep. His name and station were stripped from him. Ever after, he was known simply as the Traitor.

And in Stardeep he had rotted until the changing of the world.

Malyanna did not betray herself to the other wardens of the Twelve Towers. She remained in Winter’s Peace, and showed all the proper surprise, distress, and outrage a pupil would be expected to display if her lord was unveiled as a monster. She helped the other wardens root out all the strange books, secret chambers, and miscellaneous ilk Carnis had stockpiled in the watchtower under the noses of his fellow watchers. It was after that event the Compact had been modified to allow wardens to request to see the content of neighboring towers.

Malyanna had been a consummate actor. She destroyed lore with full knowledge that doing so would delay her own plans for a century or more. In the end, the other wardens of the Watch on Forever’s Edge were convinced of Malyanna’s purity.

In only a few short years, she had been promoted. She became the Lady of Winter’s Peace, and was given full dispensation over its functions, armory, and the watchtower’s armed eladrin forces.

“Yes, I am talking about the Traitor,” Malyanna finally answered, breaking Taal from his reverie. “How astute of you to remember.”

“The Traitor and his prison are gone,” said Taal. “You said so yourself.”

Malyanna nodded. “I assumed so,” she replied. “But I never bothered to discover exactly where it was located; at first, it would have seemed suspicious to the other wardens had I shown too much interest in what our sibling Keepers did with the Traitor. Afterward, I was angry with Carnis for being such a fool and rushing in too soon. Eventually, I determined I would be the better instrument for the Sovereignty. I figured, let him rot.”

“So Stardeep was not destroyed?”

“I don’t know,” Malyanna replied. “That’s what we’re going to discover, my pet. I suspect it might be ashes, but even if all I can find are a few of the Traitor’s bones, I can interrogate the memory of his spirit. Before he was caught, he learned where the Key of Stars was located.”

Taal remained quiet, studying his mistress. He wondered if she were finally giving in to wishful thinking. By her description, despite Xxiphu’s rise, the lone abolethic city seemed crippled. With its nigh omnipotent lord asleep, it hardly seemed a Sovereignty.

Was Malyanna grasping at straws out of desperation?

A flutter of hope was born in Taal’s heart. Perhaps her entire purpose was in danger of collapsing.

“If Carnis knew where the Key of Stars was all along, why didn’t he find and use it?” Taal asked.

Some of Malyanna’s exhilaration faded from her face. “Though he was a failure in many ways, Carnis said it was the Eldest’s place to take up the Key,” she said. “Even if he had it, he would not have tried it himself.”

“But you will.”

“If circumstances leave me no choice,” she replied.

“Even if using it burns you to a cinder?” Taal said. “Maybe the Eldest is supposed to turn the Key because only a near-deity like it could handle the relic capable of opening the Far Manifold.”

Malyanna frowned. “I appreciate your concern, Taal, false as it is,” she said. “Perhaps I will give the matter a little more thought-It’s not my intention to miss out on the era of the Sovereignty’s reign when I’ve sacrificed so much to ensure its birth.”

Taal nodded. “Don’t think overlong on it,” he said. “We have only the grace of a tenday, at most, before the other watchtowers become suspicious of Eloar and Dramvar’s absence.”

Malyanna sniffed, as if in disdain. Torchlight played on her skin as she gestured to her hound. “Tamur, to my study,” she said.

The shadows swallowed eladrin and mastiff, leaving Taal alone again with the void.

The castellan descended from Winter Peace’s zenith, taking each step one at a time, until he reached his own chambers.

They were empty of everything save what was needful for him to survive and perform his duties. Despite Malyanna’s urging that he allow himself the luxuries his station could command, Taal preferred blank walls. He was determined that, despite his oddly privileged servitude, he would not give in to enticements that might make his position seem comfortable, or even enviable. Malyanna had become a willing acolyte of Carnis; Taal preferred the daily reminder that he served the Lady of Winter’s Peace under protest.

He went to his writing desk, where he drafted his daily directives to the staff and stewards, captains and commanders of the tower. On it lay a silver pin, in the shape of a snowflake. It was the badge Malyanna had given him after she’d recruited him to the Watch.

Following her promotion, she required a castellan of her own.