Bruce Cordell - Key of Stars

“I am pledged to this fight, whatever the outcome,” Raidon said. “It has taken so much from me already, I hardly begrudge giving up the rest.”

A weight seemed to lift from his shoulders, and he stood straighter.

Japheth, Anusha, and even Thoster frowned at his statement. His ability to read others was returning. His hallucination of gauzy webs filling in every empty space in the room had evaporated. The air in the salon was sweeter than when he had first entered, and the colors were more vibrant. He was feeling … relief?

Yes.

“Anusha Marhana,” Raidon said, “thank you for your intent to see this disaster through. You have my gratitude; you’ve kept us together since we returned from Xxiphu, you gave us a place to rest and recover from that horrible place, and now, despite our reluctance, you have brought us together long enough for a plan to be forged.”

“Here, here!” Yeva said.

Anusha blushed. “Thank you,” she said. “I only did what needed doing.”

“Exactly,” said Raidon.

The Year of the Secret (1396 DR)

Aglarond, Yuirwood Forest

Japheth surveyed the circle formed by the glowing sigils. A hazy image of a forest path glimmered within its circumference. He and Seren had spent a good part of the afternoon scribing the design on the catacomb floor with golden chalks and purple inks.

He and Anusha had said their good-byes after the meeting in the salon. It’d been too hurried, with too many things left unsaid. She’d gathered her things, including her travel chest, and left the mansion. She’d accompanied Captain Thoster and Yeva, whose metallic form was concealed in a hooded cassock, down to the docks to see about Green Siren .

Watching her go had been as hard as resisting the call of his addiction. All Japheth wanted to do was run off with her to someplace safe from all worries. Childish fantasy, of course. Anusha was committed to putting things right. The only way he and she could have any kind of future was if he did his best to help her foil Malyanna and Xxiphu’s search for the Key of Stars. Whatever that was.

He still hated that Anusha’s plan required that he and she separate. When he considered all the terrible things that might befall her, he felt dizzy.

And he was going to miss her.

But, damn it, he was angry too. He’d shown he’d do anything for her by stealing the Dreamheart and imperiling his own sanity, and the world itself, to save her.

He’d put her first.

But she very obviously didn’t put him in the same place. He was secondary to her concern over dealing with the Sovereignty. That thought burned him. He’d sacrificed everything and laid his soul at her feet. She hadn’t reciprocated; she had put other things before him. More than that, she had pushed him away.

His skin warmed.

Two could play at that game. If she wanted to be quit of him, and that was her way of showing it, fine.

Japheth clenched his hands and ground his teeth.

“The circle is complete,” said Seren. “You and the monk should be on your way before it fades.”

For a moment, Japheth’s anger urged him to turn and simply walk away from it all.

Raidon, who’d spent the last few hours sitting in a lotus position meditating, stood. The half-elf’s sheathed blade released a cerulean spark that skittered across the floor. The monk bowed to the wizard.

“Thank you,” he said. “Without your help, none of this would have been possible. I hope we see you again after this is all over.”

Seren was caught off guard by the monk’s words. She nodded, coloring. “You’re welcome,” she managed to say. “And you will see me, because I mean to collect. Don’t go getting yourself killed just to get out of our bargain.”

When Raidon actually smiled, Japheth’s smoldering anger faded somewhat.

Then the monk turned to him and asked, “Ready?”

The warlock released a long breath. Of course he wasn’t going to walk away. He could stew about Anusha anytime, damn it.

“Yes,” he replied. He had everything he needed for a long trip hidden away within his cloak.

Japheth focused on the blurred forest inside the circle. He stepped past the threshold, into the image. He gripped his rod in one hand, ready for-

There was no ground on the other side of the linked portal.

Japheth fell. Branches lashed his body and his flailing limbs.

Then his cloak caught him in a fist of lightless safety.

When the darkness let go, Japheth stepped onto a buckled, overgrown flagstone path shadowed by a thick forest canopy.

Weathered stone columns poked from the ground, pointing at awkward angles like teeth in an orc’s mouth. They had probably once formed a ring, but time and some past earth movement had destroyed their symmetry.

A crash of branches jerked his head around.

Raidon slid down the bole of a tree, slowing his descent with a single hand on the trunk. The monk made being dropped out of thin air into a tangle of tree branches seem like an everyday occurrence.

When the half-elf’s feet were on the ground, he said, “I’ve experienced worse, but that transition was unexpected.”

“I hadn’t realized how disrupted the circle was,” Japheth replied. “Now that I see this side, I’m surprised it worked at all.”

Raidon gave a slight nod. The monk’s attention shifted to the trees that pressed close beyond the periphery of leaning stones. “Back in Aglarond,” he murmured.

Japheth studied the monk. The man seemed more like the person he’d first met below Gethshemeth’s island. The listless detachment Raidon had displayed since they’d returned from Xxiphu was still somewhat in evidence, but it was clear the man was making an effort to throw it off.

Raidon continued gazing into the trees, as if recalling an old escapade.

“What is it?” said Japheth.

Raidon shook his head. “Not important,” he said. “Is Malyanna near?”

Japheth frowned and said, “Give me a moment.”

The warlock drew in a breath. He focused on his pact. He imagined it as a physical thing, as a thin strand of celestial fire connecting his heart to all that lay beyond the vault of Faerun’s sky.

Since he’d sworn his new pact, he’d noticed occasional tugs and tiny yanks on the connection. At first, he hadn’t thought anything of it. Then three nights before, he’d awoken from a dream of empty space with an insight. The sensations corresponded to individual and particularly powerful beings associated with the stars. And the two he recognized were the Eldest, and Malyanna.

It scared Japheth more than a little that those two were so entwined with his new spell source he could sense them, even if only vaguely, through the connection he shared. It was something he tried not to think about too much. Unfortunately, just as he could sense them, apparently they were aware of him; Malyanna had crafted a glyph that allowed the Lord of Bats to find him with little effort. He’d have to devise a way to shield himself from such scrutiny.

But it was the Lord of Bats’s appearance that made him realize that each tug he discerned through his connection to the star pact probably indicated literal shifts in the geographical or planar positions of Malyanna and the Eldest. Because she’d sent Neifion after him, Japheth realized he could track her the same way.

Unfortunately he couldn’t yet imagine how to fashion a glyph as potent as the one Neifion enjoyed. Not that he’d had any time to spend on it, given that Neifion had only appeared the day before. Then, that night …

Japheth shook his head, trying to clear it of distracting thoughts. Concentrating on the celestial thread of his pact was difficult enough without the memories of the silky warmth of Anusha’s skin intruding-