Richard Baker - Final Gate

Araevin turned to examine the doorway behind him. It was a simple triangular arch between two swordlike spars of glass, its center gray and misty. Then he looked up and saw that the glass ramparts and spires extended for as far as he could see in that direction. The Waymeet wasn’t a cathedral of glass, it was a city of glass, perfect and empty. And everywhere he looked, he saw the doors-asymmetrical interstices where sharp spires and slanting sheets met. Hundreds of them appeared in a single glance, each flickering with living magic.

“I had no idea,” Araevin murmured. “It’s immense!”

“Your ancestors didn’t do anything by half-measures, did they?” Maresa said.

Jorin recovered from his awe long enough to turn his eyes to Araevin. “Do you have any idea which way to go from here?”

Absently, Araevin drew out the shard of the Gatekeeper’s Crystal and raised it to eye level, speaking the words of a spell. It gleamed brightly, and in his mind he felt a distinct tug toward his right. “This way,” he said. “I don’t think it’s far.”

“So where are we?” Maresa asked Araevin. “Where is this place?”

“It’s nowhere. This is a demiplane of its own.”

“A what?”

“A demiplane-a small self-contained world that exists parallel to Faerun. Much like Sildeyuir, but not anywhere near as large as that realm. The divine and infernal realms are places of a similar nature, but those of course are even more extensive than Sildeyuir.” Araevin looked around. “I don’t expect this one is much larger than what you can see from right here. Less than a mile across?”

“So where is it that this demiplane exists? What’s outside of it?”

“You might as well ask what’s on the other side of the stars when you’re looking up into the sky on a summer night.” Araevin shrugged. “The demiplane just ends. Outside you would find nothing but the unformed ether.”

“That’s horrible!” The genasi shivered. “Let’s find your door and get back on solid ground before we fall through the floor or something.”

30 Flamerule, the Year of Lightning Storms

The walls and towers of the Waymeet formed a difficult maze, but it was not impassable. The place was not really designed to entrap travelers, it was just a very complex structure with few good points of reference. The clear space in which the portal to the House of Long Silences stood was part of a boulevard or avenue that curved around a striking cluster of tall spires that Araevin presumed to be the center of the Waymeet. Smaller “streets” angled away into the crystalline depths. They passed door after door along the way, and down each intersecting passage they saw additional rows of portals leading away into the luminous distance.

“Where could all these portals go?” Donnor muttered to himself. “There are thousands of them here. Faerun must be riddled with gates!”

“Aryvandaar was a vast, long-lived, and wealthy empire,” said Araevin. “Look at it like this: Even if various mages or lords of Aryvandaar only found reason to create ten new portals a century, you would expect to find almost a thousand portals here.”

“I haven’t been counting, but it seems like there may be more than that,” the Tethyrian said.

Araevin frowned. “I think you’re right. It seems there are even more than there should be.” He paused, searching his mind for what the Nightstar had told him of the place. “Ah, that makes sense.”

The others waited for him to continue. Araevin shook himself, bringing his attention back to his companions. “The Fhoeldin durr itself creates new portals. In the years since Aryvandaar’s fall, it has continued to propagate portals throughout Faerun-and into other planes and worlds, as well. That is why it has become so dangerous. Over the centuries, its expansion has weakened the barriers between the planes, especially in places where people created any number of portals of their own.”

“Like Sildeyuir,” Nesterin said. The star elf narrowed his eyes, studying the great artifice thoughtfully.

“Like Sildeyuir,” Araevin agreed. “Or Netheril, or Myth Drannor in the dark years leading up to its fall.” He paused to check his bearings, and turned toward a smaller alleyway leading off the large esplanade they had been following. “I don’t think the mages who built this place intended for that to happen. They assumed that they or their descendants would be able to guide and govern the Waymeet’s expansion and function over the centuries. But Aryvandaar fell, and this place was left to govern itself.”

“Now that we’re here, why don’t you just take control of it like you did at Myth Glaurach?” Maresa asked. “Or just destroy it outright?”

Araevin shook his head. “I’m afraid the protections over this mythal are beyond my skill. That’s why I need the entire crystal, so I can gain access to the mythal.”

Jorin stopped suddenly, and knelt to look at something. “Araevin, what do you make of this?” he called.

The mage hurried over to his companion’s side and looked over his shoulder. Near the footing below one of the portals a thick iron spike had been driven into the crystal, leaving a spiderweb of faint cracks that slowly leaked a luminescent blue fluid. Harsh runes and symbols inscribed in the spike glowed an angry red, just visible through the intervening crystal.

“Can you make out what the runes say?” Jorin asked.

“No, but I recognize the script. It’s Infernal… the language of the Nine Hells.”

“What do you think its purpose is?”

Araevin studied it for a moment, observing the delicate weave of the ancient elven magic and the bitter intrusion of the hellwrought spike. “I think it’s pinning the portal open. Changing the portal’s natural behavior by transfixing it with a corrupting spell.”

Jorin looked up at him. “Should we remove it?”

“Go ahead and try, but be careful.”

The ranger reached out to grasp the head of the spike, but he drew back his hand before he even touched the metal.

“It’s hot,” he explained.

He rummaged around in his pack and found a spare cloak to wrap around his hand, and he tried again. The spike didn’t move an inch. Jorin shifted so that he was sitting on the ground, facing the portal, with his feet planted on the footing on each side of the spike, and grasped it with both hands. But still it didn’t move.

Finally he gave up with a grunt of dissatisfaction and said, “It’s anchored in there. We’ll have to chip away the crystal or use magic to get it out.”

“Leave it be,” Araevin told him. “If we succeed in reuniting the crystal, it will not matter.”

They hurried down the narrow avenue for another hundred yards or so, past more of the doorways transfixed with spikes. Then they turned a corner and came to something of a small square or open place amid the white spires. Great bands of iron had been riveted to the foot of one of the sharply soaring buttresses that leaped up into the interwoven spars overhead. As with the smaller spikes, it was also covered in fearsome lettering and glowed cherry-red with hellish magic. More of the iron bands were fixed to the crystalline walls and pillars nearby, and the whole area reeked of hot metal.

In the center of the small plaza stood a simple three-sided pillar, about fifteen feet tall, likewise clamped within spells scribed on hellwrought iron. Unlike the pearly white of the other crystal spars, it burned a bright blue. Araevin paused, searching the memory imparted by the Nightstar for details about the Waymeet.

“One moment,” he said. “This is a speaking stone. We can speak to the Fhoeldin Durr here.”

His companions exchanged puzzled glances behind him, but Araevin approached the blue pillar and set his hand on it. “Gatekeeper,” he said softly. “Do you hear me?”