Richard Baker - Final Gate

Araevin found himself crouching forward on the edge of his seat, his arms wrapped close around his body, an awful suspense hanging over him. He shook himself a little, and managed to bring himself around to look at his friends, only to find everyone else sitting silently in the dark, faces sick with dread.

By all the gods, what is this place? he wondered. What is it we think we’re listening for? “Nesterin,” he rasped. He cleared his throat, and tried again. “Nisterin, I think we could use a little music. Something to alleviate the darkness.”

The star elf looked at him blankly for a moment, and nodded numbly. He drew a small flute from his vest pocket, and began to play-awkwardly at first, but then with a little more confidence and feeling. He did not try a merry air, but instead a small plaintive melody that nevertheless managed to break the unbearable tension. Soon enough they breathed easier and did not sit huddled anxiously against the blackness outside.

“The damnable thing about it,” Donnor managed, “is that it’s so weirdly still. It’s a vast space out there, miles long, miles high, and in all that space there’s not a breath of wind moving. We’re on the side of a mountain thousands of feet high, and it’s as quiet as the inside of a mausoleum.”

“It’s unnatural,” Araevin agreed. If nothing else, he would have expected to hear the distant sounds of water on stone, or a faint susurrus of air breathing through rock. He started to speak, but Jorin hushed them all with a single curt gesture of his hand.

“Something is coming,” the ranger whispered.

He sat near the opening of the ledge, listening intently. Araevin’s illusionary wall kept any of their faint light from leaking out of the alcove, but that didn’t mean they could not be heard. They all fell silent, and Araevin heard it too-a faint rustling, slow, deliberate, accompanied by thin wheezing.

Maresa glided over to crouch next to Jorin and peer through the wall. Unlike the elves, who could see well with little light but couldn’t manage with none at all, the genasi could see a little even in absolute darkness-a gift of her elemental bloodline. She frowned in puzzlement, staring at something the rest of them could not see.

After a moment she looked back to Araevin and whispered, “It’s a gnome of some kind, crawling along the ledge. He’s sick or injured, hardly moving at all. What do we do?”

The sun elf frowned. In the Underdark, it was generally wisest to avoid any interaction you could. After all, who was to say that the wretch outside wasn’t being hunted by mind flayers, drow slavers, or anything else imaginable? But it was simply unthinkable to let a person crawl alone through that fearful blackness. And there was at least some chance that they might learn something if they aided the fellow.

“Help him in,” Araevin said.

Maresa nodded. She and Jorin stepped out onto the ledge, and a moment later they returned to the small alcove with the small, tattered traveler. He was indeed a gnome, only about three feet tall. His skin was gray, and he was bald, with short legs and long arms. Dreadful bloody bruises scored his knees and elbows. Even as Maresa and Jorin helped him into their shelter, the gnome’s arms and legs moved in slow circles, still crawling, his small dark eyes focused on nothing at all as he wheezed and muttered in his own strange tongue.

“What happened to this fellow?” Nesterin asked, horrified.

“Donnor, can you do anything for him?” Araevin asked. “We will see,” the Lathanderite answered. He moved beside the small wretch and studied him for a moment. Then, breathing the words of his healing prayers, he took hold of the gnome’s gnarled hands. A warm golden glow appeared around Donnor’s hands and slowly sank into the gnome’s pebbly hide. The slow, autonomous clawing and scrabbling stopped, and the small creature heaved a ragged sigh of relief. In a few moments he came to himself and looked up at Araevin and his friends, his gray face taut with suspicion.

“Do you speak Common?” Araevin asked him. “Not much. A little,” the gnome croaked in a surprisingly deep voice.

“What is your name?”

“Galdindormm. I am called Galdindormm.”

“Well, Galdindormm, I am Araevin Teshurr of Evermeet. My companions Maresa, Donnor, Jorin, and Nesterin. You are a deep gnome?”

“Yes. Svirfneblin, the deep gnomes, you call us.” He tried to sit up but was simply too weak for it. “Why would you help me?”

“You were in need,” Araevin answered. “That is enough for us. Though we hope that you might be able to tell us something about this portion of the Underdark we’ve wandered into. We are strangers to this place, as you can surely see.”

The deep gnome made a thick sound in his throat, and for a moment Araevin feared the small creature was dying in front of his eyes before he realized that Galdindormm was laughing-a dry and harsh sort of laughter, but laughter nonetheless. “Why would surface-dwellers come to Lorosfyr? Do you have no ears for the whispers in the dark? Leave while you can, or my fate will be yours.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Maresa snorted.

“Lorosfyr?” Araevin asked the deep gnome. “This place is called Lorosfyr?”

“That is the name for the abyss,” the gnome croaked. “Lorosfyr, the Maddening Dark. It is a mighty vault. Many days across, many days around. It is accursed.” The gnome shook his head and shuddered, his eyes growing distant as some inner fear caught his mind. “Ten thousand steps I climbed, crawling on my hands and knees, and still I can hear her calling me back. Do not let me go back to her, I beg you! Do not let me listen to her!”

“Who, Galdindormm? Who are you speaking of?” Araevin asked gently.

“The Sybil of the Deeps… Selydra, the Pale Queen…” Weakly the gnome raised his arms and buried his face, trying to hide from whatever memory tormented him. “She drank of my soul, strangers. And now she will come to drink of yours. There is no escape. No escape.”

Warm, steady rain shrouded the towers of Myth Drannor, steaming and smoking where it fell on the forges and foundries the fey’ri had built amid the ruins. Sarya Dlardrageth enjoyed the sounds of raindrops hissing against hot metal and the harsh ringing hammer strokes of her fey’ri armorers at work. She had spent so many centuries immobile yet aware in the vaults beneath Hellgate Keep, and even though she’d been free for the better part of five years, she still reveled in simple physical sensations and freedom from confinement.

She stood in an old broken archway with her wings spread over her head, sheltering her face from the summer rain as she watched her fey’ri at work. Half a dozen of her demon-tainted followers worked to restore an ancient battle-construct to life. The secret crafts of weapon making and the building of arcane war engines were just as valuable to the old Siluvanedan way of war as swordplay and battle magic. Two of the more magically skilled craftsmen chanted and wove their hands in arcane passes, reweaving the old spells that had once powered the device. Others chipped away at countless ages of rust and corrosion, while two more of her fey’ri smiths were busy pouring molten iron into a sand mold, fabricating a new armor plate to replace one that was irreparably damaged.

Her son Xhalph towered behind her, his four powerful arms folded in two rows across his broad chest. “Is this truly worth the effort, Mother?” he asked. “The old war-machines are good for defense, but they are ponderous and slow. They’re almost useless in the attack, especially when our foes cower a hundred miles away.”

“It pleases me to have the war-constructs put back in working order,” Sarya answered. “The automatons we’ve already repaired serve as a stout defense for our new capital when our legions are far away. And one never knows-we might yet find a way to bring them to the fight.”