Richard Baker: Final Gate

“We hear you, Araevin,” Olithir said. The grand mage turned back to the stone archway through which the three high mages had come, and woke it again with a gesture and a whispered word. “We will do as you ask, and study this threat. I promise you that no other question has greater priority.”

“Very well.” Araevin stilled his protests, recognizing that it would not help to be any more insistent than he had been. “I would be eager to present the evidence in the selukiira to any who wish to see it.”

“Haldreithen would warn us against any contact at all with that loregem,” Olithir remarked.

“I am sure that he would, but I think I trust Araevin,” Kileontheal said. She turned and inclined her head to Araevin. “Sweet water and light laughter until we meet again, High Mage.”

Araevin smiled. “And to you, Kileontheal.” He watched the three Evermeetian wizards step back through the silver door, standing in the moonshadows beneath the sycamore trees. Then he found his way back down to the shore where the boat waited.

At sunrise, Seiveril Miritar found Adresin’s body.

The captain of the elflord’s guard had died fighting alone, trapped in the wreckage of an old watchtower at Semberholme’s eastern border. Seiveril couldn’t begin to guess when Adresin had become separated from the banner, or how he had found his way to this silent ruin. But the manner of his death was all too clear. Cruelly thorned vines of purple-black had burst through his body, piercing him from the inside out. Nearby the foul winged bodies of two vrock demons lay hacked to pieces, attesting to the fury of Adresin’s last fight.

“Vrock spores,” murmured Starbrow. He shook his head and turned away, leaving unvoiced the thought that ached under Seiveril’s heart like a dull knife: Gods, what an awful way to die. In the last few tendays Seiveril had seen far too many elves fall to the foul malevolence of demons and their ilk, each seemingly gifted with its own particular poison or black sorcery to end the lives of mortals. But spores that took root in living flesh and bored their way slowly through muscles, bones, and organs… it was hideous beyond belief.

“Burn the body where it lies,” Seiveril said wearily to the survivors of his guard. “Be careful of the vines, or you may share his fate.”

He followed Starbrow out of the old tower and into the clean woodland outside. When things were ready, he would go back in to speak the funeral prayers himself, but until then he needed to feel sunlight on his face and think of anything other than what the young warrior’s last moments must have been like.

He found Starbrow leaning against a fallen menhir, absently oiling the long white blade of Keryvian. The sword had served its purpose a hundred times over since the Crusade had come to Cormanthor. Starbrow was strong for an elf, taller than most humans but almost as sturdy in his build. He also had the quickness of a cat and the best instincts for battle that Seiveril had ever seen in his own four hundred years. In the moon elf’s hands, the ancient baneblade was a weapon without peer.

Starbrow looked up as Seiveril limped to his side. He brushed his russet hair from his eyes and said, “We fought well last night, Seiveril. You know that, don’t you?”

“Apparently not well enough for Adresin.” Seiveril drew off his armored gauntlets and reached up to loosen his pauldrons. He looked down at the greaves of his left leg, where a set of deep furrows had creased the elven steel-the mark of a canoloth’s jaws. He’d been lucky not to have had his leg torn off.

For the better part of a month, ever since leading the Crusade into the forest of Cormanthor, Seiveril’s host had endured battle after battle-skirmishes against the daemonfey, clashes with the mercenaries of the Sembians, a smashing blow struck against the Zhentarim, and endless running fights against the demons, devils, yugoloths, and other infernal monsters conjured up out of the pits of the nether planes and set loose by Sarya Dlardrageth. The past night’s battle had been a desperate struggle to repel a warband of fiendish creatures from the refuge of Semberholme, and Seiveril’s elves and their Dalesfolk allies had driven off the raid. But he did not doubt that another one would follow in a day or two.

“Is there any end to this, my friend?”

Starbrow looked up sharply. “If you give in to despair, Seiveril, there will be exactly one end to this. I didn’t come back to see another Weeping War.”

“I do not mean to despair, Starbrow. But something has to change.” He ran a hand through his silver-red hair, and grimaced. “Sooner or later, you’d think that even the Hells must be emptied.”

The clatter of horses’ hooves caught Seiveril’s attention, and he looked up as a pair of riders cantered into the clearing by the tower. His daughter Ilsevele, dressed in the colors of a captain of the queen’s spellarchers, reined in her mount.

“I’ve been looking all over for you, Father,” she said.

“Ilsevele,” Seiveril said warmly. He pushed himself upright and embraced his daughter after she dismounted. “I am glad that you are not hurt. And you too, Lord Theremen.”

“Lord Miritar,” the ruler of Deepingdale replied. “You should have sent to us. We could have spared a few swords for you.” Theremen Ulath was a handsome man whose pale skin and fine features clearly showed more than a little elf blood. The folk of Deepingdale had welcomed the Crusade’s arrival in the great forest with few reservations. For his own part, Seiveril had been somewhat surprised to find a strong, secure, and friendly Dale at his back when the Crusade marched into Semberholme. Deepingdale’s archers and riders were a welcome addition to the Crusade’s strength. Lord Theremen swung himself down from his warhorse and clasped Seiveril’s arm.

Ilsevele frowned at Seiveril’s awkward stance, and her eyes fell on the bloody creases in his greaves. “Father, you’re hurt!”

“It is nothing.” Seiveril settled himself back on the fallen menhir. “I am afraid that there were many who needed my healing spells more than I did last night. I take it things were quiet on the eastern marches?”

“For us, yes,” Theremen answered. “But my scouts reported that the Sembians entrenched in Battledale had a furious time of it. The daemonfey aren’t shy about sharing their fury with everyone around them, it seems.”

“Sarya hates us more, but the Sembians are an easier target,” Starbrow remarked. “If there’s a strategy to her attacks, I can’t see it. If I were her, I’d choose one enemy at a time.”

In the ruins of the watchtower, a pillar of gray smoke started up. Ilsevele glanced over, and her face tightened. “Who fell?” she asked.

“Adresin,” Seiveril answered quietly. “We were separated in the fighting last night. We found him only a short time ago.”

Ilsevele looked down at the ground. “I am sorry, Father. He was a courageous warrior, faithful and good. I know you will miss him.”

“He will not be the last, I fear,” Seiveril said. He sighed and looked away from the smoke twisting into the sky. “Well, we have gone to ground in Semberholme, and Sarya seems unable or unwilling to push us any farther. So what do we do now? How do we bring some sort of hope out of this horror?”

“Seek aid from Cormyr?” said Ilsevele. “I would think that Alusair might be disposed to help us.”

“You forget, we are currently at odds with Sembia as well as the daemonfey,” Theremen said. “Alusair can’t afford to be drawn into a war against Sembia by helping us in the Dales. Cormyr is still recovering from the troubles attending Azoun’s death.”

“Find Archendale’s price and buy their help?” said Starbrow.