Richard Baker - Final Gate

“Enough.” Seiveril raised his hand, forestalling Starbrow’s words. “It is still too unexpected, Starbrow. And this does not seem to be the time-”

“Lord Miritar! Lord Miritar!”

Seiveril looked around behind him. Edraele Muirreste galloped back down the forest road, standing in her stirrups. She waved to him as soon as she caught sight of his banner.

“Selkirk of Sembia asks for you. The daemonfey await us in the Vale!”

Starbrow glanced at him, and back to the captain of the Silver Guard. “How strong are they, Edraele?” Starbrow called.

“Two thousand or more. The fey’ri legion is there, along with many demons and devils!”

“I suppose we’ll have to speak about Ilsevele later.” Seiveril grimaced, realizing that he was actually grateful for the opportunity to turn his attention to less confusing matters. “I did not expect Sarya to make a stand outside Myth Drannor’s walls.”

Starbrow shrugged. “I had a feeling we weren’t going to get to Myth Drannor without a fight.”

As it turned out, Araevin’s teleport spell was very nearly a fatal mistake.

Instead of conjuring himself and his friends safely to the cavelike sanctuary near the top of the Long Stair, he botched it badly. The small company was scattered for a mile or more in the lightless dark. Araevin himself appeared alone a good six or seven feet in the air above the narrow roadway, and gave his knee a painful wrench on landing. Jorin and Donnor arrived in the sanctuary, but Nesterin was half a mile distant in the opposite direction and wound up clinging to the ledge with white-knuckled hands, having been dropped right at the edge of the awful precipice. And Maresa herself did actually appear out in the middle of the dreadful space, but fortunately arrested her fall with her elemental gifts. They all finally found their way to the small, cold cave above the abyss, warded by the best spell shields Araevin could manage with the last of his strength.

When they finally roused themselves, Jorin prepared the best breakfast he could from the haphazard collection of belongings they had managed to bring out of Lorosfyr with them, while Donnor illuminated their small refuge with Lathander’s golden light. Then the cleric addressed their various injuries, salving bruises and sealing cuts with his healing spells. He even managed to ameliorate the abominable ache in Araevin’s knee.

“Don’t ask me how we managed it, but we are all alive and reasonably hale and whole,” the cleric muttered when he finished. “By the Morninglord, I thought that I had seen my last dawn. When Selydra hurled that black orb at me…”

“Try finding yourself alone, falling in total blackness.” Maresa hugged her arms close to her chest and shivered. “Is that what Ilsevele meant when she said that teleport spells sometimes don’t work as well as they ought to, Araevin?”

“More or less,” Araevin admitted. “Strange magic permeates the deep places of the world. It can scatter a teleport spell, as I demonstrated for you. That is why I was hesitant to try it, unless I thought we had absolutely no other choice.”

“I think I’ll be happy to walk the next time you offer to whisk us off somewhere in the blink of an eye,” the genasi said. “Speaking of which, I think I’m about ready to walk on out of here. I’ve had all of the Underdark that I care for.”

“Back to the portal, then?” Jorin asked Araevin.

“I think so, but I am not sure. The Waymeet is not safe any more.” Araevin thought of the infernal monsters that haunted the place, and the fiery iron brands driven into the living crystal. He did not know if the devils guarding the Waymeet had determined which door they had used to leave, but the last thing he wanted to do was walk right into an ambush. “I want to make sure that I know where we’re going before we chance it again.”

“Can you sense the direction to the third shard now?” Nesterin asked.

“Let me try.”

The sun elf rummaged through his pack for a moment and drew out the first shard of the Gatekeeper’s Crystal. Then he opened the iron coffer from Selydra’s vault. The Pale Sybil’s shard rested inside on a bed of black velvet. He lifted it out carefully, and held it beside the first shard. The dagger-shaped fragments glowed with a soft lavender radiance even in the brightness of Donnor’s light spell. Araevin noticed that the glow grew stronger the closer the shards were to each other. Taking a deep breath, he fitted the two together. He felt a sharp jolt of power flow through his hands, magic old and strong indeed, and the two pieces were bonded together as if they had never been parted. He couldn’t find the slightest seam to mark the place where they joined each other.

“Amazing,” he murmured.

Cradling the joined crystal on his lap and closing his eyes, he chanted the words of a simple seeking spell and opened his mind, casting about for any hint of direction. The crystal in his hands began to shine brighter, and seemed to stir or whisper, filling the chamber with a strange high note like the ringing of a glass he might have tapped with the edge of a knife. Araevin felt his friends watching him, silent and intense.

At first he felt nothing in answer to his call. But then, faint and far off, he sensed an answering note. He reached out to catch it with his mind’s eye, but no matter how he imagined the third shard, he couldn’t derive any idea of where it was in relation to the cave on Lorosfyr’s edge. He could tell that it was distant, but not in what direction it might lie.

“Well? Where is it?” Maresa asked.

“Not nearby,” Araevin answered. He frowned and tried to listen closer, hoping to learn something from the quality of the ringing note, but it was beginning to fade. “I do not think it lies on this plane of existence.”

The others exchanged sharp glances. “Where is it, then?” Donnor asked.

Araevin raised his hand for silence, still straining for the last whispers of his seeking spell. He had half-expected something like that, and he was not unprepared. As the faint ringing of the crystal faded, he freed one hand from the Gatekeeper’s Crystal and reached into the pocket of his cloak, where he kept his spell components. Casting a pinch of powdered glass above his head and muttering the words of a powerful spell, he invoked a vision.

“Where is the third shard?” he demanded. “Where?”

The chamber darkened and whirled away as the vision snatched him away from his body. He felt an instant of dizzying movement, a great leap of awareness that sent his perception racing outward through silver nothingness at the speed of thought itself, and he found himself standing on a barren, dusty plain. The sky was dark with black, racing clouds that flickered with an angry orange glow, as if great fires seethed within. Thunder crackled and echoed around him, and the air was desperately hot and dry. Around his feet, shriveled black thorns clawed their way from the dust, waiting for rain that never came. Jagged peaks as sharp as swords fenced the distance.

“Where am I?” he asked the harsh desert. Nothing answered him, but he sensed something behind him. Turning slowly, Araevin beheld a mighty citadel of black glass. It soared skyward from the depths of a forest of dead, twisted trees. In one small tower a white light flickered, enticing him. The shard! he realized. But then the awful plain and the terrible castle reeled drunkenly, and vanished in an instant.

He gasped and jerked awake, his skin hot and dry even in the numbingly chill air of the abyss. For a moment he flailed in surprise, but strong hands caught his arms and steadied him.

“Easy, Araevin! You are back,” Jorin said. The Yuir ranger knelt on his right, and Donnor Kerth at his left. “You have seen the shard?” the cleric asked. Araevin drew in a deep breath. “Yes. It lies in an infernal plane. Some hell or another beyond the circles of our world.”