Richard Baker - Final Gate

The tyrant of Zhentil Keep scowled furiously, deadly wrath awaking in his eyes. “Are you certain of that?” he asked in a cold voice.

“Maalthiir has decamped. He left the city almost a tenday ago. I do not think that he intends to return.”

Fzoul snorted in dark amusement. “I suppose that does not surprise me. So who governs Hillsfar in his stead, High Warden?”

“The Council of Lords is the acting authority in the city, Lord Fzoul. They share power with the remaining Red Plumes.”

“I see. So which of those powers do you serve?”

“I am a lord of Hillsfar.”

“Weren’t you high in Maalthiir’s service? Why did you not follow your master into exile, Lord Gearas?”

The high warden grimaced. “The First Lord departed abruptly, Lord Fzoul. He did not give me that opportunity.”

“And so your fellow lordlings have rewarded you for your faithful service to Maalthiir by making you their envoy to me.” Fzoul’s dark eyes danced with malice. “Go back to your council of lords then, and convey to them my terms. You have one day to indicate your acceptance.”

The high warden knew when he had been dismissed. He bowed again in silence, and left the Golden Manticore. Fzoul watched him go.

“A pity that I shall not have the opportunity to banter with Maalthiir one more time. But I suppose that he has chosen a fate for himself almost as hopeless as anything I might have concocted. The knowledge of what he has lost will consume him alive, and he will spend the rest of his days waiting for the time when he is found out.”

“Should I make ready to attack tomorrow, my lord?” Scyllua asked.

“You will not need to, my dear. I have offered generous terms, and Hillsfar has no choice but to capitulate.” Fzoul folded his arms over his chest. “For more than one hundred years Hillsfar has been the fiercest rival of Zhentil Keep. Now we have laid them low, Scyllua. Whatever else comes out of this season of chaos, I am already content with my gains.”

18 Eleasias, the Year of Lightning Storms

Araevin stepped into a world of stinging dust and baking heat. He started coughing immediately and threw one arm over his eyes as he staggered away from the gate. The portal stood in a broken wall of black stone on the side of a steep hill. He reached out to steady himself, and found that the stones were hot to the touch. Overhead, the skies churned with black clouds, lit from within by searing flames. A harsh wind like the blast of a furnace scoured the landscape, driving streamers of the bitter dust past the shattered ruins around him.

“Where am I?” he muttered between coughs.

The ruins might have been some sort of keep or watchtower long ago, but had become little more than a foundation of heavy stones abraded smooth by dust and wind. He had to wonder who had thought to raise a portal in such a place. Jorin and Maresa staggered through the portal next.

“They’re right behind us, Araevin!” Maresa called.

She drew her rapier and took up a position by the side of the portal, while Jorin hurried a few steps away and turned back to face the gate with an arrow on his bowstring. Nesterin appeared next, blade already in hand. He staggered away from the portal, and dragged Donnor through by one arm, catching the knight in mid-swing.

“Nycaloths pursue us!” the star elf shouted.

“Stand aside. I’ll deal with the portal,” Araevin answered.

He backed away a few more steps and chanted the words of a spell to temporarily seal the portal behind them. Refusing to allow the hostility of their surroundings to distract him, Araevin fixed his attention on the portal and hurried to complete the spell. The gray misty space between the portal’s framing stones shimmered, as if something were about to emerge… and he finished the portal seal. In an instant the roiling mists of the gate reverted to cold, dead stone, bound under a glowing spiderweb of silver magic.

Maresa breathed a sigh of relief and sheathed her rapier. Then she glanced around the ruins of hot black stone and volcanic dust. “Out of the frying pan and into the fire,” the genasi muttered.

“Will we be able to retreat through that portal when the time comes?” Jorin asked Araevin, eying the spiderweb of magic with concern in his gaze.

“Yes, I can dismiss the spell any time I want.”

“Will the devils pursuing us be able to find another way to get through?”

“I don’t know, Jorin. They might not know where this portal leads, and they can’t find out as long as my seal holds. But I have no way of knowing if there are other portals nearby that they might use to follow us. Just in case, we would be wise to move on soon. My spell might have been noticed.”

The Yuir ranger nodded. He slipped his bow over his shoulder and checked his paired short swords in their sheaths. “Do you know where we are?”

“I do not know much about the lower planes.” Araevin rummaged in his vest for a handkerchief and tied it around his mouth and nose to help keep the grit out. “Donnor is a better guide than I am here.”

“What’s there to know?” Maresa said. “They’re all hells of one kind or another, aren’t they? Hostile, poisonous, and filled with supernatural terrors that can kill you in a dozen different ways. I think I understand.”

“Trust me, there are important differences,” the Lathanderite said. “Each lower plane has its own perils.”

“So what is this place, then?” said Jorin.

Donnor studied the landscape beyond the black ruins. Jagged peaks marched along the horizon, and the angry red sky overhead flashed with fire and thunder. “It might be Avernus, first of the Nine Hells. Or perhaps the Blood Rift, an unstable plane that aligns with other infernal realms from time to time. But I think we are in the Barrens of Doom and Despair, an infernal plane that lies near the Nine Hells.”

Araevin followed the cleric’s gaze. “I think you are right, Donnor. The appearance of the place matches what I have read about the Barrens.”

“And who or what resides here?” Maresa asked.

The Lathanderite wiped his brow with one gauntleted hand. The gray dust stuck to his sweat and left a broad smudge across his forehead. “Several dark gods have their domains here, Bane first and foremost,” he said. “We would be wise to avoid those places if we can.” Maresa rolled her eyes at that but did not interrupt him. “Other than the gods’ realms, the Barrens of Doom and Despair are home to the fiends we call yugoloths or daemons. Expect to encounter things such as mezzoloths, canoloths, nycaloths… perhaps some devils outcast from the Nine Hells, too.”

Something the cleric said caught at Araevin’s mind. He frowned, puzzling out the thought. From his very first encounter with the daemonfey in the halls of Tower Reilloch, they had relied on yugoloths of different sorts. At the time he had thought it nothing more than the expedience of summoning the creatures. Yugoloths were notorious as bargainers and mercenaries, easily persuaded to serve in a variety of evil causes. But Sarya had also rallied devils and demons to her banner, creatures that normally loathed each other. She was blood kin to demons, so it must have been Malkizid who brought his devils to her service. If Malkizid was an exiled archdevil, as Quastarte had told him, he might very well have established himself as a lord in some other infernal domain… accompanied by those devils who followed him into exile.

Just as he had known from the moment he beheld Lorosfyr that the second shard waited in its depths, he could sense the truth: The third shard was in Malkizid’s domain.

“Malkizid,” he murmured. “He seeks to subjugate the Waymeet. Of course the Gatekeeper’s Crystal will be useful to him. At the very least, he would want to make sure that no one assembled the crystal and used it against him. So the Branded King keeps one shard safe in his domain.”