Richard Baker - Final Gate

“At least I am in good company,” he muttered to himself. “I hope you find happiness with him, Ilsevele. You deserve it.”

“I think you mean that, Araevin. And I thank you for it.”

He sat in silence for a while, his hand in hers. It was not just the change brought upon him by the telmiirkara neshyrr. She was right. They had started to grow apart years ago. There was a moment only a few months ago when he brought Ilsevele to Faerun for her first time, and the wonder of the wide lands in her eyes rekindled something of their old passion. But it seemed that had been little more than a glimpse of a memory.

“I should not have stayed in Reilloch all those years,” he murmured.

“I do not believe that,” she said. “You have done what you were intended to do, Araevin. You have become a high mage. And who can say what might have happened this year if you had not?”

He took a deep breath and looked into her eyes. She was beautiful in the moonlight, and his heart ached with a deep, hot hurt. But he could not say that she was wrong.

“You will always be dear to me,” he said.

“And you to me,” she answered. She leaned forward and brushed her lips against his. “I hope you can forgive me, Araevin.”

He essayed a sad smile of his own. “I hope I can forgive myself,” he managed.

Then they both stood, and found their way out into the warm night.

22 Eleasias, the Year of Lightning Storms

Shortly before dawn, Araevin and his companions joined Seiveril by the forest manor. The Knights of the Golden Star surrounded them, along with the surviving Moon Knights and a chosen guard of bladesingers, spellarchers, and mages. Araevin felt keenly awake and alert despite the restlessness of his night. In Reverie his memory had insisted on wandering in places that he had shared with Ilsevele. Sometimes he envied the oblivion of human sleep. He knew that humans dreamed too, but they did not long remember their travels, did they?

With a few whispered commands, Seiveril and his captains led the gathered warriors into the dark of the morning. The great company moved through the forest in silence, broken only by the small rasp of steel and leather or the occasional footfall on the forest floor. From time to time Araevin glimpsed jagged shadows against the dark sky-the broken towers of Myth Drannor rising above the trees.

They came to a clearing in the forest, on the outskirts of the city itself. Araevin studied the spot, searching for the intangible presence of the mythal. After a moment, he nodded. “This will do,” he said.

Seiveril held up his hand. The rustling around Araevin grew still as the elves and Dalesfolk who accompanied his small band stopped moving and melted into the shadows beneath the trees.

“Good luck, Araevin,” he whispered.

Araevin narrowed his eyes, willing the unseen currents of magic to become visible to him. Slowly the majestic weaving of the city’s mythal ghosted into view-a great edifice of tangible magic, golden and alive, crackling with unimaginable power. Sildeyuir and the Waymeet itself were the only things Araevin had seen that even began to compare. The mythal’s field descended in a great curve from the sky over the center of the city and plunged into the ground not far from Araevin’s feet like a vertical wall of swirling golden light… golden light that was shot through with venomous strands of reddish copper, interwoven through the living magic.

“Be ready to protect me,” Araevin told his friends. “Sarya will sense me as soon as I begin, and I cannot believe that she will allow me to go about this without some opposition.”

“Do what you must,” Nesterin told Araevin. “We will guard you.”

Araevin drew out the Gatekeeper’s Crystal, and balanced the heavy stone in one hand, cupping his fingers around its points. The device glowed a brilliant violet-white, strengthened by the proximity of the mythal. He attuned his thoughts to the crystal in his hand, and he stepped into the shimmering light.

Sarya’s defenses woke at once, lashing about him like whipcords of furious magic. But Araevin was ready for that. He shielded himself with the crystal, deflecting the daemonfey’s spell traps. Then he carefully invoked the crystal’s power. From his outstretched hand a shrieking column of violet-white energy shot into the mythal field, brushing aside the locks and wards that kept him from the mythal itself.

The city groaned in reply. A wild wind sprang up in the forest, roaring through the treetops, and the ground trembled under his feet. Araevin felt the strength of the crystal mounting higher, doubling and redoubling on itself, as the device sought to master Myth Drannor’s ancient mythal. Tiny fissures of purple light began to appear in the conjoined crystal, and the shards vibrated in his hand.

“Araevin! The crystal!” Maresa shouted. “It’ll shatter!”

“Not if I can help it!” he answered.

He threw his willpower at the crystal, reining it in, arresting the wild power of the device as it surged toward release. For a moment the contest hung in the balance, and Araevin feared that he had allowed the crystal to channel too much power into the mythal-but then he managed to mute it, smothering the device in his iron determination.

“Donnor, guard this!” he said, and handed the crystal quickly to the cleric. Donnor wrapped the incandescent crystal in a common blanket, and backed away.

Sarya’s defenses lay shredded before him. Without her wards to keep him from excising her from the mythal, he was free to do as he wished. Araevin drew a deep breath and shouted out the words of the mythaalniir darach, the rite of mythal-shaping. Distantly, he realized that a sudden skirmish had erupted around him-devils and fey’ri attacked Seiveril’s standard from all sides, emerging from the ruins to give battle. But he paid no attention to the furious fight growing around him, and plunged his percipience into the golden strands of the mythal.

One by one, he severed the sullen red strands that were twisted around the mythal’s original work. As he had done in Myth Glaurach, he imposed a new set of governances to lock out Sarya. And he detected a subtle weaving of tarnished silver-black, an older grafting on the mythal.

The devils of Myth Drannor, he realized. This is the spell that holds them here.

With another sharp incision of willpower, he severed that one as well. The mythal itself was old and frail, but he could not do much about that. It might recover in time, or it might founder and fail. But at least no one else would be able to pervert it from its original intent, not without defeating Araevin’s own locks first.

Suddenly exhausted, he slumped to his knees and let the mythal fade away from his sight. He realized that Donnor and Seiveril were close beside him, thumping his back in congratulations. “Sarya’s spells are defeated!” the elflord shouted. “We can take the city!”

“Dozens of fiends just vanished, Araevin!” Donnor said. “Was that your doing?”

“I’ve sealed the mythal against Sarya,” he said weakly. “Anything she summoned with its power has been dismissed. But be careful. I think there are a number of demons and devils in her service that aren’t anchored to the mythal. You’ll have to deal with them.”

“We have learned a thing or two about that in the last couple of months,” Seiveril answered him. He looked over to his guards and shouted, “Sound the attack! This day we retake Myth Drannor and destroy the daemonfey!”

Silver horns greeted the morning, and hundreds of elf voices shouted in reply. From somewhere in the woods to the east, harsher human trumpets echoed through the forest too, as the Sembians charged into the streets from the other side of the city. Seiveril squeezed Araevin’s shoulder with his gauntleted hand, and led his warriors into the ruins of the city.