Richard Baker: Final Gate

“Go on!” Donnor growled. “Perform the rite! Jorin and I will hold them!”

The mage started to argue, but he could hear more fiends hurrying to the fray. If he allowed himself to be drawn into a skirmish, he might not get a chance to strike the blow that truly counted.

“Follow us as soon as you can,” he said to Donnor, and he hurried back to Maresa and Nesterin. “Come on, we must do what we came to do.”

Behind him, the Lathanderite turned to face the oncoming mezzoloths, with the Yuir ranger at his shoulder. He shouted a holy prayer to his deity and banished one of the monsters back to its own plane, sending it shrieking back to the hells in a shroud of golden fire. Then Araevin pulled himself away and ran on into the Waymeet, Maresa and Nesterin a step behind him. Angry roars and hisses filled the mist behind them.

The foundations of the walls and columns grew thicker as the three of them came into the center of the Waymeet. Here the fence of titanic crystal spears that formed the heart of the mythal reached hundreds of feet overhead, and not even the elves of ancient Aryvandaar could build such things without a sturdy footing. The bitter yellow mists cleared a little, affording them a good view of the cathedral-like space in the heart of the Waymeet. Bold spurs of glass crossed and crossed again overhead, creating a ceiling of sorts far above. Smaller ribs of crystal linked the great columns; the place was a spiderweb of glass.

Beneath a spiraling dome in the center of the structure stood another speaking stone, a column easily thirty feet tall, but like the lesser speaking stone Araevin had seen on the outskirts of the Waymeet, the master stone was also encircled by iron runes. Thick bands of black metal pressed Malkizid’s hellforged spells deep into the crystalline flesh of the living mythal.

“This must anchor the mythal,” Nesterin breathed. “What a magnificent work this Waymeet must have been!”

“Admire it later,” Maresa said. She looked to Araevin. “So how do we do this?”

“Here, take this.” Araevin brought out the Gatekeeper’s Crystal and quickly disjoined it, separating it into its original three shards. He handed one piece to Maresa, and another to Nesterin. “We need to spread out and create three points of a triangle with the shards-the wider, the better. At the very least, we should surround the master stone there. When you are in position I will invoke the crystal’s power and unbind the magic in this place.”

“What happens to us when you do that?” Maresa asked.

“If the Seldarine smile on us, the damage will be contained within the shards’ borders. You must be careful to stand outside the triangle, not inside.”

The genasi nodded once. “I’m off, then,” she said, and she sprinted across the open plaza, running past the chained speaking stone. Nesterin observed her course for a moment, then hurried off at a right angle, seeking to separate himself as widely as possible from both Maresa and Araevin.

A winged shape dropped down out of the tangle of poisoned crystal overhead, diving down toward the star elf. “Nesterin, above you!” Araevin cried.

Nesterin looked up, and threw himself to one side as the monster above him slammed into the ground where he had been standing. Stone split with piercing reports, reverberating through the Waymeet’s chancel. The monster, a powerful green-scaled nycaloth, cast its baleful red eyes on Araevin.

“You spoiled my pounce, elf,” it hissed. “You will pay for that when I finish with your friend.”

It turned to spring after Nesterin, who rolled away and came to his feet with his sword in hand. Araevin blasted at it with a bolt of lightning, charring a broad black scorch across its shoulders. The monster roared and kept after the star elf. Nesterin lunged forward and stabbed it twice in its thickly muscled torso, but the nycaloth shrugged off the blows. It beat its wings once and leaped up to fix the talons of its feet in Nesterin’s shoulders, and dragged him up off the ground.

“Let go of me!” Nesterin snarled. His sword dropped to the ground and bounced with a shrill ringing sound, and he struggled in the monster’s grasp.

“Nesterin!” Araevin started another spell, but halted in mid-word. Any magic he hurled might strike his friend as well as the nycaloth. He settled for a simple magical attack that hammered small darts of arcane power into the nycaloth’s chest, eliciting another roar from the beast. It rose higher, trying to get out of his range. Then Nesterin threw back his head and sang out a potent warding spell against evil. The nycaloth hissed and recoiled, driven away by the abjuration-and Nesterin fell twenty feet or more to the hard stone floor of the Waymeet’s chancel. He landed badly and sprawled to the ground, grimacing in agony.

Araevin started toward him, but Nesterin waved him back. Blood seeped from his wounded shoulders, and his left leg turned at a bad angle.

“I can hold the shard right here,” the star elf said. “Speak the rite, Araevin!”

Maresa appeared on the far side of the chancel, holding her shard of the crystal. “Is this good?” she called.

He glanced at the genasi, and back to Nesterin, and quickly backed ten steps, trying to position himself correctly. He raised his shard, and looked into it, seeking the combination of willpower and knowledge to trigger its power.

Icy needles scythed into him from behind, piercing his flesh like hateful icicles. Cold so intense that his nerves shrieked as if on fire stabbed into him at shoulder, neck, arm, and back. Araevin screamed once and staggered away, dropping the Gatekeeper’s Crystal from hands suddenly too numb to hold it.

“You feckless fool! You would destroy a work twelve thousand years old? You are little more than a vandal!” Malkizid strode into the Waymeet’s heart, emerging from the mist-wreathed pillars behind Araevin. His taloned hands clenched in anger, and the glass walls of the place shivered at the anger in his melodious voice. “I have worked for this day too long to allow you to ruin it, ungrateful whelp!”

Araevin groveled in agony, plucking at the icicles that transfixed him. Across the chancel, Nesterin pushed himself to his feet and pointed his own shard at Malkizid-but the archdevil made one sharp gesture of his hand and sent the star elf hurling into the glass walls behind him. Nesterin hit heavily and slumped to the ground, stunned. Across the chamber, Maresa took one look at Malkizid and leaped for cover, disappearing into the ribbed columns on the far side of the room. Malkizid snorted in amusement as she ducked out of sight.

“Where does the half-breed think she can hide from me?” he rumbled aloud. “I control all the doors in this place now.”

Get up! Araevin exhorted himself. I have to do something!

Cold wracked his body, pinning him to the ground. He reached behind his back and drew the icicle out of his shoulder with a hiss of pain. Its tip was stained red. Then he felt for the one in the back of his neck. Warm blood ran down his collar, but only a trickle. The frozen dart had found muscle, not the great arteries or the windpipe. The searing numbness in his throat diminished, and he found he could speak again.

“Not yet,” he rasped.

He stretched out his hand toward Malkizid and spat out the words of his iridescent ray spell. Blazing beams of emerald green and sickly violet washed past Malkizid, and the fiery orange beam grazed one wing. The archdevil’s feathered wing smoked as the amber-red flames seared him.

Malkizid twisted away from the brilliant stabbing rays, sheltering behind his wings until the flames died away. He straightened up and bared his teeth at Araevin. “You have ceased to amuse me, Araevin Teshurr,” he snarled. Araevin tried to strike again with another spell, but Malkizid proved faster. The archdevil intoned terrible words, and with one taloned hand inscribed an intricate set of arcane passes in the very air.