Richard Baker - Farthest Reach

The chamber beyond was absolutely lightless, but then Filsaelene spoke the words of a minor prayer and summoned up a magical light. Araevin looked around and saw that they were in a natural cave hidden within the hillside. A small pool of clear, still water lay in the center of the cave, and soft moss that glowed faintly blue-green covered the floor. “What is this place?” he asked.

“A secret refuge, hidden beneath the shrine of Sehanine Moonbow. There are a few such places scattered around Myth Drannor and its outskirts,” Starbrow said. “Once they were also guarded by spells designed to keep them concealed, even against magic, but I don’t know if those work any longer. The moss has healing properties, if you are hurt.”

He set Keryvian down on the ground, and lowered himself to the moss, stretching out as if on a bed.

“How did you ever find this place?” Ilsevele asked. She sank down onto the mossy floor nearby.

Starbrow shrugged and looked over to Araevin. “How long before we can use that portal to return to Myth Glaurach?”

“Several hours, I think,” Araevin replied. “Of course, Sarya may be guarding it now. For that matter, we’ll have to figure out a way to reach it without fighting our way through her entire legion.”

“Can you prepare any spells that would help us reach the portal unseen?” Filsaelene asked.

“Not until I rest. Then, I could ready the invisibility spell again,” Araevin said. He frowned, and added, “That is, assuming that I can commit spells to my mind at all. I think that Sarya’s trap only depleted my mind of the spells I knew at the moment, but if she somehow drew out my ability to cast spells at all…”

“Aillesel Seldarie,” Ilsevele breathed. “Araevin, I didn’t realize how the mythal had affected you.”

“Well, we will cross that bridge when we come to it, as my human friends say.” Araevin looked over to Starbrow. “If we were thinking of hiding here for several hours to allow the portal to recharge, we might as well remain here long enough for me to prepare spells, if I can. It will make things much easier if we have trouble getting back to the portal glade.”

They settled down to rest from their exertions, lying quietly in the moss-filled cave. Filsaelene used her spells to heal the worst of their injuries, though her healing spells could do nothing for Araevin’s magic. Stilling his thoughts to silence, Araevin stretched out and let himself drift into Reverie, trying very hard not to dwell on what would happen if he found he could not wield magic. While he composed himself to rest, he listened to his companions conversing in low voices.

“When did you explore this place, Starbrow?” Ilsevele asked the moon elf.

“A long time ago.”

“It can’t be that long ago. You’re not more than a hundred and fifty or so, are you?”

“That’s about right,” Starbrow said.

“That is certainly long by my standards,” Maresa observed. “Because you elves live so damned long, you have no idea of the value of time.”

Ilsevele smiled in the dim light. “That might be true, but I note that Starbrow here hasn’t answered my question. You’ve said before that you were from Cormanthor, but where exactly?”

“I thought the elves abandoned this place,” Maresa said, surprised.

“For the most part, we did,” Filsaelene told her. “Certainly no elves live near Myth Drannor any longer. But there are still a few small elven settlements in different places in this forest. Cormanthor stretches from the Thunder Peaks to the Dragon Reach, and from Cormyr to the Moonsea. It’s a big forest.”

“How did you come to meet my father?” Ilsevele asked. “Until he embarked on this crusade against the daemonfey, I never knew him to have visited Cormanthor.”

Starbrow remained silent for a long time. “You will have to ask your father about that,” he finally said. “It’s not a question for me to answer.”

“Now what does that mean?” Ilsevele asked, rather sharply.

“Ask your father,” Starbrow said again. Then he fell silent, and said no more.

Araevin finally stirred fully from his Reverie some hours later, and felt surprisingly refreshed. He ran his fingers over the blue moss of the cavern floor, and wondered what kind of healing magic the folk of Myth Drannor had imbued in it long ago. He found Starbrow sitting with his back to the wall, watching the secret door that led back out to the chapel. Ilsevele and Filsaelene were deep in their own Reveries, and Maresa was simply asleep, snoring softly.

Lying still, he closed his eyes and touched the Nightstar embedded in his chest, seeking the spells the selukiira stored as ably as his own spellbooks. He chose a simple spell of minor telekinesis first, the sort of thing that almost any apprentice could master, and concentrated on it until its mystic symbology and invocations were pressed into his mind, like a melody he could not get out of his head.

Then he sat up, moved his hands in the appropriate gestures, and muttered the words of the simple spell. To his great relief, he felt the magic, soft and familiar, streaming through his mind and his fingertips, as he picked up a small stone and carefully moved it over to drop into Starbrow’s lap.

The moon elf looked up. “You did that?”

Araevin nodded. “Yes. Sarya’s defenses simply emptied my mind of readied spells. They didn’t damage my ability to study and memorize more.”

“That’s a relief, then,” the moon elf said.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Araevin replied. He focused his attention on the selukiira again, and began furiously memorizing spell after spell, rebuilding his repertoire from nothing. He felt as if his mind were humming with arcane energy, a sensation that he had become so accustomed to in centuries of practicing magecraft that he could not begin to guess when he might have stopped noticing it.

“How long will you need to ready your spells?”

“An hour, perhaps two,” said Araevin. “Then we will see about getting out of here.”

Sarya Dlardrageth stood by a ruined wall near the city’s old Burial Glen, and studied her handiwork with the mythal-weave. The dark bronze strands of her crafting drifted past her outstretched fingers, winding in and among the invisible golden net that comprised the city’s ancient magic field.

“Here,” she said. “He was here when the mythal’s defenses struck him.”

Xhalph waited nearby, towering over her. The daemonfey prince stood well over eight feet tall, with four powerfully muscled arms and just the slightest canine cast to his features-both inherited from his demonic father.

“The sun elf mage?” he asked. “The one who marred your weaving at Myth Glaurach?”

“Yes,” Sarya hissed.

In her long life she had learned to hate many adversaries, to nurse smoldering anger and cold fury for years upon years, but rarely had she been dealt such a reverse as Araevin Teshurr had dealt her in the heart of her own citadel. The very notion that he had somehow followed her to her new lair and had attempted to evict her from yet another mythal was enough to fill her with a wrath so hot and bitter than even Xhalph shied from meeting her eyes.

“Araevin was here,” she went on, “and he attempted to take this mythal from me, too.” She allowed herself a cold smile. “But my new defenses were more than he expected. I was ready for him this time. If I read the mythal right, he received a nasty little surprise when he started plucking at my threads.”

“Do you think he knows we are here?”

Sarya’s smile faded at once. “It is almost a certainty,” she admitted. “I want him caught before he carries word of our presence back to his friend Seiveril Miritar and the rest of Evermeet’s knights and mages.”