Richard Baker - Farthest Reach

Maresa blew out her breath, and sheathed her wand at her belt. “I’ll keep that in mind. Are there a lot of them around here?”

“It seems there have been more of them about in the last year or two,” Jorin replied. “I used to go two or three years at a time without hearing of anyone running into a render, but I’ve heard of seven attacks already this year-not counting this one.”

“Is that what you meant when you said that parts of the forest were growing more wild?” Ilsevele asked.

“In part, yes.” Jorin spotted his sword lying under the briars, and with a grimace he knelt and reached his arm through the thorns, groping for the blade. “Gray renders aren’t natural beasts, really. They’re dimly intelligent, and foul-tempered beyond belief. They’ll tear down cabins and rip up trails on a whim, but then they can be devilishly patient when stalking prey.”

The Aglarondan reached his blade and pulled it out of the briars, but not without a good armful of scrapes.

“Are there more gray renders in the forest than before, or are the ones that were always here just growing more aggressive?” asked Ilsevele.

“There are more of them, I’m sure of it. But I certainly wonder where they’re coming from. Some infernal plot of Thay, I suppose.” Jorin wiped his sword on the mossy trailside, and sheathed it. “I am sorry that I failed to spot that one before we wandered into its path. I won’t let it happen again.”

“Make sure you don’t!” Maresa said. “I don’t ever need to see a gray render any closer than that.”

Donnor Kerth tended their injuries-mostly Jorin’s and his own-with a few healing prayers, and they continued on their way. They pressed on through the afternoon, encountering no more gray renders, though on one occasion Jorin pointed out troll-sign on the trail, and led them on a long, circuitous detour by a streambed to skirt the trouble if they could. The detour evidently worked, for they saw no trolls and ran across nothing else dangerous.

They camped for the night in the high branches of a great shadowtop overlooking a swift, cool stream. Some of Jorin’s folk had built a small, railless platform in the tree’s middle branches, a good sixty feet above the forest floor, and a tug on a well-hidden lanyard brought down a rope ladder to reach the lower branches, from where other concealed ladders led up to the hiding place. Kerth’s packhorse they had to leave on the ground, but Araevin wove a skillful illusion to hide the animal’s makeshift corral and keep any forest predators from finding it.

The next morning dawned hot, still, and clear, the forest sweltering in the humidity left by the previous days’ rain and mist. They descended from their aerial camp, found the packhorse unmolested, and set off again. But only a couple of hours into the march, the trail broke out into a large, grassy glade in the heart of the forest, a clearing the better part of a hundred yards wide. Bright sunlight flooded the open spot, and the air hummed with darting insects. In the center of the clearing stood an old ring of standing stones, each almost ten feet tall, arranged in a lopsided circle. Thick moss mantled the ancient stones, and Araevin sensed at once the presence of old and potent magic in the clearing.

“What is this place, Jorin?” he asked. “The doorway to Sildeyuir,” the half-elf answered. He led them between the leaning menhirs, into the center of the old ring, where a large square block stood like a great altar. “This is your last chance to turn aside, all of you. Once I take you through the door, there is no guarantee that you will be permitted to return. The folk of Sildeyuir are not cruel, but they do not tolerate intrusion, and they will not permit a stranger to carry their secrets back to the realms of humankind. Araevin and Ilsevele will likely have little trouble, since they are both ar Tel’Quessir. But this is a perilous journey for Donnor and Maresa.”

Maresa gazed at the old stones leaning in the sun. Despite the warmth of the day, it was cool and quiet within the circle.

“I’ve walked in Evermeet,” she said, her manner serious. “I think I want to see what’s on the other side of this stone ring.”

Donnor Kerth stood holding the reins of his packhorse. He glanced up at the bright sky, shading his dark face with a hand, and nodded once to the half-elf.

“Donnor, you don’t have to follow us here,” Araevin said in a low voice.

“If you go, I’ll go,” the human rasped. He glanced back at the dense wall of green behind them, then looked back to Araevin and flashed a startlingly bright smile. “Besides, it’s a long, hot walk back from here.”

Jorin indicated the square stone altar in the center of the circle and said, “All right, then. Everybody set a hand on the stone and keep it there. Donnor, hold your mount’s reins in your other hand, there. Now be still a moment.”

The half-elf hummed a strange tune under his breath, and Araevin felt the magic of the place waking, stirring, shaking off its sun-drowsed slumber as cool shadows began to grow within the ring.

He looked across the altar stone at Maresa, who stood with her eyes squeezed shut and her teeth bared.

She still doesn’t trust magic of this sort, he thought with a smile. You would think that she’d become accustomed to it sooner or later.

Then strange silver shadows seemed to burst out of the great old stones, whirling and darting all around the company, and the sunny clearing in the Yuirwood whirled away into nothingness.

Seiveril Miritar stood in the heart of a grove of mighty shadowtops at dusk, and prayed earnestly to the Seldarine for guidance, as he had every night at star rise since he had embarked on his great crusade against the foes of the People. He was distantly aware of the ring of vigilant guards who stood nearby, watching in case his enemies tried to strike at him while he walked alone in the forest. But the knights of the Golden Star respected his communion with Corellon Larethian and the Seldarine. They waited a short distance out of sight, giving Seiveril the silence and privacy to speak to his gods with his whole heart.

Here, in the heart of old Cormanthor, Seiveril felt the presence of Corellon Larethian almost as clearly as he did when he stood in Evermeet’s sacred groves, but at the same time, doubt darkened his heart. His divinations whispered of disaster and warned him that a narrow way indeed threaded the perils that lay before him.

Three days now, and the same shadows of danger hover in my auguries, Seiveril thought. Our army stands motionless while our enemies move against us, and still Corellon warns me that to march on Myth Drannor now courts terrible danger. “I cannot remain in Galath’s Roost while my enemies encircle me, Corellon, and yet you warn me against marching from this place,” Seiveril said aloud, speaking up at the silver starlight that glimmered in the treetops far above. “I am afraid that I do not see what it is you want me to do.”

A soft breeze sighed in the high branches, but no answer came to Seiveril. The gods of his people had bestowed many blessings upon the elf race, but they wished for the elves to find their own path through life. While Corellon and the rest of the Seldarine were unsparing in the divine magic they placed in the hands of priests such as Seiveril, they had the habit of keeping their silence even when great matters were at hand, so that elves’ hearts and minds might reach their full flowering and growth by striving to set right the griefs of the world and overcome the challenges life offered. To do otherwise would be to diminish the People, to make them something less than they otherwise could be, and that the Seldarine-wise even among gods, or so it was said-would not do.

“I am reaching the point at which I wouldn’t mind a little help,” Seiveril said.