James Wyatt - Oath of Vigilance

Immeral rejoined them, now mounted on a dusky gray horse with dry brambles woven into its mane. “Well, Albanon,” he said, “perhaps I’ll see you on the other side and we can continue the conversation we never quite began.” He reached down to shake Albanon’s hand, then turned with a smile to Kri. “And Kri Redshal, your skill at diversion and misdirection is worthy of the fey. I salute you.” He clenched a fist over his heart, nodded to the old priest, and guided his horse to the Moon Door. The light danced and shimmered around him as he rode into the portal. He paused in the center, looked around with a broad smile on his face, then spurred his horse and disappeared.

Albanon and Kri fell into a vague line with the handful of other travelers and shuffled toward the portal, waiting their turn to cross into the Feywild. Albanon felt a gnawing dread and thought one last time about turning back, going to find Shara and Uldane. They could use him, he suspected. Vestapalk’s demonic exarchs and their bestial minions were rampaging across the Nentir Vale, carrying havoc and destruction with them and spreading the abyssal plague. After leaving the Temple of Yellow Skulls, they had decided to split up-Shara and Uldane, with the drow they had rescued from the dragon, were looking for signs of the dragon’s new lair while Albanon and Kri ventured into the Feywild in search of something-anything-that might help them defeat the dragon when they found it. One of the founding members of the Order of Vigilance, Kri had explained, had been an eladrin noblewoman, and they sought her tower and her library in the hopes that they might find some knowledge that hadn’t been passed down through the order. Albanon worried what might happen to Shara and Uldane without his magic, though, and without Kri’s power and guidance.

Well, Shara and Uldane could take care of themselves, and he’d see them again. He had made a commitment to Kri to stay with him and learn more of his Order of Vigilance. He wasn’t going to fail in that commitment just because it meant traveling dangerously close to his family home.

Stepping into the portal was like settling into a warm bath, though the chill didn’t fade from the air. At first everything muted-the roar of the river around the rocks below, the chirping of frogs and crickets on shore, the evening bustle of the town behind him, and even Splendid’s yowl of alarm. A moment later, the world erupted into vibrant life. Frogs and night birds sang a chorus; the air was awash with autumn scents; the moonlight painted the flowers in iridescent blue, silver, and violet; and the rushing of the river became a complex symphony. The pseudodragon leaped from Albanon’s pack and circled him in the air, surprised and excited by the new experience.

Albanon closed his eyes and took a deep breath, savoring the bouquet of pollen, leaves, moss, earth, and mushrooms. A sudden memory struck him. As a child, he’d been tumbling down a hill, laughing, with a giggling girl beside him. They landed tangled at the bottom of the hill, her hair tickling his nose and the pungent aroma of broken mushrooms surrounding them. He smiled as he cast about in his memory, trying to remember the girl’s name. Instead, Tempest’s face came to his mind.

“Come along, lad, you’re blocking the doorway.” Kri’s rough hand gripped his shoulder and drew him out of the dancing lights. “Is it good to be home?”

Albanon drew in another deep breath as he walked. “I wouldn’t call it home any more, but I never realized how much I missed it. Everything is so different, so much more alive.”

“It suits you,” Kri said. “You almost look like you’re glowing.”

Albanon laughed. “It’s possible. I can feel the magic everywhere around me, fueling my own power.” Drawing energy from the land and air around him, he casually tossed a burst of fire into the sky. “It’s so easy here.”

“Some say it’s an advantage to study magic in the mortal world,” Kri said, “because it’s harder to work magic there.”

Albanon nodded. “Magic comes so naturally to my people that they’re lazy about it. That’s why I wanted to study with Moorin.”

“You weren’t satisfied with the easy route.”

“I suppose not.”

Kri clapped him on the shoulder. “And that’s why I want you with me, learning beside me. You’re not going to settle for easy answers or look for shortcuts. That’s what I need, and it’s what the Order of Vigilance needs if it’s going to survive to another generation.”

Albanon swelled with pride. Since Moorin’s death, he’d been adrift. His adventures with Shara and Uldane and the others had been important, but Kri was beginning to show him hints of a greater purpose, as well as a goal for his own growth and learning. Kri would be his mentor as Moorin had been, and would teach him the things Moorin hadn’t been able to-starting with the ways of the order of which Moorin and Kri had been the last members.

The Feywild side of the Moon Door was like a distorted reflection of the world they’d left behind. Actually, Albanon supposed it was the mortal world that was distorted-the Feywild was the world as it ought to be, flowing with magic and unspoiled by the spread of cities and farms. The landscape around them was mostly familiar, but varied in a few details. A narrow strip of grassy earth replaced the rocky isles on the fey side of the door. An ancient grove stood in Moonstair’s place at the confluence of the rivers, but faerie lights weaving among the tall trees pointed the way to the pavilion that passed for an inn on the Feywild side of the Moon Door.

“I’ve been here before,” Albanon said, the memory dawning suddenly. “Midsummer’s eve, years ago now.” For a moment he could almost hear the music filtering through the trees, the laughter of the gathered fey. He laughed and shook his head clear. “This place is beguiling.”

“We’ll stay here for the night and set out at sunrise,” Kri said. “We should be able to reach the tower by the end of the day tomorrow, if we keep up a good pace.”

“Oh, it’s closer than I thought. Where is it, exactly?”

“Southeast,” Kri said. “Beyond the Plain of Thorns. You know the area?”

The smile faded from Albanon’s face. “I do.”

“We need to petition the local lord for access to the tower.”

“Indeed.” A chill dread gripped Albanon’s chest. “We should have discussed this earlier.”

“What’s wrong? You know this lord?”

“Of course I do,” Albanon said. “He’s my father.”

The thick air over the Witchlight Fens gave no hint of the coming winter. Sweat trickled down Shara’s back, tickling under her armor like a lover’s playful touch, but the black flies that swarmed her head kept any longing at bay. She waved her hand uselessly through the buzzing cloud. The bite of the insects was a sharp reminder of her more vexing concerns.

“There’s something moving around by that old wall,” Uldane said, pointing ahead and to the right. Shara swatted at the bugs again and peered through the haze. She spotted the wall on a low rise, part of some ancient ruin long ago claimed by the expanding swamp, but she couldn’t make out whatever Uldane had seen.

“I don’t know how you two can see anything in all this light,” Quarhaun muttered. The drow had stayed with them since they left the Temple of Yellow Skulls, but the weeks he’d spent on the surface world had done little to ease the discomfort he felt being out of the dark and confined tunnels of the Underdark.

Shara sighed. “I can’t see it, Uldane. Is it a demon?”

“Is it the dragon?” Quarhaun asked.

“It wasn’t big enough to be Vestapalk,” the halfling said. “And I lost track of it, but I think it might have been one of his minions.”