Key of Stars Page 6

  “Without the approval of all the Towers?” Lord Dramvar exclaimed.

  “She believed the threat was too great to wait on permission,” said Taal.

  The woman narrowed her eyes. “She knows when a warden abandons the Watch too long, the power in the void senses it!” she said. “For what stupidity would she risk drawing attention from the Citadel?”

  Taal chewed his lip. “If I could tell you the nature of the threat she perceived, I would,” he said. “But she did not provide me with any details. She left suddenly, with instructions that I stay on my guard and oversee the watchtower, its armory, and the company of warriors installed here as I always have.”

  The man sighed. “Lady Eloar, it seems we have come all this way for nothing,” he said.

  “Not for nothing, Dramvar,” Lady Eloar replied.

  The woman fixed Taal with her sly smile and said, “I’m sorry it has to come to this, Taal, but the circumstances leave me no choice. I must invoke the Articles of the Compact. Please show us to your mistress’s study.”

  Taal nodded again. The Articles of the Compact allowed any lord of the Watch on Forever’s Edge to examine another’s hold, lest corruption secretly take root. Those who stared overlong into the void were most vulnerable to its fell fingers of corruption.

  “Of course. Please, this way?” said the castellan of Winter’s Peace.

  Taal motioned to the stairs.

  “Please do not take offense, Taal,” said Lord Dramvar. “After this, I hope you’ll still consider visiting us for the next revel. But even you must admit that Lady Malyanna’s eccentricities require some sort of censure.”

  “Of course,” replied Taal. “All of us must answer to our oaths. After you?” Taal motioned for a second time.

  The lord and lady preceded Taal across the great hall. The arch that opened onto the stairs was carved with stars and comets, swords and shields. As Lord Dramvar walked beneath the carvings, one finger absently touched one of the shields. It was a tradition, meant to invoke luck.

  Lady Eloar passed through the arch without a glance.

  Taal followed, and touched the same shield as Dramvar had. If superstition had even the least efficacy, it seemed prudent to cancel out any of Dramvar’s advantage.

  As Taal’s finger slid off the smoothed edge of the carving, his other arm shot forward. His palm slid along the side of Eloar’s neck as he captured her head in the crook of his arm. His forearm sawed across her trachea a moment before his elbow settled below her chin. He squeezed.

  She tried to scream a warning to Dramvar. The other eladrin continued blithely up the stairs, his back to the struggle. She clawed at Taal’s arms, raking her nails down his skin. His ambush had caught her so off guard she was panicking. Another heartbeat, and—

  His arms collapsed on nothing. Lady Eloar appeared several steps above Dramvar on the curving staircase, gasping and rubbing at her throat with one hand. With the other, she pointed past Dramvar. “Betrayal!” she rasped. She drew her rapier.

  Lord Dramvar spun in place, the easy lines of his face hardening. He pulled his silver bow from his back. The moment his hands touched the wood, a chatoyant line flared into light between the endpoints. His hands retrieved an arrow from his quiver with the swiftness of an eagle snatching a fish from a lake. The bow was drawn back, an arrow nocked.

  But for all the eladrin’s amazing speed, Taal was faster. He was already inside the man’s guard. As Dramvar tried to shift a pace up the stairs and release his arrow, Taal slapped the beautiful weapon from the archer’s hands. Disbelief pinched the eladrin’s expression.

  Taal stepped in closer, sweeping his other arm around. He caught Dramvar’s head on his bicep and continued twisting. As the man overbalanced, Taal braced himself on one leg and raised the other, pulling Dramvar over it. Taal threw the man up the stairs, and the eladrin flipped end over end, right onto Lady Eloar’s naked rapier.

  The man’s flailing bulk bowled into Lady Eloar. They both went down hard on the stairs. Dramvar splattered blood on the marble and on his ally.

  Taal took three quick steps to where they lay. He reached down to snap Dramvar’s neck. Calling on reserves of fortitude, the eladrin archer pulled another arrow from his quiver. He lunged as Taal’s fingers brushed his neck, and stabbed the sharp head into the meat of Taal’s calf.

  Taal gritted his teeth at the unexpected sting, but his hands found their way to either side of Dramvar’s head—the eladrin had left himself open with his wild attack.

  The castellan of Winter’s Peace sat back into gravity’s pull, and rolled over his left shoulder. As he did so, he held Dramvar’s head close like a starvling might hold a loaf of fresh bread to his breast. He rolled, and Dramvar came with him, but the eladrin’s neck snapped.

  Taal released the suddenly flopping body as he rolled. The arrow still protruding from his leg snagged on a stair. Moreover, rolling backwards down stairs is hard, no matter how skilled one is. Even though he knew his aim was compromised, Taal was surprised when his head struck the arch at the base of the stairs.

  He lost several heartbeats to the white flash that seared across his vision. He struggled to rise as if through a buffeting gale, and face the remaining eladrin on the stair.

  During the moments he had blinked at the pain, Eloar had vanished.

  Dramvar remained sprawled limply and at an awkward angle across five steps. The eladrin’s head was bent so far from true that it alone told the tale of the archer’s demise.

  “What mischief are you up to?” Taal said.

  Had she escaped upward, around the tower’s curve? Or had she flashed by him and out of the watchtower altogether?

  He doubted she’d fled. Eloar was equal to Malyanna in power, or at least had been before the Lady of Winter’s Peace had made her alliance with the things in the void. For all his overwhelming skill, Taal knew that his best advantage against Eloar had been surprise.

  Now she was ready for him. He wondered if he’d unconsciously allowed her to escape his ambush.

  Taal took two strides to Dramvar’s body. He bent and checked to be sure. No pulse. He steeled himself against the wave of regret that slipped out from beneath his oath.

  He rose and ascended, wary for the least hint of movement or sound.

  His totem issued a low, hunting snarl. Taal whirled, not quite fast enough to avoid Eloar’s rapier. She’d been standing on the stairs the whole time, cloaked in a shroud of fey invisibility.

  The rapier opened a line of blood on his right forearm. A spark of yellowish light jumped from the blade and dazzled Taal’s eyes. He retreated a step, sideways on the broad stair.

  “Taal, surrender,” came Eloar’s sad voice. “You have foresworn your oath. You are a servant of the void, the very influence you swore to guard against.”

  The eladrin was visible again, but the magic of the woman’s strike raced through his blood, confusing his vision and his senses. Everything blurred, and the room seemed to cant to one side. His stomach lurched in protest.

  Taal raised his hands in a defensive posture and closed his eyes. The inked orbs of his tiger totem blinked.

  He saw Eloar plainly, if without color. The eladrin advanced on him, her rapier ready to skewer his stomach. Her playful smile was gone, replaced by a frown of concern.

  “You’re wrong,” said Taal, sorrow trembling in his voice. “I have not foresworn my oath.”

  “No?” Eloar paused, watching him with skeptical eyes.

  “My oath was to Malyanna, the Lady of Winter’s Peace,” he said as he darted forward.

  The eladrin, apparently believing Taal overcome by her influence, was unprepared when he knocked her blade out of line and jabbed a finger as stiff as an iron nail into her throat.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Year of the Secret (1396 DR)

  New Sarshell, Impiltur

  Anusha tumbled off the divan in the salon. Lucky raised his head and wagged his tail from where he still lay curled nearby.
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  She rubbed her eyes, looking around the empty, quiet room. The tea service was still laid out as she’d left it.

  “I can wake up!”

  Giddy relief engulfed her. The curse of her tie to Xxiphu was truly severed, as Japheth had promised. The fear she wasn’t actually liberated of the Dreamheart and the aboleth city hadn’t died until that moment.

  That didn’t change the fact that a very angry Lord of Bats was in her cellar. She’d swept her dreamblade through the archfey. It had hurt Neifion, but not dispatched him.

  She had to get back to the fight!

  Anusha gave Lucky a quick pet on the head, then composed herself where she lay at the foot of the divan. The image of an elixir phial filled with purplish fluid—No! Don’t be stupid! she thought. She hadn’t required Japheth’s “sleeping potion” the first time she had ventured into the catacombs, and she didn’t need it for a second attempt.

  Another deep breath. She strained for the feeling she’d achieved just moments before: a feeling of lofting away, of turning a key in the lock that opened her mind … She stepped into a construct of dream. She glanced down at her body. It seemed to be enjoying a contented slumber. She was glad she’d chosen to remain on the floor.

  Anusha retraced her route from the salon to the catacombs, flashing through the mansion almost as quickly as thought itself.

  She reached the entrance to Japheth’s work chamber. There stood the war wizard and Captain Thoster. Seren was just finishing a spell.

  The occluding plug of water and a good portion of the wall on either side of the entrance disintegrated in a spray of pale fire. Seren and the captain flinched back slightly at the violence of the breach.

  Anusha let out her breath on seeing Japheth still on his feet. Of the Lord of Bats, there was no sign.

  Raidon seemed intent on hacking his way through one wall of the catacomb with his sword. Everyone, including Japheth, watched the monk’s crazed efforts for several heartbeats as if entranced.

  Japheth finally yelled, “In the name of Nine, have you lost your mind?”

  Raidon looked away from his task. His gaze skittered across the room, briefly touched on the captain and Seren, then turned to focus on Japheth, who stood closest. The monk’s eyes narrowed, and the fire of his blade burned the color of the sea’s darkest depths.

  The sword leaped for Japheth’s head, almost of its own accord, though Raidon retained his hold on the hilt.

  “Look out!” Anusha cried too late.

  But the blade bit into an iron statue instead of Japheth. It almost seemed as if the sculpture had moved to interpose itself just so, but Anusha hadn’t seen it shift.

  The bell-like clap of Angul on steel shook Raidon from his fury. He blinked and let the blade drop so its tip stuck in the floor.

  Japheth’s hands were raised in a warding gesture, one yet gripping his greenish rod. He cautiously lowered his hands. “Are you through attacking me?” he said.

  Raidon snatched up Angul and shoved the blade into its sheath as if the hilt was too hot to hold.

  “Sorry,” said the half-elf.

  Anusha was halfway across the catacomb chamber before she remembered no one could see her.

  The moment she rendered herself visible, the iron statue turned its head to look at her.

  Words issued from it. “Anusha, is that you?” a familiar voice said.

  Anusha recalled the image of a woman whose skin was mottled brown and yellow. “Yeva?” she said.

  The statue looked down at its polished, metallic body, then raised its arms. “I’m not dead!” it said.

  “Well, you ain’t alive, either,” interjected Thoster. “This is what you’ve been up to, warlock? Forging some kind of talking golem?”

  “Yes,” Japheth said. “Well, after a fashion.”

  Anusha and Yeva embraced, as well as was possible under the circumstances.

  “I’m so glad you’re here!” Anusha said. “I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again.”

  “I was sure you wouldn’t,” the figure replied, laughing. “But how are you? I see you’re still in your dream form …”

  “Yes, but I’m all right,” Anusha said. “I’m sleeping not far from here, up in my salon. But how do you feel?” She tapped Yeva’s iron body. The form shrugged its … no, her, shoulders.

  “I feel alive,” Yeva said. “More than that, I can sense my body, and the world around me. What more could I ask for right now? All the possibilities the future holds remain open to me.”

  Yeva turned to Japheth. “Thank you,” she said.

  Japheth smiled and bowed.

  “Is someone going to explain what’s going on down here?” said the captain.

  “This is Yeva,” Anusha said. “She was a captive in the aboleth city like me.”

  Yeva took a step toward Thoster. Her motion was entirely fluid. “Japheth salvaged my mind from Xxiphu along with Anusha’s,” she said. “But my body died a long time ago. I had no vessel to return to. Your warlock friend crafted me a new one!”

  Yeva’s face was a mask of silver, but Anusha imagined she could almost see the woman smile. Words flavored by a smile sounded brighter.

  “How odd,” said Seren.

  “Very well,” Thoster said. “Japheth put the mind of Anusha’s acquaintance in this iron shell. Seems extravagant, but who’m I to say? By the look of it, he managed the transfer none too soon.” The captain cast his gaze at Raidon.

  The monk scowled.

  “But that doesn’t explain what Japheth’s old friend was doing down here,” the captain continued.

  The warlock’s smile dropped. “The Lord of Bats has an overdeveloped sense of vengeance,” he said.

  “How’d he find you?” Anusha said. “Your pact with him is broken, right?”

  “Malyanna helped him,” said Japheth. “The eladrin noble remains Neifion’s ally, apparently. The sigil on Neifion’s brow reeked of Dreamheart influence.”

  “The Dreamheart you gave her,” said Raidon.

  Japheth shook his head. “We’ve been over this,” he said. “Anusha, and Yeva too, would be dead and consumed if I had done any less!”

  Silence descended. Glares were traded around the room.

  “I’m calling another tea—early this time,” Anusha finally said, “just two bells after sunrise tomorrow. Please, everyone attend. We must talk about Xxiphu, and the responsibility each of us bears for its appearance over Faerûn.”

  “Hey!” said Seren. “I—”

  “We’ll discuss what we can do to sink it once more,” Anusha said.

  Without waiting to gauge the response of her statement, she allowed her dream to lapse.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Year of the Secret (1396 DR)

  Watch on Forever’s Edge, Feywild

  Taal pulled the sack beneath an empty sky. The two bodies weighed the bag down. The fabric whispered as he hauled it along the uneven stones that flagged the tower’s zenith.

  He hauled the bundle to the parapet’s edge. The void’s sprinkle of stars only accentuated its emptiness. He squatted, lifted the body bag, then heaved it over the edge.

  Instead of plummeting down, the burlap mass fell outward, directly away from the tower. No matter how many times he’d launched objects off the edge, Taal was always fascinated by the way the void pulled all things to itself.

  The slowly rotating sack, illuminated by the watchtower’s lights, receded at a steady rate. Its shape grew smaller with distance. Finally the encroaching darkness consumed it.

  “Good-bye, Lady Eloar. Farewell, Lord Dramvar. I’m sorry—”

  A low growl from his totem tattoo warned Taal he was no longer alone.

  He turned.

  A torch flared. In the wavering shadow of a merlon, Malyanna and her hound were revealed.

  “Taal, I return,” she said. Her skin glimmered like a sheet of glacier ice.

  He bowed. “Welcome back to the Spire of Winter’s Peace, my lady,” he said. “W
here is your new friend?”

  “Neifion and I are allied only so long as our interests intersect,” Malyanna replied. “The warlock Japheth, who I described to you, is someone both of us want dead. I set the Lord of Bats on Japheth’s scent.”

  “I hope he enjoys success,” Taal said.

  Malyanna shrugged. “What did you just discard?” she asked. “Looked bulky.”

  Taal filled his lungs with the frigid air. “Lord Dramvar and Lady Eloar came calling,” he said. “When they discovered you gone, they invoked the Articles of the Compact.”

  Malyanna frowned. “Were you able to …,” she said, trailing off as Taal shook his head no.

  “I couldn’t dissuade them,” he said. “Only one way remained to defend your secrets.”

  “The Master and Mistress of Summer Mist were in the bag you just launched?” Malyanna asked.

  Taal bowed assent.

  “Are you trying to undermine me?” said Malyanna, her voice quiet but sharp as a razor.

  “I remain true to my oath,” replied Taal. “If you think I’ve done anything other than preserve your interests, remove me from your service.”

  The shadow hound slunk from behind Malyanna and stared at Taal. Its eyes were avid with hunger.

  Malyanna snorted. “I’m sure you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” she said. “No. I’ll dispatch messengers to Summer Mist. I can replicate Eloar’s handwriting. Apparently, she and Dramvar have decided to enjoy Winter’s Peace for an extended visit.”

  “No need,” Taal said. “I’ve already dispatched messengers. They plan on enjoying our company for a full tenday.”

  A smile stretched the eladrin noble’s face. “I can always count on you, can’t I?”

  “It seems so.”

  Taal regarded the warden of Winter’s Peace. Like Eloar and Dramvar, Erunyauvë of the Spire of the Moon, Karsalvan of Spring Bloom, and the others, Malyanna shouldered a terrible responsibility at Forever’s Edge.

  A responsibility she had abnegated so utterly she was a cancer in reality’s bulwark. It didn’t bear thinking on too long.