Key of Stars Read online

  “And we are,” said Anusha.

  Thoster nodded. “Then we need to deal with both,” he continued.

  “Which first?” said Japheth.

  Anusha stood up. “We need to split our efforts,” she said. “One group needs to monitor Xxiphu in case it does something awful, while the rest of us try to catch the eladrin noble in Aglarond before she finds Stardeep.”

  “Well, I want to keep an eye on Xxiphu,” said Thoster. “It’s what’s sending out the call.”

  “Good—I was thinking the same thing,” said Anusha. “With Green Siren, you can follow it around the Sea of Fallen Stars—for some reason, it seems to want to stay over water. Yeva should go with you; she can use her mental abilities to keep tabs on the aboleths’ intentions perhaps, or see if Malyanna puts in an appearance. And, with my dreamwalking, I can send a dream up to take a peek at what’s going on.”

  “Hold on,” said Japheth. “You want to go with Green Siren, and spy on Xxiphu?”

  “Yes,” Anusha replied.

  The warlock frowned. “Which means, you’re suggesting that Raidon, Seren, and I go after Malyanna,” he said.

  “Not me, remember; I’m out of this,” said Seren.

  “Yes, I guess that’s correct,” said Anusha, ignoring the wizard.

  Japheth’s face reddened, and his brows drew together. Words seemed to escape him for a moment.

  “Look,” Anusha said, looking directly into Japheth’s eyes. “We can’t afford to let either the city or Malyanna slip away from us.”

  “But your dream form is vulnerable to the Eldest!” said Japheth.

  Seren raised a hand. “And, sorry to be blunt,” she said, “but isn’t anyone concerned that Raidon isn’t going to go after the warlock again once they’re alone? Raidon looked like he was hell-bent on killing Japheth down in the cellar. Seems like a dangerous idea.”

  Raidon stirred himself to raise a conciliatory hand. “It was a lapse I don’t plan on repeating,” he said.

  “All right,” said Seren, looking at him with a slightly disbelieving expression.

  “I can take care of myself, and I certainly trust the monk,” said Japheth, interrupting. “What I don’t understand, Anusha, is how you think it’s a good idea that you get anywhere near Xxiphu? You should … come with me.”

  Anusha turned to the wizard. “Remember how you gave the captain a charm to help him resist the call of his blood?” she asked. “Could you fashion something like that for me to wear to keep my mind anchored safely in my body?”

  “Maybe,” said Seren.

  “Would you?” said Anusha.

  Seren smiled. “Of course,” she replied. “You might not guess it, but I do feel a little guilty leaving all of you in the lurch; it’s the least I can do. Shouldn’t be the work of more than a few hours. And Hells, then I can help Japheth with opening a way to Aglarond, should he require my aid. I recall a sequence or two for portal endpoints out that way. After that … I must hide away from Thay before Morgenthel finds me.”

  “And what of our contract?” Raidon said to Seren.

  “It was fulfilled when I ventured into Xxiphu with you, half-elf,” Seren replied. “If anything, I should be asking you to hold up your end of the bargain.”

  The monk couldn’t bring himself to argue. Seren was partly right in any event.

  “If you can find me when this all ends, I will do so,” he said.

  The wizard sniffed. “Do you really think you’re going to live through this?” she said. “If you had any sense at all, you’d run and hide with me until it all blows over.”

  Seren’s words made Raidon sad. But only a little. Because her words also sparked a memory of nobler days, and a protest. Raidon hadn’t been trained to give up when things got hard. No. He’d been taught, and he believed somewhere in his core, that the true mettle of a person was revealed in how they ultimately faced a difficult or even an impossible situation. Since returning from Xxiphu, he’d failed to be his best. But there was a chance to try one more time.

  “I am pledged to this fight, whatever the outcome,” Raidon said. “It has taken so much from me already, I hardly begrudge giving up the rest.”

  A weight seemed to lift from his shoulders, and he stood straighter.

  Japheth, Anusha, and even Thoster frowned at his statement. His ability to read others was returning. His hallucination of gauzy webs filling in every empty space in the room had evaporated. The air in the salon was sweeter than when he had first entered, and the colors were more vibrant. He was feeling … relief?

  Yes.

  “Anusha Marhana,” Raidon said, “thank you for your intent to see this disaster through. You have my gratitude; you’ve kept us together since we returned from Xxiphu, you gave us a place to rest and recover from that horrible place, and now, despite our reluctance, you have brought us together long enough for a plan to be forged.”

  “Here, here!” Yeva said.

  Anusha blushed. “Thank you,” she said. “I only did what needed doing.”

  “Exactly,” said Raidon.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The Year of the Secret (1396 DR)

  Aglarond, Yuirwood Forest

  Japheth surveyed the circle formed by the glowing sigils. A hazy image of a forest path glimmered within its circumference. He and Seren had spent a good part of the afternoon scribing the design on the catacomb floor with golden chalks and purple inks.

  He and Anusha had said their good-byes after the meeting in the salon. It’d been too hurried, with too many things left unsaid. She’d gathered her things, including her travel chest, and left the mansion. She’d accompanied Captain Thoster and Yeva, whose metallic form was concealed in a hooded cassock, down to the docks to see about Green Siren.

  Watching her go had been as hard as resisting the call of his addiction. All Japheth wanted to do was run off with her to someplace safe from all worries. Childish fantasy, of course. Anusha was committed to putting things right. The only way he and she could have any kind of future was if he did his best to help her foil Malyanna and Xxiphu’s search for the Key of Stars. Whatever that was.

  He still hated that Anusha’s plan required that he and she separate. When he considered all the terrible things that might befall her, he felt dizzy.

  And he was going to miss her.

  But, damn it, he was angry too. He’d shown he’d do anything for her by stealing the Dreamheart and imperiling his own sanity, and the world itself, to save her.

  He’d put her first.

  But she very obviously didn’t put him in the same place. He was secondary to her concern over dealing with the Sovereignty. That thought burned him. He’d sacrificed everything and laid his soul at her feet. She hadn’t reciprocated; she had put other things before him. More than that, she had pushed him away.

  His skin warmed.

  Two could play at that game. If she wanted to be quit of him, and that was her way of showing it, fine.

  Japheth clenched his hands and ground his teeth.

  “The circle is complete,” said Seren. “You and the monk should be on your way before it fades.”

  For a moment, Japheth’s anger urged him to turn and simply walk away from it all.

  Raidon, who’d spent the last few hours sitting in a lotus position meditating, stood. The half-elf’s sheathed blade released a cerulean spark that skittered across the floor. The monk bowed to the wizard.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Without your help, none of this would have been possible. I hope we see you again after this is all over.”

  Seren was caught off guard by the monk’s words. She nodded, coloring. “You’re welcome,” she managed to say. “And you will see me, because I mean to collect. Don’t go getting yourself killed just to get out of our bargain.”

  When Raidon actually smiled, Japheth’s smoldering anger faded somewhat.

  Then the monk turned to him and asked, “Ready?”

  The warlock released a long breath. Of cou
rse he wasn’t going to walk away. He could stew about Anusha anytime, damn it.

  “Yes,” he replied. He had everything he needed for a long trip hidden away within his cloak.

  Japheth focused on the blurred forest inside the circle. He stepped past the threshold, into the image. He gripped his rod in one hand, ready for—

  There was no ground on the other side of the linked portal.

  Japheth fell. Branches lashed his body and his flailing limbs.

  Then his cloak caught him in a fist of lightless safety.

  When the darkness let go, Japheth stepped onto a buckled, overgrown flagstone path shadowed by a thick forest canopy.

  Weathered stone columns poked from the ground, pointing at awkward angles like teeth in an orc’s mouth. They had probably once formed a ring, but time and some past earth movement had destroyed their symmetry.

  A crash of branches jerked his head around.

  Raidon slid down the bole of a tree, slowing his descent with a single hand on the trunk. The monk made being dropped out of thin air into a tangle of tree branches seem like an everyday occurrence.

  When the half-elf’s feet were on the ground, he said, “I’ve experienced worse, but that transition was unexpected.”

  “I hadn’t realized how disrupted the circle was,” Japheth replied. “Now that I see this side, I’m surprised it worked at all.”

  Raidon gave a slight nod. The monk’s attention shifted to the trees that pressed close beyond the periphery of leaning stones. “Back in Aglarond,” he murmured.

  Japheth studied the monk. The man seemed more like the person he’d first met below Gethshemeth’s island. The listless detachment Raidon had displayed since they’d returned from Xxiphu was still somewhat in evidence, but it was clear the man was making an effort to throw it off.

  Raidon continued gazing into the trees, as if recalling an old escapade.

  “What is it?” said Japheth.

  Raidon shook his head. “Not important,” he said. “Is Malyanna near?”

  Japheth frowned and said, “Give me a moment.”

  The warlock drew in a breath. He focused on his pact. He imagined it as a physical thing, as a thin strand of celestial fire connecting his heart to all that lay beyond the vault of Faerûn’s sky.

  Since he’d sworn his new pact, he’d noticed occasional tugs and tiny yanks on the connection. At first, he hadn’t thought anything of it. Then three nights before, he’d awoken from a dream of empty space with an insight. The sensations corresponded to individual and particularly powerful beings associated with the stars. And the two he recognized were the Eldest, and Malyanna.

  It scared Japheth more than a little that those two were so entwined with his new spell source he could sense them, even if only vaguely, through the connection he shared. It was something he tried not to think about too much. Unfortunately, just as he could sense them, apparently they were aware of him; Malyanna had crafted a glyph that allowed the Lord of Bats to find him with little effort. He’d have to devise a way to shield himself from such scrutiny.

  But it was the Lord of Bats’s appearance that made him realize that each tug he discerned through his connection to the star pact probably indicated literal shifts in the geographical or planar positions of Malyanna and the Eldest. Because she’d sent Neifion after him, Japheth realized he could track her the same way.

  Unfortunately he couldn’t yet imagine how to fashion a glyph as potent as the one Neifion enjoyed. Not that he’d had any time to spend on it, given that Neifion had only appeared the day before. Then, that night …

  Japheth shook his head, trying to clear it of distracting thoughts. Concentrating on the celestial thread of his pact was difficult enough without the memories of the silky warmth of Anusha’s skin intruding—

  Stop it.

  He placed his hands palm to palm and closed his eyes. He imagined the thread once again, trying to detect in it the tiny shifts of tension that would betray Malyanna’s location to him.

  It’d be child’s play to see where the eladrin noble was if he placed a crystal of traveler’s dust in one eye. The gates of perception would open wide, then.

  No! No, not unless he’d exhausted every other method. The desire for the dust still lived in him. Thankfully the urge to dig out his supply wasn’t the irresistible geas it had once been. Lately, it was more like the memory of an urgent desire rather than the desire itself.

  Was he finally leaving the crimson road behind?

  “Can you sense her?” said Raidon.

  “Don’t rush me,” snapped Japheth. In truth, he was embarrassed. He was allowing distractions to cloud his mind. He was scared to make a real effort and engage so intimately with the star pact.

  He drew in a slow breath and released it, imagining as he did so that he expelled all the diversions, all the fears, and any concern other than the sense of connection with the stars.

  There! The celestial connection pulled and shifted … that way! She was near. But something was muffling his ability to determine specific distance. It was as if Malyanna were not fully in the world.

  Japheth cleared his throat. “This way, but I don’t know how far,” he said. He pointed north, away from the path, into the darkness between the trees.

  “Then we’d best start,” said the monk. He stepped off the path and headed in the direction Japheth indicated.

  Walking between the trees proved easier than Japheth had guessed. The trunks were several paces apart, and at least in the region they moved through, the undergrowth was suppressed beneath a layer of reddish humus. They advanced up a slope at an angle. The ground was studded with stones and larger boulders, occasional ravines, and deadfalls, requiring that they divert from the straight-line path Japheth tried to stay on.

  Birdsong brightened the air, but it was infrequent and tentative. The warm smell of a growing forest was evident, but an underlying tang of sweet rot underlay everything, as if corpses of dead animals and overripe fruit lay just beneath the loam.

  A few times a curling, scratchy sensation skittered across Japheth’s skin and crazed his sense of connection to his pact. When that happened, the disagreeable smell grew stronger. The first time it happened, Japheth nearly gagged. He realized then the smell wasn’t the odor of rotting flesh—it was the odor of decaying magic.

  It was the aroma of a pocket of active spellplague.

  Raidon didn’t seem to notice, or if he did, he kept his poker face perfectly intact. The warlock resolved to do the same, but he paid careful attention to his surroundings. He didn’t want to step into an unknown sinkhole dancing with unbound wild magic.

  After traveling for what seemed like a quarter hour, Japheth stopped.

  “What is it?” asked Raidon.

  “We’re hardly getting any closer,” the warlock replied. “I don’t understand it. It’s as if she’s moving just enough to stay ahead of us … no, that’s not it. It’s like she’s behind some sort of veil.”

  “If Malyanna is looking for Stardeep, she could well be behind ‘a veil’ as you say; she could be in the Feywild,” said Raidon. “Stardeep lays in a splinter of Sildëyuir, itself a fragment of ancient Faerie. With the Feywild’s return, Sildëyuir, and perhaps the prison complex of the Keepers, was reabsorbed, and not gently.”

  “How do you know that?” asked Japheth. “Sounds sort of esoteric for someone like …” He trailed off, but let his comment stand without apology.

  “You know I bear the Cerulean Sign and the blade Angul,” Raidon said. “Is it really a surprise I know something of what has occurred here, where the Keepers sheltered?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “Before I found you in Gethshemeth’s lair, I was in communication with the last remnant of Stardeep; a sentient golem named Cynosure. It was Cynosure that transferred me across the face of Faerûn more than once, first to collect Angul, then to the island where we met.”

  “So this Cynosure—it’s in Stardeep?” said Japheth. “It sou
nds like a useful ally. Are you talking to it now?”

  “No, Cynosure is gone,” replied Raidon. “It used up the last stores of its endowed life to get me to the isle, so I could sunder the Dreamheart before the Eldest woke.”

  Japheth thought back to that subterranean cavern and winced. Stealing the relic, and thus preventing Raidon from concluding his quest had been his only option. But of course the monk had never forgiven him for what he’d done. Were the warlock in Raidon’s place, he’d probably feel the same way.

  It was a bit unsettling to travel alone with a man who’d just tried to kill you the day before.

  Japheth cleared his throat. “Right!” he said. “So you’re saying that if we find a way to step over into the Feywild, I could trace Malyanna better?”

  “It could be.”

  The warlock pursed his lips, considering.

  Raidon said, “This forest is rife with portals into what was once Sildëyuir, though Cynosure indicated many of them were likely contaminated with spellplague.”

  “More than likely; it’s a certainty,” said Japheth. “I can sense it, you know. Pockets of spellplague. Cynosure was right. It’s like a battlefield through here, scattered with dead and twisted fragments of the old Weave.”

  Raidon narrowed his eyes, glanced around, then shook his head. “You can sense it? I don’t detect anything,” he said.

  “Really?” said Japheth. “Trust me, we’ve passed some nasty bits I steered us around.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” replied Raidon. “Most of my abilities are manifestations of the power of my mind over my body. Perhaps spellplague doesn’t pull at me like it does a spellcaster. When the Year of Blue Fire found me, it didn’t like my taste, and spit me out, though not without consequence.”

  Japheth’s eyes dropped to the spellscar on the half-elf’s upper chest.

  “You were lucky to get off so light,” said the warlock.

  The monk made no reaction.

  “Anyway, we should head back to the last concentration of spellplague I noticed,” Japheth said. “It was big. Sometimes such sharp concentrations indicate the presence of an old portal.”