three worlds, what had he just done? What were the others saying or doing now?
Did it matter?
Albanon fought back the nausea, wiped sweat from his face, and continued up the stairs.
The room at the very top of the Glowing Tower had been Moorin’s study. Shelves bearing the trophies of a long life lined the walls. Tables scarred by research stood around the room. It was also, however, where the demon Nu Alin, in pursuit of the Voidharrow, had slaughtered Albanon’s old master, dismembering the body and spattering the whole room in whorls of blood. And it was where Kri had nearly succeeded in freeing the dark god Tharizdun from his dimensional prison.
In his gut, Albanon knew that he should probably have stayed away from the study, but he couldn’t. The room-or something in it-drew him. He’d spread the books and scrolls that he had brought back from the tower of Sherinna-his grandmother and founder of the Order of Vigilance-out on the tables. He’d spent most of the last six days studying them. Or at least making a show of it. To his shame, Uldane and Splendid were right. How much time had he actually spent studying Sherinna’s papers? How much simply staring out the room’s windows at the devastation of Fallcrest or at the litter of sharp-edged reddish fragments that were the remnants of the gate Kri had created to free his mad god? To his wizard’s senses, some of the larger fragments still pulsed with dormant power, not malevolent but simply untapped.
More than once he’d found himself sifting through the fragments. The crystal they had been part of had caused so much trouble. First Nu Alin, then Kri had used it to try to free Tharizdun. In a way, everything had begun with that crystal. Sherinna had recorded the sight of the Voidharrow flowing into the world for the first time through the gate it had created. If Nu Alin had never found the crystal, there would be no Voidharrow. No Abyssal Plague. No Vestapalk-at least not as they knew him. No Plaguedeep. Albanon picked up one of the glittering fragments, a tapered oval no bigger than his thumb, and rubbed its rough surface. How could something so small be a part of so much chaos?
The sound of light footsteps came up the stairs. Tempest or maybe Uldane. Albanon dropped the fragment and turned, ready for a confrontation. The figure that appeared in the doorway, however, was Immeral. The huntsman looked around the room without speaking. Albanon held his tongue. Immeral had been part of the battle against Kri. He’d seen the tentacled creature of darkness Kri had become under Tharizdun’s power. He’d experienced that power first hand.
To Albanon’s surprise, however, Immeral went to one of the tables and ran his hand over a book with the light, reverent touch he’d have expected from a scholar more than a hunter. “Sherinna’s books,” Immeral said.
“Yes,” said Albanon. “How did you know?”
“Her symbol is on the binding, of course.” Immeral’s finger traced an Elven glyph worked into the leather. He fell silent for a moment, then added. “I knew her.”
“You did?” Albanon had never known his grandmother. Until Kri and his father had revealed it, he’d certainly never known she had played a role in the fight against the Voidharrow. “What was she like?”
“Very old when I was very young. I think she enjoyed spending time with a simple hunter’s child. I didn’t know then what she had been. I only found out later how learned and great a wizard she was and how many of our people revered her.”
“I didn’t even know that much for a long time. My father never really talks about her.”
Immeral nodded. “I see little of your father in you, my prince. I see a great deal of Sherinna, though.” He looked up at Albanon. “No one will tell you this, but she succumbed to weakness in her final days. She drove others away from her and became secretive. I believe she was afraid of what they would think of her or maybe of how she’d be remembered.”
Albanon blinked, then ground his teeth together. “Are you saying that I’m-”
The huntsman spread his hands. “I’m saying,” he said in a voice that was as cool and sharp as the point of a dagger, “that I think you have the potential to be as great as Sherinna. I’ve fought at your side. Your spells saved me and my men. But I’m also saying that Sherinna, for all the good she did and all the magic she wielded, was only mortal. So are you. The difference is that Sherinna’s fear and pride took the best of her when she was very old, not when she was only just reaching her prime.”
Breath hissed between Albanon’s teeth. He might have spat a retort, but Immeral didn’t give him a chance. “When I was in Moonstair, I heard stories from other travelers about the effects of the Abyssal Plague elsewhere in the world. There are riots in Nera-they’re burning anyone suspected of carrying the plague. Dwarf communities are sealing their gates. Lizardfolk are going to ground in the heart of the fens and killing everything that moves. There are rumors in certain isolated places that anyone with red hair can spread the plague. Other places blame it on tieflings. And that’s only fear of the plague. They say that where the infection has taken hold, whole regions are empty except for the demons that used to be the people who lived there. If even half the stories are true, the devastation is terrible.”
For the first time, blotches of color appeared in Immeral’s cheeks and fury entered his tone. He leaned close to Albanon. “Your father has blocked the Moonstair portal, but you… You know the source of the plague. You have the chance to put an end to it. Why haven’t you?”
Albanon’s anger left him, replaced by shame. “Don’t ask me that,” he said quietly.
Immeral stepped back. “Then you need to ask yourself who you want to emulate: Sherinna at her best, giving her all to aid others, or Sherinna at her worst, alone because she feared revealing her weakness.” He turned away. “Your friends are waiting below. I’ll wait on the stairs. If you want me to tell them you won’t be coming down, I’ll carry the message.”
Albanon watched Immeral’s back as he strode to the door. The decision before him was the same one he’d wrestled with for six long days-except that Immeral had put it in terms he hadn’t seen before. The only images he’d seen of his grandmother portrayed her as wise and vigorous. He tried to picture her as old and frail, alone with her pride. Perhaps even a little… mad?
He looked around the study, with Sherinna’s books and Moorin’s trophies and the shattered remains of Kri’s foul gate. He tried to picture himself old, surrounded by those same sad relics.
Albanon, Tempest had said earlier, if I worried about people judging me by my appearance, or what they think of me, I’d never go out my door.
“Immeral,” he said. “Wait.” He swept the study with his gaze once more. He needed something, a talisman to remind him of the importance of what he was doing. Moorin’s and Sherinna’s possessions seemed dead suddenly. He bent, scooped up the oval fragment of the gate he had held before, and squeezed its sharp edges in his palm. “I’ll walk down with you.”
CHAPTER THREE
Albanon stood with the cold fireplace of the sitting room at his back and all his friends gathered before him. “I haven’t told you,” he said, “everything that happened while Kri held me in Tharizdun’s power.”
None of the others moved, not even Uldane. Albanon felt the urge to shift where he stood or maybe even to walk around the room. He forced himself to remain still, to focus the way Moorin had taught him to. “You know I saw Shara and left her to face plague demons without helping her. You know I helped Kri fashion the gate he tried to open for Tharizdun. What I didn’t tell you”-he hesitated, the words catching in his throat-“was that I liked it.”
That brought movement. Nothing drastic. His friends seemed to understand that he did not take this lightly. A frown from Roghar. A creased brow from Immeral. Uldane bit his thumb, Belen twitched, and Splendid raised her head as if he’d only just captured her attention. Only Tempest didn’t move at all. Albanon kept his attention on her face and her eyes. A warlock bargained for power with dark and alien entities. If any of the others truly understood what he had to say, it would be her.
“I was mad,” he continued. “Nothing made sense-or rather, everything made sense. I saw things I’d never seen before. I understood things I’d never even wondered about. But most of all, I knew how spells worked. It all became numbers. Mathematics. Volume. Distance. Space.” His heart started to beat a little faster. His head started to whirl. Even talking about the magic of numbers that he had so casually contemplated during those dark hours was almost intoxicating. Albanon took a deep breath and concentrated on Tempest. “By manipulating numbers, I
