“I’ve got him,” Ksana said to Lirra, and Lirra nodded. Now that her father was in good hands, she turned to Osten and Rhedyn.
With everything that had been happening, she’d lost track of how their battle was going. She hoped to see that the young warrior was at least holding his own against her former lover. Instead, Osten had been disarmed and Rhedyn held him from behind, the edge of his sword pressed against the other man’s neck.
“Surrender, all of you, or I’ll slice his throat open!” Rhedyn warned.
Lirra calculated the odds of being able to reach the two men and disarm Rhedyn before he could make good on his threat. Even with the extra reach afforded by her tentacle whip, she knew there was no way she could prevent Rhedyn from killing Osten if he wanted to.
Elidyr spoke then. “While I applaud your efforts, Rhedyn, it’s not necessary that they formally surrender. We need only keep them at bay a few more moments until Ysgithyrwyn arrives.”
The foul illumination given off by the daelkyr had become so intense that it filled the cave. Lirra doubted they had moments left until Ysgithyrwyn appeared. More like seconds.
A slow, sly smile spread across Elidyr’s face then. “Of course, my lord would prefer you to accept his touch willingly. Especially you, Lirra. Perhaps we can make a deal. If you go to greet Ysgithyrwyn, I’ll guarantee that Rhedyn spares young Osten. If you resist, I’ll order him to cut the boy’s throat.” He looked at the others. “And if the rest of you interfere in any way, I’ll order the lad’s death.”
Vaddon stood with Ksana, and Ranja was with the two slowly recovering warforged, and while none of them looked happy about it, they all kept their distance.
Rhedyn looked at Lirra. “Please do it. Everything will be so much more clear once you’re touched by Ysgithyrwyn. Your thoughts will be sharper, more focused. Everything will make sense.” He paused. “And then we will finally be able to be together.”
Osten snarled and struggled briefly, but Rhedyn pressed the sword blade tighter against the man’s neck. Beads of blood welled, and Osten forced himself to remain still, lest he cut his own throat.
“Not much time left, Lirra,” Elidyr warned. “Decide now or it will be too late.”
Lirra knew then what she had to do. “Very well. I will go to greet him.” She sheathed her sword and started walking slowly toward the section of the cave wall where the sour yellow-green light was most intense, the spot where she knew Ysgithyrwyn would cross over from Xoriat into this place between dimensions that Elidyr had created.
“Lirra, no!” Vaddon cried out. Ksana was still in the process of healing him, and his words came out garbled, but they were clear enough. Lirra didn’t look at her father. She couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes. When she reached the cave wall, she got down on one knee and lowered her head, as if she were a royal subject preparing to greet her liege, or a worshiper about to meet her god. But as she kneeled, she gave her tentacle whip a silent command.
The tentacle whip considered for a moment, and then it lashed out. Stretching backward behind Lirra, it wrapped around the Overmantle, picked it up, and dashed the mystical device against the stone floor. The metal casing broke apart, the crystals within shattered, and the multicolored lights the device had been generating winked out, leaving Ysgithyrwyn’s foul light as the chamber’s only illumination.
She looked up, squinting her eyes against the daelkyr’s light and saw an otherworldly hand covered in a chitinous insect-like shell protrude through the cave wall. The hand reached down toward her head, but before Ysgithyrwyn could touch her, the daelkyr’s yellow-green light began to dim. With the destruction of the Overmantle, there was nothing to maintain the intersection of the two dimensional planes, and they were beginning to pull apart.
As the daelkyr lord withdrew his hand, an alien voice echoed in her mind, one that didn’t originate from her symbiont. It was male, the tone beautiful and ugly at the same time, as if she were listening to soothing music blended with hideous screams.
Then the voice faded, along with Ysgithyrwyn’s light, and the cave walls resumed their solid appearance. Eberron and Xoriat were separate once more.
Lirra felt dirty inside, as if Ysgithyrwyn’s mental voice had left a slimy residue on her brain. She shuddered once, and then did her best to forget about the daelkyr lord as she turned to face Rhedyn, determined to get him to release Osten. But Osten stood alone, bleeding slightly from the shallow wound in his throat, behind him only shadows-shadows which Rhedyn had used his symbiont’s power to lose himself in. She started forward, intending to search for Rhedyn, but she stopped when she saw the puddle of coppery liquid where Elidyr had been standing. There was no sign of her uncle. Somehow, Elidyr had gotten free of his coppery prison and escaped, and Lirra had no doubt that wherever her uncle was headed, Rhedyn accompanied him.
Fury filled her at the thought that the two of them might get away, and she grabbed her sword handle, intending to draw her weapon and rush off into the darkness in pursuit.
Slowly, Lirra removed her hand from her sword.
Ignoring the symbiont’s protests, she started toward Osten.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
They searched the caves for several hours afterward, but they found no sign of either Elidyr or Rhedyn, and it was late afternoon by the time they finally emerged. The clouds that had covered the sky earlier had parted, and the companions were greeted by bright sunshine, a rarity for Karrnath, even in summertime.
“A blessing from Dol Arrah,” Ksana said, smiling, and Lirra couldn’t say the cleric was wrong.
Ranja, Longstrider, and Shatterfist had long since fully recovered from the illithid’s mind blast, and both Vaddon’s and Osten’s wounds had been healed, thanks to Ksana. Afterward, Ksana had examined the bodies of the Outguard soldiers that had fallen during the battle in the cave, and she’d found four who still lived, despite the severity of their wounds. She’d healed them, and they were standing guard over the others.
The warforged hadn’t joined in the search for Elidyr and Rhedyn. Vaddon had ordered them to bring the Outguard dead out from the caves and bury them. Shatterfist and Longstrider had used their bare hands to dig the graves, and they had only just finished when the others broke off the search and exited the caves.
Vaddon glanced at the unmarked mounds where their dead were buried. “Sixty men and women rode with us when we left Geirrid two days ago, and now only four remain. We might have won a victory here this day, but if so, it was a costly one.”
“Was it a victory?” Lirra asked. “Both Elidyr and Rhedyn escaped.”
“We destroyed the Overmantle,” Osten pointed out.
“Elidyr’s an artificer,” Lirra countered. “He can build another.”
“I don’t think so,” Ksana said. “The crystals he used to make the device were expensive and rare. He was able to afford them only because Lord Bergerron funded our experiments. I highly doubt he’ll ever be able to acquire replacements on his own.”
“So … what now?” Osten asked.
Lirra frowned. “What do you mean?”
“What are we going to do about Elidyr and Rhedyn? We have to hunt them down. Whether Elidyr makes another Overmantle or not, he’s still extremely dangerous, and he’s responsible for the deaths of those farmers he turned into the white-eyes, not to mention all the people in Geirrid the white-eyes killed,
