He cocked his head, looking with consternation at the wooden cabinet. Despite the candles burning in the chandelier above, the cabinet threw a shadow into the room as if a bonfire raged behind it. The homunculus saw no such light.
The shadow lengthened and deepened, and from its depths stepped the outline of a mastiff. Its coat was shadow given form and girth. The homunculus prepared to screech but paused when he noticed more figures coming through.
A slender-limbed woman glided through next, a creature of poise and pearl white skin, with eyes like the night.
The homunculus immediately recognized her as a fey invader, an intruder from beyond the cavern that contained Darroch Castle.
In their wake stumbled a human. For all his noble's clothing and polished boots, the man was young, overweight, and disheveled.
No more creatures seemed forthcoming. The wrinkled man opened his mouth to scream an alarm, but he managed only a single squeak before the shadow mastiff got him.
*****
Lord Behroun Marhana gasped and rubbed his hands, trying to get some feeling back into them. He'd accompanied Malyanna to the Lord of Bats's domicile down a shifting corridor of shadow once before. If anything, it was colder this time.
Behroun wrinkled his nose as the hound crunched on the tough flesh of a limp humanoid figure the size of a child. He said, 'I don't think the Lord of Bats will appreciate your pet eating his servants.'
The eladrin noble glanced at him, spearing him with her disconcerting regard. 'He has more than he needs. And he so loves making more. He merely requires suitable root stock*She held his gaze, as if leaving something unsaid.
'I guess.' Behroun was already out of his depth. The more he tried to assert his own independence, the more Malyanna proved he was nothing but a pawn. His fear of her was equaled only by his hate, impotent as it was. Had it been his idea or hers to free Neifion from his never-ending feast so the Lord of Bats could lead them to Japheth?
Neither-it was a mutual decision, he told himself. The idea of releasing the archfey from Japheth's curse scared Behroun, but it was either that or destroy the pact stone.
Malyanna was tired of waiting. And really, so was he.
Malyanna told her hound, 'Stay, Tamur.' The beast continued to chew, not deigning to look up at its mistress.
The eladrin noble made her way to the stairs. Behroun followed, happy to leave the sound of crunching bones behind.
They ascended to the balcony. The door to the feasting chamber was open. Malyanna swept inside.
Behroun rushed forward and saw the table. It was laid out with a smorgasbord of tempting repasts. But the chair at the table's head was empty.
'Neifion!' called the eladrin, her voice loud as a blizzard's howl. 'Come out and receive your visitors!'
No answer.
Malyanna stalked to Neifion's empty chair. She bent and looked beneath the golden cloth, then whirled to examine the chamber's periphery. The Lord of Bats was not napping in a corner or roosting on the ceiling.
Behroun doubted Neifion was lying curled up inside the credenza along the wall.
Then again… He walked over and threw open the low cabinet doors. Silver dishware nestled within in tidy stacks. Behroun released his breath, relieved he hadn't come face to face with the pale man curled up like a spider in too small a hole.
'How could he have…' Behroun trailed off, then he fumbled for the amulet around his neck. Had the creature somehow managed to retrieve Japheth's pact stone?
He worked the secret clasp. The amulet's star iron halves snapped open, revealing an emerald. The pact stone was whole.
Malyanna narrowed her eyes, taking in the unharmed green stone in Behroun's hands. She said, 'So he's managed to free himself… or some other agency freed him.'
'Or something found and killed him, trapped as he was.'
'No,' mused Malyanna. 'Use your eyes. There is no sign of struggle here or in the outer chamber. Our crafty Lord of Bats managed to find a way free of the table without shedding any of his own precious blood. He is loose once more.'
'But without his full power,' Behroun added. 'While the pact stone remains whole, Neifion has only a shadow of his strength.'
'Hmm.'
Behroun could almost see contingencies tumbling through her mind. But the woman's eyes blinked too rarely, and their blank expanse unsettled him. He looked away and said, 'Perhaps he left the castle to go look for you, his one ally?'
'Doubtful.' She sneered. 'More likely he yet skulks in Darroch's shadowed halls, relishing his freedom and planning his next deceit.'
Behroun glanced at the open door to the grand study. He said, 'Let's go find him, then! He's our only link to Japheth. Although with just the two of us to search this place, it could take days.'
The woman caught him with her terrible eyes, a look of disbelief on her face. Disbelief at his stupidity, most likely.
He forced out his next few words anyway. 'Perhaps we could sneak into the kingdom that exiled you. You said it was near here. You must still have a few secret partisans. If we could enlist their aid-'
The eladrin noble's peals of laughter overwhelmed his fumbling words.
She said, 'Have you forgotten my pet? I'm sure Tamur can sniff out Neifion if we put him on the scent.'
'Oh, of course I hadn't forgotten…' he lied.
Trying to salvage some shred of dignity, Behroun said, 'But your kingdom, where you were queen before your exile… I think it might be a good idea for us to collect a few of your supporters-'
'You,' she said, putting a finger on Behroun's chest and giving him a slight push, 'number among the mostly easily led mortals of any I've duped. There is no 'kingdom.'' 'What? What do you mean?' Behroun, despite suspecting more and more the eladrin was playing him, was shocked all the same now that the game was over. A rarely seen smile on Malyanna's face grew even wider with amused disdain.
'However, I am an exile of a sort.'
'You are?' he said.
'Yes. And I do have allies, mortal. They await me within the Citadel of the Outer Void, coiled and eager for my call. For them, no time has passed since I left. They await the Key of Stars, the single most wondrous artifact to fall to the world from beyond the sky. But-as I said, I am exiled through a cruel accident of fate. I cannot reach the Key of Stars-Or even enter the Citadel, for it is sealed. I have been locked outside its pillared halls for millennia.'
She looked at him as if wondering what reaction her introduction of so many alien names and senseless statements would have.
He couldn't help it. His face flushed hot with angry, helpless confusion. What in the name of Imphras Heltharn was she talking about?
The lengthening silence finally made him choke out, 'Citadel of the Outer Void? I've never heard of it, nor of a star key. If this citadel is your true allegiance, why lie to me about it? What are you really up to?'
'Until the Feywild fell back into step with the world, I was a priestess without an altar, a proselytizer without an audience. But no longer!' Her eyes trailed faint lines of mist as she began to pace.
She continued, 'I keep alive the old faith. The few in the world who tried to do so were imprisoned as traitors.
But I was free, despite being cut off from the living arbiters of my creed…' She whirled around, watching a scene in her imagination that brought awe to her normally haughty features.
'The Citadel is a place of power and change that lies just past the outermost edge of Faerie where time itself hardly reaches. Sealed, it will only open to the Eldest. But the Eldest sleeps in the world. For years uncounted,
