“Kri? What are you talking about?”
Kri saw the crystal fragment on the table in front of him. Sherinna’s workshop came slowly into focus, and he turned toward the voice, fully expecting to see nothing there.
Albanon stood in the archway, a look of concern on his face.
“It’s time for us to leave,” Kri announced. Nu Alin was the key, he realized. Nu Alin was present at the beginning of it all. He had tried to fight the Voidharrow’s will, to do instead what the Chained God wanted.
“What?” Albanon whined. “We’ve barely gotten started here!”
Kri turned his back to Albanon. “I’ve uncovered some new information,” he said. As he spoke, he lifted the crystal from the table and slid it into a pocket, keeping it out of Albanon’s view.
“So have I! I think I might be close to finding the dragon. I’ve been analyzing the flow of magical energy through the Feywild and the world alike. It’s like there’s a great vortex-”
Kri shook his head sharply. “We have another quarry now.” I have to find Nu Alin, he thought. If the demon can be turned against Vestapalk, together we might defeat the Voidharrow at last.
“What other quarry?”
Kri grimaced. The urge to blast the annoying young eladrin with so much holy fire that his entire body would be consumed filled him so suddenly that he almost gave in to it.
“I’ll explain later. Collect your belongings.”
“Now? It’s the middle of the night.”
Kri thought he heard lightning crackle around his head, reflecting his frustration. He clutched his temples and drew a slow breath.
“Kri, are you unwell? You’re acting very strangely.”
“Not enough sleep, clearly. I’m sorry. Let me try to explain. Come into the stairway.” He shooed Albanon out of the workshop and followed him onto the landing beyond, suppressing a sudden desire to push the young eladrin over the railing.
Instead, he put a fatherly hand on Albanon’s shoulder and forced a smile onto his face as he pointed to the mural on the dome.
“I know where Albric is-where Nu Alin is,” he said, pointing to the man in the mural above, standing before the Vast Gate with his legs already transformed into red liquid columns. “He is the key to all of this. He holds the knowledge we seek.”
Albanon’s eyes widened. “He left the Temple of Yellow Skulls on Vestapalk’s back. Where he is, the dragon probably is as well. But there’s no way he’s going to help us against Vestapalk.”
“Perhaps not,” Kri said. “But we are not the only ones opposing the Voidharrow. It may be that enough remains of Albric the Accursed to turn even Nu Alin against his master.”
“Well, where is he, then?”
“In Fallcrest.”
Albanon stared at him for a moment, then swore softly in Elven. “Shara and Uldane,” he said. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Albanon hurried into the workshop while he adjusted the straps on his backpack. He had decided to bring only the bare minimum of books from Sherinna’s library, things he really couldn’t do without while he and Kri went in search of Nu Alin, but that bare minimum had filled his backpack almost to bursting. And that was after he’d removed luxuries like rope, sunrods, and food.
“I can’t find Splendid,” he told Kri. “Have you seen her?”
“Not in days, now that you mention it. I thought it was pleasantly quiet around here.”
“I argued with her in the library last week and she slunk away. I think she must have left.”
“Whatever will we do without her wisdom and perspective?”
“Please, Kri. She was Moorin’s.”
“So let her go!” Kri said. “Along with the last remnants of your apprenticeship and your childhood. You’re not in training any more-if nothing else, the way you handled yourself at the Temple of Yellow Skulls proves that. Now you are a man-and more than a man, a wizard. Nothing remains to hold you back.”
Albanon stood a little taller, but then his face fell. “Except you ordering me around,” he muttered.
Kri turned away from the arch set in Sherinna’s workshop wall and put a hand on Albanon’s shoulder. “I don’t mean to order you around, Albanon, but we’re pressed for time. I will explain everything when I can, I promise you.”
Albanon forced a smile for his new mentor. “Thank you. I’ll hold you to that.”
“You’d better, because I’m sure to forget. The old mind’s not what it used to be, you understand?”
“Oh, I’ve noticed.”
Albanon cast a longing look around the workshop. During the week since they reached the tower, he had spent nearly every waking hour in the library, and felt as though he’d only scratched the surface of all there was to learn there. He’d had no time for the workshop, let alone all the other rooms of the tower-the room where Sherinna had displayed trophies from her adventuring life as if they were exhibits in a museum, or the greenhouse at the top of the tower, full of exotic plants. He had even wanted to spend time in the music room, with its dusty harp and collection of wooden flutes, maybe even learn to play those instruments. He’d felt, somehow, that it would bring him closer to the mysterious woman who had been his grandmother.
“Are you ready?” Kri asked over his shoulder as he made some final adjustments to the arch.
“Just a moment.” Albanon stepped out onto the landing and looked up and down the entry hall. “Splendid!” he called. “Splendid, I’m sorry for what I said. We’re leaving now, and if you want to come with us you have to come now. Please!”
He waited until he heard Kri clear his throat in the workshop, signaling his impatience.
“Splendid!” he called, one last time.
With no response, he turned and shuffled back into the workshop, ready for Kri’s journey.
“You’re better off, believe me,” Kri said. “Now, I’ve modified this arch so that it works more like a traditional teleportation circle. That means, among other things, that we’ll be able to use it come back here, without passing through the Moon Door and crossing the Plain of Thorns. After all, you never know when your father will tire of letting us walk across his lands. I have keyed the portal to the teleportation circle in Moorin’s tower.”
“In Fallcrest?” Albanon said, suddenly excited to return to the town that had been his home for seven years.
“Did Moorin have another tower somewhere?”
A thought struck Albanon. “Why didn’t you use that circle before?”
Kri blinked at him. “What?”
“When we first met. You said you came to Fallcrest by boat. Why didn’t you just teleport there?”
“Moorin never shared the sigils of his circle with me. I studied them when we were last there.”
Albanon frowned, but something about Kri’s tone made him decide not to press the question further. Instead, he turned his attention to the arch. “Are you sure it’s going to work?” He pointed to the top of the arch. “It looks like there used to be something set into the stone at the apex. Maybe it won’t function without whatever it was.”
“As I said,” Kri said testily, “I have modified the arch so that it will function in its current state.”
“Oh, right.”
“Are you ready?” Kri asked.
“Do I have a choice?”
“Of course you do, Albanon. But I thought you wanted to help me root out the source of this abyssal plague.”
“I do,” Albanon said quickly. “Forgive me. I spoke without thinking.”
A spasm of fury passed across Kri’s face, and Albanon stepped away reflexively. Then it was gone, and Kri was smiling again. “We’ll leave when you’re sure you’re ready,” he said.
