What does he have to be so angry about, anyway? she thought. It’s my life.
She replayed her conversation with Uldane in the inn. Is this what Jarren would want for me? It’s a ridiculous question, she decided. If he were alive, he’d want me to be with him, of course. But he’s not, so it no longer matters what he wants.
A voice just like Jarren’s whispered in her mind, and she imagined she could feel his breath in her ear.
I want to be happy again, she told the memory of him. Like we were.
She remembered falling into the river with Uldane, looking up at Jarren a moment before the dragon killed him. She saw the dragon falling into the chasm at her feet, the red crystal flowing into its wounds. She felt her shame and fury as the dragon spoke to her through the demons she’d fought, mocking her, taunting her with her failure.
“I don’t deserve to be happy,” she muttered aloud.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Albanon’s thoughts and feelings were a jumble as he followed Kri through the tumult caused by the demons’ attack on the Silver Unicorn. He found a rhythm in counting his footsteps, a stability in the steady beat of his boots against the cobblestones and packed dirt of the streets and alleys. Slowly, as Kri led him through Hightown, Albanon found a focus, a burning point of fury and hatred at the center of his mind’s storm. Kri had done something to him, something that shattered his mind and sapped his will. All the rest-thoughts of Nu Alin, memories of Shara and Quarhaun, the sudden recollection of Tempest-was fragmentary and uncertain, but he found comfort and stability in staring at Kri’s back and calculating the various ways his spells could tear the old man into tiny pieces.
Their winding path meant nothing to him until suddenly a tall tower came into view, limned with eldritch light in the night. The Glowing Tower, he thought. Moorin’s tower.
Blood. Blood everywhere, sprayed on walls and floor and ceiling in patterns of intricate geometry-angles and curvature danced through his mind, undergirded with formulas he had not noticed before. “It was a work of art, what I did to him,” the demon had said. “A masterpiece.”
Not art, Albanon realized. Mathematics. Magic.
His head spun as he contemplated the mystery that Nu Alin had woven from Moorin’s blood. The fabric of space and time was rent apart and woven back together, differently, subtly, intricately. He stumbled, overcome by a wave of nausea.
“Albanon!” Kri snapped.
Albanon made sure his face was blank before he looked up at the old priest. Kri stopped and searched his eyes as Albanon stared straight ahead.
“Perhaps Albric was right,” Kri said at last. “Your mind was stronger than I gave you credit for. It seems that Moorin was not a total idiot after all.”
A spark of anger flared in some shattered corner of Albanon’s mind, enough to make him realize that Kri was trying to provoke him, testing him.
“Did you see Shara back there, Albanon?” Kri asked. “Did you hear her call out to you?”
Another test. Albanon kept his face a mask and didn’t answer, didn’t even allow his mind to pursue the questions that surfaced in his mind. Who is Shara to me? Should I care about her?
“Come along, Albanon,” the Doomdreamer said, apparently satisfied. “We have work to do.”
Two hundred thirteen, Albanon thought as he started walking again. He had stopped counting steps as he contemplated Nu Alin’s mathematics of blood, and counting again was the only way he could keep his mind away from the madness contained in those formulas.
Two hundred and fifty-six steps-sixteen sixteens, the square of a square of a square-brought him to the threshold of Moorin’s tower. Crossing the threshold brought another wave of memory, the trepidation he felt entering the tower the night of Moorin’s death, seeing that the tower’s wards had been disabled. He pushed the memories away and counted the seventy-seven remaining steps up to the top of the tower.
“Be gone!” Kri shouted when he reached the top of the stairs.
Albanon looked past him and saw a squad of soldiers, staring wide-eyed at Kri.
“The defense of this tower is no longer your concern,” Kri said.
“But Captain Damar-” one of the soldiers began. Albanon recognized only that he should know the name-no further memory would come to mind.
“Tell your captain that the guard is no longer welcome in the Glowing Tower. We will deal harshly with trespassers.”
“Our orders-”
“Sergeant, if you utter another word you will become trespassers.” Albanon felt power gathering around the Doomdreamer, dark and dangerous.
The sergeant must have felt it, too. He nodded to the other soldiers, who immediately filed to the stairs, casting nervous glances at Kri and Albanon as they passed. The sergeant was the last to leave, and he dared a parting word of defiance as he started down the seventy-seven steps. “You’ll hear from the Lord Warden about this.”
“Be gone!” Kri roared, and the force of his voice seemed to drive the sergeant forward, making him stumble on the stairs. Only the quick reaction of the men in front of him kept him from tumbling down to his death.
“Now to work,” Kri said. “First, disable the ward on the teleportation circle.”
Albanon followed an arcing path across the room where, months ago, Moorin’s blood had traced a line of very precise curvature. He closed his eyes as he walked, seeing in his mind the spray of blood and feeling the flow of power that still followed that line. He sidestepped the table he knew lay in his path, but kept his hand in the flow of magic. What did Nu Alin create here? he wondered. And does Kri know it’s here?
He reached the teleportation circle and suddenly remembered arriving there with Kri just hours before. How did I forget that? he thought. The shimmering dome of the ward that kept them in until …
Disabling the ward was trivially simple, barely an effort of calculation. A guard had let it down before, so whoever established it-the High Septarch, he realized-must have created a control even a fool could use from outside the circle.
“Excellent,” Kri said, appearing behind him. “Your power has grown, quite dramatically, now that you’re free of Moorin’s fetters.”
You have not yet seen how my power has grown, Albanon thought. But you will.
Kri reached into the folds of his robes and withdrew a chunk of reddish crystal followed by a glass vial holding a tiny sample of the Voidharrow. He strode into the center of the circle and closed his eyes, reaching out to sense the magical energy that flowed through the patterns and sigils. Albanon did the same, his mind flooding with formulas and arcane syllables as he did. He bit his tongue to stop himself from giving voice to the magic he felt, not even consciously aware of what the spells would have done if he’d unleashed them.
Kri was right, he realized-his power had grown. In the Feywild, he’d been struck by how easy it was to access the magic that flowed through everything there. Now, the same power-no, even more power-was at his fingertips in the world, practically leaping from his fingers and spilling from his tongue without his conscious effort.
But can I control it? he wondered.
He opened his eyes again and saw Kri’s brow furrowed in concentration. Now he sees Nu Alin’s magic, too, Albanon thought. Will he fathom its purpose?
Kri opened his eyes and looked down at the items in his hands. “Just as Albric did, so we now do. Together, the Voidharrow and the fragment of the Living Gate will open a portal like none ever seen before in this world.”
“The Vast Gate,” Albanon said. Words echoed dimly in his mind-a new Vast Gate, construction and opening.
