trunk, when the lilting voice of Kileontheal, last surviving High Mage of Reilloch Domayr, whispered in his mind.
Mage Teshurr, please join us in the great hall, she said. We would speak with you.
Araevin looked up at the interruption, and a flicker of impatience tightened his brow. He had frankly hoped to avoid this leave-taking, when it came down to it. But no elf wizard declined a summons from a high mage, let alone a roomful of them, and he knew that Kileontheal was not alone. He sketched a graceful bow to the empty air. “I will come,” he replied.
That is the second time this year I have been called to the great hall by the high mages, he observed. They are beginning to make a habit of it.
He shook his head and placed the last spellbook in the trunk, closing and locking it with a whisper of powerful magic. Then he straightened and surveyed the workroom with a long, slow gaze. For better than eighty years Araevin had belonged to the Circle of Tower Reilloch, earning the right to call himself Mage, as well as the respect of his fellows. But the time had come for him to leave his studies there.
He caught a glance of his visage in a mirror hanging by the door, and smiled without humor. He looked the same as he had the day he first set foot in the tower, a tall sun elf with a long, sparely built frame, and an intelligent, inquisitive expression to his bronzed face. But his eyes were colder than they used to be, and there was a hardness to his demeanor that hadn’t been there only a few months ago. After arduous travel, great battles, and deadly peril in the wildernesses of Faerun over the past four months, Araevin had become as sharp and unyielding as a blade of fine elven steel, as if fate had conspired to hammer out of him the ease of his former life.
He did not like the way that felt.
“Enough delay,” he told the face in the mirror. “I am not so important that I can expect high mages to wait on me.”
But Araevin took one more moment to touch his hand to his chest, running his fingers across the smooth purple gemstone that lay embedded there. The selukiira of Saelethil Dlardrageth was invisible to any but a wizard’s eyes, and it lay concealed beneath his clothing, but Araevin found that he was hesitant to appear before Kileontheal and the others with the stone on his person.
They will notice if I do not bring it, he decided.
He frowned into the mirror again then slipped out the door, locking it behind him with another word of power. Even though Tower Reilloch was arguably one of the best-defended places on Evermeet, Araevin had acquired a very active sense of caution of late. Only a few months before, the daemonfey had proved that even a wizards’ tower in Evermeet was not beyond attack.
Araevin strode easily through the familiar halls, strangely ill at ease on the day of departure. But the Queen’s Guards who stood watch before the hall’s doors of blueleaf and mithral greeted him amiably enough, and admitted him to the high mages without hesitation.
Bright sunlight filled the great hall, streaming in through the simple glass panes of the dome overhead. The high hall had been virtually demolished during the daemonfey raid against Tower Reilloch, but in the hundred days since the battle, artificers had worked long and skillfully to repair the battered chamber. The dome was not yet set with magic theurglass-that was the work of years, not months-but for the time being mundane glass served well, filling the elegant hall with slanting rays of warm spring daylight.
“Ah. Welcome, Araevin. Thank you for joining us.” High Mage Kileontheal stood amid a half-circle of five high mages, the most Araevin had ever seen together in one place. She was a slender sun elf woman who might have been a girl of thirty, but she was in fact a full five centuries in age. Like all high mages, Kileontheal embodied a spirit of tremendous power in the frail envelope of a mortal, the potency of her Art almost shining from her wise face and slender form. She had been gravely injured by a madness spell during the daemonfey attack on the tower, but she had since been restored to her power and sanity by subtle songs of healing. Kileontheal had been fortunate; the High Mages Philaerin and Aeramma Durothil, the other two high mages of Reilloch Domayr, had not survived the attack.
“I am at your service,” Araevin replied, bowing.
He stole a quick glance at the other high mages who stood with Kileontheal. To his surprise, he recognized the Grand Mage of Evermeet, Breithel Olithir himself. Next to him stood the wry and good-humored moon elf Anfalen, then a cold and distant moon elf diviner named Isilfarrel, and finally a stern old sun elf whom Araevin guessed to be the lorekeeper Haldreithen.
“Are you well?” Kileontheal asked. “How is Ilsevele?”
“I am well enough. Ilsevele is in Silverymoon, visiting the court of Alustriel on behalf of her father. I have not seen her in a couple of tendays now, but we have spoken in sendings.” In truth, Araevin had found that he had become accustomed to being apart from his betrothed. Despite the months they’d traveled together earlier in the year, they had spent years away from each other during their two decades of engagement. “How may I help you, High Mage?”
“I have heard that you intend to leave Tower Reilloch,” Kileontheal said.
“Yes, High Mage. I feel that my studies here are concluded, at least for now. It’s time for me to follow my own road.”
“Where will you go?”
Araevin glanced at the others, who stood watching with impassive faces. High mages did not assemble for small talk, and he could not believe that they were all so interested in his comings or goings.
“The House of Cedars, Lady Kileontheal. I have not kept it up as I should have. And its solitude will suit my researches well.”
“I am sorry to see you depart Reilloch, Araevin. So many of our comrades were lost in the daemonfey raid. Tower Reilloch is not the place it used to be.” Kileontheal studied his face for a moment then added, “But perhaps you are not the mage you used to be, either.”
He looked up sharply at that. Kileontheal did not miss much, did she? He met her gaze levelly.
“No, High Mage. I am not. The trials of the last few months have hardened me, and Saelethil’s selukiira has provided me with whole new fields of lore to decipher, things I could not have imagined before.” He indicated the great hall with a turn of his hand. “I have done everything that I can here at Reilloch.”
“The study of high magic awaits you here if you stay, Araevin.”
Araevin smiled and said, “While I have changed much in the last few months, I have not grown fifty years older.”
“It is not an unreasonable wait,” the moon elf Anfalen said. “You would be taking up high magic at less than three hundred years of age. Very few of us do that, Araevin.”
“I know. When the time comes, I will be honored to begin my studies.” He looked at the high mages facing him and frowned. “Is there some reason I should not leave Reilloch?”
Kileontheal inclined her head. Without meaning to, she seemed to be looking down at him from a great height indeed, though she was barely five feet tall. “We have been discussing your recovery of the selukiira, and your subsequent reweaving of Myth Glaurach’s mythal. Lord Seiveril reports that your efforts resulted in the dismissal of a small army of summoned fiends, and led directly to his victory on the Lonely Moor, as well as the flight of the fey’ri legion and their daemonfey lords. You have accomplished great things since you left Evermeet a few short months ago.”
“Thank you, High Mage.”
“However,” Kileontheal said, not quite interrupting him, “We are… concerned about the nature of the high loregem you have found, this Nightstar.” She glanced at the others, and back to Araevin. “May we see it again?”
“It is deadly perilous to touch, High Mage. I have escaped harm only because of an accident of genealogy. The Nightstar of Saelethil will not spare you if you are careless.”
“We will be careful, Araevin. None of us will try our strength against Saelethil’s today,” Breithel Olithir answered. The grand mage was new in his post, having ascended to his duties only a year ago. He too was a sun elf, dignified and stolid, but Araevin still sensed uncertainty about him. So many of Evermeet’s mages had perished in the past few years, killed in Kymil Nimesin’s rebellion of six years past, or lost in the expeditions to defend Evereska against the monstrous phaerimm only four years later. Olithir would have been the fifth or sixth choice for the title he held had other high mages lived, and most knew it.
The grand mage offered a small nod, and Araevin acquiesced with a flickering frown. He reached his right hand into his shirt and closed his fingers around the cold facets of the selukiira. The gemstone slipped painlessly
