She released the Ruler’s Blade, and the silver-glowing sword plunged down into the rubble of the Rule Tower. For a moment, Fflar could not perceive anything other than a single sheet of dancing white lightning that darted and crackled over the place where Cormanthyr’s heart had stood. And he saw the rubble begin to shift, to move, the broken stones mounting to the sky like autumn leaves blown before a whirlwind. Thunder rumbled throughout the city, so heavy and strong that he felt it through the stone beneath his feet. He staggered back from the majesty of the sight, finding himself shoulder-to-shoulder with the swordsmen and rakes who had defied him only a few moments before.
There was one more peal of thunder, and the brilliant lightning faded. At the center of the square stood the magnificent Rule Tower, completely intact, as if nothing had ever happened to it. Fflar glanced up to the spot where the Srinshee and the high mages attending her hovered, the Ruler’s Blade restored to their midst. The great golden sphere of magic surrounding them grew dimmer, fading even as he watched.
“What is happening?” the man near him asked in a whisper. “What does this portend?”
No one replied. But in the air above the restored tower, the Srinshee and her mages silently faded into nothingness. The royal sword gleamed once in the dusk and was gone. Stillness governed the square. Elf, human, noble, commoner, all stood quiet and stared at the white tower gleaming in the summer dusk.
“We have been given one more chance,” Fflar answered the man. “The Seldarine and the Srinshee have put it in our hands, and no others can carry our fate. That is what it portends, friend. That is what it portends.”
With a sigh, he sheathed his sword and moved forward to see to the dead.
CHAPTER ONE
18 Flamerule, the Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR)
Moonlight danced on the waters of Lake Sember as Araevin Teshurr landed on the Isle of Reverie. He commanded the graceful elven boat to remain fast by the shore, and leaped lightly to the pebble-strewn shore. Wet gravel crunched beneath his fine suede boots, and he paused to study the wooded islet around him.
Araevin was tall even for a sun elf, nearly six and a half feet, with a lean build and long hands and legs. In the moonlight his bronzed skin glowed with a golden hue, almost as if he were a ghostly image of himself. That was the work of the telmiirkara neshyrr, the rite of transformation he had performed two tendays ago in the darkness of Mooncrescent Tower. He was still becoming accustomed to the rite’s effects-the changes in his perceptions, the magic that flowed through his veins, and the sheer wild otherness that he felt sleeping restlessly in his heart. Simply standing on the moonlit lakeshore, he felt almost lost in the simple delight of the wavelets caressing the beach and the creaking and rustling of the islet’s ancient trees in the warm summer wind.
He climbed a winding path that led away from the landing. Despite the serenity of the Isle, Araevin was armed for battle. He wore a light shirt of fine mithral mail beneath his crimson cloak, and his sword Moonrill rode on his left hip, next to a holster carrying three wands of his own devising. Peril was never far off in that summer of wrath and fire, and even in the heart of Semberholme the daemonfey or their minions might strike.
Araevin soon found that the Isle was not large at all, little more than a small, rocky retreat nestled close to the northern shore of forest-guarded Lake Sember. It was an old place, a sacred place. He could feel the deep forgotten magic that slumbered beneath its ivy-grown colonnades and fragrant trees. In the days when Semberholme had been the heart of an elven kingdom, the small islet in the forest lake had served as its tower of high magic, and the stones, trees, and waters still dreamed of spells from days long past.
The soft breeze strengthened and shifted, whispering in the boughs of the white sycamores that grew among the ruins. Araevin climbed a winding set of stone stairs and found himself at the island’s little hilltop, in an open shrine or chamber formed by a ring-shaped colonnade surrounding a floor of old moss-grown marble.
“I am here,” he said to the old stones, and he composed himself to wait.
As it turned out, he did not wait for very long at all. Only a few minutes after he arrived, a feather-light touch of powerful sorcery caught his attention. Araevin glanced around the colonnaded shrine, and fixed his eyes on an old archway in the ruins. A silvery light blossomed in the arch. Then a slender sun elf woman in a stately robe of white stepped out of the light and into the Isle’s ancient close. She looked around at the ivy-wreathed pillars and the softly rustling sycamores, pausing in the doorway.
“I have not set foot on the Isle of Reverie in four hundred years,” she said softly, drawing a deep breath of the fragrant summer night.
“Good evening, High Mage Kileontheal,” Araevin replied.
Kileontheal stepped away from the portal, and another elf followed her-a silver-haired moon elf in a simple gray silk tunic, whose dark eyes danced with warmth and wry humor.
“High Mage Anfalen,” Araevin said, offering a shallow bow.
Anfalen nodded back at him and moved aside, joining Kileontheal. After him came another sun elf, the Grand Mage Breithel Olithir. Olithir wore elegant robes of green and gold, and carried the tall white staff of Evermeet’s chief wizard. The grand mage inclined his head to Araevin as he stepped through, and Araevin bowed in response.
The grand mage has come? Araevin wondered. He did not think he had ever heard of a grand mage leaving Evermeet, even for a short time, but then again, he hadn’t known many grand mages.
“Grand Mage. I am honored,” Araevin began. “I did not mean to summon you from your duties on Evermeet. I would have been happy to journey to Evermeet to speak with you.”
“This is probably better, Mage Teshurr,” Olithir answered. Behind him the portal’s silver light faded, leaving the four elves alone in the shadows beneath the white trees and old stones. “We would prefer that you do not attempt to set foot in Evermeet for now.”
Araevin had not expected that. He stared at Olithir in amazement, and realized that the grand mage was thoroughly warded by subtle and powerful spell-shields. So, too, were Kileontheal and Anfalen.
“What?” Araevin managed. “But why?”
“Some among the high mages believe that the Nightstar has mastered you, and that you are a very clever Dlardrageth high mage who has managed to fool us all by walking around in Araevin’s body,” Anfalen answered. “High Mage Haldreithen has petitioned for Queen Amlaruil to ban you by royal edict, but I don’t think she would do that without giving you an opportunity to respond first. Still, we think you should stay away from Evermeet for a time.”
“I am standing here before you,” Araevin said. He reached into his shirt and drew out the selukiira that had once been the Nightstar. In place of the virulent lambent hue the gemstone had once possessed, it gleamed with a pure white radiance. “This is what remains of the Nightstar. Look at me. Handle the stone for yourself. Do you think that I am Saelethil Dlardrageth?”
Kileontheal approached Araevin. Small and frail as she appeared, to Araevin’s eyes the power in her blazed like a bonfire. She studied his features for a long moment, frowning a little as she took in the aura that played faintly over his skin and the opalescent brilliance of his eyes. They were no longer blank orbs of many-colored light, as they had been for a time after Araevin had completed the telmiirkara neshyrr, but his irises still shimmered with a striking, shifting hue that few others could look at for long. Araevin had taken to wearing hoods for the comfort of the people around him.
“I cannot read your heart,” she whispered. “What have you done to yourself, Araevin?”
He had thought long and hard about how to answer that question, if the high mages asked him. In the end he could see that nothing except the truth would serve.
“I performed a rite devised by the star elf Morthil, once the Grand Mage of Sildeyuir. He was a student of Ithraides of Arcorar. The rite has fitted me to wield high magic in a tradition that Evermeet has forgotten.”
The three high mages did not look at each other, but Araevin felt the swift, subtle exchange of thoughts among them. If I had achieved high magic by following their way I would understand what they are saying, he told himself. But it seems that my path has led me in a different direction.
The Evermeetian mages finished their silent conversation. “There is a good reason why our high magic spells require more than one high mage, Araevin,” the grand mage said. “Our spells require consensus, cooperation. No one person should have the responsibility of wielding such power. Do you not see how dangerous you have become? How can you resist the temptation to act when you can, instead of when you must?”
