Ilsevele.”
“Only if you do the same.” She smiled thinly. “Do not worry for me, Araevin. Our paths will cross again before long.”
“I am not as certain of that as I once was.” He sighed and brushed a hand over his eyes. “We are heading back to the High Forest.”
“The High Forest? Why?”
“Because the Gatekeeper’s Crystal-or a piece of it, anyway-may remain somewhere near Nar Kerymhoarth. I think I will need it to deal with Sarya’s wards at Myth Drannor, and her influence over the Waymeet.” He quickly explained what he had learned about the Waymeet and the disaster he feared. “Will you stay to see us off?” he finished. “Morning is not long now.”
“I can’t. We are riding for Battledale at first light. I need to get back.”
“Maresa will take it hard. She likes you more than she lets on.”
“I am fond of her, too. Take good care of them, Araevin.” Ilsevele allowed him to embrace her one more time, and she turned to go. But in the doorway, her steps slowed, and she looked back over her shoulder at him. “Araevin, there is one more thing… I heard that you spoke with the high mages on the Isle of Reverie.”
“I did.”
“I heard that they are giving careful consideration to your warning, and are deliberating on the best way to meet the danger you have seen.”
Araevin briefly wondered how the story was reaching Ilsevele. High mages rarely discussed their business with others. Could it be Amlaruil herself? Ilsevele had served as a captain in the Queen’s Guard, after all. He decided that it would be unseemly to interrogate his betrothed over the question.
“I don’t know anything about the course of their deliberations,” he said, “but I hope they intend more than just talk.”
“So instead of waiting or conferring with the high mages, you are setting out after the Gatekeeper’s Crystal immediately?” Disapproval gathered in her face.
“I don’t think we have time to wait,” Araevin answered. He paced in a small circle, trying to keep his frustration with the glacial pace of the high mages to himself, and not entirely succeeding. “While the high mages debate and ponder the right course of action, I feel doom approaching. Someone has to act now.”
“That is always the way it is with you,” Ilsevele murmured. “Something is always the only thing that matters. You are almost human in that, Araevin. You lose yourself in the moment. You always have, and since you… changed… in Mooncrescent Tower, I think it has become even more pronounced.”
“This is important,” he protested. “You know what I’ve seen. We can’t defeat the daemonfey until we can deal with Sarya’s wards in Myth Drannor, and we can’t defeat the wards without the Gatekeeper’s Crystal.”
“You cannot even see it anymore, can you?” Ilsevele was as pale and perfect as a memory in the moonlight. “I can’t feel your presence, Araevin. You are standing before me, but I don’t feel your thoughts, I can’t sense your mood. You have become a wall that I cannot see through.”
Araevin shrugged awkwardly. “It may pass,” he offered. It was true enough that he did not sense her as clearly as he had before the telmiirkara neshyrr. All elves shared a bond, a communion of sorts, that allowed them to feel what other elves nearby felt, especially those whom they loved. It was not unknown for the link to wax or wane in strength. Doubtless it had something to do with changing his nature to suit himself for high magic, but what choice had he had? He took a step toward her and reached for her hand. “Come with me, Ilsevele. I need you at my side.”
“You haven’t needed me in a long time, Araevin-and my place is here, at least for now.” She touched the side of his face, and she drew back. “I think I should go now. Good luck in your journeys. I will pray for your success.”
“Ilsevele, wait-” Araevin began, but she just shook her head and left him standing in the doorway.
“This,” snarled Sarya Dlardrageth, “is an abomination.” She paced fretfully, her eyes aglow with hate. Sarya’s face was heartbreakingly beautiful, her supple figure the very image of desire, but in her anger-and Sarya was indeed angered-her demonic heritage was inescapable. Ruby skin and great black wings overwhelmed her noble elf’s features, and her slender serpentine tail coiled and uncoiled with agitation. “Tell me, Mardeiym, why haven’t you destroyed it yet?”
Mardeiym Reithel was a lord of the fey’ri, and Sarya’s most trusted general. Unlike many of Sarya’s minions, he knew her well enough to sense that her anger was not directed at him, and he did not quail before her rage.
“Strong old magic guards it, my queen. I would not presume to destroy something of such antiquity without consulting you first.”
“Antiquity?” Sarya snorted. “I am four times as old as this shameful stone. Don’t speak to me of its antiquity!”
The daemonfey queen stood before the old monument the humans called simply the Standing Stone. It stood thirty miles south of Myth Drannor, at the spot where the road leading south to Sembia met the Moonsea Ride. Twenty feet tall, the gray obelisk was covered with old runes and hidden Elvish script that proudly — proudly! Sarya marveled-described how the great elven realm of Cormanthyr had given over the governance of its unforested lands to dirt-grubbing human squatters.
The flyspeck lands known as the Dales dated back to that day, growing up in and among the vales of the mighty forest… and the coronals of Myth Drannor had given the humans their blessing. Of course, time had demonstrated the folly of that decision. The coronals of Myth Drannor were dead, and their kingdom was no more. But Sarya could see clearly that this shameful monument in front of her marked the day that the elves’ decline in Cormanthor had begun.
“Dlardrageth coronals would never have descended to such degrading pacts with humans,” she spat. With a flick of her wings, she turned her back on the Standing Stone and confronted her chief general. “You have now consulted me. Have it pulled down and broken into rubble. Use whatever power is necessary to overcome its wards. I never want to see this… emblem of weakness again.”
“It shall be as you say, my queen.” Mardeiym bowed his horned head in acknowledgment. He paused, and added, “The drow emissary still awaits.”
“I absolutely will not receive him standing in front of that,” she said, flicking her tail at the Standing Stone. “He is at the ruined keep?”
“He is, my lady,” Mardeiym affirmed.
“Come with me, then,” Sarya said.
She reached out and took Mardeiym’s hand, then teleported away from the road. There was an instant of darkness, of cold, and she stood in the courtyard of a ruined human keep, long abandoned. The place stood atop a rocky hill a few miles from the Standing Stone, overlooking the road. Less than a month before Seiveril Miritar had used that very keep for his headquarters while he hesitated on the doorstep of Myth Drannor, but since then the leader of Evermeet’s Crusade cowered in the supposed safety of Semberholme, a hundred miles to the south. Well, she would deprive him of that refuge soon enough.
A party of four drow waited for her, surrounded by her fey’ri and yugoloths. It was a blazingly hot day, but the dark elves wore long hoods to shade their eyes. Bright sunlight was more than a little uncomfortable to them; they much preferred the gloom of the forest, or better yet, the cool darkness underground. Sarya could have invited them to step into the shadows of the keep’s remaining buildings, but she decided that she had no particular need to make the drow comfortable.
She approached the dark elves, and studied them for a time. “I am Sarya Dlardrageth,” she said. “To whom am I speaking?”
One of the drow limped forward. A brace of leather and iron encased his left leg. “I am Jezz, of House Jaelre,” he answered. “Sometimes called Jezz the Lame, for reasons which should be obvious. These are my kinsmen Tzarrat, Dreszk, and Zilzin.”
Sarya frowned in distaste. Before the ancient quarrel of House Dlardrageth with the rulers of Arcorar, before the war of great Aryvandaar against the lesser elf nations, all other elves had stood against the drow. Daemonfey and drow had rarely met, as far as she knew, but she had no reason to think well of the traitorous dark elves.
“I see you have earned the special disapproval of your spider-goddess,” she said, looking at the clumsy brace. Any highborn drow should have had the resources to have such an injury healed with magic.
