She studied the blade of the Breath, marveling at the intricate patterns entwined along its length. Ilythiiri runes dominated much of the pattern, the long-forgotten elves' brand of magic as of yet unfamiliar to her, but its effects on the history of the world unmistakable. By magic and ambition their nation was thrown into ruin, forced into the deep of the Underdark. The origins of the drow echoed in some small part of the blade she carried and no doubt thundered through the folly of King Arkaius in the sealed chamber above.
A hoarse whispering caught her attention, and she paused on the threshold of the tower. With a wave and a word she struck the vibrating chords of the Weave and felt magic sing through the air around her. Snowflakes pulled together, gathering in clumps, compressing themselves into shards of ice that hovered and waited by her command. At a single nod she hurled them through the doorway and heard them shatter and crack.
A sharp smell of death on a winter wind wafted from within and spoke of the silence and relative peace that awaited her. Satisfied that she would remain unmolested by any remaining
Creel or the self-important shamans that led them, she entered the tower and instantly felt a charge in the air. Gooseflesh rose on her skin, and the Breath tugged at her wrist like an excited child. The first steps of a frost- shrouded stairway on her left led upward into a forbidding dark. The sword begged to be taken to its place, to the lock upon the door to which it alone was the key. Peering intently at the crossguard, she sensed a sentience inside the weapon, hidden thoughts slipping beyond her scrutiny.
Giving the sword its lead, she followed, holding on to its cold as she took the first step and breathed in a scent of power.
Bastun could number them now, counting as he did through the sweat and pain, desperately seeking the energy to keep moving. A dagger in his hand glowed a dull red as it slashed through the twisting face of a diving wraith. It felt solid only for a moment, like stabbing into loose sand being washed away by a strong tide.
'Six,' he muttered, then, 'Five.'
Syrolf took another, his blade trailing shreds of shadow as shrieks faded to whistling on the wind. The remaining Rashemi numbered five as well, a handful of berserkers panting and heaving with each weary swing. Their famed bloodlust was cut short by the cold touch of the howling spirits. Bastun staggered along the wall, intent on following the durthan. The wraiths moved to stop his escape, the fighting Rashemi in their wake.
He slumped against the stone, catching his breath and reaching within for the strength to cast another spell. More bodies littered the floor, now visible as the wraiths' ranks dwindled. From across the chamber, heart- wrenching sobs reached his ears and he tried not to see her falling over the prone form.
Thaena had found her guardian and had broken. Her mask flung to the ground, her tears fell over Duras's face, streaming down his cheeks. The sorrow in her eyes bordered on madness. She paid no mind to the wraiths or her fallen fang. She had not seen the return and escape of the durthan. Nothing mattered to her save the love lost and all that had lain unresolved between them.
Bastun saw himself, saw the body of Keffrass, and felt the grief of that passing. He imagined his own body lying in the several places he should have died in his long path to this stretch of wall. There were no tears to pave his way into the afterlife. The empty well within him, the void he felt himself becoming, surged with something as he felt himself disgusted with the mere notion of self-pity.
He pushed away from the wall, slashing and cutting at spirits that flew too near, his other hand tracing intricate symbols in quick graceful movements as he chanted.
Four, he thought as a wraith was spitted on the blade of a berserker.
The young man's face was yet another familiar stranger, his name a mystery, though Bastun was sure he'd heard it spoken once or twice. It was a trait that he loathed finding in himself, but he did not dwell on the shortcoming.
His pulled a fistful of dust from within his robes. Scattering it on the ground in a rough circle he willed the words of his spell into each particle. Dust became a brown mist, darkening to a deep umber and rising with a crackling noise. The spinning storm of magic lashed out at the wraiths, pulling them in and tearing at their forms. It grew and spread, hiding them all within its folds. The Rashemi watched suspiciously, backing away from the thundering magic.
As it consumed the undead and tore them apart, Bastun heard a quiet scratching at the floor. One warrior, one of the first to fall when darkness had claimed the chamber, lay pale and drained nearby. The vremyonni watched in horror as the body's fingers twitched and splayed. He felt sick as a similar noise arose behind him and then again far to his left.
The dying breath of a fallen warrior nearby hissed away slowly, steaming in the cold air for a moment before ceasing. Within an arm's length of the dead man, ice shattered and popped as the ancient prince of Narfell clenched a clawed fist.
Bile rose in Bastun's throat and he swayed away from the thinning cloud, its shrieking burden destroyed and leaving only the scent of decay. His eyes rolled as he turned from one corpse to the next, noting signs of movement or growing shadow.
'The dead are defeated,' he mumbled, recalling passages from the notes of Keffrass concerning the Shield's peculiar curse. Only now did the obscure ideas and discoveries he had studied fully make sense as he added, 'And long live the dead.'
He met the blank stare of Thaena from across the room. The light of her eyes was gone, and for a moment he feared that she too had joined the ranks of the walking dead. Faint puffs of steam still escaped her parted lips. Duras lay cradled in her arms, thankfully peaceful for the quiet death that ordinary steel had given him.
Finding his balance, Bastun shook his head and picked up a discarded sword.
A groan rang in the air. Dark translucent hands peeled away from one of the bodies followed by a thin arm and the wispy trappings of a desecrated soul. Movement forced stale air from the lungs of another wraith still trapped in flesh, its horrid wail of grisly birth echoing through the short-lived silence. As newborn wraiths crawled from Rashemi corpses, Bastun realized not all of their previous adversaries had been of the Creel-some had likely been of the Rashemi, of those fallen far below in the entrance hall and left to rot.
Familiar strangers, the faces without names, shuffled off the coils of death to haunt him anew. The point of his sword raised slowly, ready to end himself for fallen friends and with acquaintances never made. A hand pushed against the center of his chest, and he started as Syrolf appeared in front of him, looking over his shoulder.
'Go,' the warrior said, his grumbling voice now even more so. 'Stop the durthan.'
'It doesn't matter,' he replied. 'It's too late, I-'
'It's only too late if you've decided to quit,' Syrolf said. 'I don't know what she's planning, but I'd rather not die knowing she succeeded.'
Bastun took a step backward, staring at the rising dead, at the weary warriors that hacked at writhing bodies and insubstantial spirits. Their ethran stirred slowly, her attention torn between Duras and her duty. She took up her discarded mask loosely in her hand and stared at it as if betrayed. The bones beneath Serevan's white armor cracked as he tried to rise, straining at the ice that had frozen him to the stone.
The vremyonni's boot crunched on snow. Flakes fell on his shoulders and hair. He realized that despite all, he was leaving. Logic drifted to the surface of his thoughts, and reluctantly he latched himself to it, filling his willpower with what must be done. He would leave his comrades to die and commit himself to the duty of a vremyonni.
As he turned away, the image of Anilya, gripping the Breath and walking toward the northwest tower, burned itself into his mind.
Each step upward felt like a step backward. Anilya almost glanced over her shoulder, imagining reflections of herself walking away, staring up, her own eyes fixed on her back. Though she progressed forward, time seemed to move in reverse. The ice grew thicker, each stair more dangerous and misshapen than the last. Man-made walls disappeared beneath a frozen facade, a wintry cavern likely un-tread by the living since its creation. Blurry faces rested just beneath the surface, their mouths open in quiet screams, their weapons dropped in pursuit of escape and caught before hitting the stone. Soldiers of old Narfell, perhaps trusted officers or supporters of Serevan's ambition, had been the first to realize their mistake.
The farthei she ascended, the less human these faces appeared. Hideous sculptures spanned clawed arms from one wall to the other. Insectile mandibles framed open jaws teeming with needle-sharp fangs. Long, barbed tails rose to the ceiling, hovering over fleeing prey. There was no flesh beneath these images; the trapped fiends seemed frozen only in spirit or presence.
