Final Gate (41 page)

Miklos Selkirk was already issuing orders to his own captains and Silver Ravens. “We’ll have your cordon set quickly, Lady Ilsevele,” he said when he turned back to her. “I presume you’ll want to sweep the city after we set our net?”

Ilsevele nodded. “We must clear these ruins building by building, and roust out any fey’ri who are trying to hide from us. I suggest that we divide the work as follows: You and your folk begin in the east near the Street of Sorrows, Lord Selkirk, and push toward the west. We’ll start in the Westfields-the Dalesfolk on our left, the army of Evermeet in the center and right-and work toward the east.”

“If I may, Lady Miritar?” Miklos Selkirk said. He looked at the map scroll in front of her. “Let’s place a strong company or two in the center, even before we start the sweep you suggest. We’ll ambush any daemonfey trying to stay ahead of the search.”

“A good idea,” Ilsevele agreed. “I’ll have our Evereskan Vale Guards take up positions along the Street of a Dozen Dreams. They are our best footsoldiers.”

“What of the other denizens of this place?” Vesilde Gaerth said. “There are undead, beholders, nagas . all sorts of monsters the daemonfey left for us to deal with.”

Ilsevele thought for a moment. “If a monster flees, let it leave unless it is too dangerous to be permitted its freedom,” she decided. “If it hides within its lair and does not emerge, report its location, and post sentries to make sure that no one blunders into it. Otherwise, destroy it. My father wanted this city cleansed of the evil that has crept into it over the centuries. I intend to see his wishes carried out.”

*****

The fall from the nycaloth’s talons had left Nesterin with a leg too badly broken to walk on, so the star elf put one arm around Araevin’s shoulders and the other over Maresa’s. Together, the three of them limped back the way they had come in search of Donnor and Jorin. Broken glass crunched under their feet, and from time to time the ground trembled. Each such tremor was stronger and lasted longer than the previous one, bringing more of the Fhoeldin durr’s magnificent columns and arches crashing down from above.

After the third quake in the space of five minutes, Maresa scowled up at the majestic glass balanced overhead. “Araevin, do we have time to retrace our steps all the way back to the door to Myth Drannor? What do we do if we get there and find that our gate has already burned itself out?”

“We’ll use whatever portal we can find if we have to,” the sun elf answered. “But I don’t want to leave without Donnor and Jorin. The Seldarine alone know where they might end up if they choose a portal at random. It might be impossible to find them.”

“It doesn’t look too promising right now,” Maresa muttered. “This place is going to kill us if we don’t leave soon, Araevin.”

A loud groan from overhead caught their attention. Araevin looked up and saw a slender arch of glass more than a hundred feet above waver, and fold to the ground. They staggered back out of the way just as a spar forty feet long crashed end-on into the floor with a deafening crash. Flickering pulses of violet-white energy sparked and streamed from the ruin.

A misshapen figure appeared through the shower of sparks, lurching toward them. “Araevin!” hissed Maresa. “I see it,” Araevin said.

He slipped Nesterin’s arm from his shoulder and stood free, gripping a wand in his hand. They’d already had to fight off several yugoloths and devils stalking them through the Waymeet. The creatures seemed confused and leaderless without Malkizid to command them, but that did not mean that they weren’t dangerous, especially given how battered and bloodied the three companions were.

Araevin raised his wand and aimed it at the creature coming closer. He started to speak its trigger word, but Nesterin suddenly lunged out and pulled his arm down. “No, Araevin! It’s Donnor and Jorin!”

Through the acrid smoke and bright sparks, Donnor limped into sight. He half-carried Jorin, and the Aglarondan had a hand clamped to his side. Blood trickled through his fingers. Donnor helped Jorin to a spot where he could lean against the wall, and addressed Araevin.

“Is all this your doing?” he asked. “Did you use the crystal?”

“Yes, and yes,” Araevin answered. “We destroyed the heart of the mythal—this place won’t last much longer— and we caught Malkizid in the crystal’s influence. He will not trouble us again for a long time, even though his minions still roam the Waymeet.”

“We ran into some,” Donnor said grimly. He took in Araevin’s bleeding wounds and Nesterin’s broken leg with a single glance, and sighed. “I am afraid I can’t do much for you here. Jorin was mauled by a pair of barbed devils, and I used most of my healing spells to help him.”

“I will live,” Araevin replied. He looked around at the glass and iron maze that surrounded them. “Let’s find a portal that leads someplace remotely safe, and leave this place to fall in on itself.”

“Don’t be too picky,” Maresa said. “I’ll take anything that doesn’t drop us in a dragon’s lair or put us back in the infernal realms.”

Araevin spied a portal that still functioned, and limped over to inspect it. He started to speak a spell of portal lore to see where it led, when something gave voice to a foul croak above him. He looked up, and saw a pair of vrocks stooping on him.

“The daemonfey!” he shouted.

He managed to speak a dismissing spell and hurl one of the vrocks back to its home dimension, but the other crashed into him and bore him down to the stone floor. Filthy talons raked at his chest and belly, clicking against the light shirt of mithral mail he wore under his tunic, while the vrock slavered and snapped at his face with its stinking beak.

Araevin saw a green flash in the middle of his companions, and someone cried out in pain as sizzling gouts of acid splattered the narrow passageway. Swords rang shrilly nearby, and more spells flew back and forth, but he was pinned by the demon tearing at him. One claw found the meat of his thigh and raked open his leg, and Araevin screamed in pain.

“You’ll s-scream more when I r-rend your limbs-s from your body, m-mage,” the vrock hissed in his face. “I will d-devour you alive!”

The mage struggled furiously against the demon. He was already injured and tired, and he had no strength left. The sharp beak grated across his cheekbone, and stabbed down again at his eye. Araevin avoided a gruesome wound only by throwing his arm up in the monster’s way, and it seized on his hand and bit until bones crunched and blood flowed. With his other hand, he groped for his holstered wands. He found the one he was looking for and jammed it into the vrock’s belly before shouting the command word.

A shrill column of bright blue force blasted through the demon’s torso and flung the monster away from him. Araevin rolled to his feet, trying to make sense of the battle around him.

Nearby, Donnor Kerth fought against the daemonfey Xhalph. The tall monster rained blow after blow down on the Lathanderite’s shield, the impact of steel on steel ringing through the walls of crystal and iron. Jorin, hobbled as he was, still fought one-handed against a wounded fey’ri. Nesterin traded spells with another fey’ri mage, while a pair of vrocks and a fey’ri swordsman tried to corner Maresa in one niche of the Waymeet nearby.

“Araevin! Do something!” Maresa called.

He took the wand in his hand and threw it to her. “Here! The command is dalsien.”

Maresa snatched the wand out of the air and turned it against the foes stalking her with a malicious grin. “Dalsien!” she shouted, and the bright blue bolt of disrupting energy hammered one of her foes against the opposite wall.

Araevin started to speak a spell against the daemonfey prince, but a sudden flurry of wing beats descended behind him. “You have upset my plans for the last time, Araevin Teshurr!” snarled Sarya.

He turned to defend himself, but not before she reached out and grasped him with a fist that glowed blue-green with arcane power. Icy lightning hammered through Araevin, hurling him off his feet. He sprawled to the ground, thrashing uncontrollably as Sarya’s spell burned and stabbed at him. He could not even scream.

Sarya smiled, and flicked her tail. “Now that is what pleases me, Xhalph! My enemies prostrate before me, helpless! How shall I repay this one for all the trouble he has caused me?”

“Get away from him, you foul harpy!” Starbrow commanded as he hurled into the fray, Keryvian burning like a white brand in his hands.

The moon elf roared a challenge and raced to Araevin’s side, brandishing his sword. Beside him, the wood elf Jerreda raised her bow and with one skillful shot dropped the fey’ri dueling Jorin. Two more wood elves behind her met with fey’ri warriors and began furious duels of their own.

Sarya whirled with a hiss of surprise. She threw herself into the air just in time to avoid Starbrow’s deadly blade, and beat her wings furiously for a margin of safety.

“Xhalph!” she cried. “Deal with this one!”

Starbrow looked down at Araevin, who was still wracked by the furious blue-green energy of Sarya’s spell. With one quick motion he dipped Keryvian’s blade down to touch Araevin’s chest. The baneblade gleamed once, and the ancient counter-magic that Demron had forged into his mightiest weapon scattered the daemonfey spell into dissipating tendrils of fog.

“Keep Sarya off my back,” he said, and he threw himself forward to meet Xhalph.

Araevin rolled to one side, trying to shake off the effects of Sarya’s spell. He heard Maresa shout out “Dalsien! Dalsien!” expending the power of his disruption wand with lavish lack of regard for the work he’d put into the device. Blue bolts of power scored the air, and peals of thunder rocked the damaged Waymeet. Well, I can’t think of a better way to empty a wand, he decided. Meanwhile Donnor bludgeoned the fey’ri mage with a glowing hammer of force and blasted at his foe with brilliant sunbeams.

He looked around for Sarya, and found her shaping a spell of abyssal fire between her hands. Desperately he threw out a counterspell and negated the blast before she could incinerate Starbrow or the rest of his companions. Sarya snarled in pure anger, and blasted at him with a hail of magical darts that he parried with a quick shielding spell. He replied by hurling a deadly green disintegrating ray at the daemonfey queen, but she simply spun away from it with a quick twist of her wings. The ray chewed through a spar of the Waymeet behind her, and with a screech of outrage the daemonfey queen fluttered away to avoid being crushed beneath the falling column. Araevin lost sight of her and took a moment to push himself upright.

Only ten feet from him Starbrow and Xhalph battled each other in a furious display of swordsmanship. Keryvian sliced the air with streaks of white fire, and Xhalph snarled a foul curse and gave ground under Starbrow’s attack. Keryvian scored him once across the thigh and a second time along the ribs, leaving seared black wounds in its wake. The daemonfey roared in anger and struck back. Parrying Starbrow’s one sword with the two in his lower arms, he lunged out in a scissors-cut with both upper blades.

“I will kill you!” Xhalph screamed.

Starbrow ducked beneath the strokes and stepped up under the towering swordsman’s guard. It was too close for Keryvian, but instead of trying to hack or stab with the blade the moon elf set its edge to Xhalph’s ruby flesh and whirled away, drawing a long, deep cut with Keryvian’s razor edge. Xhalph stabbed at his back with his two left-hand blades, and Starbrow parried one behind his back with the baneblade and jumped away from the other, finishing his turn just as Xhalph drew back his left hands and lashed out with his right.

“Not this day, demonspawn!” Starbrow snarled, and he brought Keryvian whistling up in a vicious uppercut that took off Xhalph’s lower right arm above the elbow and his upper arm a little above the wrist. Two of the daemonfey’s swords went spinning through the air, and Xhalph’s roar of rage changed pitch into a shriek of pain.

“Mother!” he cried. Blood splattering from the stumps, he spread his wings for balance and backed away from Starbrow. The moon elf swordsman threw himself forward and buried Keryvian in Xhalph’s belly before the daemonfey could get out of reach. Xhalph let out another awful cry as Keryvian flashed into white incandescence deep in his flesh. Smoke pouring from his mouth, the daemonfey prince crumpled to the ground and fell still.

Sarya Dlardrageth appeared above Starbrow, eyes blazing in fury. She threw out her hand and sent the moon elf warrior flying head-over-heels into a wall of jagged glass.

“You will die for that, paleblood!” she screeched.

She started to incant a fearsome necromancy, summoning a black aura that crawled over her hands like something hungry and aware. Starbrow shook his head and started to pick himself up out of the rubble.

Araevin saw his chance.

Quick as thought, he wove a spell shield and threw it over Starbrow. Sarya finished her deadly incantation and hurled the crawling black fire at the moon elf-but Araevin’s defense flared bright blue, and reflected the black fire back at the daemonfey queen. Sarya hissed once in surprise, and her own spell took her full in the center of her body. Avid flames of dancing obsidian sprang up all over her body, guttering from her very flesh, streaming from eyes, mouth, and even her ears and the joinings of her armor.

The daemonfey queen shrieked in pain and anger. “I—will-kill you—for that!” she cried. She arched over in agony, then started to sink, no longer able to stay aloft. Fluttering awkwardly, she crashed into the ground in a corona of ebon flame.

Starbrow rolled to his feet and started toward Sarya, but another fey’ri warrior leaped down to intervene. In the space of the blink of an eye, the moon elf and the demon-tainted warrior were engaged in a furious duel, blades flashing almost too fast for Araevin to follow. Meanwhile, Sarya managed to extinguish herself with a potent counterspell.

Her ruby flesh still smoked, but she was no longer being consumed by her own spell.

Araevin took a deep breath, and evoked the Word of Power, the ondreier ysele. Sarya flinched away and quickly raised a spell-shield of her own, guarding herself beneath a mantle of golden spheres that shimmered and whirled about her. Araevin recognized the spell; it was a potent abjuration, a defense against almost any spell. The daemonfey queen grinned maliciously, and started to shape another spell to fling at him.