Final Gate (18 page)

“No such luck, I’m afraid. No one noticed my stroll through the town. Well, no one who took offense, I suppose.”

She glared at him and nodded at the door leading to her room. The other elves in the suite were doing their best to find other things to occupy their attention. Fflar glanced at Seirye, who offered a small grimace of sympathy. Then he followed Ilsevele into the smaller room and waited as she closed the door. Still, he was surprised as she rounded on him and set her hands on her hips. “Next time, ask before you slip out into the night! Do you have any idea of what could happen if the Sembians caught you spying out the town?”

“I am charged with keeping you safe, Ilsevele. To do that I need to know what’s going on around us. We’re deaf, dumb, and blind as long as we wait here.” He studied the floorboards between his feet. The last thing he wanted in the world was to anger Ilsevele.

“But you couldn’t tell me before disappearing for so long?” Ilsevele demanded. “I was worried sick about you!”

Worried about me? Fflar looked up sharply and met her eyes, green as the spring. By the Seldarine, she is beautiful, he thought. She’d never been one to hide what was in her heart, and right now her worry for him left him dumbstruck. He found himself gazing at a faint dusting of tiny freckles across her cheekbones. They lent her features a girlish innocence that entranced him, until he realized that he was staring at her. Something in his gaze must have given him away, for a strange expression flickered across her face, and she suddenly turned and moved away to gaze out the window of leaded glass.

What are you doing? he demanded of himself. You do not have the luxury of mooning over this girl!

The silence grew uncomfortable, until Ilsevele cleared her throat and spoke. “Well?” she said. “As long as you were out there flirting with peril, did you learn anything useful?”

“I didn’t pick up much from the tavern talk of the soldiers,” he admitted, glad for the chance to speak of something straightforward and unambiguous. “But something else came to my attention while I was looking around the town. A human girl named Terian approached me in the taproom downstairs. She was the one I saw watching us from the window the day we arrived here.”

“The dark-haired one?”

“Yes. She told me that Selkirk intends treachery, and that she can put me in touch with Sembians who wish to deal honestly with us. Terian said that she could arrange a meeting with her patron for me, tomorrow evening during the banquet.” Fflar smiled awkwardly. “Of course, it would involve slipping out of your sight again.”

Ilsevele let the last remark pass. Instead, she asked, “Do you think she can be trusted?”

“I have no idea at all. But I suppose I won’t find out for sure unless I take her up on her offer.”

“The Sembians would notice your absence. But I suppose you could take ill.” Ilsevele studied him for a moment. “Can you think of a reason why you should not see what she and her mysterious master have to say?”

“It takes me away from your side. If anyone intends mischief toward you, it might be easier if I am not around.”

Ilsevele’s eyes flashed. “I think I can manage to look after myself for a short time.”

Fflar raised his hands in surrender. “You asked,” he said.

*****

Sarya Dlardrageth soared through the luminous spires and columns of the Waymeet, impressed despite herself. She had been born in an age when the works of elves were spectacular on a scale that the folk of latter years could scarcely have comprehended. But even she had never set foot in an undisturbed work of ancient Aryvandaar. The Waymeet embodied the boldness, daring, and skill of the ancient Vyshaan Empire, capturing in its living crystal a song of elven might that filled her heart with pride and approval.

“You will live again,” she promised the cathedral of glass. “I will give you the opportunity to discharge your ancient purpose again. I swear it!”

Xhalph, flying at her side, glanced at her with puzzlement on his face. She did not respond to his unspoken questions. Soon enough she would show her son what their ancient forefathers had accomplished with this place.

She followed a single curving spar down toward the center of the complex, and alighted before a towering pillar of blue crystal—now shackled and bound by cruel bands of hellwrought iron. Malkizid awaited her there, caressing the harsh runes incised in the metal with his talonlike hands.

“Ah, there you are, Sarya,” Malkizid said in a voice of pure music. The archdevil wore his natural form: a tall and regal shape seemingly sculpted from living marble, with vast gray-feathered wings and talons in the place of his hands. His noble mien was marred by the black, seeping wound that gave him the name of the Branded King. “What brings you here?”

“I have been trying to summon you all day,” Sarya snapped. “Where have you been, Malkizid?”

“Here. I am nearly done with my work. It is only a matter of time before the Gatekeeper is broken to my will … and we will be able to employ the Waymeet for great things indeed, dear Sarya.” The archdevil made a small gesture, and sent tongues of angry red flame jabbing deep into the blue crystal before him. The Waymeet itself trembled in agitation, and the keening sound of crystalline agony thrummed through the cold air. Malkizid nodded in satisfaction and turned his full attention to the daemonfey queen. “How fares your campaign against the army of Evermeet?”

“The accursed palebloods set a trap for us at Lake Sember,” Sarya snarled. “I lost ninety of my fey’ri warriors, and they are irreplaceable.”

“Whereas my own minions destroyed in your service are of no particular concern to you.”

The daemonfey queen shrugged. “I would prefer not to lose devils and yugoloths unnecessarily. Why waste my strength? But it is true that the legions at your command are much more numerous than my fey’ri. You have an easier time replenishing your warriors than I do in replenishing mine.”

“So you wish me to provide you with yet more of the yugoloths and devils who answer to me? To increase your infernal legions still more so that you may sweep away all the enemies who beset you?”

“Yes. The palebloods can be broken. Victory is within my grasp!”

“Possibly,” the archdevil admitted. Blood trickled from the awful brand in his forehead. “But I decline to reinforce you again.”

“What?” Sarya hissed. “Can you not see how close we are, Malkizid? What sort of treachery is this?”

Malkizid allowed himself a small, cold smile. “My dear Sarya, you might recall that in the beginning of our association, I told you that the day would come when our relationship would have to be … re-examined. I think that day is at hand.”

“What do you mean by that?” Sarya demanded.

“Before I provide you with any more aid, Sarya Dlardrageth, you will bow down before me and take me for your lord and master. To help you remember your oaths to me when you leave this place, there will be certain arrangements made that will bind you inextricably to me.”

“I will not!” the daemonfey queen snarled. “The Dlardrageths call no power master, fallen one!”

“You truly think so?” Malkizid sneered. “Whom do you think taught your uncle Saelethil the spells he knew? Or what of your forebears, the lords of House Vyshaan? They all groveled before my throne, and in return I gifted them with unimaginable power.” The archdevil paused, savoring Sarya’s wrath. “I have many such gifts to offer you, Sarya. And you would gain everything you ever desired. I have no desire to be the king of Cormanthyr. Rule as queen in Myth Drannor, subjugate or destroy any of your neighbors that you like. I will help you to do these things … if you swear fealty to me.”

“Find yourself another slave, Malkizid. Our alliance is at an end.” Sarya whirled away, her black wings snapping out behind her. She took three steps back toward the portal when Malkizid spoke again.

“As you wish,” he said in his sweet, perfect voice. “But if that is your decision, I shall withdraw from your service the devils of Myth Drannor—they answer to me, you know—and the yugoloths I have provided you over the last six months. How long do you think you will be able to fend off Seiveril Miritar’s Crusade with two-thirds of your strength removed?”

Sarya hesitated. “I still command the loyalty of hundreds of demons,” she said. “I do not need you, Malkizid!”

“Are you so confident in the weavings of your mythal spells, Sarya? You are certain that you will have no further need of my assistance in maintaining the defenses you have raised over Myth Drannor?” Malkizid caressed the pommel of his greatsword, tracing with one talon the sinister runes graven on the blade. “Or do you think that I might have instructed you to weave your spells in such a way that you would need my assistance to continue them? How long will your ‘loyal’ demons remain in your service once Seiveril Miritar and his paleblood mages wrest control of the mythal away from you?”

“Let me punish him, Mother,” Xhalph rumbled. “His arrogance cannot be borne!”

Malkizid threw back his head and laughed out loud, a rich and melodious laughter that hinted of the celestial he had once been. “You think to challenge me, half-demon? I slew princes of your kind ten thousand years before you were spawned! Now be silent, for I am not done speaking with your mother.”

Xhalph set his hands on the hilts of his scimitars and took a step toward Malkizid, but the archdevil simply looked at him. The awful bleeding mark burned into Malkizid’s visage gleamed with dark power, and Xhalph halted in mid stride, his eyes blank and unseeing.

“I should strike off one or two of your arms while you stand there. That might teach you to show respect to your betters,” Malkizid said to the mesmerized daemonfey.

“Kill him if you must, but do not maim him,” Sarya said. “He is of no use to me crippled.”

“Perhaps you are right.” Malkizid turned his attention back to Sarya. “So, dear Sarya, what is it to be? Shame, defeat, a bitter existence of crawling through the shadows, tormented by the knowledge that you might have been queen over Cormanthyr for a thousand years? Or would you prefer power unfettered, the might to defy your enemies, a dark and glorious reign as my favored emissary to the world of mortals? It is no more or less than the arrangement I had with your Vyshaan forebears, after all. But it matters not to me. Should you decline, I will find another to elevate in your place.”

Sarya stood fuming, more furious than she had ever been in her thousands of years of life. But Malkizid had judged her all too well. Without the infernal monsters he provided to serve as her warriors, she would not long fend off the Crusade of Evermeet. And she could not bear the thought of spending the rest of her days hiding from her enemies, never daring to strike at them, never claiming openly the inheritance that was hers.

Grinding her teeth in anger, she turned back to Malkizid and slowly prostrated herself before him. “I will take you as my lord and master,” she spat. “But you must give me the strength to destroy my foes once and for all!”

“Of course, dear Sarya, of course,” Malkizid said. “You will find that I am generous with my gifts.” He reached down with one taloned hand and elevated her chin. “Now rise. I require you to offer me a token of your loyalty, if you will. And it may be instructive to Xhalph to witness your fealty.”

Sarya climbed to her feet and looked up into the pale marble face of the archdevil. Malkizid’s black eyes burned with a hot hunger that left little room for evasion. Even though her hands shook with rage, she began disrobing in submission to her lord.

9 Eleasias, the Year of Lightning Storms

Storms swept through Tasseldale late in the afternoon, deluging Tegal’s Mark with sheets of rain and a spectacular display of summer lightning. But as the afternoon faded toward dusk, the thunderheads marched off to the southeast, and the heavy rain slackened. In the evening, when Ilsevele and the rest of the Crusade’s embassy climbed into the carriages waiting to take them to the Sharburg, Fflar slipped away with the aid of a potion of invisibility.

He found Elgaun Manor a quarter-mile or so from the center of the town. The road climbed up a wooded hill past a small shrine to Chauntea, and the manor house stood at the hilltop. Fflar passed through a small, unguarded gate of wrought iron that marked the lane leading to the manor. He noticed that his invisibility potion was beginning to wear off as he approached the manor. Good, he thought. Let Terian wonder how he had slipped away from the Markhouse.

He climbed a short flight of stone steps to the manor’s front door. It was a handsome house of native fieldstone, with a broad veranda framed by great dark beams of Cormanthyran hardwood. He’d asked about the Elgauns during the day. They were a wealthy Sembian family from Yhaunn who often summered in the Dales.

I doubt that it’s the Elgauns I’m here to meet, Fflar decided.

He set his hand on the door and pushed it open. A shadowed foyer stood within, tastefully appointed with several fine paintings. He could make out a staircase leading up to the second floor, and various anterooms and parlors opening from the front hall.

“Terian?” he called softly.

No one answered him. Frowning, he started forward into the room … but then he heard a faint creaking sound from the shadows under the staircase.

Bowstring!

Quick as a cat, he threw himself backward out of the doorway, where he stood silhouetted against the evening sky outside. Bows snapped and sang in the darkness, and arrows pelted at him. One stuck quivering in the door not five inches from his face, a second hissed past his ear and sailed out into night, and a third struck him on the right side of his chest—but bounced from the shirt of mithral mail he wore under his tunic. A slower man would have died in that doorway, but Fflar was just quick enough to spoil the unseen archers’ aim.

Cursing savagely, he yanked the door shut behind him. Arrows thudded into the wood of the other side. “Stupid, stupid,” he muttered. “You walked right into that one!”

Now what? He could make a run for it and reach the cover of the manor wall. Or he could sidle around the side of the house and head away in an unexpected direction. But whatever he did, he would have to do it quickly.