Avenger

SIXTEEN

15 Alturiak, the Year of Deep Water Drifting (1480 DR)

The night in Myth Drannor was cold and fogbound. The silver lanterns that served as the city’s streetlamps were few and far between in the chill mists; weak halos of light surrounded each, quickly giving way to the heavy murk. Geran regarded the weather as a great stroke of luck; not even elves cared to linger out in the streets, and the mists would make it much harder for any patrolling guards to notice him and his friends while they were in places they weren’t supposed to be. As midnight approached, the streets fell still.

A half hour before their appointed meeting, Geran and his comrades slipped out of the Swan House into the fog. Hamil glanced up and down the deserted street, and shivered in his cloak. “I thought the nights were always starry and clear in Myth Drannor,” he muttered. “This is no different from a sea fog in Tantras. Where are the faerie lamps and the dancing nymphs?”

“Some of the many stories about the city have grown in the telling in other lands,” Geran replied. “Myth Drannor isn’t impervious to foul weather and ill chance, which is something we should remember tonight. Besides, in Tantras the fog would reek of the harbor flats and smoke. Come on, let’s be on our way.”

He led Sarth and Hamil on a circuitous route that kept them in the city’s public districts, approaching the old Irithlium carefully-the Celestrian stood in a quarter of the city where visitors weren’t normally welcome without an escort. A few of Myth Drannor’s winerooms and taverns remained open, but most folk had retired to their homes early. It might have been better to wait for the small hours, but Geran decided that Daried had chosen the hour so that he and his companions could pretend to be making their way home from enjoying the city’s entertainments instead of skulking about on the streets when no honest person would fare abroad.

They came up on the wide wooded area where Daried was supposed to be waiting from its far side. He spied a path leading into the shadows, and took a careful look around. No one was in sight, although a faint lilting song spilled from a wineroom’s door a good half block away. “This way,” Geran said to his friends, and they followed him away from the deserted avenue and into the dark woods.

Myth Drannor was checkered with large copses and groves of living trees; there was nearly as much wild forest within the city’s ring of lakes as there were streets and buildings. Many of the areas that had been reduced to rubble in the city’s destruction long before had not been rebuilt when the elves reclaimed the city in Seiveril’s Crusade, and the large area of ruins near the Irithlium’s old location was an excellent example. Within the shadows of the trees, moss-covered stones of old walls and fallen buildings gleamed in the faint light. Geran felt his way forward, hardly able to see anything in the darkness.

“Ah, there you are.” Daried Selsherryn materialized out of the shadows, holding a silver lantern dimmed to only a sliver of light. “A good night for scofflaws; few folk will be abroad in the fog. Come, the door you seek is this way.”

Geran and his friends followed the sun elf into the shell of an old building, its foundations bare to the sky. Daried led them down a steep stone stair to what would have been the floor of its cellar; a dark archway loomed before them. “We are in the foundations of the Tower of Nythlum,” Daried said softly. “There is no direct access from the Celestrian to the passages that were under the Irithlium, since the upper portions were largely filled in when the building was rebuilt. This tower belonged to a wizard who left it to the college on his death, and the foundations were joined by a new passage-this one before us. It leads to the passages that were covered up when the Irithlium was rebuilt.”

Geran nodded to his old mentor. “I’m in your debt, Daried.”

The sun elf shook his head. “Nonsense, since I was never here,” he said. “Good luck, and if I do not see you again before you set out, sweet water and light laughter until we meet again.” He dimmed his lantern and retreated, leaving Geran and his companions alone in the old foundation.

Hamil looked dubiously at the doorway. “Do you have any idea what might be sealed in this vault other than the harmless old manuscript we’re looking for?”

Geran shook his head. “I couldn’t begin to guess.” He drew his sword and ventured into the dark doorway.

Sarth and Hamil joined him; carefully he picked his way down broken steps to a large chamber below the tower foundations, murmuring the words of a light spell to give him something to see by. The passageway continued to the north, back in the direction of the old Irithlium if Geran’s bearings were correct, dropping a few steps as it went. After fifty paces or so, another archway loomed ahead, with a large door of stone filling the passageway.

Sarth set a hand on his shoulder to stop him. “There is an old warding here,” the sorcerer said. “I will see if I can craft a brief opening so that we may pass through without destroying it.” The sorcerer murmured a spell that Geran did not recognize, gesturing carefully with his hand. Geran was conscious of a subtle change in the cold air of the ancient halls, as subtle threads of magic drew taut and quivered under Sarth’s careful weaving. A brooding menace seemed to gather form beyond the door; Sarth shot Geran a look of warning and continued with his spell.

Geran summoned a spell of his own. “Cuillen mhariel,” he murmured, shaping the arcane syllables into the form of a misty shield, thin and silvery. Hamil glanced up at him and frowned; he lacked the magical training of the sorcerer or the swordmage, but he could tell from their tenseness that trouble was not far off. The halfling drew a pair of daggers and moved to one side, making sure he was out of the way.

What could endure a century in this vault? Geran thought. Some sort of undead? Or perhaps a demon or devil? That was unfortunately quite possible; in the days before the crusade had reclaimed Myth Drannor, the ruined city was full of such things. “Be ready,” he whispered to Hamil. “I think there’s a powerful fiend in here.”

Perhaps we should stop what we’re doing and leave it in peace? Hamil suggested. After all, Aesperus might have been mistaken.

Geran shook his head. “Unlikely.” There was no doubt about it; something trapped within the old temple was straining at the portal that Sarth was carefully working open.

Sarth neared the end of his spell, but halted before he spoke the last words. He drew back a pace and looked at Geran and Hamil. “This is our last chance to reconsider,” the tiefling said. “There is an infernal presence sealed behind this door. Once we pass within, we will be in its power.”

“We didn’t come all the way to Myth Drannor to leave empty-handed,” Geran answered. “Aesperus is the key to defeating Rhovann’s gray warriors, and the key to Aesperus is the bargain for the missing pages from his tome. I have to make the attempt; I can’t see any other way to bring the pages out. But you two don’t have to follow me.”

“Not too likely now,” Hamil muttered. “Let’s get this over with.”

Sarth nodded, and readied his scepter in one hand. He faced the archway at the bottom of the stairs, and spoke the last words of his passage spell: “Anak zyrsha saigesh!”

The stone portal blocking the passage ahead groaned open. In the space of an instant, the subtle menace waiting for them grew tenfold. Exchanging glances, they advanced into the chamber below the old school. It was a great vaulted cellar dominated by old sepulchers carved with the images of long-dead mages, most of them elves. Several other corridors led off into darkness. Geran paused, and murmured an elven finding charm he’d learned years before when he began his studies in magic, fixing in his mind the Infiernadex as he remembered it-he’d briefly handled the tome a few months back, and any pages that had once been a part of it likely retained a faint impression of the whole. The passage to the left immediately leaped to his attention, and he nodded toward it. “That way, I think,” he said to his companions.

They were only three paces from the archway when the malevolence lingering in the temple’s catacombs suddenly coalesced into a knot of living darkness behind them. They whirled to face the threat, watching as the inky blot took on a tall, manlike shape and became real and substantial. In the space of a few moments a gaunt, scaled, winged devil crouched in the center of the chamber, its wings flexing, its fangs bared in an evil grin. A chain of iron links glowing cherry red with heat dangled from its clawed hands.

“Foolish halfblood,” it hissed at Sarth. “You have delivered me the keys to my freedom by weakening the warding above. When I slay you, I will at last be able to leave this place!” The creature hurled itself at the tiefling with sudden ferocity.

Geran leaped into its path, interposing himself between the devil and his friend. He struck with a crackling bolt of lightning that leaped from his blade, singeing the creature’s belly scales in a smoking black crease. It wheeled on him, lashing with its burning chain, and for a moment overwhelmed Geran with the sheer frenzy of its wrath-snapping fangs, raking claws, battering wings, and goring horns, all the while flailing wildly at him with its infernal iron. He parried, ducked, countered-to no avail. A powerful wing knocked him off balance, and a raking claw under his guard caught him on the side and threw him headlong into the nearest sarcophagus. His magical wardings saved him from being gutted on the spot, but the impact against the cold stone knocked him senseless for a moment.

“Geran!” shouted Hamil. The halfling darted in beneath the monster’s slashing claws, stabbing and cutting at its legs as he tried to stay inside its reach. Geran hardly noticed. Slowly he shook his head and rolled to all fours, wincing. Get up, Geran! he told himself. Distantly he was aware of a brilliant bolt of lightning searing the shadows of the catacomb, followed by a thunderclap that brought a rain of dust from the ceiling. With one hand on the sarcophagus next to him, he pulled himself to his feet and took two deep breaths to steady himself. Warm blood ran down his shirt and splattered the damp old stone. With a cry of challenge he charged at the monster’s back and struck it deeply between its wings.

The infernal creature shrieked in pain, whirling to face Geran. He leaped over its lashing tail, and deflected a strike of its chain that was powerful enough to rip chunks of stone from the wall when it passed over his head. The monster surged toward him in fury, but at that moment Sarth-who was sprawled on the floor a good ten feet back from the creature-raised himself up on his elbow and shouted, “Raizha ektaimu!” From his scepter, a bright green ray shot out, catching the devil in its side. Instantly a great gory bite appeared in its flesh as the disintegrating spell gouged a horrible wound in the creature. The monster shrieked again, so loud that Geran winced in pain, and then sank to all fours under the spell’s power. In a moment nothing was left but a half-eaten corpse, its wound smoking with an eerie green vapor.

“I sincerely hope we see nothing more like that in here,” Hamil said.

“As do I,” Sarth admitted. “That was my only spell of disintegration.”

Geran stood waiting, stretching out with his senses for any hint that more of the devil’s kind were nearby. The aura of supernatural evil had diminished noticeably, but he couldn’t be certain if it was entirely gone. “We’d better keep on,” he finally said. “The sooner this is done, the better.”

He limped toward the archway he’d sensed before with his finding charm, one hand clamped over his badly scored side, his sword in the other. Sarth and Hamil followed after him, weapons at the ready. The passage ran only a few feet before it ended in a large conjury. The summoning circle in the center of the room was defunct, its wardings broken by masonry debris that had fallen from the ceiling at some point in the past. Geran wondered if the devil they’d just battled had been confined within until the debris set it free to roam the vault, or if it had fled into the vault from outside to hide itself from the elves when they retook the city. He decided that it was irrelevant now, and looked around the room for any sign of the tome he sought.

A dusty old bookshelf leaned against the far wall. “Aha,” he breathed. He hurried over to examine it more closely. Most of its contents had long since fallen to pieces, littering the floor with rotted coverings and scraps of yellow parchment, but one book seemed to be in better shape. Carefully he removed it, carrying it over to a worktable nearby.

“Is that it, Geran?” Hamil asked.

“I’m not sure,” he replied. He blew gently over the cover, and found glyphs in Espruar gleaming under the dust: The Book of Denithys. He started to turn away in disappointment, but then it occurred to him that he was looking for a fragment, not a complete tome. He opened the book carefully, and found between its pages a folio of parchment that was a little larger and darker than the rest of the book. He closed the book, turned it over, and opened it by the back cover, and there, right in front of him, were markings to match the ones he’d seen on the rest of the Infiernadex months earlier in the tomb of the priestess Terlannis. “Wait, yes-yes, this is it! We’ve got it!”

His comrades hurried over to his side, peering at the ancient paper. “That’s all there is?” Hamil said. “It can’t be more than five or six pages. What does Aesperus want with them?”

“Allow me an hour to inspect them, and I will have an answer for you,” Sarth replied.

“I suggest that we can inspect the pages later,” Geran said. “I don’t want to linger here a moment longer than we have to.” He took a couple of endplates from the ruined books left on the shelf, brushed them clean, and placed the old Infiernadex pages between them as a makeshift protection for the old tome. Then he put the covered manuscript into his satchel, and led the way as they retraced their steps. They passed through the chamber of the wizards’ tombs again, and back up the long passageway toward the tower foundations.

“Do we set out tomorrow?” Hamil asked. “Or should we wait a day, and make sure we’ve got what we came for?”

“Tomorrow,” Geran decided. “Sarth can inspect the manuscript while you and I retrieve our mounts and reprovision. With luck, we’ll be on our way by noon.” He dimmed his light spell as they emerged into the tower foundation, turning toward the stair climbing back up to the ground level-and then he stopped midstep.

Elves in the fine mail and coats of the Coronal Guard stood waiting on the steps above Geran and his companions, their faces grim. Several held arrows on their bowstrings, half-drawn and pointed at the adventurers below. At the head of the patrol stood Caellen Disarnnyl, his sword bared in his hand.

“I am sorely disappointed in you, Master Alderheart,” the moon elf said in a cold voice. “I warned you quite clearly against venturing into our ruins without a writ of permission. Apparently my words lingered with you for something less than a day and a half before you forgot them.”

Ah, damn it, Hamil said to Geran. The halfling raised his hands in a placating gesture. “I think there’s been a small misunderstanding,” he began. “I believe we actually possess the proper permissions.” Not a word of that last part was true, of course, but Geran thought it at least seemed plausible.

“Unlikely, as I happened to speak with the city warden not more than two hours ago before commencing my patrol, and I specifically asked him whether anyone had applied for a writ.” Caellen smiled humorlessly. “He told me that no one had. Imagine my surprise when we heard reports of strange lights and sounds in this area! Now, I will only say this once: lay down your weapons and surrender yourselves, or we will slay you where you stand.”

Sarth’s eyes flashed in anger, but he did not move. He glanced to Geran and said in a low voice, “Well?”

We might be able to fight our way out, Hamil said to Geran. The whole patrol is there on the stairs, so we’d have a chance to get by them and escape into the city. His eyes flicked to Sarth, and Geran guessed that he was telling the tiefling the same thing.

Geran thought about it for a heartbeat. It was just possible that they might be able to do as Hamil suggested without being killed … but that would mean leaving Caellen and his guards dead, and after that, they’d have a hundred miles of forest to cross with the full wrath of Myth Drannor following after them. Even with that in mind he might have chanced it, but when it came down to it, he couldn’t bring himself to spill elf blood to avoid capture. There was a difference between fighting for one’s freedom and simple murder, and he knew it. We have friends here, he told Hamil. We’ll have a chance to beg forgiveness, to appeal to reason. But if we kill anyone, there’ll be no help for us. Tell Sarth to yield!

You tell him, Hamil replied, but he looked back up to Sarth and relayed the message.

“Surrender!” Caellen snapped. “I will not ask again!”

Moving slowly, Geran unbuckled his sword belt and let the weapon drop to the ground. He backed away from the sword. Beside him, Hamil snorted in disgust, but he began to divest himself of his daggers, dropping several of the weapons to the ground. Sarth shot Geran a murderous look, but he laid his scepter on the flagstones and likewise backed away. Caellen motioned to his soldiers. Some hurried forward to scoop up the weapons, while others approached to take Geran and bind his arms behind his back. He winced, but made no effort to resist; Hamil and Sarth were treated in the same way.

“This is not necessary,” Sarth grumbled to the elves. “We have hurt none of your folk.”

“That will be for the coronal to decide,” Caellen replied.

In Elvish, the soldier who’d picked up Geran’s weapon addressed Caellen. “Captain, have a look at this,” he said. He drew Geran’s sword from its scabbard, unwrapping the false leather grip from the hilt. The gleam of the elven steel was bright in the dim vault.

Caellen peered at the sword for a moment, and his eyes narrowed. “I know this blade,” he murmured. He spun and closed on Geran, reaching up to jerk the hood from Geran’s shoulders. For a moment he stared at Geran in astonishment, and then his lips twisted in a cold sneer. “Geran Hulmaster. I should have known! The coronal shows you mercy by banishing you when she might have ordered your death, and you repay her by defying her law? Oh, you will have much to answer for, my friend-and your companions as well.”

“They’re not guilty of defying my banishment,” Geran answered.

“At the moment, I care not,” the captain said. He stepped back and nodded to the guards. “Take them all away!”