Stardeep

CHAPTER TWENTY

Sildyuir, Moonveil Citadel

One by one, the glass towers softened, leaned, and fell into consuming fire. The burning citadel glowed so brightly the stars directly above the inferno were smeared out in the orange glare. The wide, fey plain had lost its innocence.

The scene affected her like a physical blow; Kiril's stomach twisted and her knees threatened to give way. She spit out a garbled curse, gasped, and took off running down the hill. Xet screeched and darted overhead in crazed, anxious patterns. She heard the sorcerer exclaim in surprise behind her. She cared not. Let the strangers follow her or stay back. Before her was Moonveil Citadel, one of the premier mansions of Sild?yuir. If Moonveil was in flames. .

Raidon caught up, easily matching her stride for stride. He said, "I see figures sprawled in front of the fiery structure, unmoving. Better we approach cautiously. Whatever attacked this structure and set it ablaze may lurk nearby."

Kiril narrowed her eyes and scanned the periphery of the structure. She saw the bodies Raidon spoke of. The sight of what were likely injured or dead star elves sprawled like gruesome trophies in front of their home lent more speed to her stride. She yelled, "I hope the blood-flecked bastards responsible are still lurking. When I catch them. ."

The monk kept pace, his breath inaudible, while her own grew louder and more ragged. Chain mail, even elven chain mail, was not designed to accommodate a runner. She heard another yelled protest from Adrik, this time more faint.

When she and Raidon reached the foot of the blaze, she was gasping. The heat from the fire drew beads of sweat instantly to her forehead and forearms. The figures they'd glimpsed silhouetted were indeed star elves. Twelve people were laid out in all, ranging in age from rickety elders to youths not yet into their first decade. She recognized Nandor, Avarin, and Nelandrion from visits to Moonveil when she was a child. Now they were dead. And. . Kiril sucked in her breath. Each body lacked its eyes; bloody sockets stared in grisly parody of perception. Something had collected trophies.

"What Hells-spawned bastard did this?" she whispered. Were glass citadels all across Sild?yuir ablaze like Moonveil? Was the Traitor already free, and visiting his frustrated vengeance on his own people, those who had imprisoned him for so many centuries?

"Behind you!" came Adrik's warning, too late.

A flame had detached from the blackened, sagging mansion wall. It charged her and Raidon as they stared at the violated bodies. The flame raced across the ground, revealing in its bright core a humanoid conflagration. Surprised, her hand fumbled ineffectively for Angul's hilt even as the fiery creature collided with her.

Searing pain choked a strangely high-pitched gasp from her lips. The overheated air pulled the very breath from her lungs. The creature's burning limbs wrapped about her, pulling her close in a burning, elemental bear hug. Her hair smoldered and caught flame. She strained toward Angul, but her arms were caught within the encircling grasp. She couldn't reach Angul's hilt!

The monk drew his slender blade, and with masterful proficiency, laid into the burning creature's fiery core while deftly avoiding Kiril.

The fire elemental shuddered, and the elf renewed her effort to burst free. Success! She tumbled into the cool air, rolling to put some distance between herself and her foe and to put out the flames that burned her clothing. Beating out the flames in her hair, she stood, trailing a corona of dark smoke. The smell of burnt leather and hair pinched her nose.

Raidon danced back and forth with the living inferno, using his strangely shaped weapon in two hands, even though the blade was no longer than an ordinary long sword. The straight blade with its curved point danced like a needle, slashing, parrying, and plunging at the creature's fiery core. In turn, the dancing mote of heat and flame drew ever closer to the monk, pawing at Raidon with claws of flickering red and yellow. The fire consuming the citadel blazed steadily, and Kiril realized that fighting the elemental so close to the fire that spawned it was likely a waste of time. Every strike Raidon landed was burned away, revealing unblemished, sun-bright "flesh" moments later.

"Fall back, Raidon!" she ordered. "It shrugs off injury while it is so close to the great fire!" She hoped her surmise was true.

The monk danced away from Moonveil Citadel, as did she, now consciously avoiding Angul's lure. She had been true to her resolve regarding the whisky, and unless she needed to draw the blade to save her life, she didn't want to risk succumbing utterly to his control; without alcohol insulating her mind, she was far more vulnerable.

Adrik's voice broke over the roar of flames from the collapsing citadel. She glanced back soon enough to witness the sorcerer unleashing a blast of blizzard white, narrow where it issued from his hands, but wide enough to encompass the entire stalking flame. Raidon vaulted up and backward, gracefully avoiding the wintry spell. Within that chilly cone, the creature writhed, screaming a torrent of flame.

Raidon extended his blade as the miniature blizzard faded, using it almost like a spear, thrusting into the weakened creature. It shuddered one final time, then dissolved into so many fading flames.

The half-elf essayed a flourish with his blade, then sheathed it in the same elegant motion. He pointed upward and behind Kiril.

She turned. Four ugly silhouettes straddled the same ridge they'd topped a while earlier. Not the star elves she'd hoped to see. Instead, monsters. Each possessed three clawed legs supporting a body as sinuous as a snake. Their ropy arms were like tentacles, and at least three eyes sprouted from each squat, coiled head.

The creatures charged down the ridge as one. Three moved along the ground in an awkward but surprisingly swift gait. The fourth unfurled insectoid wings and took to the air, flying toward the dragonet that circled above the ridge.

Adrik shrieked as he dashed away from the newcomers. The three creatures on the ground bore down on the fleeing sorcerer. The flying creature pointed at Xet. A black spark easily jumped up to the crystal dragon. The tiny constructs color turned to red then black, and the dragonet dropped from the sky.

"Xet!" screamed Kiril. The little creature was more annoyance than companion, but. .

Raidon tore forward, moving dozens of paces in the blink of an eye. As a creature wrapped a tearing, clawed tentacle around one of Adrik's flailing arms, the monk launched himself into the air. He delivered a snapping side kick directly into the attacking creature's knoblike head.

The other two monsters surged into the mix.

Kiril advanced, but she kept her eyes on the single creature that remained aloft. A nilshai. It must have been responsible for summoning the sentient flame from the burning citadel.

It chattered an obscene blend of music and syllables. With an audible crack, blue-green lightning suddenly connected the tips of its tentacles with Kiril's metallic armor. She screamed as the electric surge drew tight all her muscles into a single, full-body cramp.

She could put off the inevitable no longer.

Angul woke to blue fire in her hand.

The luminosity of the stars above tripled, and all shadows fled the field, or so it seemed to Kiril.

The swordswoman yelled again, her voice stripped of uncertainty and pain. It was the cry of a warrior certain of her eventual victory.

Kiril fell upon the creatures' flanks as they attempted to smother the monk, who in turn protected Adrik's prostrate form.

When her blade contacted the flesh of the first nilshai, she not only hewed through its tissue, but the cerulean flame from her blade immediately set it alight so robustly that its destruction was a small explosion. Flaming, white-hot bits were propelled in every direction. The nearest nilshai also caught fire, and a moment later, it too was consumed by Angul's cleansing influence.

Rarely was her blade so effective-only when Angul's true enemies were flushed from dark corners. These were aberrations! And Angul was forged for one purpose before all else: the eradication of all atrocities such as these whose mere existence so tainted the world.

The final, cowering nilshai uttered an ululation that Kiril understood as terror for its evil soul. She swept her blade through its abominable carcass, consuming flesh and spirit simultaneously with her unforgiving length of steel.

The last abomination continued to hover above the ridge. It spoke, and its voice was a synthesis of high-pitched squeals, grinding teeth, and tentacle flesh rasping across itself. Kiril heard it say, "I foresee my end. As I foresaw the deaths of my lesser sisters you've just slain. But I rejoice! For each death, even mine, is another stone in the path that leads ineluctably to Xxiphu's emergence! Even as I breathe my last-"

Kiril reversed her grip on Angul's hilt, then launched the burning blade as if he were a javelin. Angul punched through the air tip-forward, a series of ever-widening, flaming halos in his wake. The prophesying aberration's body was consumed in the cleansing inferno that followed contact.

Raidon Kane bent to one knee to support Adrik's head. The sorcerer shivered and gasped, "My arm! It… it hurt like fire, but now it's numb."

The monk examined the man's injured limb, easily visible through the shredded sleeve of his robe. Sucker marks made ugly circles across his flesh. At the center of each circle beaded a tiny drop of blood. The arm's color was fading toward a sickly green hue.

"Poison runs in your veins," declared Raidon. "Hold still." So saying, he tore away Adrik's shredded sleeve and used it to tie a tourniquet around the sorcerer's arm above the elbow. He cinched it tight, making the man wince. He hoped it was tight enough to slow the venom. Better the loss of a single arm than death.

The swordswoman walked up, her sword already tucked in her belt. Her blade had surprised Raidon with its incredible display. He wondered why the sword had been so ineffective when he'd first met Kiril at the Mere.

In her arms, Kiril carried the tiny creature she called Xet. Its iridescent color was slowly returning, and its wings flexed. The swordswoman cradled it with a tenderness Raidon hadn't guessed belonged to the elf.

He observed, "You said before that 'threats' wandered Sild?yuir. Are these what you spoke of?"

Kiril said, "Yes. The nilshai. Damned monsters that wield formidable sorcery. They are recent invaders, only becoming a nuisance in the last few years. Word of monsters in the lonelier stretches of the forest circulated, though most thought these 'nilshai' stories were jokes."

The swordswoman scowled at the burnt cinder that was once Moonveil Citadel. "Soon enough, we realized the nilshai were all too real. We discovered they were poisoning Sild?yuir for years."

"Poisoning?" asked the monk.

"They kill our children and steal away tracts of land that are never seen again."

Concern clutched Raidon's stomach. He had discovered his mother's home realm only to find it under attack by vicious invaders. Was she safe?

Adrik looked up from his ravaged, darkening arm. He asked, his teeth gritted against pain, "Where do they come from?"

Kiril gazed at the burning citadel. She said, "No one ever knew. Our sages said they hailed from a spectral reality that underpins our own. But Sild?yuir was disjoined from cosmology when it first took shape. It has always puzzled my folk why the nilshai exert so much effort to enter here, when Faer?n is far easier to reach."

Kiril paused, then continued. "But I know the truth, now. If any of my people were around to hear it, I would explain that the blood-flecking nilshai are agents of the Traitor, adherents who worship, as he does, the gods-damned aberrations of the primeval world. They are servants of the cursed Lords of Madness who seek to regain the realm denied them by the first gods."

Adrik grunted and said no more. Raidon took it as a warning, considering that the voluble sorcerer typically would have launched into a dozen questions. The monk tapped Kiril on the shoulder and said in a quiet voice, "This man requires a healer's craft."

Kiril frowned and hesitated, but she said, "Aid can be petitioned from a place near here."

Adrik smiled despite his pain.

They crested another ridge. Raidon supported the ailing sorcerer. Before them stood an elegant tower of pale white stone and glass. A sturdy granite wall ringed the structure. Blue lamps gleamed from the windows and the treetops surrounding the tower.

"Healing can be had in Tower Aerilpe," murmured Kiril. "Also, Lord Ilsevele has shown sympathy to the Keepers of the Cerulean Sign in the past. Now that the nilshai are unmasked as agents of the Traitor. . everyone needs to know."

They followed the path down the silvered slopes of the grassy hillside, crossed a river on a bridge of luminous stone, and stood before the mithral gates piercing the wall surrounding the tower. The gates were closed, and in the high weeds that had sprung up around the entrance, they found the rotting bodies of the half-dozen elf guards, still in knee-length hauberks of white scaled armor. All were missing their eyes.

Kiril's hands tightened into fists as she looked at the slaughter. But all she said was, "I was wrong-we have no time."

Raidon said, "What about Adrik's arm?"

Kiril said, "We are days away from the next closest keep I know of in Sild?yuir. The sorcerer's best hope remains with us. One of the Cerulean Order keeps watch on the gate leading to Stardeep's forgotten underpassages. He knows healing arts."

Raidon replied, "Then let us make haste. Adrik wouldn't be here but for me."

He didn't give voice to his growing anxiety. How safe was his mother in a place that grew less sylvan and more like a war zone with every mile they traveled?

They went afoot for miles, heedless of the shining stars or the pearly gray glimmer that ringed the horizons. They halted for rest only when Adrik collapsed. After that, Raidon supported the sorcerer as they walked.

They passed over dry stream beds on crumbling bridges whose stones, once white, seemed discolored and bruised. They traversed empty crossroads, places where dim ways led to unknowable destinations beneath sagging silver trees. Now and then, murky windows of lonely spires fixed the travelers with blank, empty stares as they passed, unwelcoming and quiet. No lights burned from within those towers; all were dark and still, as if long abandoned.

"These seem as if they've been vacant longer than mere months or years," observed Raidon, who bore more and more of Adrik's weight as their journey wore on.

Kiril grunted, "The star elves have been in decline for the last millennia."

Raidon cocked his head, hoping for more explanation, but the swordswoman walked on. Further explanation would not alter the land's affliction, but understanding the situation might help stem his apprehension. The monk mentally took hold of his mind's reins and attempted to meditate on tranquility. What will be, will be.

With a day or more of travel behind them, they paused at the lip of a shallow dell. A silver-gray mist flowed sluggishly through the hollow and across the road, like a low fog. The stars above seemed strangely dull.

Kiril said, "We should go around."

Adrik detached himself from Raidon's help and mumbled a few arcane syllables, then said, "Good idea. The fog rebuffs my attempts to identify it. What is it?"

"A sign we draw close to Sild?yuir's edge, where the realm is not stable. Such intrusions have become prevalent since the nilshai's arrival."

The sorcerer said, "You're saying that the mist is. . what? A crack in existence?"

"Perhaps. One you don't want to fall into." So saying, she turned and walked away from the road and up the side of a hill. Raidon supported the sorcerer, whose spell noticeably weakened him.

But the initial misty streamer, easily bypassed, was a herald of more sightings, occasionally in the distance, other times as barriers thrown across their path. Sometimes long misty arms twisted through the trees to their left or right, paralleling their path like a hungry predator. Other times they were forced to backtrack when their route was cut off by broad swaths of the gray miasma.

Finally the forest thinned and they moved into clear land. A barren, rocky plain sloped down to a flat expanse, as if to the sea. But what lay beyond the stagnant coast was not water. It was a shoreless ocean of gray mist, cold and perfect.

Alone on the beach stood a lean figure. They approached and saw it was a tall, lordly star elf dressed in black robes on which was emblazoned the symbol of a white tree on a field of blue. Raidon recognized a fellow initiate of focus and self-discipline in the man's ramrod straight posture, though he suspected the elf's mastery lay over magic instead of the physical arts. The elf had eyes of milk white, with no hint of an iris, and his graceful features were graven with the weight of long care. A platinum circlet clamped his shaved skull. Without hair, his elven ears seemed more sinister than fey.

A circle of dead nilshai lay about the elf's feet. Blood smudged his face and hands, and dirt stained his clothing. But he was unbowed. He watched calmly as they picked their way down the cruel slope. Raidon nearly carried Adrik when they joined the figure before the silent ocean where reality frayed to nothing.

"Edgewarden," said Kiril, her back straightening. Raidon understood she must hold great respect for this man. "I hoped you'd still be here, guarding Stardeep's flank."

He studied her without speaking for a moment, then he said, "It has been a long time since a Keeper last came to visit me here at the end of the world. But the Keepers of the Cerulean Sign are an old, dusty order, eh? I wondered if perhaps I were the last."

"Hells and blood! No aberration born or grown has yet been able to best me, and I wield the Blade Cerulean. I, at least, remain. There are Knights still in Stardeep-or there were several days ago. My companions and I must press into Stardeep to determine their fate, and the status of the Traitor."

The bald elf said, "These creatures"-he gestured at the dead nilshai-"who've thrice found me here at the edge as I walked the periphery-do their attacks have anything to do with your desire to enter Stardeep? I guess they must have sympathies for the conspirator who lingers in Stardeep's deepest dungeon."

Kiril swallowed. "You have the right of it. The gods-damned nilshai were agents of the aboleths all along. They and the Traitor serve the same abominable masters. I go to discover if the Traitor remains penned; I fear he's escaped, or is on the cusp of doing so. Angul and I will try to put things right."

The elf nodded, and Kiril continued. "Edgewarden, if I may-have you had any communication from Stardeep of late? Has news perchance reached you of a former Keeper named Nangulis?"

The man shrugged. "No one comes this way. Except for the nilshai, I haven't seen anyone before you in seven years."

Kiril dropped her eyes, glumly nodding.

The Edgewarden looked at Raidon and Adrik. "Are these Keepers I haven't yet met?" His eyes lingered on Adrik and he frowned. Raidon guessed Adrik would not normally be allowed entry to the hidden realm.

"No-"

The bald elf moved to Adrik, who lay glassy-eyed on the beach. "What ails him?"

Raidon looked up. "He was poisoned by a nilshai. Can you help?"

The Edgewarden bent and ran his fingers lightly over the sorcerer's arm, chest, and forehead. His eyes narrowed and he said, "I can provide relief, though my ministrations are only temporary."

So saying, he muttered liquid syllables that were like a cool, refreshing wind. When Raidon tried to recall the sounds a moment later, they were gone. The Edgewarden touched Adrik with fingers sparkling as if with Stardust, and some color returned to the sorcerer's features.

The dark-robed elf stripped away the tourniquet and helped Adrik to his feet. The sorcerer was blinking and gazing around at the beach and misty sea in bemusement. He asked, "How did we get here?"

The Edgewarden patted the sorcerer's arm and asked Kiril, "And your other companion?"

Kiril pointed at Raidon. "This one carries a relic of our order-his mother was a star elf, though as far as I know she never came to Stardeep. How she got an Amulet of the Sign is a mystery. She passed it to her son."

The Edgewarden squinted at Raidon, then said, "Such relics are few and far between in these waning days of Sild?yuir. What was your mother's name?"

The monk said, "Answering that question is the quest that brought me here. I do not know her name, only that she came from this realm."

"I see," responded the Edgewarden, shaking his head. "I apologize, but these lands are under threat of collapse. ."

Surprising himself, Raidon broke the rules of proper discourse to interrupt. "But I just found this land! How can I protect my mother? What must I do to safeguard Sild?yuir?"

The old elf raised a placating palm. "If you and Kiril succeed in penning the Traitor, if he's truly free, then Sild?yuir may stabilize enough for me to continue my attempt to rein-scribe its borders. If so, return and find me. I think I can help you find your mother. If not, nothing else will matter."

Uncertainty and hope strove in Raidon's chest. Aloud he said, "Then succeed we must. I will return to speak with you again, Edgewarden."

"In case you do not return, know this: I suspect your mother's name is Erunyauv?."

Raidon asked, "What, do you know her?"

"Many gifts are mine, including divination. When I look at you, I hear that name. And why not-would you be here right now if not for the amulet she left you? It is a name that is not without history of its own, though time is too short to relay it. If. . when you return, I shall lend you my expertise in locating her. If she is anywhere within the realm of greater Yuireshanyaar, I can find her."

Raidon breathed a sigh and bowed his head.

Kiril broke in. "Edgewarden, please show us the path to Stardeep."

Ignoring the sorcerer, the Edgewarden said, "I shall, before another wave of nilshai descends. I sense them massing somewhere in this damnable flux."

So saying, he pointed up the grade they'd just descended. Raidon's eyes found a feature some twenty paces up the slope. What the monk had taken as just another boulder protruding from the sandy grit was revealed as something more: the rocky frame of a massive iron door. Had the Edgewarden dropped an illusion covering a doorway that had been there all along, or had he called the entrance into existence by mere desire?

Xet chimed and landed on top of the rocky frame holding the gate. The tiny construct slapped the door with its long tail. A dull gong tolled out across the misty expanse.

Kiril motioned Raidon forward. "Present your amulet to the doors. Angul would serve, but I prefer to keep him sheathed."

Raidon blinked, but he pulled forth the forget-me-not his mother-Erunyauv? — had given him. He displayed it before the sealed doorway. Nothing happened. He stepped forward another pace and touched the amulet to the lackluster iron.

Blue light sparked from amulet to gate. Stones danced and skittered down the slope as the entire beach shuddered. With an ear-splitting groan, the iron door swung wide, opening onto a shadowed, dusty stone stair descending into unguessed depths.

They entered Stardeep by a route rarely taken.