Stardeep

CHAPTER NINE

Stardeep, Outer Bastion War Room

From the shadows, Telarian inquired, "Commander Brathtar, how stands the Causeway?" An elf caparisoned in mithral greaves and hauberk started, then looked up to the unlighted balcony. Brathtar stood before a great oak table scattered with maps, miniature figures sculpted in lead, and quill pens. Several others around the table, similarly armored and armed, if not quite as grandly as Brathtar, broke off their discussion, which had grown heated.

The Empyrean Knights were pledged to Stardeep first and foremost, and their watchword was valor. A knight who joined the elite in Stardeep first learned that anyone, meek or brave, could wake to valor if the cause was true. Empyrean Knights held fire in their hearts, but were not unthinking brutes. Knights held tight to sword in one hand, and strategy in the other. That strategy was determined first and foremost by the Knights' commander, Brathtar.

Brathtar studied the shadowed gallery, squinting, and said, "Keeper Telarian, I didn't realize you were observing the War Room. Please forgive my lapse." A questioning, attentive mask settled upon the Knight Commander's face. A mask, because Telarian knew the commander had come to view him with grave misgivings.

Telarian allowed one gloved hand to fall, as if by accident, upon the pommel of his darkly sheathed sword. With its touch, even through the barrier his glove offered, the confidence of his convictions reasserted itself. He said, "I couldn't help overhear the concerns you and your people were discussing regarding my orders. Did I hear correctly?"

Brathtar visibly steeled himself, then replied, "Keeper Telarian, I'm afraid I must admit to real tactical incomprehension regarding the foray you've ordered. I judge such an action will merely draw the attention of the wood elves. My intelligence gatherers assure me the Causeway's location, and perhaps even the existence of Stardeep itself, remains a well-kept secret in the Yuirwood. If we venture forth in force. ."

Telarian nodded, saying, "My orders may seem counterintuitive, Commander. But, as I'm sure you appreciate, as a Keeper my sources of information reach farther than yours. I assure you, Brathtar, this foray is imperative. A physical patrol is warranted, lest sympathizers of the Traitor creep too close."

Rank disbelief battled across the face of Telarian's most trusted commander. The Keeper wondered from where his first reaction came-to bash sense into the man with the blunt side of his sword, and if that did not suffice. .

Telarian shook away the impulse. Not the most diplomatic of responses. But the commander had been showing more and more disregard for Telarian's orders the last few years. His insolence was becoming tiresome.

As Keeper of the Outer Bastion, the Empyrean Knights answered ultimately to Telarian. He should not have to suffer Brathtar's second guesses and impudence. When had the trust between them evaporated? In the not too distant past, Telarian had occasionally joined Brathtar and his captains for their dice games. Other times Telarian had invited the Commander to his quarters for a glass of the sparkling white he imported once a year, at great cost, out of Sild?yuir. Once they'd even ventured into the first leg of the surrounding dungeon tunnels, tunnels whose existence hadn't been realized when Stardeep was initially sited and constructed. Apparently, Stardeep hadn't been the first prison to occupy this out-of-the-way locale. Brathtar had saved his life during that foray, when they'd disturbed a swarm of fossilized. . undead? They were mindless but cruelly animate. Brathtar had ordered the tunnels closed after that, of course.

Telarian supposed things began to change between him and Brathtar after his Epoch-enhanced gaze first glimpsed the glyph-scribed blasphemy in the clouds. When he'd foreseen that the citadel of the Traitor's hope was fated to emerge from prehistory, Telarian immediately bent all his thought toward averting that fate. With his investment in saving the world from catastrophe, time to nurture friendships was difficult to schedule.

Altering a fated future was said to be impossible-all the classic divinatory texts warned against such attempts. It was a fundamental philosophy of his school. When one attempted to thread destiny's needle, unplanned consequences always followed. But it wasn't in Telarian to give up. Even when sacrifices were required.

The Keeper's gaze fell to the silent, brooding blade sheathed at his side.

The stakes were too high to back out now. Nis was a requirement of his plan, even if his dreams were sometimes tainted by the thing's dark influence. If his relationship to Brathtar was another requisite sacrifice to change the future, then so be it. Better a soured friendship than a world overturned.

He looked back to his commander, who was impatiently enduring Telarian's long silence. He could relieve the man of his office. . but Brathtar's competence was unmatched. He needed Brathtar in his current role. Too bad force wouldn't secure him Brathtar's trust. Nor would truth-his plan spiraled too far from what any sane person would accept without the proof that only an Epoch Chamber vision could provide. And no one in Stardeep was properly trained to endure such a vision. Except himself. So secrecy was required. Yet his commands still met resistance.

So he'd tried diplomacy. It had always been one of his strengths. Had he completely lost the knack? No, it was Nis. The blade put everyone off, even if they didn't realize why. But Telarian couldn't bring himself to leave the blade unattended, even locked in his inaccessible quarters.

But beyond Nis, the falsehoods he daily mouthed were taking their toll. The justifications he provided for all his recent decisions were a tapestry of partial truths.

To be sure, the carefully constructed bed of untruth served as the necessary and moral foundation of his true effort to avert the final apocalypse. In the balance, he doubted a few truths twisted for sake of all Toril would stain his soul.

Yet he remained a poor liar.

"You have my orders. Your place is not to question, but to act as instructed. Please do not provide further reasons for me to wonder about my choice of Knight Commander."

Brathtar's eyes narrowed. But he said, "You are the Keeper. I am pledged to Stardeep and will do what is necessary to protect her. I've already prepared the foray. A handpicked troop will venture forth down the Causeway."

Telarian let the commander's dig pass unremarked, giving a curt nod. He called to the air, "Cynosure? Connect me to my quarters."

Moments later, only shadows inhabited the balcony above the War Room.

When Delphe opened the door from her chambers that led to the common area of the Inner Bastion, something fluttered to the floor. A vellum envelope. She bent, retrieved it, and examined its exterior. The red wax seal proclaimed the letter was from the desk of Stardeep's Empyrean Knight Commander.

What was the man's name. .? Brathtar, that was it. She recalled seeing him in the Inner Bastion from time to time, enjoying Telarian's patronage, though not recently.

"What have you found, Delphe?" inquired Cynosure, his voice issuing from a small statue standing in its niche at the center of the hallway.

"A memorandum from the Knight Commander. How odd. Why didn't Brathtar ask you to pass the message?"

While useful for communication sent beyond the confines of Stardeep, a hand-delivered letter was hardly a substitute for asking the idol's aid. Cynosure was everywhere in Stardeep. Perhaps the man enjoyed his formalities?

Silence greeted her question, so she broke the seal and shook out the parchment within. On it was scrawled:

Keeper Delphe,

Forgive this sudden request, but I humbly ask you to meet me at your earliest convenience. Please come in person.

Yours,

Commander Brathtar

"Odd. . Cynosure-please relay to Commander Brathtar a question: Why do you want to meet me?"

Cynosure's voice remained silent a moment, then relayed, "I'm afraid that's impossible, Delphe-Commander Brathtar and a contingent of his Knights departed Stardeep via the Causeway just this morning."

The Keeper nearly dropped the letter. "Empyrean Knights rode forth from Stardeep? What's happened?"

"Telarian ordered the excursion. I believe he had some concerns regarding a nearby wood elf encampment. You'll have to inquire of Telarian directly. My purview doesn't extend beyond the Outer Bastion."

Delphe turned from her door and strode the curved length of Tardoun Hall, so named for one of the first Keepers to inhabit Stardeep after its delving. A frieze of carved figures ran along both sides of the hall, depicting elves involved in all manner of clerical and teleological pursuits-charting the courses of the stars figured prominently. She passed doors leading to the lounge, the baths, the archives, the repository, the noisy chamber housing Cynosure Prime, the dining hall, the steeply sloping stairs that led down to the Outer Bastion, and various lesser side halls. Finally, Telarian's personal chamber. The door was closed. She knocked.

No answer.

"Cynosure, please tell me where I can find my fellow Keeper."

"He is in the Epoch Chamber."

"The what?"

"Some months ago, Telarian completed construction, with my aid, of a chamber designed to focus his precognitive talent."

The abjurer blinked. "Why didn't I know about this?"

"The chamber lies just beyond the limits of Stardeep's Inner Bastion."

"So it is also outside my concern, is that what you're implying? Everything in Stardeep is my concern, Cynosure!" Her earlier worries about the sentient idol's faculties woke again.

"Would you like me to connect you?" Cynosure volunteered.

"You said this new chamber lies beyond the limits of the Inner Bastion. How-"

"It is close enough for me to transport you. It has no entrance or exit besides me."

Just like the Well, she realized.

"Yes, Cynosure. Warn Telarian I'm on my way, then connect me."

A parabola of blue light spun out of nothing, engulfing her. Her stomach lurched and darkness descended. She blinked, and her eyes readjusted. She stood within a small dome.

The floor was scribed with a star-in-circle configuration she recognized from old texts-a predictive tool prized by diviners. The floor gently rolled and pitched in an unsettling manner, as if floating on liquid. Telarian reclined at the star's center, staring at her, surprise evident on his face.

"Delphe!"

"Why, hello, Telarian. I see you've been delving new chambers within Stardeep?" She tried to keep her voice light, but was mostly unsuccessful.

Telarian raised himself to a sitting position then stood. His features resumed their normally placid countenance.

He said, "As you can see." He gestured around. "I find the Epoch Chamber helps concentrate my talents."

"Ah-so Cynosure informed me. And have you learned anything useful?" She gazed down at the smaller symbols scribed around the circle's periphery and at the slowly burning incense sticks.

He squinted at her, a yearning expression briefly inhabiting his face. Then he smiled ruefully. "Not yet. But if I can look forward far enough, I can foresee all potential escape attempts by the Traitor. Once I know of them, I can eradicate each and every possibility from the time stream."

Her eyes widened. "Is that possible?"

He shrugged. "So I hope."

"The Traitor tried today-I would have told you earlier, but I couldn't find you. Did you foresee that?"

"He tried today?"

"Yes-your new chamber didn't foresee it?"

Telarian considered, frowning. Then he said, "It did not. But then, it wouldn't, would it? You obviously foiled the effort."

"But he mounted a genuine, credible effort! If I hadn't stemmed the attempt. . what good is your early warning chamber if-"

He put up a hand. "Why should I focus on escape attempts already destined to be foiled by our efforts? Interference in such events, already predetermined to proceed one way, could finish far differently. No, I'm looking for instances of probability where the Traitor successfully breaks free of all our containment efforts."

Delphe blinked. "Successfully?"

"Yes. If I can identify those instances, how ever far in the future, I can take steps right now in the present to make certain those circumstances fail to develop and materialize."

Delphe put a hand to the side of her head. Telarian's voice seemed so matter of fact, so rational. But the meanings behind the words he spoke seemed unbound by reason. She spoke out, "How far do you look?"

He smiled. A note of pride crept into his voice as he explained. "Before I crafted this chamber, I could see only moments, perhaps days at most. Now I can see years. The misty edges of a century ahead are becoming clear to me. ."

Telarian broke off, frowning.

"And you've seen. . what?"

He plied her with another gauging look. Finally he said, "I've seen worrying images. ."

She grasped his shoulder, squeezing. "What? What did you see?"

He frowned again, said, "I'm too close to the edge of temporal resolution; I can't be sure. I'm working to increase the clarity of that vision so the details will firm up."

"You must have seen something-I can tell by your expression you hold something back. From your fellow Keeper!"

"Delphe, until I could be relatively certain, I didn't want to commit all of Stardeep to a plan that might be unnecessary. I-"

She squeezed harder. "Describe the images you saw."

He swallowed, then spoke. "Alliances. The Traitor retains alliances with those outside Stardeep, outside even the hidden realm of Sild?yuir. I've seen visions of wood elves unearthing old tomes, old journals, and becoming ensnared. But the seeds of corruption have already been cast, or soon will be. If we do not act in relatively short order, I fear that wood elves will find this cache."

Delphe released Telarian's arm and stepped back. She said, "You are certain?"

"No, not certain. But I am making preparations, gathering resources, sending out agents."

"Is that why you sent Empyrean Knights across the Causeway?"

His eyes narrowed but he nodded in agreement. "Yes, that's right. I sent them to reconnoiter a wood elf encampment established a fair distance from the Causeway. If the Knights reach the secret cache I saw in my vision first, the wood elves will never know the soul-corrupting danger they were saved from unearthing."

"Telarian, once more, explain why you've learned so much, taken so much upon yourself, without informing me."

Now it was his turn to grasp her shoulder, but she pushed him back. She considered asking Telarian to explain the significance of Brathtar's strange summons, but decided to keep that information in reserve.

Telarian paused, said, "If this all turns out to be a mad fancy, I wouldn't want to waste your time and thought on it. You're the Keeper of the Inner Bastion, the Watcher of the Well. Your duties are immediate and vital."

"But-"

"Trust me, Delphe. If this reconnaissance mission to the wood elf encampment confirms any of my visions, however slight, I shall instantly and immediately inform you. That was and remains my plan. Please don't make more of this than what it is-a foray to gather information, and perhaps to save a few elves from their own curiosity-nothing more."

A thought struck Delphe. "The appearance of strange elves in the armor of the Empyrean Knights could reveal the presence of Stardeep to the wood elf encampment."

The old twinkle returned to Telarian's eyes as he explained. "The Knights are not unskilled in woodcraft. They are abroad to observe only, not interact. Anyhow, Brathtar may not have to go anywhere near the village to find the cache."

Powdery snow accumulated across boughs, between pine needles, and across saplings and the dark ground under the great boles. Bit by bit through the night, it formed a curving white blanket covering the sleeping forest.

When Janesta Leafgrace emerged from her double-hide pavilion, she laughed as she shook the snow out of her hair that plopped down from above. She breathed in the crisp air that came with the newly laid covering. After snowfall, the woods took on the aspect of a fey wonderland that called her to explore a terrain transformed. Without disturbing anyone in her pavilion who reclined in remembering trances, she was away.

The snow was smooth and pristine, save for the elf-light tracks she left behind. The murmuring pines and hemlocks had fallen quiet under their newly made garments of white. Yes, even the sad, old voices of the so-called "elder druids" of the forest were speechless in the morning's wonder. Or so Janesta fancied.

And-

She spied a set of lone prints! Another early explorer, like her. Not a fellow from the encampment-it was a wildling of the forest.

She pursued the trail uphill, skirting an icy boulder field, staying beneath the canopy of oak branches. The prints were only partly familiar; certainly a big cat, but one new to the area, or at least new to her. The snowfall made following easy, but Janesta still practiced her forestcraft; she examined broken foliage, measured the length between prints, moved as quietly as she was able. When she saw a patch of disturbed snow, she dug up a shallowly buried cache of spoor.

It was a cougar after all, one from eastern Yuirwood. It had wandered close to the encampment. Janesta decided to stay on the trail to see if she could track it to its lair, if it had one. She suspected it might be a female, hungry to feed new cubs. If so, perhaps she would bring down a bird to help supplement its diet.

As she examined a spot where it had circled a stump, probably to mark its scent, she heard the first horns.

High, piercing, strangely thrilling. . but ominous for their unfamiliarity. They sounded like something described in a shaman's tale, something that warlike humans beyond the Yuirwood might produce on their metallic instruments. She frowned and turned toward home.

The sudden cries and screams that broke under the calling horns jolted Janesta into a run.

When the huntress reached her village under the snow-bowed canopy, she couldn't understand what transpired before her eyes-the scene was too far outside her experience for comprehension.

Humans-no, elves. . elves! Not wood elves like her tribe, or high elves she'd glimpsed on the Yuirwood's borders, nor even half-elves. Strange, steely eyed elves on mailed steeds. They were everywhere, surrounding the village, cantering through the center circle, sweeping down the side avenues. Resplendent in mail so fair it could only be mithral, the newcomer elves assailed her home without mercy.

Surprised and beset on all sides, wood elves died.

She saw friends taken in the back by scything swords. Others were pushed from high bowers by cruelly aimed arrows. A group that sought to flee beneath the boughs was ridden down by flashing hooves. Slender blades cut screaming throats. Dying children cried out to their parents, husbands to their wives. Janesta saw her friend Natal Peacethorn pulled from his home, shrieking. Her brother's wife Sarana was felled with two arrows. The monument stone that had stood three full tendays since the encampment's hopeful founding was toppled and smashed. Five hunters attempted to drag away wounded, but they were ridden down for their efforts.

Janesta was witnessing a heartless slaughter, nothing less. What courage she always assumed was hers failed; she shrank back into the undergrowth, all strength stolen from chilled, clammy limbs.

She turned, swearing, crying, hating herself, and ran blindly through the snowy woods, careful to keep her feet light and sliding, leaving as little sign as her snowcraft allowed. If she were to survive the annihilation of her home at the hands of these strange, steel-eyed elves, cowardice was her only option.

At first she ran without goal, holding no thought other than escape. As the heat of her exertion warmed her, a seed of fury blossomed, burning at the loss through which she labored. She adjusted her direction and set her course. She was bound for Relkath's Foot, one of the largest communities of wood elves in all the Yuirwood. There she would tell her story, pour out her anger, and gather a force. Only vengeance could sate her loss.

She would go to Relkath's Foot and alert the Masters of the Yuirwood.

The image of stern-faced elves in shining, blood-slicked mail maddened her. The kin-slaying elves hadn't dropped from the sky, nor were their horses lathered as if from a long ride. They had appeared from somewhere not far from the encampment. After she put a few miles of forest behind her, thinking all the while, Janesta was pretty sure from where.

On the edge of a pocket reality, a massive gate loomed, cold and gray, a lattice of strange script and tiny cracks bespeaking hundreds of years of weathering.

Telarian waited for Brathtar just inside the great stone gates that opened onto the mist-shrouded Causeway. Telarian often stood thus, year in and year out. The chiseled granite of the gate's face was as familiar as a friend. The Keeper knew every edge, every crack, every discoloration. Moreover, he was more than familiar with the inscriptions, sigils, and glyphs so prominently displayed. They warned of danger and death for any who entered uninvited, in a variety of tongues and alphabets:

This place is not a place of honor. No highly esteemed deed is commemorated here. . nothing valued is here.

What is here is dangerous and repulsive. This message is a warning about danger.

The danger is present in your time, as it was in ours.

The danger is to the world, and it can erase all life, overwriting all with abomination.

The danger may be unleashed if this place is disturbed. Shun this place. Turn around.

The warnings were not endowed with magical force capable of steering away the curious, but danger would certainly befall any who ignored the warnings and ventured into the shadowed Grand Vestibule.

On more than one occasion in the long history of Stardeep, the gates had withstood attacks by fools loyal to the Traitor, who had discovered his prison despite all the effort of hiding his location. But neither those ancient attacks, nor all the time that had since elapsed had discernibly weakened the facade. Stardeep's entrance stood strong and patient, capable of repelling anything thrown its way.

Above the gate was scribed the massive symbol of a strangely curving tree: Stardeep's emblem. Around the white tree was a circular field that glowed and flickered with bluish fire. Though of late, to Telarian's eyes, the fire seemed darker, sootier perhaps.

Telarian watched as the commander and his men slowly filed back across the hazy land bridge, as if resolving from imagination into reality. The men didn't speak to each other, or look up to salute the Keeper, as was his due. Desolation hung in their slack postures and in their limp hold on their reins.

Telarian recognized they had followed his orders.

Commander Brathtar brought up the column's rear, his mail dimmed by a sheen of dried blood. Behind him, the Causeway faded into the encroaching mist, hidden or truly dissolved, Telarian did not know. Either way, it would return when next bidden by Cynosure or him, and again provide a connection between Stardeep and the Yuirwood.

Brathtar reined up and fixed Telarian with a glassy stare. Some indefinable essence was missing in the man; he seemed anchorless. The Keeper regretted the change he saw, but neither pity nor concern were his to dispense. Brathtar's actions had been required, an important element of his delicate plan. Sacrifices were necessary if so much more was to be saved. What was the blood of dozens compared to the souls of all the world?

Brathtar said, "The encampment is cleansed, Keeper. The dissidents who planned the attack you described are. . no more."

"Your service is greater than you can know, Commander. Well done."

The elf commander cleared his throat, dropped his eyes for a moment. He had more to say.

"What is it?"

"As we cleaned up, one of my Knights found a trail. Someone escaped the encampment. We gave chase, but lost the track."

Telarian sensed something fall away into the suddenly yawning void of his mind. He hadn't foreseen a survivor. Over the sudden roaring in his ears he asked, too loud, "Are you certain?"

Brathtar nodded.

The noise in his ears grew louder, not unlike the horns he tested on occasion in the Outer Bastion. How. .? Where. .? But. . Telarian fumbled for reassurance as the floor of his certainty threatened to fall away. His gloved hand found the pommel of brooding Nis.

The horns ceased. Lucidity was restored, and with it, calm acceptance as wide as the untroubled Sea of Fallen Stars.

A fey thought danced across his mind; he would tighten his grip on Nis, pull forth the blade, and reward Brathtar for his failure.

Don't be a fool, Telarian, Nis whispered. We yet have uses for our Commander. With the completion of this last task, he is now a tool broken to our hand.

The Keeper let out his breath. He drowned his concerns in the unflappable serenity that oozed up from his fingers out of the unguessed depths of the black blade.