Ruins of Myth Drannor (30 page)

Suddenly, a loud crash! rent the air. The sound came not from the floor, where Kestrel had expected it, but from above. The dragon-kin, distracted, spun around, allowing her to plant Loren’s Blade in her opponent’s back and see for herself the source of the noise.

Shards of glass rained down from the chamber’s window as a lone figure swung in on a rope. An angel of darkness, her face a mask of vengeance, swooped in to seize justice for the wronged and wreak retribution on the guilty.

Nathlilik.

The drow leader gripped the rope with only one hand. In the other she clutched a spiked mace, raised high. Blood running from cuts all over her body, her white hair streaming loose behind her, she sailed through the air toward the Vessel of Souls.

“Kedar!” she cried. “I do this for you!”

As the arc of her swing brought her directly above the urn, she let go of the rope. She dropped twenty feet to the vessel and struck the invisible force field with her mace. At the same moment, the support beams finally slid out of place. The Vessel of Souls, and Nathlilik along with it, plummeted.

It smashed through the floor, shattering the glass and continuing its descent. A deafening explosion sounded. Unholy shrieks and sobs filled the chamber, rising to a crescendo so intense that Kestrel covered her ears lest the cacophony of terror and torment drive her mad.

A whirlwind surged up through the jagged hole in the floor. Thousands of lost souls, their ghostly faces contorted with hopelessness, spiraled toward the ceiling. The cyclone snuffed out the chamber’s torches, leaving only the pale natural light of the broken window to illuminate the room.

The funnel of damned spirits arched through the window. As it reached the open sky it flew apart, releasing the trapped souls to the gods. The horrible anthem of despair at last ceased.

Within, every drow in the chamber collapsed at once, their bodies turned to dust. At the loss of their allies, the remaining dragon-kin took to the air and fled. Only the companions remained.

In the hushed aftermath, Kestrel picked her way through drow ashes and shards of broken glass to the edge of the circle. She peered down. Nathlilik’s broken, lifeless body lay surrounded by fragments of the vessel she’d given her life to destroy.

Corran’s disembodied voice broke the stillness. “Is she alive?”

Kestrel shook her head and backed away from the ledge in silence. She couldn’t say she mourned the arrogant drow’s passing, but she respected Nathlilik’s sacrifice.

“Athan? Durwyn?” Corran called. “You still here?”

“Aye.”

“Here.”

“Then we haven’t a moment to lose. Now that the drow have fallen, Mordrayn knows exactly where we are.”

*

“What word from Mulmaster?”

“The city is nearly depleted. Panic spreads throughout the Moonsea—soon all the Heartlands will be ours. What tidings here?”

“Intruders have toppled the Vessel of Souls. The Mistress is beyond irate. She says the pool shall be well-fed tonight—either with them or with us.”

Kestrel smiled in satisfaction as she listened to the exchange between cultists. Though the news from outside troubled her, she delighted in the knowledge that they’d gotten under Mordrayn’s skin.

After leaving the vessel chamber, the party had hurried to the ground floor of the castle and combed it for a route of descent to the pool cavern. Thanks to Pelendralaar’s cave-in, none existed save this room—the castle’s former great hall, now a magical way station for cultists. Four enchanted gates occupied the hall, one on each wall. Three were of ordinary size, while the last appeared three times the size of any Kestrel had ever seen. A cult sorcerer kept watch at the entrance of each gate, and several squads of fighters were stationed throughout the hall.

Kestrel and the others observed the scene from the corner of a gallery that ran the length of three walls. As they watched, cultists arrived through the smaller gates and entered the large one. A few, like the fighter they’d just overheard, stopped to talk with the cult sorcerers standing guard. From the conversations, she surmised that the small gates all led to points outside Myth Drannor, while the main gate led to the pool cavern.

She gazed at the smaller gates longingly. Beyond lay the outside world. What an easy thing it would be to sneak away from the party and dart through one of those gates, out of Myth Drannor and away from this impossible quest. A few short days ago, she might have done that very thing.

But—independent of the fact that the cult’s plan meant no safe place existed to run to—she found she could not abandon her companions now. She felt a responsibility to them and to their mission. Her mission. The fate of the world as they knew it rested in their hands. For once in her life, she was part of something greater than herself. She would not back away.

When they were finished, when they had defeated the cult and destroyed the pool, then they could use those smaller gates to leave Myth Drannor. They could go home. She could collect her cache—perhaps even a reward from Elminster—and set herself up for a life of ease. After all this, she’d earned it.

With new conviction, she assessed the situation once more. Somehow, they had to pass through that main gate. “Ghleanna, perhaps now would be a good time for those remaining invisibility spells,” she whispered. Corran, Athan, and Durwyn remained unseen. “Cloak yourself and Faeril—I can sneak past the guards.”

Ghleanna, her clawed face partially healed by a blueglow moss potion, shook her head. “I have developed a modified invisibility spell of my own. We can all pass through unseen.”

“First we must close the other gates,” Corran said, “to stop the influx of cultists.”

“If we do that, how will we ever get home?” Kestrel wished she could see Corran’s face and not have this conversation with a disembodied voice. “After we stop Mordrayn, and…” She caught the expression in Ghleanna and Faeril’s eyes.

None of them were going home.

“You’ve been saying all along that this quest is suicidal,” Ghleanna said gently. “I think we must face the possibility that in destroying the pool, we may also—”

“No!” Kestrel shook her head vehemently. “I won’t accept that.” She couldn’t accept it—her survival instinct was too strong. “I know what I said before, but I don’t intend to die a martyr’s death. We are going to confront Mordrayn and the dracolich, we are going to annihilate that damnable pool, and then we are walking out of here alive. Do you hear me? Alive. All of us.”

Her new-found optimism surprised Ghleanna and Faeril. In truth, it surprised her, but she had worked hard to get to this point, fought harder than she’d ever fought for anything in her life. No one—not Mordrayn, not Pelendralaar, not every member of the whole despicable cult-was going to rob her of telling this tale in her old age.

A strong, unseen hand touched her shoulder. “Let us leave one gate open, then,” Athan said, “to go home.”

Ghleanna’s forked lightning bolt stunned the sorcerer standing guard and collapsed one of the small gates in a crackling implosion of electricity. All eyes turned to the bolt’s point of origin just in time to see a second bolt race forth to disable the gate opposite and shock that guard as well. The bolts seemed to spring from thin air—Ghleanna’s improved version of Jarial’s spell enabled her to remain invisible while spellcasting.

Kestrel rejoiced in the gates’ easy destruction. At last, events were going their way. All that remained was to quickly dart through the main portal and into the pool cavern, then collapse the portal behind them. The party could worry later about how to return to the great hall to exit through the remaining gate. For now, they preferred to protect their backs from the arrival of reinforcements as they confronted the archmage and dracolich.

By this point, Faeril and Durwyn should have reached the other side of the main gate. The invisible pair was to pass through before Ghleanna’s spells drew attention to the party’s presence. Corran and Athan flanked the sorceress, in case Ghleanna’s untried invisibility spell exposed her during casting after all. Kestrel was stationed at the main gate in the event its guard got any ideas about closing the portal before the whole party passed through. Each of her unseen companions was to sound a low whistle while entering to alert her to their movements.

It was a perfect plan. In theory.

The cultists, however, didn’t cooperate. The cult sorcerer guarding the main gate immediately unleashed a spell aimed at Ghleanna—or at least, where one would assume she stood while summoning the lightning bolts. Kestrel prayed that her companion had moved in time to avoid the spell. To her horror, the half-elf materialized a moment later, unharmed but fully visible. The cultist’s spell had counteracted hers.

A squad of cult fighters advanced on Ghleanna as the two remaining gate guards prepared to sling more magic at her. Kestrel sneaked up behind the closest sorcerer and slit his throat Something slipped from his hand—a crumpled roll of paper. She let it drift to the floor, more pressing matters drawing her attention.

Seeing a fatal knife slash suddenly open in his comrade’s neck, the final sorcerer diverted his spell at the last second to aim it at Kestrel. She used the cultist’s body as a shield, letting the corpse absorb the enchantment. The body disintegrated in her hands.

She looked up from the dust to see Ghleanna hastily retreating toward her. Corran and Athan—exposed to sight by their strikes against the closing cult fighters—followed close behind. Ghleanna flung a final spell at the cult sorcerer before diving into the gate.

Her fireball sped toward the guard, but at the last moment veered away into the gate. The portal immediately imploded, disappearing in a puff of smoke.

They’d lost their way home.

Cursing, Kestrel dropped to the floor in time to avoid the sorcerer’s next attack. How was it that he could see her? His spells were aimed with deadly accuracy. As a crackling finger of magical energy sped across the room, she realized she was not his target at all—he was aiming at the gate.

The enchanted bolt struck the portal. She rolled away as sparks flew and electrical feedback seized the opening. The gate collapsed.

Damn it all! Dread swept through her. Everything was falling apart. Half their party was on the other side of that gate, including both their spellcasters. Kestrel didn’t know whose predicament was worse: those now in the pool cavern facing Mordrayn alone or those left behind with all these cultists.

Corran and Athan still battled their way toward her. She glanced wildly around the room in search of a likely exit. As she tried to rise to her feet, her left hand slid on something—the piece of paper the sorcerer had dropped.

Damn that cultist to the Abyss, anyway! Damn them all. She picked up the paper, crumpled it in her hand, and nearly hurled it in frustration before two words caught her eye: Summon Gate. It was a scroll, a magical scroll with the incantation to open the gate once more.

And Ghleanna was gone.

Kestrel looked to Corran. Could the paladin work one of those miracles he’d talked about and somehow cast the spell off this scroll? Beyond him, she saw the cult sorcerer prepare to throw more magic. Corran and Athan approached but not quickly enough. Another squad of cult fighters closed in.

She glanced at the paper once more. There was no one to read the incantation in time. No one but her.

Her voice shaking with desperation, she uttered the first few words. When no pillar of magical flame consumed her for presuming to work the arcane arts, she continued. Corran and Athan edged closer—as did their foes. The cult sorcerer raised his hands and pointed a sinister finger at the warriors.

She read faster, her tongue tripping over the unfamiliar syllables. Suddenly, a ball of light burst into being and grew steadily to the size of a door. She’d done it! She’d opened the gate.

“Corran! Athan! Now!”

The warriors heard her cry and retreated toward her. As the cultist unleashed his spell, the three of them dove into the portal.

The gate collapsed.

She couldn’t breathe.

“Kestrel? Is that you?” Corran rose, lifting his heavy bulk from where he’d landed on top of her. She struggled to inhale some air. His weight had knocked the wind right out of her lungs.

“Y… es.”

Though she could barely gasp out the word, she would not have spoken louder if she could. They’d spilled out of the gate just as it imploded and wound up sprawled in the corner of a dank, earthen room. No cultists occupied this small antechamber, but she could hear hundreds of voices chanting nearby.

“Thank the gods you all made it here,” said another familiar voice. Ghleanna picked up Corran’s shield and handed it to the paladin. “We had begun to fear we’d have to take on the archmage alone.”

“We?” Athan asked. “Faeril and Durwyn are here as well, then?”

“Right here,” responded Faeril’s disembodied voice. Durwyn also spoke up, though both invisible speakers used muted tones.

Kestrel passed her hand in front of her eyes to test the sorceress’s spell. Fortunately, she too remained invisible. With a deep breath, she rolled off her stomach, sat up, and assessed their surroundings. The rough-hewn room appeared to have once served as the entryway to a vast chamber beyond. The pile of rock and rubble on one end suggested that they’d arrived on the other side of the cave-in Pelendralaar had caused earlier. Through the sole doorway drifted a monotone mantra droned by countless voices.

Above it, in macabre counterpoint, rose an all-too-familiar babble of lapping water. The Pool of Radiance.

Kestrel’s collarbone vibrated in time with the sinister chant as she crept to the doorway. Corran approached even more cautiously, taking care to stay as hidden as possible. The sight that greeted them stole her breath once more.

The antechamber opened into a vast cavern. The floor of the cavern was well below the antechamber, joined together by a long slope. At the cavern’s center lay the Pool of Radiance. Amber light infused its water, which gently lapped its banks in a peaceful motion that belied its lethal nature. Hundreds of cult sorcerers and fighters lined the pool’s perimeter, their squads assembled with military precision.