Ruins of Myth Drannor (16 page)

The smell of burning paper met her nostrils as smoke drifted toward her. In trying to injure Jarial, the foolish cultist had set an enormous old tome ablaze. Its wrought-iron stand probably would keep the flames from spreading, but the book and the knowledge it contained were now lost forever.

The smoke obscured the cult leader’s image even further. His shifting form seemed to be preparing yet another spell to aim at her. Kestrel groaned, her body already aching beyond anything she’d ever experienced. Despite the poor visibility, she couldn’t just stand here offering the wizard target practice. She peered through the dense air and grasped her weapon, preparing to throw. She would have to trust her instincts.

Just as she was about to toss the blade, a familiar voice penetrated the haze. “By the hand of Tyr!” The wizard yelped and doubled over. Corran materialized, his new blade wet with fresh blood.

“About damn time!” she shouted.

With a cry of rage, the evil sorcerer released the spell he’d prepared for Kestrel onto Corran instead. His image still blurred, he appeared to touch Corran’s arm for only a split second. Corran immediately staggered backward two paces, his face ashen and somehow drained of vitality.

With an evil grin the wizard straightened, now scarcely bothered by the wound Corran had opened in his gut.

A cold chill passed through Kestrel. The sorcerer had stolen some of Corran’s life force! What other evil could this necromancer wreak?

They could not afford to find out. She flung the dagger. It soared through the air and struck him squarely in the chest. Corran followed the strike with one of his own as Loren’s Blade flew back to Kestrel’s hand. The sorcerer’s eyes widened in pain and hatred, but he still did not die. Instead he began to utter the words of another incantation.

Kestrel prepared to hurl the magical blade again. Though the cultist’s wavering image became increasingly hard to discern through the smoke, she thought she saw him glance at the floor off to one side. She followed the direction of his gaze. There, forgotten in the fray, lay the skeletal arm bearing the Ring of Calling. The chief sorcerer seemed to be moving toward it as he avoided another of Corran’s blows.

Kestrel glanced at her companions. Jarial unleashed an incantation on his rival, sending another acidic arrow through the air to silence the sorcerer for good. Ghleanna also appeared in the process of casting a spell, this one at the leader. She squinted through the smoke, trying to fix her sight on him. Durwyn had just finished off the blinded mage and stood not far from the skeletal arm.

“Durwyn—the ring!” Kestrel cried. “Pick up the ring!”

Durwyn scanned the floor, spotted the arm, and rushed toward it. The cult leader’s voice increased in volume, sounding as if he were nearing the end of the spell he wove. As Ghleanna spoke the final word of her own spell, his shifting image solidified. The cultist stood only feet from the ring. He uttered the final thunderous syllable of his spell and reached for the skeletal arm.

Durwyn snatched it first. The sorcerer shrieked in anger.

And disappeared.

Knowing the cult sorcerer could return any moment with reinforcements, the party did not tarry in the Room of Words. Kestrel, Corran, and Jarial quickly downed blueglow moss potions for their injuries, and the band headed back through the tower to the dungeons.

They reached the Circle of Mythanthor—their gateway out of the dwarven undercity and up to the surface of Myth Drannor. Kestrel could feel the adrenaline pumping through her as they all gathered beside the golden circle on the floor. As much as she’d resisted joining this mission, she was swept up with the others in the excitement of at last completing the first stage of their quest. Finally, they could leave the dark dungeons behind them.

Durwyn handed Ghleanna the skeletal arm. She traced her fingertips around the Ring of Calling, lingering on the starstone gem. Then she tilted her chin up, closed her eyes, and spoke the Word of Oblivion in a steady, clear voice.

“Resheshannen!”

The bones crumbled to dust, leaving only the ring in the sorceress’s hand. The white starstone sparkled in the torchlight as Ghleanna slipped it on her finger. “Come,” she said. “Let us leave the darkness.”

One at a time, they entered the circle. Ghleanna crossed the boundary last. The moment she stepped inside, a sphere of light appeared and hovered before them. It widened until it reached the size and shape of a doorway. Sunlight shone through from the other side, where Kestrel could make out the towering spires and elaborate architecture of the ruined but still impressive Heights of Myth Drannor. In the distance, the parapets of Castle Cormanthor rose toward the sky as if seeking release from the evil that gripped the fortress.

The city surface—and with it, Mordrayn and Pelendralaar—awaited.

As the party emerged into full daylight, Kestrel squeezed her eyes shut, then forced open two narrow slits. After days spent in the dim torchlight of the dwarven undercity, the sudden brightness of the sun’s rays stung her eyes. Several minutes passed before she could open her lids wide enough to behold Myth Drannor’s acropolis.

They entered the Heights at the base of a large statue of a wizard. The elderly elven spellcaster was half-enveloped in a finely-woven mantle, its threads seemingly swirling about him. He stood with his hands thrust skyward and his head thrown back, an expression of intense concentration or ecstasy—Kestrel could not tell which—etched on his face. The pedestal on which the statue rested bore the name “Mythanthor.”

Behind them, the Speculum rose up in all its majesty and mystery. As Jarial had described, the structure was indeed shaped like a dragon. An enormous horned head dominated the main entrance, its jeweled yellow eyes glowering at all who dared enter the doors below. As Caalenfaire had told them, huge boulders and other piles of rubble blocked the entrance. Fore—and hindlegs projected out in high relief from the stone walls, and a curving exterior staircase formed the creature’s tail and back. The mighty beast lay curled around a large “egg”—a domed room in the center of the building.

Next to the Speculum stood an amphitheater. Its seats, many of them crumbling from age or assault, rose fully half the height of the Speculum dragon in a half-circle that matched the curve of the dragon’s tail. The stage was a large, but simple, white disc-shaped stone.

To the east lay the Onaglym, its intact state a testament to the unequaled engineering talent of the dwarves who constructed it so many centuries ago. While hundreds of Myth Drannor’s lesser buildings lay ruined by the ravages of war or years, the House of Gems yet remained, a strong, silent sentinel to the changes wrought by time and mortal vanity.

Castle Cormanthor graced the highest point of the Heights. It rose up from the cliff on which it was built, its many graceful spires reaching higher into the sky than any others in the city. At one time, walkways apparently had connected all the[2]spires to the main castle and to each other, but most of these had been destroyed or damaged beyond use. Those that remained looked like a precarious challenge to even an acrobat’s sense of balance. The narrow spans, several hundred feet above the ground, had no rails, and nothing below to break one’s fall.

Moments ago, Kestrel had flushed with a sense of accomplishment at managing to leave the dwarven dungeons at last. But now, scanning the center of Myth Drannor, she realized much more work lay ahead. They had to find Harldain Ironbar, the ally Caalenfaire had mentioned. They had a Mythal to cleanse, an archmage and a dracolich to defeat, and a pool to destroy. She stifled a sigh. “I suppose we ought to head back to the House of Gems?”

Corran glanced at the Onaglym, frowning at the wisps of smoke that still drifted out of the Round Tower. “I suggest we explore a bit before seeking out Harldain Ironbar. That sorcerer might come back to the House of Gems looking for us, and I’d like him to think we’re long gone.”

“So would I.” Kestrel gingerly rubbed her right arm. Though healed of its worst injuries, her body still ached where the cultist’s magical strikes had hit her.

They headed in the opposite direction of the Onaglym, to an area southwest of the Speculum. This part of the city lay in almost complete ruin. Its once-stable ground had become marshy, and now the stagnant water and damp air slowly completed the destruction that the wars had started. Large chunks of marble, granite, and crystal lay strewn about like dice from the hands of giants, their surfaces eroded by the elements and covered with green-gray moss and other vegetation. Few buildings retained enough of their structure to be recognizable as former dwellings, businesses, or temples.

One such ruin caught Kestrel’s attention. A shell of white marble reached heavenward, the star symbol of Mystra etched into its largest remaining side. Mystra’s sign was barely visible beneath the new symbols covering the crumbling walls. The name and image of Llash, a three-headed snake god, had been painted and scrawled all over the building in thick black lines.

Corran stopped in his tracks when he saw the sacrilege. “It’s a mercy that Beriand’s eyes cannot behold this,” he said softly.

A light breeze stirred. From the ruined shrine came a sound like the whimper of an injured animal.

“Do you hear that?” Kestrel asked.

Ghleanna frowned in concentration. “Hear what?”

The sound drifted toward them again, this time resembling a crying woman. Kestrel glanced at each of her companions in turn, but all wore blank expressions. Could no one else hear that wail? “Never mind.” She shrugged, trying to dismiss the unsettling feeling creeping up her neck. “It must be the wind whistling through cracks in the walls.”

“Are you sure about that?” Jarial regarded her seriously. “If you think you hear something, Kestrel, we should check it out.”

The vote of confidence surprised her. “All right, then. I think I hear something—or someone—crying inside.”

They approached the shrine. The land surrounding it seemed particularly swampy. In fact, a large puddle of stagnant water had formed to one side of it. The closer they got, however, the more the hairs on the back of Kestrel’s neck rose, until her collarbone tingled.

“Stop!” The party came to an abrupt halt as Kestrel peered at the puddle. Was it her imagination, or did the water have an amber glow to it? “Unless I’m mistaken, that’s no ordinary water.”

Jarial, the only one among them who hadn’t seen Phlan’s pool, edged closer for a better look. “We can’t have found Myth Drannor’s Pool of Radiance so easily?”

“I wouldn’t stand so close if I were you,” Kestrel warned. She recalled all too clearly the sight of the bandit’s life being sucked away by a stray splash.

Ghleanna studied the puddle from a safe distance. “It’s too small and too exposed to be the source of the cult’s growing power. I suspect this is an offshoot, like the pool in Mulmaster. A spawn pool, you could call it.”

From within the ruined shrine, Kestrel once again heard the soft cry. This time, the wind carried words to her: “Where are the followers of Mystra?” And this time, the others heard it as well.

“Is that the cry you heard before?” Corran asked. At her nod, he started toward the entrance to what remained of the shrine. “Who’s there?” he called. “Are you all right?”

“Simply marvelous, my good sir,” answered a new voice. Though feminine-sounding, it was a harsher voice than the one they had heard previously. “So kind of you to ask.”

Corran stopped short just outside the doorway. He seemed about to speak, when he was interrupted from within.

“Oh, come now. Is that any way to greet two lonely ladies?”

“Forgive me.” The paladin appeared to recover himself. He cast a deliberate glance toward the rest of the group, then returned his gaze to the hidden speaker. “I believe we may have a common acquaintance. Are you friends of Preybelish?”

At Corran’s mention of the dark naga, Kestrel stifled a groan. Not more of the creatures? They’d had a bad enough time handling the first one.

“A distant relation of ours,” responded a second sibilant voice. “Sadly, we have not seen our cousin in years. How is he?”

“Quite peaceful, when last I left him.”

Kestrel turned to the others. If these nagas had the same mind-reading ability as Preybelish, the party would have to rely on Corran to keep them distracted while the rest of them devised a plan. She only hoped the pair remained unaware that the paladin hadn’t arrived alone.

At least this time, they had an idea of what kind of attacks to expect. They needed to stay clear of the nagas’ tails, while also avoiding any spells they might hurl. Jarial and Ghleanna whispered hurriedly about what sort of sorcery to use. In spare moments of the journey, they’d been working to expand their arsenal, developing new spells based on magic that opponents had used against them, and they were eager to try out some of the new incantations in combination with their old standbys. Kestrel gave one ear to them while keeping the other tuned to Corran’s conversation.

“Have you seen any activity around the castle?” one of the hissing voices inquired. “We hear a dracolich has made his lair there.”

“Really? Where within the castle?”

Kestrel had to give Corran credit for improving his subtlety skills. The paladin injected a casualness into his tone that he could not have felt.

“Inside a cavern, far below. From what we understand.”

Ghleanna and Jarial settled on their spellcasting plan. Jarial murmured to Kestrel not to forget Borea’s Blood, which she carried in a beltpouch. “Ozama’s ice knife had the power to paralyze. The shard blade may have a similar effect—worth a try, anyway.”

The sorcerers waved their hands, casting protective spells, including one on Corran, who, from his spot in the doorway, now chatted with the nagas about a marble idol of Llash, the snake god of poisons, that they had raised in the ruined shrine. When the mages were finished, they nodded in unison. Kestrel glanced around, lifting her hand, then brought it sharply down, signaling the attack.

Jarial and Ghleanna moved in first, each casting an offensive spell on a different naga. From Jarial’s fingers a lightning bolt seared one of the creatures with electrical energy, lifting her off the ground and propelling her across the room to land at the base of the statue. Before the other naga comprehended what happened to her sister, Ghleanna struck her with the same fiery evocation that Preybelish had used against the half-elf.