Final Gate

CHAPTER NINE

9 Eleasias, the Year of Lightning Storms

Storms swept through Tasseldale late in the afternoon, deluging Tegal’s Mark with sheets of rain and a spectacular display of summer lightning. But as the afternoon faded toward dusk, the thunderheads marched off to the southeast, and the heavy rain slackened. In the evening, when Ilsevele and the rest of the Crusade’s embassy climbed into the carriages waiting to take them to the Sharburg, Fflar slipped away with the aid of a potion of invisibility.

He found Elgaun Manor a quarter-mile or so from the center of the town. The road climbed up a wooded hill past a small shrine to Chauntea, and the manor house stood at the hilltop. Fflar passed through a small, unguarded gate of wrought iron that marked the lane leading to the manor. He noticed that his invisibility potion was beginning to wear off as he approached the manor. Good, he thought. Let Terian wonder how he had slipped away from the Markhouse.

He climbed a short flight of stone steps to the manor’s front door. It was a handsome house of native fieldstone, with a broad veranda framed by great dark beams of Cormanthyran hardwood. He’d asked about the Elgauns during the day. They were a wealthy Sembian family from Yhaunn who often summered in the Dales.

I doubt that it’s the Elgauns I’m here to meet, Fflar decided.

He set his hand on the door and pushed it open. A shadowed foyer stood within, tastefully appointed with several fine paintings. He could make out a staircase leading up to the second floor, and various anterooms and parlors opening from the front hall.

“Terian?” he called softly.

No one answered him. Frowning, he started forward into the room… but then he heard a faint creaking sound from the shadows under the staircase.

Bowstring!

Quick as a cat, he threw himself backward out of the doorway, where he stood silhouetted against the evening sky outside. Bows snapped and sang in the darkness, and arrows pelted at him. One stuck quivering in the door not five inches from his face, a second hissed past his ear and sailed out into night, and a third struck him on the right side of his chest-but bounced from the shirt of mithral mail he wore under his tunic. A slower man would have died in that doorway, but Fflar was just quick enough to spoil the unseen archers’ aim.

Cursing savagely, he yanked the door shut behind him. Arrows thudded into the wood of the other side. “Stupid, stupid,” he muttered. “You walked right into that one!”

Now what? He could make a run for it and reach the cover of the manor wall. Or he could sidle around the side of the house and head away in an unexpected direction. But whatever he did, he would have to do it quickly.

Make it something they’re not expecting, he decided. With one swift motion he drew Keryvian. He counted to four, and he threw open the door and leaped back into the hall.

He found himself face-to-face with two drow archers, hurrying up to the door with bows in hand. The dark elves halted in astonishment, fumbling to draw and shoot. Fflar threw himself at the first archer and cut him down with a great overhand swing of Keryvian that struck sparks from the marble floor after laying the assassin open from collarbone to groin.

The second drow backed up two steps and shot. Fflar tried to spin out of the way, but the arrow caught him high in the left arm. The range was so close that the archer drove the shaft completely through mail, flesh, and mail again, transfixing Fflar’s arm. Fflar cursed and stumbled, but he finished his spin within sword reach of his foe and skewered him through the middle with a single deadly thrust. The dark elf groaned and slumped to the ground.

Drow? What in the world are drow doing here? Fflar leaned over the dying archer at his feet. “Who sent you?” he demanded. “Who are you working for?”

Stealthy footsteps rushed up behind him. Fflar whirled and raised Keryvian just in time to block a murderous thrust from a third drow, who snarled in frustration and launched a furious attack. The fellow was armed with a slender rapier, and his swordplay was blindingly quick. Keryvian was really too heavy to fence with, especially with a wounded arm, and Fflar narrowly avoided at least three deadly thrusts in the space of as many heartbeats.

“Die, lightwalker!” the drow hissed. He launched another vicious thrust at the center of Fflar’s belt buckle, but Fflar turned aside and let the rapier’s point glide past him, slicing a neat furrow in his tunic. He was far too close to make use of Keryvian’s point or edge, so he simply smashed the baneblade’s pommel into the drow’s face. Teeth shattered and bone crunched. The swordsman staggered in his tracks, until Fflar took his head off with a backhand swing.

Panting in the shadows of the manor, Fflar looked around for any more assailants, but none appeared. Before he could think about it, he set down his blade and snapped off the arrow shaft in his arm. Then he yanked it clear and threw it to the ground, stifling a ragged cry of pain. He hoped it wasn’t poisoned. Drow knew more about poisons than anybody had a right to.

“Another kind of assignation, indeed,” he muttered. If he ever got his hands on Terian, he’d wring her pretty neck.

Three dead drow in an empty manor-a manor he was lured to, specifically at this very time. Why in the world would drow want him dead? Of course, they had to be working for Terian, that was a given. Or she was working for them. But for what purpose? He stood silent for a moment, trying to puzzle it out, and it came to him.

“Damn it all to the Abyss,” he snarled. “Ilsevele!”

Without another thought he rammed Keryvian back into its sheath, then turned and dashed out into the evening. In the lane outside, he reached into his vest pocket again and found another potion bottle. Ilsevele had insisted that he should be prepared for almost anything before setting out for his mysterious appointment, and so she had given him several of the more useful potions she and the others had brought from Semberholme. Fflar took a moment to make sure he had the right one and drank down its contents. Then he leaped up into the air.

The magic of the potion carried him up into the sky. Whooping in surprise and sudden panic, Fflar spun wildly in midair and nearly landed even quicker than he had taken off, but then he got the hang of it. In a matter of moments he was arrowing over the rooftops of Tegal’s Mark, streaking toward the Sharburg.

Treetops and streetlamps streaked by under him. Fflar saw a handful of people in the streets below look up in amazement, pointing and shouting as he sped past. The roaring of the wind in his ears drowned out their words. It might have been wiser to try to circle the town or perhaps fly a higher, slower arc, but he was beyond such concerns. If the Sembians didn’t like him flying over the town, they could damn well take it up with him after he was certain that Ilsevele was safe. His arm burned and tingled, blood flowing freely from the arrow wound, and Fflar found his vision beginning to swim drunkenly.

It’s just the potion, he told himself. Flying is too much for the senses, especially after you lose a little blood. But his arm ached and burned with a strange cold sensation that he didn’t like at all.

“Fight it off a little longer,” he snarled at himself. “A little longer.”

The towers of the Sharburg loomed before him, and he saw the high windows of the banquet hall where Selkirk had received them before. He angled down and swooped in at the castle, flashing across the battlements so swiftly that the sentries walking there could only stare dumbfounded. Then he threw his arms up over his face and barreled through the nearest of the windows in a shower of breaking glass. He glimpsed dozens of Sembians, Ilsevele and her guards, even a quartet of musicians, all frozen in amazement. Then he overshot them all and slammed into a vintner’s table, sending bottles and fine glass flying everywhere.

“What in the world-?” Miklos Selkirk snarled. He surged to his feet, his hand leaping for his sword hilt.

“Starbrow!” cried Ilsevele. She stood too, and started toward him.

Fflar’s vision reeled from side to side, and he hurt all over. But somehow he found his way to his feet. “Ilsevele,” he groaned. “It’s a trap! A trap!”

Ilsevele whirled around, seeking a threat. Around her, Sembians and elves scrambled to their feet, all looking wildly from side to side. She turned to Selkirk to demand an explanation-and behind her, the quartet of musicians calmly set down their lutes and bitterns, and raised deadly wands instead.

Fflar threw himself into motion, racing crookedly across the floor. The musicians were simply too far, but he launched himself headlong toward Ilsevele just as the assassins barked their commands and unleashed a storm of fire and lightning in the crowded hall. He managed to fling her to the floor as a brilliant blue-white bolt burned through the air where she had been standing, charring his back instead. Hot white agony seemed to pick him up and throw him down again, leaving him contorted on the hard stone floor. Screams of panic and mortal agony filled the air, amid the angry roar of searing magical flame and the deafening crack! of lightning bolts exploding in the elegant hall.

Ilsevele picked herself up and drew a wand of her own from the sleeve of her beautiful gown, now torn and blackened. She aimed it at the nearest of the assassins and cried out, “Elladyr! ”

A coruscating bolt of white energy shot out and caught the fellow in the center of his chest, flinging him head over heels through the smoking wreckage of the bandstand. The others responded with another barrage of spells that wreaked even more carnage in the hall. “Defend Lady Miritar!” Fflar croaked. He rolled to all fours and shook his head to clear it of the ringing and the dizziness. It didn’t work, but he planted one foot on the ground and levered himself upright, drawing Keryvian. The banquet hall was nothing less than screaming, smoke-wreathed pandemonium, the equal of any battlefield he had ever set foot on. Several of the Sembian lords, led by Selkirk himself, rushed the bandstand and struck up a furious melee with the surviving assassins.

Ilsevele whirled and fired her wand again, this time at a crossbow-wielding sniper who appeared on one of the upper balconies overlooking the hall. The thundering lance of white energy smashed the balcony to pieces, dropping the fellow to the floor below in a cascade of rubble.

Fflar turned, looking for any other threat, just in time to see an assassin dressed in the livery of a wine steward stealing up behind Ilsevele, a wavy-bladed dagger in his hand. But the young captain Seirye, so badly burned and charred that he couldn’t even hold a blade in his gnarled hands, simply lurched into the knife wielder and held him up for a crucial moment. The blade flashed once, then twice, and Seirye sank to the floor, still clawing at the killer’s tunic. But the young elf’s valor was not in vain. Before the knifeman could pull himself free, Fflar staggered over and took his arm off at the shoulder with one wild, off-balance swing.

“Drow! They’re drow!” cried one of the Sembians.

Fflar glanced down at the man he’d just downed, and saw the magical guise slip away with the assassin’s death. In place of a round-faced, unremarkable human, an ebon-skinned drow with red eyes lay staring sightlessly up at him.

“I could have told you that,” he muttered to no one in particular.

Keryvian rang shrilly on the stone floor. He looked down, surprised that he had dropped the blade. He leaned over to pick up the sword, but lost his balance entirely and crumpled to the ground beside his blade. Fight it! Fight it! he raged, trying to find the strength to push himself upright again. But all he managed to do was roll weakly onto his back. He found himself looking up at the proud banners that hung in the upper part of the hall, now burning merrily from the fireballs and lightning bolts that had been loosed in the attack.

The hall seemed to fall silent. The ringing of steel on steel faded, and no more thunderbolts or roaring blasts of flame split the smoke-filled hall. The battle was over, and a dozen drow warriors lay scattered here and there on the floor, still dressed in the tatters of their disguises.

“Starbrow! Starbrow!” Ilsevele rushed up to him and fell to her knees at his side, grasping his hand in hers. Tears streaked her face. “What happened? Are you hurt? What’s wrong?”

“Arrow in the arm,” he managed. “I think… I’ve been poisoned.”

“You saved me,” she murmured. “Just like the time you faced the ghost in the vault. You saved me again, Starbrow.”

“I couldn’t let you get hurt, Ilsevele,” he said. He was so tired

… all he wanted to do was close his eyes and sleep. “I couldn’t bear it.”

“I know.” Ilsevele smiled through her tears, and she leaned over him, her hair of fiery red cowling her face and his, and kissed him deeply, passionately, her hands cupping his face and lifting him up to her. “Stay with me, Starbrow,” she whispered between her kisses. “Don’t die, not now! Stay with me.”

Somehow he found the strength to reach one hand up to her face, to caress her perfect face and brush away her tears. Then he laced his fingers in her hair and gently pulled her down to kiss her again, to feel her breath mingling with his, her lips warm and soft.

“I won’t die,” he whispered to her. “I’ve found what I came back for.”

Then he fell away into darkness, still lost in her emerald eyes.

Araevin and his companions passed the night, such as it was, in a princely suite. Ornate lanterns of gold ringed the room, but the dim lanterns did little to push back the encroaching darkness outside, and nothing at all to alleviate the bitter cold. They eventually had to make use of the sleeping-furs waiting atop the great round beds, even though Araevin’s skin crawled at the dusty age of the covers. He couldn’t avoid the impression that he was wrapping himself in the cerements of the grave.

After what seemed like an age in the dimly lit apartments, two of Selydra’s pallid warriors came for them. Araevin and his friends followed the Lorosfyrans through the long, echoing corridors of the palace for quite a distance. Shadows gathered in each doorway they passed, fleeing their light slowly and reluctantly. They came to a winding staircase and climbed up a floor, and their grim guides led them out into a courtyard of sorts. A tall white tree grew in a knurled knot of clawlike branches and leaping roots. Not a single leaf graced its sharp branches, but here and there dark red fruit like drops of blood gleamed in the darkness.

Araevin surveyed the rest of the court carefully, and found a blank trapezoidal archway a short distance to his left. A portal like the one above, he realized. That might be useful later.

“The Pale Sybil comes,” whispered the dead warrior.

From another passageway leading into the courtyard, a ghostly pale light grew. Selydra drifted into the courtyard, still dressed in the raiment of silver and white in which she had first greeted her guests. Two of the hunched giants followed behind her, stooping to fit in the hallway. She paused, studying Araevin and his friends, her face set in a look of smooth, cool bemusement.

“Welcome, travelers,” she said. “I trust your sleep was restful?”

“Nothing tried to kill us,” Maresa said. The genasi made a show of gazing around the courtyard, admiring the stonework and the barren white tree. “What a strange tree that is! We don’t have any like that back in Waterdeep.”

“It is a sussur tree,” Selydra answered her. She seemed amused by Maresa’s insincerity. “It is rare indeed, growing only in those places where Faerzress exists in sufficient strength to nourish it. The tree subsists on the magical emanations of the Underdark.”

“Interesting,” Araevin murmured, feigning a calm he did not feel. “I have never seen anything quite like it.”

“I have found that Lorosfyr is full of unsuspected wonders,” Selydra said. She approached the company, and the sussur tree whispered softly as she came near. “So, Araevin, you have said that you have an urgent need for the gemstone in my possession. What is so pressing that you would leave the surface world and come here to find my shard?”

“I must sunder a very old and powerful mythal,” Araevin said. “Demonspawned sorcerers have seized the ruins of Myth Drannor for their stronghold and are protected by its ancient spells. Thousands of people will die or fall into slavery if I fail to stop them. No place in-or below-Faerun will be safe.”

“I am not unmoved by your plea, Araevin,” Selydra said. She descended into the court by the tree and sat on a stone bench, brushing her midnight hair away from her face. “But the artifact that has found its way into Lorosfyr could be gainfully employed here. You have no doubt noticed the swordwights who attend me here. There is an entity in this lightless place that consumes life and magic. These poor wretches were devoured by the hungry power in this old city. I think that the device you describe may hold enough magical power to finally slake the slayer of this city.”

“You have escaped harm so far, my lady,” Nesterin observed.

“Only because I have learned to… shield myself from its attentions, you might say.”

Araevin found himself glancing up at the impenetrable darkness over their heads. The courtyard was open to the sky, as it were. The vast and airy reaches of the monstrous vault soared for unseen miles above his head, and the darkness pressed down on him with a weight that was almost tangible.

“The Maddening Dark…” he murmured.

“It is alive, and it hungers,” Selydra said. “It devours its victims so slowly that they never even know they are being consumed. Truly, it is a wonder you made it down the Long Stair alive.” She folded her feet under her, and returned her attention to Araevin. “It would seem that we are at an impasse, then. I have need of your shard, and you have need of mine.”

“I will return you a shard as soon as I can,” Araevin said. “The Gatekeeper’s Crystal separates after each use, but I am reasonably confident that I can locate at least one of its pieces not long after I employ the device. I will bring it to you as soon as I can.”

“But if I have understood what I have learned from the shard in my possession, there is at least some chance of a much more violent separation, is there not? The three pieces might literally be scattered across the cosmos.” Selydra pursed her lips. “Even a mage of your skill might find it difficult to locate a piece after such an event.”

“If I cannot bring you a shard after I use the device, perhaps there is something else you might want? Some means of paying you for the use of the device?”

“The shard is virtually unique, Araevin. It is priceless. What might you offer?”

“What would you want?”

“Something of similar magical power, at the very least. Some artifact that I could use to content the hunger and keep it at bay for decades, perhaps centuries.”

“I am afraid I don’t have any such artifact to give you, Selydra,” Araevin said.

“Ah, but I know where you might obtain one on my behalf,” the Pale Sybil said. She smiled, stroking her chin with her fingers. Her nails were pale lavender. “In the Buried Realms under Anauroch lies a vault created by the unliving thaluuds, the so-called tomb tappers. I have reason to believe that a magical scepter was collected by a thaluud and taken to this vault. Bring me that scepter, and I would relinquish the shard I now hold.” The dark-haired sorceress paused, thinking. “I would prefer to have the scepter before surrendering my shard, but I suppose I might relinquish my shard first if you were willing to accept a geas to ensure your return with the scepter.”

Araevin was certain he did not want to give Selydra the power to command him through a magical geas. He remembered all too well Sarya Dlardrageth’s domination over him only a few short months ago. Mind-enslaving magic was something he had no desire to subject himself to. “No, I am not willing to accept a geas.” Selydra stood and paced away, her mouth turned down in a subtle scowl. “As I said. We are at an impasse. Neither of us will be the first to part with a shard.”

“A single shard is not of much use to me. I suspect yours is not much use to you. Only in combination does the Gatekeeper’s Crystal achieve its full potency.”

“But we still must answer the question of whose problem we address first.” Selydra folded her hands in her sleeves, and studied Araevin for a long moment with her dark eyes. Not a hint of white showed. There might have been the faintest suggestion of a violet iris around a large, black pupil, but otherwise her eyes were as cold and featureless as Lorosfyr itself. “You intrigue me, Araevin,” she finally said. “Why don’t you join me at my table tonight? I am eager for news of the world above, and I will be happy to hear you out at greater length. Your companions can rest and enjoy the hospitality of my palace, while you and I perhaps find some common ground in our appreciation of the Art. In turn, I may persuade you to consider my own… needs.”

Araevin thought he knew what sort of persuasion Selydra had in mind. The Pale Sybil watched him considering her offer, her lips pursed in a subtle smile. He felt the eyes of his companions on him as they awaited his answer, but there really was no alternative. He could not openly spurn her.

“Of course, my lady,” he said. “I will await your summons. In the meantime, my friends and I wish to see more of Lorosfyr. I am eager to read with my own eyes the stories this forgotten city might tell.”

“As I have told you, Araevin, Lorosfyr is most perilous. You and your companions would do better to remain in my care.”

“The apartments you have provided us are quite comfortable, my lady, but we are prepared to take our chances,” Nesterin answered. “Some mysteries invite the traveler onward, regardless of the danger.”

“So they do,” Selydra breathed. “I must insist that you proceed with an escort of my warriors, and you must not go where they tell you not to go. But if this is your wish, I will not deny it.” She folded her hands before her waist, and turned her dark eyes back to Araevin. “I will send for you when you and your friends return.”

Five days passed after the defeat of the daemonfey raid against Semberholme, and still Seiveril waited for some word from Ilsevele. He could feel the tides of summer turning, the forest’s subtle hints that the hottest days were already behind them. He dared not march against Myth Drannor while there was still any possibility that the Sembians might rediscover their allegiance to the daemonfey cause, but he could not wait much longer. Time was not on his side, and so he prayed to the Seldarine for guidance while hoping for his daughter’s return. He was deep in prayer when his guards summoned him to the lakeshore.

“What is it, Felael?” he asked the captain of his guard.

“The moonset, Seiveril,” Felael replied. Somber and serious for a wood elf, Felael had become the leader of Seiveril’s bodyguard after Adresin’s death. He was not quite serious enough to put much stock in titles and honorifics, though, and rarely called Seiveril by anything other than his given name. “Watch the waters across the lake.”

Selune’s silver light threw a soft, shining path leading toward the dark shore of the western side of the lake. It was a peaceful scene, and Seiveril wondered what was wrong with it. Then he saw what had caught Felael’s attention. A white-winged ship followed the moonlight’s path across the water, sailing gracefully through the silvery medium as if wind, water, and night were all one and the same.

“A ship of Evermeet,” he breathed.

The ship seemed to meet the lake’s waters, and its sails shifted to catch a breeze that rose up to greet it. Seiveril waited on the shore as the vessel glided toward him. As it drew closer he could make out the beautifully garbed lords and ladies of the court, so radiant it was hard to look on them.

Do we all look like that when we come so swiftly from the Emerald Isle? he wondered. Then he saw Amlaruil standing by the rail, dressed in silver and white, her long, dark hair untroubled by the ship’s passage. She saw him awaiting her, and raised a hand in greeting. The ship glided to a stop, and the elves who crewed it quickly set out a slender ramp to the shore.

“Welcome to Semberholme, my lady,” Seiveril said, bowing.

The Queen of Evermeet descended the silver ramp and set foot on Cormanthor’s soil. As her foot touched the ground, her radiance dimmed noticeably, and a faint frown flitted across her face. But she set it aside at once, and greeted Seiveril with a warm smile.

“Lord Miritar,’ she said, “I am glad I found you here. I am afraid I cannot tarry long.”

“Are you certain? I would like nothing better.”

Amlaruil smiled sadly. “Evermeet misses me already, Seiveril. I must return this night.”

So it is true in part, Seiveril thought. It was said that Amlaruil could not leave the isle. Though her appearance in Semberholme was proof that she could, it seemed that she could not remain away for very long.

“What can I do for you, then, my lady?”

“I have brought you a warning and a gift, Seiveril. First, the warning: A great and terrible battle draws near. I have seen it. Here in this ancient forest the fate of our people is to be decided, and it will be decided in a matter of days. You must not fail in your crusade, and yet I have also seen that you cannot triumph in Myth Drannor.”

The elflord shrugged. “I will make the attempt anyway.

I have to.”

“You hold all of our fates in your hands, my friend. If you should fail…”

“If I fail, you must destroy every gate remaining in Evermeet, Evereska, and any other realm of the People that you can find. And you will have to Retreat absolutely and forever from these lands. You will have no other choice.”

Amlaruil gazed on him for a long moment. “You have seen what I have seen, then,” she said.

“I have.”

“Then there is nothing more I can warn you against. You will succeed, or you will fail. But before you march on Myth Drannor, there is the gift I mentioned.”

She looked up at the ship and nodded. A moment later a young elf maiden descended to the shore, carrying a small silver sapling swaddled carefully in its own earth.

Seiveril looked on the tiny new tree, and his breath caught in his throat.

“Is that-?” he whispered.

“A sapling of the Tree of Souls, yes. Only one other exists in the world, and that one is in the keeping of my son in his hidden realm.” Amlaruil took the sapling from the girl and placed it in Seiveril’s hands. “It is my fondest hope that you will have the opportunity to plant this in Myth Drannor. Until that day, guard it carefully-for it will guard you in turn.”

“Guard us? How?”

“Carry it with your army as you march. It exerts a powerful influence for many hundreds of yards, keeping demons and other fiends at bay, guarding our own People against their attacks. The sapling will not utterly bar a demon’s approach, but it will not be able to teleport itself anywhere nearby.”

Seiveril looked at the fragile plant. He could feel something in the young tree, but he was not sure what. “This small sapling has such power?”

“In a way, it is a living mythal. But you must treat it with great care, Seiveril. No one can say when or if the Tree of Souls will bud again. Each sapling may be the last.”

“It seems far too precious to carry into battle, Amlaruil.”

“It is, Seiveril. But if you are to have any hope for victory, then I think you must have it. Guard it with all your care.”

“I will,” Seiveril promised.

“Good.” Amlaruil glanced over her shoulder at the setting moon. Its lower limb already touched the dark treetops across the lake. She sighed and looked back to him. “I must go now, Seiveril. I fear that we will not meet again.”

“That is not true,” he told her. “If we do not meet again in this world, then perhaps we will walk together in Arvandor.”

“In Arvandor.” The queen smiled again, and she leaned forward and kissed Seiveril’s cheek. She turned away and hurried back up to her ship. “Sweet water and light laughter for the rest of your days, Seiveril Miritar.”

“And to you,” he replied.

He watched as the white ship began to move away, its sails sighing as they caught a new breeze and filled out again. Dancing away across the silver moonpath, the shining hull rose higher and higher in the water until finally it broke clear altogether, speeding westward toward the moonset and far Evermeet beyond.

Seiveril watched the ship until it disappeared from sight. He looked down at the precious silver sapling, still in his cupped hands. So fragile a vessel for the hopes of our people, he mused. Then he carried it back into the warm shadows of the forest.

“Felael, send for Thilesin,” he said to his guard captain. “I have a task I cannot trust to anyone else.”

The wood elf gazed on the sapling, his eyes wide with wonder. “She is already here, Seiveril,” he finally said. “She arrived while you were speaking with Amlaruil. She said she has urgent tidings for you.”

Seiveril looked up, and found Thilesin waiting for him. A priestess of the Seldarine, she was a serious and quiet sun elf who had proved herself indispensable as Seiveril’s adjutant and secretary, helping him to keep track of the countless details and tasks necessary to wield the Crusade against the enemies of the People. He carried the young tree to her.

“I can think of no better steward for Amlaruil’s gift,” he told her. “You must see to it that this tree is well guarded at all times. Ask each of our companies for a true and faithful warrior to help you. This is an honor and a duty that all of our folk should have a hand in.”

Thilesin took the sapling, her eyes shining. “I will see to it,” she whispered.

“Now, what news did you have for me?”

The cleric lifted her gaze from the small sapling, the taut frown of worry returning to her face. “There has been an attempt on Ilsevele’s life, Lord Seiveril. She was not seriously injured, but several of our people died. No one knows more than that right now. There are whispers of drow assassins, Sembian conspiracies, and even treachery on the part of our own emissaries. In any event, Ilsevele and the others are now being held in the Sharburg under guard.”

Seiveril took a step back and threw out a hand to steady himself against the trunk of a shadowtop. Were the Sembians so full of hate that they could not abide the idea of sharing Cormanthor with elves? Or was this some machination of the daemonfey, an effort to make sure that Ilsevele’s mission failed? He felt his knees growing weak. Five years ago he had lost his wife, and he knew he did not have the strength to bear another loss. “Who died?” he managed.

“We do not know, my lord. But Lord Theremen’s people were certain that Ilsevele survived, if nothing else.”

Seiveril looked down at the silver sapling in Thilesin’s hands. There lies our hope, he mused. In Myth Drannor lies my destiny. But not yet, it seems.

“Call for the captains,” he said wearily. “We march on Tasseldale before the sun rises.”