Stardeep_ The Dungeons - Bruce R. Cordell [77]
Looking back, he couldn't find a time when he'd pondered the two possibilities, then decided between them. He'd never considered not reclaiming the daito. And once free of Shou Town, on what course other than finding his vanished mother could he have embarked?
From Raidon's perspective, he rode a narrow river of fate. On it he rushed, sometimes through rapids, other times on calm water, but always too swiftly for him to pause. While it was his grandfather's daito that seemed to precipitate his exit from Telflamm, he suspected the origin of his current circumstance was his mothet's forget-me-not. He'd learned it possessed a mysterious power. Perhaps that power had reached out and guided the threads of his destiny.
Now fate was drawing him toward a realm few knew existed, a realm Kiril claimed was synonymous with eldritch beauty, a land of perpetual twilight illuminated only by glittering stars. She said the star elves dwelled there in glass citadels. He looked forward to seeing that.
Then there was his forget-me-not. Not merely a reminder of maternal affection, but apparently an object whose power could prove useful against monsters. Was it fate, serendipity, ot cruel chance that pulled him into an age-old conflict? A conflict in which the enemy was shrouded in an evil so cruel it eclipsed the Nine Golden Swords as a mountain overwhelms a pebble.
They'd spent a bitterly cold night sheltering from another snowfall beneath the downwatd branches of a mighty conifer. Adrik had gathered several cones and exclaimed over theit novelty. Only Xet seemed to caie.
Today they'd walked only a few miles when Kiril said something in a language he didn't know.
The swordswoman stood at the base of a snowy slope crowned with evergreens and massive boulders. The confluence of boulders and boles created, from a particular perspective, an inviting cavity.
"This is an entrance to Sildeyuir," said Kiril.
"I thought all the gates were magically scribed menhirs," pondered Adrik.
The woman shrugged, "Stab me if I know. This one isn't." Raidon and Adrik followed as she headed up the slope. She paused when she stood between two of the veined, snow-dusted boulders.
"How does this damn thing function again?" Kiril muttered. With uncertainty writ plainly across her features, she traced a series of geometrical signs in the air as she spoke several words unfamiliar to Raidon.
"Something's happening," reported Adrik, his hands out before him. "A magical charge comes into alignment…"
Kiril finished speaking and a silvery light flared in the cavity between the boulders. "The gate is open. Welcome to the realm of the star elves." She walked into the gap, Xet sitting quietly on her shoulder. As she moved, whirling shadows leaped and spun from the boulders. As the shadows proliferated, she became harder to discern, while her tracks in the snow became shallower by the step. When Kiril reached the center of the hollow, she was nothing but a fading shadow, and a moment later, completely absent.
Raidon and Adrik looked at each other. Adrik yelled, in fear or exultation, Raidon could not determine, and plunged into the hollow. Gone.
The monk, surprised to note a faint tinge of nausea, walked forward.
A handful of heartbeats passed in silence. Of those who had walked ahead and disappeared from the Yuirwood, no sign remained. A two-legged shadow slid from behind a boulder and dashed into the hollow, one hand bare, the other gloved with a bound demon.
To Raidon, it seemed day plunged into night's darkling gates. In the extravagant sky revealed, cloudless and crystal clear, all the stars of the cosmos seemed crowded. Heaven's span glittered with a million points of sparkling light, diamond white, ruby red, emerald, sapphire, and citrine. He saw circular clusters and bands of light that, when he focused on them, revealed themselves as millions of yet tinier brilliant points. Streamers of glowing nebulae poured and frothed across the firmament, mingling within