They ascended to the balcony. The door to the feasting chamber was open. Malyanna swept inside.
Behroun rushed forward and saw the table. It was laid out with a smorgasbord of tempting repasts. But the chair at the table's head was empty.
"Neifion!" called the eladrin, her voice loud as a blizzard's howl. "Come out and receive your visitors!"
No answer.
Malyanna stalked to Neifion's empty chair. She bent and looked beneath the golden cloth, then whirled to examine the chamber's periphery. The Lord of Bats was not napping in a corner or roosting on the ceiling.
Behroun doubted Neifion was lying curled up inside the credenza along the wall.
Then again… He walked over and threw open the low cabinet doors. Silver dishware nestled within in tidy stacks. Behroun released his breath, relieved he hadn't come face to face with the pale man curled up like a spider in too small a hole.
"How could he have…" Behroun trailed off, then he fumbled for the amulet around his neck. Had the creature somehow managed to retrieve Japheth's pact stone?
He worked the secret clasp. The amulet's star iron halves snapped open, revealing an emerald. The pact stone was whole.
Malyanna narrowed her eyes, taking in the unharmed green stone in Behroun's hands. She said, "So he's managed to free himself… or some other agency freed him."
"Or something found and killed him, trapped as he was."
"No," mused Malyanna. "Use your eyes. There is no sign of struggle here or in the outer chamber. Our crafty Lord of Bats managed to find a way free of the table without shedding any of his own precious blood. He is loose once more."
"But without his full power," Behroun added. "While the pact stone remains whole, Neifion has only a shadow of his strength."
"Hmm."
Behroun could almost see contingencies tumbling through her mind. But the woman's eyes blinked too rarely, and their blank expanse unsettled him. He looked away and said, "Perhaps he left the castle to go look for you, his one ally?"
"Doubtful." She sneered. "More likely he yet skulks in Darroch's shadowed halls, relishing his freedom and planning his next deceit."
Behroun glanced at the open door to the grand study. He said, "Let's go find him, then! He's our only link to Japheth. Although with just the two of us to search this place, it could take days."
The woman caught him with her terrible eyes, a look of disbelief on her face. Disbelief at his stupidity, most likely.
He forced out his next few words anyway. "Perhaps we could sneak into the kingdom that exiled you. You said it was near here. You must still have a few secret partisans. If we could enlist their aid-"
The eladrin noble's peals of laughter overwhelmed his fumbling words.
She said, "Have you forgotten my pet? I'm sure Tamur can sniff out Neifion if we put him on the scent."
"Oh, of course I hadn't forgotten…" he lied.
Trying to salvage some shred of dignity, Behroun said, "But your kingdom, where you were queen before your exile… I think it might be a good idea for us to collect a few of your supporters-"
"You," she said, putting a finger on Behroun's chest and giving him a slight push, "number among the mostly easily led mortals of any I've duped. There is no 'kingdom.'" "What? What do you mean?" Behroun, despite suspecting more and more the eladrin was playing him, was shocked all the same now that the game was over. A rarely seen smile on Malyanna's face grew even wider with amused disdain.
"However, I am an exile of a sort."
"You are?" he said.
"Yes. And I do have allies, mortal. They await me within the Citadel of the Outer Void, coiled and eager for my call. For them, no time has passed since I left. They await the Key of Stars, the single most wondrous artifact to fall to the world from beyond the sky. But-as I said, I am exiled through a cruel accident of fate. I cannot reach the Key of Stars-Or even enter the Citadel, for it is sealed. I have been locked outside its pillared halls for millennia."
She looked at him as if wondering what reaction her introduction of so many alien names and senseless statements would have.
He couldn't help it. His face flushed hot with angry, helpless confusion. What in the name of Imphras Heltharn was she talking about?
The lengthening silence finally made him choke out, "Citadel of the Outer Void? I've never heard of it, nor of a star key. If this citadel is your true allegiance, why lie to me about it? What are you really up to?"
"Until the Feywild fell back into step with the world, I was a priestess without an altar, a proselytizer without an audience. But no longer!" Her eyes trailed faint lines of mist as she began to pace.
She continued, "I keep alive the old faith. The few in the world who tried to do so were imprisoned as traitors.
But I was free, despite being cut off from the living arbiters of my creed…" She whirled around, watching a scene in her imagination that brought awe to her normally haughty features.
"The Citadel is a place of power and change that lies just past the outermost edge of Faerie where time itself hardly reaches. Sealed, it will only open to the Eldest. But the Eldest sleeps in the world. For years uncounted, Faerie was cut off from the world. I could not reach the Eldest, nor could it reach the Citadel. I lived long without hope one would ever find the other."
She sighed, then said in a voice nearly as loud as a shout, "That's all changed! The Eldest can be roused, oh yes.
He can enter the Citadel. He is destined to take the. Key of Stars and unlock the Far Manifold…" Her voice trailed off.
Behroun said,"… I don't-"
"And I," said Malyanna, "am destined to be fate's handmaiden in all this. It is my due for waiting centuries without end so patiently. That's why I need the Dreamheart. That's why I needed you."
"And still need me, right?"
She whirled and pierced him with her flaring, cold eyes. Behroun saw his own breath begin to steam under her chill scrutiny.
"You still need me! My agent Japheth has the Dreamheart even now," he reminded her. He tried to distract her with another question. "But why do you want it at all?"
"I grow tired of waiting, at long last. The Dreamheart is a piece of the Eldest. If the Eldest will not rouse, as he has failed to do so many times before, I will use the Dreamheart to open the Citadel myself. If the Eldest will not find the Key of Stars, I will locate it myself in the Eldest's place!"
Behroun stepped away from the crazed woman. His body wanted to bolt. His mind knew there was no place he could run where Malyanna could not find him.
As if reading his mind, the eladrin noble snapped her fingers and shouted, "Tamur!"
Behroun looked to the entrance, then yelped as a shadow behind the credenza widened, producing the shadow hound.
"Where is Neifion?" she purred at the overgrown dog. "Is the Lord of Bats still in Castle Darroch?"
The dog raised its nose and sniffed. Then it lowered its head and gave a whispery bay that went through Behroun like ice. The dog raced out of the chamber, nose to the ground.
"For your sake, let's hope Tamur finds his quarry." Malyanna brushed past him, following her pet from the feasting chamber.
Behroun looked at the table of succulent delights. The wedges of triple cream cheese at the very edge made his mouth water. He wondered if he wouldn't be better off cramming a piece in his mouth instead of following Malyanna. "Probably," he muttered.
He checked for the dagger at his belt, squared his shoulders, and walked away from the table.
*****
Behroun wandered the shadowed halls of Darroch Castle, steering clear of the furtive movements of the wrinkled men. The air was cold, and silence lay heavy on his ears. Tiny candles flickered from chandeliers and wall sconces, providing pools of light only bright enough to make the shadows press all the closer.