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"This way!"

A vibrant contralto voice rang out, very near. The female's scream had alerted the palace guard. The assassin could hear the rapidly approaching footsteps of at least a dozen guards. He must not be captured and questioned! He would die for the cause and do so gladly, but the Gray rulers would surely not grant him the dignity of death. With her foul magic, the Gray queen would surely pry from his mind the name of his master, and the names of the spell-singers lying in wait-here, in Evermeet itself-with Gold elven patience as they anticipated the signal to strike.

The elven assassin hesitated for only a moment, then turned and fled toward the glade and the magic portal that stood there.

Breathing hard and feeling lightheaded from pain and loss of blood, the elf plunged through the circle of blue smoke that marked the magical doorway. Strong, slender arms caught him and eased him to the ground. "Fenian! Tell me what happened!"

"The portal leads to Evermeet," the wounded elf gasped. "King Zaor lies dead!"

A triumphant, ringing cry escaped the elf's companion, echoing over the mountains and startling a pair of songbirds into flight. "And the elf wench? The Harper?" he asked excitedly.

"They still live," the assassin admitted. The effort of speaking brought a fresh spasm of agony. He grimaced and grasped with both hands at the arrow shaft.

"Take ease," his friend consoled him. "Amnestria and her human lover will soon follow Zaor into death." He gently moved the elf's hands aside and began to work the arrow out. "Were you seen?"

"Yes." The answer came from between gritted teeth.

The hands on the arrow stilled, then tensed. "Even so, you have done well." With a quick motion, he plunged the arrow up under the elf's rib cage and into his heart. When the flow of lifeblood stilled, he wrenched the arrow free and thrust it back into the elf's body at the original angle. He rose to his feet and gazed with a touch of regret at the dead elf. "But not well enough," he murmured.

The elf fled swiftly down the mountain, racing for the teeming anonymity of the human city beyond. It wouldn't take the elves long to trace Fenian back to the magic portal, but by then he would be long gone. He would lose himself in Waterdeep, and begin to fashion a way to exploit the discovery he had made this day. A gate to Evermeet was just the thing he needed to fulfill his life quest. And it was fitting that Amnestria, the former and disgraced heir to Evermeet's throne, would be instrumental in helping him reach that goal.

Kymil Nimesin smiled faintly as he ran, unaware of the two pairs of eyes that watched him go.

"He might be the one," Lloth mused, turning away from her scrying pool to eye her longtime comrade.

Malar the Great Hunter snorted in disgust. "He is an elf!"

"Who better?" she retorted. "The plans these Gold elves have put in place are quite ingenious, and they might be the added touch we need to accomplish what we have so long desired. Let us watch him, at any rate, and if he shows promise, we can bolster his efforts with our own."

25

Malar's Vengeance (1371DR)

The goddess Lloth was well content. In a tunnel far beneath the oceans surrounding Evermeet, she and Malar gazed with dark glee into a large scrying bowl, enjoying their long-awaited vengeance upon the children of Corellon Larethian.

Of course, it would be far more pleasant to observe in person, but this was as near to Evermeet as they could get. The weave Corellon had placed over the island barred all evil gods from entering. But it did not keep the drow from using the gate that Kymil Nimesin had so conveniently arranged, or prevent the passage of the deadly creature of Malar: the elf-eater.

The gate. Many elements had gone into this attack, but it was the gate that dealt the deadliest blow. A wonderful thing, this art of Circle-singing-using spell-song to combine many magical effects into one-especially when one considered the ingenious use Kymil had made of it. Under his direction, the circle-singers had gathered the power of all the gates to Evermeet, combining them into a single gate, effectively cutting the island off from outside magical interference.

It was a masterful plan, and Lloth was quite impressed with Kymil Nimesin. The Gold elf had nurtured his plans for years, gathering and training every talented elven spell-singer he could find. If only there were a way to imbue her drow followers with such patience! How quickly they would rule all of Aber-toril!

Well, they would soon overrun Evermeet, and for the time being she could content herself with that. No doubt Malar thought that his creature would destroy them, as well, thus giving him a victory over his dark-elven ally. Lloth, however, was ever alert to the possibility of treachery. To be on the safe side, she'd tried feeding a few of her faithful drow to the elf-eater, and found the monster had no appetite for them. Malar would disperse his creature soon enough, when there was no more sport to be had on Evermeet.

She glanced over at Malar. Although he kept an eye on the image in the scrying bowl, he paced in a short, restless path. That made Lloth nervous as well. Her drow had done well-they had lured many elven fighters into the tunnels with the coming of day, where they could slaughter them at their leisure-but she needed Malar's elf-eater to truly destroy Evermeet. The god was uncomfortable in these tunnels. If he left and took his fine toy with him, the game would be over before it was finished.

"There is fine hunting down here," she observed, her crimson eyes gleaming as she watched two drow slowly slice the flesh from the bones of an elven warrior. Wherever they looked, the tunnels were filled with battles.

Malar snorted, unimpressed by the spectacle. "I am no mole to tunnel through the soil in search of worms!"

Before Lloth could retort, the image in her scrying pool changed. A new fighter, an enormous elf maid thrumming with godly power, had entered the battle. Almost before Lloth could absorb this threat, the warrior maid neatly netted the elf-eater. Before her horrified eyes, elf maid and elf-eater disappeared.

Malar saw this, as well. The Beast Lord's fearsome roar reverberated through the tunnel, shaking rocks loose from the tunnel walls and causing a brief, startled pause in the drow's genocidal fun.

Lloth recovered quickly from the shock, her nimble mind seeing a possibility in even this. "A new avatar," she said excitedly. "But not an avatar of any of the gods I know. This is the spirit of a powerful mortal elf-therefore there is but one place it can go. Surely, the elf maid will bring the creature to Arvandor!"

"And where the elf-eater goes, so we might follow," Malar said, beginning to understand. "But we are two against the many of the Seldarine."

"It matters not," she said. "All we need do is watch and enjoy as the elf-eater rampages! I imagine that the spirits of the faithful departed will be as tasty morsels to your monster. If we are lucky, perhaps it will devour a god or two, as well!"

"We go," the god agreed. He snatched up Lloth's wrist in one enormous paw, dragging her with him as he followed his creature. The gods disappeared from the tunnel, taking the battle to yet another level.

In a chamber of the palace, Maura squirmed in the chair, restless even in her hard-won sleep. She had come to the palace along with the slumbering body of the princess Ilyrana, and she sat at the elf woman's bedside. But the terrible days of battle had taken a toll, and Maura had drifted into troubled slumber.