Saelethil’s face appeared before him in the darkness, a titanic apparition that dwarfed Araevin.
“I am substantial enough to destroy you!” the Dlardrageth thundered. “And in your body I will be as real and alive as I ever was. You do not know my strength!”
“You do not know mine,” Araevin replied.
He curled into a ball and closed his eyes, blocking out the maddening plunge and terrible vistas of purple towers and bottomless violet wells surrounding him. He envisioned himself as a shining white light smothered in darkness, a diamond glittering under the blow of a terrible black hammer, and he threw his full will into resisting Saelethil as long as he could.
“That will not avail you,” Saelethil laughed.
He gathered up the force of his will, and hurled himself down on Araevin’s last resistance with the force of a thunderbolt. Araevin screamed with the power of the attack, and darkness welled up to fill his being… but somehow he survived the blow.
Saelethil roared in frustration and attacked again, clutching at him, stabbing into his mind with dark blades that seared and cut Araevin’s very soul, but Araevin battled on, repelling the blows. Saelethil’s voice became the hissing of a demon, great and terrible, and black fires roared up out of the night to incinerate Araevin where he huddled, alone in the dark.
“Yield, curse you! You cannot endure me,” Saelethil demanded. “Yield!”
“No!” Araevin cried. Saelethil redoubled his assault, but still Araevin refused to let himself be extinguished… and with that came the realization that Saelethil might not be able to crush him, not unless he allowed it to happen.
I am stronger than I was when I first encountered the Nightstar. I have completed the telmiirkara neshyrr and I have shaped high magic. Saelethil’s selukiira could have destroyed me a few months ago, but no longer.
Saelethil’s terrible will lashed Araevin again and again, but Araevin pushed the assaults to one part of his mind, and concentrated on gathering his own counterstroke. In his heart he conceived a white sword, a blade of purpose and perfection. He poured his determination, his hope, his love into the sword. He shaped its point with his pride and ambition, and he envisioned himself gripping the hilt with his hands and drawing back for the blow.
“I will not be extinguished!” he cried back at Saelethil, and with all the force of his will and mind he burst against the darkness, lunging out with his white sword.
In a single great cut he slashed a white gap across the encompassing darkness, and Saelethil screamed a high and horrible scream. The Nightstar trembled and thundered. Araevin lashed out again, and the white-hot fury of his wrath against Saelethil and Sarya, and all the evil the Dlardrageths had wreaked against him, drove him onward. He struck and struck again, until the great violet abyss within the Nightstar blazed with jagged lines of white lightning, and the purple ramparts crumpled in white fire.
The Nightstar’s interior filled with an awful flash of white light, and Araevin found himself standing in the courtyard of Saelethil’s garden, his sword in his hand. He wheeled about, searching for an adversary, but the horrid crawling vines were withered and dead. He looked at the ruddy fields of lava beyond the walls, yet nothing but cool black rock met his eye.
Saelethil Dlardrageth lay at his feet, a bloodless wound piercing his heart. Even as Araevin watched, Saelethil’s form froze into a perfect statue of purple crystal then the crystal grew dark, gray, and brittle. Slowly it crumbled to powder and hissed away into nothingness. Araevin looked at the smear of lambent dust in the dead courtyard, and he turned away, gazing up at the white-shot sky overhead. The Nightstar was evidently damaged, possibly dying.
“The Aryvandaaran spells,” Araevin whispered in a sudden panic, and whirled to look around him. But at the instant he conceived a desire to see the secrets within the loregem, he felt an artifice of magic awaken in his presence. Golden scrolls appeared around him, drifting in the air, each seeming to shimmer and tremble with the power of the spell it held.
He stared in wonder, surrounded by the secret hoard of lore. If Saelethil had not lied to Araevin, those spells were ten thousand years old, the legacy of the proudest and most powerful empire of elves that had ever existed in Faerun. The things that the Aryvandaaran mages might have set down…
Choosing a scroll at random, Araevin gently pulled it closer and began to read.
The setting sun glowered in the west, sinking into the distant forest amid the acrid smoke of dozens of great fires. The day had been hot, and in the sweltering heat and fumes it seemed that Myth Drannor was burning again. But these were the fires of industry, the spewing plumes of soot and ash from new foundries Sarya’s best craftsmen were raising amid the wreckage of Myth Drannor’s outlying districts. The air rang with the sound of hammers beating against hot metal as her fey’ri worked to restore one by one the war machines and battle-constructs they had brought with them from Myth Glaurach.
The sound pleased Sarya well. She lingered on the balcony for a time, simply enjoying the open air and the sounds of victory being forged in the ensorcelled foundries of her folk. Then she turned away reluctantly and descended into the great hall of Castle Cormanthor, descending in a single graceful leap, her wings snapping open only at the last moment to arrest her descent.
Her captains bowed deeply, until Sarya took her seat.
“You may rise,” she told them.
As they straightened and folded their wings again, she glanced to the side of the dais. There Malkizid stood, a pale swordsman dressed in black robes, his wounded forehead showing only a thin line of dark blood that evening. The devil prince smiled sardonically and inclined his head to her. In the presence of Sarya’s underlings he was careful to remain subservient, advising only when asked, never instructing or issuing orders, not even in her name. She believed she was an ally that Malkizid did not want to discard for a long, long time, but only a fool would trust an archdevil, even an exiled one.
She reclined in her throne, and considered her fey’ri lords: Mardeiym Reithel, the brilliant general, resplendent in his dragon-blazoned armor of black mithral; Jasrya Aelorothi, the fierce champion, the match of any bladesinger she had ever seen; Teryani Ealoeth, back from her work among the Sembians with Borstag Duncastle’s eyes in a small silk pouch at her belt. They were the tools with which she would raise her new Siluvanede, and her heart glowed with dark pride as she considered her cadre of captains.
“I have tidings from my son,” she began. “This afternoon Xhalph broke the Red Plumes on the Moonsea Ride. Maalthiir’s army is falling back on Hillsfar in disarray. Meanwhile the Sembian army is vanishing like the snows of last winter. Whole companies of mercenaries have abandoned their standard entirely.” Sarya smiled on Teryani Ealoeth. “Lady Teryani, you have done well.”
She smiled at the fierce glow of pride that sprang up in Teryani’s eyes then returned her attention to the rest.
“Seiveril Miritar and the army of Evermeet are fleeing for their lives. The Zhentarim have been shown to be less than nothing. Everywhere we look, our enemies are in retreat. We are literally the masters of all we survey. No army within a thousand miles dares take the field against us. Cormanthor is ours now, the realm we have waited five thousand years to rule. We are the true heirs of Aryvandaar, and this is our ancient home. No one will deny us our birthright again.”
“Command us, Lady Sarya,” said Mardeiym Reithel. “We await your bidding.”
The other fey’ri lords bowed, and voiced their assent.
Sarya looked down on the fey’ri. Not long ago their faith in her had wavered in the wake of their defeat in the High Forest, but they were hers once again, mind, heart, and soul. She need only stretch out her hand, and they would die to do her bidding. She felt Malkizid’s eyes upon her, and she met his avid gaze with a dark smile of her own. Archdevil or not, she was the one who ruled in Myth Drannor.