Araevin nodded. “If nothing else, the combined crystal allows its bearer to draw power from the Waymeet, no matter where he or she is. Its primary use is the sundering of wards, mythals, and other constructs of powerful magic.”
“And it flies apart into its component pieces after its power is employed?” Elorfindar handed the shard back to Araevin. “It seems to me that the crystal’s tendency to hurl itself across the multiverse is simply a reflection of its tie to the Waymeet. After all, the Waymeet touches on thousands of doorways spanning Faerun, Toril, and the planes. I’d wager that the crystal uses that same network of portals to scatter itself.”
“So its pieces would appear near gates leading back to the Waymeet?” Nesterin asked.
Elorfindar shrugged. “It is only a guess.”
“That means we only have to find the right portals, and the shards will be right there,” Donnor said.
Araevin shook his head. “You’re forgetting that we’ve had a couple of months now for someone to stumble across the shards and carry them off from wherever they first appeared. But if Elorfindar’s observation holds true, then we’ll find that the trail begins somewhere near a Waymeet portal’s terminus.”
“Not so useful, if there really are thousands of doorways in this Waymeet,” Jorin said. “But better than nothing, I suppose.”
“Do any of the doors in this house lead to the Waymeet?” Nesterin asked Elorfindar.
The elflord nodded. “I know of one that will take you there. I can show you now, if you like.”
“Might as well get to it,” Maresa said. She stood and buckled on her sword belt. “I’ve never liked waiting, anyway.”
Elorfindar led Araevin and his friends back into the silent halls of the house and turned down a shadowed corridor they had passed before. Every four paces, a tall blank doorway stood waiting. Each was nothing more than a stone lintel framing an empty place on the wall. Carvings of leaves and flowers, animals and scenes of nature graced each of the doors. The elflord passed several of the empty doors and stopped before one that was marked with a strange design of stars and dragons.
“This is it,” he said softly. “I have never ventured into the Waymeet, so I cannot tell you what to expect on the other side.”
“What do we do with our horses?” Donnor asked. “Do we take them with us, or do we leave them here?”
“Leave them for now,” Araevin decided. “We can come back for them if we need them on the other side.”
“I’ll have them looked after,” Elorfindar said. He touched his fingertips to the blank stone, and said a single word: “Elladar.” Beneath his fingers, the stone seemed to melt away into a roiling gray fog.
“Thank you, Elorfindar,” Araevin said. He nodded to his friends, and one by one they stepped into the fog and vanished.
“You need only repeat the password to activate the portal again,” Elorfindar said. “Good luck, Araevin.”
“Until we meet again, old friend.” Araevin clasped his hand quickly, and turn and followed Nesterin into the misty doorway. There was a momentary darkness, a sense of movement in some direction that was not forward, up, or down… and he emerged.
He stood in a cathedral of glass.
The sky overhead was dark and starless. Underfoot, the ground was a sort of gray shale. But all around him stood walls and spires of luminous white glass. Great arching ribs of the stuff curved and met in a web of frozen light above him. Elsewhere serried ramparts of pearl marched in curved, sloping walls. The air was cold and still, but the crystalline castle seemed to whisper and sing in a constantly changing susurrus of sound. Maresa, Donnor, Jorin, and Nesterin stood nearby, silently taking in the sight. Their breath steamed in the chilly air, and their eyes were wide and rapt.
Araevin turned to examine the doorway behind him. It was a simple triangular arch between two swordlike spars of glass, its center gray and misty. Then he looked up and saw that the glass ramparts and spires extended for as far as he could see in that direction. The Waymeet wasn’t a cathedral of glass, it was a city of glass, perfect and empty. And everywhere he looked, he saw the doors-asymmetrical interstices where sharp spires and slanting sheets met. Hundreds of them appeared in a single glance, each flickering with living magic.
“I had no idea,” Araevin murmured. “It’s immense!”
“Your ancestors didn’t do anything by half-measures, did they?” Maresa said.
Jorin recovered from his awe long enough to turn his eyes to Araevin. “Do you have any idea which way to go from here?”
Absently, Araevin drew out the shard of the Gatekeeper’s Crystal and raised it to eye level, speaking the words of a spell. It gleamed brightly, and in his mind he felt a distinct tug toward his right. “This way,” he said. “I don’t think it’s far.”
“So where are we?” Maresa asked Araevin. “Where is this place?”
“It’s nowhere. This is a demiplane of its own.”
“A what?”
“A demiplane-a small self-contained world that exists parallel to Faerun. Much like Sildeyuir, but not anywhere near as large as that realm. The divine and infernal realms are places of a similar nature, but those of course are even more extensive than Sildeyuir.” Araevin looked around. “I don’t expect this one is much larger than what you can see from right here. Less than a mile across?”
“So where is it that this demiplane exists? What’s outside of it?”
“You might as well ask what’s on the other side of the stars when you’re looking up into the sky on a summer night.” Araevin shrugged. “The demiplane just ends. Outside you would find nothing but the unformed ether.”
“That’s horrible!” The genasi shivered. “Let’s find your door and get back on solid ground before we fall through the floor or something.”
CHAPTER FIVE
30 Flamerule, the Year of Lightning Storms
The walls and towers of the Waymeet formed a difficult maze, but it was not impassable. The place was not really designed to entrap travelers, it was just a very complex structure with few good points of reference. The clear space in which the portal to the House of Long Silences stood was part of a boulevard or avenue that curved around a striking cluster of tall spires that Araevin presumed to be the center of the Waymeet. Smaller “streets” angled away into the crystalline depths. They passed door after door along the way, and down each intersecting passage they saw additional rows of portals leading away into the luminous distance.
“Where could all these portals go?” Donnor muttered to himself. “There are thousands of them here. Faerun must be riddled with gates!”
“Aryvandaar was a vast, long-lived, and wealthy empire,” said Araevin. “Look at it like this: Even if various mages or lords of Aryvandaar only found reason to create ten new portals a century, you would expect to find almost a thousand portals here.”
“I haven’t been counting, but it seems like there may be more than that,” the Tethyrian said.
Araevin frowned. “I think you’re right. It seems there are even more than there should be.” He paused, searching his mind for what the Nightstar had told him of the place. “Ah, that makes sense.”
The others waited for him to continue. Araevin shook himself, bringing his attention back to his companions. “The Fhoeldin durr itself creates new portals. In the years since Aryvandaar’s fall, it has continued to propagate portals throughout Faerun-and into other planes and worlds, as well. That is why it has become so dangerous. Over the centuries, its expansion has weakened the barriers between the planes, especially in places where people created any number of portals of their own.”
“Like Sildeyuir,” Nesterin said. The star elf narrowed his eyes, studying the great artifice thoughtfully.
“Like Sildeyuir,” Araevin agreed. “Or Netheril, or Myth Drannor in the dark years leading up to its fall.” He paused to check his bearings, and turned toward a smaller alleyway leading off the large esplanade they had been following. “I don’t think the mages who built this place intended for that to happen. They assumed that they or their descendants would be able to guide and govern the Waymeet’s expansion and function over the centuries. But Aryvandaar fell, and this place was left to govern itself.”