“Now that we’re here, why don’t you just take control of it like you did at Myth Glaurach?” Maresa asked. “Or just destroy it outright?”
Araevin shook his head. “I’m afraid the protections over this mythal are beyond my skill. That’s why I need the entire crystal, so I can gain access to the mythal.”
Jorin stopped suddenly, and knelt to look at something. “Araevin, what do you make of this?” he called.
The mage hurried over to his companion’s side and looked over his shoulder. Near the footing below one of the portals a thick iron spike had been driven into the crystal, leaving a spiderweb of faint cracks that slowly leaked a luminescent blue fluid. Harsh runes and symbols inscribed in the spike glowed an angry red, just visible through the intervening crystal.
“Can you make out what the runes say?” Jorin asked.
“No, but I recognize the script. It’s Infernal… the language of the Nine Hells.”
“What do you think its purpose is?”
Araevin studied it for a moment, observing the delicate weave of the ancient elven magic and the bitter intrusion of the hellwrought spike. “I think it’s pinning the portal open. Changing the portal’s natural behavior by transfixing it with a corrupting spell.”
Jorin looked up at him. “Should we remove it?”
“Go ahead and try, but be careful.”
The ranger reached out to grasp the head of the spike, but he drew back his hand before he even touched the metal.
“It’s hot,” he explained.
He rummaged around in his pack and found a spare cloak to wrap around his hand, and he tried again. The spike didn’t move an inch. Jorin shifted so that he was sitting on the ground, facing the portal, with his feet planted on the footing on each side of the spike, and grasped it with both hands. But still it didn’t move.
Finally he gave up with a grunt of dissatisfaction and said, “It’s anchored in there. We’ll have to chip away the crystal or use magic to get it out.”
“Leave it be,” Araevin told him. “If we succeed in reuniting the crystal, it will not matter.”
They hurried down the narrow avenue for another hundred yards or so, past more of the doorways transfixed with spikes. Then they turned a corner and came to something of a small square or open place amid the white spires. Great bands of iron had been riveted to the foot of one of the sharply soaring buttresses that leaped up into the interwoven spars overhead. As with the smaller spikes, it was also covered in fearsome lettering and glowed cherry-red with hellish magic. More of the iron bands were fixed to the crystalline walls and pillars nearby, and the whole area reeked of hot metal.
In the center of the small plaza stood a simple three-sided pillar, about fifteen feet tall, likewise clamped within spells scribed on hellwrought iron. Unlike the pearly white of the other crystal spars, it burned a bright blue. Araevin paused, searching the memory imparted by the Nightstar for details about the Waymeet.
“One moment,” he said. “This is a speaking stone. We can speak to the Fhoeldin Durr here.”
His companions exchanged puzzled glances behind him, but Araevin approached the blue pillar and set his hand on it. “Gatekeeper,” he said softly. “Do you hear me?”
Nothing happened for a long moment, but then a dim flicker awoke in the depths of the pillar. The metal bands encircling the stone seemed to constrain the pillar’s glow, smoldering brighter as the azure gleam danced more strongly in the pillar’s depths.
A smooth, soft voice came from the pillar. “I am the Gatekeeper,” it whispered. “I hear you, Araevin Teshurr.”
“You know me?”
“I know anyone who addresses a speaking stone.”
“Araevin, who are you speaking to?” Nesterin asked.
“The sentience of this mythal,” Araevin answered him. “It is known as the Gatekeeper, because it guards the countless doors in this place.”
“It’s not doing a very good job,” Maresa muttered.
“I am constrained by the infernal spells with which I have been bound, Maresa Rost,” the pillar replied. “I have been prevented from fulfilling my purpose.”
“What are these spells doing to you?” Araevin asked.
“The archdevil Malkizid seeks to subvert me. Already he can prevent me from closing the gates that his spells hold open. In time he will extinguish my consciousness altogether, and he will be free to use all of the powers of the Waymeet as he wishes.”
“Is Malkizid here?” Araevin asked.
“No. But many yugoloths and devils who serve him are. You are in no small danger.”
“Great,” Maresa snarled. She shrugged her crossbow from her shoulders and laid a bolt in the rest, looking around anxiously.
Araevin thought for a moment, studying the blue gleam. “Are you required to report our presence to Malkizid or his agents? Or this conversation?”
“No, but that may not be true for much longer. Malkizid may be able to compel me to speak.”
“I have a shard of the Gatekeeper’s Crystal in my possession,” he told the device. “I mean to find the remaining shards and use the device to undo the damage Malkizid’s spells are causing. Can it be done?”
The pillar was silent for a time.
“Yes,” it finally said. “But you will need all three shards.”
“Do you know where the other shards are?”
“Not precisely, but I know which of my doors is closest to each shard,” the voice in the pillar said. It hesitated for a moment then added, “Three nycaloths approach, Araevin Teshurr. They will be here in moments.”
Araevin stole a glance over his shoulder, while his comrades nervously scanned the mist-wreathed crystal spars nearby. “Which door do we use?” he asked.
“I will indicate the portal you seek. Look to your left.”
Araevin complied, and found that a flickering blue gleam danced in the crystal ramparts in that direction.
He glanced to his companions and said, “Let’s go, before Malkizid’s servants appear.”
Quickly they hurried after the blue glow. As they neared the flickering light, it vanished from the crystal where it danced, only to appear a little farther on. No more than fifty yards from the plaza of the blue pillar, the light halted by a portal that stood near the base of another soaring buttress. Araevin was relieved to see that no infernal spike transfixed it. As they approached, the portal came to life, its milky surface abruptly changing into a smooth, pearly mist.
“Do you have any idea what might be on the other side?” Donnor said to Araevin.
“No,” the sun elf admitted. “But this is the way I have to go.”
He drew a deep breath, and stepped into the blank mists.
From their campsite in the ruined manor house near the Pool of Yeven, Fflar and Ilsevele rode eastward along the south bank of the Ashaba, picking their way through lands that showed increasing signs of habitation the farther they traveled. The long, low rampart of the Dun Hills grew steadily closer, marching northeastward as if trying to beat them to Blackfeather Bridge.
The air grew hot and still as the day wore on. It seemed as if the forests, fields, and hills yearned for a cleansing rain, but the heat did not relent. Far behind them, to the west, thunderheads piled up on each other only to dissipate and reform, never coming any closer. They rode past a farmstead where dozens of cattle lay butchered out in the fields.
“Demons or devils,” Fflar murmured. “Best keep on.”
“All right,” Ilsevele replied. She did not look long at the scene of the slaughter.
As they rode away, the sight still worried at the back of Fflar’s mind, until it seemed like some accusing stare was fixed at a point between his shoulder blades.