“Seiveril, be careful…” Starbrow warned. “The powers here are not to be lightly called upon.”
“I know.”
Seiveril strode up to face the rotunda’s only door, while the others exchanged looks behind him and slowly dismounted. He whispered a small devotion to clear his mind for the labor ahead, and pressed his hands together before his chest. Then he began to chant a powerful spell, calling on Corellon Larethian’s power and shaping the divine energy with his words and will. He sensed all around him the slow awakening of the vale. The wind shifted and grew strong, raking across the dry grass and fallen leaves with an icy touch. A pale corona began to flicker and burn around the ancient white stones of the place. He shivered and finished the incantation. Throwing his arms wide, he shouted, “Come forth, I beseech you! Come forth!”
A golden light seemed to illuminate the domed crypt in front of him, sunlight from some distant and unseen dawn. The radiance spilled out over the nearby glade. And a spectral form seemed to stride through the mithral-chased door. It was the shade of a noble sun elf warrior, dressed in the arms of Myth Drannor’s Akh Velar. His red hair spilled out from under his helm, and his eyes gleamed with a brilliant light.
Behind Seiveril, Starbrow recoiled two steps in pure astonishment. “Elkhazel!” he whispered. “Is that truly you?”
“Greetings, Father,” Seiveril said weakly. He swayed, suddenly exhausted beyond all endurance, but Ilsevele and Jorildyn hurried up to steady him.
“Seiveril, my son,” the shade of Elkhazel said. Warmth filled his voice. “Fflar, my old friend. I am pleased to see you walk in Cormanthor again.”
Seiveril looked on the visage of his father. “Forgive me for calling you from Arvandor, but the guardians of the vale are needed tonight. I hoped that you could intercede on our behalf.”
“I am not angry, Seiveril,” the golden spirit said. He drifted before the door of the Miritar crypt, ethereal mists streaming from his translucent form. His face was compassionate, but there was iron in the set of his mouth. “It is for needs such as yours that the ancient rites were first spoken. The daemonfey are an abomination in the sight of the Seldarine. Your appeal has been heard.”
“You can aid us, Father?”
“Only within the bounds of the Vale of Lost Voices itself, and only for a short time. Call for me when you judge the moment to be right, and I will come with others who sleep here.” Elkhazel Miritar offered a grim smile. “The Dlardrageths have transgressed against the memory of Cormanthyr. We await the chance to chastise the daemonfey.”
“I will call for you,” Seiveril said.
He studied the spectral visage, so familiar and yet so distant. Elkhazel had passed to Arvandor three centuries after Retreating to Evermeet, and a century after Seiveril’s birth. Though he had become a lord of Evermeet, he had never ceased to grieve for the elven realm destroyed in the Weeping War. Seiveril remembered the old pain in his father’s eyes, the wounded heart that had never wholly healed, and he felt his own heart aching with love and sorrow. Tears came to his eyes, and he made no attempt to stop them.
The ghostly elflord stretched one hand over his son’s shoulder, and stood in silence. Then he looked up, and his gaze fell on Ilsevele. “Your daughter?” Elkhazel asked softly.
Ilsevele’s eyes glimmered with tears, but she stood straight and looked her grandfather in the face. “I am Ilsevele, daughter of Seiveril and Ilyyela,” she said. “I greet you, Grandfather.”
The shade drifted closer and studied her face, his eyes shining with light. Then, slowly, he knelt and bowed his head before her, doffing his spectral helm. In the moonlight he seemed as faint as a forgotten memory, but the night fell silent as the shade paid her homage.
“I am sorry that we did not meet in life, granddaughter,” he whispered. “You are the hope of Cormanthyr, Ilsevele. In your day our People will come into a new spring.”
Ilsevele looked down on the shade of Elkhazel and frowned in puzzlement. “I don’t understand,” she said.
Elkhazel smiled. “You will,” he said. Then he rose and turned to Starbrow. “She is your hope as well, my friend. Across the centuries you have found the love you once lost, and it gladdens my heart to see it.”
Starbrow stared at the visage of his friend, and struggled to speak. But the golden shade simply raised his hand in farewell and vanished in a single swift heartbeat. The four living elves were left standing in the glade before the Miritar crypt, and the night was still and warm again.
No one spoke for a long time. Jorildyn studied his three companions, his gruff expression lost in a strange and rare wonder. Finally he cleared his throat. “We should return to the Crusade, Seiveril. We don’t know how much time we have before the daemonfey attack again.”
“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” Seiveril admitted. He looked at his companions. “I think it would be best if we kept what passed here in this glade to ourselves for now. The shades of the dead are right about many things, but their words often have many meanings. Nothing is written yet.”
Climbing into his saddle, he turned his horse’s head back to the east and led the others away from the crypt of his fathers.
It proved surprisingly difficult to measure time or distance in the Barrens of Doom and Despair. The sky was a featureless mass of low, roiling clouds, and the blowing dust frequently obscured distant landmarks. Clearly, this was a place where one could easily become lost. Without the distant call of the third shard to guide him, Araevin doubted that he could have managed to keep his bearings.
They started off by descending the treacherous hillside from the old ruin, slipping and sliding in dust and scree. Then they struck off across the plain itself, trudging across the windswept waste. On several occasions the surging fires overhead burned their way free of the black clouds, scouring the ground below like dancing waterspouts made of flame, but fortunately none of the fire-strikes fell close to them.
After several miles, they started to climb again, following a dry watercourse that snaked up into the razorlike maze of ridges. Near the foot of the defile they paused to drink some water and make a small meal from their rations.
“I am surprised that we have encountered no infernal beings yet,” Nesterin said as they ate. “This plane seems virtually uninhabited.”
“Don’t invite trouble,” Maresa growled. “I’m in no hurry to meet more demons or devils.”
“It’s the nature of the plane, Nesterin,” Donnor said. “The domains of the evil powers in the Barrens are separated by vast stretches of wasteland. This place is not bounded like Sildeyuir. It goes on and on for countless thousands of miles. Not all of it can be full of evil creatures all the time.”
“I think you spoke too soon,” Jorin announced. The ranger stood a little behind the others, looking back the way they had come with a hand above his eyes. “Something is on our trail.”
Araevin and the others stood and hurried to Jorin’s side. The keen-eyed ranger was not mistaken; out in the open wastes a number of tiny, dark shapes that kicked up windblown arrowheads of dust were following them. Studying them for a long moment, Araevin decided that the creatures ran on all fours, but they were too far off to make out any more detail than that-though they were covering ground at a very good speed indeed.
“What are they?” Donnor asked. He gave up trying to see for himself, since his human eyes were the least keen of any in the small company.
“I can’t say yet,” Jorin answered. “Wolves of some kind? I count at least thirty, about a mile behind us.”