“Like the way the Dlardrageths destroyed the wards over the Nameless Dungeon?”
“Yes. I think it’s the only way.”
The genasi gave him a skeptical look. Then she shook her long silver-white hair out of her face with a toss of her head. “I saw what the crystal did to that hillside in the High Forest,” she said. “Is that what you’re going to do here?”
“First we must find the center of the Waymeet,” Araevin said.
Maresa and Nesterin led the way as they set out along a curving corridor that spiraled in toward the middle of the place. The foul smoke hanging in the air of the place burned the eyes and seared the nose, and it limited visibility to a few dozen feet. Araevin quickly realized that the smoke kept them from navigating toward the Waymeet’s center, but at least it also served to help conceal them from any of Malkizid’s servants unless they actually blundered into their enemies.
They came to an intersection, and Araevin studied their surroundings for a moment before pointing to the right. The genasi and the star elf started down the new passageway, stealing forward as quietly as they could.
Harsh voices croaked in the mist behind the company. Araevin whirled just in time to see three mezzoloths emerge from the acidic fog just behind them, following the intersecting avenue. The bulky insectile creatures did not hesitate for an instant; the moment they caught sight of Araevin and his friends, they threw themselves at the travelers, clacking and chattering to each other.
Jorin shot one in the center of its chitin-covered torso, but the monster shrugged off the arrow and kept coming. The ranger stepped back, continuing to shoot as fast as he could bring arrows to the string. Green-feathered shafts peppered the fiends, but then the ranger had to drop his bow with a sharp curse and sweep out his swords, for the mezzoloths were on him. Araevin drew a wand from his belt and looked for a chance to strike back at the monsters, but Donnor threw out an arm.
“Go on!” Donnor growled. “Perform the rite! Jorin and I will hold them!”
The mage started to argue, but he could hear more fiends hurrying to the fray. If he allowed himself to be drawn into a skirmish, he might not get a chance to strike the blow that truly counted.
“Follow us as soon as you can,” he said to Donnor, and he hurried back to Maresa and Nesterin. “Come on, we must do what we came to do.”
Behind him, the Lathanderite turned to face the oncoming mezzoloths, with the Yuir ranger at his shoulder. He shouted a holy prayer to his deity and banished one of the monsters back to its own plane, sending it shrieking back to the hells in a shroud of golden fire. Then Araevin pulled himself away and ran on into the Waymeet, Maresa and Nesterin a step behind him. Angry roars and hisses filled the mist behind them.
The foundations of the walls and columns grew thicker as the three of them came into the center of the Waymeet. Here the fence of titanic crystal spears that formed the heart of the mythal reached hundreds of feet overhead, and not even the elves of ancient Aryvandaar could build such things without a sturdy footing. The bitter yellow mists cleared a little, affording them a good view of the cathedral-like space in the heart of the Waymeet. Bold spurs of glass crossed and crossed again overhead, creating a ceiling of sorts far above. Smaller ribs of crystal linked the great columns; the place was a spiderweb of glass.
Beneath a spiraling dome in the center of the structure stood another speaking stone, a column easily thirty feet tall, but like the lesser speaking stone Araevin had seen on the outskirts of the Waymeet, the master stone was also encircled by iron runes. Thick bands of black metal pressed Malkizid’s hellforged spells deep into the crystalline flesh of the living mythal.
“This must anchor the mythal,” Nesterin breathed. “What a magnificent work this Waymeet must have been!”
“Admire it later,” Maresa said. She looked to Araevin. “So how do we do this?”
“Here, take this.” Araevin brought out the Gatekeeper’s Crystal and quickly disjoined it, separating it into its original three shards. He handed one piece to Maresa, and another to Nesterin. “We need to spread out and create three points of a triangle with the shards-the wider, the better. At the very least, we should surround the master stone there. When you are in position I will invoke the crystal’s power and unbind the magic in this place.”
“What happens to us when you do that?” Maresa asked.
“If the Seldarine smile on us, the damage will be contained within the shards’ borders. You must be careful to stand outside the triangle, not inside.”
The genasi nodded once. “I’m off, then,” she said, and she sprinted across the open plaza, running past the chained speaking stone. Nesterin observed her course for a moment, then hurried off at a right angle, seeking to separate himself as widely as possible from both Maresa and Araevin.
A winged shape dropped down out of the tangle of poisoned crystal overhead, diving down toward the star elf. “Nesterin, above you!” Araevin cried.
Nesterin looked up, and threw himself to one side as the monster above him slammed into the ground where he had been standing. Stone split with piercing reports, reverberating through the Waymeet’s chancel. The monster, a powerful green-scaled nycaloth, cast its baleful red eyes on Araevin.
“You spoiled my pounce, elf,” it hissed. “You will pay for that when I finish with your friend.”
It turned to spring after Nesterin, who rolled away and came to his feet with his sword in hand. Araevin blasted at it with a bolt of lightning, charring a broad black scorch across its shoulders. The monster roared and kept after the star elf. Nesterin lunged forward and stabbed it twice in its thickly muscled torso, but the nycaloth shrugged off the blows. It beat its wings once and leaped up to fix the talons of its feet in Nesterin’s shoulders, and dragged him up off the ground.
“Let go of me!” Nesterin snarled. His sword dropped to the ground and bounced with a shrill ringing sound, and he struggled in the monster’s grasp.
“Nesterin!” Araevin started another spell, but halted in mid-word. Any magic he hurled might strike his friend as well as the nycaloth. He settled for a simple magical attack that hammered small darts of arcane power into the nycaloth’s chest, eliciting another roar from the beast. It rose higher, trying to get out of his range. Then Nesterin threw back his head and sang out a potent warding spell against evil. The nycaloth hissed and recoiled, driven away by the abjuration-and Nesterin fell twenty feet or more to the hard stone floor of the Waymeet’s chancel. He landed badly and sprawled to the ground, grimacing in agony.
Araevin started toward him, but Nesterin waved him back. Blood seeped from his wounded shoulders, and his left leg turned at a bad angle.
“I can hold the shard right here,” the star elf said. “Speak the rite, Araevin!”
Maresa appeared on the far side of the chancel, holding her shard of the crystal. “Is this good?” she called.
He glanced at the genasi, and back to Nesterin, and quickly backed ten steps, trying to position himself correctly. He raised his shard, and looked into it, seeking the combination of willpower and knowledge to trigger its power.
Icy needles scythed into him from behind, piercing his flesh like hateful icicles. Cold so intense that his nerves shrieked as if on fire stabbed into him at shoulder, neck, arm, and back. Araevin screamed once and staggered away, dropping the Gatekeeper’s Crystal from hands suddenly too numb to hold it.
“You feckless fool! You would destroy a work twelve thousand years old? You are little more than a vandal!” Malkizid strode into the Waymeet’s heart, emerging from the mist-wreathed pillars behind Araevin. His taloned hands clenched in anger, and the glass walls of the place shivered at the anger in his melodious voice. “I have worked for this day too long to allow you to ruin it, ungrateful whelp!”