Araevin retreated back through the archway calling, "Grayth! Get out of there!"
The cleric stumbled out of the mist, coughing and gagging. He managed to get through the archway before falling to all fours, his sword clattering to the ground beside him. Blood flecked his beard, and his face and hands smoked with the awful vapor. Araevin hurried to his side, but Grayth waved him off.
"Check on the others," he gasped, "I will be fine."
He fumbled for his holy symbol and began to rasp the words of a healing prayer.
Araevin nodded and turned back to the doorway. He could hear the golem's great limbs creaking and scraping as it moved, but the thing was still hidden in the middle of its own poisonous mist.
"Ilsevele," Araevin said, "Maresa… are you hurt?"
"No, but we can't see the damned thing!" Maresa called back.
I may not be able to affect it directly with my spells, Araevin thought, but I can certainly do something about that.
He quickly pronounced the words of a wind spell, and blew the green vapors away from the golem. Maresa and Ilsevele huddled together at the place where the old stairs had met the floor above, the genasi holding the spellarcher steady in her precarious perch.
"That's better," Ilsevele said.
She laid an arrow across her bow and drew it back as far as she could before sending it down into the golem again. The arrow caught it in the back of the neck, sinking down deep into its iron chest. The automaton sparked and smoked, its arms jerked up and down, and it fell face-forward to the ground and didn't move again.
Araevin sighed in relief. He looked behind him, where Grayth stood unsteadily but had stopped coughing blood. The cleric plodded up to stand beside him, gazing at the wrecked golem on the floor of the tower room.
"Just like old times," he said. "Lathander grant that there aren't any more of those around."
"I'm sure it will be something worse," Araevin replied. He clapped the human on his broad shoulders. "Thanks, old friend."
"It was nothing," Grayth said, and he coughed hard, eyes watering, one mailed hand kneading his armored chest. "Your lady did all the hard work with her archery," he rasped. "I don't know if we could have beat that thing without her. Now let's find your gemstone and get out of here before we learn what else this place has in store for us."
Nurthel Floshin hurried into Sarya Dlardrageth's con-jury, wings trailing behind him like a great black cloak. His remaining eye glowed green with avarice and purpose, and his infernal golden mail gleamed in the lurid firelight Sarya favored in her chambers. He halted just inside the door and bowed before his queen.
"You sent for me, my lady?" he rumbled.
Restlessly, the demon-sired sorceress circled the chamber. The conjury was a vaulted stone room deep in the catacombs beneath the grand mage's palace. Five thousand years of imprisonment had left Sarya with a distaste for dungeons and deep vaults, and she therefore visited her conjury for only the most important of work.
"Lord Floshin, you would be well advised to answer with more alacrity when next I call for you," she hissed.
"I apologize, Lady Sarya. I was involved in working spells of sending to dispatch your orders to our spies in Yartar and Everlund."
Nurthel Floshin had served as Sarya's spymaster for almost five years, and continued to do so even after she had broken open Nar Kerymhoarth. He had been one of the first fey'ri she had gathered to her side on regaining her freedom, and he was far more familiar with the shape of things in the North than the ancient fey'ri warriors who made up her new armies.
"Ah. I might forgive you for that, then." Sarya's ceaseless prowling slowed a step. She glanced at her fey'ri servant, and moved over to a black silk shroud that covered some unseen furnishing in her conjury. "How go your efforts to locate the mage with the telkiira?"
Nurthel watched Sarya with interest. The shrouded object was something he hadn't seen before, and he was more than a little curious about it. Sarya didn't care to set foot in the conjury without good reason. On the other hand it was likely that Sarya would explain it in her own time. He quelled his curiosity and answered her question.
"Twice I have scried him briefly, but each time he has succeeded in blocking my divinations. I have dispatched two fey'ri to find him, but we are still so few in number, I did not dare send more. Just now I directed our agent in Yartar to retain the services of a certain merchant's guild, whose true trade involves dealing in information and dispensing with unwanted rivals. I have promised them a handsome sum if they locate this fellow for me."
"And what results have you achieved with all that effort?"
"I believe he is traveling on the Trade Way, heading south from Waterdeep. He is riding with four companions, including a high-ranking cleric of Lathander. I infer that he is in the process of traveling to the second stone, but I do not yet know where that is or how soon he might reach it."
Sarya trailed a hand over the black shroud and said, "That is not good enough. He might find the second and third telkiira before we find him! You must redouble your efforts, Nurthel. But perhaps I have failed to provide you with the proper implements for the task."
Sarya drew aside the silken shroud, and allowed it to fall to the floor, revealing a great crystal orb resting in a heavy iron stand. The device glimmered with «a weird emerald light deep in its countless facets.
"What is it?" Nurthel asked softly.
"A telthukiilir, a High Seeing Orb-one of the many useful treasures we recovered from the depths of Nar Kerymhoarth when we freed the fey'ri legion. This is an artifact of ancient Aryvandaar itself, buried for thousands of years in that dolorous citadel."
"A crystal ball?"
"Not quite. Crystal balls are useful enough, but they are easily blocked by those who know rudimentary defenses against scrying. The telthukiilir is a much more powerful instrument. You will find it capable of piercing all but the most powerful of barriers your opponent may raise. But you must use it with care, since its most powerful abilities consume its magic at a prodigious rate. The orb will require a long time to restore its power after defeating the defenses of a knowledgeable enemy." Sarya invited Nurthel with a languid gesture. "Try it now, if you like. I would do so myself, but you have seen this fellow. You will find him more quickly and easily than I would."
Nurthel moved up to stand before the orb. He reached out a hand to pass above the great crystal sphere, and he felt the restless surging of its magic beneath his fingertips. He whispered a few arcane words, and called to mind the face of the sun elf mage he sought.
"Show me the elf who carries the telkiira of Kaeledhin," he said.
The orb glimmered, as emerald energy spiraled deep below its surface. It grew transparent in the center, and Nurthel leaned closer, peering into the orb. Sarya watched him, her arms folded. In the orb an image formed of an old vine-covered tower in a great forest. The picture reeled and blurred, as if the orb was moving closer to it, then it steadied again. Nurthel gazed on the bronzed features of his nemesis from Tower Reilloch. Distantly he heard the sounds of battle, and he realized that the mage and his friends were engaged in a fight against some unseen peril.
"I see him!" he snarled.
"Good. Study the surroundings, fix them in your mind, then gather your company and summon your demonic allies. But remember, I want him alive. He can lead us to the last of the stones."
"He may prove difficult to coerce."
Sarya laughed and said, "Do not underestimate my powers of coercion, Lord Floshin! I am certain we will be able to persuade him to help us."
The forested hillsides above Elion glittered with the soft light of a thousand lanterns, looking for all the world like fireflies in a summer field. The night was cool but not cold, with a patchy silver overcast through which broad swaths of stars glittered. Seiveril stood with his hands clasped behind his back, gazing up from Seamist's green arbor at the growing army encamped about his seat. Each day more elves came, and more elves, so that the scattered camps of a hundred different bands, companies, clans, societies, and orders filled the hills above the Miritar palace.