"Not I," said Yesvelde.
"I am afraid I used mine to return to the tower when Kileontheal called," Araevin said. "I cannot ready another for hours."
"I have a scroll I can use," said Faelindel. "I will leave at once."
The abjurer bowed to the other mages and left the chamber, striding quickly.
"Jorildyn and Eaglewind-take charge of the Tower defenses. I do not think our attackers will return, but we must not be caught off guard again if they do."
"It will be done," Jorildyn replied.
"Yesvelde, you are a skilled diviner. See if you can learn who our attackers were, and where they came from. We may be able to organize pursuit, if we can learn these things."
The diviner bowed her head, accepting her task. "What of me?" Araevin asked.
"I want you to carefully examine the vaults, armories, and libraries," Quastarte said. "The hellspawn and their winged masters did not come here simply for mayhem and murder. They must have been looking for something. You know the vaults as well as I. Determine if anything is missing." The old loremaster looked at the other mages. "In the meantime, I will search for Philaerin. If he is not here, perhaps he was cast into another plane or banished to some far realm by our enemies."
Araevin nodded and replied, "I will report back at once if I find anything amiss."
Over many centuries, the mages who had dwelled at Tower Reilloch had accumulated many magical devices: mighty staves, deadly battle-wands, rings that stored or deflected spells, crystal orbs, enchanted cloaks, and tomes of perilous lore. Many of them had been crafted, forged, or scribed by the circle's own sorcerers and wizards, while others were prizes of battle, or long-forgotten artifacts that had been brought to Reilloch for safekeeping. Araevin had created a few of the things himself, since he was a skilled artificer of magical devices, and he had brought even more to the Tower from his explorations of old elven ruins in Faerun. His intermittent research into the magical artifices of lost elven realms had required a careful study of the devices stored in the Tower's vaults.
Some of Reilloch's vaults were buried in the deep foundations, others were hidden high atop isolated towers, and a few were in extradimensional spaces that could be reached only through specific doors or chambers in otherwise innocuous portions of the fortress. Most were protected by spells of sealing and concealment that were virtually impenetrable. The vaults containing the most dangerous items were also guarded by lethal spell traps, terrible sigils that would utterly destroy anyone trying to pass them without knowledge of how to do so safely.
The first two vaults Araevin checked were secure, their spells of closing still intact. Araevin quickly inventoried their contents anyway, and found that nothing had been removed. That makes sense, he realized. Raiders after a specific target could not afford to waste time deliberately locating and opening each vault, not unless they were confident of defeating the circle in its entirety and holding the Tower in the face of every counterattack that could be thrown at them. Most likely it would be a single vault that had been attacked. He descended into the mazelike levels below the great hall, and found another vault undisturbed. That was not the case with the fourth vault he checked, however.
At the end of a long, low corridor with a ceiling of groined stone stood a door of iron and adamantine leading to a place known as Nandiyerron's Armory, after the archmage who had built the room a thousand years before. Araevin turned into the corridor leading to the armory, and realized at once that something was amiss. Whispers of spectral magic, the remnants of deadly spell traps even he did not understand, whirled and drifted in the heavy air of the passageway, and the door at the far end stood open. The walls and floor were deeply pitted with black, bubbled stone, as if great gouts of acid or fire had been loosed there, and the stink of hot stone still lingered.
Philaerin lay crumpled before the open door, his staff broken in his burned hands.
"Eldest…" Araevin whispered.
He picked his way down the scored passageway and knelt beside the high mage. A black, even hole had been blasted through the center of Philaerin's chest by some slaying spell, but none of the attackers had managed to so much as scratch him otherwise. Araevin glanced at the passage around him, trying to guess at how many spells had been thrown there while the battle raged in the tower above. Demons, yugoloths, and such monsters summoned from the infernal planes did not leave bodies behind when they were slain-they returned to the foul hells from which they had been called forth. Philaerin might have repelled a few attackers, a small army of them, or none at all, but the battle had gone on long enough for many spells to damage the passageway.
Araevin rose and stepped into the vault of Nandiyerron, quickly examining what was left of its contents. All the Tower's vaults stored a number of relatively minor items, such as rings bearing protective enchantments, or arms and armor that any wizard or priest of middling power might make. He was not concerned about things like that. It was not good that such devices had been stolen, but they were not truly dangerous. On the other hand some of the vaults held uniquely dangerous items, things that could do great harm in the wrong hands. And Araevin saw at once that something important was indeed missing from the vault.
"The Gatekeeper's Crystal," he said aloud. "Damnation."
No one knew who had made the Gatekeeper's Crystal, or even when it had been made, but it was a powerful weapon indeed, an artifact that could easily disjoin and destroy magical wards and protections of any sort. The device consisted of three similar shards, each a dagger-shaped wedge of pale unbreakable crystal. Tower Reilloch held only one of the shards. The other two were lost, as far as Araevin knew. But perhaps those who had attacked the Tower knew differently.
"Araevin? Is that you?" Quastarte's voice echoed from the passages outside.
"I am here, Loremaster," Araevin called. He stepped out of the armory and knelt beside Philaerin again. "I have found Philaerin. And I have found what is missing."
The old sun elf entered the passageway and halted.
"Is he-?"
"Yes," said Araevin. "He was trying to keep them from the shard."
"Ah, no," Quastarte breathed as he hurried to the side of the Eldest, tears brimming in his eyes. "So that is what they were after, then. The Seldarine know what sort of evil they plan with it."
"They will need the other two pieces to use the device, won't they?" Araevin asked.
"Each shard is dangerous in its own right," Quastarte said. "But in conjunction, the three shards together are terribly powerful. Almost one thousand years ago the joined crystal was used to destroy the defenses of Myth Ondath. Only five years past, the Harpers used the crystal to throw down the old defenses of Hellgate Keep and raze that fortress of evil. But each time the crystal is used for such a purpose, its three parts separate and hurl themselves across vast distances and into far planes. It took us two years to find this one piece after the Harpers used it against Ascalhorn."
"And now it is gone."
Quastarte sighed and said, "We thought it would be safe here, if anywhere."
Araevin looked down at the fallen high mage on the pocked stone floor. Philaerin's face was not peaceful in death. His teeth were bared in a rictus of agony, and his eyes were wide and staring. He reached down to compose the Eldest's features, but as his hand neared Philaerin's face, a thin, cold sensation of magic at work briefly kissed his fingertips.
He drew back quickly and said, "Odd. There's a spell on him."
Quastarte leaned close.
"Hmm. Yes, I feel it too. A defense of his? Or some curse of his enemies?"
"It was not very powerful. Not much of a defense or a curse." Araevin considered for a moment. "I will try to negate it."