“In Fallcrest?” Albanon said, suddenly excited to return to the town that had been his home for seven years.
“Did Moorin have another tower somewhere?”
A thought struck Albanon. “Why didn’t you use that circle before?”
Kri blinked at him. “What?”
“When we first met. You said you came to Fallcrest by boat. Why didn’t you just teleport there?”
“Moorin never shared the sigils of his circle with me. I studied them when we were last there.”
Albanon frowned, but something about Kri’s tone made him decide not to press the question further. Instead, he turned his attention to the arch. “Are you sure it’s going to work?” He pointed to the top of the arch. “It looks like there used to be something set into the stone at the apex. Maybe it won’t function without whatever it was.”
“As I said,” Kri said testily, “I have modified the arch so that it will function in its current state.”
“Oh, right.”
“Are you ready?” Kri asked.
“Do I have a choice?”
“Of course you do, Albanon. But I thought you wanted to help me root out the source of this abyssal plague.”
“I do,” Albanon said quickly. “Forgive me. I spoke without thinking.”
A spasm of fury passed across Kri’s face, and Albanon stepped away reflexively. Then it was gone, and Kri was smiling again. “We’ll leave when you’re sure you’re ready,” he said.
“I’m ready. I’m sorry.”
“Very well. To Moorin’s tower!”
Kri raised his hands before the arch and the columns began to glow, casting the interior into strange shadows. He stepped between the glowing columns and disappeared.
Albanon took one last look at the Whitethorn Spire, half hoping to see Splendid speeding through the archway on her tiny wings, and followed the priest through the arch.
For the briefest instant he felt like he was falling, and as if some dark presence nearby was grasping at him. Then his feet stood once more on solid ground. It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the candlelit chamber, but he knew it well, and it brought a stab of pain to his heart. It was the very chamber where he had found Moorin’s corpse after Nu Alin-using the unassuming body of a halfling-had torn him to pieces. Blood had been everywhere, and for one horrible moment the memory of the smell-the acrid blood and his own vomit-threatened to overwhelm him.
“What have we here?” Kri demanded, jolting Albanon’s mind back to the present.
Magical power shimmered in the air around them, forming a dome over the teleportation circle that was inscribed on the ground. Albanon wasn’t immediately sure, but he guessed the purpose of the dome was to keep him and Kri inside. He was more certain about the intent of the trembling soldiers that surrounded the pair, pointing spears and halberds in their general direction.
“Intruders!” one of the soldiers shouted. “Get the captain!”
Another soldier, a young man who looked barely old enough for the militia, broke from the circle and ran down the stairs, presumably to carry out his sergeant’s orders.
“What’s the meaning of this, sergeant?” Kri asked hotly. “We’re not intruders-this tower belongs to Albanon, here.”
“Sorry,” the sergeant replied, “but we have our orders. You need to stay here until we can make sure you’re clean.”
“Fine,” Albanon said, cutting off what he suspected was going to be an angry retort from Kri. “But we’ve been away from Fallcrest for some time. Can you tell us what’s going on while we wait for the captain?”
“The town’s under siege. The invaders are everywhere in Lowtown and the west bank. Plague is breaking out, mostly among soldiers who have fought the creatures, but it’s starting to spread. Hightown’s crowded with refugees.”
“So what are you doing here?” Kri demanded. “Don’t you soldiers have better things to do than occupy a wizard’s tower?”
“The town’s locked down,” the sergeant said. “No one enters Hightown until we’re sure they’re not carrying the plague or working for the enemy.”
The young soldier returned, breathless from his run. “The captain’s here, sir,” he said with a salute.
“Thank the gods,” the sergeant breathed.
Albanon had the opposite reaction as the captain strode in. The captain was a tall human woman, with dark brown skin and eyes that gleamed like amber. Albanon recognized her-she had tried to arrest him after Moorin’s death and had testified at his trial before the Lord Warden where he was finally acquitted. The few times he’d seen her since then, he’d had the distinct feeling that she took his freedom as a personal affront.
“Well, they don’t look like demons,” the captain announced. “And I don’t see any sores.”
“No, Captain Damar,” the sergeant replied, “but our orders-”
“Moorin’s apprentice,” the captain said, stepping closer to inspect Albanon. “Your dragonborn friend blinded my soldiers and carried you away before we could arrest you.”
“I’ve faced trial before the Lord Warden,” Albanon said.
“Indeed. He decided you were innocent. But I still don’t understand why an innocent man would attack my guards and run like a rabbit.”
“Roghar and I were chasing the creature that did kill Moorin. It had taken our friend Tempest, and we were afraid it might kill her as well, so we were trying to travel fast. We didn’t have time-”
“Back up,” Captain Damar said. “Who else was present that day, the first time we tried to arrest you?”
Albanon furrowed his brow. “Who else? Well, the Lord Warden was the one who ordered me to surrender myself. The High Septarch and his apprentice, Tobolar. You and a half dozen soldiers. Me, Roghar, and Splendid, Moorin’s pseudodragon.”
The captain nodded. “They are who they say they are, sergeant. You may lower the wards.”
Albanon gaped at her, stunned into silence.
“If you were an enemy posing as Albanon-well, first, you’d be a damned fool to choose that disguise. But more important, I don’t think you’d know all the details of that day. And I see no sign of contagion.”
“So you believe I’m innocent?”
The captain scoffed. “At the time, you were the only suspect that made sense, and your explanation of a ‘foul creature from someplace else’ seemed far-fetched.” She frowned. “Now it’s all too real.”
As she spoke, her sergeant manipulated some kind of pattern on a nearby table, shifting gleaming stones around on an engraved circle. The shimmer of magic in the air around Albanon and Kri vanished suddenly.
“So what are these invaders?” Albanon asked, stepping out of the circle. He suspected he knew the answer, but he didn’t want to believe it until he heard the captain say it.
“They’re not like anything I’ve seen before,” the captain said, and Albanon’s heart sank. “Creatures of blood and fire, some of them, and others are made of shadow and nightmare.”
Albanon cocked his head. These didn’t sound like Vestapalk’s demons. “Fire and blood, you say? What does that mean?”
“They’re formed of living flame, like elementals. But they have faces in the midst of the flame, faces formed of blood streaked with silver.”
“The Voidharrow,” Kri said.
“So they are Vestapalk’s demons,” Albanon said. “But a new kind, one we haven’t seen before. And they’re all over Lowtown?”
“Oh, yes,” the captain said. “And the west bank of the river. We have soldiers and conscripts all along the walls, the river, and the bluffs to keep them from spreading, but I fear it’s futile.”
“Why?”
“A couple of people struck by the plague ended up … changed. Most of them, we had to kill. A couple got away to join the enemy.”
“They turned into demons,” Albanon said.
“Demons seems like as good a word as any. So tell me, how do you defend a town against something like that?”