With a last searching look at Albanon, Kri lowered himself to his knees in the center of the circle. He laid the chunk of crystal on the floor. “Chained God, guide me,” he breathed. He lifted the tiny vial and strained at the stopper with a visible effort. He thrust the vial at Albanon and growled, “Open this. Carefully!”
The stopper was stuck fast. Peering into the vial, Albanon noted that the glass had fused together somehow, as if the substance within had heated like a furnace and shaped a new orb around itself. Albanon formed his finger and thumb into a ring around the neck of the vial and concentrated for a moment, creating a thin plane of magical force within the ring that made a clean cut through the glass.
The substance within surged up the sides of the vial and out the mouth, defying gravity as if thrilled to be free, and splashed onto his hand. It was cool and slick, and it spread quickly into a thin film covering his whole hand.
“No, you fool!” Kri shouted. “Get it onto the shard!”
Albanon stared, transfixed, at his red hand and wrist. A distant memory surfaced in his mind-a serpent of red crystal snaking out of Tempest’s dying body, surging onto Falon’s flesh, reaching for the young cleric’s face and forcing itself into his mouth. Like the demons he’d fought, the red liquid was a dark snarl in the fabric of magic, out of place even in the more tangled weave of magic in the world.
Kri was on his feet now, clutching the crystal and holding it up near Albanon’s hand as if its mere proximity would draw the substance away from Albanon’s flesh. Sure enough, a drop of the Voidharrow fell onto the shard. A flash of brilliant light cast stark shadows all around the chamber, and Albanon imagined that he saw the trails of Moorin’s blood in the darkness.
A more recent memory fought its way into his awareness. The thing that had been Vestapalk, the dragon that was now a demon, looming over him and drooling the Voidharrow onto his forehead, infusing him with the substance of its corruption. Then Kri tending to him before the red substance took him completely, purging his body clean with divine light.
A formula took shape in his mind and rolled off his tongue, and his hand began to glow. First red light shone in an orb around his hand, but then the liquid began to burn away and the pure white light shone through, growing steadily brighter.
Kri snatched the crystal away before the light could sear it, shouting, “No! You’re destroying it!”
Albanon allowed the light to die and examined his hands. None of the substance remained, either on his skin or in the vial.
Then Kri’s fist slammed into his jaw, knocking him backward and jumbling his thoughts. He felt like he’d been on the cusp of an important realization or insight, but it was gone, like a word that vanished from the tip of his tongue.
“I would kill you where you stand,” the Doomdreamer said, “but now is the moment I need you.”
The Voidharrow had fused with the shard and expanded around it. Albanon closed his eyes and extended his other senses, and he felt and understood the crystalline structure forming around the shard, matching its internal structure, channeling magical energy in a precise pattern. He also noted that the liquid was replicating itself, like a living creature, forming more of its substance from nothing.
Kri thrust the shard toward him again, holding it in both hands as it slowly expanded. “Place your hands on the Vast Gate with me and help it grow, shape it with me.”
The liquid slithered over the surface of the crystal, expanding it and fusing with it so Albanon couldn’t tell where the original shard ended and the new substance began. He was hesitant to touch it, for fear the liquid would try to fuse with him again, but he didn’t want to-no, he couldn’t disobey the Doomdreamer. He placed both hands on the crystal and felt the magic surging through it.
Kri stared at him and spoke in a tone of firm command. “We are shaping the Vast Gate, forming an archway, creating a pathway between worlds. Keep those thoughts in mind and no others.”
As they guided its growth, the crystal expanded into a slender column that they soon had to rest on the floor. They shaped it up and over into a curving arch, then-with agonizing slowness as the amount of liquid flowing over the surface diminished almost to nothing-back down to touch the floor again.
Albanon heard the soft pop of air as an unknown landscape, a dark and forbidding castle on a high promontory, appeared in the archway. The scene then disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by a foam-washed seashore.
The Vast Gate was open.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Roghar led his new ragtag army-the handful of soldiers who had helped him and Tempest defeat the fire demons-on a triumphant march through the shattered doors of the Silver Unicorn. Smoke still wafted around near the ceiling-more smoke than usual, anyway. Besides the front doors, a few other windows and doors were crashed in, curtains and bedsheets scorched or incinerated, and timbers here and there were blackened with fire, but the inn had escaped a far worse fate thanks to their efforts. To her credit, Wisara Osterman acknowledged that fact, promising that the “heroes of Fallcrest” could drink at the Silver Unicorn for the rest of their lives, on the house.
“She obviously doesn’t know you very well,” Tempest whispered to Roghar.
“I’m not sure I want to do my drinking here, anyway,” Roghar said. “It’s sort of a dump.”
Uldane stalked in a few minutes after they got settled and silently took a seat at the table.
“No luck?” Roghar asked.
Uldane shook his head with a glance at Tempest.
“Where are Shara and the drow?”
Uldane shrugged.
“What’s the matter with you, Uldane?” Roghar said, clapping the halfling on the shoulder. “We won, didn’t we?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” The halfling crossed his arms and seemed to fold in on himself, turning away from Roghar.
Shara burst in then, scanning the room, and the drow loomed at her shoulder. “Where in the three worlds is Albanon?” Shara said.
“Albanon?” Roghar said. “I haven’t seen him since …”
“He was there,” Shara said, storming to the table. “I saw him, and Kri as well, talking to him.”
“Kri was talking to Albanon? Who’s Kri?” Roghar asked.
“They were both talking to Nu Alin!” Shara said. “They let him get away!”
“You found Nu Alin?” Tempest asked, leaning forward.
“He got away,” Uldane said. “I’m sorry, Tempest, I tried to catch him.”
“He would have killed you,” Roghar said. “None of us is strong enough to handle him alone.”
Quarhaun rubbed his throat, where several lighter spots in his dark skin marked recent wounds only partially healed by magic. “True enough,” he said, his voice hoarse.
“But he got away,” Uldane said.
“I can’t believe Albanon would let him go like that,” Tempest said. “He hates the demon almost as much as I do.”
Roghar scratched his chin. “Is it possible he didn’t recognize Nu Alin?”
“Maybe at first,” Shara said. “But he watched the demon hit me and he didn’t lift a finger. Then he just walked away.”
“I’m sorry to say it,” Roghar said, “but I think we need to treat the elf as an enemy until we know what’s going on.”
“Eladrin,” Tempest said automatically.
“Whatever. But perhaps Nu Alin has powers of mind control we’re not aware of.”
“Or else Kri does,” Shara said.
“Tell me again who this Kri is?” Roghar said. “A priest of Ioun, you said?”
“Yes. Kri helped us deal with another demon, another servant of Vestapalk. He knows more about the threat we face than anyone, and he said he was the last member of an order that Albanon’s mentor also belonged to. After we destroyed that other demon, he took Albanon into the Feywild, looking for a weapon we could use against Vestapalk.”