Her voice shaking with desperation, she uttered the first few words. When no pillar of magical flame consumed her for presuming to work the arcane arts, she continued. Corran and Athan edged closer—as did their foes. The cult sorcerer raised his hands and pointed a sinister finger at the warriors.
She read faster, her tongue tripping over the unfamiliar syllables. Suddenly, a ball of light burst into being and grew steadily to the size of a door. She’d done it! She’d opened the gate.
“Corran! Athan! Now!”
The warriors heard her cry and retreated toward her. As the cultist unleashed his spell, the three of them dove into the portal.
The gate collapsed.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
She couldn’t breathe.
“Kestrel? Is that you?” Corran rose, lifting his heavy bulk from where he’d landed on top of her. She struggled to inhale some air. His weight had knocked the wind right out of her lungs.
“Y... es.”
Though she could barely gasp out the word, she would not have spoken louder if she could. They’d spilled out of the gate just as it imploded and wound up sprawled in the corner of a dank, earthen room. No cultists occupied this small antechamber, but she could hear hundreds of voices chanting nearby.
“Thank the gods you all made it here,” said another familiar voice. Ghleanna picked up Corran’s shield and handed it to the paladin. “We had begun to fear we’d have to take on the archmage alone.”
“We?” Athan asked. “Faeril and Durwyn are here as well, then?”
“Right here,” responded Faeril’s disembodied voice. Durwyn also spoke up, though both invisible speakers used muted tones.
Kestrel passed her hand in front of her eyes to test the sorceress’s spell. Fortunately, she too remained invisible. With a deep breath, she rolled off her stomach, sat up, and assessed their surroundings. The rough-hewn room appeared to have once served as the entryway to a vast chamber beyond. The pile of rock and rubble on one end suggested that they’d arrived on the other side of the cave-in Pelendralaar had caused earlier. Through the sole doorway drifted a monotone mantra droned by countless voices.
Above it, in macabre counterpoint, rose an all-too-familiar babble of lapping water. The Pool of Radiance.
Kestrel’s collarbone vibrated in time with the sinister chant as she crept to the doorway. Corran approached even more cautiously, taking care to stay as hidden as possible. The sight that greeted them stole her breath once more.
The antechamber opened into a vast cavern. The floor of the cavern was well below the antechamber, joined together by a long slope. At the cavern’s center lay the Pool of Radiance. Amber light infused its water, which gently lapped its banks in a peaceful motion that belied its lethal nature. Hundreds of cult sorcerers and fighters lined the pool’s perimeter, their squads assembled with military precision.
At the far end of the cavern, on a recessed ledge overlooking the pool, stood Kya Mordrayn. The Gauntlets of Moander hung from a belt at her hips. Beside her, a stone pillar rose out of the ledge to about waist level. The Sapphire of the Weave rested atop it, pulsing with brilliant blue light. The illumination dappled the cavern walls and bathed the archmage’s face, lending it a deathly paleness that contrasted sharply with the expression of intense concentration she wore. Her eyes stared unblinking at the gem as she cupped it with her dragonlike claw.
Mordrayn was locked in communion with the Mythal. Tiny blue-white flames danced around the edges of the Sapphire, bathing the gem in supernatural fire. The flames also licked Mordrayn’s claw, but the archmage either did not feel their heat or could not respond. She stood entranced by the sapphire’s aura, her mind one with the Weave.
There was no sign of the dracolich Pelendralaar. Yet.
Kestrel listened closely to the sounds emanating from the cavern. The sapphire—at least she thought it was the gem from this distance—emitted a low hum. The cultists droned in time with the stone’s pulsations. Though Kestrel couldn’t distinguish the arcane words, they resonated with blasphemy.
She backed away from the opening, her heart racing. This was it—their only opportunity to destroy the Pool of Radiance. There would be no second chances.
“We are so outnumbered I don’t even want to think about it,” she said as she and Corran returned to the others. “The cavern is filled with cultists. And all of them stand between us and Mordrayn.”
Corran removed his helm. He ran a hand through his dark locks, grasping the roots at the back of his head and closing his eyes. He looked as weary as Kestrel felt.
“We need not defeat them all,” said Ghleanna. “We just have to get someone on the ledge to touch the sapphire and speak the Word of Redemption.”
“Destroying the gem is only our first objective.” Corran opened his eyes and let his hand drop to his side.
“Afterward, we still need to defeat Mordrayn to get the Gauntlets of Moander and destroy the pool.”
“Not to mention deal with the dracolich if he makes an appearance,” Kestrel added. Her collarbone tingled so much she could barely stand still.
“He will,” Athan asserted. “If Mordrayn summons him or we harm her, he will come.”
Corran knelt and traced a representation of the pool cavern in the dust, marking the positions of the pool, Mordrayn, the sapphire, and the cultists. “Ghleanna is right about the gem being our first priority. We must create a distraction to enable one of us to get up on that ledge. There’s a section of dry floor between the pool and the ledge wall.” He glanced up from his tracings. “Kestrel, do you—”
He stopped short staring at her. She squirmed under his scrutiny. “What? What is it?”
“Your invisibility is wearing off.”
Kestrel looked down at her body. It appeared translucent, like those of Anorrweyn or Caalenfaire, but solidified more each second. A glance at the others showed Faeril reappearing as well. Only Durwyn—cloaked by the original invisibility spell, not Ghleanna’s modified version—remained unseen. Kestrel swore under her breath.
“No matter,” Corran said calmly. “Better now than unexpectedly during battle. We’ll work around it.”
Somehow, in the face of everything, Kestrel found Corran’s matter-of-fact tone reassuring. For all their differences and the grief he’d given her, the paladin had proven himself a valuable comrade-in-arms. She wondered if the party ever would have made it this far without Corran’s steadiness and faith in their cause. Certainly not if it had been left up to her.
Corran drew an X in the dust. “We are here. I suggest five of us create a distraction in this part of the cavern—” he traced a circle—“while one person skirts the perimeter and scales the wall to reach the gem.”
At the party’s nods of agreement, Corran continued. “This room provides both cover and a good view of the cavern. Faeril and Ghleanna, cast as many spells as you can from here until the range of your remaining magic forces you to move to more exposed ground. Athan, Durwyn, and Kestrel, once the cult realizes where the magic is coming from, the spellcasters will need your defensive help. With luck and Tyr’s favor, I will have reached the sapphire by then.”
Kestrel frowned. Corran darting through cultists and scrambling up a wall? She was far better suited for the assignment than the brawny paladin. Once again he was underusing her skills. “Corran, that ledge is at least forty feet high. I’m smaller and lighter, not to mention more experienced at this sort of thing. I can scale it in half the time it would take you.”
“That’s true.” His gray eyes met hers. “But Mordrayn will be waiting for whoever reaches the top.”
Well, of course she would. That went without—
Kestrel’s thoughts stopped abruptly as she realized the paladin’s motive. He was taking the most dangerous assignment upon himself. Looking back, she realized that many of their arguments had arisen because he had tried to sacrifice his own safety first.