Free Final Gate by Richard Baker Page B

for certain if this is the same one, but if it isn’t, it’s an exact copy.”
    “Can you sense the presence of the second or third shards, Araevin?” Nesterin asked.
    Araevin allowed his perception to sink into the shard, absorbing the faint pearlescent glimmers that danced in its depths, groping for a spark of recognition or acknowledgment. Unlike the seluhiira of Saelethil Dlardrageth, there was no guiding consciousness preserved in the Gatekeeper’s Crystal. He could feel the power of the thing, a hidden wellspring of living magic waiting to be tapped, but the shard was not aware of itself or its surroundings.
    While his companions watched, Araevin whispered the words of a finding spell and fixed his attention on the gleaming white crystal in his hand. At once he felt a sharp jolt of connection, as if the shard had sent some intangible call echoing out from the small clearing in the great forest, a call that swept swiftly and silently across the miles. And he felt an answer, a keen ringing tone somewhere far to the east and north. It was the sort of shrill, high tone he might have expected if he’d struck the shard in his hand with a small hammer. He scrambled to his feet without even noticing, and looked in the direction of the sound.
    “There,” he breathed. “Did you feel that?”
    Maresa and Donnor simply shrugged, but Nesterin frowned. “I thought I sensed something, but I could not tell you what it was I felt,” the star elf said.
    “That direction,” Araevin said, pointing. “Very far, I think. Possibly hundreds of miles.”
    “Hundreds?” Maresa picked up a handful of pine needles from the forest floor and threw them down again with a snort of disgust. “I’m getting tired of crisscrossing Faerun chasing after your intuition, Araevin. Could you just for once go looking for an ancient elven gemstone that’s been left out in some close-by, cheerful spot? For that matter, I’m tired of chasing after gems. Why is everything a damned gem or crystal?”
    “Durability,” Araevin answered. “The sun elves of old knew ways to fashion crystal that remains almost indestructible today, thousands of years after it was cast. We’ve been chasing after crystals because that’s the form in which magical power and knowledge from elder days was preserved.”
    “It was a rhetorical question,” Maresa grumbled. “So how far east do we have to go? Back to Cormanthor? Thay? Kara-Tur?”
    “I am not certain,” Araevin admitted. He could clearly sense the direction, but the distant ringing of the crystal had held an odd note, something he could not easily put into words. Somehow he doubted that it would be as simple as riding toward the dawn until they found the second shard. “We’ll make for Myth Glaurach before we do anything else. We need to collect our mounts and provision ourselves for a long journey.”
    The short summer night passed quietly, and in the morning they retraced their steps back toward the conquered fey’ri stronghold. They reached the ruined city in the hills late in the day, and passed the night among the wood elves who guarded the place. Beneath the lanterns and starlight, Myth Glaurach’s overgrown ruins did not seem as sad as they once did—but then again, the songs of the wood elves had a way of dispelling the gloom. They rested for the night in the small chapel where they had stayed a few tendays before, when the whole of Seiveril’s Crusade was encamped in the ruins.
    Early the following day, Gaerradh took her leave of the small company. “I must go visit Lady Morgwais in the High Forest and tell her what happened in Nar Kerymhoarth,” she said. “And after that, I should go see Alustriel and Methrammar in Silverymoon. But I wish you luck in your search for the remaining shards.”
    “Thank you for your help, Gaerradh,” Araevin said. “Sweet water and light laughter until we meet again.”
    He bowed to the wood elf, but she shook her head and caught him in a rib-cracking