The Realms of the Elves a-11 Page 9

  "And you would know, I suppose," Valmaxian said. "It was you who bound that demon to service the first time."

  "And I who sent it back to the Abyss where it belongs," Kelaerede said.

  "It was my decision," Valmaxian said. He stood, his knees shaking. "I have been fine without you. You were holding me back."

  "I was teaching you," the old elf whispered.

  "You were wasting my time," Valmaxian almost shouted. His voice echoed against the bare walls. "You're wasting my time now."

  "Am I keeping you from your work, then?" Kelaerede asked. "I understand it's a staff."

  The blood drained from Valmaxian's face, and he felt warm, though he knew he should have expected Kelaerede to be following his work.

  "A staff, yes," Valmaxian said. "It will be my masterpiece."

  "Your masterpiece…" Kelaerede said around a harsh laugh. "A masterpiece I hope you're prepared to lose. If En'Sel'Dinen knows it means anything to you, that's what he'll want."

  Valmaxian opened his mouth to argue, to scream at the dying elf, but no words came out. His knees trembled, and he loathed the feeling. He forced himself to turn away from the bed.

  "This disease has confounded all the priests. Every last one of them. My body has failed me so I Journey West, Val. This is the last time you will ever see me," Kelaerede said to Valmaxian's back. "You can't tell me I was right? You can't promise me you'll undo what you've done?"

  Valmaxian turned his head, but not enough to see his former teacher, and asked, "Is that why you sent for me? So that after all this time I could tell you you were right? Or were you hoping to hear that the demon had extracted some hideous price from me so that you could say 'I told you so'?"

  "Is that what you think I want?"

  "Isn't it?" Valmaxian asked.

  "You were like a son to me."

  "I'm not your son," Valmaxian said. "I never was."

  He lifted one foot and it felt as if it weighed a thousand pounds, but when he lifted the other it felt a little lighter. He found himself storming out of the room. Kelaerede said nothing to stop him. The old elf didn't laugh, cough, or call out.

  Valmaxian passed through the door with his eyes down and brushed past someone in the corridor. He stopped when he felt a hand on his arm.

  His eyes met the gaze of a young elf woman. Her long chestnut hair was pulled back and tied behind her head, her simple cotton blouse and breaches revealed a perfectly formed figure with slim hips and ample breasts, but her full lips were pressed into a tight line and her crystal blue eyes narrowed in accusation.

  "You're Valmaxian," she said, her voice like music, though anger and resentment were plain.

  For the second time that day, the second time in over six hundred years, Valmaxian was speechless.

  The woman sighed and said, "What did you say to him?"

  "I…" Valmaxian started. "Who are…?"

  "Chasianna," she said, folding her arms across her chest and setting her jaw even tighter. "He's my grandfather. He asked for you. He's spoken of you. You broke his heart."

  "We had a difference of opinion," Valmaxian said. "That was a long time ago."

  "A long time ago, maybe," she said, "but there's not a long time left to go. He wanted to make peace with you. I have no idea what you did or what he did… what happened… but I will not have him Journey West without having made his peace."

  Valmaxian realized he wasn't breathing. He felt strange: embarrassed, angry, and ashamed all at once. He shook his head and said, "Do you know who I am?"

  "I don't care who you are," Chasianna said. "I love my grandfather."

  Valmaxian drew in a breath to protest. Chasianna tipped her head to one side, widened her eyes, and seemed ready for any response.

  "You can go back in," she said, her voice softer, hopeful. "It's not too late."

  Valmaxian closed his mouth, and that made Chasianna smile. He found his lips curling up to return her smile, and he glanced back at the door to Kelserede's bedchamber. Without a word to Chasianna he turned around and went back to the door.

  "Say anything," she said. "Just say anything to make it right for him, even if it isn't right for you."

  Valmaxian went back into the room and walked to the side of the bed. For the first time since coming back to his former teacher's studio that day he knew what he wanted and had some idea how to get it.

  "Kelaerede," he said.

  The old elf looked up at him with eyes that seemed even more dull than they had only moments before.

  "Kelaerede, you were right," Valmaxian said. "I wanted more than I should have had. I wanted a life I wasn't willing to earn. I should have stayed with you. I should have taken the decades, if you thought that's what I required. I should not have stolen the scroll. I should not have summoned the demon."

  Kelaerede opened his mouth, but didn't say anything.

  "Journey West, my teacher," Valmaxian said when he heard Chasianna step into the doorway behind him. "Journey West knowing that I will undo what I've done."

  One corner of Kelaerede's dry lips lifted to indicate a smile then the life slipped away from his face.

  Valmaxian sighed, satisfied that both Kelaerede and Chasianna had not only heard him but believed every insincere, lying syllable. Kelaerede was dead, leaving only one true master.

  The 78th Year of the Tourmaline (-6962 DR)

  Valmaxian had had traced out on the marble floor of the casting circle in dwarven mithral an inlay marking out a gentle arc. Spaced exactly fourteen feet, eleven inches apart were five circles. Lines extended from the centers of the first and fifth circles that met at a point precisely one hundred and eighty-nine feet, eleven inches from the farthest of the small circles in the center of the arc. In each of the five circles stood a single, inexpensive clay golem. He'd told the featureless humanoid forms to stand still, and since they possessed no minds of their own, that's exactly what they did.

  Valmaxian surveyed the scene from the top of one of the pillars upon which was built a small platform with no railing. A narrow staircase of elven steel curved from the platform and wrapped around the pillar all the way to the white marble floor a thousand feet below. Valmaxian had to look through a complex series of lenses hung on golden frames to see what was happening on the floor and be seen from there.

  An apprentice-Merellien was his name-stepped out onto the floor, the staff cradled in the crook of his arms. He walked with care and haste across the mithral-traced marble, glancing up only once at Valmaxian, who offered him a curt nod.

  Valmaxian smelled chypre and heard footsteps at the top of the stairs. He smiled, like he always did in the presence of Chasianna. In the two years since the death of her grandfather, they'd become all but inseparable. He turned, still smiling, and her beautiful face beamed. She stepped onto the platform next to him, touching his elbow. She was nervous about the height and the lack of railings, even though she wore the feather falling ring he'd given her months before. Valmaxian found that nervousness, like everything about Chasianna, charming.

  "The staff?" she asked.

  Valmaxian nodded and turned back to watch Merellien step into the circle at the point of the cone.

  "Should I shield my eyes?" Chasianna asked.

  Valmaxian chuckled and said, "No, no. No lightning this time. Just a spray of magic missiles… I hope."

  "You hope?"

  The apprentice looked up at Valmaxian, who nodded once. Merellien faced the golems, raising the staff in both hands in front of him. He exhaled, then spoke a single command word. Three jagged-edged bolts of blue-white light shot out of one end of the staff and flashed unerringly to the middle three golems. The first missile exploded onto the chest of the second golem, the second missile into the middle golem, and the third bolt burst onto the midsection of the fourth golem. The creatures jerked back, but remained standing. "Damn it," Valmaxian sighed.

  Chasianna said, "You can't expect a magic missile to kill a golem. Not just one."

  Valma
xian rubbed his eyes, avoiding the expectant gaze of the apprentice so far below, and said, "That's not the point, though, is it? Only three of them came out."

  "And it should have been five?" she asked.

  "I know what you're going to say."

  "You did it your way, didn't you?" she asked, though he knew she knew the answer. "You did it your fast way."

  "My way works," he said then realized that she'd just seen it fail. "It has worked before. I'm just… it's…"

  "Will you let me show you?" she asked.

  He smiled at her and said, "You can't make it any worse."

  Valmaxian held out his hand and mumbled a few syllables. The staff leaped from Merellien's light grip and soared up through the air and into Valmaxian's hand. He turned and handed the staff to Chasianna.

  She took it with the respect Valmaxian felt the staff deserved. It was unfinished still, but it would prove to be his masterpiece. Chasianna placed it carefully on the floor of the platform and shooed Valmaxian back a couple steps.

  She looked up at him and asked, "Magic missiles?"

  He nodded, and she looked down at the staff, holding her left hand half an armslength above its smooth, polished surface. He watched her enchantment with enormous interest and unconcealed respect. An artist in her own right-certainly not as adept as he, but a capable mage-still, he doubted she'd be able to overcome whatever flaw it was in the staff that caused the enchantment to limit itself to the ability of the user. It should have been able to do what Valmaxian himself was capable of.

  It took her a while, but Valmaxian watched her the whole time. When she was almost done she touched the staff and there was a flash of light that, even though he was expecting it, made Valmaxian flinch. The color drained from Chasianna's fine-boned face and her arm twitched.

  Valmaxian stepped forward and fell to one knee. He touched her on the shoulder, and Chasianna twitched back. She looked up at him, and the dullness in her eyes made Valmaxian's flesh go cold. She was sweating, and she had a streak of gray in her hair where no such flaw existed before. Her hands shook, and when she spoke her voice was quiet and forced.

  "It'll… work now."

  "Chasianna…"

  She smiled, leaning back and sliding into a prone position on the round platform. He helped her down, and made sure her head didn't strike the stone.

  "How many times did he tell you?" she asked.

  Valmaxian blew a breath out through his nose and glanced up at the overcast sky. "Nine hundred and forty-three times," he said. "I counted."

  "I'm sure you did," she said, then coughed.

  He shook his head and told her, "It's not the only way."

  "Try it. Try the staff."

  Valmaxian lifted the staff from the platform floor. It felt warm to his reverent touch.

  "Merellien," he called, then tossed the staff at the apprentice. Valmaxian mumbled an odd-sounding word, and the staff drifted to slip easily into Merellien's hands.

  The apprentice turned to the clay golems, lifted the staff, and glanced up at Valmaxian, who looked down at Chasianna. Though still weak, she smiled at him. Valmaxian turned back to the apprentice and nodded.

  Merellien faced the golems, held up the staff, and repeated the command word. Five bolts of blue-white light shot from the tip of the staff, and one struck each of the golems dead center. Two of the automatons staggered back.

  Valmaxian's heart leaped. One more functionality of the staff successfully enchanted and-he hadn't done it. It was Chasianna and her grandfather's ridiculous notions of self-sacrifice and transference of personal energies.

  He turned back to Chasianna and saw that she had lost consciousness. Her breathing was shallow. He kneeled next to her and scooped her up in his arms. She smiled but didn't open her eyes.

  Three nights later Valmaxian sat on the cool marble floor of his open-air casting circle, gently rocking the staff in his arms and staring up into the star-spattered sky. Chasianna had begun to regain her strength and he was able to get back to work, but the last day had been spent facing more dissatisfying results.

  He knew he could have gone down the path that Kelaerede and Chasianna would have had him take, the one that seemed to work for them, though in a way that held them back as well. Every time they put some parcel of themselves into the enchantment of an item, that was a part they lost. So they had to lose something to gain something. A zero-sum game never interested Valmaxian. It hadn't interested him six hundred years before when Kelaerede insisted on it and it didn't interest him when Chasianna, in her own sincere way, did the same thing.

  To add to the staff, he needed something more. To that end he had had two of his most trusted apprentices make certain preparations. Circles were drawn on the marble with fine chalk. Candles sat cold, but ready. Ready for a summoning.

  It was something he hadn't done in what for even an elf was considered a very long time. The results of the first summoning had satisfied Valmaxian's needs for that long, but there was the staff, and that needed more.

  Valmaxian set the staff on the marble floor next to him and drew in a breath to start the spell. Before he could utter even the first syllable, the gate opened. It was the same as the first time-the same colors, the same intensity of light and motion-but it happened faster, and it happened before he'd made it happen. He was not in control of any of it. The demon was just there.

  "Valmaxian, my old friend," the creature said, his voice somehow still echoing though they were outside. "How can I be of assistance to you this time?"

  Valmaxian put a hand on the staff and tried to make it stop shaking-his hand, not the staff. The staff just sat there, cold and indifferent.

  En'SeI'Dinen's freakish eyes drifted down to the staff and widened. One corner of the beast's twisted mouth pulled up.

  "Ah," it growled, "the staff. The Staff of Valmaxian."

  Valmaxian's heart skipped, and he shook his head.

  "The Staff of Valmaxian…" the elf repeated. Yes, it would bear his name, Valmaxian decided then, and it would roar his legacy to the ages.

  "What is your pleasure, sir?" the demon hissed.

  "The retributive strike," Valmaxian said, taking up the staff and rising to his knees in front of the enormous creature. "The retributive strike, the Fire of All, the Will, the Ego, the Presence. It must live. It must be aware. It must know itself and its creator and it must revel in its own power and mine. It must live, and it must live forever, and it must be fit for the hand of a god."

  The demon grinned, showing a horror of jagged fangs, and said, "A tall order."

  "Worth anything," Valmaxian almost gasped. All restraint and even common sense fled him, replaced by pure ambition. "The staff will be worth a king's ransom-a god's."

  The demon took a step closer, but Valmaxian didn't flinch.

  "Those years past I asked for a price from you for what I gave," En'Sel'Dinen said. "Axe you prepared to balance our ledgers tonight?"

  Valmaxian scoffed, smiled, and said, "You have no-"

  "I gave," the demon barked.

  Valmaxian stood, drawing himself straight, and lifted one eyebrow. "You served my master before me, then you served me. You'll serve me again."

  "I claim my price, elf," was the demon's only reply.

  Having no intention of giving the miserable, bound creature anything, Valmaxian shrugged and said, "Name your price, and let us be on with it."

  The demon snorted a puff of noxious yellow fumes and said, "Chasianna."

  Despite his confidence that the demon could hold nothing over his head, was bound by the spell to do his bidding, Valmaxian's blood ran cold.

  "What did you say?" he asked.

  "The girl," the demon growled. "Chasianna. You know of whom I speak."

  "Why?" Valmaxian thought to ask. The fact that En'Sel'Dinen even knew her name started to shake his confidence.

  "Her skin," the demon almost whispered. "Is it soft? Soft to the touch? Warm and pleasing?"

  Valmaxian tipped h
is head, and the demon laughed at him. The sound made Valmaxian's stomach turn.

  "You'll pay me," the demon said. "I am bound no more-was never bound to you. Your teacher, that bastard Kelaerede, he tried to warn you, didn't he? Tried to tell you that you could never control me. He tried to tell you that anything gained from me would have a cost."

  "Go back," Valmaxian said, a slight lilt in his voice betraying his lack of confidence. "Return to the Abyss, and come no more to this-"

  "Fool," En'Sel'Dinen interrupted. "I will have her soft skin and her yielding lips and her heaving-"

  Valmaxian coughed out the command word and the shimmering darts of magic leaped from the tip of the staff, crossing the handful of paces between the elf and the demon in less than the time it took for Valmaxian to close his eyes against the sudden light.

  It was too bright. Valmaxian knew that right away. The missiles wouldn't generate that much light.

  He opened his eyes, blinking rapidly. The purple splotches cleared soon enough, and the demon was gone. The missiles might have hurt it, certainly hadn't killed it, couldn't possibly have disintegrated it, but it was gone.

  "Chasianna," Valmaxian breathed, then turned and ran for the stairs, muttering the words to the spell that would take him in a flash to the home of the only elf on Toril he'd ever truly loved.

  Valmaxian stepped into Chasianna's home through the last of a series of dimension doors, holding the staff out in front of him. He expected to see the demon En'Sel'Dinen there, expected that Chasianna and her house retainers would be fighting the creature off. He expected to join the fight. The last thing he expected was nothing, but that was exactly what greeted him.

  The tastefully appointed sitting room into which he stepped was dark and quiet. A gold filigreed end table had been tipped over, a crystal vase shattered on the floor next to it, and a single long-stemmed lily lay already wilting on the damp rug.

  "Chasianna!" Valmaxian shouted, letting his voice echo in the sitting room's domed ceiling.

  He held his breath waiting for a reply, but none came. He scanned the room and saw nothing else out of place. The room was sprinkled with valuable antiques, some enchanted by Kelaerede himself. Valmaxian had come to know every one of them, and none were missing.