Live by the Sword

Prologue

The night was cool and fragrant in the Forest of Lethyr. Te'Vril could see the spring moon as it glimmered low in the sky, its light filtering faintly through the leaves of the trees that surrounded the large clearing. Off to one side, the fire burned golden, and he could make out the reclining forms of four of the other volunteer guards as they rested between watches.

Across the clearing, Dolfus paced nervously. It was his first time out guarding the Mucklestones. Te'Vril didn't have the heart to tell him it would be his last. The elf gazed past the circle of stones at the human and somehow knew he would not be back to guard them again. Te'Vril could not tell exactly why, but he got a strong feeling Dolfus's guarding days were numbered.

The man walked around the outside of the stone circle to stand beside him nervously. “I hear these things are due to shift soon,” he began quietly, glancing up and down at the nearest stone.

“Yes,” Te'Vril answered evenly. He closed his eyes and concentrated, hoping to get a feel for the stones' next shift. Sometimes an individual monolith would move a few feet from its position. Sometimes the entire thirty foot ring of stones would move yards across the clearing. Te'Vril had once seen it move nearly fifty feet.

The elf looked at the man, trying to put as much reassurance in his golden eyes as possible. “Don't worry, Dolf,” he stated reassuringly. “We'll give it plenty of room the instant it starts to move.”

Dolfus looked up at the eight foot stone before him, the moonlight glancing off the runes carved into its surface. “Is it true that these stones are gates to other places? Other planes?” the man asked, rubbing his scruffy beard with one calloused hand.

“It's true,” Te'Vril replied. “But for almost a hundred years the gates have been either broken or unpredictable. The few that have tried to use them did not end up where they expected.” Then Te'Vril looked at the man sadly, “And some did not end up anywhere at all—anywhere on Faerun, that is.”

Now that Dolfus had started, it seemed as if his curiosity got the better of his fear and he continued to ask about the mysterious ring they'd come to guard. “The men say that some of these gates lead to the Underdark. What if an army of drow elves decides to come attack us?” Dolfus asked. “How can the six of us stand against monsters like that?”

“Trust me,” Te'Vril began with a wry laugh, “if an army of dark elves comes out of one of these gates, I'll be the first one out of here. I've plenty of reasons to keep my distance from the drow. But the drow tend to stay in the Underdark and torment each other.”

Dolfus looked at him a moment, then nodded and turned to walk away. Then he stopped and turned back. “And what about the Abyss?” he asked, his voice even more fearful. “They say the creatures of the lower planes have taken over the Dunwood completely.”

“Then that's who I'd worry about,” Te'Vril answered calmly. “The Dunwood is much closer a threat than any creature of the Underdark.”

Dolfus looked at him for a moment, then nodded and walked back to his post on the far side of the stones.

Te'Vril wondered cynically what Dolfus would say if he knew just who it was on guard duty with him. If he knew just how close the Underdark really was. Then he tightened his mental disguise. Every day on the surface reminded him of what he'd left behind, what he'd gained, the price he paid.

And the rewards he'd reaped.

Since things were quiet, he decided to wish his daughter good night. He closed his eyes and called to her mind, glad to hear her immediate response. All the same, he couldn't resist teasing her. “Shalhara, you're supposed to be in bed,” he began with mock severity. “What are you doing awake at this hour?”

“I'm waiting for your call,” she replied, her mental voice just as light and melodic as her real voice. He missed her and her mother very badly.

“I'm glad you waited up for me,” he said to her in his mind. To the man across the circle, he looked as if he were simply resting his eyes. “Tell your mother that all is well and I should be home in a week or so.”

A sudden sensation and a cry from Dolfus brought Te'Vril's concentration back to the circle of stones. Te'Vril could feel the tell-tale sensation of dimensional shift emanating from the ground beneath his feet.

“They're shifting,” he called to Dolfus in explanation, all the while keeping his link to Shalhara open in the background. “Just back off and give them room.”

The usual sensation of shift grew stronger, much stronger.

Too strong.

Something else was happening here besides the normal movement of the Mucklestones. Something was adding its own energy to the shift.

“Run, Dolfus!” Te'Vril called in warning as he began to put distance between himself and the stones as well. He called to the other guards at the fire, “Something's happening! Move back!”

A massive wave of energy pulsed out from the stones in a giant circle, catching them in its wake. “The gate is opening! It's pulling us in!” the elf cried to the guards, hoping some of them would be able to get away to tell the Nentyarch what had happened.

Te'Vril kept trying to run, but couldn't move. He knew the feeling. He was being pulled through some sort of dimensional gate, some hole in existence that led who knew where.

The touch of Shalhara's mind vanished as they slipped through the portal. Everything went colorless, dark, and silent for a long moment.

Then they were back again. The ring of stones was there; the clearing was there; the moon was there. But it only took a second for Te'Vril to realize they were not in the Forest of Lethyr any longer.

The night was still cool, but the air was dank and fetid. It smelled of rottenness and old poison, of death and corruption. He looked around at the gray leaves of the trees, their surfaces spiderwebbed with disease. He looked down at the grass beneath his feet, brown and dry.

Shalhara was back in his mind again, but distant. He had to tell her what happened.

Suddenly he understood. He knew where they were. “It's Dun-Tharos,” he realized with a start. It had to be. “Shalhara, tell your mother--”

Then something hit him and all went dark.