Farthest Reach Read Free

an accident of genealogy. The Nightstar of Saelethil will not spare you if you are careless.”
    “We will be careful, Araevin. None of us will try our strength against Saelethil’s today,” Breithel Olithir answered. The grand mage was new in his post, having ascended to his duties only a year ago. He too was a sun elf, dignified and stolid, but Araevin still sensed uncertainty about him. So many of Evermeet’s mages had perished in the past few years, killed in Kymil Nimesin’s rebellion of six years past, or lost in the expeditions to defend Evereska against the monstrous phaerimm only four years later. Olithir would have been the fifth or sixth choice for the title he held had other high mages lived, and most knew it.
    The grand mage offered a small nod, and Araevin acquiesced with a flickering frown. He reached his right hand into his shirt and closed his fingers around the cold facets of the selukiira. The gemstone slipped painlessly from the flesh over his breastbone, leaving not a mark on him to show where it had been anchored to his very bones a moment before. Araevin willed it to become fully visible, and it appeared in his hand, a fine crystal of deep violet about the size of a woman’s thumb, etched meticulously with tiny lavender runes.
    He whispered a word and left it suspended head-high in the air, floating in place under the power of its ancient enchantments.
    He withdrew three steps and said, “I remind you again, the Nightstar is very dangerous.”
    The high mages moved closer, though none approached closer than a full arm’s length. Kileontheal pursed her lips thoughtfully as she studied the dark facets. Breithel Olithir whispered the words of seeing spells and stared intensely at the flickering spell-auras he read in the gemstone. The loremaster Haldreithen simply frowned, saying nothing.
    Finally Breithel sighed and turned away from the Nightstar. “It is an old stone, of that I am certain—old, and strong.”
    “That is what I told you,” Araevin said.
    “Yes, but I wanted to see for myself. The selukiira might have instructed you to lie about its origins.”
    “Grand Mage, I am not under the stone’s control. Examine me, if you are not sure.”
    “We have already,” Haldreithen said. The scholar measured Araevin with a long look. “Just because no sign of the stone’s dominion is obvious does not mean that you are not under its influence. After all, through this thing you wielded spells of mythalcraft we did not even suspect were possible. Who is to say that this Saelethil Dlardrageth didn’t possess enchantments that we cannot detect?”
    “If the Nightstar had overthrown my mind, Loremaster, why did it then permit me to strike against Sarya Dlardrageth and bar her from the mythal of Myth Glaurach?”
    Araevin demanded. “For that matter, why did it not hide its identity, and invent a more innocuous origin? It could have used me to subvert one of you if it had concealed its true origin.”
    “Sometimes half a truth is the best way to cover a lie,” the moon elf Anfalen said. “Still, I agree that your Nightstar would probably not have allowed you to tell us so much about it, if it really controlled your mind.”
    “Even if you are not shackled to the stone’s will, you may be under a more subtle influence,” Kileontheal said. “If you are right, the Nightstar is the handiwork of a monster. Selukiira hold much of their maker in them, and it seems to me that you might be wise to put it away somewhere for safekeeping and never handle it again.”
    “Better to destroy the thing outright,” Haldreithen added.
    “I understand your concerns,” Araevin replied. “But consider this: The Nightstar holds spells of mythalcraft that no elf has known for five thousand years. Secrets as old as ancient Aryvandaar remain inside the selukiira. I do not understand all of them now, but in time I will.”
    Kileontheal gazed on the stone for a long time, then looked up at Araevin and asked,