on the streets when no honest person would fare abroad.
They came up on the wide wooded area where Daried was supposed to be waiting from its far side. He spied a path leading into the shadows, and took a careful look around. No one was in sight, although a faint lilting song spilled from a wineroom’s door a good half block away. “This way,” Geran said to his friends, and they followed him away from the deserted avenue and into the dark woods.
Myth Drannor was checkered with large copses and groves of living trees; there was nearly as much wild forest within the city’s ring of lakes as there were streets and buildings. Many of the areas that had been reduced to rubble in the city’s destruction long before had not been rebuilt when the elves reclaimed the city in Seiveril’s Crusade, and the large area of ruins near the Irithlium’s old location was an excellent example. Within the shadows of the trees, moss-covered stones of old walls and fallen buildings gleamed in the faint light. Geran felt his way forward, hardly able to see anything in the darkness.
“Ah, there you are.” Daried Selsherryn materialized out of the shadows, holding a silver lantern dimmed to only a sliver of light. “A good night for scofflaws; few folk will be abroad in the fog. Come, the door you seek is this way.”
Geran and his friends followed the sun elf into the shell of an old building, its foundations bare to the sky. Daried led them down a steep stone stair to what would have been the floor of its cellar; a dark archway loomed before them. “We are in the foundations of the Tower of Nythlum,” Daried said softly. “There is no direct access from the Celestrian to the passages that were under the Irithlium, since the upper portions were largely filled in when the building was rebuilt. This tower belonged to a wizard who left it to the college on his death, and the foundations were joined by a new passage—this one before us. It leads to the passages that were covered up when the Irithlium was rebuilt.”
Geran nodded to his old mentor. “I’m in your debt, Daried.”
The sun elf shook his head. “Nonsense, since I was never here,” he said. “Good luck, and if I do not see you again before you set out, sweet water and light laughter until we meet again.” He dimmed his lantern and retreated, leaving Geran and his companions alone in the old foundation.
Hamil looked dubiously at the doorway. “Do you have any idea what might be sealed in this vault other than the harmless old manuscript we’re looking for?”
Geran shook his head. “I couldn’t begin to guess.” He drew his sword and ventured into the dark doorway.
Sarth and Hamil joined him; carefully he picked his way down broken steps to a large chamber below the tower foundations, murmuring the words of a light spell to give him something to see by. The passageway continued to the north, back in the direction of the old Irithlium if Geran’s bearings were correct, dropping a few steps as it went. After fifty paces or so, another archway loomed ahead, with a large door of stone filling the passageway.
Sarth set a hand on his shoulder to stop him. “There is an old warding here,” the sorcerer said. “I will see if I can craft a brief opening so that we may pass through without destroying it.” The sorcerer murmured a spell that Geran did not recognize, gesturing carefully with his hand. Geran was conscious of a subtle change in the cold air of the ancient halls, as subtle threads of magic drew taut and quivered under Sarth’s careful weaving. A brooding menace seemed to gather form beyond the door; Sarth shot Geran a look of warning and continued with his spell.
Geran summoned a spell of his own. “Cuillen mhariel,” he murmured, shaping the arcane syllables into the form of a misty shield, thin and silvery. Hamil glanced up at him and frowned; he lacked the magical training of the sorcerer or the swordmage, but he could tell from their tenseness that trouble was not far off. The halfling drew a pair of daggers and moved to one side, making sure he was out of the way.
What could endure a century in this vault? Geran thought. Some sort of undead? Or perhaps a demon or devil? That was unfortunately quite possible; in the days before the crusade had