the remains scattered around the cavernous chamber it had clearly been hunting some of the lesser creatures living in the Keep.
He came to lament the fact that he hadn’t taken the time to enter the Keep himself and claim control of the ancient fortress. Had he done so, he suspected that many of the magical capabilities of the Keep would be available to him, even at such a distance.
After an exhaustive search, he returned to Commander Perry and spent a few minutes telling him where each of the creatures within the Keep had chosen to make its lair. There were several families of gorledons, a fact Commander Perry and his men were painfully aware of, but Alexander was able to pinpoint the location where each family slept, giving his soldiers a powerful tactical advantage.
In one of the lower chambers lived a snake that was easily fifty feet long, though it seemed content to hunt the catacombs beneath the Keep as none of the soldiers had even seen it.
By far the greatest concern, aside from the tentacle demon, was the pack of five nether wolves living in one of the lower chambers. Perry had reported that something was hunting his men in the night, taking a man every few days or so. Alexander explained how they fought, their aversion to light and their immunity to most forms of attack save decapitation.
Wizard Dinh suggested that he could provide light for the men to corral the nether wolves into an ambush and Commander Perry began formulating an attack plan to eliminate the nether wolves immediately. Alexander bid them good luck and faded out of sight.
Next, he went to Abel on Ithilian and requested a resupply be sent to the expedition at the Reishi Keep. Then he sought out the men tasked with placing one of Kelvin’s explosive weapons in the chamber that held the Nether Gate.
What he found was a scene from a nightmare. The entire force had been killed to a man. They’d reached the fortress, but they’d fought a retreating action for nearly a league while something picked them apart, one man at a time. Broken bodies, some half eaten, lay in a trail leading to the fortress entrance and into the entry chamber. The wizard leading the mission was dead, fallen beside the wagon carrying the weapon. The only consolation Alexander took from the massacre was that whatever had killed these men hadn’t been interested in the weapon at all.
He considered detonating it right now, he had the activation stone with him on Tyr, all he had to do was crush it and the weapon would detonate, even at this distance, sealing off the fortress under tons of stone, but he knew that would only be enough to slow Phane down once the arch mage got around to coming for the Nether Gate.
Alexander faded back into the firmament, saddened by the loss of yet more good men by his order, and returned to his body to consider his options.
***
“Hello, Captain Wyatt,” Alexander said, his projection standing on the deck of an Ithilian warship.
“Lord Reishi, is that really you?” a startled Wyatt asked.
“It is,” Alexander said, then proceeded to name all eleven men that Wyatt had lost in the first battle with the wraithkin at Northport.
“Very well, I believe you, though I don’t comprehend how you’ve come to be here,” Wyatt said.
“Report,” Alexander said, as another man approached with two sailors in tow.
“I’ve commandeered these four warships from the Ithilian Navy in pursuit of Princess Lacy. And although Captain Riggs here,” Wyatt said, motioning to the man who’d just approached, “isn’t entirely convinced of my authority, he has accepted my command for now, mostly because of Knight Kinley.” Wyatt looked up at the wyvern circling overhead.
“Captain Riggs, I’m Alexander Reishi. Consider Captain Wyatt to be the commander of your flotilla. You will assist him in every way possible. Is that understood?”
“Yes, but I’m confused? How did you get aboard?” Captain Riggs asked, looking around for any ships other than his four vessels.
“I’m a projection, Captain,” Alexander said, waving his hand through the foredeck railing, “an illusion.”
“I don’t pretend to understand such wizardry,” Captain Riggs said, “but Lord Abel spoke to every captain in the fleet and told us that if you were to come to us in our dreams, we were to obey your orders as if they’d come from him. I suppose this is enough like a dream to count. I accept Captain Wyatt’s command, my ships are at his