Riverwind p2-1

by Paul B. Thompson

  “You have warts.”

  “Warts? What?” Riverwind ran a hand down the back of one leg and felt soft lumps on his skin. He twisted around to see.

  “Filthy leeches!” he cried. Nearly a dozen spotted the backs of his legs. Di An rose. She hadn't a one. Apparently Hestite blood didn't appeal to them.

  “My eye for a crock of salt!” he groaned. “Or a heated brand!”

  “Shall I make a fire, Father?” the elf girl asked.

  “No!” Riverwind said sharply. “The dragon might see it.” Shivering with disgust, Riverwind used his sword to scrape the nasty creatures off. When he was done, his legs were streaked with blood. He looked as if he'd been in a fearsome battle.

  “We've got to get out of this swamp,” he said. “We'll be better off in the highlands even if the dragon does continue to hunt us.” Di An's answer was dreamy and nonsensical.

  With the stars to guide him, Riverwind chose a path that led due west. It took them through the black heart of the Cursed Lands, Fever Lake. They tramped all night in slimy water up to Riverwind's thighs. He remembered the leeches and shook with revulsion. Di An hummed a repetitive tune.

  “Do you have to do that?” he asked through chattering teeth. She paid him no heed, and he turned on her in a quick blaze of fury. “Be quiet!”

  Di An stared blankly at him, unmindful of the flies and gnats that crawled across her face.

  Riverwind passed a hand across his forehead. The heat of his dry brow was evident. “I've got the fever,” he said. “And no wonder. Lying in the mud all night, and those damned bloodsuckers-” Di An aroused such pity in him that his anger went away as quickly as it had arisen. “I'm sorry I shouted,” Riverwind said. A chill swept over him. “It's- ahh-not your fault.”

  “You are kind.” She pushed a strand of mud-caked hair behind her high-pointed ear. “Mors, are you certain this is the right tunnel?”

  Riverwind looked west across the flat, marshy plain and sighed. “It's the only tunnel we've got,” he said. He hooked his arm in hers. “Come. Let's not waste the darkness.”

  Shanz and his remaining draconian soldiers stood on a dry spit of sand not far from the temple of Mishakal. Hulking large above them was the upright form of Khisanth.

  “They have entered Fever Lake,” Shanz said. His reptilian eyes could pierce the dark of night and follow Riverwind and Di An by the heat of their trail. From where he stood now, he could see their path twisting dimly away.

  “No warm-blood has ever crossed the lake and lived,” the dragon said smugly.

  “What is your bidding, Great One?” Shanz asked.

  Khisanth's massive foreclaw rested lightly on the dracon-ian's bare head. She petted Shanz as a woman would stroke a cat. “We have much work to do here. In a few days, go out and recover that staff. I cannot allow so powerful a talisman to fall into human hands.”

  “It shall be done, Great One.”

  “Excellent. Then I shall see to the enlargement of your garrison. Prepare for the arrival of more troops.”

  Shanz asked, “The end of Krago's plan does not distress you?”

  “Not overly much, little Shanz. Like all humans, Krago imagined he could seize hold of the elemental forces with his soft, bare hands. Only the race of dragons can achieve such things.” Khisanth opened her wings prior to leaping into flight. “Our armies will conquer Krynn without help from humans,” she said.

  “They will be fodder for our swords!” Shanz declared.

  “As I expect.” Khisanth sprang into the air, made one lazy circle, and flew back to Xak Tsaroth. Shanz and his officers remained a few moments. The captain stared out at the darkness and watched the faint traces of scarlet dim and disappear into the sickly miasma rising out of Fever Lake.

  The sun struck their backs when it first cleared the horizon. A gray mist rose from the shallow waters of the lake. Frogs and water bugs ceased their night songs with the coming of the light, so an eerie silence fell over the swamp.

  Riverwind ached from head to toe from the poisoning of his blood by the fever. Chills and shakes came upon him in great surges, often so strong that he had to stop walking. His eyes burned, and his throat was raw. He did not have the strength or concentration to hunt, fish, or even gather wild grasses to eat.

  The fever had come to Di An, too. Her teeth rattled when the chills racked her slim body, and when the fever burned her face, Di An's breath came in short, hard gasps. Throughout it all she remained in her lost dream of home, the familiar caverns of Hest.

  Still they slogged forward. There was no place to rest except in the stinking boggy water. Riverwind couldn't believe the dragon would forget and let them go, if only because she wouldn't want word of her presence in Xak Tsaroth to spread. It was this idea that drove him on. That and the Staff of Mishakal, which he never let leave his fevered grip.

  “I return in triumph,” he whispered. “I have fulfilled Ar-rowthorn's impossible quest.” Riverwind smiled over chattering teeth. “All of Que-Shu will watch as I hand the Staff of Mishakal to my beloved. She will hold it proudly aloft. She will know how to use it. The villagers will cheer, and Arrowthorn will have to agree to our joining. Our joining, Goldmoon. Our joining…”

  Riverwind moved doggedly through the swamp, the imagined cheers of his people still ringing in his ears.

  The sun burned away the mist, and in the distance the plainsman saw something that cheered his heart enormously. Rising like blue shadows from the marshy plain were the mountains. They were not forsaken to him, but a glorious sight.

  “Do you see?” he said excitedly to Di An. “The mountains! Beautiful, wonderful mountains! Clear, cold streams, game, fish.”

  “Slice of bread… a pear… a peach…,” Di An murmured. “ 'Neath the golden waterfall. Strange. I feel strange.”

  “It's the fever,” he said.

  Di An laid a hand on her breast. “Why am I like this?” She looked down at her mud-spattered legs. “Those are not my legs!” she said, her voice rising. “What has happened to me?”

  Riverwind extended a trembling hand. “You grew up, remember? Krago gave you a potion.”

  Her face contorted. “You-you're trying to trick me. You're not Mors! I'm not in my body! What have you done to me?”

  “Stop it! Listen to me. You are Di An, and I am Riverwind. We've escaped from Xak Tsaroth and the underground world.”

  “Lies-evil magic. You work for Li El! You are an illusion of the queen!”

  Di An turned and started to run from Riverwind. He leaped and caught her, wrapping her in his arms. She struggled and raved that Li El was destroying her mind.

  “Listen to me! Listen to me!” Riverwind kept repeating. Di An's response was to sink her teeth into his hand. That broke his fever-weakened composure. He struck her crisply on the jaw, and she sagged in his arms. The elf girl was featherlight, but holding her and the staff was a burden. Still, Riverwind dragged himself and his charges toward the promise of the distant blue mountains.

  The marsh became more shallow. Small hummocks of dry land rose above the smooth water. Rather than a cause for joy, these dry hills proved a great challenge; Riverwind had to climb up and over them, or lengthen his journey further by going around them. Finally, with the edge of Fever Lake in sight, his legs failed him. He collapsed on a moss-covered, low hummock, Di An beside him and the Staff of Mishakal between. Riverwind did not lose consciousness.

  He simply lay face down in the moss, breathing in quick, shallow gasps and burning with fever.

  Great Goddess, I've failed you, he thought. This is as far as I can go.

  Are you so certain? asked the sweet voice of Mishakal. Riverwind tried vainly to rise, but couldn't. You have reservoirs of strength you haven't tapped yet, she said.

  He could feel the fever heat pouring from his face and his heart laboring in his chest. “I don't think I have any strength left,” he said into the moss. “Please, merciful Mishakal, heal me. Show me how to use your staff.”

 
Heal you? But what of the girl next to you? She is ill, also.

  “Can't you heal us both?”

  I choose not to.

  Riverwind's dry mouth finally stopped his tongue, but the goddess heard his unspoken “why?”

  Virtue is won by struggle, not by ease. Nothing is learned when a task is made easy to do, or a problem is solved without difficulty. The gods require that mortals suffer, fight, and die for virtue, in order to prove and preserve the worth of these ideals. Only evil promises expedience.

  Riverwind wasn't sure he understood. If the goddess's words were true, why did she bother speaking to him now?

  Because you have a task greater than your own life. To restore belief in the gods by bringing forth my staff; that is a labor of glory.

  “Should I be the one you heal?” he whispered through swollen lips.

  I will heal you or the girl. Decide, and lay the staff across whoever you chose.

  Riverwind heaved himself up on his hands and looked into the sky. “You condemn one of us to death, the other to perpetual madness! Where is the justice in that?” he demanded.

  The voice of Mishakal was gone.

  On the ground beside Riverwind lay her staff. As he watched, the dull wood began to shimmer. A glow, palest blue at first, suffused the staff. The radiance grew brighter, its color deeper, and the staff was once more a thing of sapphire crystal. Riverwind reached out for it.

  And quickly withdrew his hand. Who was more valuable? he wondered. He had a divine mission, to bring the staff to Goldmoon, But Di An had a mission, too. Her people were waiting for news of the surface world. She could be the one to bring it to them. Mors would be angry-but if she could offer to lead the Hestites up to the blue sky, he certainly would forgive her. If Di An died, it might be years before the Hestites got the help they needed. The poor food and sickly air would only increase the diggers' suffering, and no one would ever know of it.

  No one but the gods.

  Riverwind raged against Mishakal. She had done this deliberately! She posed him this question and left him to decide: life or death, divine will or human compassion. How could he choose?

  Di An murmured under her breath, almost awake. He left his anger for a moment and studied the elf girl-no, she was a girl no longer. Di An lay there, caked with mud and dried scum; her copper mesh dress hung in tatters, the black color long since scuffed off most of the red metal links. Here was a person two hundred years old, who had lived longer as a child and slave than he had lived as a free man. Di An loved him, or thought she did. Could he dismiss her feelings as the whim of a child? What would she do if the choice were hers? He knew the answer to that. He knew he couldn't put his own needs before hers.

  Riverwind turned her grimy, slightly sunburned face to him. A new bruise was showing on her jaw where he'd hit her. It stabbed him to his heart. Brushing the dried dirt from her lips, Riverwind bent down and kissed Di An lightly. He raised the glowing staff of blue crystal and laid it across her body. Just as he did, her eyes fluttered open.

  “Riverwind,” she said clearly, staring directly at him.

  In a single, silent, blinding flash, the elf woman and the sacred sapphire staff vanished.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Whom the gods favour is a hero born”

  Gone!

  Riverwind groped in the dirt where Di An and the staff had been. This was no figment of his sickness-strained mind. The woman and rod were gone. He rocked back on his haunches and stared blankly at the spot. He had made the wrong choice. The Blue Crystal Staff was lost, his quest had failed. Pain welled up in his heart and exploded. His anguished scream reverberated across Fever Lake. Animal sounds ceased, and all was quiet.

  Riverwind fell face down on the ground. Tears welled up in his eyes. He had chosen wrong. He had failed Mishakal. He had failed Goldmoon. Catchflea had died for nothing. He pressed his face into the dirt, feeling it scrape his cheeks. How could he go home? How could he face Goldmoon again without the staff? She was lost to him forever.

  The plainsman lay quiet for a long time, a great despair consuming him.

  Finally, he got slowly to his feet and looked toward the Forsaken Mountains. The shaft leading down to Hest was there; he would throw himself down it. Riverwind's bowed back straightened a bit with this decision. The magic in the shaft was gone; he would die in the fall. Then no one would know his shame.

  Mors, master of the realm of Hest, sat unmoving in a hard stone chair, listening to the chosen representatives of the diggers and warriors argue over how to distribute the meager harvest of wheat. They had been disputing for a long time, and Mors was rapidly losing what little patience he had. The crop was the smallest in Hest's history, and word had come that the fruit trees were dying as well. Without magic, there was no way to preserve them. There would be hunger in Vartoom before long.

  Mors resolved to quell the petty bickering by force if need be, but even as he prepared to shout for order, a strange thing happened. He saw a glimmer of light. It stunned him, for he had lived in total blackness since the day Karn had blinded him. The light was only a gleam, a firefly flash of blue, but still he saw it and it shocked him.

  Mors stood. A digger representative called a question to him. The blind warrior did not hear him. Gradually the hall fell silent. Mors remained standing, motionless. The twinkle of light still glimmered before his sightless eyes.

  “Muster fifty soldiers in the street,” he said evenly. “Lightly clad, with spears only.”

  “My lord,” said an elder digger, “what is it?”

  “Something is happening,” Mors replied. “I can see it.” For the first time in many years, he strode out of a room without staff or elf to guide him. The assembly stirred with curiosity. What was afoot?

  Mors followed the light out to the street. Somehow he knew where it was-he could feel it as well as see it. Though his surroundings were as invisible to him as ever, by following the flickering light he avoided all obstacles. He simply knew where to put his feet. The light beckoned him on. The tramp of soldiers' feet told him that his escort had arrived.

  “Who is in command?” Mors asked.

  “I, my lord, Prem,” said the elf officer.

  “Do you know the great temple of our ancestors?”

  “The haunted temple?” asked Prem.

  “The same. We will go there at once, but only I will enter. Is that clear?”

  “Certainly, my lord. What is going on?”

  “I don't know yet,” Mors replied firmly. “I fear-” He did not finish. How could he say it? How could he tell them his fear that the blue glimmer was caused by Li El. Dead Li El.

  Mors led them across the ruined fields. The flickering glow grew stronger and steadier. The soldiers jangled along in close formation. Mors was consumed by curiosity and dread. A hundred days had passed since the deaths of Li El and Vvelz. No magic had occurred in Hest since then. Both brother and sister had been burned on funeral pyres. Nothing of them remained. And now this…

  After two hours' quick march, the warriors scrambled up the broken rocky path to the temple. As they gained the plateau where the temple stood, they stopped dead in their tracks. Mors heard their footsteps cease. He sharply demanded a reason.

  Prem said, “There's a light in the temple, my lord!”

  “You see it, too!”

  “We all do.”

  “Form a line!” Mors barked. “I'm going inside. I don't want anything to get out, understand?” The warriors formed a half-circle facing the vast entrance to the abandoned temple. They watched in awe as Mors advanced up the worn steps into the field of azure light.

  A feeling of gentle beneficence wrapped around Mors like a blanket. Part of him was aware this was a magical effect, perhaps not real, but it was such a profound feeling that he lost most of his apprehension. The blue glow intensified until his eyes began to burn. A groan escaped his lips, and he lifted his hands to his face. He saw the rough, thickened tips of his fingers. His groan of pain ch
anged to a strangled cry of astonishment. He dropped his hands and staggered back against a massive, fluted column.

  Mors could see. Before him was the floor of the temple, littered with broken columns and other debris. He saw all of it with startling clarity. He really could see.

  The light still called him forward. He walked among the lordly columns until he came upon the source of the brilliant blue light.

  Floating a foot off the rutted floor was the upright figure of an elf woman, eyes closed, arms tight against her sides. She was clad in the black shift of a Hestite digger, but the copper cloth was torn and the black paint chipped and scratched. A few inches in front of the woman, hovering vertically, was a magnificent staff of sapphire. The blue light emanated from it.

  Mors went down on one knee. “Who-who are you?” he whispered.

  Listen, said a fluting voice inside his head. Hear me.

  Tears formed in his newly cleared eyes. Mors asked again, “Who are you?”

  I am the one your ancestors knew as Quenesti Pah.

  Mors inhaled sharply. “The goddess?”

  This woman of your race I return to you. She has striven mightily in the cause of good. To save her from madness and death, I have brought her back home.

  “Who is she, divinity?” Mors asked.

  Her name is Di An.

  “My little eyes! An Di-” He started to rise, but the goddess spoke one final time to him, and the strength of her voice drove him back to his knees.

  Let this place become sacred again. Keep my laws, and the bounty of health and healing shall be yours. This woman shall be my priestess, and through her I will make myself known to all your people.

  Mors bowed his head. “It shall be done,” he vowed.

  “Thank you, divinity, for restoring my sight.” But the goddess was gone.

  The blue aura vanished next, leaving Di An standing on the floor. Finally, the sapphire staff disappeared, too. Di An wavered like a sleepwalker. Mors moved quickly to her side and braced her up.