Something’s wrong, the sad woman who cried over the corpse of her only child said, her voice clear in Phyrea’s head despite the rain and thunder. I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all.
Step off, the little boy said, and Phyrea shook her head so hard and so fast that her own soaking-wet hair whipped her face.
She opened her mouth wide and screamed into the uncaring storm.
He’s dead, the man with the scar on his face said. Why did you come here?
“Why did I come here?” Phyrea asked the ghosts, the storm, anyone who would listen.
You love him as much as you hate yourself, said the old woman.
You know he’s dead, said the man with the scar, but you don’t want to believe it.
Step off the damned edge, the little boy demanded. Phyrea started to cry, her tears disappearing into the rain and wind. She thought she heard the little girl crying too, but couldn’t be sure.
He’s dead, the grieving woman said. They’re both dead. We’re all dead.
“No,” Phyrea said, her voice gravelly and ragged.
She could feel the ghosts inside her and knew the contempt they felt for her, at that moment more than ever before. She could feel their frustration and anger with her. They wanted her dead. They wanted her to join them, wanted her to stay with them forever, inside the cold, silent walls of Berrywilde. She was the last of her family, and when she was gone what would happen to that estate?
“Why do you want me?” she asked them.
Because you wanted us, the man with the scar on his face said. You came to us. You sent everyone else away and you sat in that house like the ghost you were fated to be. You sat in silence and you cut yourself. You hurt yourself because you hated yourself. You opened yourself to us. You wanted us, as much as we wanted you.
“Wanted?” she whispered.
The feeling that came to her in response made her blink. Dizzy, she staggered back from the edge of the canal and almost fell.
“You don’t want me anymore?” she whispered.
Of course we do, the old woman replied, her voice soothing. Come back with us, to Berrywilde.
Forever, the little girl said.
Phyrea rubbed the rainwater and tears from her eyes and stepped forward, to the very edge of the canal. Lightning flashed, and for a moment the space around her was lit as though it was high noon. The canal was deep-deep enough that the fall would kill her-and rainwater had started to collect at the bottom, enough so that it had filled to a depth of nearly an inch.
“It’s filling up,” she said into the pitch dark that followed the transient illumination of the lightning.
Step over the side, the little boy begged. Please, Mommy?
Phyrea gasped and stepped back.
“No,” she whispered. “It’s filling with water. It’s going to work.”
Phyrea looked up, and when another flash of lightning gave her an instant’s sight, she looked down the length of the canal, which disappeared over the horizon. It was the most incredible thing she’d ever seen in her life.
“I did,” she said when it was dark again. She stopped crying but shivered in the cool rain. “I went there to give up, and I almost did, but then he showed me there was a reason to live. He showed me that it was for me to decide-”
She stopped when the ground beneath her trembled. It felt as though the world itself shivered in the rain.
More lightning flashed on the horizon, but it didn’t go away as fast as it should have, and it was the wrong color, and there was more-and Phyrea realized it wasn’t lightning at all.
Turning to the north, her breath trapped in her lungs, her eyes and mouth wide open to the driving rain, Phyrea watch enormous balls of yellow-orange light mushroom over the horizon. Each was followed several heartbeats later by a low rumble, each one louder than the last, and the tremors grew stronger, too.
“Oh,” she breathed. “Oh, no.”
Another explosion of orange fire, then another, and another. They marched down the length of the canal, on both sides, and ground-shaking tremors followed in their wakes.
Phyrea’s feet felt frozen in place, as though nailed to the ground at the edge of the canal. The light from the explosions grew brighter, the sounds louder, and soon the cacophony of the pounding thunderstorm was drowned out by the continuing series of massive explosions.
Closer and closer they came and finally Phyrea moved one foot. She turned and the ground bucked under her, rattling her knee and numbing the bottoms of her feet. She stumbled, but rose to her feet even as another tremor shook the ground. She ran through a shockwave that smashed into her ears. The roar of the explosions were dulled, overwhelmed by a piercing ringing in her ears.
Phyrea glanced over one shoulder, and another explosion blossomed behind her, so close there was no delay before the sound of it took the rest of her hearing until all that was left was an agonizing wail. She screamed as she ran, her mind racing through prayers, pleading for help. She wanted Devorast to save her, but she knew for certain then that he must be dead. If he lived, he never would have allowed his greatest masterpiece to be destroyed.
The next explosion lifted her off her feet. She whirled through the air, entirely unable to control her own body. Her arms flailed, hitting herself in the face. She felt her right knee bend sideways, and the jarring pain pushed bile into her throat. She couldn’t breathe or even retch as she flew through air that had become searingly hot. She couldn’t open her eyes, and she couldn’t close her mouth.
Another explosion lifted her higher into the air just an instant before she hit the ground. It was hotter still, and she screamed when the rainwater in her hair began to boil. Her scream rattled her ears and the wail seemed to harmonize with it. The last bit of air was driven from her lungs and her scream cut off. There was another explosion, but it wasn’t as hot, and Phyrea could feel herself falling. She wanted to move somehow, so she whirled her arms and tried to run, but the pain from her ruined knee sent lightning flashing behind her eyelids. The only sound left was something that could have come from inside or out, but to Phyrea it sounded like the scream of stone, the death rattle of the canal itself.
She hit the ground so hard her head nearly came off her shoulders. She felt bones snap all over her body, and as consciousness fled her she was glad that she’d landed in the cold mud. It soothed her charred skin.
PART 5
60
23 Tarsakh, the Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR)
PRISTAL TOWERS, INNARLITH
The floor shook, and though Pristoleph wasn’t sleeping, the sudden motion roused him from a fitful rest. He sat up in bed and looked around in the dark. Phyrea was at Berrywilde, and save for the crackle of the fire in the wide marble fireplace, there was no sound, and no one else in the room.
The floor shook again, making the bed quiver under him. That time he was sure it wasn’t just his imagination. He threw off the bedclothes and stood just as the door burst open.
“Second Chief Gahrzig,” Pristoleph said to the wemic in the doorway, “what was that?”
The lion-barbarian said, “You had better come and see.”
In the time it took Gahrzig to say that, the ransar had donned a dressing gown and crossed to the door. The wemic led the way, trundling along the wide, high-ceilinged corridors with a clatter of weapons and armor, and the tapping of his sharp claws on the polished marble. By the time they reached a circular stairway that wound its way up to the top of the highest tower, the wemic had broken into a run, and Pristoleph panted trying to keep up with him.
The building shook again and again as they climbed the stairs. The motion was just strong enough to be felt, and at no time did Pristoleph feel as though it would knock him off his feet, or that it would put the structural integrity of his great manor in peril. Still, the ground shouldn’t shake like that, despite the storm that raged outside.
When they came to the topmost room they were greeted by three of Gahrzig’s wemics, who st
ood with wide eyes, clutching at their enchanted spears with tense hands. Pristoleph went to a window on the northwestern wall of the room to look out over his city, and his jaw fell open at what he saw.
A fierce orange glow lit the far horizon, brighter even than the lights of the city that stretched out below him. Lightning flashed all around and a strong wind whipped rain against the windows. The orange glow reflected in the droplets that clung to the glass, and on the faces of the wemics that stared off into the distance, unsure how to react to something they didn’t understand. The floor trembled again and in a moment the orange glow brightened and expanded. Pristoleph put a hand against the window frame and waited. It took a long time for the shockwave to travel from the source of the orange light, but when it did, he felt the floor once more quiver under his bare feet.
“What is it, Ransar?” Gahrzig asked, his throaty voice quiet, muffled by awe.
“The canal,” Pristoleph whispered back, the sound of his own words making his eyes burn. “It’s the canal.”
The wemic shook his head. He didn’t understand, but Pristoleph didn’t want to explain. He touched his head to the cool glass and closed his eyes to hold the tears in. The glass steamed, made opaque by the heat of his forehead, and he stepped back. The distant orange glows continued to flare, one after another, tracing a line along the canal, straight from the north to the south. Each one grew brighter, and the floor shook just a little more each time.
“Everyone in the city must be able to feel it-even see it-now,” Gahrzig said. “What do we do?”
Pristoleph shook his head. By the time any of them made it out there what was happening would have long finished. Whatever it was, whatever cataclysm had befallen the canal, could hardly be stopped from miles away in the middle of a storm-ravaged night.
“We watch it,” Pristoleph said. “That’s all we can do.”
The wemic nodded. He seemed satisfied, but then Gahrzig and his tribe cared nothing of the canal, if they even understood what it was, and what it would mean to Innarlith.
“Phyrea,” Pristoleph whispered, the name coming unbidden to his lips.
“Ransar?” asked the wemic mercenary.
Pristoleph looked at him and blinked. He didn’t know why he’d spoken her name-and why, when he had, his heart sank in his chest. He held his left hand up in front of his face and saw sweat glisten in his palm.
“Ransar?” the wemic asked again.
Pristoleph said, “Nothing.”
“You’re worried about your female,” the wemic stated, his voice pitched to reassure his employer.
The ransar nodded at first then shook his head. “No,” he said. “Phyrea is at Berrywilde-her family’s country estate.”
“Out of the city,” said Gahrzig. “Good. Safer. But where is-?”
“To the east,” Pristoleph interrupted. “Far away from the canal.”
Pristoleph couldn’t resist looking off through the windows that faced east. No fiery light glowed on that horizon. It wasn’t even early enough for the first hint of dawn. Thunder crashed, close and loud, startling both Pristoleph and Gahrzig, who also stared off into the east at darkness only occasional split by jagged bolts of lightning.
“She is safe, then,” the wemic said.
Pristoleph watched more brilliant orange explosions plume up from the northwestern horizon.
61
23 Tarsakh, the Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR)
THE CANAL SITE
Hrothgar had never in his whole life felt himself shake so badly. It was as though his very bones quivered. His skin crawled, and the hair-all of his hair, all over his body, and that was a lot-stood on end. He was sure that his gums were peeling back from his teeth. His eyes watered and his head throbbed.
The force of any one of the explosions would have been enough to rattle anyone, even a sturdy dwarf like Hrothgar. A series of them, one after another, dozens upon dozens marching in a line nearly forty miles from the Nagaflow on the north end to the Lake of Steam at the south end, made Hrothgar think that Faerun, even Toril itself, was splitting in two.
But finally the explosions passed, lighting the sky at the far horizon, shaking the ground for a long time after the last of the shards of stone and wood had fallen, and eventually even the ground stopped shaking and the horizon went dark. The rain never ceased, though, and for once Hrothgar was thankful for it. The cool rain calmed his heat-nettled skin and made steam billow up from his scorched clothes and hair.
He fell as much as ran to Devorast’s side. The Cormyrean lay face down in the mud, and Hrothgar didn’t know if he was dead or alive. He grabbed the man by his torn and ragged vest and turned him over. The effort, which should have been nothing for the strong and hearty dwarf, nearly exhausted him. Devorast, limp and covered in mud and soaked to the skin, seemed to weigh a ton.
When his face was turned to the pelting rain, the human blinked and sputtered. While Devorast coughed Hrothgar laughed. Tears streamed down his bearded face to add their salt to the rain, and he put a hand on Devorast’s chest, to feel his heart beating. Lightning flashed overhead, and when the thunder rumbled behind it, Devorast opened his eyes. He blinked a few times before he finally made eye contact with the dwarf. Hrothgar stopped laughing, the smile melting from his lips.
Devorast put his hands over his eyes and clawed the mud off his face. He tried to sit up but winced and groaned in pain.
“Lay back,” Hrothgar advised him, but when the ground shifted beneath them, he changed his mind.
He’d thought it was over, but he was wrong.
“The hill is shifting,” Hrothgar said as he grabbed Devorast by the collar. “I’m carryin’ you outta here.”
“Void …” Devorast mumbled, then grunted when Hrothgar draped him over his broad shoulder.
“Void is right, by Moradin’s Beard,” Hrothgar said.
The explosions had opened a space in the ground beneath them, a void, and the heavy, wet ground was sinking to fill it. Hrothgar knew enough about mining, about digging, about holes in the ground to know that it would sink slowly at first, settling, trying to redistribute its weight, then it would collapse all at once, and anyone unlucky or stupid enough to be standing on top of it would be swallowed whole by Toril herself.
“Come, boy,” Hrothgar growled.
He dragged Devorast’s feet behind him, the human too tall for him to properly carry, but at that moment the dwarf didn’t care if he left body parts in his wake, as long as he got himself and his friend out of there before-
The ground collapsed behind them and Hrothgar shouted a very old curse in his native tongue, one that should have brought either the mercy or the wrath of every god in Dwarfhome.
Devorast stiffened and turned, falling out of Hrothgar’s grip. The dwarf bellowed his name, but his voice was lost in the thunderous crash of the collapsing hillside. Hrothgar, propelled as much by the wavelike motion of the muddy ground beneath his feet as his feet themselves, continued to run and though his mind had dropped into a primal panic, he was aware enough to see Devorast running under his own power, right next to him.
Side by side they ran for their lives.
Instinct and experience took them away from the canal, but one huge chunk of broken stone after another-debris blasted away by the explosions-turned them this way and that, and soon enough Hrothgar lost all sense of direction. He ran and ran, dodging smoldering wood, and fires still blazing even under the pouring rain. He bounced off a block of stone, tripped on something he didn’t stop to identify, grabbed Devorast’s arm to help him along, or was grabbed and helped along by Devorast.
When the shaking and the rumbling finally stopped again, the two of them stumbled in an effort to stop. The dwarf fell and slid, for a moment completely out of control, down a steep, muddy hill. He rolled to a stop only after tripping Devorast and the two of them ended up tangled together at the bottom of the incline, half-floating in six inches of standing water.
Hrothgar untangled hi
mself from the human while he coughed out half a lungful of rainwater and pawed mud from his stinging right eye. Devorast was breathing so hard he seemed to almost gasp for breath.
When lightning flashed again and lit them both Hrothgar was shocked by two things: how horrible they both looked-like sea hags on the worst days of their lives-and that they were still alive. They’d lived.
“What were the chances?” Hrothgar asked himself.
Devorast shook his head and struggled to his knees. The dwarf stood, knee-deep in water, and looked around. The lightning was fast moving to the eastern horizon, but the rain still fell hard and steady. He turned his face up to the black, unforgiving sky, and let the rain wash the mud from his face. If the dirt was mixed with his blood or Devorast’s, Hrothgar couldn’t tell. He hurt all over, but he could breathe and he could stand. Any dwarf that could breathe and stand was just fine.
Devorast stood next to him and took a deep breath.
Lightning played along the horizon, outlining a jumble of broken stone and scarred earth.
“Don’t look at it,” Hrothgar said.
Devorast turned and smiled. The simple curl of his lips sent a shiver coursing through Hrothgar the dwarf was sure would finally shake him apart.
“I want you to promise me somethin’,” Hrothgar said, and though he found it nearly impossible, he looked the Cormyrean in the eye. “Promise that you’ll never, ever, should we both live for another ten thousand years, tell me why.”
The smile faded from Devorast’s lips and he nodded.
Hrothgar stepped away and busied himself with trying to get more of the mud off him. The rain let up a little, but the wind increased, which made the rain seem so much colder. Hrothgar’s teeth chattered and his toes went numb in his boots.
When Devorast placed a hand on his shoulder, the dwarf didn’t even have the energy to be startled.
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