The Spiral Path

by Greg Weisman

  Aram glanced around for Drella. The elf behind him growled, “Hold still, boy,” and held the blade tighter against his throat.

  “Don’t hurt him,” Makasa said darkly, the implied threat explicit in her tone.

  The female kaldorei said, “Drop your weapon, and we will consider it.”

  “No,” said Makasa Flintwill.

  The female kaldorei actually sighed then. She asked, “Why would two humans be traveling with a gnoll and a murloc?”

  She didn’t mention a dryad, and again Aram wondered where Taryndrella was. Part of him was glad she wasn’t there, wasn’t captured with them, but the other part worried what that might mean.

  Makasa said, “What does a night elf care with whom we travel? What business is it of yours?”

  Aram said, “You’re from New Thalanaar?”

  No one answered.

  He went on. “Well, you can see we’re not Grimtotem, can’t you? We’re not your enemies.”

  Still, no response.

  “We had a good friend who was one of your people. Thalyss Greyoak.”

  No one spoke, but the night elves clearly reacted to Thalyss’s name, exchanging glances.

  Finally, the female said, “Had?”

  “He was killed. By a troll’s crossbow.” Aram decided to take a chance: “He died saving my life.”

  The elf behind him growled again. “And what made you worth the life of the Greyoak?”

  Aram thought about this for a few seconds and said, “Friendship.”

  Nothing changed visibly, but Aram could tell that the kaldorei were more hesitant, unsure.

  Then, out of nowhere, a musical voice said, “You are all so beautiful!” Aram’s heart sunk. But as all the night elves turned to face Drella—who had emerged from deeper in the forest with her arms full of roots, vegetables, mushrooms, and fruit—each and every one of the kaldorei gasped audibly. Three or four lowered their heads worshipfully.

  Recognizing—if not quite comprehending—an opportunity, Aram spoke quickly. “This is Taryndrella, daughter of Cenarius. She makes up one of our party.”

  The female elf bowed her head slightly and addressed the dryad. “Daughter of Cenarius, I am Rendow of New Thalanaar.”

  “Hello, Rendow of New Thalanaar,” Drella said with her usual cheerfulness. If the dryad noticed the night elves’ weapons and the precarious state of her companions, she gave no indication. “I think you are just lovely.”

  Makasa scowled but spoke with a tightly controlled voice. “This dryad was the Seed of Thalyss. He trusted her to us upon his death. It is a trust we hold sacred.”

  Rendow turned back to face Makasa. “And yet you let her wander alone in this wood?”

  “No, I let her escape when I perceived we were at risk from you.”

  Rendow stiffened. Then almost absently, she nodded. She looked around the camp at her fellows, then in one swift motion, sheathed her scimitar. A second later the other night elves had put their weapons away, too.

  Makasa, however, did not. Still aiming her cutlass at Rendow, she said, “I am Makasa Flintwill. We take Taryndrella, daughter of Cenarius, to Gadgetzan to fulfill our vow to Thalyss Greyoak. Will you allow us to go on our way?”

  Rendow didn’t exactly answer the question. Instead, she said, “Thalyss was a friend. A dear friend to all of us. I am sorry to hear of his passing. To be honest, it is almost incomprehensible.” There was still a hint of suspicion in her voice.

  Makasa said, “Aram, show her the book.”

  Aram reached into his pocket.

  Once again, the night elf behind him growled out, “Slowly, boy.”

  He pulled out the sketchbook and turned to Thalyss’s picture. He showed it to the growling kaldorei, who growled again—but nodded.

  So Aram took a few steps forward and handed the book to Rendow.

  She gazed at the page for a long time. But as always, there was a kind of magic to Aram’s art. Or an art to his magic, perhaps. The picture of the kaldorei hardly proved anything. And yet there was an honesty to the drawing, and the expression on Thalyss Greyoak’s face clearly spoke to the plain fact that his likeness had been taken whilst among friends. Rendow seemed to relax considerably.

  She said, “Gadgetzan?”

  “Yes,” Aram said. “There is a druid tender there.”

  “Springsong,” Rendow replied with a nod.

  “Yes. Thalyss asked us to take Drella—Taryndrella—to her.” Aram heard himself speaking a half-truth and coughed to cover, but Rendow was too lost in thought to notice.

  Drella said, “Thalyss spoke of Faeyrine often. He never mentioned anyone named Rendow.”

  Aram shot the dryad a look, but she simply smiled at him.

  Finally, Rendow spoke. “My apologies, daughter of Cenarius. My apologies, Flintwill. My apologies to you all. New Thalanaar has been under siege for so long, it has placed our very thoughts under siege as well. As I said, I am Rendow. A simple merchant. I trade in leather armor. Or I did.”

  “You are behind enemy lines,” Makasa said.

  “Indeed. We are bringing supplies to New Thalanaar.”

  “I have supplies,” Drella said helpfully, holding out the produce in her arms. “All they had was meat.” She scrunched up her face at Aram, the way Aram’s little sister, Selya, did when asked to eat liver. It was, in a word, adorable.

  “Keep them, Taryndrella,” Rendow said. “You are generous, but we have enough.”

  Just then, another night elf emerged from the forest. He stopped short, bewildered by what he was seeing. He was younger. Or seemed younger anyway. To Aram, he looked to be about fifteen. But for all Aram knew, that could mean he was only fifteen hundred years old, instead of fifteen thousand.

  “Speak, Garenth,” growled the growly kaldorei, who still stood behind Aram.

  “I … um …” He shook off his confusion, stepped up to Rendow, and spoke with some urgency. “A Grimtotem patrol approaches. Too many to fight.”

  “How far away?” Suddenly, Rendow was all business again. She reminded Aram to no small degree of Makasa.

  “Four minutes. Five if we are lucky.”

  “I don’t want to count on luck,” Makasa said, and Rendow nodded to her in agreement.

  Rendow said, “We need to avoid that patrol and get our supplies to the outpost, and we cannot risk being slowed by you. And you need to get the dryad to safety, which means getting her as far away from here as possible—as fast as possible.”

  “You have a suggestion?”

  “I do.” Rendow pointed toward the water. “My boat is right over there, hidden in the rushes. Though it is small, it is yet big enough to hold all of you. Take it.”

  “Really?” Aram asked.

  “The patrol might find it anyway and scuttle it. Sail it down the canyon. All the way to Fizzle and Pozzik’s Speedbarge.”

  “To what?”

  “Do not worry; you cannot miss it,” Rendow said.

  “We’ll find it,” Makasa said.

  “It sounds lovely,” Drella said.

  “It is not,” Rendow said. “But it will serve. When you arrive, you can leave the boat for me with a human woman named Daisy, who works at the inn there. She can also arrange for you to purchase further transport to Gadgetzan.”

  “This is very generous,” Aram said. “Thank you.”

  “It is the least we can do for friends of Thalyss Greyoak, let alone a daughter of Cenarius.” She handed Aram’s sketchbook back to him. “Now, go. We cannot stay to cover your backs. So be quick.”

  Aram stooped to pick up his father’s leather coat, which he had been using for a pillow. By the time he stood, the kaldorei had vanished.

  Makasa whispered, “Come.”

  Hackle and Murky followed her, but Drella hesitated. Looking pouty, she said to Aram, “I still do not understand why I cannot stay to see a tauren.”

  “Maybe we’ll see one from the boat.”

  And they did.

  Reaching t
he water, Makasa had some difficulty locating the vessel. But Murky found it right away. It was, as Rendow had promised, a small wooden boat, yet big enough for the five of them. It had oars and a pole. They all clambered aboard, though Drella was unsure on her four hooved feet and required some assistance. She dropped all her vegetables onto the floor of the boat and knelt beside them.

  Hackle and Aram pushed off. Makasa used the pole to guide them quietly away from the shore. Hackle moved to take up the oars, but Makasa shook her head. “Not yet,” she whispered. “Too much noise.”

  Hackle nodded.

  Then Drella shouted excitedly, “I think I see the tauren!”

  And hearing her, the tauren turned to see the boatload of them as well. And since a few of the Grimtotem had spears, seeing wasn’t their only option.

  Makasa yelled, “ROW!”

  Hackle rowed, putting his powerful shoulders to the task.

  Angry tauren shouted and threw their spears, but in an instant Makasa was at the rear of the boat, using her shield to deflect any spear that came too close. Aram had never seen tauren look so menacing. Not in Flayers’ Point, not even when Breezerider had threatened to split Aram’s skull for him in the ogres’ pit.

  Drella said, “They are all so beautiful!”

  Aram stared at her and said, “They’re trying to kill us!”

  “And what if they do?” the dryad said with a laugh. “All things die.”

  Aram shook his head incredulously; Makasa’s caution was making more and more sense.

  Fortunately, the tauren soon ran out of spears. Or perhaps the boat was out of range. Either way, Hackle kept rowing furiously as the boat and their party floated down the flooded Thousand Needles canyon.

  They (that is, all of them but Drella) took turns rowing throughout the night, Makasa being unwilling to put ashore until she was certain they’d put enough distance between themselves and the Grimtotem. Having made that pronouncement, she was silent, but often, Aram thought, she seemed on the verge of speaking.

  Still, Aram, who was by then taking his own turn at the oars, would never in a million years have predicted what came out of her mouth once she did speak: an apology.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. The words seemed to twist in her throat. Aram realized he had never once in seven months heard her apologize—for anything. (Of course, he also couldn’t quite pinpoint an occasion when she owed anyone an apology, either.) She went on with the same difficulty. “It was my watch. I’m not sure how it happened. Drella slipped away without my notice. And those night elves were upon us before I heard or saw a thing.”

  “I was hungry,” Drella said. “But I could not eat your meat.”

  “You can’t just disappear, Drella,” Aram said. “You need to tell us when you’re going. You need to let one of us come with you.”

  “I do not see why.”

  The other four exchanged flummoxed looks.

  Finally, Hackle said, “Hackle vow to Thalyss to protect Seed. Protect Drella.”

  Murky’s head bobbed in agreement. “Mrgle, mrgle. Murky mrrugggl Drhla, mmmmrgl.”

  “Do you see now?” Aram asked. “We promised Thalyss. You are new to this world. There are things you don’t understand.”

  She frowned. It occurred to Aram that he had never seen her frown before. She said, “I am new to this form. I am not new to this world. I am of this world. And there are many things you do not understand, either.” She all but said, So there!

  But Aram thought she had given him an opening. “Yes,” he agreed. “There are so many things I don’t understand. Which is why we all must stick together.”

  She considered this and then nodded decisively. “Yes. That makes some sense.”

  The other four breathed a collective sigh of relief.

  Then she added, “After all, I must not leave you four alone to fend for yourselves. You may require my protection.”

  Aram started to respond but changed his mind. Whatever works, he thought.

  Makasa returned to her original point as if it were a burr in her boot. “I do not believe I fell asleep. But I failed you all.”

  “None of us are perfect,” Aram said.

  She waved him off dismissively.

  Murky said, “Kuldurrree flllurlog mmgr mrrrggk.”

  Drella translated. “He said that kaldorei move with magic. He meant that you could not have heard them unless they wished to be heard.”

  “Mrgle, mrgle,” Murky confirmed.

  Makasa said nothing, but even in the moonlight, Aram could see that her self-doubt seemed assuaged by this—at least a little.

  Murky took over the rowing.

  Aram said, “Jerky, anyone?”

  Come daybreak, they found themselves among the great soaring “needles” of Thousand Needles, tall pinnacles of stone that emerged from the flow to rise into the sky. Aram tried to look down into the deep water, wondering just how far below the surface the canyon floor was, wondering just how tall the needles, in fact, were.

  Some could hardly be called needles at all. They were mesas, some wide enough to have an entire village settled atop them. Aram’s father, Greydon, had told him of this place. How tauren and centaur and quilboar and many other species had lived both on the canyon floor and atop the needles. Before the Cataclysm. Before the dragon had risen, and the world shook. Before the wall that separated the canyon from the Great Sea shattered, flooding the canyon from one end to the other, drowning villages—and many, many poor souls—indiscriminately.

  But life finds its way, one supposes. The mesas survived. The way of the desert became the way of the water.

  Aram took out his sketchbook and worked up a landscape of this place with so little surviving land.

  As one day passed and then another, they rowed between mesas connected by rope bridges, with tiny docks carved at the waterline into the sides of the needles, and rope ladders and blocks and tackles providing access to the villages at their peaks. Scattered boats crossed back and forth from one needle to the next or trawled the water with nets. Seeing this, a mournful Murky stared down at his spear, clearly wondering if he had made a good trade. Makasa had a different response. Avoiding trouble, she kept any other conveyance at a distance.

  They had plenty of jerky, but the dryad wouldn’t touch it. And she actually had quite an appetite. Her roots and vegetables were soon gone, and, upon a boat in the middle of the water, she had no way to grow anything more.

  By this time, they were deep in the center of the canyon, far from either shore.

  Drella said, “I am hungry, Aram.”

  Aram turned to Makasa. Both knew they had to stop somewhere.

  They passed a large mesa—the largest yet. Aram took out his map and thought it was probably Darkcloud Pinnacle. But just in case that name wasn’t forbidding enough, Hackle spotted banners of the Grimtotem flying above it.

  They rowed on.

  Murky stared into the water. He looked up at Drella and bubbled out something like a sigh. Suddenly, he stood up and threw his spear down into the water. Aram thought it was an act of anger or frustration, but seconds later the little murloc dove into the water himself, stunning his companions. A few more seconds passed as they tried to decide what to do, and Murky emerged holding the weapon, with a fairly large fish speared on the tip. He called out, “Uuaaa!” and swam effortlessly back to Rendow’s boat. Aram and Hackle pulled him aboard. Murky instantly knelt before Drella and said, “Drhla mlgggrrr. Murky flllurlok fr Drhla.”

  She smiled at him but shook her head. “I cannot consume beasts of the land or of the water, Murky.” After a moment, she added (as if to stave off some future fruitless attempt), “Or of the sky.”

  Murky looked stricken. He offered the fish to Aram, who said, “Thanks, Murky, but I can’t eat fish raw. And we can’t build a fire on the boat.”

  Hackle wasn’t nearly so picky. And even Makasa had a little. The gnoll and the murloc split the rest, enjoying it thoroughly, bones, guts, head, fins
, tail, scales, and all.

  None of that, however, solved their vegetable dilemma or helped their hungry dryad.

  That night, while Murky and Hackle slept soundly (and Makasa napped lightly), Aram held the watch. The boat was drifting down the canyon. The White Lady was but a sliver in the sky, but the Blue Child was at three-quarters and provided enough light to shimmer across the surface of the water.

  Drella touched Aram’s chest. “What is that?” she asked. “It calls to me.”

  Aram looked down. For the first time in days, he pulled his father’s compass out from under his shirt. The crystal needle still pointed southeast … and it glowed! With excitement, he nudged the others awake and showed them.

  “We’re close to another shard,” he said.

  “A shard of what?” Drella inquired.

  Aram tried to explain about the crystals and the compass, but Drella asked question after question, most of which the boy could not answer. The interrogation left her unsatisfied and him somewhat demoralized. There was still so much he didn’t know.

  Morning of the next day, they approached another large mesa. Again, Aram took out his map. “I think this one might be Freewind Post,” he said, liking the sound of the name. They saw no banners—Grimtotem or otherwise—so Makasa swallowed her natural reluctance to trust anyone and rowed them toward it.

  They were welcomed at Freewind Post with so much warmth that both Makasa and Aramar were suspicious of it.

  Rendow’s boat was tied to a small makeshift dock by a rather matronly female tauren with short horns, a short muzzle, and light-brown fur. She introduced herself as Thalia Amberhide. As his father had taught him, Aram greeted the tauren in the custom of her people by gesturing first to his heart and then to his head. Pleasantly surprised, she returned the greeting and instantly took it upon herself to act as their guide. A sturdy rope ladder was offered to Aram and his friends, but such a means obviously didn’t suit Drella. Aram said as much, but Amberhide seemed distracted. She was studying the sky. When he spoke her name to get her attention, she practically fell over herself to make other arrangements. Soon, Thalia, Makasa, Murky, and Hackle were climbing the ladder—while Aram stood with Drella upon a shaky supply platform that was raised to the top of the mesa by strong tauren muscles tugging ropes through pulleys. It occasionally bounced against the needle’s stony side. Aram felt completely off balance, and Drella put a hand on his shoulder to steady herself—or perhaps to steady him.