Cindermoon snapped her fingers, and the cyclone vanished, dropping the half-elf to the ground. Stedd just had time to wonder why she’d thrown away such an effective weapon, and then she made a beckoning gesture. Thick gray fog billowed out from the spot where she was standing, a cloud the whirlwind would have blown apart.
In a heartbeat, the fog spread far enough to swallow Ashenford and Shinthala. Only Umara and Stedd were beyond its reach, and he was sure that only he saw when a huge owl flew up from the middle of it.
Without a doubt, the bird was Cindermoon. She’d been holding her own against her assailants, but had apparently decided even so that it was foolish to go on fighting them all by herself when she had a little army of supporters within easy reach.
Umara’s eyes fluttered open. Stedd pointed at the owl. “Please!” he said.
The wizard jumped to her feet so fast, she knocked him aside. She rattled off words that felt like needles jabbing him.
A shadow tentacle like the one that had grabbed Nobanion shot up from the ground to snatch at the owl. It flicked harmlessly past just under the bird’s talons.
With a noise that was half grunt and half snarl, Umara rose onto her toes with one arm straight above her head. She looked like someone straining to reach something on a high shelf. The tentacle stretched just a little more and whipped around Cindermoon’s avian body.
Umara lashed her arm down. The length of shadow jerked the shapeshifter to the ground with a violence that made Stedd wince. He hoped the Red Wizard remembered the idea was to help the hierophant, not smash her to bits.
The fog vanished as either Shinthala or Ashenford made it go away. Then the two of them, Stedd, and Umara hurried toward the spot where Cindermoon lay bound. She was mostly an elf again, although she still had some feathers here and there, and her legs were too short for the rest of her.
Stedd was relieved to see that although unconscious, the hierophant was breathing and not visibly mangled. Still, Shinthala frowned at Umara and said, “That spell you just cast was true black magic.”
“Like Anton said,” the Red Wizard snapped, “get past it. How’s your leg?”
“I’ll worry about it after we tend to Cindermoon.”
“Fair enough. You healers do that. I’ll stand guard and keep the tentacle tight.”
Stedd, Shinthala, and Ashenford knelt around the elf. Stedd placed his fingertips against her temple and drew light and warmth into them. Shinthala murmured under her breath, and Ashenford crooned a song as gentle as a lullaby. Druidic magic suffused the air with the scent of verdure.
Then denial as sudden and vicious as a punch in the throat rocked Stedd backward. His head rang, and for a moment, he couldn’t catch his breath. When he finally did, he saw that Shinthala and Ashenford looked just as shaken as he.
“What happened?” Umara asked.
“What we expected,” Shinthala replied. Her voice was thick, like she’d bitten her tongue. “Cindermoon’s not awake in a physical sense. But she does know when someone tries to touch her psyche. Or her madness knows. And it’s fighting back.”
“Then overcome the resistance.”
“Thank you, we remember the plan,” Ashenford said drily. He looked at his fellow healers. “We need to do a better job of coordinating. Shinthala, you and I will sing the Hymn of Still Waters. Stedd, you invoke Lathander’s light when we reach the word ‘peace.’ ”
Anton took a hasty retreat. No combat maneuver was more basic, but it felt chancy when he was blindly backing down a string of wet steppingstones and not a continuous surface.
Still, he managed to set his feet where he’d intended to, and the water spirit’s blow fell short. Fingerless like a mitten, its enormous hand slapped down in the space he’d just vacated and splashed apart. But when the guardian raised its arm back up from the surface of the pool, the hand was intact again.
Anton had his doubts that even an enchanted saber could hurt a being capable of reforming itself like that, but he reckoned he had to try. He lunged and cut before the hand could swing up out of range.
The blade splashed through its target, which seethed, rippled, and dropped some of its liquid substance back down into the pool. The agitation spread up the spirit’s arm in diminishing convulsions.
Anton grinned. He’d at least hurt his adversary. He just couldn’t tell how much.
Hoping to land a cut to his torso, he lunged again. But the spirit flowed backward like a wave sweeping across the surface of the sea, and the attack fell short. The entity then riposted with a horizontal swipe.
Thanks to his aggressiveness, Anton was in too close to defend by retreating. He pivoted and slashed.
If his first attack had hurt the spirit, then the stop cut had likely done the same. But the creature’s arm kept spinning at him anyway, and as it did, it expanded. A sheet of water like the sort of wave that swept mariners overboard during a tempest bashed him from head to toe.
The impact was hard enough to bruise and bloody him. It also knocked Anton off balance and left him teetering on one foot, and only part of that foot still atop a steppingstone.
In a normal battle, falling into the pool might not be disastrous. It shouldn’t be all that deep if it had steppingstones sticking up out of it. But if, as Anton sensed, all the water was in some sense his opponent, it seemed like a bad idea to end up submerged in it to the knees or the breastbone. Wrenching himself sideways, he regained stability.
As soon as he did, he hurled himself forward. Once again, the water spirit flowed backward. But it didn’t react as quickly as it had before, and the saber caught it across what, in a man, would be the stomach.
Losing cohesion, the whole entity plunged toward the surface of the pool. Only for a heartbeat, though, and then the liquid mass of it surged up and put on form once more.
At the same time, someone shouted, “There he is!”
The voice came from behind Anton, where the sanctuary stood.
But when it startled him into glancing around at something besides the water spirit, he saw that a dozen of Cindermoon’s pilgrim hunters had assembled at the other end of the chain of steppingstones as well.
Sighing, he wished they’d let him finish his duel with the water spirit, just so he’d know if he really could have won. But he supposed he couldn’t expect them to share his curiosity.
Hoping the elemental spirit wouldn’t instantly smash and drown him, he lowered his saber and turned to face the druids and rangers in front of the temple. “I surrender,” he said.
“Is he allowed to do that?” a young druid asked.
“Cindermoon said to kill him,” an older one replied, whereupon the woodsmen around him drew back their bows. No doubt, on the other shore, other archers were doing the same.
And just like that, plunging into the pool became the only option. In the highly unlikely event that the ploy enabled Anton to dodge flights of arrows while the spirit somehow failed to kill him, either, he’d swim to the top of one of the waterfalls and see if he could survive a ride bouncing from rock to rock all the way to the bottom.
He flexed his knees, and then a female voice cried, “Stop!” And everyone did. It was, after all, a voice servants of the Forest Father were accustomed to obeying.
Cindermoon strode from the temple. She glowed from head to toe with green phosphorescence, presumably to make it easier for her subordinates to orient on her.
Stedd, Ashenford, Umara, and Shinthala trailed along behind her. The Red Wizard was moving stiffly. The snowy-haired druidess had a bloody leg and hobbled with the aid of a staff.
Clearly, Anton’s confederates hadn’t had an easy time of it. But their scheme must have worked.
Anton shot Stedd a grin, but the boy didn’t return it. Rather, his mouth tightened.
All right, Anton thought, we might as well find out to what extent your worries are justified. He inclined his head to the shining elf. “Lady Cindermoon.”
“Please, call me Shadowmoon,” she replied
.
Anton smiled. “With pleasure.”
The hierophant didn’t return his smile, either. “Anton Marivaldi, the Assembly of Stars itself long ago judged you a traitor and condemned you to death.”
“Yes, and started a fashion. In the years since, a number of places have sentenced me to death in absentia. Which is all right. I couldn’t have offered much of a defense had I been present.”
“Nonsense!” Umara snapped. “Tell these people you weren’t privy to the real traitor’s plans! You had no idea the talismans you helped smuggle could be used to summon a balor!”
Anton sheathed the saber and walked slowly back toward the Red Wizard and the four Chosen. “Would that explanation win me leniency in a Thayan court?” he asked. “Would it soften your heart if demons had butchered your loved ones?”
“Whatever happened years ago,” said Stedd, “you brought me here to help Turmish. You helped save Lady Shadowmoon and stop the Emerald Enclave from murdering people.” He looked up at the hierophant. “That has to be worth something!”
The elf frowned. “It is, Chosen, and I don’t desire your friend’s death. How could I when he just risked his life on my behalf? But the enclave can’t simply flout the judgment of the Assembly of Stars, certainly not in a matter as serious as this. Anton Marivaldi must answer for the malfeasance that resulted in the balor and all the piracy against Turmishan vessels in the years since.”
Stedd shook his head. “It isn’t fair!”
“You know better,” Anton said. “So set it aside and concentrate on finishing Lathander’s business.”
Clearly pondering, Shadowmoon bowed her head and toyed with one of the carved wooden buttons running down the front of her gown. Finally, she said, “While we can’t overturn the assembly’s sentence, I don’t see that we’re obligated to carry it out here and now. I recommend that when the time is right, we escort Anton Marivaldi to Alaghôn and turn him over to the assembly. He can plead for mercy, and I’ll speak on his behalf.” She looked to Ashenford and Shinthala. “Does that meet with your approval?”
“Yes,” the half-elf replied.
“I agree, too,” Shinthala said.
Shadowmoon turned back to Anton. “You heard the plan,” she said. “Will you cooperate? Will you swear to remain with us for now and surrender yourself to the assembly when we command it?”
“I swear it on my honor,” Anton said.
Shadowmoon inclined her head. “Then we’ll treat you like a guest and not a prisoner. And with that decided, we need to take up the greater matter before us: how to feed the multitude who are starving.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE LEAN-TO LEAKED. ANNOYED BY THE TRICKLING AND DRIPPING, Umara tried to rearrange the weave of branches over her head and only succeeded in making matters worse. “The Black Hand take it,” she growled.
Lying beside her, Anton chuckled. “You’d think rangers could build a better shelter.”
“I don’t suppose they could have, really. Not one that this rain couldn’t find its way through. When I get back to Thay, I’m never going out in foul weather again.”
“We could still watch the ceremony from inside the sanctuary. The rain hasn’t worked its way through that roof.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to try to make out what’s happening from the other side of the pool. I want to be up close.”
It surprised her to learn that the Chosen’s ritual wouldn’t take place inside the temple. But as Ashenford explained, the entire plateau was sacred to the Oakfather, whereas only the easternmost patch of land could be considered holy to the Morninglord. Thus, it made sense to perform the rite where the petitioners would find it easiest to draw power from both gods.
There were plenty of them to do the drawing, too. After Shadowmoon canceled the massacre of the scar pilgrims, she’d dismissed most of the rangers and other warriors from her little army. But the Elder Circle had summoned additional druids to gather in their place, along with a miscellany of nature spirits and forest creatures. Sprites the size of mice flitted on dragonfly wings, and treants towered over everyone else, remarkably easy to mistake for actual trees with their gnarled, asymmetrical bodies, crowns of leafy branches, and bark-like skin, shifting ponderously when they moved at all.
The company had assembled to perform a work of magic greater than Umara had ever witnessed or likely ever would again. It would be priestly magic, not arcane, and beholden to the forces of Light and Nature rather than those of those of the Pit, and thus, in no way her sort of power. But she meant to drink in the spectacle and learn all she could nonetheless.
The ceremony should commence soon. At the moment, everyone was waiting for Stedd to announce that, behind the wall of gray thunderheads to the east, the sun was rising.
Umara turned back to Anton. “You wanted to watch this, too, didn’t you? That’s why you haven’t already run away.”
The pirate drew back. “Wizard, you insult me. I gave my oath.”
He was only able to maintain his air of affronted dignity for a moment. Then a snort forced its way out, and she laughed with him.
“You’re right, of course,” he said. “Naturally, I want to see how this all works out. But once it’s over …” He gestured in the general direction of Hierophant’s Trail.
“I suspect Shadowmoon actually intended for you to flee.”
“Then she won’t be disappointed.”
“You don’t suppose the Assembly of Stars might actually pardon you?”
He grinned. “In their place, I wouldn’t.”
She took a breath. “Well, then, we’ll smuggle you back aboard the Octopus and safely out of Turmish.”
Anton hesitated. “If someone catches you helping me, we’re liable to end up facing the headsman together. Even if we don’t, you’ll still have forfeited any good will you may have generated on Thay’s behalf. And from what you told me, that’s the one prize you can offer your superiors to make up for not bringing home a Chosen.”
Umara made a spitting noise. “Please. You already saw me trick Shadowmoon herself with an illusion. I can fool any Turmishan if I put my mind to it. Druids and such have their talents, but Thayan magic is the most sophisticated in the world.”
Anton laughed. “Certainly, Thayan arrogance is the most egregious.”
“You do realize I’m offering to help you.”
“I know, and—” His head turned to the druidic spellcasters and their allies. “We can talk about this later. I think the ritual is starting.”
He was right.
Standing at the brink of the drop-off, closer to the hidden sunrise than anyone else, Stedd extended his hands to the eastern horizon, and they bloomed with gold and crimson light. He turned and thrust them at the ground. Lines, circles, triangles, and more complex figures spread outward from the spot he was indicating, writing themselves on the ground in light.
Standing to the west of her collaborators, Shadowmoon began a kind of slow, twisting, pirouetting dance in place. She made the contortions look as effortless as they were lithe. To the north, Shinthala looked upward and muttered; the clouds overhead rumbled and flickered as lightning stirred inside them. In the south, Ashenford stroked arpeggios from his harp.
Traceries of light flowed from the druids’ positions across the ground to interweave with the figures Lathander’s power was drawing. But the new designs were green instead of yellow or ruddy, and more freeform, their shapes hinting at the uniqueness of every leaf on every branch or every bend in the course of every stream rather than the perfect roundness of the sun or the flawless arc of its daily progress across the heavens.
Trained to construct every pentacle with geometric precision, Umara winced at a sloppiness that, had a Red Wizard committed it—perhaps because he was drunk—would have proved either futile or suicidal. But the Elder Circle’s figures smoldered with a power that, so far at least, they seemed fully able to contain.
A droning began. It sounded so much like a dee
p tone from the Thayan pump organ called the zulthoon that Umara might have mistaken it for one had she not known no such instrument was anywhere nearby. Eventually, she realized the treants were groaning out the hum as accompaniment to Ashenford’s harp.
One or two at a time, the other celebrants joined in, sometimes singing, sometimes chanting, sometimes contributing by other means. A barefoot, dirty, and nearly naked druid—a hermit, Umara suspected—beat out rhythms on a pair of femurs. Sprites hovered in a cloud to merge the whine of their wings into a piercing chord. A spindly horned man with enormous eyes and ears simply exploded into a run of eight ascending brassy notes, leaving not a speck of flesh nor a drop of blood behind.
By rights, it should have all combined into cacophony, but somehow, beauty emerged instead. What Umara chiefly noticed, though, was vibration resonating through her bones as mystical energy accumulated.
The glowing designs grew larger than the space taken up by those who created them. A straight line of rose-colored luminescence shot into Umara and Anton’s lean- to and out the back. Figures and sigils even wrote themselves on the surface of the pool, maintaining their forms thereafter despite the constant flow to the tops of the three waterfalls.
Then the storm clouds to which Shinthala had been muttering answered as clouds had never answered any mortal spellcaster before. The sky—the world—blazed white with so many lightning bolts that it was impossible to see the individual strikes or, in fact, anything but brightness. The accompanying crash was so loud that it scarcely registered as noise. Rather, it smashed sensation and thought into chaos. Even though Umara had had some notion of what to expect, for a moment, she feared that she was dying.
She wasn’t, though, and when her head resumed working, and she blinked the dazzle out of her eyes, she saw the rain beating down harder than it had in all her time on or near the Sea of Fallen Stars. The pounding drowned out whatever singing and chanting was still going on, and gray veils of falling water obscured objects only a few paces away.
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