Pool of Twilight

by James M. Ward

  “Well, maybe Evaine knows what she’s doing,” Kern offered. “After all, I don’t think there’s anyone who knows more about pools within a thousand leagues of here.”

  “That is true, Kern,” Miltiades replied. “But no matter how wise Evaine may be, she cannot realize that Sirana is drawing power from the pool. I doubt she expects to face another sorceress, let alone a half-fiend mage who is in league with the magic of the twilight pool.” The skeletal knight’s breastplate shuddered. Kern would almost have thought it a sigh if Miltiades had been in the habit of breathing.

  “Then we have to go after her, to warn her!” Kern stood.

  Miltiades raised a gauntlet, halting him. “You forget, Kern. The Dragonspine Mountains are nearly a tenday’s ride from this place. With her scrying spells, Evaine will certainly discover the pool before we reach her, no matter how hard we ride. Indeed, she may have already located it.”

  Kern hung his head in despair. “We have to warn her somehow,” he said without much confidence.

  “I think I might be able to arrange something,” Listle said, hurrying over to her leather backpack. “I found these yesterday while I was wandering around the maze in the ruins. Something told me they might come in handy.”

  She pulled two cylindrical objects from her pack. With a flick of her wrist, she unrolled one of them. It was a bright, intricately patterned carpet.

  Kern eyed the carpet skeptically. “Maybe I’m missing something here, but I fail to see how a rug is going to solve our problems.”

  Listle snorted with annoyance. “Sometimes you have absolutely no imagination, Kern.” She snapped her fingers, and abruptly the carpet rose several feet off the ground, its golden fringe fluttering. “These are flying carpets!” Listle hopped onto the hovering carpet while the others watched in amazement. The elf positively beamed. “What in the world would you do without my help?”

  “I shudder to think,” Miltiades said, a note in his dry voice that might almost have been amusement.

  Their decision was made easy for them. While Kern wanted nothing more than to hurry back to Shal and Tarl, he knew they must go to warn Evaine.

  “I suppose this means we’ll have to leave you behind,” Listle said sadly, stroking the muzzle of her gray pony.

  “I don’t think you need bid your steed farewell, Listle,” Miltiades said.

  “I wish you were right, Miltiades,” Listle answered glumly. “But somehow I doubt the horses will fit on the magic carpets.”

  “Well see,” Miltiades replied mysteriously.

  The undead paladin whispered something into the ear of his magical white stallion, Eritophenes, who then pranced toward Listle’s pony. Eritophenes bent his head over the dappled gray and snorted. A pale mist encircled the pony, and suddenly the horse shimmered, shrinking in size until it became a tiny gray figurine standing in the snow. Eritophenes moved to the other horses, and in moments they, too, had been transformed by the stallion’s magical breath into miniatures. Eritophenes let out a whinny, then also glowed brightly, shrinking into a small, prancing figure.

  Miltiades gathered the miniature horses and placed them safely in a pouch. Kern could only shake his head in wonder. That was another problem solved.

  “Now if I could only do that with Kern when he’s acting uncooperative,” Listle mused.

  “You know, Listle, you’re really not as funny as you think you are,” Kern grumped.

  She gave him a flat stare. “What makes you think I’m joking?”

  Quickly they broke camp and packed their things onto the carpets. But when it was time to go, Daile hesitated.

  “I’m sorry, Kern,” she said quietly. “But I can’t go with you. At least not yet. I … I have to take my father back to the Valley of the Falls. I know he would want to lie by my mother’s side.”

  Kern nodded gravely, gripping her shoulder tightly. He hated to part company with the ranger.

  “Take one of the carpets, Daile,” Listle offered. “We three can all fit on one.” She shot Kern a wry look. “If this big oaf doesn’t hog all the space, that is.”

  Kern nodded. “Do take it, Daile. And when you can, come find us in the mountains.”

  “I will, Kern. I promise.”

  With that, Kern, Miltiades, and Listle climbed onto one of the undulating carpets. At a signal from the elf, it rose into the air and sped northward.

  Daile watched as the carpet dwindled to a speck, then vanished from sight. A frigid wind picked up, blowing her red-gold hair from her brow as she turned to face the dawning sun.

  “I swear that I will avenge you, Father,” she whispered. Her words were snatched away by the wind. “With the sky as my witness, I swear it.”

  Daile Redfletching turned her back on the brilliant orb of the sun and, taking the second flying carpet, trudged up the slope toward the grove of aspens.

  14

  Curious Encounters

  “I don’t know what’s getting into me, Gam.”

  Evaine dragged herself out of her bedroll, blinking blearily in the brilliant morning light This was the third day in a row she had woken feeling as if she had been up fighting battles all night long. Her dark eyes looked sunken, her skin sallow. She sighed as she sat cross-legged on her bedroll, slowly chewing a piece of hardtack. Even eating seemed a chore.

  You push yourself too hard, Evaine, Gamaliel’s voice entered her mind. And though you do not admit it, the cold bothers you.

  “I don’t mind it,” Evaine countered, but in the same instant she gave a shiver, belying her words. The mountain cold seemed to seep right through her heavy coat and into her bones.

  You never were a very good liar, Gamaliel noted.

  “Then I guess I’ll just have to practice some more, won’t I?” Evaine replied archly. The great cat’s whiskers twitched in annoyance.

  The sorceress set aside the hardtack. She knew she had to eat to keep up her strength, but she had little appetite. She gathered her willpower and stood, trembling as she gained her feet. Stiffly, she gathered her things and shrugged on her backpack.

  “Let’s go, Gam.”

  She started off through the snow, followed by her familiar. Evaine was certain they were nearing the pool of twilight. She had cast her scrying spell several times these last few days, at several different locations. After each try, she had taken out her magical map of the mountains and, with a shining green line, marked the general direction of the spell. The pool was most likely concealed where the lines intersected. It was only a matter of time—and spells—before Evaine pinpointed the location exactly.

  She could only hope that when she finally did find it, she would still have enough strength to destroy the pool of twilight.

  She found herself wondering how Miltiades and the others were faring. Reflexively she reached up to touch the brooch of communication—but her fingers met only a small tear in her tunic. The brooch was gone. She sighed. How she had lost the gem, she did not know. Now there was no way for her to contact the others.

  By midday the forest had thinned, giving way to a field of boulders that sloped toward a sheer cliff. Climbing the cliff with its crumbling overhangs looked to be an impossibility. However, a small stream had cut a steep but passable ravine into the cliff face. Picking their way carefully across the loose scree, sorceress and cat started up the defile.

  Evaine quickly realized they were not the first travelers to have come this way. Indeed, they stumbled upon a faint but distinguishable path, marked here and there by small cairns. When the ravine widened into a broad, boulder-strewn bowl, Evaine saw the remains of a temple perched on the cliff top, now perhaps two hundred feet above them. It looked as if half of the structure had slid into the valley centuries ago, and what remained was wind-worn and roofless. But several colonnades of broken columns still stood, and a section of crumbling wall suggesting some sort of nave.

  Evaine marveled at the ruin, wondering who had built a hall for their god in this place so long ago. It must have bee
n a very holy site, she thought. Even now there was a peculiar serenity about the weathered columns that reached toward the azure dome of the sky.

  The path continues up to the temple, Gamaliel spoke in his mistress’s mind.

  Evaine nodded, and the two began to wend their way among the jagged boulders up the narrow path.

  “Do you hear thunder?” she asked her familiar, frowning.

  Winter is not the time for thunderstorms.

  Evaine gazed at the sky. There wasn’t a cloud in sight. She was about to accredit the noise she had heard to her imagination when suddenly she heard it again. It was louder this time, a low rumbling that grew with each passing second.

  Evaine, look out!

  The sorceress jerked her head up and gasped. A huge boulder bounced down the ravine toward the two travelers, pulverizing other rocks in its path. Gamaliel leaped toward her, knocking her aside. Entwined, the two rolled beneath a low granite overhang.

  A second later, the boulder struck the overhang and bounced past, missing Evaine and Gamaliel by a matter of inches.

  “You didn’t have to be quite so rough,” Evaine said testily, wriggling out of the crevice and brushing herself off. “A simple ‘Duck!’ would have been sufficient.”

  You’re welcome, Evaine, Gamaliel replied wryly.

  This made her laugh despite their close call. She scratched him affectionately behind the ears, then started back up the path that followed the narrow gully.

  Moments later, another deep rumbling echoed down the ravine.

  They were better prepared for the boulder this time, scrambling out of its path before it hurtled by. But they had barely resumed their trek up the ravine when the booming noise began anew.

  “This is getting ridiculous,” Evaine said in growing annoyance as the third boulder tumbled past the mouth of the shallow cave into which they had quickly scrambled.

  Once that boulder was out of sight, the sorceress found an ancient-looking cedar tree, gnarled and twisted by years of strong winds. She pulled herself up to its highest branches, which afforded a better view of the cliff top. What she saw made her stare in amazement.

  “I think I’ve found the source of those boulders,” she called down to Gamaliel.

  Even as she pointed, a huge man-shaped form lumbered mechanically from between the temple’s colonnades. The creature carried a massive boulder in its arms, moving toward a crumbling wall that ended abruptly at the cliff’s edge. When the gigantic creature reached the end of the wall, it dropped the rock, and the fourth boulder started its noisy journey down the mountainside. Apparently unperturbed, the creature lumbered back through the temple to pick up another boulder and begin the sequence anew.

  After watching this go on for a few minutes, Evaine scrambled down the tree.

  What is that creature, Evaine? Gamaliel’s tail twitched in agitation.

  “I think it’s a stone golem.”

  A golem?

  Evaine nodded. “A creature made of some inert substance that has been magically animated—wood, iron, clay, or, in this case, stone.” She winced as another boulder bounced past them down the ravine. “Which means that it’s big, immeasurably strong, and almost completely impervious to injury.”

  I don’t suppose you know why it keeps on tossing boulders down the ravine?

  Evaine rubbed her narrow chin in thought. “I don’t really know, unless …” Her eyes flashed.

  “A golem is a mindless creatures, Gam,” she explained excitedly. “Its creator can give it only the simplest instructions, and the golem will perform those instructions literally. It could be that, long ago, this golem’s creator ordered it to keep the temple in good repair. But some disaster befell the temple. Half of the structure slid down the side of the cliff, and the rest was abandoned.”

  But the stone golem continued to try to repair the temple.

  “Right. Every time the golem puts a boulder where the wall used to be, the rock falls into the ravine. But the golem isn’t smart enough to realize what’s happening. All it sees is that the wall needs another stone, so it tries to rebuild again and again.”

  How long will the golem keep trying to rebuild that one wall? Wind ruffled the great cat’s tawny fur.

  “Unless it’s destroyed, forever.” Evaine gazed up the ravine. “Which means it’s going to be hard for us to reach the top of the cliff. My guess is that it will take us about fifteen minutes to climb the last stretch of the ravine. But it only takes the golem a few minutes to find another boulder and drop it.” She shook her head in frustration. “There’s no cover up there. We’d be crushed before we ever made it to the top.”

  If only the golem would drop himself over the edge of the cliff. Gamaliel growled angrily.

  Evaine snapped her fingers. “Gam, that’s it!” She started picking her way up the ravine. “Come on! We have to edge closer for my plan to work.”

  The two continued up the defile, every few minutes hiding under overhangs or squeezing inside cracks to avoid the tossed boulders. When they reached the final section of the ravine, they could see its sheer sides offered little protection. Already the golem was lumbering toward the broken end of the wall, bearing yet another boulder.

  “This will have to do,” Evaine muttered.

  As the golem approached the precipice, she chanted the words of a spell. Suddenly a chunk of rock several feet wide quivered and liquefied into mud, sliding down into the ravine. Impervious to this change in its path, the golem lurched to the edge of the cliff.

  For a moment, the golem teetered on the precipice. Then, without the slightest resistance, it toppled over the edge. Golem and boulder went tumbling down the ravine in a spray of rock.

  Evaine grinned, watching the creature plummet into the valley. A simple idea, but it had worked! “After you, Gam,” she said. The two started toward the cliff top. Exhausted by the spell, Evaine could not move very fast, but there was less reason to hurry, now that the golem was gone.

  They had made scant progress when a clattering of stone caused them to pause and gaze below. Evaine drew in a sharp breath of surprise.

  The stone golem was climbing up the ravine.

  The fall had not so much as scratched the creature. The golem moved with astonishing quickness, using its huge hands to help pull itself up.

  As quickly as she could manage, Evaine hurried up the rest of the slope. Gamaliel shimmered into his human shape, using his strong arms to help her. She heaved herself up over the cliff’s edge, Gamaliel right behind. The golem was mere seconds below.

  The sorceress tried to ready a spell, but fear seized her mind; she couldn’t think clearly. Gamaliel shimmered into his cat form to defend her, ready to fight the golem. Evaine knew that would be folly. The magical creature had the strength to rip both of them to shreds.

  The stone golem reached the top, towering over Evaine and Gamaliel, blotting out the sun with its bulk. The creature raised its huge arms, lurching forward.

  Evaine shut her eyes, hoping the end would be quick. For a long moment, nothing happened. Finally, Gamaliel spoke in her mind. Evaine, open your eyes.

  Reluctantly, she did as he asked. What she saw made her gasp in astonishment, then laugh aloud.

  The stone golem went right past them, resuming its mindless task. Even now it was heading toward the crumbling wall carrying another boulder. As Evaine watched, the golem reached the muddy cliff’s edge—and without hesitating toppled once again into the ravine!

  It will do that forever, won’t it? Gamaliel asked. It will never learn.

  Evaine nodded. “But thankfully, we won’t be around to watch it.” Weakly, she pulled herself to her feet. “Let’s go, Gam.”

  They started off through the ruined temple, leaving the golem to its ceaseless labor.

  “We’re coming down too fast!” Kern shouted.

  “I know, I know!” Listle shouted back in annoyance as the flying carpet plunged toward the treetops. “The up-drafts are unpredictable this close to the
mountains.”

  It had taken only two days to cover the distance from the ruins of the red tower to the southern edge of the Dragonspine Mountains. But it looked to Kern as if their flying carpet days were about to come to an abrupt and violent end.

  The carpet caught a vortex of cold air, spinning wildly. Kern would have gone sailing off into the blue had it not been for the strong grip Miltiades had on his belt. An eagle wheeled past with a startled expression.

  “Listle, I see a meadow not far ahead,” the skeletal paladin said calmly.

  The elf nodded. “I’m aiming for it.”

  The wind whipped Kern’s hair wildly about.

  “Here we go!” Listle cried, pulling on the pair of tassels that helped her steer the carpet.

  Kern tightened his grip on the golden fringe. The tree tops flew by mere inches below. He could see the meadow now, perhaps a quarter mile ahead.

  “We’re not going to make it!” he yelled over the roar of the wind.

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Listle snapped. She concentrated on keeping the magic carpet steady. Just a little farther …

  Suddenly a dead tree loomed before them, stretching its gnarled limbs higher than the surrounding foliage. Listle jerked hard on the tassels. There was a loud sound of rending cloth as a sharp branch punched through the fabric.

  “The carpet’s unraveling!” Kern shouted as they plummeted toward the clearing.

  Sure enough, a thread from one end of the carpet had caught on the dead tree, and now the magical silk was unwinding behind them like a skein of yarn. The three had to crowd closer as the surface area of the flying carpet rapidly dwindled.

  Listle yanked even harder on the golden tassels. The carpet managed to stay aloft for only a few more seconds. Then the last of the thread ran out.

  Kern, Listle, and Miltiades fell through the air …

  … and landed a half-second later on soft, dry, sweet-smelling grass.

  Confused, Kern sat up, wondering why he hadn’t been knocked dead by the fall. A glistening thread of silk settled slowly to the treetops, its end draped down over a dazed-looking Listle.