by Jak Koke
Only for a moment, though. The fire washed over and off, like fog around the prow of a sailing ship. And in the passing wake, the blue fire swirled away and condensed, raining the stench of rotting corpses and oranges on those below, including Slanya.
She caught sight of Duvan, a tiny dark form clinging to Tyrangal’s neck, his spellscar protecting her.
Vraith had to be in the group that Tyrangal was attacking. Slanya doubted Vraith was powerful enough on her own to take on Tyrangal. But together the accordants of the Order of Blue Fire were more than a dragon’s equal.
Slanya observed all this in moments, trying to determine the best course of action. She could find Gregor and try to get him to stop the ritual, but as she took in the full scope of what was happening on the field below, it quickly dawned on her that things were too far along. Gregor couldn’t help her stop it now.
The line of pilgrims formed a nearly complete circuit around the field, holding hands. Accordants and others in the pale blue robes of the Order of Blue Fire scoured the line and stopped where pilgrims were jumbled. They made them get quickly back into line and link hands. And soon, if Slanya’s guess was correct, the entire line of pilgrims would form a complete circuit. And once that happened, Vraith would use those souls in her ritual to move the border of the Plaguewrought Land.
Not only would all the celebrating pilgrims inside be destroyed, but-more importantly-the Order of Blue Fire would see this as a huge victory, and they would do it again. And again. They would expand the Plaguewrought Land at their whim, wreaking chaos across Faerun.
Slanya shuddered. No, this must be stopped.
Just at that moment, Slanya registered a palpable change in the air around her. It was as though the line of pilgrims coalesced all of a sudden. Something new had arrived-the birth of a new entity. Slanya could feel it forming from the line of pilgrims down the hill.
She watched in rapt horror as the border veil spat the wild magic onto the nearest pilgrims at either end of the arc. Some power held the pilgrims in its thrall, for they did not run. They did not flinch or cry out. They did not react at all as the blue fire leaped from pilgrim to pilgrim and raced to complete the circuit.
Above them, the gauzy border veil fluttered, and Slanya felt her gut drop inside her as she watched. The solid, prismatic surface pulsed and flickered as the ritual magic increased, as the blue fire rushed along the line of pilgrim flesh and souls.
The ritual had started.
The rising screams reached Duvan’s ears as he clutched the rope around Tyrangal’s neck with both hands, trying to stay on. Hot wind blew foul and dusty through the border veil. Hundreds of tiny rock particles floated in the air, stinging his skin as they flew.
Duvan had never wanted to ride on a dragon’s back, and now that he had, he never wanted to again. Jerky and rough, with sudden turns, drops and climbs, the ride left Duvan’s stomach behind. His hands burning from the effort, Duvan’s entire job seemed to be to hang on and protect Tyrangal from the spellscarred’s attacks.
So he held on as tightly as he could, refusing to be dislodged despite his bruised hands and the cuts on his knees and belly from the dragon’s sharp horns and spikes. He held on despite the magical attacks from below, and the arrows flying past.
Apparently dragons were unwelcome at the festival.
As they flew, Duvan caught glimpses of the scene below. Spellplague advanced along the perimeter of pilgrims, lighting up the night with white fire. They must have been in unfathomable pain as the blue fire burned their bodies, but they could not move out of it. The line was on fire from both ends now and would soon meet in the middle.
What would happen then, Duvan didn’t know. But it was bound to be decidedly not good.
“I am not making much progress against Vraith’s cadre of accordants,” Tyrangal said. “Together they are too powerful.”
Duvan nodded. He didn’t know what he could do; the scale of this battle was beyond his abilities. He did know that he wanted to survive it. He wanted to live through this to figure out what he could do with his life. How he could make a difference. It was an odd feeling; he’d never cared about making a difference before.
He’d never cared about much of anything before.
His tenure on the Fugue Plane and the prospect of spending eternity as just another brick in the wall of the City of the Dead had given him a new perspective. The boredom and futility of doing nothing forever was far scarier to Duvan than living in pain.
“Hold on, Duvan,” Tyrangal said, her voice drowned out by the cacophony of screaming pilgrims. “It looks like three of them are coordinating and-”
Duvan saw three glowing spheres now floating at intervals near the border veil. He watched in fascinated awe as bolts of ice blue shot out from them. The shafts sped directly toward him and Tyrangal.
Duvan’s hands yanked abruptly as, under him, Tyrangal swerved in the sky, plummeting as she tried to dodge the bolts. But even though the main shafts missed hitting them directly, the air froze and crystallized around Duvan. Tyrangal’s scales iced up, and the dragon’s movements grew sluggish.
Breath stopped in Duvan’s chest, and his skin burned with cold. His eyelids froze open, and his hands went numb. His vision darkened, and his joints locked. The vapor in his nostrils crystallized.
From the rate of their plummet, it seemed as though Tyrangal was having similar issues. The ground approached quickly as they fell.
He’d never been afraid to die before, but now he was. Now he wanted to live. He wanted to accomplish something, to be a force for good. Slanya had showed him that being a force for good didn’t always mean pain. Sometimes it meant satisfaction and companionship and caring.
The dragon managed to shift against the magical frost, moving enough for her wings to catch the air. Tyrangal’s body shuddered and lurched beneath Duvan, then rose sharply. Perhaps they’d get out of this.
As they quickly gained altitude again, Duvan felt himself sliding to his left. Inexorably and uncontrollably, he drifted nearer the point where he would fall. His ice-encrusted hands on the rope around Tyrangal’s neck had grown numb. With his fingers frozen, he was unable to hang on.
Tyrangal must have sensed this and adjusted her flight to nudge him back to the center. With a slight shift of her body, she helped him regain his balance on her neck. For now.
Far below, tiny pilgrims screamed as their bodies ignited with spellplague. The line was almost entirely engulfed now, the circuit nearly complete. In the halos of the bonfires, Duvan could see scattered pilgrims who had refused to join the line. They had all stopped their dancing, stopped their revelry. They all stared, dumbfounded, at the rippling wave of blue fire that raced over their brethren.
More blue bolts slammed into Tyrangal and she faltered. Huge blocks of ice formed large encrusted masses on the dragon’s wings. Beneath Duvan, Tyrangal dropped into an angled, spinning nosedive.
Completely frozen, Duvan slipped free and fell.
He could not move, but his eyes were frozen open, and he could still see. He could see the dark shadow of the ground grow larger as he fell. Beneath him, but off to the side, Tyrangal crashed into the ground. She was moving so fast that her body dug a massive furrow in the grassy earth.
In the split second before the onrushing, unyielding ground shattered his frozen body, Duvan saw his mentor and benefactor defeated. Defeated and probably dead-a huge dragon, frozen into a monstrous block of ice, crashing like a mote to the earth, scattering a bonfire and a small group of pilgrims out of the way.
So this is the end, he thought in his last instant. If they can beat Tyrangal, they win.
Standing in the stirrups, Slanya’s breath caught in her chest as she looked out across the field and watched Tyrangal fall out of the sky. Her heart wrenched as she saw the tiny figure of Duvan, a dark speck, silhouetted against the massive backdrop of the undulating prismatic border veil.
Dread swelled inside her as she watched Duvan’s plummeting form break away from th
e dragon and fall. She lost sight of his dark form as he disappeared into the blackness of the field, crashing into the ground. Falling substantially apart, both dragon and rider had nonetheless landed inside the arc of pilgrims.
Slanya took a quick glance at the line of pilgrims. Spell-plague covered about half of the arc and was marching forward rapidly on two fronts. Each successive pilgrim called out when the fire took them. And once ignited, each person seemed to glow white hot, forming the base of a high wall made of pale blue flame stretching up into the sky.
Obviously, talking to Gregor now would have no impact, but was there anything else she could do?
Abruptly, a possibility occurred to her. Perhaps there was a way to stop it. She wasn’t sure if it would work, and she knew it might kill her, but it was a chance. To stop the chaos from engulfing the world, she would do whatever it took.
Spurring her horse, Slanya crouched in the saddle and leaned forward. She pushed the mare faster and sped down the short slope and across the grassy distance toward the line of pilgrims. The blue magic advanced from pilgrim to pilgrim, inexorably approaching the apex of the arc from both sides. A small-and shrinking-section of the line remained untouched.
Slanya aimed for that opening. She needed to reach Duvan. She needed to make sure he was all right. Everything depended on it.
The mare broke into a gallop beneath her. The beat of the hooves synchronized with the rapid thumping of Slanya’s heart in her ears. Wind rushed past as she rode. Heated air bristled with magic and set the hairs on her exposed skin on end.
Closer.
Slanya took shallow breaths to avoid retching from the stink of sour orange-stuffed rotting flesh. Just ahead, the line of spellplague-touched pilgrims loomed, towering above her into the sky. She focused on balance and speed, trying to ignore the massive wall of disconcerting chaos she was speeding toward.
Ahead of her, the fire continued its consumption of pilgrims. Two by two by two. The arc was almost completely engulfed now, but Slanya could see a narrowing section where the spellplague had yet to catch hold. She needed to reach the line before the circuit completed.
Closer.
Slanya caught sight of one of the Order of Blue Fire Peacekeeper guards, patrolling the line. But he was too slow to react. Slanya approached with such speed that he did not even notice her until she was upon him. He could not have been expecting a single rider moving at such velocity.
Slanya went shooting past him.
Closer.
As she raced directly toward the line, she watched in apprehension as the gap narrowed to five pilgrims. The stench and heat from the blue fire, so close, made it hard to breathe. Then the gap was only three pilgrims wide and closing rapidly. Slanya fought back the urge to retch.
The last pilgrim to ignite was a small human woman. Mousy brown hair blowing in the hot wind, but her delicate features calm. She seemed to be waiting for rapture.
Closer.
The mare leaped into the air at the last second, narrowly avoiding crashing into the pilgrim. As the horse jumped, Slanya teetered on the edge of losing her balance. Flying through the air, her training came and her quickness to her rescue, She adjusted in time and did not fall off the leaping mare.
And then she was through, and the tendrils of spellplague snatching at her failed to gain purchase. The horse came down on level ground and did not stumble. Slanya dropped back down in the saddle and gripped tightly with her knees. She’d made it completely inside the perimeter.
Thank Kelemvor for this mare, she thought.
Behind her, the circuit was complete, and already a palpable change hung in the air. Would this whole area be inside the Plaguewrought Land soon? Not if Slanya could help it.
She aimed the mare toward the spot where she had seen Duvan fall. She needed to get to him. She needed to make sure he was all right. And more than that, she needed his help.
She just hoped there was still time to stop the ritual. If Vraith had completed her magic, perhaps it was already too late. And even if the blonde elf wizard had not finished the ritual, Slanya’s plan might not work.
She needed so many things to work exactly right. Lacking any one of them would result in failure.
Duvan might be dead. She might not be strong enough. It might be too late in any case.
As she galloped ahead in the direction where she’d seen Duvan land, Slanya put doubt out of her mind. She’d know soon enough. Everyone would know soon if she succeeded …
Or if she failed.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Partially encased in ice, Duvan slammed into the ground. He felt the jolt in his skull and ribs. He heard the snap and crunch of bones breaking and frozen flesh shattering. The pain, however, seemed to be muted and far away, numbed by the cold.
The ice shattered around him, breaking away as he impacted the ground. Once, he bounced high into the air. Twice, spinning and sliding, and the bounce was lower this time. Thrice, until he finally skittered to a stop near one of the abandoned bonfires. Frozen and rigid, he skipped like a chip of crystal across the trampled grass.
As they broke free, the shards of ice peeled away the outer layer of the skin on his face and scalp. It felt like a scab being ripped away across his entire head, and he imagined huge chunks of his hair torn away in the ice.
Darkness closed in. His chest frozen, Duvan couldn’t pull in any air. He desperately needed to breathe. He was drowning in ice. Flares and sparkles flickered in the closing blackness at the edges of his vision.
“Duvan! Duvan!” Slanya’s voice came faintly to his ears.
He couldn’t answer, couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.
“Duvan!” Horse hooves thudded next to him, growing louder by the moment. And then Slanya was on the ground, cradling his head. Her hot touch burned his raw skin.
“You’re so cold,” she said. “Can you breathe?”
He struggled to pull in a breath. He failed.
She pressed her mouth to his. She breathed warm air into him, and it seemed like she was filling his lungs with broken glass.
But the chill in his chest melted ever so slightly and he could move again. He gasped and sucked in a breath of crystalline air on his own power.
“Good,” she said, pulling back and looking into his eyes. “Now I need you to watch over me. So don’t die; I need your protection.”
Duvan grimaced. “I can’t even protect myself,” he said.
In the field beyond the line of pilgrims burned with blue-white fire. It was a beautiful and frightening sight. The circuit was complete, Duvan saw. So bright was the fire that Duvan could hardly see the individual bodies of the pilgrims. They had become one entity. Vraith’s ritual had transformed them into a wall, a new barrier of souls.
“I think you and I can fix this whole thing together,” she said.
Duvan didn’t know what she was talking about. Feeling was trickling into his flesh, most of it burning and painful. He looked up into her face, tried to ask her what she meant, but no words would form.
Slanya’s eyes were filled with wild urgency. The thin line of her mouth was set with determination. She seemed ready to jump into the fires of chaos. In a way, she already had, he knew. By coming inside the arc, she’d risked death.
How can we stop this? he thought. We are so small.
Above him, the border veil flickered. Dark perforations formed on the oily surface, and at each hole, the fabric of the curtain weakened. The perforations spread rapidly, each one like an eruption of thousands of black ants eating away at the veil.
Soon the border would lose cohesion, and the Plague-wrought Land would claim this area. Many souls were going to be trapped inside. Stay close by me, he tried to say to Slanya, but his mouth wasn’t working.
Off to his right, Duvan caught sight of Tyrangal’s massive form, stirring as she lifted herself out of the deep furrow created by her impact. Melting ice sluiced off the sides of the huge dragon as she got to her feet and stretched her wings.
She was still alive, thank the gods.
But as Duvan watched, the veil behind and above Tyrangal went completely dark. The eldritch light from the massive curtain flickered one last time and was extinguished. The border shifted, snapping to its new location along the line of burning pilgrims.
Tyrangal, too, was trapped inside.
Duvan watched as the plagueland rushed out to fill the void, like water released from a broken levee. And then Tyrangal was lost behind the flood of blue fire.
Slanya stroked his hair as she concentrated. “I have the power to affect the spellscar abilities of others,” she said. “When we rescued you, I discovered that I can dampen them. That’s how I defeated Beaugrat. But I also learned that I can amplify others’ abilities. I’m hoping I can do that to yours.”
Duvan felt his stomach liquefy as the tide washed over them. The sounds of screaming pilgrims faded as the blue fire rushed to the next barrier. But Duvan and Slanya had their own isolated and protected bubble.
Resting in Slanya’s lap, Duvan felt his power grow. It swelled and expanded, the shell of protection increased in size, doubling at first, then tripling. Sweat beaded on Slanya’s brow as needles of pain shot through Duvan’s thawing and broken body.
By ourselves we are small. But together …
Together …
Duvan could feel Slanya tapping into his ability. She fed his power, multiplied it. Duvan felt his shell of spellplague protection expand. And he used that power, directing his protection out toward Tyrangal, toward the line of pilgrims. He fed off Slanya’s ability and extended his protection as far as it would reach.
A network of fine filaments of the palest blue glowed in Slanya’s flesh as the flood of spellplague retreated in a wide, darkening sphere around them. This sphere of protection was the size of four city blocks now, and still growing.
Duvan focused his attention on the line of pilgrims ablaze from Vraith’s ritual. The brilliant line of pilgrims dimmed then went dark as his sphere of protection grew to engulf them. Duvan watched in satisfaction as the blue fire burning through them retreated and guttered out. The wild magic extinguished.
