“What’s for breakfast?” he asked.
“The usual,” groaned the bard, pointing to the only food satchel they had salvaged from the wreck of the boat. “Soggy bread, waterlogged cheese, or wet dried meat—all frozen, of course.”
The dragon turned his nose up at the fare, but nevertheless he shook himself free of the snow and buzzed over to the pack to select a few morsels.
Robyn moaned softly, and her eyelids fluttered open as Tristan pulled her closer. She curled against his side, and his heart lifted in momentary elation. Finally she, too, sat up and stretched.
“Will you come with me to the top of the ridge?” Tristan asked. “We need to discuss our route.”
She nodded and took the hand he offered as she climbed to her feet. The snow, more than a foot deep now across the barren landscape, crunched beneath their feet as they walked the short distance to the top of the gentle incline that had sheltered them from the worst of the wind.
They saw Myrloch, huge and close now, no more than a mile away to the north. The lake was unfrozen. The dull expanse of its gray surface seemed to absorb what little light filtered through the clouds. It stretched far to the west, and to the full limits of their vision to the north. Only to the right, the east, could they see the shoreline meandering away from them. The snow did not fall thickly enough to obscure their vision much but rather seemed to render the whole scene an image viewed through a foggy window.
“Where do we go from here?” Tristan asked.
Robyn pointed to the eastern shoreline. “Once we reach the lake, we follow as close to the water’s edge as we can as we head north. You see those dead trees, there? That’s the forest south of Genna’s grove. Once we get through those trees, we’ll reach a stream—probably dry now, if the other streams and rivers are any indication—that marks the border of her grove itself. We should be there in less than two days’ time.”
They stood in silence, sharing the vista that had once been so pastoral, so clean. Now the evidence of pollution had become so pervasive that even the snow couldn’t cover it. Indeed, the land seemed to dirty the snow, so that the wintery blanket looked gray and muddy in the distance.
“It used to be so beautiful. When I first came to study with Genna, these hills were bursting with every kind of wildflower, and the lake gleamed with such a light that it hurt your eyes to look at it.”
“Perhaps it will again, when we are through.”
“I don’t know …” Robyn turned to look at Tristan, her eyes somber. “I can’t help but think that something very profound is happening, something that will change the nature of these isles forever. I doubt that they will ever be the same again.”
“We have to try!”
“I know that, and we will try—we are trying! And if we triumph, this will not be the place of evil that it is right now. I just feel that it will never again be the Myrloch Vale of the past.”
Tristan didn’t understand exactly what Robyn felt, but that fact did not surprise him. He had always been rather mystified by the intricacies of her faith.
“We should get started soon,” he suggested, “before those damned birds catch up with us again.”
“You’re right, though we did lose them rather handily yesterday.”
“You lost them, you mean.” Tristan took Robyn’s shoulders in his hands and looked full into her green eyes. She started to turn away, then met his gaze, though he could not read her expression. He continued. “You gave us the river that allowed us to escape. You kept us alive last night, when we would all have frozen. You have even given me a reason for living, when it seems as if everything around me is dying because of my own shortcomings!”
“You cannot blame yourself! We have all blundered our way through this quest, and we’re lucky to still have some hope of reaching the well! But you can’t feel sorry for yourself because of the cost.” Robyn’s tone softened.
“Tristan, you’re a good leader. People follow you. You are High King of the Ffolk, and you are the finest fighter I have ever seen. This quest is yours as much as it is mine.
“It may be that things between us will never be the same. I don’t know. I do know that the most important thing in the world to me is reaching the well and excising the power that holds the druids in stone. I need you to help me get there. Will you do that?”
He looked at her with a new clarity. Her words about the change in her feelings sent a cold knife into his belly, but he understood the task before them, and knew that he had to try. He nodded and answered.
“Let’s get started.”
“Wh-where’s the next gate?”
“I is tired! Rest now!”
“C-Come on, Honkah! Just one more gate, then we rest—we rest!” Yazilliclick’s urging finally lifted the troll from the mossy log he had collapsed onto. The sprite buzzed into the air, hovering on his gossamer wings, as the troll lumbered along beside him.
“Yer friends gots wine?”
“Oh, yes! L-Lots of wine!” Yazilliclick exaggerated slightly, but hoped that his companion would overlook this slight indiscretion.
The creature, who had confessed to the name of Honkah-Fah-Snooei, reluctantly started across yet another flower-bestrewn meadow, amid clouds of hummingbirds and fat honeybees.
“Dis way.”
The sprite flew joyfully above, beside, and around him, delighted to be back among the pastoral reaches of Faerie. Overhead beamed the never-setting, gently warm sun that gave this realm a constant springlike air. Faerie was a small realm, not even as large as a single of the Moonshae Islands. It was enclosed in a bubble of magic that held it safe from the intrusions of more violent and brutal planes.
Yazilliclick saw that it hadn’t changed much, if at all, since he had departed through a gate to the Forgotten Realms. They came upon a band of satyrs—manlike creatures with tiny horns on their foreheads, and the hind legs and tails of goats—playing their pipes and dancing in the sunshine. A beautiful wood nymph appeared, her silken gown shimmering in the soft sunlight. She glanced coyly at Yazilliclick, and he blushed and looked away from her tiny, alluring eyes. Then the satyrs spied her and took up the chase, calling and crying to the nymph to stop and please them.
She giggled, her voice a trill like a tiny brook, and flew through the woods, leading the satyrs on a long and delightful chase. The sprite knew that they would never catch her. After all, they never had before, and things in Faerie never changed.
They saw other creatures of Faerie, kin to Yazilliclick’s own folk, such as pixies, dryads, and leprechauns. These dwellers called and beckoned to the odd pair, but the sprite kept the troll directed on his mission.
“How did you g-get your name, anyway—anyway?” asked Yazilliclick. “D-Does it mean anything?”
“Honkah-Fah-Snooie good name. It mean ‘He-whose-nose-casts-shadow-over-ten-thousand-blossoms.” Honkah proudly gestured to his impressive proboscis. “My nose great nose, even for troll, eh?”
“Oh, yes, it is—it is! I—I have never seen such a wonderful n-nose!”
Pleased, Honkah picked up the pace a bit, stepping across a crystalline stream on a series of strategically located stones. Dozens of fat trout looked up at them from the water as they crossed.
Yazilliclick turned suddenly as the bushes beside him rustled. He saw a brown canine face, topped by perky upraised ears, looking at him. A pink tongue lolled from a wide mouth as the creature seemed to smile at him.
“A b-blink dog—dog! Hi there!” The sprite hovered lower to pat the dog on the head, but suddenly it disappeared from view. Yazilliclick looked around and saw it grinning at him from behind a tree several dozen feet away. He darted over to it, but it blinked again, this time teleporting itself to the far side of the stream they had just crossed, where it was joined by a half-dozen of its fellows.
“I give up,” the sprite said with a laugh. “Y-You just can’t catch those guys—guys!” But the chase delighted him as had little else in recent years.
He buzzed back to Honkah’s side, for the troll had begun tapping his foot impatiently. A feeling of warm well-being grew within the sprite, making him want to remain in Faerie forever. This was such a delightful, pleasant place. He found it hard to remember why he had ever left in the first place.
But then he remembered his friends and his mission. In truth, his companions were becoming a blurry memory to him already. He even had a hard time picturing Newt in his mind, unless he concentrated very hard. But he felt certain that they needed his help, and were in terrible danger, and some driving force within him compelled him to go to their aid. Perhaps he had been changed by his years in the Realms, for such a compulsion could certainly never have affected a creature who had spent all his life in Faerie.
“Here gate,” grunted Honkah, pointing to a bank of earth exposed at the bottom of the steep hillside.
The sprite saw that this gate, like the half-dozen they had already visited, was framed by a thick layer of green moss and lay in a shady part of a lightly forested area. There was nothing about it to tell the unaware explorer that this was anything other than a bare patch of ground.
He realized how fortunate they were that the gates in Faerie were much closer together than their connecting points in the other worlds. This had enabled them to investigate a variety of locations in a few hours, covering distances that would have taken several days to reach had they been traveling through Myrloch Vale.
“T-To Myrloch Vale?”
“Yup, to vale. Lotsa gates to Myrloch Vale.”
“Well, I’ll see if I can find some sign of my friends,” said the sprite. He stepped up to the bank of dirt and put his hands out, feeling the moist earth until he discovered a place where he met no resistance. Boldly he stepped through.
He popped back out in a second, sputtering and soaking wet. “It’s under w-water! I c-couldn’t see anything—anything. Wh-what kind of a g-gate is this that goes to the b-bottom of a lake or a river or ssomething?”
Honkah looked puzzled, scratching his flat head. “Not under water last time. Must be wrong place.”
“I told you things have ch-changed! Oh, I g-give up! I—I don’t th-think I’ll ever find them—find them!”
“What that?” asked Honkah, cocking his head to the side and listening.
“Wh-what’s what? I didn’t hear—”
“Shhh!” The troll lifted a warty finger to his mouth, still listening. Yazilliclick, too, concentrated, and then he heard the sound from the gate.
“Something’s howling! Wh-what can it be—it be?”
“Honkah look.” The troll stood up and leaned through the gate. It looked to the sprite as if the top half of the troll was buried in a hole in the ground, and only his lower torso and legs remained visible. Then Honkah reappeared, clutching a squirming shape in his broad arms.
The newcomer sprang free and leaped to the ground. In the same instant that Yazilliclick recognized him, he shook his body from head to tail, spraying both of them with cold water.
“Canthus! How are you—are you? Wh-what were you d-doing in the water? Wh-where’re Robyn and Tristan and N-Newt? Are they all right—all right?” He stopped suddenly, feeling a little foolish as he realized that the dog could not understand him.
The dog greeted him with a slurping lick across his face that knocked him down, then turned to regard Honkah suspiciously. Yazilliclick stood and patted the dog’s head, meanwhile taking Honkah’s large hand. This apparently convinced the moorhound that the troll was no threat, and he began to sniff the air and look around curiously.
“C-Canthus, welcome to Faerie!”
Shantu raised its blood-spattered head as the distant call came to its upraised ears. The displacer beast spread its lips in a snarl of challenge, returning once again to tear at the bloody form of its victim. The sharp, driving fangs tore into the unicorn’s flesh to rip away another chunk of meat.
The wound in Shantu’s flank still caused the beast searing pain. The snapped horn of the unicorn remained wedged at the base of the monster’s tentacle, and all of its efforts to knock it free had only succeeding in driving it deeper.
The deathbringer crouched possessively at the side of the kill. It growled at the surrounding woods, a rumbling challenge to any who dared dispute the beast’s claim. Shantu was king of the vale! King of death! And the king would tear the life from any usurper.
But even the king has a master, and now the summons from that master came once again into Shantu’s black head. The beast growled and backed away from the bloody corpse, raising its head once again to snarl its challenge at the heavens and the earth.
With a last lingering look at the torn, mangled carcass, Shantu the displacer beast turned back to the woods and disappeared. Its gait was slow and awkward, since the biting pain of its wound raged anew every time the beast’s right forepaw touched the ground. The horn stuck out from the shoulder, wedged between two bones. Limping, Shantu started the long trek commanded by its master.
It ran to the north, for it had been ordered back to the Darkwell.
The massive lodge of Grunnarch the Red had been specially adorned for the Council of Winternight. The plunder of a lifetime of raiding was hauled from cellars and sheds, from storage and from use, to decorate the rough-hewn log walls of the great councilhouse.
Now the lords of Norland entered and took their seats at long tables, heavily laden with food and drink, amid splendor such as rarely seen by the men of the north. From the ceiling hung three crystal chandeliers from the master craftsmen of Amn. Tapestries and silkworm rugs of exquisite workmanship, the plunder of many raids along the coast of Calimshan, decorated the walls.
The tables themselves were covered with golden and silver finery—plates, platters, and goblets of precious metal from as far as Waterdeep and other ports along the Sword Coast. Candles perched gracefully in the chandeliers, and several massive fires set in huge fireplaces cast a golden light across the gathering that was only partially obscured by the growing haze of smoke in the air.
For a long time, the feasting proceeded with good humor and great appetite. Boars and sheep and heaping platters of fish were all consumed in turn, as were keg after keg of smooth, imported wine and whiskey. Finally, as the last of the meat was reduced to clean-picked bones, Grunnarch the Red pushed back his thronelike chair and stood.
The Red King, as was his right and custom, sat at one end of the rectangular lodge, at a table on a platform somewhat higher than the main floor of the room. As he stood, his red beard bristling and his equally scarlet mane flowing smoothly about his shoulders, he became plainly visible to all the men in the lodge. Slowly their conversations died as they waited to hear why their liege had summoned them for the unusual winter council.
“Lords of Norland and the north, warriors of my country, I greet you at a time of grave importance, a crossroads in the history of our people on these isles.
“Norland is the greatest nation of the north, the leading light among those of us who have come to the Moonshaes in the past centuries. Yet in the recent past, we have suffered gravely for the errors of our neighboring kings, for the wrongful war we were compelled to fight by a force beyond our understanding!”
The hush was complete now, as Grunnarch’s surprising words sank into the ears of his listeners. Rarely would a man of the north admit a mistake, even in the confidential council of his closest friends, and here was their king stating that they had made an error before the assembled lords and fighters of Norland!
“I have just returned from a kings’ council with an ally of great standing, a wise ruler who was once our enemy. He has guided his people with good judgment and rare compassion. I shall declare before you all that he is now a friend of the North.
“He is a man who came to my rescue, and the rescue of my crew, only minutes after we would have claimed his ship as a prize. Then he offered the hospitality of his keep, the comfort of his food and wine, and the repairs to see our ship safely home.”
A quiet rumble began to spread through the hall, for those of Grunnarch’s men who had returned with him from Corwell understood of whom he spoke. Disbelief spread through the room as they shared this knowledge, in whispers, with their neighbors.
“Our ally, a king who will be my friend unto death, is King Tristan Kendrick of Corwell, High King of the lands of the Ffolk!”
The whispering died in sudden shock, and then the growing murmurs of outrage became audible, growing quickly in force and articulation.
“What madness do you say?” demanded Eric Graybeard from his seat at the king’s own table.
“My brother fell in battle at Corwell!” proclaimed Urk Bearstooth, also at the Red King’s table. “You cannot ask me to forget a blood-quest!”
Grunnarch stood impassively before them, allowing their rage to run its course. He remembered Taggar’s prophecy and hoped the old cleric was right, as he had been many times in the past. A messenger to the council such as the one Taggar had foretold—perhaps even one of the men seated before him—could offer valuable words at this time of emotional torment. But no one voice rose above the tumult, and it began to appear to Grunnarch that the rage of his followers was growing in fury, not dying away.
“Silence!” His command rang through the lodge and within a few seconds, was obeyed by all.
“You speak of bloodquests, and madness, and a tradition of war! I ask—nay, demand—that you look where these traditions, where our warfare and raids and plunder have gotten us! You know that the fish are dying in our waters! You know that our own brother, Thelgaar Ironhand was slain by a Beast which then used us—you and me—as tools to achieve its own foul ends! Can it be that …”
Grunnarch stopped, seeing the door at the opposite end of the lodge burst open. He immediately thought of the prophecy and the messenger Taggar had predicted. Could this be the messenger?
He saw a trusted warrior, a man who had served the Red King for twenty years, standing there with his face flushed and his jaw hanging slackly. The man, the king remembered, had been assigned as lookout over the bay for the duration of the council.
Darkwell Page 24
