“What happened here?” Ulaan whispered. “Did … they do this?”
Lewan glanced at their escorts. If the creatures had understood her words, they gave no sign of it.
“No,” he said. “This was mostly my master, Sauk, and the trees.”
“The … trees?”
“And the vines. It all happened so fast.”
“I don’t want to be here, Lewan. Let’s go. Like you said. Just run away.”
The creatures were not close—the nearest of them a few paces away—but still, he and Ulaan were hemmed in. Lewan and Ulaan had not been bound, nor once prodded on the way. But there was no mistaking the creatures’ intention. “I don’t think that’s possible anymore,” he said.
“I’m scared.”
“Me too.”
Shuffling his feet, Lewan felt something under his boot and looked down. They were standing in the midst of the arrows the archer had dropped during the fight. Lewan counted at least five of them within easy reach. He spared a cautious glance at the creatures, then knelt and put his hand over one. Two of the creatures looked at him, then looked away, seemingly unconcerned. Encouraged, Lewan picked up the arrow, then gathered the other four. With the hammer tucked into his belt, he was able to carry the arrows and his master’s bow in one hand. Ulaan reached for his other hand, but he pulled away.
“Lewan,” she said. “About … what happened …”
Lewan waited, but she could not seem to find the words.
“I … suspected already,” he said.
“What?”
“Earlier today, Talieth said something to me. About you. When I bargained for your freedom, she told me, ‘Ulaan is still no dryad.’ But I never mentioned the dryads to her, nor the Jalesh Rudra. But she knew about them. Which means that either she was watching us—or you told her.” He looked down on her, hoping to seem angry and resentful, but he knew his face reflected only his true feeling—hurt. “I’d hoped she was watching—sick as that might seem.”
Ulaan looked away. “I … I am sorry, Lewan. Truly.”
“I thought …” He looked away, unable to finish.
“What?”
“I thought you had feelings for me,” he said, “like … like I had for you. That hurt at first. Hurt me to think of all the other men who’d had you.” He looked at her again, and this time he knew the anger was coming through in his gaze, for she flinched back. “This … this hurts worse.”
She held his gaze. “You … were not wrong,” she said, “about all of it. Not everything I told you was a lie, Lewan. My mother was a slave, and my father could have been anyone. Lady Talieth bought me and trained me. As an assassin. And part of being an assassin is learning the skills to … to get close to someone.”
“Like me.”
“Yes,” she said.
He let the silence hang while he gathered his own thoughts. The creatures around them seemed heedless of the conversation. At last he said, “Back in my rooms as we were preparing to leave, you almost told me then, didn’t you? All this?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
She thought a moment, then said, “You weren’t wrong. I have been with other men. But none of them looked at me the way you do. They saw me as warm flesh to use. You see a person.” She opened her mouth to say more, but then looked away.
“You really were going to go with me?” said Lewan. “Away from here?”
She looked at him then, and looking into her eyes, Lewan saw—perhaps for the first time—the real Ulaan. Not the meek servant nor even the deadly assassin. He saw strength, courage, and a determination bordering on ferocity—but also a need that looked to him. “Yes,” she said. “I will go with you.”
The creatures around them went suddenly very still, then a few of them cocked their heads, as if listening. A murmur passed through their ranks, then they were moving forward again, Ulaan and Lewan in their midst.
Ulaan reached out and grabbed Lewan’s hand. He did not pull away this time. He could see the fear in her eyes, but still she smiled at him and said, “This was not quite what I had in mind.”
A shudder passed through Lewan as they walked through the gate and entered the courtyard.
“What’s wrong?” said Ulaan.
“It’s just—”
“Ulaan!” came a cry from above them.
They stopped and looked up. Under the lights and shadows, Lewan could not see clearly more than a few feet into the trees, but he thought he could make out something paler than the surrounding foliage. Skin? Given the size and shape, it had to be a face.
“L-lady?” Ulaan called out.
It was Talieth, still trapped by the vines up in the trees.
“Ulaan!” Talieth called out. Lewan had never heard her voice like this. The proud queen, the temptress, was gone. She sounded weak and frightened. It was taking the last vestiges of her courage to call out. “Ulaan, call for help! Please! Tell the blades the night is red! Call for—!”
The leaves rustled and thrashed, and Talieth’s cry ended in a shriek.
The creatures pushed them onward. Not roughly, but there was no resisting them.
“Boy!” It was Sauk, calling out from above. “Hear me, boy! You’re going up there, you tell your master I’m coming for him! I’m going to eat his heart! Tell him!”
There was more thrashing, much more violent, and Sauk’s roaring did not end. Lewan could still hear it echoing off the stone as he and Ulaan were led inside the tower.
Halfway up the stairs, Ulaan stumbled and fell. When she didn’t rise, Lewan stooped and grabbed her arm with his free hand. The creature nearest him hissed.
“I’m just helping her up,” he said.
The creature blinked at him, displaying no emotion or acknowledgment that he understood—or cared.
Lewan looked down at Ulaan and helped her to rise. He thought he heard her murmur something.
“What?” he asked.
“What?” she said as she regained her feet.
They continued walking up the stairs.
“I thought I heard you say something,” said Lewan.
Ulaan did not answer.
At the top of the stairs before a stout wooden door, the creatures stopped. The door opened, and by the sound of rustling leaves and creaking branches, Lewan knew that the vines wrapped around it were doing the opening. Beyond the doorway were more stairs, encased in an arched stone hallway.
The creatures turned to him and bowed. One of them hissed and said, “Lur’ashai, ash sissaan.”
“They want us to go up, I think,” said Lewan.
“Do we have a choice?” said Ulaan.
“You want to tell them no?”
She considered a moment, then said, “You still have your hammer?”
He patted the stone head of the hammer protruding from the top of his belt. “Yes.”
A moment’s silence, then she said, “You go first.”
Lewan led the way. The door shut behind them. The steps, wide and shallow, wound around the tower several times, then passed through a large opening in the ceiling.
Lewan and Ulaan emerged onto a wide roof, lit by a few braziers and several lamps, their flames low and weak in the drizzle. But dozens of the meandering lights had climbed the tower and floated about, making the shadows seem to cringe and gasp in their passing. Great columns of stone, twisted in the Imaskari fashion, stood at each corner. Statues of ancient Imaskari heroes—or perhaps they were gods—stood atop them, and each supported the end of one of the great stone tubes. One, a beautiful woman, held forth a silver urn, still untarnished by the years, and clear water poured from it. Opposite her, a bearded man stood amidst stone waves, and from the tip of each wave, water streamed out in fountains. The water filled a pool before running off in channels and through sluices over the edge of the tower. The other two—one holding aloft a stone sun, the other pounding stone flames over a graven forge—stood cold. Vegetation dominated everything—trees growing up through
broken stone, vines and creepers covering stone and trees, moss carpeting many surfaces, petals and lily pads floating in the water.
“And there they are!” said a voice behind them.
Lewan turned. On the far side of the roof stood an old man, dressed in a long robe and leaning on a staff made from twisted branches. Lewan knew the voice at once—the voice of the man he’d met on the mountain, and the voice that had spoken through the creature after rescuing Lewan and Ulaan from the guards. Behind the Old Man, Master Berun sat shirtless upon a wide stone table covered in leaves and flowers. Most of his exposed skin had been painted with runes and holy symbols, and his wounds were gone.
“Master!” Lewan called out. He ran to Berun and embraced him with his free arm. “I could not get away,” he whispered. “Forgive me. I tried.”
Berun returned the embrace, then pushed Lewan away gently. “There is someone you must meet.”
Lewan stepped back from his master and turned to the other man. Closer now, he saw that it was not an old man at all. The sharper features, the slight cant to the eyes amidst the high cheekbones, and the points of the ears protruding from the tufts of white hair showed Lewan that he was a half-elf—a very, very old one.
The half-elf smiled and bowed. “We have met, have we not, Lewan?”
“Uh, I …” No mistaking it. It was the same voice. But this half-elf looked nothing like the man Lewan had met that day on the mountainside.
“You must forgive our young disciple, Berun,” said the half-elf, “though I fear the fault for his confusion must be laid at my feet. Observe.”
The half-elf closed his eyes and murmured. He drew in a deep breath and … flickered. The light and shadow of the floating orbs played over him, and his image seemed to blur and shift. When it steadied, an altogether different man stood before them. A human, still past middle-age, but taller, darker, and possessing an aristocratic bearing. It was the man Lewan had met that day on the mountain.
Berun’s eyes went wide with shock and something like horror.
The man laughed, and his image flickered again. When it steadied, the old half-elf stood before them again.
“A small joke on my part,” said the half-elf. “I came and spoke to your disciple several days ago while he was undergoing a vigil on the mountainside. I knew that the half-orc was watching, and I knew that the sight of Alaodin emerging from the woods to talk to Lewan here would … rattle Talieth’s little conspiracy.”
“Conspiracy?” said Lewan. “I’m sorry, masters. I’m … I’m confused.” He looked at the half-elf. “You aren’t the Old Man of the Mountain?”
The half-elf chuckled. “Oh, but I am! And I am not. The Old Man of the Mountain—Alaodin, master of assassins, feared the world over … well, I fear he met his just and deserved end many years ago. At my hand. But the Oak Father smiled upon me, and rather than fight his remaining subjects, they swore loyalty to me. And so I became a ‘new’ Old Man.”
The half-elf sighed. “But alas, the oaths of assassins are not to be trusted. Seeing my vision, the beauty of what I would bring to the world, some of the blades of Sentinelspire joined me. But some want only to sate their own appetites, to horde power for themselves no matter the cost to the world. And these … these found a willing leader in the Lady Talieth. Almost from the beginning, she has conspired against me.”
“You killed her father …” said Berun.
“I did,” said Chereth, “though it was no grief to her. I don’t suppose you two had time to speak much tonight, have you? I killed Alaodin, true. But it is also true that the last rebellion the Old Man put down before my arrival—the one that almost succeeded—was led by Talieth. Even she recognized what a blight Alaodin had become to the world. The day I killed her father, Talieth was locked in a dungeon beneath the Fortress, waiting for her father to decide what to do with her. I had hoped she might treat me with some gratitude. I succeeded where she failed, and I freed her. Still … Talieth will never serve”—he cast a quick glance at Berun—“or love anyone but Talieth.”
“Then why—”
The sharp look from the half-elf stopped Lewan. Master Berun had always permitted—even encouraged—Lewan to question him.
“Why did I allow her to live?” said the half-elf. “Her and Sauk and the rest?”
Lewan nodded. Berun did nothing. His eyes held a hollowness that Lewan had never seen before.
“I am no murderer, Lewan,” said the half-elf. “I kill only when left with no other choice. I had no desire to kill Talieth, despite her plot to kill me. But …” Something like mischievousness crossed the half-elf’s features, not unlike a little boy hiding a secret. “In truth, I spared her out of my love for you, Berun. Once my plan reaches its fruition, the world will need to be filled again. Filled with the faithful who will not defile the natural world. I knew, both from things you had told me and things I learned of Talieth, that she was the only woman you had ever loved. I spared her in hopes that she might come to see the folly of her ways, to accept the truth and beauty of what I seek to do. I hoped she might be your bride in our glorious new world, the mother of many children who will carry on our legacy.”
“And Sauk?” said Berun. “Why spare him and the others?”
The half-elf smiled. “Truthfully? I like Sauk. Make no mistake, he’s a bloodthirsty killer, but if there is malice in his soul I have never found it. He does not prey upon the weak. To do so would be the gravest sin, in his mind. To him, glory is hunting and killing those stronger than him. In our new world, we will need hearts like his.”
“New world?” Lewan looked to his master, hoping for an answer, for guidance of any sort, but he saw nothing.
“Yes, my son,” said the half-elf, and he laid a hand on Lewan’s shoulder.
Something in the half-elf’s touch made Lewan want to pull away. It reminded him of the time out on the steppe when he and his master had made their camp too close to an old hill that housed a colony of snakes. Lewan had woken with one in his blankets.
“And here we come to the reason I have summoned you,” said the half-elf. “I intend for the two of you to rule by my side. We are about to see the birth of a glorious new world, a world free of the corruption of civilization, where the peoples of Faerûn live in harmony with their world. Tell me, Lewan. The night after your vigil, you dreamed, did you not? Tell us of your dream.”
“What?” said Lewan, and his breath caught in his throat. How could Chereth know? If he knew of the dream, then he also knew of Lewan’s mother … and how she had died. Had he told Berun?
“Long ago my own master taught me the art of communicating through dreams,” said Chereth. “It is not something I have forgotten. I was able to contact you, Berun, that night in the Khopet Dag, yes? And you, Lewan, on the night after your vigil. I was able to send you a vision of my goal. You saw the mountain, did you not? Sentinelspire?”
“I … I did, master,” said Lewan. “I saw Sentinelspire. But not from here, from the Fortress. It was as if I saw it from a great height. Like … like an eagle might see it, far up in the clouds.”
“Yes,” said Chereth. “Yes, that was it! Now, Lewan. Now is the time we spoke of on the mountain. I told you I would need your witness, your word. It is time to give it, my son. Tell your master what you saw. Tell him everything.”
Lewan closed his eyes, trying to recall every detail of the dream. It had been so strange, yet so vivid, and as he searched his mind the memories came back easily.
“I saw the mountain … fall. It just collapsed, like a tent whose pole snaps. Much of it was still falling when it all exploded. For an instant, I saw fire in the center of it, white-hot like the sun, then rocks, dirt, ash, and fire … so much fire … spreading outward. Spreading and spreading. It didn’t slow. Miles and miles, almost like the ripples of a pond. And then … then the darkness and fire filled everything.
“But then I could see again. I was still up above the world—but higher than any eagle. Higher even than a drago
n could fly, I think. Hundreds of miles stretched out under me. I could see the edge of the world curving away into blue sky and black night. But below me—far, far below—I could see the smoke and ash from the mountain. It spread over hundreds, maybe thousands of miles, the wind carrying it far. It spread like … like a brown haze over the world, and then … then I was back down, closer to the land. I could see forests covered in ash. Rivers turned to mud and sooty muck. Fish died in the streams, animals on the land. Summer did not come. Beasts and men starved. Disease crippled entire cities. Entire realms burned as kings made war on their neighbors for food and unpoisoned fields. Then the armies turned on one another.
“Seasons passed. Winds and rains cleansed the air, more every month. Forests grew where once entire villages tilled fields. Trees and vines grew in the midst of castles fallen to ruin. Animals lived in the shells of dead cities. Rivers ran clean again. Lakes became clear. No more did fires burn in cities, their smoke turning sunsets brown. And … and here, the mountain … gone. Blasted away. Only a great hole in the ground remained, and over the years it filled with rain and snowmelt, forming a lake clear as diamonds held against the sky. It was …” Words failed him.
“Beautiful,” said Chereth. “Perfect. The very image and heart of that for which our Order strives. Men, elves, dwarves, and all thinking peoples will survive, will even thrive in time. But the stink of civilization will be pushed back for hundreds of generations. The wild will recover. We shall breathe free air again.”
Lewan looked on the half-elf, the horror of what he meant beginning to dawn on him. “You mean that you are going to going to cause this? All those people—”
“Dead, yes,” said Chereth. He hung his head, but Lewan did not sense any real sadness or regret in the gesture. “So it must be, much to my sorrow. To save the body from infection, sometimes one must cut off a limb.”
“But all those innocent people …”
“People die every day, my son,” said Chereth. “Innocent and guilty alike. This, too, is part of the Balance. You yourself have been used by people who profit from murder. That is the world that people have made. But it was not always so. Before the rise of cities, of rivers of sewage and sludge … people lived as one with the wild, giving and taking in equal measure. Today, we have a world of rot, and you know that the only way to save a tree from rot is to prune the sick limbs.”
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