A crystal goblet of sloshing wine rose from the table without any visible means of support.
"Now the crockery is haunted?" murmured the eladrin.
Only Japheth had the proper angle to see a distorted reflection in a bowl of pomegranates. The goblet was in the hands of the armored figure Japheth had seen reflected moments earlier.
"Anusha?" whispered Japheth. His voice was too faint for anyone to hear.
"What trick is this, Neifion?" inquired the eladrin, glancing to the Lord of Bats. When her eyes left Japheth, the cold immediately lessened. "Stop playing games."
Neifion, still laughing, merely shrugged and shook his head.
The goblet suddenly rushed at the eladrin noble, its enchanted, red contents sloshing uncontrollably from its Up.
Behroun and Malyanna simultaneously uttered, "No!"
A moment before the liquid could strike the eladrin, she faded in a flurry of blowing snow.
The goblet continued its lazy arc and smashed messily on ' the flagged floor.
If it had struck the eladrin in the eyes or mouth, she would J have been bound to the table with the Lord of Bats, there to eat away eternity, until released by Japheth.
The warlock started breathing easily again. The ice coating his flesh was already melting. But his strength was uncertain.
He felt a hand upon his arm but saw no limb. A whisper in his ear urged, "We must flee before she returns!"
"Wait-" he began, turning toward Behroun. But the man was already gone. He must have disappeared with the eladrin. Which made sense. Lord Marhana did not possess the craft to reach this realm under his own power. The man would survive this day, it seemed. He might already be back in his home, looking for the pact stone. Japheth had missed his chance to end his bondage.
Seeing where Japheth looked, the Lord of Bats ceased laughing. In a voice containing not the least hint of hilarity, he said, "Let us hope he is breaking that stone even now. I find this feast has whetted my appetite. Perhaps I will quench it by dining on your liver before the day is done."
Japheth shuddered. He allowed Anusha's unseen pressure on his arm guide to him through the exit.
He slammed the iron door and slid home the bolt. Not that he had any confidence left in its ability to keep intruders out of Neifion's prison.
He turned and took the steps into the Great Hall two at a time. At the bottom of the stair lay Anusha's sleeping form, curled on her side like a child. He tried to wake her. She didn't stir.
A tiny silver vial rolled away from her right hand.
"Oh, Anusha!" He picked up the girl. Her head lolled on his shoulder.
"Japheth, I can't wake up!" The voice came from a few paces to his left.
"Yes, yes, don't worry. It's the potion. It'll take a few hours to clear out of your blood. Plus, you last used it only a few days ago."
"Oh, sure, of course," she replied, relief evident. "It's a strange feeling, not being able to release my dream form…"
To distract her, he said, "Quick thinking, that was, throwing the wine at the eladrin."
"Too bad I missed. Something was not right about her. She was too old for her skin, or something." Japheth nodded soberly. "Indeed."
They walked quickly from Darroch Castle, a ghost at his side, and her warm flesh cradled in his arms.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Year of the Secret (1396 DR) Ormpetarr, Vilhon Wilds
The Year of Blue Fire and its consequences wrought calamity on Chondath, Sespech, and other nearby lands. The great body of water called the Vilhon Reach splintered into several smaller lakes. The black-walled mesas punched out of the ground, destroying roads, farms, and whole cities. Crazed pockets of gleaming light and sound, where madness and reality still churned, visibly writhed and coiled across the landscape even years after the Spellplague was thought concluded. Most of the people in the region who survived the initial onslaught fled as best they could. Many died in their exodus, and the rest found themselves unwanted refugees in far kingdoms that had their own disasters to deal with. According to Cynosure, only the hardiest explorers dared the great frontier these days. Hideous, plaguechanged monsters haunted dark ravines. Ruins of cities devastated and deserted lay broken along old trade roads, near drained lake and river basins, and scattered in broken bits and pieces along the sides of newly birthed landforms.
The sentient golem noted that Ormpetarr had arguably weathered the transition better than any other in the region.
Raidon stood north of Ormpetarr's battered, leaning gates, taking in the view from a rise in the rutted, weedy path once called the Golden Road. A moment earlier, he had been west of Nathlan, but the sentient golem of Stardeep "transferred" Raidon through a starry medium in the space of a heartbeat. His ears rang-the trip had been much rougher than the previous time the golem transported him.
Many of Ormpetarr's ancient brass spires, famed for their ability to reflect the setting sun like flame, now lay broken and strewn down the rocky side of a steep precipice. The precipice separated the surviving neighborhoods of the city from a permanent, eye-watering cloud of color that churned south away from the city like the old Nagawater used to. This was the Plague-wrought Land, a pocket where active spellplague still cavorted and contorted land, law, magic, and the flesh of any creature that entered.
"You are certain people remain in this ruin?" Raidon inquired of the air, his gaze caught by the nausea-inducing area beyond the city.
No reply.
"Cynosure?"
The effigy had warned the monk that moving him so far across Faerыn would exhaust its energies for a time. Apparently, the golem was so drained it could no longer maintain simple communication.
"I pray you did not overextend yourself," Raidon murmured, on the chance Cynosure could still hear him.
The construct had provided some background on the area, but he was on his own to learn what mattered most. Raidon walked south, down the road to the gates.
A one-armed dwarf appeared in the gap between the two leaning gateposts. The dwarf wore chain mail half gone to rust. He cradled a stout crossbow on one shoulder with his single limb, sighting down its length at Raidon. Apparently the dwarf was well practiced making do with one hand.
The dwarf called out, "Beg your pardon, traveler! Sorry to bother ye this fine spring day, but please stand still a moment, eh?"
Raidon paused. He stood some twenty feet from the gate.
The dwarf grinned through a beard whose tangles competed in size and intricacy with its braids. He said, "That's a good fellow, eh? We don't get many visitors, and those we do get are not always polite, if ye know what I mean."
Raidon replied, "I am no outlaw ruffian. Will you let me pass? I have business in Ormpetarr."
"What remains of Ormpetarr, you mean," chuckled the dwarf. "I can see ye are no ravening beast, and better still, ye can speak, which argues all the more for what ye claim. Well then, I suppose I should ask after what brings ye here, and charge the customary fee?"
Raidon silently hoped the dwarf wasn't courteously trying to rob him. He said, "An old companion of mine came here not long after the Spellplague. I seek to find what trace I can of her."
"Mmmm, hmmm," grunted the gate warden, his curly eyebrows raised to a skeptical height. "Why'd she come here?" "I hope to discover that."
"Scar pilgrimage, as sure as water runs downhill."
Raidon asked, "What do you mean?"
The dwarf dropped the point of the crossbow and used the entire weapon to motion Raidon forward. "Ye'll find out within. And, since I'm feeling friendly today, a single gold crown will see ye through Ormpetarr's gates, such as they are." The dwarf nodded toward a great wooden chest chained to a granite slab. Raidon guessed the wide slit in the top served as a coin slot.
Raidon walked through the gates, dropped a coin in the opening, and continued into the city.
The dwarf wished him a good day, but Raidon didn't waste more breath on the fellow. He was already past, his eyes
crawling over the landscape of half-collapsed and abandoned buildings. Then he smelled charred meat on the wind. He stopped moving. His mouth watered.
The odor was ambrosial. His empty stomach commandeered his feet and turned him toward a rambling edifice just inside the gate. Like the other surviving structures he'd glimpsed, this building was cracked and worse for wear, having seen little if any upkeep. However, light, voices, and the smell of cooking food issued from it. No sign or exterior glyph indicated the name or nature of the place.
Raidon pushed through the open door into a wide, low chamber. It resembled the common rooms of travelers' inns he'd seen all across Faerыn, complete with some four-footed beast sizzling on a spit in the fireplace. Raidon took a deep breath, savoring the odor.
About a dozen people were present, gathered into three distinct groups, save for a lone grandfather near the door snoring into a spilled tankard of ale, a woman in a barkeep's apron bustling around the chamber, and a boy manning the spit.
A man muttered from his drink, "Look 'ee, a half-elf." All eyes swiveled to regard Raidon.
The monk raised a hand, said, "Greetings. I seek a meal, and information."
The barkeep yelled, "Grab a table, traveler, and I'll bring you ale and stew. The boar'll be done enough to cut up later, if you're having any?"
"I am," affirmed Raidon. He walked forward, past the inquisitive locals, and sat himself down at the bar. He could feel the weight of curious eyes on his back, and hear the beginning buzz of speculation.
The barkeep pulled his drink and set it before him in a wooden tankard. Raidon eyed the frothy liquid but decided against asking for tea. He doubted the establishment carried such niceties of civilization.
The woman yelled, "Merl, stop idling over there, and get this fellow a bowl of stew!" The boy at the spit started from his daydream daze and darted into a back room.
"My thanks," Raidon told the barkeep.
She nodded without a hint of cordiality. She said, "If you're here to join these fools on their 'Scar Pilgrimage,' then I doubt I'll ever see you again. Might as well spend your gold now, because once you're dead, it'll do you no good."
Uncertain of her meaning and as yet unwilling to reveal his ignorance, Raidon merely returned her look without reply.
The boy reappeared from the back room with a fired clay bowl filled with cold stew. The boy set it before the monk, then returned to his position by the fire to give the spit another turn.
Raidon fell to. He couldn't later recall the flavors, he consumed the dish so quickly.
The barkeep cocked her head, asked, "Nothing to say? Hungry enough, though. I can see by your clothing you're no brigand come to spend ill-gotten loot. You'd be dressed more elaborately and would have ordered hard spirits. What kind of scar do you think you'll find in the Plague-wrought Land?"
"I do not seek more scars," Raidon said, wiping his mouth on a piece of linen.
The barkeep laughed, shaking her head.
"You ain't here for a pilgrimage?" came a voice behind Raidon.
The grandfather was awake. His brown eyes twinkled, and laugh lines crinkled around them. His beard was streaked white and black, and so was his long hair tied back in a single braid. His clothing was damp from the spilled ale he'd been dozing in.
"I am not seeking a scar in the Plague-wrought Land. Why would I?"
"People don't come here for any old blemish," said the old man. "They come to be scarred by the Plague-wrought Land."
"To be scarred by…" Raidon trailed off, recalling what one of the ghouls outside Starmantle had said, before it tried to eat him. It babbled something about spellscars. About how spellplague didn't killed everyone it touched, but changed some instead. Sometimes monstrously.
Raidon inquired, "Are there those insane enough to subject themselves to active spellplague?"
A few of the people gathered in the bar shifted to expressions of self-conscious doubt or embarrassment; other faces hardened into looks of defiance. Raidon realized he'd erred.
"My apologies," he said. "I did not mean to offend. Pardon me for my ignorance of your ways. Suffice it to say, I am not here to undertake a scar pilgrimage, nor do I possess sufficient experience to comment on what you seek."
The eyes of the tavern's occupants remained on him. A few seemed mollified, though not all. Regardless, he might have no better chance to ask his questions.
He continued, "No, I am here for another reason. I am looking for an old friend who came here a few years after the Spellplague. A woman, a… a star elf actually, attired as a warrior. She was named Kiril Duskmourn, and she bore a sword called Angul. Were any of you here then? Did any of you see Kiril?"
The barkeep shook her head. "A lot of people come through here, and most never return once they leave. Those who go on the scar pilgrimage usually stay a few tendays or months building up their nerve, and then I never see them again. A few do come back, ecstatic or horrified, depending. Anyway, I don't remember this woman."
"I remember her," declared the old man.
Raidon swiveled back, his pulse responding but his face betraying no hint of his eagerness to know. "What do you remember?"
The grandfather put a finger to his lips, shook his head. "It weren't too long after the Spellplague picked up Ormpetarr and tossed it down again, like a child throwing a tantrum. Ormpetarr was reduced to its present sad state in moments. Many were killed. I remember the screams and cries of the survivors, I do."
The grandfather took a pull on his tankard. The barkeep must have refilled it during the old man's doze.
"But some of us survived. And a few of us stayed. That's right, I stayed!" The man's tone verged on belligerence. "Where else could we go? Plus, we had our own special souvenir of the Spellplague: a pocket that didn't fade away like most of the rest in Faerыn. It lingered, just beyond the city. Onnpetarr's claim to fame in the wider world, eh? These ruins aren't home merely to crazies, ne'er-do-wells, and criminals. No. Well, we got them, but we also got pilgrims."
Another sip, then he continued, "People began to trickle in, just one or two every month. The swordswoman you're describing was one. She wanted to enter the Plague-wrought Land."
"Why?" demanded Raidon.
"Probably heard the story of Madruen Morganoug and wanted to try for herself, same as the rest of the pilgrims that came later."
That name drew smiles and nods of happy assent from many others present.
Raidon cocked his head to signal his unfamiliarity with the name.
"You don't know much, do you?"
A thread of heat urged Raidon to grasp the man's head and bang it hard against the table. Slightly shocked to even entertain such a thought, the monk outwardly revealed his discomposure by narrowing his lips. He requested, "Explain."
The grandfather laughed. "Well, Madruen entered the Plague-wrought Land, and unlike everyone before him, Madruen returned. Of course, it was an accident he'd fallen in at all, and the rest of us figured he was dead. A day later he walked back into town, his skin aglow with blue fire and a smile plastered across his face. He was touched by the spellplague. He was the first spellscarred anyone ever heard about."
More nods from the clientele and even a couple of cheers. Raidon said, "Why did Madruen smile? Why did his skin glow?"
"He smiled because he wasn't dead. His skin glowed because he soaked up the wild magic of the Plague-wrought Land, and it remade him. His skin was like iron-almost impossible to cut through. He could withstand daggers, swords, even ballista! Madruen was a walking palisade!"
Raidon took a deep breath and found his focus again. The image of the Cerulean Sign tattooed on his chest flashed before him, and he supposed, indeed, he was spellscarred like Madruen, but with a different outcome.
"When his story spread, others started coming here, hoping to share in Madmen's good luck."
"How many who enter the Plague-wrought Land return?"
"Well, at first the survival rate wasn't too good. We're a few years i
n now, though. Pilgrims got a chance to get in and get out without dissolving into slime or blowing away in a puff of wind."
"And how many come back spellscarred?" pressed the monk.
"One out of every ten who survive in the first place," pronounced the grandfather as solemnly as if he were relaying news of a new king in Cormyr.
"And how many survive?" prompted Raidon.
"Not always the same. Sometimes it's one out of five, other times one out o' twenty."
Nearby patrons blanched.
"So Kiril Duskmourn entered the Plague-wrought Land," said Raidon, "and never returned." He uttered the last as a statement, not a question.
The old man nodded. "Yes. She was with a dwarf; his name I don't recall. He said he was a geomancer who wanted to study the Plague-wrought Land from the inside."
"His name was Thormud. But a geomancer? What's that?"
The old man shrugged. "Who knows? He said he was seeking something. A… a 'chalk horse,' I think. The dwarf and Kiril went in, and…" The old man shrugged again, then called loudly for another drink.
The barkeep complied. As she passed Raidon with another sloshing tankard, she said, "I sell safe routes into the Plague-wrought Land. How much you willing to pay?"
Raidon examined the map penned on rough parchment. A trail called the "Pilgrim's Path" was crudely marked. It snaked past Onnpetarr's gates and on into the hazy edge of the Plague-wrought Land. The path meandered relatively straight for a few miles until it rounded a landmark labeled "Granite Vortex." The route zigged and zagged between several more unlikely sounding locations, slowly wending toward the heart of the discontinuity. The last portions of the map contained several alternate routes, all marked with a symbol indicating ignorance of what lay beyond it.
The barkeep had assured the monk that if he stayed on the path, there was a better than even chance he'd survive. At least until he got closer to the center, at which point it was anyone's guess. But only those who pressed forward at the last were rewarded with a spellscar. Well, the handful who were not caught up and consumed. It seemed a mad gamble to Raidon. He hoped his own previous contact with the spellplague would offer him some protection now.
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