The pack burro to Raidon's left issued a complaining bleat. A gray-haired woman was hanging another waterskin to its already prodigious load. The woman's name was Finara, and she was a mage, or had been, before the Spellplague. She'd lost her way since then. She had not been able to learn the new weft of the Weave, and thus could no longer perform magic. Upon losing her spellcasting ability, followed soon by her wizard tower and livelihood, hard times found her. Finara explained she was a pilgrim now because it was the only option remaining. If she couldn't find a new understanding of magic in the Plague-wrought Land, she was happy to accept death in its stead.
To the monk's right stood a young man in simple leathers. An old long sword in a battered sheath hung on his belt. The man said his name was Hadyn. He'd traveled far to become a pilgrim. All the way from Waterdeep, he had earnestly explained. Even after the rest of his party had fell to gnoll marauders in the Greenfields, Hadyn had pressed onward. He said his journey took him the better part of a year. He said a dream sustained him. A dream of wielding a piece of the Weave, like a god of old.
When Raidon bought the map from the barkeep, she'd explained that a small party of pilgrims was readying for a trip into the Plague-wrought Land the very next morning and that he was welcome to join them. The barkeep explained groups had a better success rate for bare survival than lone explorers. Raidon thanked her and agreed to join the foolhardy band.
"Are you ready?" inquired the monk of his chance-met companions.
Hadyn smiled and gave a firm nod.
Finara looked worried but said, "Of course."
Behind them stood a small crowd, mostly would-be pilgrims who had yet to gather the courage for their own try at a spellscar. When Raidon, Hadyn, Finara, and the burro started forward, they loosed a ragged cheer.
Before them was the steep precipice that divided the surviving half of Ormpetarr from the cloud of churning color that consumed the southern portion of the city. An enterprising carpenter had rigged a wooden ramp down the least steep portion of the slope, held in place by rope and iron pitons. The ramp descended into the mist. The rickety platform marked the beginning of the Pilgrim's Path.
They descended the wooden ramp, its boards creaking with each step. The burro complained loudly, but Finara managed to yank it along.
They paused at the interface's edge. From a distance, it looked like bluish fog. This close, it was more like gazing down into a rippled, partly murky pool. Everything outside was sharp-edged and clear, and everything within was blurred and wavering. Shapes and colors writhed beyond the boundary, but from this side, it was impossible to determine what they were.
Raidon concentrated on the Cerulean Sign blazoned on his chest. Despite his fears, it was quiescent. It detected nothing blatantly aberrant in the Plague-wrought Land, at least here.
Taking a deep breath, Raidon plunged through.
A cold, tingling wave prickled across his skin, tugged at his clothes, and pulled his hair out straight. Hues he'd never seen or imagined danced across his vision. He blinked, trying to clear his eyes, and finally succeeded. Before him lay the Plague-wrought Land.
A warped, quivering vista spread away south. Land slid and mixed like slowly boiling mud. Not only land, but rivulets of blue fire, ruins, trees and foliage, and even the sky itself dipped down here and there to touch the ground. It all flowed together as if contained in a cream churner whose edges were the horizon. The earth, streamers of blue fire, air, and half-glimpsed items of incomprehensible aspect mixed, melded, then separated, emerging from the morass as some new, more bizarre feature of the landscape.
To the ramp's left, an object, half stone, part color, and perhaps partly living-slowly heaved up out of the undulating earth below. It was the size of a city building, and it blazed like an azure bonfire. It groaned and shrieked, reached a hand-like appendage for the pilgrims. It dissolved into a cacophony of screams, gleams, and flowing liquid before it could reach them.
"Gods!" Hadyn burst out. He backpedaled but was blocked by the burro.
Finara grabbed Hadyn's shoulder and yelled loud enough to be heard above the roar of the subsiding object, "Wait! Stay with us!"
The young man struggled in her grasp. Finara spun Hadyn around and said, "We knew we'd find something like this! We knew the spellplague still cavorted here! We can't turn back now!"
Finara's eyes sought Raidon's. Despite her words, her tone and glance seemed to be asking Raidon: or can we turn back after all?
Raidon studied the wooden bridge, which stretched forward across and through the tumult. Somehow, the wooden construction remained inviolate. At least as far as he could see, though a bend in the path took it behind a glimmering indigo mound and out of sight.
The monk said, "I intend to press onward."
Finara let go of the young man. He released a shuddering breath, then he said, "Sorry about that. I–I was caught off guard. I want to keep going too. I want a spellscar."
They started again. Raidon tried to keep his eyes on the wooden planks before him, but flashes of light, roars of outrageous sound, and sudden winds kept flicking his attention up to one side or the other. Each time he did so, his focus trembled.
A hundred paces farther on, Hadyn stopped, bent over the side of the wooden bridge's railing, and was noisily sick.
They waited, saying nothing, eyes averted. Raidon suspected the wavering perspective was confusing the young man's senses as much as it tried to disrupt his own. Raidon's martial focus provided protection, and by the smell of Finara's breath, spirits apparently provided her some insulation from the mad panorama. The young man had to rely on willpower alone to keep shuffling forward.
"What keeps this bridge safe from the spellplague?" Hadyn gasped, wiping his mouth.
Finara squinted at the wooden struts, then shook her head. "I've lost my sensitivity to magic. Perhaps it is enchanted? I can't tell."
Raidon had wondered the same. Hopefully it wasn't some quality they needed to know about to survive.
Hadyn signaled he was feeling better by taking the lead. Raidon allowed it. Finara and her burro brought up the rear.
They rounded the great mound, and Hadyn pulled up short. The monk looked up and saw the object of Hadyn's fear. The wooden bridge extended out over a great pit, without apparent support. A grinding, splintering sound emanated from the hole, and rock dust blew into the air. The bridge vibrated with a terrible rending sound. Raidon edged forward, past the still motionless Hadyn, until he too paused when the trembling planks beneath him grew worrisome, as if they intended to fly apart, leaving behind their former unity as a bridge.
Even from where he stood, Raidon could see some distance into the pit. Great slabs of stone, all in motion, swirled around a central column of sapphire flame. Each slab stretched a hundred feet or more in length. When the slabs slammed into each other, a booming crash rang out. From above, the sound was so loud it threatened to collapse the monk's eardrums.
A hand touched his shoulder. It was Finara. She yelled into his ear, "This is the Granite Vortex. This is the first landmark on the Pilgrim's Path!"
Raidon produced the map and studied it. Yes, that must be what this was. Unfortunately, the vortex had apparently shifted somewhat since the map had been drawn-the path wasn't supposed to pass right over it.
"We should consider leaving the bridge here," Raidon yelled back. "It looks like the burro will be able to just make it down too-"
"But then we'll be off the path!" protested Hadyn. "We'll be vulnerable!"
Raidon shrugged and returned, "Whether here or five miles farther on, we were destined to leave the marked path. I dislike the look of this vortex. You must choose."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Year of the Secret (1396 DR) Taunissik, Sea of Fallen Stars
Captain Thoster studied the distant mote on the horizon through a tube of black iron. He stood at the Green Siren's bow with the kuo-toa priestess, Nogah, at his side. Her skin was mottled with saltwater droplets.
Japheth watched the two, wrapped in his cloak against the direct light of the sun. He was trying to figure out what Behroun was up to, how and why he had allied with an eladrin noble out of the Feywild, and just what was in it for a creature of her power to throw in with a mortal.
Nogah croaked, breaking the warlock's reverie, "Do you see it? Can you see Taunissik?"
"Aye, I see it, your fishy greatness," replied Thoster. "Don't get your scales in a twist."
Japheth shaded his eyes with a hand and squinted into the glare. A smudge was still several miles off, just above the horizon. But even so far, and without a spyglass, he could just make out regular planes and angles that bespoke a city of some sort.
Seren lightly elbowed Japheth in the side, murmured, "What do you think of our chances, really? I am not without power, and my foes would not call me a coward. But a great kraken! Are you not concerned?" Seren was companionably close, even though he'd edged away twice. Each time he'd done so, she'd bridged the distance again. Was she needling him purposefully?
Japheth rewarded the woman's persistence with a nod. He said, "Our task will not be easy. But I have no choice. I must see this through to the end."
Seren smiled suddenly and said, "You are a noble one, aren't you? You come off all hard and nasty, but it turns out you have a soft spot running through you a mile wide."
The warlock frowned, uncomfortable in the woman's overly wide smile and eyes that kept trying to meet and hold his own.
He looked away, only to feel the wizard's hand on his shoulder. She said, "It's an endearing trait, you know. Thoster, here, he cares for nothing but himself. But you! You have a heart large enough to care for others. That is something I could come to admire."
Seren's hand remained on Japheth's shoulder and squeezed lightly. Even through his thick, batskin cloak, he could feel the warmth of her palm.
Japheth took a step away, so that her hand fell loose. He said, "If you think I am softhearted or noble, you have woefully misjudged me."
Seren gestured so that both palms lay open and empty, a gesture of entreaty. Her wrists were thin and shapely, her hands well formed. Japheth looked up to her face. She asked, "Why do you constantly pull away from me, Japheth? I like you. Are you so wrapped up in your gloomy thoughts that you haven't noticed that?"
"Yes, I have been preoccupied," allowed the warlock. He recalled Anusha's sleeping body in his arms as he'd carried her from his fey castle.
"Well, there's no more excuse to ignore me, now that all our cards are on the table, so to speak." Seren grinned with a certain ferocity.
"I… I am flattered, Seren. But now is not the time. We go into the lair of the beast. Best we do not even begin down that road."
"Are you lonely?" she inquired, her voice soft. "I know I am, by myself in my cabin each and every long night."
An image of Anusha on his bunk eating trail rations briefly obscured Seren's form. She was wearing a shift that left her neck and shoulders bare. His cheeks warmed, though he doubted the wizard could see him blush under the shadow of his hood. If she could, she'd likely misinterpret it. He and Anusha were working toward something, it was clear, something more than friendship. His heart beat faster.
What Seren wanted was something like that, but without the friendship. He kept his face hard.
"Well?" asked the wizard, her own face also beginning to redden, not from embarrassment, but from the anger of incipient rejection.
"Hoy!" Thoster's call cut through the line of tension running between them. "Japheth! Seren! What're you two squabbling about? Step up here! We have little time to devise our strategy!"
The wizard studied him a moment longer. Then, instead of letting her face break into a scowl, she chuckled. She winked and said, "This trip isn't over yet. If we defeat the great kraken, perhaps you'll be in a more celebratory mood."
She joined Thoster and Nogah at the railing, leaving Japheth shaking his head. The white-clad wizard was not used to being denied, that was clear.
He approached the group, putting the kuo-toa between himself and Seren. Nogah was responding to some biting question the wizard had just asked. "It isn't as hopeless as you suppose, human. I can safely guide us through the city and down to where the kraken rests. I can sense the Dreamheart even now. I'm close enough to obscure our approach, and the closer I get, the stronger I'll become!"
Japheth and Thoster exchanged a quick glance. The captain flicked his eyes to the kuo-toa, then back at him, then gave a slight negative shake of his head. Was he saying Nogah shouldn't long be allowed to keep the Dreamheart, if they successfully retrieved it? Perhaps. Or perhaps the warlock was merely projecting what he wanted to read in the captain's signal. Regardless, Japheth would have to take it for Behroun, whatever Nogah thought or Thoster wanted. The warlock decided he wouldn't volunteer his intention just yet. It was possible Thoster no longer considered himself in Behroun's employ, with such a great prize at hand.
"May I see?" Japheth asked Thoster, gesturing for the spy tube.
Thoster passed over the viewing glass. Japheth raised the cylinder to his eye and squinted. The distant mote leaped into focus. He saw an island on which oddly canted structures sprawled between dry land and a sickle-moon-shaped lagoon. A noticeable dimness suffused the air over the island, as if the day's sunlight was reluctant to illuminate the kuo-toa community.
"There is a quality to the light I mistrust," the warlock noted. He wondered if he shouldn't take a grain of traveler's dust, just to make certain nothing slipped past his perception. With that thought, he perceived tiny ants crawling across his palm. He didn't look-he knew the sensation was in his mind.
Nogah interjected, "We should go now. Prepare a small craft for those of you who can't swim."
"Which would be all of us," Seren replied.
Nogah glanced at Thoster but only nodded.
"If you can protect us from being detected, shouldn't we take the whole ship closer?" the wizard pressed.
"I can obscure a small craft but not something as large as the Green Siren."
Thoster bawled out orders for the small launch to be readied. When it was lowered over the side, the captain, Seren, Japheth, six crew members assigned to row, and even the first mate, Nyrotha, climbed down into the rocking craft. Though he couldn't see her, Japheth supposed Anusha accompanied the landing party. Again, more powerfully this time, the urge to withdraw a speck of dust from his hidden tin made his throat feel swollen. The ants now felt like they were crawling up his forearms too. He gripped the gunwale to keep his hands occupied.
Nogah simply dived off the side of the Green Siren. She arrowed into the chop with barely a splash. A moment later, the kuo-toa's scaled head reappeared near the launch, her wide eyes blinking through the bluish gray waves.
Thoster loosed the knots, and the rowers began their back-breaking sculls. Slowly, the launch began to close the distance to the isle. Nogah swam alongside, gurgling a half-audible chant. Japheth at first thought she was praying, then remembered she was outcast from her goddess. She must be drawing power from the Dreamheart in some ritualized fashion. Presumably the chant provided protection against the observers on the island, though he couldn't perceive any obvious effect. The warlock was impressed she could call upon the stone's power from so far. He hoped Gethshemeth didn't notice.
Tiny spots became visible in the gloom above the island. - He pointed them out to Captain Thoster. The captain trained his glass on them. He swore.
"What is it?" demanded Seren. I Thoster wordlessly passed the glass to the wizard. She looked, and her pale skin turned even whiter. "How can that be?"
Japheth took the spyglass from the woman's nearly limp hands.
The glass revealed five flitting sentinels circling the island's periphery in lazy loops. The sentinels were kuo-toa, their forms predatory like the ones earlier encountered. The strange kuo-toa rode steeds that appeared to be great masses of seaweed. Each mass trailed a writhing nest of suckered arms that undulated in
wavelike synchrony as they glided across the sky. Streamers of inky blackness marked each rider's wake, slowly dispersing in the wind, but accounting for the general gloom that cloaked the island. Each kuo-toa clutched a lance-like spear under one arm.
"It is the power of the Dreamheart!" called Nogah's voice from the water.
"How? Why?" demanded Thoster.
"The stone taps some greater font of energy that liberates creatures formerly consigned to life below the waves. To the few selected, the boundary between sky and sea is erased, and movement and breath in both are as if one vast realm! See? Those creatures flitting about are enslaved morkoth! Gethshemeth has repurposed them as flying mounts!"
The ex-whip's words came fast and furious, becoming almost indecipherable as the kuo-toa began to thrash in the water.
"Easy, Nogah," cautioned Thoster. "Are you all right?"
"Let us hope," interrupted Seren, "Gethshemeth does not give itself this ability to glide through the air like a bird."
"Actually," Japheth found himself saying, even as his eyes stayed locked on the spiraling sentinels inking the air, "that would make it far more convenient for us. I don't look forward to swimming down to meet the great beast."
Nogah huffed and wheezed, but began to calm. Finally, she continued, "I foresee Gethshemeth will meet us halfway."
Japheth wondered what that meant, but Nogah silenced his query unasked with a quick shake of her head. She said, "Now, quiet your tongues. I must redouble my efforts. I didn't expect such sentinels."
The launch resumed its journey. The isle drew ever closer. Japheth kept his eyes on the unfettered squid things and their riders, waiting for the least hint of alarm. When the bottom of the boat suddenly scraped up on the rocky coast of the isle, he started.
The dripping form of Nogah rose from the rolling breakers. She still hummed some atonal tune under her breath, and merely pointed.
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