"Grudge?" Kleef glanced at the satyr, who was watching their exchange, looking more confused than dangerous. "He"s led us into a chokepoint. We"re about to be ambushed!"
Joelle chuckled. "Not likely," she said. "They"re forest children, and forest children are not fans of the Shadowfell. I"m sure the Forest Queen sent them to help us. The treants, too."
"You"re just a.s.suming," Kleef said. "There"s no way Mielikki sent them, because she couldn"t have known we"d jump off that cliff into the Chondalwood. We didn"t even know."
"But she did know we"d be going through the Chondalwood," Joelle replied. "It"s the only way to reach the Underchasm from where we were."
Kleef frowned. "How does Mielikki know where we"re going?"
"The Lady of Love is hardly the only G.o.d who wants to stop Shar," Joelle said. "Sune"s allies have been sending help all along. Myrkul sent Malik, Helm sent you, Siamorphe sent Arietta-and Mielikki sent the children of the forest."
As Joelle spoke, the satyr said something in a melodic language Kleef recognized as Elvish. Arietta held up a finger, then pulled a pinch of something from a cloak pocket and tossed it into the air, at the same time speaking the twisted syllables of a spellcasting.
When she was finished, she turned and touched the satyr"s shoulder. "What is it?"
The satyr spoke for a few seconds, then looked up the path-to where Malik was already ten paces ahead of the rest of the group and still moving. To Kleef"s surprise, the moss was still glowing ahead of him, and the wall of th.o.r.n.y branches had pulled back to create an open corridor.
Arietta turned back to the others. "Theamont says we need to trust him," she said. "The forest children are no friends to orcs or Shadovar, but that doesn"t mean they will let us hide in the Chondalwood forever."
Joelle smiled and motioned him forward. "By all means, Theamont," she said. "Lead the way."
She fell in behind the satyr, leaving Kleef and Arietta to bring up the rear. As they started forward, he looked over at her and raised his brow.
"You know magic?"
Arietta shrugged. "I"ve picked up a few spells along the way," she said. "Unfortunately, they tend to be more useful in handling court intrigue than in surviving a fight."
They caught up to the others and continued down the enchanted pathway. Still concerned about pursuers, Kleef made a habit of checking the trail behind them. All he ever saw was the glow fading from the moss and the corridor closing behind them, but it did not make him feel any safer. An impa.s.sible tangle of hawthorn branches might prevent the orc horde from pursuing them, but it would also cut off any possibility of retreat.
How long they continued to flee down the corridor was impossible to say. With nothing but darkness around them and a soft green glow ahead of them, he soon lost all sense of time. Malik"s elbow swelled to twice its normal size, and they paused long enough for Joelle to make a sling and a.s.sure him it was only sprained. Arietta grew so weary she started to stumble, and Kleef convinced her to let him take her arm and help her along. Soon after, Joelle had to call on Sune for strength, and she began to give off a faint aura as the G.o.ddess"s divine power flooded into her.
Still, Theamont led them onward. When the gray glow of false dawn began to filter through the hawthorn branches ahead, he urged them to move faster. Eventually, Kleef found himself almost carrying Arietta, and Joelle and Theamont had to resort to dragging Malik along by his armpits.
When even that did not seem fast enough for the satyr, Arietta cast her spell again. Theamont did not even slow his pace as he explained.
"He says the Forest Way"s magic ends at dawn," Arietta said. "If we haven"t reached the end before then, we"ll be trapped inside."
"Would that be so bad?" Malik asked. "I could sleep the entire day."
Arietta hesitated, as though debating whether she wanted to answer Malik at all, then finally said, "He didn"t mean until nightfall. His actual words were "when the thorns close." "
The threat of death-by-perforation was enough to reinvigorate the companions, at least temporarily. Malik no longer had to be dragged, and Arietta grabbed onto Kleef"s belt and insisted that he pull her along at whatever pace Theamont set.
The gray glow filtering through the branches became a pearly gleam. Leaves rustled in the morning breeze, and the sound of purling water arose somewhere beyond the th.o.r.n.y wall ahead. Theamont gestured more vigorously, at once urging them to hurry and beaming as though the end were in sight. The pearly gleam became a silver radiance, and the glow began to fade from the mossy ground.
Theamont waved them onward one last time, then broke into a sprint and raced down the path. The hawthorn branches continued to open ahead of him-but more slowly, and at times it seemed he would crash into the thorn wall before it divided.
Then there were no more branches ahead, just Theamont running up the Forest Way, silhouetted against a circle of silver sky. After a few steps, he stopped and stood panting for breath, his gaze fixed on the far horizon. Finally, he turned and pointed at the ground, beaming and nodding to indicate that they had reached the end.
Joelle arrived next, so exhausted that when she finally stopping running, she stumbled and nearly pitched over. Theamont grabbed her arm and pulled her back to her feet.
By then, the first golden rays of sunlight were shooting across the horizon beyond them. A soft hissing arose from the walls of the path, and the hawthorn branches crept inward.
"Hold on!" Kleef called.
He reached back and grabbed Malik by the arm, then sprinted the last dozen paces to the end of the path-and nearly ran over Joelle as she stepped in front of him, her palms raised.
"Kleef, wait!" she yelled. "It"s a chasm!"
Kleef jammed his front heel into the ground and threw his weight back, then felt his feet go out from beneath him. He released Malik"s arm and hurled himself away from Arietta-then felt Theamont"s big hoof land between his shoulder blades and stop his slide by pinning him face-down against the mossy ground.
Beneath his feet, Kleef felt nothing but air.
"All that running for this?" Malik cried out. He was a few steps to Kleef"s left, somewhere near Joelle. "It is nothing but a dead end."
Once Theamont had removed his hoof, Kleef rolled over, sat up, and found himself looking across twenty paces of gorge. He couldn"t see the bottom from where he was, but from somewhere below came the purling sound he had started to hear earlier.
Theamont said something in his own language, and Kleef looked up to see the satyr pointing down the canyon.
"He says we can rest on that island," Arietta translated. "The Shadovar won"t be able to find us, and the orcs are a hundred leagues behind."
"A hundred leagues?" Kleef asked, rising. "How far did the Forest Way take us?"
Theamont studied Kleef with a blank expression for a moment, then turned back to Arietta. As the satyr spoke, Kleef peered down into the gorge and saw that they were forty feet above a dark, slow-moving river. The water filled the canyon from wall to wall.
After a moment, Theamont fell silent, and Arietta turned to her companions. "He says we"re free to make a raft, as long as we use only dead wood," she said. "But the river empties into the Underchasm, so we should leave the water as soon as we hear the canyon roaring."
"A raft is well and good," Malik said, peering over the edge. "But how are we to reach the island-or the river, for that matter?"
Theamont smiled and used his fingers to make a running motion toward the river, then spoke a single word that needed no translation.
Jump.
CHAPTER 14.
THEY HIT THE WATER HARD, AND MALIK FELT THE RIVER RIP HIM free of Kleef"s tight embrace and carry him away, and he saw what a fool he had been to place his fate in the hands of an oaf. Yet what choice had there been? Joelle and Arietta were in the water already, and the satyr had threatened to throw Malik in after them if he did not jump himself. In the end, it had seemed safer to trust Kleef than to test their guide"s resolve.
It was a mistake Malik feared would drown him. The water was as cold as it was dark, and it had seeped into his boots and soaked his robe, until he was caught in his own clothes like a fish in a net. The current dragged him down to the bottom of the river and sent him tumbling along the riverbed, bouncing off boulders and raking through gravel, sliding along sunken logs and sc.r.a.ping past shelves of bedrock. It dropped him into the narrow channel between two outcroppings and squeezed him out the other end, and his breath left him in a stream of bubbles.
And then Malik called out to Cyric in his thoughts. Do not abandon me now, Mighty One, he warned, or you will spend eternity serving as Shar"s toe-licker in the Tower of- His boot soles struck the top of a boulder, and Malik knew his G.o.d had answered his prayers. He pushed off at once. His head broke the water"s surface in the same heartbeat, and he found himself in the center of a river that filled the gorge so completely that its waters ran tight against the canyon walls. The island they sought was but a blurry green dot on the downstream horizon, an impossible distance for Malik to swim in his sodden robes and water-filled boots.
Fortunately, Kleef was treading water off to the right, no more than three arm lengths away. But the oaf was looking downstream, his blocky head swiveling back and forth as he searched for his lost companion. Malik gulped down a few breaths and opened his mouth to call out to the oaf-and felt something wet grab his ankle.
Malik looked down and, through the dark water, he saw a crooked arm reaching out to hold his foot between a pair of scaly pincers.
"Kkk-"
He managed only a single sound before he was pulled under, and his cry for help became a gurgle. Fearing the worst, he reached for his sword with his good hand and felt himself being pulled deeper. He sc.r.a.ped along the rocky bottom for longer than he thought any man could bear, his weapon hand taking such a beating that at last he left his sword in its scabbard and drew his arm back.
His captor continued to pull, bringing him upstream, and up to the surface. At last, Malik was able to spin around to face his attacker.
It was a dead tree.
Or rather, it was a twenty-foot section of tree, with a handful of dead limbs reaching out from its trunk like so many crooked arms. Malik"s foot was caught beneath a narrow crotch where two leafless branches came together, and one of those branches had splintered halfway through and then bent across Malik"s ankle to trap his foot.
This was no act of random chance, Malik knew, for it was through such haphazard events that the G.o.ds worked their schemes, disguising their true intentions from mortals and fellow G.o.ds alike. Knowing that any effort to free himself would be in vain, Malik made circles with his free leg and waved his uninjured arm through the water, all in an effort to keep his head above the surface.
"Mighty One?"
No sooner had Malik asked this than the water grew so cold and still that he felt as if he were floating in slush. In the tree trunk in front of him, a pair of knotholes deepened into bottomless black eyes, a nesting hole became the cavity beneath a long-rotted nose, and the last few shreds of peeling bark became the jagged teeth in a lipless grin of a grinning skull"s face.
Serving, Malik? The skull"s mouth spoke not with one voice, but with a thousand, all as cold and sharp as cracking ice. Toe-licker? You dare threaten me?
The tree rolled, pulling Malik back beneath the water and holding him there until he thought his lungs would burst.
It was not a threat, Mighty One, Malik said in his thoughts. I was only thinking of you, and what your fate would be if I died in this river and failed in my quest to deliver the Eye.
Cyric"s wrath seemed to fade a little, and he allowed the tree to roll again and bring Malik"s head back above the surface.
You think I would count on you alone to stop Shar? Cyric asked. That I have no other plans afoot?
In truth, that was exactly what Malik thought, for though the One and All was brilliant in his scheming, he was confident to a fault and always a.s.sumed his plans would work exactly as he foresaw.
"I would never presume to know all your plans, Mighty One," Malik said carefully. "I only know that if this one is to succeed, I needed to make you hear my call."
A pair of cold blue flames appeared in the depths of Cyric"s eyes. I always hear your call, Malik, he said. There is no escaping me. You should know that by now.
"I would never try to escape you," Malik said. "I am your most devoted servant."
Then why do you betray me? Cyric demanded. The tree rolled, and Malik sank beneath the surface again. Why do you work so hard to undo all my plans?
As Malik had no idea what plans the One meant, it was impossible to answer. As far as he knew, Cyric"s plan required only that he help Joelle deliver the Eye of Gruumsh to Grumbar"s Temple in the Underchasm and then murder her at the exact moment of their triumph. This would prove the spark that ignited the flaming glory of Cyric"s mystical schemes, unleashing such a tide of strife and betrayal across Toril that, when the Sundering was finished, he would be guaranteed a place high in the divine hierarchy.
At last, Malik could hold his breath no longer. He sucked in a mouthful of river and began to cough and sputter, which caused him to take in more water and cough even harder. Finally, the One relented and rolled him to the surface again.
Well? Cyric asked.
"How have I ... betrayed you, Mighty One?" Malik asked, coughing. "I"m still carrying the Eye, and if the accursed satyr is to be believed, we will soon be in the Underchasm."
Cyric waved off the explanation with the flick a dead branch. That is not what angers me. What angers me is that you tried to kill Arietta.
"That little thing?" Malik asked, truly surprised that the G.o.d of murder would be angered by the attempt. "I was only planning ahead, Mighty One."
You were jealous, Cyric said. And you sought revenge for her slights.
"Perhaps a little," Malik admitted. "Yet, there is more. To make Sune"s magic bind Grumbar to Toril, Joelle must entice some fool to fall so much in love with her that he is willing to die for her. But Arietta has convinced Kleef that falling in love with Joelle would be a violation of his duty."
So you tried to remove Arietta, hoping that doing so would free Kleef to become Joelle"s sacrifice. Cyric pulled Malik beneath the water again. Do you think me such a fool that I failed to see that?
Malik was quick to shake his head, and Cyric allowed him above water again.
"Forgive me, Mighty One," Malik said. "I am only a moth flickering around the brilliance of your wisdom, but I fail to see how removing Arietta can be anything but good for your plan. If she reaches the temple with us, she will only steal a small part of your glory for Siamorphe."
No, Malik. She will be Joelle"s sacrifice.
"Arietta?" Malik was not such a fool that he had never heard of one woman falling in love with another, but he shook his head nonetheless. "It would never happen, Mighty One. Arietta may fall in love with another woman, but she is a slave to her n.o.ble t.i.tle. She would never allow her heart to set a course so certain to bring scandal to her name."
Scandal? The very word seemed to perplex the One. Her father his dead, her home is gone, her realm is falling, and her world is ending. Why would she worry about what people think?
"Because Arietta is a n.o.blewoman," Malik said, shrugging. "And she is convinced that she is a Chosen of Siamorphe. She will not even admit that she finds Kleef handsome because the oaf is too far below her station."
Chosen? Arietta? Cyric fell silent, the blue flames in his eyes flickering in thought. Finally, he shook his head and said, You"re wrong, Malik-as usual. Arietta will fall in love with Joelle. And you"ll see to it that she does.
"I will?" Malik took a long gulp of air, then asked, "How can I do that? I have no power over the hearts of others."
You don"t need power over her heart, Malik. Cyric"s eyes grew steady and cold. All you need is the truth. Show that to her, and you will set her free.
The truth was hardly Malik"s favorite weapon, but there had been a time when it was all he had, and he had learned to use it well enough to understand what Cyric was asking of him.
"You are a genius among G.o.ds, Mighty One," Malik said. "But if Arietta is to be the sacrifice, what of Kleef?"
Yes, what of Kleef? Cyric"s skull-faced smile stretched even wider, until it seemed to Malik that it encircled the whole tree trunk. Kleef will enhance my plan.
Malik began to have a sinking feeling. "Enhance, Mighty One?"
Exactly, Cyric said. The more Chosen you murder, the more powerful the effect. Kill Joelle and Kleef, and my magic will drown Toril in strife and betrayal.
"Kill Kleef, too?" Malik gasped. "Impossible! He is a Chosen of Helm."
And you are one of mine. Cyric"s voice turned icy, and the river grew so cold that Malik began to shiver. Are you telling me I chose poorly?
Malik"s felt the bile of his fear rise into his throat. "Never, Mighty One," he said. "I will find a way."
Good, Cyric said. And remember, it must be in the moment of their triumph. Do that, and it won"t be Shar who rules supreme. It will be me.
Knowing what a mistake it would be to point out that Cyric was asking the impossible, Malik merely swallowed and said, "As you command, Mighty One."
Cyric remained silent for a moment, the tiny flames in his eyes so intense that Malik felt as though they were burning inside his head. Finally, he said, You"ll need help.
"It might be wise," Malik said. "Kleef is not only larger and stronger, he is also a better swordsman."