The soldiers found no traces of any intruder. Carefully folding the empty cheesecloth bags, Kerian tucked them into her sword belt. Her sun-browned face wore a grim expression.
There seemed no doubt their losses of food were due to the valley’s weird influence. Mere theft or hoarding couldn’t explain the sealed, empty bags. She must tell Gilthas. His plan to cross Lioness Creek and take possession of the valley would have to wait.
The eastern half of the valley stayed light a little longer than the west because of the shadows cast by the western mountains. As the sun slipped below the peaks, two elves walked through waist-high marlberry and olive bushes toward the eastern side. The elder was a Qualinesti, his body haggard and thin from long privation. Favaronas, formerly the archivist of the Speaker’s library in Qualinost, was unaccustomed to such strenuous exercise.
“Less haste, if you please,” he gasped.
His companion, a Kagonesti years younger, halted only briefly. He sported hunter’s togs and hair closely cropped after the fashion of some humans.
Robien the Tireless was a bounty hunter hired by Sahim-Khan to capture Faeterus, a mage formerly employed by Sahim. After years of service to the khan, Faeterus suddenly abandoned Khuri-Khan and had caused Sahim no small amount of trouble before leaving, Sahim-Khan was not a forgiving man. Robien’s charge was to find the rogue sorcerer and return him to Khuri-Khan to face his former master’s wrath. He said, “I want to find open ground before nightfall. I don’t want those lights popping out of the brush so close we can’t avoid them.”
He was right. Favaronas had been in Robien’s company only a short time but had come to realize Robien usually was right. Exhausted, perpetually fearful, Favaronas did not find it an endearing trait.
Favaronas had encountered the hunter after a chance meeting with Faeterus back at Lioness Creek. Desperate for aid and ignorant of Faeterus’s identity, the archivist had agreed to work with him in trying to fathom the valley’s secrets. Once Robien revealed what he knew of the magician’s past crimes in Khuri-Khan, Favaronas found himself caught between the two, wishing to confide all in Robien, but cowed by Faeterus’s threats. The hapless scholar did what he could to aid Robien’s quest, never at all certain the Kagonesti was capable of capturing the sorcerer before Faeterus destroyed them both.
Robien pushed on, breaking trail for Favaronas. It was heavy going. Marlberry branches were slick but clinging. They constantly wound around Favaronas’s ankles and threatened to trip him. Olive bushes, not to be confused with the noble olive tree, had spiky leaves that seemed determined to poke out his eyes. Favaronas’s hands and face were streaked with tiny cuts. He could hardly credit Robien’s assurance that their prey had passed this way. Faeterus was a mysterious sorcerer, but hardly a vigorous person. Far older than Favaronas and burdened by the heavy robes he wore, how could he have traversed such a terrible thicket?
Robien pointed to faint marks on the highest branches. “He walked up here.”
Favaronas squinted at the marks, barely visible to him even once he knew where to look. The sorcerer had walked on
Their shadows stretched farther and farther in front of them as they traveled. Based on the archivist’s theory that Faeterus was seeking a high spot from which to oversee the entire valley, Robien had deduced that a peak called Mount Rakaris was his goal. The trail did seem to be leading directly there. Favaronas believed the valley’s monoliths weren’t the remains of a long-deserted city, but formed some sort of map or sigil. Viewed as a whole, from a high vantage, their meaning would become plain to Faeterus, allowing him to tap into the hidden power of Inath-Wakenti. What form that power might take, Favaronas did not know, but he was certain Faeterus must not be allowed access to it.
Not until the last sliver of sun was slipping behind the mountains did Robien at last take pity on the struggling Favaronas and consent to make camp. At the archivist’s urging, they diverted to a clearing dominated by a trio of standing stones.
The stones were sixteen feet high but looked even taller perched on a low mound of the valley’s usual blue- green soil. Favaronas staggered out of the hateful brush and dropped on his hands and knees. Robien went to the stones. He touched the nearest one lightly, staring up at its squared-off top. His enchanted spectacles could detect any trace of living beings, and they showed him that no one had touched the stone in a very long time.
The eastern mountains were still far away, two, perhaps three days even at Robien’s pace. Numerous ledges and plateaus were visible on the steep granite slopes. Any one of them might serve for viewing the valley, but Favaronas believed the monolith builders had created one specific place where the grand plan of the scattered stones would be plainly visible. He was certain Faeterus was seeking that spot and that spot alone. The sorcerer’s trail would lead them to it.
Tracking wary prey and avoiding the ghostly lights that haunted the valley required stealth, so Robien allowed no campfire. Favaronas resigned himself to another meal of dried fruit and venison jerky, and another night spent shivering beneath his meager blanket. He shrugged the heavy sack from his shoulder. It fell over and the three stone cylinders inside rolled out onto the ground.
Robien looked up from his own small pack. “The way is difficult enough for you, scholar. Why are you carrying rocks?”
Favaronas hastily shoved the cylinders back into the sack. He muttered something about “interesting mineral formations,” and Robien seemed content to leave it at that.
The strange cylinders weren’t rocks at all, but scrolls. Magically petrified, they unspooled only when exposed to filtered sunlight. Favaronas had discovered them in a tunnel while a member of Lady Kerianseray’s original expedition to the valley. By the time he puzzled out some of the text they contained, the expedition was leaving the valley. He had slipped away from the others and returned to the valley alone. He was still working to decipher the ancient books. The writing inside them was a severely abbreviated form of Old Elvish in which each word was reduced to a single syllable, such as
He’d unlocked only a small portion of the scrolls’ meaning, but the implications of even that much were terrifying. His surreptitious return to Inath-Wakenti had been fueled by the desire to harness a great power and help his beleaguered people. Now all he wanted was to bury the knowledge as deeply as possible. No one must learn what he knew. He hadn’t told even Robien of his connection to the Speaker’s household and his acquaintance with Lady Kerianseray. Simpler if the bounty hunter thought him no more than an unimportant, wayward scholar. Fortunately, Robien was concerned only with capturing Faeterus. He showed little interest in anything that did not directly affect his search.
Robien settled down with his back against a monolith and braced his short, recurved bow. It was his nightly ritual. He never laid down to sleep without the bow, complete with nocked arrow, on his lap. Favaronas had heard it said that the best Kagonesti hunters could hear a leaf bend under a grasshopper’s foot. Close association with Robien taught him that was no fanciful tale. Robien could detect impossibly faint sounds and smells, and his eyesight, even without his enchanted glasses, was far more acute than that of any other elf Favaronas had known.
Favaronas lay down a few feet away, in the center of the triangle formed by the three stones. The scholar found the valley’s enormous silence very wearing on his nerves. The lack of night sounds made it difficult for him to fall asleep. To fill the void, he made conversation, asking Robien how long he’d been tracking Faeterus.
“Twenty-two days and twenty-three nights,” the hunter replied evenly. “The first three nights I spent in a cistern beneath Khuri-Khan.” Leaning back against the monolith, his eyes closed, Robien frowned. “Vile place.”
“When you find him, how will you hold him?”
He gave a small shrug. “By pinning his wings.”
With that, Robien was asleep. Favaronas envied his ability to fall asleep between one breath and the next. Although Favaronas lay quietly and tried to think calming thoughts, rest eluded him. His head was filled with a cacophony of questions and fears. An hour went by, and still he was wide awake. Perhaps a drink of water would help.
