She loosed. The black-painted quarrel flew true. A golden light dropped to the ground. She went to retrieve her prize.
The light was much dimmer, and Breetan was certain she’d injured it, whatever it was. When she got close, she realized it wasn’t actually lying on the ground, but hovering a few inches above it. Even as she noticed that, the dim light and leaped off the ground straight at her face. Flinging herself backward, she tumbled down the slope, losing her crossbow and finally fetching U against a gnarled juniper tree. The little globe of golden fire, shining brightly, sailed well overhead.
Jeralund had made no headway against the lights either. He’d drawn his sword when they approached and slashed at them as they dodged and dashed around him. The only result was exhaustion. Sweating despite the coolness of the night air, he lowered his blade and stood panting. Surprisingly, the lights stopped as well. He decided they were reacting to his movements. When he fought, they swarmed. When he stood still, they quieted.
Moving slowly and carefully, he sheathed his sword. A single orange light left the swarm above him and plummeted directly at his face. Jeralund’s reaction was immediate and unfortunate. He flung up a hand to ward off the light. When he touched the ball of fire, both it and he vanished in a flash of white. A heartbeat later, a dull boom echoed over the mountainside. The remaining lights winked out.
Breetan disentangled herself from the juniper tree. She found her crossbow, undamaged by the fall, but wasn’t so fortunate herself. It felt as though she’d broken a rib. Wincing, she looked up in time to see Jeralund engulfed in light. She stumbled to the place where he’d been, but he had vanished.
The echoes of the boom faded away. Unnatural silence reclaimed the night. Casting a final, fruitless look around, Breetan shouldered her crossbow and resumed the chase.
“Pull! Heave away! Smartly now, smartly!”
Hands cupped around his mouth, Hamaramis shouted encouragement as a hundred elves strained on ropes and levers, trying to upend a giant block of stone. Hamaramis had chosen one of the smaller stones within the elves’ camp, but smaller did not mean small. The block was twenty feet high, ten wide, and as much as six feet thick. Affixing hooks to its top had been easy. Shifting the massive block was not.
The Speaker had returned from a long sojourn at the center of the mysterious platform and had ordered Hamaramis to bring down a monolith immediately. The general had wanted to topple a block all along, to strengthen the defensive wall When the Speaker explained why he wanted to move the stone, Hamaramis feared the disease attacking the Speaker’s body had begun to affect his mind as well.
“While on the platform I spoke with Hytanthas Ambrodel!”
With the care of one humoring a disordered mind, Hamaramis replied, “With his ghost, sire?”
Gilthas made a dismissive gesture. “He lives, General, but is lost in the maze of tunnels under the valley. I mean to break into them and find him.”
The Speaker insisted no one else be told of this. Hamaramis understood the need for secrecy. From what Hytanthas had reported, the other missing elves were most likely dead, but if the news of Hytanthas’s survival spread, bereaved family members would mob the scene and impede their efforts. The old general’s notion of shoring up their defenses would be a good cover.
Hamaramis called for more hands on the ropes. Onlookers crowded in to take hold wherever there was space. The general sent a volunteer up the stone to make certain all ropes were pulling equally. Behind the block, elves wielded levers made of the valley’s twisted trees. They piled dirt under the levers to improve their lifting ability.
“Once more then. Heave!”
The ropes went taut. Elves strained and groaned and sweated. The block leaned forward a few inches, buckling the turf before it, but no amount of pulling could budge it further. Hamaramis finally called a halt. The elves dropped the ropes and nursed their aching limbs. The old general went to consult with his Speaker.
The unnatural cold atop the circular platform had worsened Gilthas’s condition, and the palanquin’s original design had been modified. Rather than sitting upright, the Speaker reclined fully, with pillows to prop head and shoulders and a number of mantles and cloaks tucked around him for warmth.
“It’s no good, sire,” Hamaramis declared. “Eight or ten feet of its length must be buried. We’ll never move it this way.”
Gilthas shook his head in wonder. The original inhabitants, slight in size and few in number, must have employed magic to erect the thousands of ponderous stone blocks. Unfortunately, magic was in short supply among the new occupants of Inath-Wakenti.
Sunset had come and gone. Hamaramis suggested they call a halt for the night. Gilthas agreed. He dismissed the volunteers and gave permission for the levers to be taken for firewood. Closing his eyes, he lay quiet for a long minute.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” he finally murmured.
“What, sire?” Hamaramis asked.
“How empty the valley feels without Lady Kerianseray.”
Quieter too, the old general thought, but merely agreed with his king.
As the volunteers streamed away, a few youths removed the ropes still atop the stone. Gilthas, watching their nimble ascent of the stone, sighed with envy and tried to sit up. Hamaramis objected, telling the Speaker he was overtaxing himself. Gilthas held up a silencing hand. Only a very few were allowed to chide him, however well-meaning his wife was one, Planchet had been another.
Gilthas’s attention turned to the turf buckled in front of the stone. He leaned over the side of the palanquin, the better to see, and steadied himself by resting a hand on the block.
The monolith shifted.
The elves atop the block protested, thinking Hamaramis was trying to overthrow it.
“It’s not us!” he yelled back, assuming they had somehow upset the stone’s equilibrium. “Clear off now!”
With a noise like a great waterfall, the stone continued to lean forward even as the elves scrambled down. Alarmed, the bearers took up the palanquin’s poles and carried the Speaker out of harm’s way. As soon as his hand left the stone, the movement stopped. The monolith remained where it was, canted halfway to the ground.
Hamaramis stared at his king. “I have an idea, Great Speaker,” he said and asked Gilthas to approach and touch the stone again.
Understanding dawned on Gilthas’s face. “You think I did that?”
“Please, sire.”
It was ludicrous. Gilthas was no iron-arm, endowed with preternatural strength. Of late his lungs were so congested, he could walk barely ten paces without gasping for breath. Feeling foolish, Gilthas had the bearers carry him back to the leaning block, and he pressed a palm against the stone. It shifted immediately. Startled, he snatched his hand away and the movement stopped. He looked from his hand to the stone, unable to believe the evidence of his own eyes. Moving the great monolith had required no more effort than opening one of the well- balanced doors in the palace of Qualinost.
“Get everyone clear,” he said hoarsely. Hamaramis and the bearers moved back. He put a hand on the stone and gave a modest shove.
The monolith moved as if weightless.
The twenty-foot-tall block fell heavily onto its face. The base, pulling free of the ground, flung dirt skyward. Shouts of joy erupted all around. Still seated in his palanquin, Gilthas was leaning on the fallen slab, his shoulders and head liberally sprinkled with dirt, his face wearing a very bemused expression.
Where the monolith had stood, there was a deep hole. Hamaramis went to the edge and looked in. The pit was dark, deep, and cool. Fingers of mist coiled around the old general’s boots. He wondered aloud whether every standing stone concealed a tunnel opening. One of the Speaker’s bearers asked a different question: Why had the inhabitants of Inath-Wakenti used such weighty doors?
Hamaramis’s first concern was the defense of the camp. If all the stones could be moved easily with the Speaker’s help, they could be used to create a stronger perimeter. On the other hand, it wasn’t prudent to open so
