Chapter 18
The eastern half of the valley had fewer monoliths, and thick foliage filled the void. It wasn’t lush, healthy verdure, but a mass of thorny creeper, trumpet vine, and barberry bushes. The ground covers were a tangle guaranteed to trip the unwary. The bushes were head high, with branches thick as an elf’s wrist and covered by i half-inch spines. Kerian and her comrades were forced to cut their way through. Arms and faces were soon covered by scratches.
Sometime after midnight Kerian halted to catch her breath. Her thoughts turned to her husband. His malady made sleep heavy but unsettled, tormenting him with fever, drenching sweats, and nightmares. As she looked back over her shoulder toward the distant camp, even more than usual she wished him pleasant dreams.
One by one her companions ceased their labors and followed her example, gazing across the starlit landscape in the direction of those they’d left behind. During their eastward trek, the land had risen slowly and they had a clear line of sight to the camp, below them. The bonfires were faint at this distance.
As the three elves watched, a great column of light suddenly blazed upward from the camp. The column resolved into a multitude of will-o’-the-wisps, streaking into the night sky, corkscrewing, crashing into each other, and washing the monoliths in frantic rainbow glory. High in the sky, the lights abruptly winked out, leaving the valley cloaked in darkness once more.
The three elves regarded each other in silent consternation.
“What was that?” Hytanthas demanded.
“The lights must have attacked the camp.”
Taranath regarded Kerian in horror. Fearing the worst, he whispered, “The Speaker?”
She reassured them both. The bond between husband and wife was so strong, she knew without a doubt that Gilthas still lived. But something extraordinary had occurred, and she was equally certain he was at the center of it.
No other displays disturbed the night, so Kerian turned her face eastward again.
“It’s all right,” she said. “Whatever it was, it’s all right.”
The mountains rose gray and massive before them. The thick growth had seriously impeded their progress. Turning their anxiety into strength, they cleared the bushes with renewed vigor. The vines and barberry gave way to wild sage, and each stroke of their swords filled the air with its heavy odor. The smell was not a pleasant one. Trust the cursed valley, Kerian thought bitterly, to warp a savory herbal aroma into a nauseating stench.
The heavy foliage ended abruptly, and all three elves stumbled gratefully into the open, breathing deeply of fresher air. The ground ahead was dotted with stunted pines and plain gray boulders rather than the usual snow- white monoliths. High, thin clouds had begun to cover the stars above Mount Rakaris.
They paused to clean their blades. Kerian had just slipped hers into its scabbard when she spotted someone sitting on a nearby boulder, watching them. She’d had no warning of his presence. When she glanced up at the clouding sky, he hadn’t been there. When she looked down again, he was. Unnerved, she barked a loud challenge. Hytanthas had his sword halfway out of its sheath, but Taranath put a hand on its hilt, halting him.
“Robien,” Taranath called. “Kerian, this is the bounty hunter we freed from Faeterus’s trap.”
Robien slid off the boulder and approached. Starlight glinted off his spectacles. He bowed to the Lioness with a sweep of one hand. “Lady Kerianseray,” he said with formal precision.
“Kerian will do. Taran’s told me how he found you.” Giving him an appraising look, she added, “You have a powerful friend.”
He made an offhand comment about the khan, and she let it go. He was alive because a flock of bats had shaded the creeping sand, delaying its deadly effect until Taranath’s patrol could dig him out. If Robien didn’t realize who had sent those bats to lifeless Inath-Wakenti, it wasn’t her place to enlighten him. She asked why he was here.
“We’re pursuing the same target. It has occurred to me we should join forces.”
The Lioness regarded him in silence for a time. He was accomplished, and his abilities would be useful in their quest to stop Faeterus. But she didn’t trust his motives. He’d slipped away from Taranath’s elves almost as soon as they’d returned to camp. He hadn’t wanted their help then, why did he want it now? In her usual blunt fashion, she put that very question to him. He met bluntness with bluntness.
“What do you intend for the sorcerer?” he asked.
Her eyes narrowed. “I intend to have his head before he can cause more grief.”
“My contract is to bring him back to Khuri-Khan alive.” She started to argue, but he held up a hand. “Contracts can be amended.”
Sahim-Khan would pay more for a live victim to punish. But two brushes with death in the space of a few days had shaken Robien’s considerable confidence. He told them of the attack by the spirits, that he might have wandered forever in the tunnels if not for his enchanted spectacles. Not only could they detect any trace of living beings, but they allowed him to see in utter darkness. As it was, he’d been trapped underground for two days, and in that time he’d done some hard thinking. He’d concluded that he could find Faeterus, or he could survive Inath- Wakenti. Doing both might be more than one elf, no matter how skilled, could manage on his own.
“I agree the mage is too dangerous to take alive,” he finished. “All I ask is sufficient evidence to prove to Sahim-Khan that Faeterus is indeed dead.”
“Two ears and a tail for you, it is,” replied Kerian with unconscious irony.
The two elves, both Kagonesti yet so very different, clasped hands, and the Lioness found her small force greatly enlarged.
Now that they were clear of the heavy undergrowth, she wanted to make a quick reconnaissance. In hacking their way through the tangle, they’d lost the trail. Robien offered to find it again because he was the freshest of the group. The other three rested, sharing a water bottle. They hadn’t long to wait. The bounty hunter returned and announced he’d found a trail.
“Faeterus?” Kerian asked.
He shook his head. “No, an elf he captured and forced to aid him. I’d know the prints of Favaronas’s ragged sandals anywhere.”
Kerian choked on a mouthful of water. “Favaronas? He’s here and alive?”
“He was two days ago, when the prints were made.” Robien was surprised that the Lioness knew Favaronas. He’d thought Favaronas an itinerant scholar.
“He’s the Speaker’s archivist! The question is how do you know him?”
They had met weeks before, Robien said, by the creek near the entrance to the valley. Scholar and bounty hunter traveled together for a time, and when Faeterus left Robien to die in the grip of the strangling sand, he’d kidnapped Favaronas. From the signs Robien had deduced that Favaronas was doing all he could to delay the sorcerer’s progress to Mount Rakaris, even though he must think Robien dead and there was little hope of aid.
Kerian brought the discussion to an abrupt end, telling Robien to take the lead. Once they reached the trail left by Favaronas, she quickened their pace. Hytanthas struck up a conversation to talk with Robien, eager to compare their experiences in the tunnels. The two of them led, with Taranath and Kerian close behind. The Lioness mentioned the part Favaronas had played in her first expedition to Inath-Wakenti. She’d thought him lost with the rest of her unlucky band after its departure from the valley. Robien’s news amazed her. Tough, battle-hardened veterans perished, but the inexperienced, comfort-loving librarian survived.
Fate was strange.
Huddled inside their makeshift shelters, the elves listened in terrified silence to the slow, muffled footfalls outside. Lamps were extinguished lest their light attract attention. Some elves, braver or more curious than their fellows, peered out through small tears in the fabric and beheld a prodigious sight. Illumined by only starlight, the
