she could die.
That would be all right. Without Liet.
She knew, somehow, that they were done. Some things are not forgivable.
The youth walked away, but he didn't leave.
Sinking against the door, Liet thought about Twilight's drawn, haggard face. Nearly two days without food, and little water, and that mysterious incident that morning had taken their toll on the lovely elf. But her nerves hurt her far worse than that.
The tragedies of the last days, especially the deaths of Asson and Taslin, had struck them all, but none harder than Twilight, who seemed to take full responsibility. And now that her suspicions about the spy had come out, and she had been proven so wrong in an incident that might have condemned their friend…
Liet tried not to think about Twilight going mad before his eyes. He contemplated the others. The way Gargan had stared at Twilight, murderously, still chilled Liet. And Slip-clearly she had been a bit unhinged from the beginning. Ironically, Liet thought the sanest, safest of his companions was the power-hungry, blood-thirsty Davoren.
His hands clenched open and closed. He couldn't get angry, but how could he do anything if he…
It only took the thought of her tears, her shoulders shuddering with repressed strain to stir up pain in his heart and push the anger aside.
Liet promised himself he wouldn't give up-not on her.
CHAPTER TWENTY
'Are we sure this'll work?' Slip asked, for perhaps the eightieth time.
' 'Twas your plan,' Twilight sighed, for perhaps the eightieth time.
'Oh.' Slip considered. 'Right.'
Twilight could tell by the way Davoren's lips moved that he prayed to Asmodeus, perhaps for strength. Having an archdevil on one's side wasn't all bad, she decided. She wouldn't pray to Erevan. What was the point?
The five had risen after a reasonable amount of sleep. Day was night in the cavern, though Twilight knew it to be several bells after midnight on the surface, from her 'gift.' They could not have been imprisoned by Tlork long, but it seemed years had passed. Had her entire life until this point been an illusion, and the notions of 'bells' and 'midnight' just dreams? Perhaps Erevan did not really exist, and she truly was free-if freedom existed in a place like this.
That terrified her.
Twilight suppressed a shiver and shoved the thoughts violently aside. Liet had attempted to convince her of her sanity the previous night, but her own mind seemed Hells-bent on proving him wrong.
'If we climb that tower,' Slip repeated, 'we should be able to get out, right? I mean, we're underground, and going up takes us aboveground, aye?'
Twilight didn't have the heart to bring up complications like cave ceilings or the inability to fly. 'If only it were that simple,' she muttered.
'Aye, love?' Liet whispered at her side.
Twilight just shook her head. She wished he wouldn't call her that.
The High Tower-Davoren had assured them it must be the High Arcanist's Tower, if this had truly been a floating enclave, but Twilight was not comfortable so naming it-was free of the hive but not the garden. The Nocturnal Garden, he'd called it, and that name, Twilight did not dispute.
They wandered through a nightmare landscape of twisted, alien stalks and blossoms of myriad, disturbingly vibrant colors. Fumes and spores that could only come in dreams threatened to send them dizzily to the ground, but Gargan seemed able to guide them around the more dangerous plants. When they saw one giant snapping beast indistinguishable from the surrounding ferns lash out with its tentacles to pull a passing bee-creature down its pod-gullet, Twilight was glad she wasn't leading the way.
They made their way slowly, in relative silence, avoiding carnivorous flowers and attention from the bees. Several times, they ducked and hid in the shadows of Negarath to avoid a flight of three or four. Most of the time, the creatures stopped to harvest nectar from the various unearthly plants, and Twilight understood the purpose of the garden. The necter-dependent bees would be hard pressed for a for a food source if anything were to happen to their garden.
Within a bell's time, they entered the overgrown, moss-ridden High Tower.
The rooms had long since faded into a dizzying array of vast, empty affairs that must have held opulence beyond reckoning in the days of Netheril. Tapestries remained, but they had withered to blank sheets of cloth canvas. Most of the rooms and the curled furniture were entirely of some sort of metal-iron or steel-coated with cracked marble, sandstone, or obsidian, while some-the dangerous ones-were but broken glass.
The stairs that led up through the many stories snaked treacherously and madly, inside and outside the building, over and under balconies. A dozen times, steps crumbled underfoot, and a companion leaped to solid ground with a curse. Some sections of stair twisted upside down, unsettlingly, and these the five climbed over awkwardly.
Several times, they had trouble mounting inverted stairs-which had no support but magic-until Slip demonstrated that they needed to climb them upside down. That only increased Twilight's unease.
Having not eaten or had more than a few swallows of water in over two days, they were all weak and growing weaker, even the mighty goliath. As Twilight watched, Davoren fumbled and tripped over broken rock. She saw the lack of strength in his movements-the lessened energy.
'A morning meal would have helped, eh?' she asked once as she held him steady after a step crumbled.
Davoren glared at her. 'We could've eaten the halfling, you and I,' he said. 'But oh, yes-you rejected that opportunity. Mark my words-you will regret it.'
Twilight decided then that she wouldn't have minded seeing Davoren topple to his doom, were she not certain the fiend would blast them as he fell. She never got the chance to see if she guessed rightly.
Twilight exercised additional caution in those places where unbroken stairs flared outside-Liet had warned her that the bee-creatures might be scouting. No pursuit made itself apparent, though they had to duck and hide once when a trio of the humanoid insects buzzed by. Twilight noted their spears, helms, and shields distantly.
On the tenth floor of the soaring building, they came to a room without stairs. It was like a grand atrium, though the glass ceiling had long ago shattered. Blue trees with bright orange flowers filled the place, along with thorny bushes that might have been giant roses. Vines the thickness of human arms hung all about. The garden spiraled around a grand circle with a black disk in the center that was probably large enough for eight humans at a time.
'Thank the All-Mother!' Slip exclaimed through her gasps and wheezes. 'I've had enough stairs to last me two tendays.'
'Our thanks for that,' Davoren said, 'but we are all, not just you, still far short.'
'Huh?' Slip looked at the warlock as though he'd sprouted a second head.
On a whim, Twilight checked to see if he had. He hadn't.
'In case you're oblivious, which isn't surprising,' Davoren said, gesturing up through the absent glass ceiling, 'we are only halfway to our goal.'
It was true. The atrium seemed to be the top level of the High Tower, except for the spires that stood around it like tines on a crown. Several were broken off. The central spire leaned over precariously and curled under itself. There was no way into it, though it looked hollow, from windows in its surface above.
'Easy!' Slip said. 'We just fly up there!'
'Asson was the only one who could fly,' Twilight reminded her in a soft voice.
'Oh. Ah, well… we climb?'
