Bane turned sharply as a black raven flew into the dungeon at a mind-boggling speed, and then became his servant, Blackthorne.
'Lord Bane, I have much to report. I believe I have located the human in Arabel that holds a gift from Mystra. She wears it as a blue-white star-shaped pendant.'
Bane smiled. The pendant Blackthorne described was identical to the symbol Mystra had worn in the Planes.
'Better still,' Blackthorne said, 'the magic-user who wears the pendant is coming here.'
The party left Arabel separately. Adon departed the city first, alone. Half an hour later, Midnight and Caitlan followed, leading two packhorses. Finally, at highsun, Kelemvor and Cyric, dressed as elderly beggar women, made it through the gate without incident. Then they rendezvoused a half hour's ride away, as Kelemvor had planned. The fighter insisted on burying the costumes he and Cyric had worn. Actually he wanted to burn them, but he worried that the smoke would be visible from the watchtowers in Arabel.
Now, the better part of an hour had passed since the oppressive walls of Arabel dwindled away into nothing but a faint speck marking the horizon at the heroes' backs, then vanished altogether. There was nothing in sight but the well-traveled road before them and the flat earth that stretched endlessly across the land to the east and west. The mountains of Gnoll Pass were visible in the distance to the north.
Kelemvor rode up beside Cyric and slapped him on the back. Cyric was thrown forward in his saddle by the blow and he looked at the other man warily.
'Ah, this is the life, is it not, Cyric?'
Simple pleasures for simple minds, Cyric thought, but merely responded with a grin and a healthy 'Aye!' Soon Kelemvor moved on, and Cyric stopped to check the tethers that secured the packhorses attached to his mount and found everything to be in order.
After a time, Cyric set the wanderings of his fanciful imagination on another, more pleasant course, and studied the silky smooth legs of Midnight as they clung to the sides of her horse just ahead. Every now and again he caught a glimpse of her beautiful features as they contorted into a pained grimace. Adon, riding beside the magic- user, was deluging her with a constant and embarrassing stream of compliments.
Cyric wondered if the cleric was trying to seduce Midnight with his words. It didn't seem likely. It seemed, instead, that Adon preferred the din of constant conversation, even if he were the only willing participant, to the silence of the land they passed through. Perhaps Adon doesn't want to be alone with his own tedious thoughts, Cyric noted.
Ahead, Midnight had come to this same conclusion what seemed to be an eternity before. She sensed that Adon was troubled, but she found it difficult to be sympathetic as the man refused to divulge the nature of his problems. Worse still, this was the time she should have been using to conserve her energies and lose herself in meditation, but her unwanted traveling companion would not allow her a moment's peace.
Her patience reaching its end, Midnight attempted to express her desire to be left alone. Subtlety had not worked, so she tried to address the issue directly.
'Go away, Adon! Let me ride in peace!'
But even being direct did not earn Midnight a rest from Adon's endless list of compliments.
'A veritable goddess!' Adon cried.
'If you believe you can continue to sing my praises without benefit of both lungs — pray do go on.'
'And modest as well!'
Midnight looked to the sky. 'Mystra deliver me!'
'Ah, to bask in the warmth of one even the strongest of flames would pale beside…'
Finally she looked back and said to Kelemvor, 'May I kill this man?'
Kelemvor shook his head, enjoying the entertainment. Caitlan rode up beside him. She seemed to find nothing amusing about the apparent dissension in the ranks; if anything, the display made her nervous.
'Nothing to worry about,' Kelemvor said to the girl. 'Trust me.'
Caitlan nodded slowly, unable to shift her gaze away from the dark-haired magic-user and the cleric.
'Ah, with a fiery temper, matching her flaming heart!' Adon said.
'Portions of your anatomy will be flaming if you do not cease this instant!' Midnight cried.
And so it went, until the air grew thin, and storm clouds gathered overhead. Suddenly, the sky split with a mighty roar, and a summer shower poured warm rain upon the heroes.
Adon continued to drone on, occasionally pausing to spit out rain water, but the sounds of the storm served to muffle his voice until his words were nothing but a dull hum buried beneath the patter of the rain.
Midnight threw back her head. The gentle caress of the rain served to relax the magic-user's nerves, and as the storm grew worse, Midnight closed her eyes and gave herself over to the soothing sensations caused by the steady rainfall. She smiled, imagining strong, firm hands massaging her temples, neck, and shoulders. She pictured Kelemvor's arms; they seemed strong enough to wrestle a tree from its roots, and yet they were furnished with hands gentle enough to wipe away the tears of a child. Midnight's mount reared up and the magic-user shook herself from her daydream.
'I sent Adon back to convert Cyric to the ways of Sune,' Kelemvor said with a grin, despite his notable annoyance at the constant flow of the rain. His long black hair was matted to his skull, and the gray streaks made him look as if he wore the fur of a skunk who had died of fright. Midnight felt it her duty to tell him so, and he hung his head, muttering some private oath, attempting to ignore the rain as he continued to speak.
'We have not discussed…' He paused and spat out a mouthful of water. 'Division of duties.'
Midnight nodded.
'You, being the woman, will be in charge of preparing the food and all other domestic chores.'
Midnight's mount shuddered as his mistress ground her powerful legs against his flanks and dug her hands firmly into his neck.
'Being the woman?' Midnight said, biting back the spell she had studied that morning that would turn the pompous ass beside her into a species more suitable for his attitudes. Then she remembered the last time she had prepared a meal for an entire party. The lone cleric who had not partaken had to use all his healing spells on her unintentional victims.
'Caitlan can help you. We will divide the man's work amongst ourselves.'
Midnight flinched, trained her eyes forward, and spat out a simple, 'Aye.'
'Well met!' Kelemvor said, and slapped Midnight's horse. The mount turned his head slightly, and ignored the blow that was supposed to cause him to go galloping off at a mad pace. Midnight's grip on the animal loosened and became a pleasant caress.
Kelemvor turned back to speak with the others, and Midnight strained hard to remember exactly why it had been so important to her to ride with these men.
Unconsciously, her fingers had found the surface of her pendant, and she was still stroking the blue-white star when she noticed the effects the rain were having on the flatlands surrounding them.
Patches of ground grew damp, while others hardened as if to solid rock. Elsewhere, small fissures opened in the surface of the earth. In other places, whole areas of green grass rose up at an incredible pace, nurtured by the strange rain.
Suddenly, the soaked earth became black and charred, and trees long dead began to sprout and grow, their blackened limbs reaching out to the sky as if imploring the maker of this madness to stop at once. Small armies of worms hung from the quivering branches, growing to obscenely bloated sizes before exploding and turning into blood-red apples. Small black bugs crawled about the fruit, then revealed themselves to be tiny black eyes, which blinked wildly at the falling rain.
Beautiful saplings sprouted and grew upside-down out of the earth, their most fragile upper branches impossibly assuming the weight of the main trunk as it grew straight up. The trees were filled with gorgeous green leaves and transparent pink and golden fruit. At their crowns, the trees began to sprout a network of amber roots that reached high into the air and intertwined with the new roots/branches from its nearest neighbor. Finally, even the branches of the decaying trees reached up into the air and joined the network, their ebony strands mixing with the amber roots.
Where only moments ago there had been nothing but barren earth now stood a lush forest filled with miracles and mysteries. Above the road, the network of roots had formed a canopy of crisscrossed roots and
