A crystal goblet of sloshing wine rose from the table without any visible means of support.
'Now the crockery is haunted?' murmured the eladrin.
Only Japheth had the proper angle to see a distorted reflection in a bowl of pomegranates. The goblet was in the hands of the armored figure Japheth had seen reflected moments earlier.
'Anusha?' whispered Japheth. His voice was too faint for anyone to hear.
'What trick is this, Neifion?' inquired the eladrin, glancing to the Lord of Bats. When her eyes left Japheth, the cold immediately lessened. 'Stop playing games.'
Neifion, still laughing, merely shrugged and shook his head.
The goblet suddenly rushed at the eladrin noble, its enchanted, red contents sloshing uncontrollably from its Up.
Behroun and Malyanna simultaneously uttered, 'No!'
A moment before the liquid could strike the eladrin, she faded in a flurry of blowing snow.
The goblet continued its lazy arc and smashed messily on ' the flagged floor.
If it had struck the eladrin in the eyes or mouth, she would J have been bound to the table with the Lord of Bats, there to eat away eternity, until released by Japheth.
The warlock started breathing easily again. The ice coating his flesh was already melting. But his strength was uncertain.
He felt a hand upon his arm but saw no limb. A whisper in his ear urged, 'We must flee before she returns!'
'Wait-' he began, turning toward Behroun. But the man was already gone. He must have disappeared with the eladrin. Which made sense. Lord Marhana did not possess the craft to reach this realm under his own power. The man would survive this day, it seemed. He might already be back in his home, looking for the pact stone. Japheth had missed his chance to end his bondage.
Seeing where Japheth looked, the Lord of Bats ceased laughing. In a voice containing not the least hint of hilarity, he said, 'Let us hope he is breaking that stone even now. I find this feast has whetted my appetite. Perhaps I will quench it by dining on your liver before the day is done.'
Japheth shuddered. He allowed Anusha's unseen pressure on his arm guide to him through the exit.
He slammed the iron door and slid home the bolt. Not that he had any confidence left in its ability to keep intruders out of Neifion's prison.
He turned and took the steps into the Great Hall two at a time. At the bottom of the stair lay Anusha's sleeping form, curled on her side like a child. He tried to wake her. She didn't stir.
A tiny silver vial rolled away from her right hand.
'Oh, Anusha!' He picked up the girl. Her head lolled on his shoulder.
'Japheth, I can't wake up!' The voice came from a few paces to his left.
'Yes, yes, don't worry. It's the potion. It'll take a few hours to clear out of your blood. Plus, you last used it only a few days ago.'
'Oh, sure, of course,' she replied, relief evident. 'It's a strange feeling, not being able to release my dream form…'
To distract her, he said, 'Quick thinking, that was, throwing the wine at the eladrin.'
'Too bad I missed. Something was not right about her. She was too old for her skin, or something.' Japheth nodded soberly. 'Indeed.'
They walked quickly from Darroch Castle, a ghost at his side, and her warm flesh cradled in his arms.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Year of the Secret (1396 DR) Ormpetarr, Vilhon Wilds
The Year of Blue Fire and its consequences wrought calamity on Chondath, Sespech, and other nearby lands. The great body of water called the Vilhon Reach splintered into several smaller lakes. The black-walled mesas punched out of the ground, destroying roads, farms, and whole cities. Crazed pockets of gleaming light and sound, where madness and reality still churned, visibly writhed and coiled across the landscape even years after the Spellplague was thought concluded. Most of the people in the region who survived the initial onslaught fled as best they could. Many died in their exodus, and the rest found themselves unwanted refugees in far kingdoms that had their own disasters to deal with. According to Cynosure, only the hardiest explorers dared the great frontier these days. Hideous, plaguechanged monsters haunted dark ravines. Ruins of cities devastated and deserted lay broken along old trade roads, near drained lake and river basins, and scattered in broken bits and pieces along the sides of newly birthed landforms.
The sentient golem noted that Ormpetarr had arguably weathered the transition better than any other in the region.
Raidon stood north of Ormpetarr's battered, leaning gates, taking in the view from a rise in the rutted, weedy path once called the Golden Road. A moment earlier, he had been west of Nathlan, but the sentient golem of Stardeep 'transferred' Raidon through a starry medium in the space of a heartbeat. His ears rang-the trip had been much rougher than the previous time the golem transported him.
Many of Ormpetarr's ancient brass spires, famed for their ability to reflect the setting sun like flame, now lay broken and strewn down the rocky side of a steep precipice. The precipice separated the surviving neighborhoods of the city from a permanent, eye-watering cloud of color that churned south away from the city like the old Nagawater used to. This was the Plague-wrought Land, a pocket where active spellplague still cavorted and contorted land, law, magic, and the flesh of any creature that entered.
'You are certain people remain in this ruin?' Raidon inquired of the air, his gaze caught by the nausea- inducing area beyond the city.
No reply.
'Cynosure?'
The effigy had warned the monk that moving him so far across Faerыn would exhaust its energies for a time. Apparently, the golem was so drained it could no longer maintain simple communication.
'I pray you did not overextend yourself,' Raidon murmured, on the chance Cynosure could still hear him.
The construct had provided some background on the area, but he was on his own to learn what mattered most. Raidon walked south, down the road to the gates.
A one-armed dwarf appeared in the gap between the two leaning gateposts. The dwarf wore chain mail half gone to rust. He cradled a stout crossbow on one shoulder with his single limb, sighting down its length at Raidon. Apparently the dwarf was well practiced making do with one hand.
The dwarf called out, 'Beg your pardon, traveler! Sorry to bother ye this fine spring day, but please stand still a moment, eh?'
Raidon paused. He stood some twenty feet from the gate.
The dwarf grinned through a beard whose tangles competed in size and intricacy with its braids. He said, 'That's a good fellow, eh? We don't get many visitors, and those we do get are not always polite, if ye know what I mean.'
Raidon replied, 'I am no outlaw ruffian. Will you let me pass? I have business in Ormpetarr.'
'What remains of Ormpetarr, you mean,' chuckled the dwarf. 'I can see ye are no ravening beast, and better still, ye can speak, which argues all the more for what ye claim. Well then, I suppose I should ask after what brings ye here, and charge the customary fee?'
Raidon silently hoped the dwarf wasn't courteously trying to rob him. He said, 'An old companion of mine came here not long after the Spellplague. I seek to find what trace I can of her.'
'Mmmm, hmmm,' grunted the gate warden, his curly eyebrows raised to a skeptical height. 'Why'd she come here?' 'I hope to discover that.'
'Scar pilgrimage, as sure as water runs downhill.'
Raidon asked, 'What do you mean?'
The dwarf dropped the point of the crossbow and used the entire weapon to motion Raidon forward. 'Ye'll find out within. And, since I'm feeling friendly today, a single gold crown will see ye through Ormpetarr's gates,
