'What keeps this bridge safe from the spellplague?' Hadyn gasped, wiping his mouth.
Finara squinted at the wooden struts, then shook her head. 'I've lost my sensitivity to magic. Perhaps it is enchanted? I can't tell.'
Raidon had wondered the same. Hopefully it wasn't some quality they needed to know about to survive.
Hadyn signaled he was feeling better by taking the lead. Raidon allowed it. Finara and her burro brought up the rear.
They rounded the great mound, and Hadyn pulled up short. The monk looked up and saw the object of Hadyn's fear. The wooden bridge extended out over a great pit, without apparent support. A grinding, splintering sound emanated from the hole, and rock dust blew into the air. The bridge vibrated with a terrible rending sound. Raidon edged forward, past the still motionless Hadyn, until he too paused when the trembling planks beneath him grew worrisome, as if they intended to fly apart, leaving behind their former unity as a bridge.
Even from where he stood, Raidon could see some distance into the pit. Great slabs of stone, all in motion, swirled around a central column of sapphire flame. Each slab stretched a hundred feet or more in length. When the slabs slammed into each other, a booming crash rang out. From above, the sound was so loud it threatened to collapse the monk's eardrums.
A hand touched his shoulder. It was Finara. She yelled into his ear, 'This is the Granite Vortex. This is the first landmark on the Pilgrim's Path!'
Raidon produced the map and studied it. Yes, that must be what this was. Unfortunately, the vortex had apparently shifted somewhat since the map had been drawn-the path wasn't supposed to pass right over it.
'We should consider leaving the bridge here,' Raidon yelled back. 'It looks like the burro will be able to just make it down too-'
'But then we'll be off the path!' protested Hadyn. 'We'll be vulnerable!'
Raidon shrugged and returned, 'Whether here or five miles farther on, we were destined to leave the marked path. I dislike the look of this vortex. You must choose.'
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Year of the Secret (1396 DR) Taunissik, Sea of Fallen Stars
Captain Thoster studied the distant mote on the horizon through a tube of black iron. He stood at the Green Siren's bow with the kuo-toa priestess, Nogah, at his side. Her skin was mottled with saltwater droplets.
Japheth watched the two, wrapped in his cloak against the direct light of the sun. He was trying to figure out what Behroun was up to, how and why he had allied with an eladrin noble out of the Feywild, and just what was in it for a creature of her power to throw in with a mortal.
Nogah croaked, breaking the warlock's reverie, 'Do you see it? Can you see Taunissik?'
'Aye, I see it, your fishy greatness,' replied Thoster. 'Don't get your scales in a twist.'
Japheth shaded his eyes with a hand and squinted into the glare. A smudge was still several miles off, just above the horizon. But even so far, and without a spyglass, he could just make out regular planes and angles that bespoke a city of some sort.
Seren lightly elbowed Japheth in the side, murmured, 'What do you think of our chances, really? I am not without power, and my foes would not call me a coward. But a great kraken! Are you not concerned?' Seren was companionably close, even though he'd edged away twice. Each time he'd done so, she'd bridged the distance again. Was she needling him purposefully?
Japheth rewarded the woman's persistence with a nod. He said, 'Our task will not be easy. But I have no choice. I must see this through to the end.'
Seren smiled suddenly and said, 'You are a noble one, aren't you? You come off all hard and nasty, but it turns out you have a soft spot running through you a mile wide.'
The warlock frowned, uncomfortable in the woman's overly wide smile and eyes that kept trying to meet and hold his own.
He looked away, only to feel the wizard's hand on his shoulder. She said, 'It's an endearing trait, you know. Thoster, here, he cares for nothing but himself. But you! You have a heart large enough to care for others. That is something I could come to admire.'
Seren's hand remained on Japheth's shoulder and squeezed lightly. Even through his thick, batskin cloak, he could feel the warmth of her palm.
Japheth took a step away, so that her hand fell loose. He said, 'If you think I am softhearted or noble, you have woefully misjudged me.'
Seren gestured so that both palms lay open and empty, a gesture of entreaty. Her wrists were thin and shapely, her hands well formed. Japheth looked up to her face. She asked, 'Why do you constantly pull away from me, Japheth? I like you. Are you so wrapped up in your gloomy thoughts that you haven't noticed that?'
'Yes, I have been preoccupied,' allowed the warlock. He recalled Anusha's sleeping body in his arms as he'd carried her from his fey castle.
'Well, there's no more excuse to ignore me, now that all our cards are on the table, so to speak.' Seren grinned with a certain ferocity.
'I… I am flattered, Seren. But now is not the time. We go into the lair of the beast. Best we do not even begin down that road.'
'Are you lonely?' she inquired, her voice soft. 'I know I am, by myself in my cabin each and every long night.'
An image of Anusha on his bunk eating trail rations briefly obscured Seren's form. She was wearing a shift that left her neck and shoulders bare. His cheeks warmed, though he doubted the wizard could see him blush under the shadow of his hood. If she could, she'd likely misinterpret it. He and Anusha were working toward something, it was clear, something more than friendship. His heart beat faster.
What Seren wanted was something like that, but without the friendship. He kept his face hard.
'Well?' asked the wizard, her own face also beginning to redden, not from embarrassment, but from the anger of incipient rejection.
'Hoy!' Thoster's call cut through the line of tension running between them. 'Japheth! Seren! What're you two squabbling about? Step up here! We have little time to devise our strategy!'
The wizard studied him a moment longer. Then, instead of letting her face break into a scowl, she chuckled. She winked and said, 'This trip isn't over yet. If we defeat the great kraken, perhaps you'll be in a more celebratory mood.'
She joined Thoster and Nogah at the railing, leaving Japheth shaking his head. The white-clad wizard was not used to being denied, that was clear.
He approached the group, putting the kuo-toa between himself and Seren. Nogah was responding to some biting question the wizard had just asked. 'It isn't as hopeless as you suppose, human. I can safely guide us through the city and down to where the kraken rests. I can sense the Dreamheart even now. I'm close enough to obscure our approach, and the closer I get, the stronger I'll become!'
Japheth and Thoster exchanged a quick glance. The captain flicked his eyes to the kuo-toa, then back at him, then gave a slight negative shake of his head. Was he saying Nogah shouldn't long be allowed to keep the Dreamheart, if they successfully retrieved it? Perhaps. Or perhaps the warlock was merely projecting what he wanted to read in the captain's signal. Regardless, Japheth would have to take it for Behroun, whatever Nogah thought or Thoster wanted. The warlock decided he wouldn't volunteer his intention just yet. It was possible Thoster no longer considered himself in Behroun's employ, with such a great prize at hand.
'May I see?' Japheth asked Thoster, gesturing for the spy tube.
Thoster passed over the viewing glass. Japheth raised the cylinder to his eye and squinted. The distant mote leaped into focus. He saw an island on which oddly canted structures sprawled between dry land and a sickle- moon-shaped lagoon. A noticeable dimness suffused the air over the island, as if the day's sunlight was reluctant to illuminate the kuo-toa community.
'There is a quality to the light I mistrust,' the warlock noted. He wondered if he shouldn't take a grain of traveler's dust, just to make certain nothing slipped past his perception. With that thought, he perceived tiny ants
