tales sometimes described such. You're my first.'
The avatar smiled.
Silence stretched.
'Will you help me?' Raidon was suddenly weary. 'Usually pilgrims must give me a story in return for my aid. But for you, a hero brave and true, I require only that you allow me to accompany you. When you meet the Chalk Destrier, my old foe, perhaps I can distract him long enough for you to look for your lost sword, if it's there.'
Raidon bowed his head slightly. 'Thank you, Grandmother Ash.'
'This way, hero.' The avatar touched his elbow and turned him to face a new direction. South. Southeast, perhaps. The strength in her root fingers was incredible, and the gnarled wood abraded his skin.
Releasing him, she pointed. 'We must pass into a maelstrom of greater activity to reach the heart.'
So saying, all the individual tendrils composing her form were sucked into the ground, like a plant growing in reverse, until she was gone.
Confused, he looked back to the great tree. Hadn't the woman just indicated she'd accompany him? The vast shape provided no answers.
Raidon glanced in the direction the avatar pointed. A stormy cloudscape hovered on the horizon, somehow half familiar. Blue lightning played within it.
A hundred paces from where he stood, a stem burst from the earth, followed instantly by dozens more. They twined and condensed. An eye-blink later, Raidon recognized the avatar.
She called, 'Come along, hero. This way!'
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Year of the Secret (1396 DR) Taunissik, Sea of Fallen Stars
Anusha screamed the worst profanity she could ever recall hearing, something her half brother once said to a servant. The darkened cabin aboard the Green Siren absorbed her outburst, and quiet returned.
Japheth had moved too far for her dream to follow. Just when he needed her most! With Nogah killed, how would he ever find what he looked for? How would he ever find his way back out again? He could retreat to his castle-but there he risked dying at the hand of a Feywild witch with murder in her heart. If he didn't kill himself first with his tin of traveler's dust.
Think, she commanded herself. Panic won't help, girl.
Easy enough said, hard to follow through. But she attempted to calm her breathing. She concentrated on the sound of her too fast heart. She willed it quieter, until she could no longer hear it beating in her ears.
Her body was too far from the island's center. How could she get it closer without risking detection? Did it matter anymore? With Nogah dead, perhaps the great kraken already knew the ship lay at anchor off the seamount's coast. Slimy kuo-toa swimmers and the ink-trailing aerial sentinels could be turning their attention this way even as she imagined the possibility.
She pushed those thoughts away. They made her heart race. She wouldn't be able to fall asleep again.
That thought alone signaled it was already too late, she knew. When one is most desperate to fall into slumber, sleep is furthest away. Awake or tired, she knew she was in for a long period before she could relax enough even for a nap. Worse, it seemed the more she used Japheth's potion, the less she was able to fall asleep naturally. Concern puckered her brows at the thought.
She was becoming just as addicted to that silver vial as Japheth was to his damned dust tin. 'No,' she mumbled.
Maybe, she thought. It didn't matter. She could leave Japheth to his fate or try to help him. Simple as that. She pulled the stopper from the silver vial and drank.
Even as she lay back and closed her eyes, her dream pair opened. Anusha stepped from her slumping physical body clad in the plate armor of dream.
She stowed the silver vial carefully back within a pocket in her sleeping body's skirt. She vowed she wouldn't use the vial again. As she had told herself last time.
'Stop it! You've got more pressing issues, now.'
She took what seemed like a real breath. 'A dream I am, and so I perceive the world about me,' she affirmed, trying to convince herself.
Anusha closed the lid on the traveling case, her body still snug within. She reached into the interior, and slid home the latch from the inside.
'Now the hard part. Maybe.'
She bent, arms wide, and grasped the brass handles on each side of the carrying case. She heaved. The chest moved' slightly, no more.
Anusha frowned.
'In my dream, I am as strong as I need to be,' she asserted.
She heaved again. Another inch of movement.
She relinquished her grip and said the profanity again, but this time it was only half-hearted. She plucked a crumb-laden trencher from the sideboard. This she could lift easily as her waking form could. Why should limitations of the waking world shackle her dream?
Because, deep down, she expected the rules to be the same. Despite the fact they manifestly were not the same-she could walk through walls and move invisibly. Why should her ability to affect the world remain the same when everything else was different?
Anusha grabbed the handles again, new certainty firing her. This time, she did not heave. She concentrated. Then she merely picked up the entire travel chest by the two grips. Part of her knew its full weight, but in her determination she tried to imagine it as heavy as a trencher, at least in this dream.
Her sleeping self snored within. Hearing it, she realized again how much she carried and nearly dropped herself. One edge rapped hard against the floor. She let down the chest, not quite dropping it. Her drugged body didn't respond to the rough handling.
She realized she was probably at her limit. It would be hard to focus enough to lift more than this. Why pick it up, she realized, when she could drag it?
Anusha kicked open the door to the cabin and stepped out, the chest in tow behind her. Lucky snorted his pleasure on seeing her.
'Want to help me out, boy?' she whispered to the mongrel. The dog's ears cupped forward, and its tail wagged. If she managed to convey her body to the island, a sentinel would be required to stand watch over her sleeping self.
Rushing water sucked Japheth into an all-encompassing embrace. He tried for a last breath and instead inhaled a smothering gulp of sea. The rough water twirled him around and knocked his head against stone.
After that, he wasn't quite sure what happened. Perhaps someone grabbed his ankle and towed him. His cloak flared around him in the water. An object slipped from the hem. He saw his tin of traveler's dust spin out into the turbid water. He reached for it, but it tumbled down, down, until darkness claimed it. He cried out as if struck, finally forcing the water from his lungs. Coughs wracked him.
He found himself on a damp expanse of stone, just beyond a torrent surging by on both sides. Seren lay near him, looking as battered and half drowned as he felt. On the other hand, Captain Thoster appeared unharmed, if hatless. His long hair was swept back, and his skin glistened with beaded water. A slight smile dimpled his expression as he turned to regard Japheth.
'You going to live, bucko?'
Japheth nodded, tried to reply, but instead released another body-convulsing cough.
Seren said, 'You swim like a seal, Thoster.'
The slight smile became a grin. 'Something like that, wizard.'
'Why so lighthearted?' Seren snapped. 'We lost our guide and main protector. Now we're lost below the seamount. How long before the great kraken comes by and collects us?'
'We ain't dead yet,' the captain replied.
