African by her arm.
“What is it?”
“I see the gargoyle up there!”
“The statue you told me about-the winged guardian carved into the mountaintop?” The African woman looked upward and grimaced as she, too, spotted the stony image. She squinted, and they both examined the frightening visage, the monstrous shape perched on the edge of the upper ramparts of the mountain. They could see it well from where they stood. The gargoyle overlooked a pass that was also flanked by two castellated fortresses. That gap in the cliff seemed to be the only way through the palisade and into the citadel. The two humans were at the foot of a long, steep climb leading up toward that pass, while the gargoyle was two miles or more overhead.
“It’s terribly realistic, as if a living being frozen in stone.”
“I have studied it for many years in the Tapestry and never seen it move,” Miradel declared. “But the Goddess Worldweaver told me that it is a living guardian-at least, that it will spring to life to defend the citadel against intrusion. She claims that, thousands of years ago-before the first ghost warriors came-the gargoyle flew above Loamar as a living monster, a sentinel patrolling the Fifth Circle. Only when the Deathlord started to bring his warriors here, some three or four thousand years ago, did it come to rest on that summit. It has been there since, but it may take flight again.”
“Then I think we should do our best to make sure it doesn’t see us.”
“Yes, I agree. For the lower part of the climb I think we can stay out of sight by keeping off the road. It will be harder going on the mountainside, but if we stay just below those walls, I think we can zigzag our way close to the top without coming into view.”
“Very well,” Shandira agreed.
They made their way sideways across the slope until they came up against the wall of the roadway, rising some ten or twelve feet up to the paved surface. It served well to block the line of sight, so they continued upward, with the barrier at first rising to their left.
Now the real agony began, Miradel soon realized. The ascent out of the gorge had been child’s play compared to the long, steep climb up this massive incline. The ground was rough with sharp-edged rocks and loose scree. Often they needed to use their hands to help keep their balance on the steeply pitched slope. Though the great roadway that ascended here took a sprawling approach through dozens of switchbacks, the druids followed a more direct route. They were able to use outcrops of rocks and sometimes the fortress walls themselves to keep out of view of the gargoyle.
Even though they stopped frequently to rest, Miradel had reached the point of utter exhaustion by the time they had climbed no more than a third of the way up the massive slope. Furthermore, the climb had grown more hazardous as, far away, the distant sun had started to recede upward, away from Nayve and even farther from the Fifth Circle of Loamar.
“We’ll have to stop soon and get some sleep,” she said, whispering in the midst of the eerily silent world. Again she felt the absence of wind, of birds and bugs and rodents that gave a background of vitality to Nayve and to Earth. “Can you spot a flat place where we might be able to stretch out?”
“Not too far away,” Shandira said, pointing obliquely up the slope, toward the right. “The road curves back below a steep shoulder of the mountain. We can stop right there and be well out of sight of anything above.”
They moved away from the road, following the rough ground to remain screened from the gargoyle. A large rock jutted from the slope, and they skirted its base, then crawled upward across a face of cracked stone. A few minutes later, the black woman paused at a steep crossing, a slide of small rocks and gravel no more than ten feet in length. Just beyond was a wide ledge, nestled hard against the wall that bordered the roadway running past two dozen feet overhead. The spot was sheltered from above by an overhang and protected by a steep slope that curled around to cover three sides.
“Looks like a perfect place to rest. Just be careful here,” said Shandira, leaning against the rock, bracing her hands as she slid her booted feet across the loose, steep surface. She went another step, and a third, making it halfway across.
And then her traction gave way. With a gasp of surprise, the druid skidded downward, reaching for handholds but failing to find purchase. Miradel saw her slide twenty or thirty feet, balancing on her hip and left hand, then bounce sideways off an outcrop of rock. Shandira fell on her back, her head sharply striking the hard stone of the ground where she came to rest against a boulder, utterly still.
“Oh, by the goddess-no!” whispered Miradel, stunned and despairing. She froze for an instant, and then shucked out of her pack, dropping it, paying no attention as it tumbled away down the steep slope. Sitting, she slid toward her companion, using her hands to control her speed, ignoring the cuts and scrapes inflicted on her by the rough surface. She stopped by bracing her feet against the same jutting rock that had knocked Shandira to the side. Carefully, Miradel worked her way around the boulder, then slid the last few feet to her companion.
She found Shandira facedown on the steep slope, braced against another solid boulder, the tangle of black hair shiny with the thick sheen of fresh blood. Gingerly, Miradel probed through the wiry coils to touch the back of the injured woman’s skull. She felt torn skin and sticky wetness but was relieved that the bone seemed to be intact.
Next she rolled her friend onto her back, using Shandira’s pack to cushion her head. Miradel bowed for a moment of silent prayer, then reached forward to touch her hands to her companion’s temples, to invoke the healing power of her goddess to knit the torn flesh and restore the lost blood.
“Goddess Worldweaver, I beseech you to grant thy tender touch, to repair this woman’s hurts.” She said the prayer humbly, with all of the faith that she had always felt, anticipating without doubt the imminent tingle of magic, the generous spirit of her goddess flowing through Miradel’s flesh, in order to do good.
But this time there was no tingle, no healing, no magic. It was as if the Goddess Worldweaver was too far away to hear her plea.
Miradel felt a new stab of fear. Was the goddess in fact too far away, or was there a more dire explanation? Was the Worldweaver displeased by the impertinence of her druid, and in her displeasure did she choose to turn her back?
In any event, there was no help to be found there. She remembered her pack now with renewed despair. Though she scanned the slope below, she could not spot it. She guessed that it had tumbled beyond the ground visible for a hundred yards below her. Further view was blocked by a clump of jagged boulders.
“Shandira? Can you hear me?” There was no response, not even a flicker of eyelids. “I have to get my pack, but I’ll be right back,” Miradel promised.
She turned to pick the best route down to the pack, then glanced at her companion once more. Shandira simply lay there, still except for the slow rhythm of her breathing. Against that faint backdrop, the vast silence of Loamar seemed to press in even harder, terrifying in its scope, smothering in its omnipotent extent.
Zystyl had heard the command of his distant master, the immortal will carried to him by virtue of the dakali, the stone that he wore under his tunic, against the skin of his chest over his heart. That was the talisman of the Deathlord, he knew, and it had provided the power that brought his army from the First Circle to the Fourth Circle. Once they were here, it had bestowed upon the formerly blind dwarves the limited ability to see. It was a mighty tool, and it had helped him to do great things.
When the directions had come to him ten days earlier, they had been in his mind as he awakened, and he had acted immediately. The tens of thousands of Delvers had been arrayed along the edge of Riven Deep in their vast camps-camps that had become virtual cities in the five decades since the army had been here. He ordered them all to deploy, formed in ranks, armed and armored for battle. Their golems stood with them, one metal giant for each dwarf regiment of approximately four thousand warriors.
They had taken these positions within a couple of hours of receiving the order, and for all the next ten days they had stayed here. Food and water had been circulated through the ranks, and eventually the Delvers had even slept while they stood in place. None, of course, had questioned the commands of their arcane lord-it was well known that to question Zystyl was to die-but surely they had wondered about the purpose of this apparently irrational deployment.
Actually, Zystyl himself had done his share of wondering. The harpies had been keeping him informed of developments along the coast. He knew that the Deathlord’s invasion had come ashore, that the ghost warriors had seized the beach and won a great battle. Then they had advanced inland as far as the river that emptied into the gorge on the opposite rim, some twenty miles to Zystyl’s right. Ahead of him were the Hyaccan elves, numbering
