the way as the shaman approached.
A young firbolg, his eyes blank and his jaw slack from the effects of many hours of drinking, blinked stupidly as Garisa snatched a massive bowl, foaming over with stout ale, from his hands. She sniffed the beverage, then tasted a gulp or two, smacking her nearly toothless gums in appreciation. The young warrior went off in search of an easier drink, and the old shaman nodded in satisfaction.
Setting the empty bowl on the ground, Garisa reached into the pockets of her apron with her two gnarled, yet surprisingly nimble, hands. Feeling through an assortment of bulbs and roots, pouches of herbs, and bundles of dusty powders, she found the two that she wanted-a touch of ground spice coupled with a moist bit of crushed grub.
Carefully she watched to see that the festivities progressed uninterrupted around her. Several shoving matches drew the attentions of the crowd, and the shaman finally felt certain that no one watched her.
Swiftly she pulled forth her hands, mingling the powder with the mash of crushed grub and casting the entire glob into the fire. A whoosh of force sucked the air from the clearing for a moment, bringing every argument to a stop. Stunned into silence, the humanoids of Thurgol's army gaped at the image that slowly floated upward from the fire.
At first they could see nothing more than a shapeless form in the mist, yet even in this vague outline, it had a certain solidity that belied its gaseous nature. Slowly the vapor drew together into a white form that seemed to glow like a full moon in the darkness of the night air.
Not a sound escaped the lips of a single dumbstruck firbolg or troll as they stared at this intangible message from they knew not where. Slowly, gradually, the white shape grew firm and solid, taking on an obvious image … the image of a snow-capped mountain summit. A rocky crag jutted sharply upward, surrounded by steep shoulders of sweeping icefields and long, precipitous cliffs.
'The Icepeak!' breathed a firbolg. Garisa didn't see who made the identification, but she had known that one of her tribe would do so. After all, the towering mountain, capstone of Oman's Isle, had long been attributed as the birthplace of the giant clans. There was no other mountain in the firbolg realms that loomed so high, or bore such a distinguishing crown of snow upon its summit.
Then the image began to waver and change. Slowly the picture of the mountain faded, returning to its shapeless circle and then, ever so slowly, forming another likeness, an object that appeared so solid that it might really have floated over the fire before the awestruck watchers.
This time they saw the picture of a monstrous axe, its huge, double-bitted blade nicked and scarred by combat so that the runes inscribed upon its broad surface were all but unintelligible.
'An axe!' gasped the same firbolg who had spoken before, this time quite unnecessarily.
'The Silverhaft Axe!' Garisa broke the silence with a sudden screech of definition. 'Such was the blade borne by Grond Peaksmasher at the forging of the clans!'
Murmurs of astonishment, tinged with awe, rippled from the onlookers. They well remembered the tale, chanted by them all, on the night before they had embarked on this adventure. The presence of that very axe, found in this village, could not fail to stir the warlike pride of each and every one of the giant-kin, and even to a lesser measure the trolls.
'What does it mean?' inquired Thurgol after a few moments of stunned silence.
'Does the Ancient One awaken?' asked another giant-kin.
'It's a sign!' croaked Garisa, sensing her cue in the firbolg's question.
'A sign of what?' demanded Baatlrap suspiciously. The hulking troll's black eyes bore into the shaman's skull, but Garisa shrugged away his attention.
'Who knows?' she said, with an exaggerated glance at the heavens. 'The will of the gods is displayed, but it remains to us mortals to determine how that will is understood and acted upon. But know this, my villagemates: The gods are well pleased with the Clan of Blackleaf, for we have righted a great wrong in restoring the axe to its proper owners!'
'Aye! The gods are pleased!' A chorus of congratulations rose from the shadows around the great fire.
'They are pleased, but they are not satisfied. This can only mean that our work is not done!' hissed Garisa, fixing them all, one at a time, with the balefully gleaming orb of her wandering eye.
'Tell us!' demanded a troll, nervously following Garisa's glance at the sky. 'What is the will of the gods?'
'Tell us!' came the chorus of agreement, a basso rumble of voices, all turning to the ancient shaman for advice and comfort. 'What do the gods desire?'
Garisa made a great show of shuffling about the full periphery of the large fire, examining the floating image of the axe from every angle, cocking her head this way and that to confront the different firbolgs and trolls with her challenging gaze. To an individual, they would not meet her eyes.
At last she came back to the place where she had started. The image of the huge axe remained poised in the air; once Garisa had established the simple illusion, she hadn't had to pay attention to it. Instead, the image would remain for some time, unless she chose to adjust it.
Staring back at it, mumbling unintelligibly, she suddenly did just that. The axe disappeared with shocking suddenness. The firbolgs and trolls erupted in gasps of astonishment or murmurs of superstition and fear.
'Bring me my bowl!' declared Garisa, her voice shrill. A pair of firbolgs leaped to obey. 'Find me coins-they must be gold! Then I will foretell the will of the gods!'
Deirdre started upward in her bed, aware of the pounding of her heart, the pulsing of blood and life through her veins-all that and more! She felt a keen sense of awakening power, of growing mastery.
Her nightly sleep had become a soothing balm for her spirit, such that she could hardly contain her anxiousness during the day. Each darkening eve, it seemed, brought her a new infusion of vitality, energy … and sheer, constantly building might. That, more than anything, slowly convinced her to stir; she had to test, to examine this sense of limitless power!
Somewhere in the castle, she sensed the presence of another powerful being, one who had summoned his god to serve him. That god, she sensed, had refused. But why? The pressure of the immortal contact tingled in the air around her, tantalizing her even as it refused to answer her question. Yet within that teasing aura, she sensed she would find more than a simple explanation.
She sat up in her bed, feeling as though she were still in the midst of a dream. Around her was her room, looking as mundane as ever, but now she had a feeling that she could see through those walls, beyond the confining borders of her apartments.
And what beckoned there was not Caer Corwell. Instead, she sensed that she rested in the midst of a vast cosmos, a place so immensely huge that the entire Realms amounted
to little more than specks of dust. On those specks, the tiny, insignificant islands called the Moonshaes were even less than dust.
Voices called from the spacious void surrounding her, drawing her attention this way and that. She knew them and she was pleased, for these were voices of mighty beings, and they showed her honor and respect. In a flash, she understood, and the knowledge placed her entire existence into perspective.
She had been selected to hear the gods themselves, and it was an honor that dwarfed all the rest of her life.
Ever watchful, Helm took note of the immortal turmoil tearing at the fiber of Gwynneth. He pressed close, his power linked to the life and body of the patriarch, only to find that a strong barrier of power held his full might at bay.
Over the land, the presence of Talos was a rumbling and ominous cloud, not yet ready to unleash its storm. Below, the fertile loam of the Earthmother flourished, as if in challenge or scorn.
The Vigilant One realized immediately that the goddess, not the storming god, formed the barrier to his own power, actively resisting the workings of Helm's might or his agents. The goddess blocked him, while Talos… Talos strived to weaken her.
In a flash of immortal understanding, Helm sensed the course of destruction acted upon the world. A horde of monsters ravaged the land. Some of them labored in the name of Talos, though even the beasts themselves did not understand.
