here?'
'The wizard's gone off someplace again. I don't think he cares for the company around here. Chess is over there, by the ledge, rigging a pole so we can feed the gnome when he shows up again… if he shows up again.'
Chane looked at Jilian, his eyes softening. 'How long has she been sitting here?' Carefully, he eased her down into a sleeping position, still holding her hand. Then he freed himself and stood.
'She hasn't been away from your side for more than a few minutes since we got here,' the man said. 'But if you're ready, we need to talk about where we go from here. Those troops are ahead of us, out there on that plain. They're waiting for us.'
'Maybe it wasn't all a dream, then,' Chane muttered.
'I dreamed the soldiers were there, waiting across a ravaged plain, where the stump of a melted peak rises. A peak that looks like a giant death's-head.'
'It's called Skullcap,' Wingover said. 'Have you seen it?'
'No, but now I have. We — in the dream — we came around the mountain and stopped here. This very place. The air was clear, and in the distance we could see the spire of Zhaman, about ten miles away on the steppes of
Dergoth. It was so clear. It glittered in the sunlight, a high, fortified tower standing alone out there, beyond where our army was gathered… and theirs.
'There were fourteen of us here on the mountainside. Derek was here, and
Carn and Hodar, and old Callan Rockreave… old Callan.' Chane's voice broke, then steadied. 'He was my father's most stalwart friend, always at my side as he had pledged to the king. And the Daewar brothers, Hasp and
Hoven Fire — ' He paused again and glanced at the sleeping Jilian.
'Firestoke. They were of her family. I wonder if she knows that my family and hers once were… no,' Chane shook his head. 'She couldn't have known that. Or about me, because she wasn't born then. Even her father's father wasn't born then. Odd, isn't it?'
Wingover squatted on his heels, staring at the dwarf, astonished.
'We were here,' Chane sighed. 'Then we went from here, across a stone bridge and onto the steppes of Dergoth, where our armies waited for us… and their armies, too. And we fought. Were we in the right? I didn't even wonder, then. My father had set our course, and we fought. I led my troops; I can still hear their shouts when we charged. 'On Grallen,' they shouted. 'For Thorbardin!' You see, human? In my dream I was Grallen, on the field at Zhaman. Why are you staring at me like that?'
'The spot on your forehead,' Wingover pointed. 'It glows.'
'It has done that before.' Chane looked up at the red moon Lunitari. 'At least now I know exactly why I wear it.'
'But… it glows like red crystal. Like Spellbinder itself.'
'In the dream I wore its other self, just here,' he touched the glowing circle between his brows. 'But on my helm, embedded just above the noseguard. They said it glowed too, when I… when Grallen wore it. But not red. Pathfinder is green. The trace I follow is where Pathfinder went.' He looked toward where Jilian slept beside the fire. 'I'd like to see her safely home, you know. But home will never be safe, for her or anyone, unless I do what Grallen intended. The secret has already been sold.'
'Sold?'
'Yes, according to the dream. A human has learned of the hidden way, and traded knowledge for power. There was a voice in the dream that told me that. It was as though Spellbinder itself spoke to me… right here, on my forehead.'
'If you've seen Grallen — ' The man rubbed his whiskers thoughtfully '- then you know why he was here on Sky's End. I've wondered about that. I've heard the tale, you know, from Rogar Goldbuckle and others. But they said that Grallen and his army went north, from Northgate, and across the
Plains of Dergoth to meet Fistandantilus in the final battle. What was he doing over here, so far west?'
Chane nodded. 'His army went north and awaited the archmage on the plains. But I… Grallen, I mean, and a small force went west first, to unite the skirmishers of Coal Delvish and the border guards under Melden
Coppershield. Grallen had word from the king's spies that a massed army of hill dwarves was preparing to march from southern Abanasinia. They had to be stopped. Otherwise the mountain dwarf army at Dergoth would have been caught between two enemies.
'Somehow Fistandantilus was there, at Waykeep, and joined the battle, casting spells of fire and ice. Those who came this way were all that remained from that battle.'
'And nobody in Thorbardin knew of that, since nobody came home after
Zhaman,' Wingover muttered.
'What else did you see? In your dream, I mean?' The dwarf's eyes narrowed. 'Another battle. A greater one taking place across Dergoth toward the old fortress standing there. I knew, Wingover. I knew… did I know then? Did he know that it was the last battle?
'Callan Rockreave led the main assault. I wonder if any in Thorbardin know that. And Derek Hammerthane carried the king's pennant. Others joined us, too… joined them, I mean. Some humans among them, who fought courageously alongside Grallen and the others.
'I… Grallen, I mean. In the dream, he actually took the tower, then confronted the old wizard in his lair. He intended to exact an oath from
Fistandantilus… or to kill him. The prince was in a hurry, though, and distracted. He wanted to finish the fight and get back to Thorbardin because of something the gem above his noseguard had revealed to him. He was worried, and he underestimated the old wizard.'
Chane paused and closed his eyes. 'I saw it in the dream. The wizard was in a rage. His eyes… there is no way to describe such eyes. They were not the eyes of any living thing. They were… evil. Then the wizard smiled and set loose his final magic. And Grallen… and everyone and everything… were gone.'
Chane's voice had gone soft as he spoke, and was barely audible in the final words. As he opened his eyes a tear welled in one of them and started to trickle down his cheek. He snorted, shook his head, and brushed it away. 'Everything ended there, you know. They all died.'
The dwarf sighed heavily, glancing around as though he were just awakening. The kender had come to listen and was holding one end of a long pole with leather loops on it. Chane realized this was probably the first time he had ever seen the kender speechless.
'But you said you saw Skullcap,' Wingover persisted.
'Grallen couldn't have seen that.'
'No. It was as well that he never saw it. It was like the mountain… melted, changed into something hideous.
Grallen didn't see it, Wingover, but I did. In the dream.' He tapped his forehead. 'The stone in Grallen's helm — Pathfinder — saw it, and I've seen what Pathfinder saw.
'Grallen must have put his helm aside… or lost it in the tower or something. But I know where it is now, and why the green trace out there looks so odd, as though it doubles back on itself.' He walked to the ledge and pointed, not toward distant Skullcap, but south of there.
'Zhaman's spire,' he said. 'It was blown entirely away from the tower, and bits of the upper portions with it. Grallen's helm — and Pathfinder
— are there, where the wreckage fell.'
Morning sun was on the peaks of Sky's End when the soarwagon appeared again, spiraling down from high above in a series of precipitous loops and tumbles — for all the world like a stricken bird falling away from a raptor. And as it tumbled closer, Chane and his allies squinted at it. The contrivance seemed to have added something since its last visit. Thrust upward from its top side was a slim thing like a narrow mast.
Over the gorge, just out from the cove, the soarwagon leveled out and its nose-vanes shifted. It hovered on rising mists while Bobbin leaned out to shout, 'Get the supplies ready! I've solved the problem!'
'What do you mean, you've solved the problem?'
Chess called back. 'I worked all day on solving the problem.'
'Hurry!' Bobbin tugged the control lines, ignoring the kender, and eased the soarwagon toward the ledge. As
