Slanya covered her ears as the screech of rock against rock crashed in on them. A spiderweb tendril of blue fire spun into existence around Duvan and Slanya.
“Stay close,” Duvan said. “Do what I do.” As long as she remained within about ten paces, his spellscar would keep her safe from the blue fire. And if she wanted to attribute that to Gregor’s elixir, Duvan would just have to hold his tongue.
Duvan’s stomach felt like lead, and the hairs of his back and arms stood straight up. The tendril of spellplague arced toward them, snapping like a whip…
And dissipated just as it was about to hit them, vanished like a puff of smoke in the wind.
The storm seemed to howl with frustration, and underneath them, the ground shifted. Another whiplash of spellplague struck at them. More gut churning, but now Duvan was moving. He didn’t see what happened behind them as he led Slanya in a run away from the spellplague wave.
The earth beneath their feet lurched and rumbled as Duvan dodged the hottest flares. The tilting earth made him stumble, and Slanya fell to her knees behind him, but soon they were back on their feet and heading farther and farther from the surge of blue fire.
The ground seemed to be lifting slowly now, floating upward perhaps. They ran across a narrow patch of hot, dry desert, then down a trail into a shaded cleft. At the bottom of the cleft, Duvan led Slanya across a mossy creek, the rocks slippery from the green growth and dewy moisture.
He reached out to her, and she grabbed his hand. He did so at least as much for his own benefit as hers. The stream’s water misted into the air like rainy fog around them, and for a moment they existed only in a white cloud, drenched and cold and unable to see. But her hand was still in his.
Together meant that she’d be safe. He’d promised to keep her safe.
Then the cloud gave way as they pushed through and up a short incline, emerging to sun and the smell of wildflowers. Warm breezes dried the dew from his forehead and neck as he led them into the tall grass of the meadow.
“Look,” Slanya said. “This meadow is filled with plaguegrass!”
The grassy field ended abruptly, Duvan noticed, at a cliff. The shifting ground and the sensation of rising was clear bow. They were on a mote, a large one to be sure. “Get as much as you can now,” he said. “This meadow might not be here much longer. Beyond that edge there is nothing but a long fall.”
Slanya’s eyes widened as she gazed out over the rim of the cliff. The ground below, dotted with flares and wisps of blue and white spellplague, receded quickly. “By the gods, how do we get off of this?” Slanya said.
“We don’t,” Duvan said. “We’re too far up now, and the plaguegrass is right here. We’ll have to wait until it floats back down.”
The mote they were on was a good three hundred feet above the rest of the land. And it was rising. Fortunately, it seemed to be heading toward a swath of the changelands that was relatively stable, for the moment. Duvan breathed a little relief; it looked like they’d have clear sailing on still waters, for a short while at least.
Ahead, however, they would run into trouble. If the mote stayed on course, it was headed directly into the center of the changelands. Still a good distance away, but definitely in their current path, was what Duvan recognized as the vortex of a spellplague storm.
A dark blue sky streaked with purple made the backdrop for a swirling whirlwind of destruction. Gossamer threads of white and blue entangled with flames of red and yellow in an angry and wild display of raw nature. It was beautiful and terrible, awesome and indiscriminately perilous.
And they were heading directly into it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A. hot, grassy meadow stretched out around Slanya, an illusion of peace in this landscape of unpredictability and turmoil. Beyond the edge of the meadow-mote, she knew the Plaguewrought Land boiled with the rising blue fire.
Still, the smell of flowers and the warm tranquility of the meadow in the hot sun lulled her. The peace of the here and now was a pleasant anomaly. A vision of how life could be, how life should be despite the larger landscape of danger and chaos. It was too easy to forget the world beyondthe world that would rapidly intrude without warning.
“It’s going to be calm for a little while, I think,” Duvan said, shading his eyes from the last rays of sunlight slicing down through the clouds and the constellation of smaller motes above them.
Looking over at Duvan, so confident and reassured amid the surrounding hysteria and flux, Slanya thanked Kelemvor for Duvan’s presence. The man could be infuriating and pig-headed, but he was proving strong and knowledgeable. Indispensable. Slanya would be dead without him. Right now he was staring into the distance, his brow knitted in consternation.
Duvan’s black eyes sparkled in the light. His broad nose and boyish face were at odds with the three-day beard and straggly mane of hair. When he turned to look at her, his gaze was gentle. “Gather up as much as you can while we have time,” he said. “I’ll try to figure out how to get us off this rock and out of here.”
Slanya tried to quiet her mind, but in the recesses of her consciousness a little girl couldn’t stop screaming. She needed the quiet seclusion of the temple to order her mind and regain control over her body. Or perhaps she just needed to surrender to the fire. Maybe she could let chaos overtake her, move inside her.
How good would it feel to give in and let all her control go? Could she abandon her hold on order and still survive? She had no real idea, but the temptation to lose control surged up inside her like never before.
Focusing On the ground in front of her, Slanya knelt down into the dewy grass. Her knees dampened from the moisture, and the heavy smell of grass and earth filled her nostrils.
Grab. Pull. Bag.
The long, translucent, yellow stalks came easily out of the ground, roots and all. Rich dirt clung to the rhizomes as Slanya shoved the grass into the magic bag of holding that Gregor had given her for carrying it. The bag would hold all the plaguegrass they’d need for a long while.
“How much time do we have?” she asked.
Duvan stood and looked out past the edge of the mote the rim of which dropped off to the shifting ground far, far below. “Not sure,” he said. “The good news is that we seem to be in an eddy of spellplague for the moment. It’s not too strong or too fast.” “And the bad news?”
“We’re heading away from the border and into the most intense blue fire I’ve ever seen.”
Slanya let that sink in. She fought against the dread welling up inside her. Stronger changelands. Wilder and more chaoticpulling them toward madness. Slanya was not afraid of death, but she did fear insanity. Accept what comes, she told herself, but the words rang hollow.
Grab. Pull. Bag.
The plaguegrass gave off a sweet smell when the stalks broke, reminding her of the herb garden back at the monastery. She used the smell and the manual labor as an anchor. Focus on the here and now, she reminded herself.
The last rays of the sun dimmed to darkness, and the blanket of night stretched over the sky above them. The high clouds overhead were thickening. Their gray bellies glowed blue and red, flickering with the reflection of the turmoil of the fires below.
Grab. Pull. Bag.
The repetition was calming. Slanya lost herself to the act of harvesting the plaguegrass. There was plenty of light to continue to work, and she was happy to lose herself in the rhythm of the task.
“I need food,” Duvan said suddenly. “Need to figure out a way off this mote.”
The edge in his voice was less than reassuring, but eating was a good idea. They needed energy to keep going.
Grab. Pull. Bag.
As she worked, Duvan gathered up what looked like dried wood and piled it up at the inner edge of the meadow. She wondered at first what he was doing, but it soon became clear that he was building a fire. What do we need a fire for? she wondered. None of the food they’d brought with them needed to be cooked. A campfire was
