Vell shook his head furiously. 'Too many minds,' he said. 'Lanaal spoke of this—how she can sense the feelings and thoughts of birds.'
'Can you focus on one of them?' asked Kellin, placing her hands on his shoulders. 'Maybe you're having trouble because you're taking in all of their thoughts at once.'
Vell's face was a mask of fear, but Kellin's touch helped steady him.
'Let me try,' he said, and he went back inside his mind. He found himself wading through the marsh amid the massive behemoths, perhaps two dozen in all, grazing from the trees—all except three tall phandar trees that they never touched. They knew never to go beyond the phandars. It was not safe there. They had no reason to go there, anyway.
Vell's fear left him, and he pressed on with a sense of wonder and curiosity, pushing more and more of his human mind aside. He bathed in the sensations of the behemoths instead—the taste of the leaves they plucked from the treetops, the warmth of the water around their legs. What trees—like none he had ever seen, thin and tall, swaying in the breeze.
But he also felt a different kind of fear—fear of an approaching enemy.
He loved the behemoths. They were his kind. Part of him was amazed to see these animals that he had never laid eyes on before. But part of him saw them every moment of every day.
In the center of the hidden Sanctuary stood a small menhir marked with ancient runes, rising from the marsh water. Atop it, a bright light gleamed, dabbing the whole Sanctuary in streaks of red. The runes, too, glowed faintly. The behemoths ignored it, but Vell could not.
Magic. The magic that sustained this place.
They mean to steal it.
That's the reason for all of this.
But the Shepherds? Where were they? How would they protect their flock?
Figures were coming down from the mountain. He couldn't see them, but he knew they were there. He'd seen them before, some of them, in the pool.
They carried the axe. The axe would bring it all down. It would expose them and make them vulnerable. It would tear down the magic on the menhir—the magic that concealed them.
He knew it because the Shepherds knew it. .
'Who are the Shepherds?' Vell said aloud. His companions in the High Forest heard it and had no answer. He was not asking them, but his true fellows in the hidden marsh of the Sanctuary.
You are, came the answer. He didn't know where the reply came from.
The behemoths arrayed themselves in lines, ready to attack the intruders. He did the same. He wondered if he could control the behemoth whose perspective he shared, but he didn't want to try. The animals grunted and paced.
Why did the Shepherds not protect them?
Vell knew: because they expect me to.
'I've failed them,' Vell said. This time, he addressed the humans around him. 'They gave me the power so I would protect them.'
He heard voices ask many questions, but he pulled away from them, deeper and deeper into his vision. Four outsiders stood at the very rim of the Sanctuary.
* * * * *
'They died to get us here,' said Royce as they stood near the northernmost phandar. 'Vonelh, Nithinial, Bessick, the werebat... this expedition even claimed Mythkar Leng.' To Ardeth, he added, 'This had better be worthwhile.'
'I'll try not to disappoint,' said Ardeth, her tone somewhere between haughty and flirtatious. She cast a spell to reveal emanations of magic, then narrowed her eyes in concentration. 'There,' she said, pointing in the direction of the phandar trees. Gan, Royce, and Gunton stared without seeing anything different.
Ardeth drew a number of crossbow bolts from her leathers and slowly loaded one into her crossbow. 'Geildarr's gifts,' she explained, and held the crossbow at the ready.
'Illusion magic,' guessed Royce. 'We came all this way to pilfer illusion magic?'
'Don't underestimate the power of illusion, or its value,' said Ardeth. 'I've recently been reminded of what it's capable of. Anything that can create an illusion this size could conceal a marching army. And that's assuming that it's the only...'
A voice not his own suddenly rolled out of Gan's throat. 'Please reconsider this,' it said. This time the language was Illuskan, if an oddly accented and archaic version of it. 'Turn away, travelers,' it continued. 'We warn you again. Our secrets are ours. We keep them with our might.'
'And we shall take them with ours,' Ardeth promised. 'Gan...'
The hobgoblin needed no instructions. He was seething with anger at the idea of something controlling his body again, and he charged the area sectioned off by the phandar trees, the axe held high over his head. The instant it touched the invisible field, a reddish energy flowed out of the axe; it trembled in his hands, nodding toward the center of the triangle. Shocked, Gan slowed and took a few steps backward just as the axe's energy punched a hole through the illusion. A red pulse burst away and traveled halfway across the field before colliding with another source of magic. The rest of the illusion crumbled around him.
* * * * *
'Vell,' said Thluna. 'What's happening?'
'They have arrived,' Vell answered, though his eyes were still staring into another place. Then he added, 'We have failed.'
CHAPTER 16
More than a dozen giant lizards ran through the thinly forested marsh of the revealed Sanctuary, toward the four intruders. Their long, snakelike necks leaned forward, and the ground trembled as they charged. Each was larger than several cottages, weighing more than twin dragons. Each step threw up huge sprays of water from the marsh and covered the charging behemoths in a shower of mist. Royce, Gunton, and Gan could only stare, just as they had at Elaacrimalicros. Scaly mountains bore down on them, and they could do nothing but watch.
Ardeth's crossbow sang. Each bolt zipped across the marsh and met its mark. No behemoth would be deterred by so minor a blow, but these bolts were fashioned with powerful magic at no little expense. When they struck behemoth scales, the beast disappeared, as if it had never been.
Ardeth giggled as she watched the magic work. The charging behemoths quickly noticed their disappearing companions and slowed their onrush, turning sideways and exposing more of their flanks to Ardeth's deadly aim.
As the behemoths began to thin out, Ardeth could see a strange standing stone at the Sanctuary's center, the top of which glowed with a beacon of unearthly red.
'Royce,' she said. She passed the crossbow to the Antiquarian. 'Cover me.'
With no further explanation, she sprang forward into the marsh, running like a black streak through the knee-deep water.
* * * * *
Vell's mind cried out as he abandoned perspective after perspective. The behemoths were not dying, he knew, but were being sent somewhere far away where his mind could not follow. He watched the strange girl run through the swamp. He knew her well by now; she had abducted Sungar, astride the hippogriff he had chased through Rauvin Vale. She was also the enemy he had seen in the Fountains of Memory.
He bade one of the behemoths to break away from the others and cut her off before she could reach the menhir. To his surprise, the behemoth willingly, almost deferentially, turned its form over to him. Vell gasped as he
