We made shore without incident this time – much to my surprise. Crunching up on the ice that rimed the shoreline and trees, we walked in among the giant conifers. The ones close to shore had low branches, brushing the ground under their own weight, thick with needles. Beneath them, the orange and brown detritus of their past collected around their bases, making a soft carpet over tangled roots. The trees, in their competition with one another for the only available sunlight, had squeezed out every last other plant that might have taken root here.
In the Faywild, even the trees were ungentle to one another. It truly made me wonder how the Eladrin were ever able to reach something approaching civilization, instead of simply being tribal hedge shamans and wizards. But then, their air of civility and tradition does cover a great deal of fierce history – they did spring the dunkel from among them, and that race has no issues living in a fierce world.
I was glad Bael Turath had never tried to conquer them.
The shine we’d seen from shore was the rising sun glinting off a frozen waterfall, small drips still slowly forming a great cascade of white ice over dark grey stone. Birds were notably absent – I heard not one animal as we walked. In fact, even our own steps were muted, soaked up by the plush fall of dead needles on the forest floor. After getting in past the first few trees, the branches rose above us in a roof of grey and green at least thirty or forty feet up. The only sound was the occasional creak of leather or clink of metal on metal as we walked, slowly ascending.
After we’d gone in for fifteen or twenty minutes, I angled over towards Bingo, and offered a bit of the dried meat I was eating. “Sorry about the, well…”
“I’m trying to forget about that. How could he make us do that to each other?” He took the meat, but didn’t look up. I looked ahead where we were going. “The weird thing is, I actually felt a lot of that. I really, really hated Karac, and I’d have skinned Zenith alive for using me that way. And you, I just wanted you out of existence, there wasn’t even anything like ‘oh, you’re a bad dwarf’ or ‘oh, you Gith people are worthless manipulators,’ you were just not even to be considered. I was glad Zenith was at least turning me on you.” He looked up, rage disproportionate to his size was playing itself out on his face.
“I was much the same. I can’t lie, most of you are of races I would have considered little better than livestock when you all found me. But I’ve come to understand that there’s a lot more to the world than what my family taught me. Still, somewhere in there I have a long way to go. I don’t think it took a lot of effort to unbind that indignation.” We walked on for a while more, silent. “Still, I’m sorry. You, actually all of you, have saved my life in the past, and I look forward to continuing that exchange.”
He remained silent, stewing. I chewed a bit more and drifted back.
Karac kept looking at Sered while we were walking, obviously thinking about something in the dream. Sered took no notice of this, simply watching where his feet went and contemplating something else. After about an hour he straightened up and stopped.
“Hold it!” He called out.
We all pulled up short, turning to him.
“How in blazes do we know where we’re going? We could be climbing into Moradin’s left buttock for all I know.” Looking back, I was a little frustrated myself.
Bingo shrugged, and pointed with the end of his bow. “That way.”
“How do you know that?”
Zenith spoke quietly. “All paths here lead, in the end, to Taer Dian Loresh.”
We all slowly turned to him. “Huh?” I asked intelligently.
“This is his realm now. When his city was thrown across the planes, it landed here, and its influence spreads across this island.”
“Maybe you didn’t hear me,” Karac leaned against his axe-haft. “How do you know that?”
“I live in dreams. This place is the source of many, mostly nightmares. Shalvar was right – here, sleep is a dangerous place as real as the ground beneath your feet.”
“You live in dreams?” Karac seemed a little incredulous.
“Of course. I manufacture things from them. What do you think that is that I create to act through when we are in the pitch of battle? My ghost? It is a dream-form, a piece of me that I give form in dream and invoke here. It is a technique taught to all of my order.” As if to demonstrate, he twitched his eyebrows – well, his forehead, where his eyebrows would have been – and beside Karac a whisper-thin image of him appeared. It waved at the dwarf before fading away.
“Alright, so then wherever we walk, we’ll end up at the Spire?” Sered asked.
“Yes, by longer or shorter routes.”
Bingo cocked his head sideways. “How about you help find the shortest one?”
“Unfortunately, that’s not something one can choose. Much as in a dream you can be where you go in moments, or you can quest for it endlessly, the path tends to choose you rather than what you might consider the traditional method.”
I jerked back. “You mean we could conceivably be at this for years?”
He thought about it, shrugged and nodded. “How long do you think we’ve been here already? An hour? Two? We could have faded in and out of this path many times and not remember the previous times.”
Dex was shaking her head, face in her hand.
Karac threw his hands in the air, his axe falling over. “For the love of stone and iron! Why in the hells did you not tell us this to begin with?”
“You did not ask.”
I thought Karac was going to vault over and beat him senseless. I’m guessing Karac thought so, too, but decided against it for some reason. He picked up his axe and stomped ahead, grumbling something in Dwarvish that I’m pretty sure wouldn’t translate kindly.
Sered walked beside Bingo just ahead of me. “Would you have still wanted to come here, knowing that?”
Bingo shrugged. “Doesn’t really matter now, does it?”
“Still.”
“Yes, I would. I want to get rid of this damned ghost, and get a good night’s sleep.”
“Good. I would have chosen to help you with whichever decision you’d made, but I wanted to know you were still intending to proceed.”
The halfwise nodded.
We walked.
I’d like to say for how long, but given what Zenith had told us, time doesn’t mean much or pass the same way there than elsewhere. Somewhen along the line, we reached a clearing in the trees, a broad open swath of frosted ground ahead of us. Across the clear space, a great wall, as high as the trees we emerged from, stretched as far to either side as we could see. It gently curved out of sight to one side, and vanished over a rise to the other.
The ground was clear, not even small brush or grass grew there. The stretch in the last twenty feet or so was frost-blasted completely clean – bare stone instead of dead pine needles. It was inlaid with gold, a line running parallel to the wall and great words inscribed inside that. Although it looked like bare metal to me, I could feel a slight hum of power coming up from it.
Sered looked at the words, and read aloud:
“Beyond These Walls, You Are An Illusion, Who Only Once Dreamed You Were Real.”
Zenith looked at the wall. “This is the boundary of Taer Dian Loresh. We go in, we are fully committed, we will be in Shan Doresh’s territory.”
I stepped up, and called out. “I am Azrael of Ille Macreane, and I am an emissary of the Winter Court, here to treat with the Lord Shan Doresh. I ask for hospitality and offer my peaceful conduct under the laws of the Fay. My companions and I are called Fellbane, and we seek safe passage to negotiate with the Lord of this land.”
Nothing responded to me. I turned back to them and shrugged. “Was worth a try.”
Bingo pulled his hook from his pack and began tying rope to it. “Nothing for it, let’s go.”
We scaled the wall, unmolested. As soon as we touched ground, though, we were in twilight – as if here in the realm of Shan Doresh it was already evening, where it had been daylight just the other side of the wall. I noticed almost immediately one other major difference.
There were birds here. Occasional chirps or the flutter of wings drifted past my ears.
Other than that, this side looked much as the one from which we came, though perhaps the trees were a little more sparse. That might have just been my mind playing tricks, though.
We formed up and began walking again.
* * *
We’d gone quite a distance, though I can’t really tell how long we had traveled. We did not stop to eat or drink, we simply slogged on, occasionally passing some snow, but most of the time simply among trees as we’d been.
Another clearing ahead of us revealed a great chasm, filled with mist, and fairly broad. Certainly too wide to jump. To the left, maybe a quarter mile down the way, a stone bridge spanned the chasm. On the far side, two enormous statues, each the same height as the wall we’d crossed. They appeared Eladrin, wearing full battle regalia, and standing at ease with hands on their carved weapons.
We didn’t speak to each other, just turned in unison and walked to the bridge.
Reaching it, we found the bridge covered with patches of ice, as were the statues. A small river emerged from the trees on the far side, meandering to the edge of the chasm and emptying itself into the mist below with a muted roar. I didn’t relish the thought of animated statues attacking us, but equally I didn’t want to try to scale the steep face of the chasm. That just would be inviting trouble.
I looked at the team. “If they are going to attack, I’d rather be on the bridge than on the face of the chasm wall.” General assent made its way across the group.
“Let’s just get across,” Dex spoke from the back. “After Cozule, I’m a little tired of bridges.”
We hustled across the bridge, and made it about halfway when I saw something coming out of the trees ahead of us. A great white tiger, bone studding armor fastened around its body, was sliding out of the trees. On it, a creature that could have once been an Eladrin rode upon a cream-colored leather saddle. Its armor was mottled grey with white and light blue patches, a very effective camouflage.
I moved up to the fore, seeing two more of the knights emerging from the woods. They had swords across their laps, faces impassive, as their mounts brought them silently forward. I called out to the leader of them.
“I am Azrael of Bael Turath, and this is the group Fellbane. We come to speak with the Lord of this land, and I request his hospitality as an emissary of the Winter Court. Will you lead us to Shan Doresh?”
The leader drew up, looked at the others. He let out a single barked command – and although I don’t know elvish, I know a command to attack when I hear one. They charged into us.
Sered shouted, “Get across the bridge!” and began running, as did Karac, Zenith, and Bingo. As they charged forward, two unmounted beings, of the same type as the riders, stepped out from behind the statues. The first let out some kind of flashing burst at Karac, who took the attack full in the face. I heard him shout something in frustration, and he waved as if to dismiss something from before his vision. The other one hit Zenith with a similar charge, and Zenith coasted to a halt where he was, adjacent to a great fir tree.
I sank a grip into the soul of the first rider charging us, and invoked my circlet of starry motes, casting one at him as his tiger careened down the slope to our position. The energy of the hit flickered across his leg and saddle, dripping sparks to the ground where he gripped the flanks of his tiger. The two others each crossed to Karac and Sered, the tigers mauling at them while the riders each stabbed with their weapons. I approached the end of the bridge and opened a realm of winter around Karac, surrounding him with falling motes of gentle snow, each one possessed with a touch of Spring’s grace and healing. I came to a stop, concentrating on keeping the rift open to aid him and Sered, while making sure small drifts of snow collected at just the right places to impede the tigers’ progress.
Bingo shot the one attacking Sered, putting an arrow through the leg of its rider and pinning it to the saddle. It howled at him, and made motion to attack him, but he darted away from its reprisal and it returned its attention to Sered.
Seeing the three Eladrin riders closing on us, I was suddenly overcome by a sense of terrible recklessness. I ran forward between Karac and Sered, into the midst of the tigers – my motion almost felt slowed, every hair on each of the tigers softly glinting in the twilight as I closed with them. I picked my placement perfectly, ripping another gash in the fabric of reality and dipped through a warp of Winter. The blast of chill rippled out among the knights and their mounts as I ducked through, icing the paws of the tigers to the ground beneath them and freezing the knights to their saddles. A chorus of roaring followed me through the gap while I sealed it behind me. I didn’t escape entirely unscathed, as the knight I’d hurt earlier slashed my shoulder with his blade as I dodged by. My armor turned the sharp edge, but the blow was still heavy, hitting me like a hammer. Something snapped painfully, but I was pretty sure nothing was broken.
I had stepped out a long distance beyond them, having passed through them and emerged fifteen yards beyond. I saw Bingo running along the other side of a tree I was adjacent to, and gave me a quick thumbs-up as he did. I turned back to face them, seeing Karac and Sered trading blows with the enemy. A third riderless semi-eladrin had appeared, I could see now that they had been hiding in hollows at the base of the statues. They were emitting blasts of blue and sickly green light at the team, and as I watched two of them caught Sered full on. He fell to one knee beneath the onslaught, and I could see the enchantments cascading terror through him.
I bear no love for Sered, but it hurt me to see him injured that way. He deserved a clean fight, though it seemed they were unwilling to give it to him.
Dex had charged forward across the bridge, but as he did, the three unmounted creatures rose into the air and flew overhead. One of them blasted Dex almost as an afterthought, the force of the blast sliding him across the ice and over the edge. He vanished silently into the mist. Dunkel always surprise me this way; I would have probably yelled all the way down, but he simply vanished without a word.
I suppose that would be practical, in the deeps beneath the surface, where horrid enemies might lurk just around the next bend.
The three mounted knights teleported, my locking ice shattering where they were. They reappeared around Karac and Sered, blades flashing. I dipped this time into the frozen hell of Levistus, retrieving a handful of razor-sharp shards, and sent them sailing through the air on a jetted burst of eldritch power to embed themselves into the knight who’d been charging me. The blades I threw sank into the knight’s flesh and burst into clinging silvery mist, clinging to his skin and armor like glue. He sneered in anger at me, furiously waving his weapon in the air.
Karac still suffered from the phantasm swirling around him, I could make out shadowy bits of the illusion clouding his vision, but he seemed to have his own knight locked in battle – every motion the fey creature made, Karac had his blade waiting for, so the creature knew it wouldn’t be able to dodge away without Karac making some kind of strike upon him. Sered’s was looking ragged, as both he and Zenith (who was still weathering blows from two of the flying fey creatures) were hammering on it. I noticed then that Zenith too seemed to suffer the same effect Karac was under, his motions were slow and jerky, and although he was able to fight, he was definitely distracted by some force there.
Zenith just then took a moment from the fight he was in to push some form of compulsion onto the knight I’d just attacked, turning it to attack its own mount. The tiger roared, and the fey man shouted – cords standing up on his neck as he tried to resist the dominating effects of Zenith’s attack. As the man’s sword drew a red crease on the tiger’s hide, I saw the cuts of my shards crisply fracture, spilling more of the man’s sparkling blue blood onto his armor.
Satisfying sight, that.
The tiger’s roar was much louder than any I’d yet heard, and it was accompanied by a great crackling as it and its two companion beasts ripped their feet free from my icy bonds. Small shards of ice flew everywhere as the two animals closest to me charged up towards me and the one behind them raced to the other side of the bridge. I was confused at first when it did, as the fighting was all taking place on this side.
Then it leaped.
It took a short run, and simply leaped across the entire chasm. A more graceful sight I have rarely seen. It skidded to a halt several yards behind Sered, and I shouted a warning to him to beware.
Which, of course, attracted its attention. Its green eyes swiveled to lock onto me like the eyes of a chameleon who has just decided which grasshopper will be its next meal, and it began to pad casually towards me. The other two had bypassed the fight, running right through my field of snow, and were charging side-by-side towards me as well.
Note to self – try not to irritate quite so many enemies at once in the future.
Looking up, the remaining flyer that had sent Dex over the side cruised down into the mist after him. One less to worry about, and I tried not to think of whether Dex had survived the fall. Enough to worry about right here.
With a flash and a shout, Sered dropped his target, the knight shattering into thousands of gem-like fragments of ice that fell into the snow falling from my rift and skittered across the stones of the bridge. He saw the tiger behind him, and swung backhanded to land a blow on the flank of the tiger I had warned him of. It turned on him immediately, and the two began circling, looking for an opening.
I gauged the approach of the two others, timing my move just right, and repeated my earlier charge – I ran up to the two, and as they were rearing back to receive me in a most ungentle fashion, I once again stepped through another gash that slid me out some forty or fifty feet behind me. The blast of frost almost cost me my concentration on the rift of snowfall, but I was fortunate enough to have kept it going. The violent exhalations once again affixed the two tigers in place, and they belted out a harmony of rage as they saw me reappear out of reach. As my feet came to rest on the frozen ground, two arrows whispered past my ear to arc across the field and find their way to the knight I’d been hammering on. The first sank just above his right hip, and the second pierced his heart.
He screamed out as his body shattered, and I thought for a moment I heard words in the pain: “Shan Duresh will destroy you!” With that he was gone.
The tiny motes of snow were shoring up Karac’s wounds, I could see, and he had almost finished his own knight. The two were sparring back and forth, trading blows of equal ferocity, but the dwarf had the obvious advantage in staying power.
The two unmounted fey observed this as well, it seems – for one of them called out to its compatriot beneath the bridge, and the other charged away, crossing the flowing river. The rushing water must have broken its flight enchantment, as it settled from the air halfway across the water and splashed the rest of the way across. Once it reached shore, it quickly ascended into the tree line and was lost from sight. The second flyer arose from beneath the bridge, remnants of some glowing green mist dripping from its hands. The two arrowed away to the other side of the chasm and quickly escaped our sight.
Karac dropped his knight while Bingo and I handled the third tiger that had become entangled with Sered. The other two turned on Karac and Zenith, but Zenith did something that seemed to fade himself halfway in and out of reality, and Karac took the brunt of the attack on his shield while swinging underhanded to land a stroke in the monster’s ribs. His dropped almost immediately, steaming blood pouring out into the snow like a spilled bucket of paint.
The last tiger dropped to Bingo’s arrows in short order, held at bay by Zenith and Karac.
We all re-gathered at the foot of the bridge. Karac grumbled. “Anyone see any sign of Dex?”
“Over the side at the beginning,” I answered quietly.
He cursed something dwarvish. I started pulling rope from the side of my bag, grunting a bit at the pain in my shoulder as I did. The wound still oozed a bit, and I knitted what I could with a quick incantation.
Walking over to the side, Sered followed me. He shouted over the side, and thankfully we heard a replying shout back.
“I’m here, I’m on the wall. Some help would be nice.”
In short order we’d got him up, and he related that he’d fallen some distance and collided with the wall several times, partially grabbing handholds before finally landing in a deep drift of snow. He’d immediately started to climb up the wall, but had to go into hiding in crevices and overhangs as he did, when the flying aggressor had come down and begun blasting. It never quite seemed to have found him, but it instead just blasted at his general area with its poisonous psychic burst. Often enough, being in the right general area was enough.
Still, we all came through it, which was better than I had expected when I realized how many enemies we had arrayed against us.
So we rested a bit, and made certain no one had sustained any lasting harm.
It seems so strange to me, among these adventurers, that a battle of full force should result in so little injury such a short while after its completion. In the Cairn Jale, most of our common troops could not be treated in time to avoid death or loss of limb, only the officers and non-coms were high enough on the priority list to receive healing in the midst of a battle. Slave troops underwent triage to determine whether it would be cost-effective to heal them or replace them (most often healing was appropriate, but in some dire cases it was best to simply put the slave down rather than undergo the effort to try to return it to fighting shape).
Yet here, we are a small unit – most closely similar to a detached commando squad – and our fights are almost always kill-or-be-killed, and as the victors we are all subject to healing. Within minutes of having been struck by a sword, with the arcane repair available to our bodies (and were we under the guide of J’Tiel or another priest, the nature of it would be more of a divine character), the wound will be gone and within a week of treatment the scar will be gone. It is a most curious sensation…and seems to me to almost make combat too easy to enter – when there is no fear of lasting harm, there is little disincentive to starting a fight. Perhaps that is why my sense of caution feels almost overgrown among these people.
Still, caution can be a good thing.
We set out for the Spire, chasing tracks barely a quarter-hour old.
