Maldred’s finger hovered above a swatch the color of dried blood. “The valley,” he breathed. “I had forgotten about the valley.” He shook his head, drops of sweat falling on the map. “The Screaming Valley it’s called, one of the few things about the land that didn’t change after the Cataclysm.”
Dhamon’s expression told him to continue.
“You’ll see it for yourself soon enough, my friend, when we get deep into the Plains of Dust. I’ve never been to the valley, but I knew someone who had stepped into the place. Said he couldn’t go all the way through it. Said it was driving him mad.”
“But we will, make it through—if that’s the fastest way to the treasure. Besides, I don’t have much faith in ogre tales. Any tales for that matter.” There was a quiet strength in Dhamon’s words. “I think it would take too long to go around the valley, if the treasure’s down here, like you think.” He pointed to a spot by a river. A straight line to the treasure is the way we’ll go.
“No matter where we travel, the land’ll look different than what this old map shows. I’ve never set foot in the Plains of Dust, but I know it—and every place in Krynn—has changed since this was drawn. The Cataclysm. The Chaos War. Even this Screaming Valley of yours has to have changed.”
“Perhaps.”
Dhamon glanced at his friend, noting the big man’s eyes were locked on the center of the map.
“You were to the Plains before, weren’t you, Mal? A few years back? I remember you telling me something about howling spires and…”
Maldred didn’t answer, raising a finger to silence Dhamon, then lowering it to the map. A heartbeat later he was running his fingertips across the surface of the parchment, his eyes flitting now from edge to edge, then settling on a river that emptied into a sea to the south. His skin tingled slightly as his index finger passed over faint marks and smudges that at one time might have been labels for towns or important geographic features.
“There’s magic in this,” Maldred stated finally, after several minutes had passed.
“Aye, you cast….”
The big man shook his head. “No. This magic is nothing I did to the parchment. The map itself seems to carry an enchantment. Very old magic. Strong. I get a hint of Red Robe sorcery.” The summer’s heat and the fire all but forgotten, Maldred allowed himself to be consumed for another several minutes by the ancient map, turning his body so he didn’t obstruct the firelight. The soft glow from the few lanterns that hung about weren’t enough to properly illuminate the map. Dhamon cleared his throat to get his friend’s attention and nodded in the direction of a pair of ogres who entered the inn and selected a table only a few yards away.
“I think I can access the map’s magic,” Maldred said, ignoring the new patrons.
“Maybe you should do it someplace else,” Dhamon suggested. The pair of ogres were watching him, noses wrinkling and eyes narrowing to show their contempt for humans.
“No.” Maldred was oblivious to the ogres, entranced by the possibilities of the map. “I want to see what this is about. I’ll wager my father didn’t know that not only did he have a treasure map, but he had a very magical one.” He placed his palm over a symbol at the bottom that served as a compass. It was faded, like everything else, but the North and South arrows were the clearest of anything on the map.
Dhamon worried that his friend’s sweaty hand might smudge what they could read. He looked at the pair of ogres, who were becoming increasingly curious about what Maldred was doing. “Don’t you think…?”
Maldred dismissed Dhamon’s words with a gesture. He closed his eyes, and his lips formed silent words that helped his enchantment. “The key,” he murmured softly between strings of arcane words. “What is the key to this wondrous map? The key… there.”
Suddenly the map took on its own light, pale and yellow-gold, instantly drawing the attention of Dhamon and the two nearest ogres. The latter leaned closer but kept their seats.
“The key,” Maldred repeated, his voice no longer a whisper. “Show us the pirate port of ages past, the port from before the time of the Cataclysm, from the time when the Plains of Dust were filled with freebooters and glittering promises of gold and more and… ah!”
An image formed on the map and above it, transparent but rendered with incredible detail. The tabletop looked like a sea, bright blue and shifting, the whorls in the wood becoming frothy waves. The ale mugs shimmered, looking now like ships, one three-masted with billowing ghost-white sails fluttering in a breeze that seemed to surround the table and cut the heat of the fire and the summer. There was a cry, soft and sharp, of a gull, and in response the map’s features became sharper and more focused. Names sprang up all over, of towns and woods, flowing script marking trails and rivers. The colors became intense and hypnotic and held Dhamon and Maldred’s attention as firmly as any vise.
“The pirate port. The spot where they kept their stolen treasures,” Maldred said, smiling when a spot on the map grew brighter still. It was a clamshell-shaped mark a few inches up from where the river spilled into the sea. “The pirate port as it was ages past,” he stated, “and about as it is now. The port as it rests at this very moment.”
The parchment glittered and the waves disappeared, the breeze vanished instantly to be replaced by the heat of the tavern, the snap of the sails replaced by the crackling of the fire behind them. The map’s features were still distinct, but they were different from what it had displayed a heartbeat ago. The sea at the southern edge of the map was gone, in its place a glacier. The Plains of Dust were different, too, the river gone, though the shell-shaped mark indicating the pirate port was still there. The port looked to be in the middle of a dry stretch of land.
“It’s buried,” Maldred said. “The port’s buried by earth and time. Can’t tell how deep the pirate’s treasure is. No matter. We’ll find it. There has to be treasure.”
In response the air sparkled like a shining diamond above the shell-shaped mark.
“Definitely treasure.” He moved his free hand across the surface, brushing away the image of the land. “Now show us the sage, map. The Sage of the Plains.”
Dhamon opened his mouth to say “What?” but the word didn’t come out. Awe of the magic constricted his throat.
A circle glowed, shiny black and with an inner light. It was miles north and west of where Maldred’s pirate port was. The circle gleamed and grew tall to represent a tower, stones black and reflecting unseen stars.
“The tower of the Sage of the Plains,” Maldred began, his voice cracking. “I remembered my folklore correctly. Grim Kedar, that old ogre friend of mine, told me of a human woman who was said to be able to cure any ill and find a remedy to any problem. A healer. Grim wanted to meet her. We’ll meet her for him.”
Dhamon snorted. “Cure any ill. Remedy any problem.”
“Your scale is both an ill and a very definite problem, Dhamon. It might cost you your life. I wonder if she might be the answer.”
Dhamon shook his head. “You’re looking at a map centuries old, Mal. Humans don’t live so long. You know that. Though I appreciate your gesture, and though I very much desire to be free of this thing, I… what’s this?”
“The Sage of the Plains today.”
The map changed, as Maldred brushed his hand across the surface once more. It showed the land as it looked now—no sea, a glacier at its southern border again, the river the pirates had sailed gone. The image of the tower remained, though it was no longer glossy, and stars were not reflected along its edges.