Kauth paused to lean against a tree whose roots emerged from the cliff into empty air before winding their way back down to fertile soil. He fought to catch his breath, pretending that he was simply taking in the view. That was the problem with taking a form like Kauth’s-he looked both stronger and hardier than he actually was. Most of the time it wasn’t an issue, but days of hard climbing were taking their toll on his endurance. And Sovereigns prevent some tavern thug from challenging him to a contest of strength!
On the other hand, as Sevren had observed, he was smarter than he looked, which almost made up for his physical shortcomings.
The others stood beside him to admire the view. Zandar was visibly winded-that was acceptable, though, since he was slighter than the others. Vor and Sevren seemed unaffected by the exertion of their climb. And the view was impressive. An emerald mantle covered the hills below them and the gentler land beyond, as far as Kauth could see. The summer sky was a perfect blue, unbroken by clouds, and Kauth realized how accustomed he’d grown to overcast skies while he traveled with Gaven. The man carried the threat of storms with him like a weapon at his belt.
Sevren startled him by leaping up the trunk of another tree and climbing the branches as if they were a ladder until they grew too thin to support his weight. He leaned over the edge of the cliff and looked up.
Zandar called up to the shifter. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to get a sense of the land ahead-or above. We’re nearly at the tree line.”
“Can you see the pass?” asked Vor.
“Do you think I’ve led you astray?” Sevren pointed to his right. “It’s a little to the north, but I think our course will take us right to the gates of the mountain.”
“Then down into the Labyrinth,” Vor muttered.
Sevren scampered down the tree even more easily than he’d climbed it. “Come,” he said, and he continued up the path.
Kauth pushed himself to keep up with Vor, just a few paces behind the shifter, while Zandar trailed behind. “And you’re leading us through the Labyrinth?” he asked the orc.
“I told you I would.”
“Yes, you did. And I’m grateful.”
Vor grunted his acknowledgment.
“If we encounter the Ghaash’kala…” Kauth wasn’t sure how to ask what he wanted to ask.
“We will,” Vor said. “They are vigilant, and no one enters the Labyrinth without their knowledge.”
“Are you… welcome among your former people?”
“No one who seeks to cross the Labyrinth is welcome among the Ghaash’kala.”
“Ah.” So Vor would be no help in that regard. He had hoped the orc would be able to negotiate their passage in more than just a geographical sense.
Finally, the question he’d been burning to ask the orc since they first met in Varna spilled from his mouth. “Why did you leave?”
Vor looked at him, his face a mask of righteous indignation. Then his shoulders slumped, and he looked away, down at the ground. “It’s only right that you should know,” he said. “My life is in your hands no less than it is in Zandar’s and Sevren’s, so you should know what you’re holding.”
Kauth suddenly wished he hadn’t asked. He didn’t want to hold the noble orc’s life in his hands, didn’t want to know anything about the life he was willing to sacrifice for his own purposes. For Kelas’s purposes.
If Vor noticed his sudden discomfort, the orc gave no sign of it. “You know about the Ghaash’kala. They come from the same stock as the orcs of the Shadow Marches to the south, and once probably followed the same druidic traditions. Some wanderlust or calling led them to the Labyrinth. One legend claims that they were an army pushing back an invasion of the Carrion Tribes, so zealous in their cause that they chased their quarry back through the Labyrinth to the threshold of the Wastes. The more pious among them claim that the leaders were following the call of Kalok Shash, the Binding Flame, which drew them to the Labyrinth to continue the sacred work of warriors long since vanished from the land.”
“The Binding Flame,” Kauth said flatly.
“I know what you’re going to say-it sounds just like the Silver Flame. Everyone who’s not a Thrane or a Ghaash’kala says it. And maybe they’re right, for all I know. Certainly since I left the Labyrinth I’ve come to understand the Silver Flame better.”
Kauth could understand the confusion. Two religious traditions known for producing paladins, both of which revered an impersonal force identified as a flame. It was an image with strong religious resonance, he reasoned-fire could represent fervor and devotion, crusading zeal, a purifying furnace, or a punishing force of destruction. Paladins might cling to any of those images, or all of them. Even Dol Arrah, the one god of the Sovereign Host most identified with the virtues of the paladin, was also a sun god, depicted as a knight shining with brilliant light-or as a red dragon, mouth aflame.
Vor was beginning to stray from the original question, and Kauth thought perhaps he could divert the conversation entirely. “What does the Binding Flame bind?” he asked.
“It binds the souls of noble warriors together, the living and the dead, and thus holds back the darkness. In the most literal sense, it binds the evils of the Demon Wastes within its bounds, preventing them from spilling out across Khorvaire. And that is why I am no longer privileged to call myself Ghaash’kala.”
Kauth blinked. Had he missed the connection?
“I failed in the most basic commandment of Kalok Shash,” Vor continued. “I willingly and knowingly allowed a demon to escape the Wastes. For that crime, I was exiled from my people. I would have been hunted and killed in the Labyrinth, but my knowledge of its ways exceeded that of most of my-most of the Ghaash’kala. I escaped, and now I keep the company of the likes of Zandar Thuul, friend of darkness.”
Kauth glanced over his shoulder and was surprised to see the warlock close behind, clearly listening to the orc’s words. Zandar grinned, as though he’d just been waiting for a chance to interject another barb at Vor’s expense.
“Think of me as a shade protecting the world from the blinding radiance of your soul,” the warlock said.
“The world doesn’t need protection from me,” Vor snapped, “but from the likes of you.”
“That’s ridiculous. I’m not as bad as the fiends in the Wastes.”
“A lesser evil, certainly. But still evil.”
“I’m not evil,” Zandar protested. “Just… practical.”
Vor snorted and cast a sidelong glance at Kauth.
Kauth remembered Sevren’s comment back in Varna about his two companions: “It’s like they’re married.” Indeed, he thought. Their lives are in each other’s hands, and in Sevren’s. And in mine.
I’m not evil, he told himself. Like Zandar said-just practical.
As Sevren had promised, he soon led them out from under the shelter of the Towering Wood, high on the slopes of the Shadow-crags. The sky still clung to the blue promise of summer, but the air held the chill of the snow-covered peaks. The trees gave way to fields of purple heather and hardy gray-green grass, littered with bare, dry stones left behind in the summer’s thaw.
They had emerged from the forest at the mouth of a gentle valley that beckoned them farther up the mountains. Sevren said that they were approaching one of the few easy passes through the Shadowcrags-easy in terms of the climb, at least.
“It’s an easy way into the mountains,” the shifter explained, “so it’s also an easy way for things that live in the mountains to make their way out. In winter, especially, predators from the heights spill down into this valley and out into the forest in search of prey. In summer, they have plenty of food-mountain goats, elk, and hares. But that doesn’t mean they won’t take the opportunity to vary their diet. Keep alert.”