"Who's hurt?" he groaned. "How badly?"
He forced himself to look around, seeing past the white spots that still lingered in front of his eyes. The young elves of the tribe were scattered around him in the meadow. Some sat up while others huddled on the ground, crying. Two, the boy Dallatar and a younger girl, lay perfectly still amid the churned sod and rocks.
Then the girl, Tiffli, moaned and rubbed a hand across her face. Iydahoe and Vanisia went to Dallatar. The lad showed no sign of awareness, though his chest rose and fell weakly. In desperation, the warrior crawled to the frail form, while Vanisia and Bakali helped Tiffli to her feet.
But the forest stretched all around them, trees leaning crazily. The bleak clouds had closed in, concealing any view of the horizon or the sky. Which way should they go? There were no heights in view, no clue in the tangled woodland or shattered clearing to indicate where they had been headed before the quake had struck.
Iydahoe, for the first time in his life, was lost.
With that knowledge, he released the tiny shard of hope he had grasped-there was no way to escape this disaster. The tribe had no Pathfinder. He had tried to fill the role, had tried to be that which they needed him to be. He had desperately strived to perform tasks for which he was not prepared.
And he had failed.
Chapter 30
Despair wighed on Iydahoe, pinning him to the ground, a physical weight that overwhelmed his puny strength. Cataclysm had come to Ansalon, and he and his tribe would die as surely as any insects on a lightning-struck log. If another earthquake wracked the ground, the convulsion would kill the battered elves. Even if the ground remained still, Iydahoe was lost-how could he seek the heights of the Grandfather Ram when he lay directionless on this ruined plateau? Around them stretched a tangle of quake-racked forest. Progress would be painfully slow, perhaps impossible, in every direction.
Abruptly a glimmer of white showed through the chaos of broken trees. The brightness caught Iydahoe's eye-it seemed the only pure and wholesome thing in this nightmare of a day. Straining to rise, the wild elf found that his muscles worked again. Grimly, desperately, Iydahoe staggered to his feet and took several steps toward the wood.
"What is it?" asked Vanisia, while Bakali and Kagwallas looked at him curiously.
"There!" he croaked, as the white patch showed again.
Then he saw the head-huge, with the broad forehead a swath of alabaster fur. The huge, round eyes, soft and luminescent, studied him with a wisdom and compassion that moved Iydahoe to tears. Glowing pale yellow, those eyes touched him in a way that made him stand more steadily, helped him to swallow his fear and clear his head.
Only then did he notice the horns, spiraling to either side of that great head. Triple circles, each of them, culminated in the proud, curling points of a mountain king.
"What are you looking at?" cried Vanisia, stepping after him, touching his hand. Iydahoe knew then that only he could see the Grandfather Ram-and even as he realized this the animal turned, with a flick of its snowy tail, and vanished into the woods.
"Come. Gather the children. I know which way to go." He stooped and picked up Dallatar. The young elf's breathing was shallow, his eyes rolled back in his head, but he still lived.
Iydahoe led them into the forest, picking a route through the felled timber that best followed the elusive white figure. He discovered that, by walking along on the trunks instead of the ground, the Kagonesti could make fairly rapid progress. Gradually the plateau sloped again, a gentle incline signaling the beginning of another ascent.
They broke from the trees onto a grassy slope that extended more steeply upward. The wrenching earthquake had torn numerous fissures in the soil, but Iydahoe had no difficulty finding a straight, smooth path between these frequent chasms. Soon they arrived at a ridge extending from the north to the south, seeing a deep canyon and then lofty, rugged mountains beyond.
Vanisia instinctively turned north, toward the highest mountains of the Khalkist range and the heart of the smoking inferno that racked the world. Beyond those heights, hundreds of miles away, lay Istar.
To the south, the mountains were not so high, rounded summits and sheltered, tree-lined slopes. In the far distance beyond them lay the southern lowlands of Silvanesti. Iydahoe stared in that direction and felt the warming comfort of a soothing, return embrace of wisdom. Were those luminous eyes gazing at him from somewhere in that distance?
"Wait," Iydahoe said, looking at the seething wave of the cloud. The highest ground lay to the north, but he felt strangely drawn to the south. "Follow me. We'll go this way," he declared, trusting his instincts. Still carrying Dallatar, he led the others toward that more gentle terrain.
The elfwoman's face was streaked with smudges of dirt, her once golden hair tangled with mud and brambles. Vanisia looked at the rising, gentle slopes, then at the tall, black-haired elf. Nodding, she followed, and the youngsters came on behind.
Wind whipped over the ridge, pushing them first to one side, then, sheering viciously, twisting to send them staggering in the other direction. The clouds had risen high, blanketing the land from far above, and now they could see for dozens of miles.
On the vast plain beside the mountain range, the ancient flatland that had been known as Vingaard and Solamnia, the northern horizon shimmered. A white edge advanced, with smooth grayness flowing behind. The ground dissolved into something like sky-a bright, smooth surface that swept steadily closer, obscuring woodlands and fields, roads and towns.
With growing horror, Iydahoe understood. "It's water- the sea flows onto the plain! Ansalon is sinking!"
Again the elves turned and climbed, this time propelled by a clear sense of urgency, moving toward the southern heights on the path chosen by Iydahoe. They trotted along the smooth tundra of the rising ridge crest, gaining altitude quickly, avoiding the cliffs that towered all around.
The flood continued below, a deceptively gentle- appearing blanket drawn over the land. As the wave drew closer, the elves saw an angry fringe of furious white water burying forests, sweeping across pasture lands with the speed of a strong wind. It rushed from the north, swelling to fill their entire western horizon, filling out in a great bay to the southwest. Spray, closely followed by massive breakers, surged against the foothills, inundating the grotto where the tribe had made its village. More and more water flowed into the new sea, and the level of its tempestuous surface continued to rise.
Quickly the surge swept upward, splashing over the slopes that the Kagonesti had climbed only that morning. Waters swept over the ridge, the sea filling the plateau where the tribe had weathered the earthquake. The water churned close now and Iydahoe sensed the menace in the storm-tossed surface. Gales whipped monstrous waves upward, exploding into showers of spray that rose all the way to the ridge crest.
In the saddle behind the tribe, where that crest dipped low, the waves lunged all the way through the pass, showering into the canyon to the east. The sea level continued to rise, and these waves became a steady current, then a thundering cascade forming a permanent barrier between the mountains of the high Khalkists and the tribe's own southern ridge. And still the Newsea grew, chasing the fleeing elves with almost palpable desire- like a predator racing desperately after choice prey.
For hours they ran, though the incline of the ridge lessened for a long time, until they were running along level ground. Higher summits beckoned them to the south, the nearest several miles away, and Iydahoe could only hope that they reached it before the flood swept them away.