Around a bend they came face to face with the falls. They all halted, stunned by the majestic beauty.
The falls were in a high conical cavern, five hundred feet from floor to ceiling. They issued from the apex of the cone and plummeted with feathers of wild spray two hundred feet to a ledge that jutted into their path. The water flowed horizontally for some five feet, then plunged off the edge of the ledge another three hundred feet to the floor. At the bottom of the falls, where the three travelers stood, was a pool of churning froth, colored golden brown. Where centuries of crystal-laden water had splashed on the walls, thick brown deposits of topaz, probably dozens of feet thick, now hung. The walls were studded with faceted gems.
“There! Do you see?” Di An pointed her long finger high in the air. By the ledge three hundred feet above them was a dark, circular opening.
“What is it?” asked Catchflea.
“The tunnel we tried to take in the Well of Wind would've brought us there,” Di An said. “That's our way out.”
The cavern wall seemed to present no great obstacle. The rugged face had plenty of hand- and footholds. It was decided that Di An would scale the wall and, once she reached the tunnel entrance, she would let down a chain for the heavier, less agile men to climb.
Riverwind and Di An sorted through their climbing gear. Catchflea, bored, wandered off along the edge of the pool. Mist and spray drifted over the mossy shore, muting the green light. The steady roar of the falls drowned out the voices of his comrades. Catchflea wanted a sample of the topaz so abundant here. Gems often had magical and healing properties, and these subterranean topazes were likely to be especially pure.
Every surface above the level of the moss was covered with topaz. Catchflea examined and rejected a number of large crystals as flawed. He wanted a perfect stone to take back to Que-Shu.
He walked around an outcropping and was confronted with yet another wonder: a forest of topaz crystals growing at various angles from the rock floor. Some of the crystals were a foot tall and only a few inches in diameter, but some were as tall as he and more than a foot thick. He stared open-mouthed at the spectacular forest and then, with a gleeful yelp, headed in. Though he would have dearly loved to take one of the magnificent pillars of topaz home, he realized it might be more prudent to try to dislodge one of the smaller ones. Picking his way over the sharp, crystal-covered ground, he searched for a specimen of good carrying size. He was trying to pry one loose when he noticed the toe of a soldier's boot.
Catchflea recoiled, sprawling backward in the topaz forest. He looked up and saw an elven warrior, sword upraised, standing several feet away from him.
“I am a friend!” Catchflea declared. “And unarmed, yes!” The warrior did not move. Catchflea repeated his friendly assertion while getting to his feet. His moccasins were almost gone, and he didn't relish the idea of running over the sharp topazes to escape a Hestite soldier.
The warrior still hadn't moved, so Catchflea approached him. He almost laughed aloud when he came within a few feet. The warrior was a statue!
“Halloo!” he called when he saw Riverwind and Di An again.
“Where have you been? It's dangerous to go off by yourself,” Riverwind said sternly.
“Yes, yes, but I've made a wonderful discovery,” the old man said. “Come see!”
He led them along the shoreline to the forest of crystals, where the stone soldier stood. Behind the first was ranged an entire company of statues. Di An counted eight rows of four and reported that there could be more, but in the dim light it was hard to tell. Some had their swords upraised and others stared toward the ceiling. Little detail of armor or facial features was visible. Only the smooth, golden topaz.
“You see?” Catchflea said. “Isn't it amazing? Why would anyone set up so many statues in this lonely place? Do you know, Di An?”
She scratched her head. “I cannot say. They are not Hest-ites, though, I am certain of that.”
Riverwind frowned. “Who else could be down here?”
She didn't reply but stepped over the jagged gemstones to get a closer look. Standing on tip-toe, Di An peered into the face of the first warrior. With a loud gasp, she stumbled backward. The grappling hook she'd been holding fell from her hands and she fled to Riverwind.
“That's no statue!” she said. “It's a real warrior, encased in stone!”
Riverwind and Catchflea exchanged incredulous looks and hurried to the first figure. Sure enough, on closer examination, the translucent citrine stone showed the planar features of an elven male. Eyebrows, eyelashes, and tiny facial wrinkles could be seen inside the cold gemstone shell.
“What calamity could do this to an entire company of fighters?” Catchflea breathed.
Di An shivered. “Only Vedvedsica had that kind of power.”
Riverwind stood nose to nose with the elf warrior. There was something odd about his face. He studied the fellow closely and finally said, “He's alive. His eyes follow me.”
Catchflea and Di An fell back a pace. The old soothsayer looked down the silent ranks of frozen soldiers. “Alive?” he whispered. “All of them?”
“I want to know who they are,” Riverwind said, stepping back from his inspection of the warrior.
“Warriors of Sithas,” Di An said quietly. She had moved even farther away.
Riverwind drew his saber-itself coated with a thin veneer of gemstone-and said, “I cannot walk away from these imprisoned wretches, knowing they are alive inside tombs of stone.” He raised his saber and tapped the pommel experimentally against the elf warrior's breastplate. The topaz rang and the warrior remained unmoved. With more force, Riverwind smote the same spot twice more, and the crystalline coating cracked and fell away in large chunks.
He broke the topaz away from the elf's chest, arms, and neck. The warrior's sword arm, when freed, fell to his side. The coating on the warrior's face was now seamed by hundreds of cracks. The plainsman was able to pull it away. When his face was clear, the warrior exhaled with a dry wheezing.
“Free!” he croaked. He inhaled and exhaled deeply several times. Suddenly, he seemed to recollect his surroundings. He looked wildly around the grotto. “Where is the vile sorcerer? Where is Vedvedsica?”
“Not here, that is for certain,” said Riverwind. “Who are you?”
“I am Kirinthastarus, captain to His Highness, King Sithas of Silvanesti,” said the warrior. “Who are you, human?”
Riverwind introduced himself and Catchflea. Kirinthastarus said, “And the renegade?”
The elf girl hid behind Riverwind, until the latter pulled her into the open. “This is our friend, Di An, no renegade. It is because of her we found you.”
Kirinthastarus's eyes narrowed. “Did she turn against Hest?” he asked. “Does she know where Vedvedsica and the rebels have gone?” As he spoke, he bent to free his own feet, using his sword.
Riverwind was about to answer these odd questions when. Catchflea interrupted. “Captain,” he said, “do you know how long you were imprisoned in the topaz?”
The captain straightened and answered at once. “A day or two perhaps.” Catchflea and Riverwind exchanged astonished looks.
“What?” said Kirinthastarus. “Have you news of Hest? You must tell me. My warriors and I must complete the task given us by our great king.”
“Ah, what task is that?” asked Catchflea.
“To locate the hiding place of the rebels led by Hestantaf a-las and bring them to King Sithas's justice.”
Di An uttered a cry and tried to flee. Riverwind caught her around the waist and lifted her off her feet.
“Let me go! Let me go!” she said, running in midair. “These warriors will kill my people!”
“Be at peace, little one.” To Kirinthastarus, Riverwind said, “I don't know an easy way to tell you this, Captain. You have been entombed in that crystal shell for two and a half millennia. The monarch you serve has long since gone to his rest, as has Hest himself. Di An's people are only the children and grandchildren of the people who followed him into the cavern.”