“It's the fever,” he said.
Di An laid a hand on her breast. “Why am I like this?” She looked down at her mud-spattered legs. “Those are not my legs!” she said, her voice rising. “What has happened to me?”
Riverwind extended a trembling hand. “You grew up, remember? Krago gave you a potion.”
Her face contorted. “You-you're trying to trick me. You're not Mors! I'm not in my body! What have you done to me?”
“Stop it! Listen to me. You are Di An, and I am Riverwind. We've escaped from Xak Tsaroth and the underground world.”
“Lies-evil magic. You work for Li El! You are an illusion of the queen!”
Di An turned and started to run from Riverwind. He leaped and caught her, wrapping her in his arms. She struggled and raved that Li El was destroying her mind.
“Listen to me! Listen to me!” Riverwind kept repeating. Di An's response was to sink her teeth into his hand. That broke his fever-weakened composure. He struck her crisply on the jaw, and she sagged in his arms. The elf girl was featherlight, but holding her and the staff was a burden. Still, Riverwind dragged himself and his charges toward the promise of the distant blue mountains.
The marsh became more shallow. Small hummocks of dry land rose above the smooth water. Rather than a cause for joy, these dry hills proved a great challenge; Riverwind had to climb up and over them, or lengthen his journey further by going around them. Finally, with the edge of Fever Lake in sight, his legs failed him. He collapsed on a moss-covered, low hummock, Di An beside him and the Staff of Mishakal between. Riverwind did not lose consciousness.
He simply lay face down in the moss, breathing in quick, shallow gasps and burning with fever.
Great Goddess, I've failed you, he thought. This is as far as I can go.
Are you so certain? asked the sweet voice of Mishakal. Riverwind tried vainly to rise, but couldn't. You have reservoirs of strength you haven't tapped yet, she said.
He could feel the fever heat pouring from his face and his heart laboring in his chest. “I don't think I have any strength left,” he said into the moss. “Please, merciful Mishakal, heal me. Show me how to use your staff.”
Heal you? But what of the girl next to you? She is ill, also.
“Can't you heal us both?”
I choose not to.
Riverwind's dry mouth finally stopped his tongue, but the goddess heard his unspoken “why?”
Virtue is won by struggle, not by ease. Nothing is learned when a task is made easy to do, or a problem is solved without difficulty. The gods require that mortals suffer, fight, and die for virtue, in order to prove and preserve the worth of these ideals. Only evil promises expedience.
Riverwind wasn't sure he understood. If the goddess's words were true, why did she bother speaking to him now?
Because you have a task greater than your own life. To restore belief in the gods by bringing forth my staff; that is a labor of glory.
“Should I be the one you heal?” he whispered through swollen lips.
I will heal you or the girl. Decide, and lay the staff across whoever you chose.
Riverwind heaved himself up on his hands and looked into the sky. “You condemn one of us to death, the other to perpetual madness! Where is the justice in that?” he demanded.
The voice of Mishakal was gone.
On the ground beside Riverwind lay her staff. As he watched, the dull wood began to shimmer. A glow, palest blue at first, suffused the staff. The radiance grew brighter, its color deeper, and the staff was once more a thing of sapphire crystal. Riverwind reached out for it.
And quickly withdrew his hand. Who was more valuable? he wondered. He had a divine mission, to bring the staff to Goldmoon, But Di An had a mission, too. Her people were waiting for news of the surface world. She could be the one to bring it to them. Mors would be angry-but if she could offer to lead the Hestites up to the blue sky, he certainly would forgive her. If Di An died, it might be years before the Hestites got the help they needed. The poor food and sickly air would only increase the diggers' suffering, and no one would ever know of it.
No one but the gods.
Riverwind raged against Mishakal. She had done this deliberately! She posed him this question and left him to decide: life or death, divine will or human compassion. How could he choose?
Di An murmured under her breath, almost awake. He left his anger for a moment and studied the elf girl-no, she was a girl no longer. Di An lay there, caked with mud and dried scum; her copper mesh dress hung in tatters, the black color long since scuffed off most of the red metal links. Here was a person two hundred years old, who had lived longer as a child and slave than he had lived as a free man. Di An loved him, or thought she did. Could he dismiss her feelings as the whim of a child? What would she do if the choice were hers? He knew the answer to that. He knew he couldn't put his own needs before hers.
Riverwind turned her grimy, slightly sunburned face to him. A new bruise was showing on her jaw where he'd hit her. It stabbed him to his heart. Brushing the dried dirt from her lips, Riverwind bent down and kissed Di An lightly. He raised the glowing staff of blue crystal and laid it across her body. Just as he did, her eyes fluttered open.
“Riverwind,” she said clearly, staring directly at him.
In a single, silent, blinding flash, the elf woman and the sacred sapphire staff vanished.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Gone!
Riverwind groped in the dirt where Di An and the staff had been. This was no figment of his sickness-strained mind. The woman and rod were gone. He rocked back on his haunches and stared blankly at the spot. He had made the wrong choice. The Blue Crystal Staff was lost, his quest had failed. Pain welled up in his heart and exploded. His anguished scream reverberated across Fever Lake. Animal sounds ceased, and all was quiet.
Riverwind fell face down on the ground. Tears welled up in his eyes. He had chosen wrong. He had failed Mishakal. He had failed Goldmoon. Catchflea had died for nothing. He pressed his face into the dirt, feeling it scrape his cheeks. How could he go home? How could he face Goldmoon again without the staff? She was lost to him forever.
The plainsman lay quiet for a long time, a great despair consuming him.
Finally, he got slowly to his feet and looked toward the Forsaken Mountains. The shaft leading down to Hest was there; he would throw himself down it. Riverwind's bowed back straightened a bit with this decision. The magic in the shaft was gone; he would die in the fall. Then no one would know his shame.
Mors, master of the realm of Hest, sat unmoving in a hard stone chair, listening to the chosen representatives of the diggers and warriors argue over how to distribute the meager harvest of wheat. They had been disputing for a long time, and Mors was rapidly losing what little patience he had. The crop was the smallest in Hest's history, and word had come that the fruit trees were dying as well. Without magic, there was no way to preserve them. There would be hunger in Vartoom before long.
Mors resolved to quell the petty bickering by force if need be, but even as he prepared to shout for order, a strange thing happened. He saw a glimmer of light. It stunned him, for he had lived in total blackness since the day Karn had blinded him. The light was only a gleam, a firefly flash of blue, but still he saw it and it shocked him.
Mors stood. A digger representative called a question to him. The blind warrior did not hear him. Gradually the hall fell silent. Mors remained standing, motionless. The twinkle of light still glimmered before his sightless eyes.