“What does it mean?” the boy Riverwind had asked.
“It means, no matter where you wander, the goddess is always with you,” his father had replied.
Always with you-like the face of Goldmoon, which was never long out of his thoughts. Riverwind closed his eyes and conjured up her image. The silver-golden hair, the flashing eyes, the soft, red lips… The sight caused tears to trickle from under his closed eyelids. She was so beautiful. His quest having failed, she would marry another. Ar-rowthorn would insist. He had never approved of Riverwind anyway.
The idea of Goldmoon as another man's wife sent a surge of anger through Riverwind. Despair had not completely consumed him. He would never permit Arrowthorn to marry her to another! He would steal her away first-
His eyes snapped open. How stupid! How selfish! He'd forgotten his other vital task, to warn everyone of the dra-conians and their plans for conquest. That alone should be reason enough to return to Que-Shu. And his courting quest was not a failure. While he lived, the quest would go on. And if it took ten years or a hundred, Goldmoon would wait for him. He knew how strong her spirit and her will were. She would never be forced into marriage.
Riverwind got up from the boulder and started climbing. Every mountain begins the same way, he thought grimly. From the bottom, going up. And that's the way, ill or hearty, he had to take them.
It was a nightmare climb. The plainsman's legs shivered in the cooling mountain air, and more than a few times they failed, buckling and throwing him to the ground. When that happened, Riverwind clawed his way along with his fingers. Never mind that blood flowed from his torn nails. Never mind the blurring of his sight by the still-raging fever. He had to continue his journey.
He reached a small plateau and rolled over on his back to catch his breath. It streamed out, a thin white vapor in the night air. Only a moment to rest, just a short moment.
The Blue Crystal Staff materialized in the air above him. He moaned, thinking it was a feverish delusion, but when Riverwind put out a hand to grasp the floating staff, his fingers closed around smooth, hard sapphire. The staff had returned. It was cold and bright in his hand. The magic aura subsided, and Riverwind felt the rough, dark wood.
“Thank you, Mishakal,” he said. “Thank you!” The mountain rang with his cry.
He wondered what had happened to Di An, where she was. The goddess must have helped her. She must have. He said a silent prayer for the elf woman.
Riverwind resumed his climb. He leaned heavily on the five-foot-long rod, and it supported him on the long ascent.
In the days that followed, Riverwind's fortunes waxed and waned. In the high, narrow valleys of the Forsaken Mountains, he found wild berries and roots to eat, but no game he could catch bare-handed. The swamp fever would fade for an hour, or a day, only to strike him again, reducing the plainsman to a huddled, shivering wreck. During these periods, Riverwind wandered aimlessly off his chosen path, sometimes three or four leagues in the wrong direction. His mind grew dull with the heat and pain. He cut his hands and feet, stumbling over sharp stones. He wandered for three days, delirious, only to be brought to his senses by a sudden downpour of ice-cold rain. It was then that he discovered how lost he was. The peaks around him were unfamiliar, and the forest unlike any he'd entered before.
While Riverwind stood in the cold rain, marshaling his thoughts, he heard a young man's voice say, “What do you want, vagabond?”
He turned and saw he had stumbled into the open near a camp. Two stout wagons were set axle to axle, a canvas tent spread out before them. A fire burned fitfully under the sodden tarp. Standing between Riverwind and the camp was a young man in a dripping cape and rain-soaked hat. He held a slim-bladed sword. The point faced Riverwind.
“I said, what do you want?” repeated the young man. From beneath his hat, yellow-hair gleamed.
“I'm lost,” Riverwind said.
“Well, wandering thieves aren't welcome here!”
“There's no need for threats,” Riverwind said. His teeth chattered as the cold of the rain seemed to penetrate to his bones. “I'm not a brigand.”
“How do I know that?” asked the blond fellow. “You're a big fellow and you carry a stout stick.”
“Look, could I warm myself by your fire? I am chilled through and through.”
“No! Be off!” He stamped his foot for emphasis, but only succeeded in splashing mud on his own boots.
Riverwind considered trying to disarm the youngster, but before he could act on the notion, his temporary sense of balance fled, and the next thing he knew, he was lying in the mud on his back. The blond boy was joined by another figure in a hooded cape.
“Who's that? What did you do to him?” asked the hooded one. The voice sounded like a girl's.
“I did nothing,” replied the boy. “He's only some beggar.”
“He has the bearing of a warrior,” the girl observed. “But he looks quite ill.”
“We can't take in every starving robber who passes.”
“Well, we certainly can't leave him out here in the rain!” the girl declared. Riverwind wanted to applaud her good manners, but he was too weak to even make a sound.
The girl tried to lift him by an arm, but wasn't strong enough. The boy watched for a moment, then joined in. The two of them half-carried, half-dragged Riverwind to the wagons. With much straining and complaining, they hoisted him into one wagon.
The canvas flap fell, and the boy removed his hat. He had a high forehead and lots of freckles. His gray eyes were bloodshot. The girl slipped back her hood. She had a pleasant, plump face, a button nose, and curly black hair.
“Hand me a cloth, Darmon,” said the girl. The boy plucked a rag from the bow frame of the roof and gave it to her. She blotted Riverwind's face and neck, wrung out the rag, and dried his hands and arms.
“Thank you,” the plainsman managed to say.
“What's your name?” asked the girl gently.
“Riverwind.”
The boy, Darmon, snorted. “A barbarian name!” he declared. The girl shushed him.
“Don't take him too seriously,” she advised the young plainsman. “Darmon likes to think he has noble blood, and that allows him to look down on other people.”
“I do have noble blood, Lona! My uncle is Lord Bedric of-”
“So you've told me. And told me.” The girl wrung her cloth again. “My name is Arlona. Lona for short. What happened to you, Riverwind, that put you in such a state?”
He blinked his burning eyes and marshaled his thoughts. “I'm trying to get home,” he said. “To Que-Shu. My beloved is there, waiting for me. I have to give this staff to Goldmoon.” It lay beside him on the pallet of blankets.
“That thing?” Darmon said, pointing at the staff with one toe. “What's so special about that old stick?”
“The Staff of Mishakal. It fulfills my quest,” Riverwind said feverishly.
The boy rolled his eyes and shook his head, muttering, “Barbarians.”
Lona made some hot soup, and while it simmered she told Riverwind how she and Darmon came to be out here in the middle of nowhere.
“Darmon and I are the last survivors of Quidnin's Royal Theatre Company,” Lona said, stirring the broth. “We'd been on the road from the New Ports for Solace when Master Quidnin had a falling out with the wagon leader over the best route to take. Quidnin won out, unfortunately, and we went east.” The dark-haired girl stared into the pot. “It seems we should have gone west. We ended up in the mountains. The drovers were furious with Quidnin for getting us lost. There was a terrible argument, and the drovers abandoned us. Quidnin was still certain that we couldn't be too far off. He sent scouts one by one to search for help, for food, for water. None of the scouts ever came back. Of the eleven people in the theatre company when we set out from the New Ports, only Darmon and I remain.”