A sob, then: “Here.”
He turned and mounted the cracked steps again. There, slumped in a far corner of the portico, was the elf girl. She didn't move until Riverwind knelt beside her, then she flung her arms around him. Her grip was strong with fear.
“Are you all right?” he asked gently. She didn't answer, but kept her face pressed to his chest. “I thought you might be lost in the swamp.”
“I thought you were dead!”
“No. One of the lizard men dealt me a mortal wound, but the goddess raised me up and healed all my hurts. And she gave me this.” She sat back, and he brought the staff around for her to see. Di An looked puzzled so Riverwind explained what Mishakal had told him.
“The gods have favored you,” she said. Di An put a hand to his cheek. Impulsively, she kissed him, but Riverwind broke away. “Don't,” he said, “You know I love another.”
“She is far away.”
“Goldmoon is always here,” he said, touching a hand to his heart.
Di An shrank from him, pulling back into the deep shadows of the temple wall. “I'm sorry. I thought, since my change, you might see me differently. Not as a child, but as a woman.”
Riverwind cupped her cheek with one hand. “You are a beautiful woman, Di An. And you've been a brave companion.” He found his gaze caught by her enormous dark eyes. Those eyes regarded him with frank devotion. Even as he spoke to her of the futility of her feelings for him, he found himself leaning toward her. Her hand came up and rested lightly over his on her face. Her lips were trembling. “A beautiful and true companion,” he said softly.
Di An could hardly bear his nearness, his tenderness. Her heart overflowed with her love of him. “I love you, Riverwind,” she whispered.
Her own words broke the spell. Riverwind took his hand away and moved back. Jolted, Di An also withdrew.
“I'm sorry,” he said. “You are my friend. I would lay down my life to save yours, but my heart is already given away.” He finished by standing and settling the draconian sword belt around his hips. “Let's find some shelter. Tomorrow, we'll try to cross the Cursed Lands.”
Di An looked away from the man's tall form, outlined in the moonlight. “Could we not cross tonight?' she asked.
“To try to find our way through that area at night would be suicide.” He offered his hand, and after a slight hesitation, Di An took it. “Tomorrow.”
Riverwind awoke refreshed, surprisingly so for having slept on a cold stone floor. He stretched and smiled at the sunlit view showing through a window opening. He and Di An had taken refuge in a small building, somewhat secluded from the main structures around the temple. Before falling asleep, he'd worried a bit about Shanz sending more draconians after them. But the draconian leader probably thought they were miles away by now. Riverwind's vigilant hearing detected no stirrings of draconians throughout the night.
Di An was not where she had lain down during the night. When the sun had risen, she'd moved to an inside corner, buried as deeply as possible in the comforting darkness. When Riverwind went over to waken her, he found her awake, eyes wide and staring.
“Di An,” he said, “are you well?”
“The light has returned,” she mumbled. “The killing light.”
“The sun? Yes, it returns every day,” he said. Di An blinked once and didn't reply. Riverwind gave her arm a friendly squeeze and said, “I'm going down to the water to see if I can't gather up something to eat. I'm famished.”
Outside, only the metallic possessions of the dead draconians remained. Even the dust from the dead creatures had blown away. Riverwind poked around until he found a long-bladed knife. He lashed the knife with a length of vine to a fairly straight ironclaw branch, making a crude spear. He caught a few fat frogs and tied them as bait in the knee-deep water, at the end of short lengths of vine. Then, he stood motionless with the sun before him, and waited. Soon the water roiled around the cut-up bait. He cast the spear into the green-black water and hauled it back. A fat, grayish fish wriggled unhappily on the knife blade. Soon, he had two more.
“Di An!” he said triumphantly, walking into their shelter. “Catfish!”
The girl from the caverns of Hest had squeezed herself into the tightest ball she could. Riverwind tried to tease her out, but she would not so much as lift her head to see what he was talking about. From helplessness he went to frustration, then anger.
“Look at me! We must leave as soon as possible. You have to overcome this fear! There isn't anything about the open air that can hurt you,” he said vehemently.
He tossed the catfish on the floor by her feet. After skinning them-not an easy task with his large knife-he skewered the fillets on sticks. Over a slow, smoky fire of ironclaw twigs, Riverwind roasted the fish.
There was a soapstone font filled with rainwater in one of the ruined buildings on the north side of the temple. Using a fragment of draconian armor as a dipper, he brought cool water and a cooked fish to Di An. She would not eat. She was completely paralyzed, and didn't seem to hear Riverwind. He ate his fish and pondered the elf girl, a prisoner of her own mind. Surely this was an illness, like fever or pox.
Then he remembered: The Staff of Mishakal cured illnesses.
He didn't know exactly how to go about curing her, though. Riverwind held the staff out like a spear and touched Di An with the tip. Nothing happened. The staff remained dark, rough wood, without even the slightest glow of sapphire blue. It was no use; he just didn't know how to make it work.
“We must go to the temple,” Riverwind said. He lifted Di An in his arms. She sighed and relaxed enough to lie in his grasp. “Giant,” she whispered. As soon as they went outside, Di An shook and cried with fear, but Riverwind held her tightly and hurried to the temple. Inside, he knelt before the statue of the goddess.
“Great Goddess,” he said, “bring your light to this girl's mind. Save her from her fear. Make her healthy once more.” Nothing happened. The statue remained cold and lifeless, its delicate marble fingers curled around the empty air where once the staff had been.
Anger threatened to cloud the plainsman's mind. His hands clenched into fists, but that was no help. Going to Di An, he scooped her up in his arms once more.
“We're going outside,” he said sternly. “You have to learn that there's nothing to be afraid of. The sky is not an enemy, and there is no danger in open air.”
“No!” she said, convulsing. Di An dug her fingers into his arms. “Please, no, I can't bear it!”
“You must. We must keep moving, or risk capture by Shanz.”
He carried Di An out into the late morning sun. Fluffy, grayish clouds with flat bottoms sailed in the river of the sky, creating cycles of light and shade. Riverwind marched out to the sandy verge between the edge of the ancient pavement and the beginning of the ironclaw forest. Di An clung to him, face buried against his chest. Riverwind tried to disengage her. She held on with the desperation of the driven.
“Let go,” he said. “Let go!” When the elf girl would not, he pried her away. Di An's eyes were wide with terror. She was dizzy, sick. She knew she would fall if he let go of her.
It tore Riverwind's heart to see her so frightened, but he knew he must be adamant. “Look at me! Look where you are! There is no danger,” he said loudly.
Di An's lower lip quivered. “I can't simply tell myself to stop being afraid,” she said in a barely audible voice. “It doesn't work.”
“I'm going to put you down,” Riverwind said. Di An sank to her knees as he set her on the ground. When he released her, she uttered a sharp cry and flung herself face down on the sandy soil. She tore at the ground with her hands, trying to dig herself a nice, safe hole.