Riverwind looked west across the flat, marshy plain and sighed. “It's the only tunnel we've got,” he said. He hooked his arm in hers. “Come. Let's not waste the darkness.”
Shanz and his remaining draconian soldiers stood on a dry spit of sand not far from the temple of Mishakal. Hulking large above them was the upright form of Khisanth.
“They have entered Fever Lake,” Shanz said. His reptilian eyes could pierce the dark of night and follow Riverwind and Di An by the heat of their trail. From where he stood now, he could see their path twisting dimly away.
“No warm-blood has ever crossed the lake and lived,” the dragon said smugly.
“What is your bidding, Great One?” Shanz asked.
Khisanth's massive foreclaw rested lightly on the dracon-ian's bare head. She petted Shanz as a woman would stroke a cat. “We have much work to do here. In a few days, go out and recover that staff. I cannot allow so powerful a talisman to fall into human hands.”
“It shall be done, Great One.”
“Excellent. Then I shall see to the enlargement of your garrison. Prepare for the arrival of more troops.”
Shanz asked, “The end of Krago's plan does not distress you?”
“Not overly much, little Shanz. Like all humans, Krago imagined he could seize hold of the elemental forces with his soft, bare hands. Only the race of dragons can achieve such things.” Khisanth opened her wings prior to leaping into flight. “Our armies will conquer Krynn without help from humans,” she said.
“They will be fodder for our swords!” Shanz declared.
“As I expect.” Khisanth sprang into the air, made one lazy circle, and flew back to Xak Tsaroth. Shanz and his officers remained a few moments. The captain stared out at the darkness and watched the faint traces of scarlet dim and disappear into the sickly miasma rising out of Fever Lake.
The sun struck their backs when it first cleared the horizon. A gray mist rose from the shallow waters of the lake. Frogs and water bugs ceased their night songs with the coming of the light, so an eerie silence fell over the swamp.
Riverwind ached from head to toe from the poisoning of his blood by the fever. Chills and shakes came upon him in great surges, often so strong that he had to stop walking. His eyes burned, and his throat was raw. He did not have the strength or concentration to hunt, fish, or even gather wild grasses to eat.
The fever had come to Di An, too. Her teeth rattled when the chills racked her slim body, and when the fever burned her face, Di An's breath came in short, hard gasps. Throughout it all she remained in her lost dream of home, the familiar caverns of Hest.
Still they slogged forward. There was no place to rest except in the stinking boggy water. Riverwind couldn't believe the dragon would forget and let them go, if only because she wouldn't want word of her presence in Xak Tsaroth to spread. It was this idea that drove him on. That and the Staff of Mishakal, which he never let leave his fevered grip.
“I return in triumph,” he whispered. “I have fulfilled Ar-rowthorn's impossible quest.” Riverwind smiled over chattering teeth. “All of Que-Shu will watch as I hand the Staff of Mishakal to my beloved. She will hold it proudly aloft. She will know how to use it. The villagers will cheer, and Arrowthorn will have to agree to our joining. Our joining, Goldmoon. Our joining…”
Riverwind moved doggedly through the swamp, the imagined cheers of his people still ringing in his ears.
The sun burned away the mist, and in the distance the plainsman saw something that cheered his heart enormously. Rising like blue shadows from the marshy plain were the mountains. They were not forsaken to him, but a glorious sight.
“Do you see?” he said excitedly to Di An. “The mountains! Beautiful, wonderful mountains! Clear, cold streams, game, fish.”
“Slice of bread… a pear… a peach…,” Di An murmured. “ 'Neath the golden waterfall. Strange. I feel strange.”
“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.