"I was fascinated by what I saw," Vell said. "Few answers and many more questions, but at least now I have seen the faces of our enemies."
"Truly?" Lanaal asked.
Vell broke his embrace with Kellin and nodded to the elf. "One of them is the woman who abducted Sungar. She travels with a group of companions, and from what I saw, they're much closer to our destination than we are." He pointed south to the horizon, to those incongruous mountains.
CHAPTER 11
"They say the gods walk here," Nithinial said. With each foot planted in the muddy earth edging the Unicorn Run, they might have trod in the steps of the immortals. The thought was not comforting to any of the Antiquarians. This was a place where they did not belong.
They had spent quite some time marching along the banks of the famed Unicorn Run. They made no attempt to conceal their presence, but they saw no signs of life here, godly or otherwise, beyond the occasional shalass fish jumping in the waters. Certainly there was no sign of the unicorns, nor of the numerous fey believed to make this area their home.
Leng walked like he belonged there, or at least as if he thought he did. It was odd that such a dark priest could walk through such a famously hallowed place with no ill effects—the Antiquarians wondered if he were trying not to show any harm to himself, or if he were truly powerful enough to resist the effects. He haughtily sniffed the air as if all of the crystalline beauty of nature had no effect on him, indeed, as if it were disgusting to him. The blue purity of the cool, slow waters might have been like a slap to the face to the rest of them, but not for Leng. He would pollute it, destroy it.
Leng was disappointed that they had not yet seen any unicorns. "I had hoped this place which bears their name would be thick with them," he said, not so much to his companions as to the Run itself, and whatever ears might be listening. "I sacrificed one in the temple once. My acolytes captured it in the Southwood. Cyric was especially pleased with that offering. I sliced its horn off, ground it to powder, and used it to devise something special. You will see soon enough."
The fog-shrouded Star Mounts were stretched out before them now, but they still seemed an eternity away—a place they would likely never reach. The Antiquarians had been together for many years and knew each other's moods well. With Vonelh left to rot in a duskwood grove among a pile of dead fey, killed by a supposed ally, they were certainly at their lowest moment. Royce and Bessick walked slumped, defeated; Gunton could not stop himself from talking; and crazy anger blazed in Nithinial's almond-shaped eyes. His elf nature, rising to the surface in the presence of the beauty of the Unicorn Run, was the only thing stopping him from a violent act against Leng.
This was supposed to be an epic quest, but this type of epic did not fit their own modest definition. They did not revere Cyric, spending most of their prayers on Shandakul—a fellow wanderer and explorer of ancient dungeons. They recognized in Leng a truly epic evil. If he had epic heroism to match, this could be a terrible time for the North, for all Faerun even. They certainly did not want to die fighting on behalf of the Mad God's priest, but neither did they want to lose more members to his whims.
What did Ardeth think? A cool mystery, she was obviously not a willing party to this detour, but there was no obvious fear in her face. Unfortunately, they could not draw strength from her composure the way the simple-minded hobgoblin could.
"The fashion in Secomber is to say that at the headwaters of the Run lies the Glade of Life, where the gods live and dance as mortals do," said Gunton. "Others claim that it's the birthplace of all the races of Faerun, and that no further race could ever come to exist if the Glade were destroyed."
A faint roar drew them upstream, the sound growing louder and louder until they rounded a rocky bend to find a true place of legend before them. The roar of the falling water was deafening, yet it appeared as gentle as the mist that softly drifted down from the rocks high above, and the high grassy plateau surrounding it. They all stopped, stunned at the sight of this waterfall. Even Leng stood agape. He merely stared into the rushing waters, the gentle spray misting his strangely calm features.
"The first of the Sisters," said Royce. The Sisters, a set of waterfalls along the Unicorn Run's upper reaches, were famed for their beauty and natural majesty. For once, the legends did not lie.
"I thought no sight could displace Highstar Lake as the most beautiful my eyes have seen," Gunton said, gripping his bearded chin. "The alchemist Amanitus wrote..."
"Quiet, fool," shouted Leng. The calm on his face vanished as he spun to face the trees that lined the banks. With a quick incantation, a pair of black, disfigured hands appeared in the air before him, disembodied and sharp-clawed, and in a flash they flew out into the green wilds. When they returned, they were clamped around the slender arms of a naked woman with greenish hair. She resisted wildly with flailing limbs, her eyes wide in terror. The claws released the dryad at Leng's feet, dropping her flat on her face. Leng drew the flail from his waist and brought it down with all his force onto the dryad's head with a stomach-turning crack.
The Antiquarians winced. The wreck of the dryad's body shriveled before their eyes and lay motionless.
"Was that necessary?" demanded Royce. "Obviously, they know we're here."
"I prefer my women without skin the texture of bark," Leng hissed, his eyes alighting on Ardeth.
"What threat is this place to you?" Royce pressed, determined to speak, though it might mean his death. "Is it a threat to Llorkh, or the Zhentarim, or to the church of Cyric? You want to destroy this because it is beautiful, or simply because it offends you?"
The twin claws flew over to hover at Royce's neck.
"Isn't it reason enough," began the priest. "To accomplish what even Fzoul would never dare?" He turned to face the waterfall again, and dipped into a pocket deep in his robes. He produced a small crystal vial filled with viscous liquid. He tossed it in the direction of the waterfall and with its own speed it flew, vanishing into the waters.
"It is said no force can pollute the Unicorn Run," said Gunton.
The claws vanished as Leng folded his arms over his chest. "We shall see. Now you shall see what I made of that unicorn's horn."
Before their eyes, the crystalline purity of the waters became specked with spots of brown that coursed around the bend like a patch of filth, spreading its disease downstream. A fetid cesspool stink filled the air. Nithinial bent over and retched on the rocky shore.
Leng chuckled at this. "Your elf blood is showing, cur," he said.
A churning brown-green sludge manifested at the foot of the waterfall, its oily menace spreading across the river. What this substance was, none of them knew, but it bubbled and crawled on the surface of the Unicorn Run like a sheet of pain. Dead fish floated to the surface, their flesh rotting away on their bones.
"I hope this pleases you, Leng," Ardeth said. "You've taken a place famous for its beauty and serenity, and you've remade it in your own image."
Leng spun back to cast her an acid glare, but as he did so, the slime parted on the river like a curtain. Fresh water bubbled up, neutralizing the black putrescence. The thick bog of sludge weakened, and soon patches of blue broke through the inky ooze, then whole streams of clear water.
The Antiquarians breathed sighs of relief.
"Are you satisfied now?" Ardeth asked. "It seems, sometimes, the legends speak true."