Figures were coming down from the mountain. He couldn't see them, but he knew they were there. He'd seen them before, some of them, in the pool.
They carried the axe. The axe would bring it all down. It would expose them and make them vulnerable. It would tear down the magic on the menhir—the magic that concealed them.
He knew it because the Shepherds knew it. .
"Who are the Shepherds?" Vell said aloud. His companions in the High Forest heard it and had no answer. He was not asking them, but his true fellows in the hidden marsh of the Sanctuary.
You are, came the answer. He didn't know where the reply came from.
The behemoths arrayed themselves in lines, ready to attack the intruders. He did the same. He wondered if he could control the behemoth whose perspective he shared, but he didn't want to try. The animals grunted and paced.
Why did the Shepherds not protect them?
Vell knew: because they expect me to.
"I've failed them," Vell said. This time, he addressed the humans around him. "They gave me the power so I would protect them."
He heard voices ask many questions, but he pulled away from them, deeper and deeper into his vision. Four outsiders stood at the very rim of the Sanctuary.
* * * * *
"They died to get us here," said Royce as they stood near the northernmost phandar. "Vonelh, Nithinial, Bessick, the werebat... this expedition even claimed Mythkar Leng." To Ardeth, he added, "This had better be worthwhile."
"I'll try not to disappoint," said Ardeth, her tone somewhere between haughty and flirtatious. She cast a spell to reveal emanations of magic, then narrowed her eyes in concentration. "There," she said, pointing in the direction of the phandar trees. Gan, Royce, and Gunton stared without seeing anything different.
Ardeth drew a number of crossbow bolts from her leathers and slowly loaded one into her crossbow. "Geildarr's gifts," she explained, and held the crossbow at the ready.
"Illusion magic," guessed Royce. "We came all this way to pilfer illusion magic?"
"Don't underestimate the power of illusion, or its value," said Ardeth. "I've recently been reminded of what it's capable of. Anything that can create an illusion this size could conceal a marching army. And that's assuming that it's the only..."
A voice not his own suddenly rolled out of Gan's throat. "Please reconsider this," it said. This time the language was Illuskan, if an oddly accented and archaic version of it. "Turn away, travelers," it continued. "We warn you again. Our secrets are ours. We keep them with our might."
"And we shall take them with ours," Ardeth promised. "Gan..."
The hobgoblin needed no instructions. He was seething with anger at the idea of something controlling his body again, and he charged the area sectioned off by the phandar trees, the axe held high over his head. The instant it touched the invisible field, a reddish energy flowed out of the axe; it trembled in his hands, nodding toward the center of the triangle. Shocked, Gan slowed and took a few steps backward just as the axe's energy punched a hole through the illusion. A red pulse burst away and traveled halfway across the field before colliding with another source of magic. The rest of the illusion crumbled around him.
* * * * *
"Vell," said Thluna. "What's happening?"
"They have arrived," Vell answered, though his eyes were still staring into another place. Then he added, "We have failed."
CHAPTER 16
More than a dozen giant lizards ran through the thinly forested marsh of the revealed Sanctuary, toward the four intruders. Their long, snakelike necks leaned forward, and the ground trembled as they charged. Each was larger than several cottages, weighing more than twin dragons. Each step threw up huge sprays of water from the marsh and covered the charging behemoths in a shower of mist. Royce, Gunton, and Gan could only stare, just as they had at Elaacrimalicros. Scaly mountains bore down on them, and they could do nothing but watch.
Ardeth's crossbow sang. Each bolt zipped across the marsh and met its mark. No behemoth would be deterred by so minor a blow, but these bolts were fashioned with powerful magic at no little expense. When they struck behemoth scales, the beast disappeared, as if it had never been.
Ardeth giggled as she watched the magic work. The charging behemoths quickly noticed their disappearing companions and slowed their onrush, turning sideways and exposing more of their flanks to Ardeth's deadly aim.
As the behemoths began to thin out, Ardeth could see a strange standing stone at the Sanctuary's center, the top of which glowed with a beacon of unearthly red.
"Royce," she said. She passed the crossbow to the Antiquarian. "Cover me."
With no further explanation, she sprang forward into the marsh, running like a black streak through the knee-deep water.
* * * * *
Vell's mind cried out as he abandoned perspective after perspective. The behemoths were not dying, he knew, but were being sent somewhere far away where his mind could not follow. He watched the strange girl run through the swamp. He knew her well by now; she had abducted Sungar, astride the hippogriff he had chased through Rauvin Vale. She was also the enemy he had seen in the Fountains of Memory.
He bade one of the behemoths to break away from the others and cut her off before she could reach the menhir. To his surprise, the behemoth willingly, almost deferentially, turned its form over to him. Vell gasped as he found that he directed the creature. His human mind remained in control, yet he felt a strange familiarity with the behemoth's body.
Controlling this animal as if he walked in its skin, Vell rushed to intercept the woman in black, sending great sprays of water up from the marsh. The water slowed her, and Vell had no trouble getting ahead of her. He let out a reptilian cry from his behemoth throat. Her pale oval face wore a determined look.
A crossbow bolt zipped past Vell's head but missed and flew off into the marsh. Fired from a great distance, its aim had gone wildly astray.
Then the woman opened an outstretched hand. A number of black bolts zipped forth and pelted Vell all along his lizard form. He braced himself and let out a tremendous moan. His mind was unaffected, for it was many miles away, but his body succumbed to tremendous inertia. Vell strained to move his torpid legs. He was all but rooted to the spot.
Springing across the water, the woman in black unsheathed her sword and ran close to Vell, using the weapon to rake his behemoth form as she ran, drawing blood from both front legs. Not caring to make a kill, she ran past him, bound for the menhir.
Vell focused harder, pushing away the pain and the paralysis from her magic, and managed to turn and pursue her. He leaped into the air, his forelegs leaving the marsh and sending a cascade of water down on the woman. She lost her footing and tumbled into the swamp face first, losing her sword in the muck, not more than a dozen feet from the menhir with its glowing red light. With a silent scream of success, Vell pushed his massive form onto her, landing a foot on her body, pressing her into the water and pinning her there. She squirmed and struggled against him
Then Vell felt a sharp pain on his backside, and, in an instant, his mind was thrown back to his own body.
* * * * *
Ardeth surfaced in the marsh on all fours and gulped air furiously as the behemoth vanished above her. She was soaked from head to foot. The marsh muck penetrated her leather clothes, and she threw her honey hair back, a slimy weight on her shoulders. The marsh was strangely quiet—perhaps Royce had succeeded in sending away all of the remaining behemoths. She groped for her sword before looking up at the rune-covered menhir towering above her.
Standing at the foot of it was a man. Dressed in pristine white robes, unstained despite the water and muck all around them, he was old—far older than even the ancient Uthgardt shaman she'd battled in the Thunderbeast camp. His face was chalk white, yet his hair was jet black and straight, like that of an Uthgardt. He spoke in the dialect of Illuskan that Gan had used, and had the same voice.