"A repository," repeated Vell.
"There is danger where you walk. Danger even to this forest while you are here, if your power should wake and grow beyond your control. Why have you come?"
Thluna spoke "I am Thluna, chieftain of the Thunderbeast tribe. We are here…" But before he could finish, Duthroan raised up his roots and slapped them against the ground.
"Thunderbeast!" Leaves showered from Duthroan's branches as he shook them in anger. "The scourge of the Lurkwood? We treants know that name! The only Uthgardt ever known to fell living trees, even to sell them for profit? Not even the demon-tainted Blue Bears dared such a thing." In that heartbeat, all feared that their quest was over, that Duthroan would expel them from the forest-if not kill them outright.
"That is the past!" Thanar shouted. "I am a tender of nature as well, and I was appalled at my tribe's actions. I left them to wander the wilds of the North. I bathed in freezing rivers to purify my soul, to burn off what I considered a decadent, destructive way of life. Now the tribe has gone back to the true path, and I have rejoined them. Grunwald is rubble, life in the Lurkwood is far behind, and no more trees shall be cut down by the Thunderbeasts."
"Scant seasons have passed since this withdrawal," said Duthroan. "We who have lived ages recognize that such changes are not always permanent."
"Then the few generations they spent logging the Grunwald must seem like an eyeblink to you," said Kellin. "And is it not true that the Thunderbeasts once lived in the High Forest?"
"That is so," said Duthroan. This was a surprise to most of the Uthgardt present, though they had heard tales of life in the High Forest in their legends. "Before yellow-bearded Uther came to the North and tempted you out."
"You knew our ancestors as they lived and breathed?" asked Thluna, awestruck at the thought.
"They seldom dared enter our part of the wood," the treant said, "for they feared us. They made their home in the south."
"What of the behemoths?" asked Keirkrad. "The great lizards. Our totem has sent us in search of them."
A new expression crossed the treant's craggy features and he roared in excitement.
"You are one of them!" he shouted at Vell.
"One of whom?" demanded Vell.
"The behemoths! They roamed our woods once, great gentle beasts with necks that reached the highest tree-tops. But I have not known their like in a millennium, until today."
"I don't understand," Vell said. "How am I like them? I am a man, not a lizard."
"Some things cannot be explained easily," Duthroan said. "You cannot tell me you have no sense of what I mean."
Grim-faced, Vell nodded.
"Perhaps your kinsmen of the forest know of this," Duthroan said. "Perhaps I should take you to them, and let them decide what to do with you."
"The Tree Ghosts," said Keirkrad. They were the youngest of the Uthgardt tribes, an offshoot of the hated Blue Bear tribe. When the Blue Bears fell into savagery, evil, and the worship of Malar, the Tree Ghosts took their own strange path, devoting their lives to searching for a tree. They believed that the original ancestor mound of the Blue Bears, called Grandfather Tree, was lost somewhere in the High Forest. Most Thunderbeasts believed that Grandfather Tree was nothing more than a myth, and that the Tree Ghosts chased a shadow. But in their rare encounters with the Tree Ghosts, the Thunderbeasts found them to be friendly, if strange. They admired the Tree Ghosts' singular purpose and drive, something the Thunderbeast tribe often seemed to lack.
"They've spent many decades collecting the lost lore of the High Forest," said Kellin. "They may have the information we seek."
"Where can we find them?" asked Thluna.
"The way cannot be shown," said Duthroan. "The way is secret. But there is another possibility." His great wooden hands reached for a knot on his side and drew forth a number of small leather flasks. "Quaff the dew these contain. It will take your senses and your wits for a time, so we trees can deliver you to their company. Then the choice will be theirs to decide your fate."
"And if we refuse?" asked Thluna.
"Then I will ask you to leave Turlang's Wood and never return." Duthroan's tone carried the unspoken threat of what might happen if they defied his instructions.
Thluna stood silently, weighing his options.
"The Tree Ghosts are noble," said Thanar. "We would not be wise to offend our only likely allies in the whole of the forest."
"And our time may be short," Vell said. "If we must leave Turlang's Wood and seek another route into the deep forest, we could lose months."
"I agree," said Thluna with some reluctance. He turned to Duthroan. "We accept your offer."
Keirkrad moved close to Thluna and spoke directly into his ear. "You cannot listen to this. This creature cannot be trusted-this is a tree that walks. The Tree Ghosts associate with elves and-gods know what else. Dealing with such beings will be at the cost of our souls."
Something cracked in Thluna. Although young and accustomed to deferring to his elders, he turned on Keirkrad.
"Who is chief here?" he demanded. Keirkrad sniffed and shrank away, making claws of his ancient hands.
The treant passed the flasks to the Uthgardt. "One gulp," he said. "No more." One by one, they lapsed into a trance and stood like brainless undead, eyes wide open, until only Vell and Kellin waited to drink. She could scarcely imagine what he was feeling at that moment. Perhaps he felt that his will had been wrested from him already, and he saw this as another incident of the same. Or perhaps he welcomed this oblivion as a rest.
They took their swigs in unison and lapsed away together.
The true chief of the Thunderbeast tribe lay on the floor of his cell, barely conscious from torture. His own rage had been used against him. His torturers had known of the barbarians' anger, capable of making them powerful, reckless, and all but unstoppable. That state stripped emotion and doubt, and replaced it with the purity of thoughtless rage. Clearly, his torturers knew of this and used it to their advantage. Bound to a cold metal table in their dimly lit chamber, Sungar had been allowed to rage and was left untouched. Only when it was over, when the purity of the fight was gone, when Sungar was susceptible to all the doubts and insecurities of his world, would they go to work. No resistance was possible. Unbidden, his mouth would open, and all the secrets of his tribe would flow forth.
Only the occasional comforting words of the dwarf in the next cell kept Sungar tied to reality as his mind threatened to float away on a sea of wrath and shame. Hurd would laugh even though he had been imprisoned for so long, subject to tortures equal to Sungar's. At times Sungar wondered if Hurd was real, for he never saw his face. Was he just another trick of his torturers to keep him from suicide, or-worse yet-a trick of his own mind?
Two guards, swords at their belts, entered Sungar's cell and propped him up. Weak as a kitten, Sungar could do nothing to resist. He expected they were taking him for another session under the cruel glass-studded whip of tusk-faced Kiev, but instead they washed him and put him in clean clothes. Sungar was far too weak to complain, but he croaked, "Why are you doing this?"
"We can't have you smelling like a dumb animal, even if that is what you are," one of them explained through a grin. "You're meeting the mayor."
Now, dressed in silk breeches and a starched white shirt, the finest fashions of Waterdeep, he was marched up a flight of stairs that wound back on itself at each landing. He was delivered into a narrow dining hall. Great decadent paintings decorated the walls, a white cloth covered the table, and cold iron chains bound him to his chair. A strap around his forehead held his head in place against the chains. He felt his feet on a plush carpet. Above his head, a magical light cast unflickering shadows over the walls.