"If it does work," Vell warned them all, "you will find your senses much changed. It may be difficult to keep the consciousness necessary to do your job." He looked to Thanar. "I cannot know how this compares to a druid's wildforms. It's possible that your skills will not prepare you for this."
"I understand that," said the druid.
"I fear that all of you may become what I was the first time," said Vell. "A mindless, rampaging beast. We all know the blood rage. You know what it is like to lose yourself. The purity of that emotion is enticing. This transformation will be just as much, and a thousand times more." He surprised himself with his own eloquence.
"But we must try to lock up our rage. There are innocents in Llorkh. We must fear for them. Our tribe has killed enemy innocents before, but that is not something we remember as glory. Fear for your own minds too. It may be hard to come back. You might forget you were ever human."
A disquieted hush fell over the five as they absorbed Vell's speech.
"Do you still choose this?" asked Vell. They all nodded, but with less enthusiasm. "Keep whatever part of yourself you hold most dear foremost in your mind. That, I hope, will help you keep a level head."
The sun's early rays crawled across the sky, tracing the edges of the mine-scarred Graypeaks. The world seemed so peaceful, as if all of its troubles were vanishing just as the light dabbed the clouds in tones of gentle pink.
"To Llorkh," Thluna said. "To glory or ruin. We have come so far to do Uthgar's will. I can only hope, if we die, that we will die pleasing him." Rather than trumpeting his cry to battle across the plains, as he might when leading a throng of warriors, he whispered it. The moment was private and intimate. His eyes fell on each of his companions: this strange assembly of a bird-souled elf, a southern sorceress, a half-orc Tree Ghost, a druid exile, stalwart Thunderbeast warriors, and this strangest of creatures, Vell the Brown. His eyes shone with love and respect.
Vell's hands trembled as he extended them, one to Rask, the other to Hengin. With Draf, Thanar, and Ilskar they formed a circle of linked hands and sank into concentration. Something rose into his mind unbidden. He thought of Kellin, of the True Name the priests of Oghma had given her. All of her soul-searching could not tell her its meaning, but she said the search had meaning in itself.
Vell delved deeper into his lizard-tainted soul, and found a place he had never imagined.
Clavel Foxgray stood on the city walls of Llorkh surveying the terrain, holding his hand above his eyes as shelter from the cold wind. His purple robe fluttered in the breeze. Clavel avoided looking down at the ditch, the ugly scar on the earth that encircled the city, all the more terrible for anyone who had spent a night sleeping in it.
Nobody ever jeered him for being knocked into the ditch by that hobgoblin. But on that dreadful drunken night in the Wet Wizard, two of his colleagues taught him something when they had to beat sense into him-sense enough to keep his mouth shut about Ardeth.
The low rising sun was at Clavel's back, and as he stared west, the shadow of the wall crawled across the land. The strange and unsettling night, with those huge lizards wailing their lungs out, had left him shaken, and he was happy that it would soon be over.
Through the whistling wind, he could swear he heard a strange sound in the distance-a repetitive pounding. It triggered a faint recollection from his childhood, when the mines around Llorkh were still active, and their sounds echoed across the land. Now they were closed and gone.
Somehow Clavel was reminded of another night, too, when he had also stood on these walls. It was in the month of Ches in the Year of Wild Magic, when the phaerimm had emerged from their underground prison near Evereska. It seemed all the lands west of Anauroch were suddenly alive with danger, with strange monsters enslaving humanoid tribes to accomplish their foul objectives. An army of bugbears appeared out of the Graypeaks to march against Llorkh, led by a beholder. That day, with his city under siege, the walls on the verge of collapse, and bugbear corpses filling the ditch, he felt something unexpected. For a moment, part of him wanted the city to fall. He wanted the whole sad saga of Llorkh to come to an end. A good end, a bad end, it didn't matter. Just an end.
Only for a moment, Clavel felt that way once again.
As Geildarr slept in his luxurious feather bed within the oak-paneled splendor of his bedroom, the Heart of Runlatha clapped to his breast, the glowing red energies of the artifact crept forth and invaded his dreaming mind.
He dreamed he was in Netheril in its last days, walking the streets of Runlatha by night. He was calm, though the world around him was crumbling. The black waters of the vanished Narrow Sea trembled under a heavy breeze. The city buildings were not only damaged by war, but they seemed somehow colorless and stripped of something vital. Clearly they had once been fantastic feats of architecture, but now they were broken and decayed. Bodies were piled in the street, both human and orc. The place stank of rotting flesh, and cries of anguish filled the air. In the distance, smoke plumes rose to the sky.
The magic is gone, Geildarr knew. This is after Karsus's folly, when the greatest arcanist of Netheril-the most powerful and most foolish wizard Faerun had ever known-had cast an avatar spell to kill the goddess of magic, hoping to gain her power.
Instead, Geildarr recalled, Karsus destroyed all of the arcane magic in the world, sending all the sky citadels of High Netheril tumbling to the ground. Though Runlatha was part of Low Netheril, it too probably had much magic woven into its very structure-magic that failed the moment Karsus cast his spell. Without the protection of the citadels, Runlatha was vulnerable to the masses of humanoid hordes.
Even without Karsus's folly, the Great Desert was spreading, ruining farmland throughout what was once the heart of Netheril. From his own studies of history, Geildarr had decided that the fall of the Empire of Magic was inevitable, one way or another. Karsus merely hastened it.
"We must abandon this city," a booming voice said. Geildarr spun around to see that the world had shifted around him. He was standing in a vast meeting hall, stars peeking through huge holes in the ceiling. Geildarr stood in the middle of a vast mob of humans, all staring forward at a man with coal-black hair, broad shoulders, and a warrior's physique. Some in the crowd wore the brightly colored robes of Netherese arcanists, the spellcasters of old, but most were plainly dressed. The general populace visibly shunned the arcanists, doubtless blaming their kind for the current lot of the world. No one acknowledged Geildarr, either not seeing him or not regarding him as anything out of the ordinary.
Geildarr was thankful that this vision was not coming to him in the Netherese language.
"Throughout what was once Netheril, crops are failing, and orcs and other beasts are massing to destroy the last shreds of our civilization," said the man. "We repelled this latest attack, but at too high a cost. More attacks will follow.
"And the citadels are falling. We can expect no aid from them. We are alone, and we cannot hold Runlatha for long." With a heavy voice, he said, "Our home is not worth saving any more."
Heads bowed all over the room. Geildarr looked around at the thousands of souls around him-men, women, and children-all desperate, all saddened. All looked to this man-the Bey of Runlatha-for guidance.
To Geildarr, the Bey did not resemble a barbarian chieftain like Sungar, but rather a disciplined military general of old Netheril, a strategist, warrior, and leader of armies.
"Karsus's hubris has freed us from the yoke of our Netherese oppressors," said the Bey. "We are free now, and it is our first duty to find and rally others in nearby lands who have also survived. Through luck and companionship, we shall survive and forge a new life far away from this place. Throughout the empire, groups are banding together and seeking out new lands. Some go east, some south."