To Raidon, it seemed day plunged into night's darkling gates. In the extravagant sky revealed, cloudless and crystal clear, all the stars of the cosmos seemed crowded. Heaven's span glittered with a million points of sparkling light, diamond white, ruby red, emerald, sapphire, and citrine. He saw circular clusters and bands of light that, when he focused on them, revealed themselves as millions of yet tinier brilliant points. Streamers of glowing nebulae poured and frothed across the firmament, mingling within them all the colors of existence.
The monk gasped, realizing he hadn't drawn breath for many heartbeats as he stood transfixed, staring upward.
The dragonet darted above them, diving and soaring, chirping bell-like tones of wonder. When it occluded a star, its crystalline body flashed sapphire, green, or red. Xet's antics broke the spell, and Raidon dropped his gaze from the entrancing heights.
Raidon stood in a half-forested valley whose opposing ridges spread away from each other as if the land itself had thrown wide arms to embrace the glorious sky. A pearl gray glow clung to the horizons, as if promising the first hints of dawn. A promise that would never be met, according to Kiril. The valley, glimmering and dreamy in the brilliant starlight, had left winter behind, or perhaps had never known it. A stream burbled through the valley, sparkling.
He breathed and smelled an odor not unlike dawn's promise, rich with growing things. It was cool, but not cold.
"Incredible!" repeated Adrik every few heartbeats. The sorcerer was turning in a slow circle, his head bobbing up and down as he sought to absorb it all.
Kiril said, "Enough sightseeing. Take it all in as we walk. We have a fair march ahead of us."
The sorcerer asked, "Will we see a glass castle? And meet any star elves? I mean, besides you?"
The swordswoman merely grunted, "Could be. There're fewer of us than there used to be." She walked toward a far ridge, paralleling the stream.
The monk yearned to demand an answer to Adrik's question. Instead he concentrated on finding his focus. The shock of bodily traveling to this alien place, coupled with the thought that his mother might be close.. well, truth to tell he was too much in the grip of the moment, not apart from it. He wrapped the lessons of Xiang around himself and followed. Adrik skipped along behind, stopping every ten heartbeats to marvel at some newly revealed celestial phenomena, then running to catch up, jabbering with a child's unrestrained wonder.
As he walked, Raidon was mostly successful in keeping his gaze below the trees' crowns, away from the captivating sky. The otherworldly landscape was somehow bound to the Yuirwood; he could see the connection in the way the starry realm's forests and hills matched the landscape he recalled from the snow-speckled forest they'd left behind. The congruence was not perfect. Here the trees were taller and wider, and more majestic, silver-trunked with little undergrowth. Their smooth boles stretched in elegant lines, supporting a silvery green canopy.
Adrik's voice rang out, calling more questions after the swordswoman who stalked ahead. "How wide a realm is Sild?yuir?" The sorcerer seemed oblivious of the dangerous mood that enveloped their new-met companion since they'd arrived.
Raidon saw the woman's hands clench, then loosen. She threw back over her shoulder, "As large as the Yuirwood, no bigger."
The sorcerer's brows knitted as he muttered something under his breath. Then, "Nearly three hundred miles?"
Kiril made no reply. Instead she raised her hand and pointed at a stone bridge silvered with moss, and a partly paved path. Here and there, silver-green grass burst up through the loose paving stones, indicating the road's infrequent use, Raidon supposed.
"Ah ha!" Adrik exclaimed, gazing raptly at the bridge and path.
Kiril walked across the bridge; monk and sorcerer followed. When he reached the top of the span, Raidon gazed down into water. It reflected the stars above, rippling and shimmering with the moving water. Of the bridge, or himself and his companions, he saw no reflection.
They walked the broad path into the forest depths, passing fully beneath the canopy. It was cooler beneath the eaves, and darker without the direct radiance of the starlight. Despite the relative gloom, the dearth of undergrowth provided Raidon long, open views to either side. As they walked, he heard the rustlings of forest creatures, and the occasional cry of a night owl, the lonely howl of a distant wolf. A few times he saw silver-gray deer flashing in the distance. Another time he saw a wheeling, darting flight of gemlike dragonflies whose slender forms burned emerald and sapphire. Because he couldn't accurately judge their distance, he was unable to measure their size, but he guessed they were large. Once, a dark, furred beast shuffled parallel to their track for a mile or more. Raidon strained his eyes to discover the creature's shape, but soon enough it turned and was gone.
"What was that?" inquired the sorcerer.
Raidon replied, "A bear, perhaps?"
"No, something bigger," said Adrik, looking forward for some confirmation from the elf.
Kiril paused and frowned back to where the sorcerer pointed. She squinted and shook her head.
"It ran off, I guess," Adrik explained, peering into the gloom.
"Sild?yuir is not entirely free of threat. You can die here from a wild creature's attack as easily as you could in the sunlit world."
"I don't think it was a bear," maintained the sorcerer.
"Did I say bear? Far worse than bears hunt my homeland, especially of late." The elf began walking. The ridge was only dozens of yards ahead, clear of trees and promising a wide view beyond.
"What? What's worse?" persisted the sorcerer, running to keep up. Raidon continued to quietly stride as the rear guard.
"Before I took up my post in Stardeep, a couple of communities went dark-a glass citadel here, a tower there-and they were found vacant. The inhabitants were gone with no explanation or sign of violence. Later it was learned that invaders were responsible, awful creatures called nilshai."
Adrik interrupted, "Invaders from where? I haven't heard that name before."
"Nilshai invade from outside Sild?yuir-not Faer?n, but from the gray misty expanse that borders all worlds."
"Does this 'gray misty expanse' have a name?"
Kiril shrugged. "Who cares? Our time in Sild?yuir is short. We go to the closest edge, and from there, we'll bridge the distance to Stardeep's underdungeon via little-used paths."
Kiril topped the rise and stopped, her head swiveling to the left, then to the right. She muttered, "What the Hells? That isn't right.."
Adrik and Raidon joined her and looked across a wide, fey plain beneath an even broader and more breathtaking swath of sky than was visible back in the valley.
Below them, a slumping glass citadel burned.
Gage moved from shadow to shadow in the gloom beneath the canopy. The great silver trees were wider than any in his experience and offered an ideal breadth from which to hide along the whitestone path. However, he was exposed to anything that hunted the deeper forest lanes behind him. His back itched at the thought.
When he'd seen Kiril and the strangers disappear without a trace between two massive boulders, he'd dashed forward hoping to take advantage of the portal before it slammed shut. His gamble paid off. A moment of sickness, and he'd opened his eyes elsewhere.
The splendid stars! How long had he stood rapt? He shook his head. It seemed like moments, but could have been longer. It was difficult to measure time in this realm that seemed always and forever a summer night. Once his wits returned, his quarry was gone.
Gage followed, or so he hoped. At least two figures had gone by foot from where he'd appeared, through the grass and trees until they found a path of overgrown stones. He was fairly certain he'd chosen the same direction as Kiril, though doubts pestered him.