Raidon threw the man's red robe into a ravine. He pulled off his own pack and stuffed the book and wand into it, amongst the splinters of his cedar box. He'd felt it collapse when the troll had bashed him against the tree. He reached in and pulled out his mother's forget-me-not. It was warm to the touch.
A familiar warmth. It was the same temperature as that light touch on his back when he'd thrown off the wizard's spells. He wore his pack high across his shoulders . . .
Raidon's eyes widened. He clutched the forget-me-not, hard. Could it be true? Had his mother left him more than a simple remembrance? It seemed clear the amulet was suffused with a potency he didn't understand. A potency that had twice saved him.
He reverently drew the chain over his head. He gazed down on the stone as it lay on his chest, then dropped it beneath his silk jacket. Against his skin, remnants of its original warmth seeped into his body. The years of storage in a dark box were done. Raidon vowed to wear his mother's forget-me-not from that moment until he found her.
She had left him an unexplained relic, something important. Why hadn't she told him its real nature? Why leave it with him in the first place? She must have been more than she seemed. After all, what was she doing with a relic of magic?
He would find her, as she must have anticipated. Then she would explain mysteries to him whose outlines he couldn't conceive.
CHAPTER NINE
Stardeep, Outer Bastion War Room
From the shadows, Telarian inquired, "Commander Brathtar, how stands the Causeway?" An elf caparisoned in mithral greaves and hauberk started, then looked up to the unlighted balcony. Brathtar stood before a great oak table scattered with maps, miniature figures sculpted in lead, and quill pens. Several others around the table, similarly armored and armed, if not quite as grandly as Brathtar, broke off their discussion, which had grown heated.
The Empyrean Knights were pledged to Stardeep first and foremost, and their watchword was valor. A knight who joined the elite in Stardeep first learned that anyone, meek or brave, could wake to valor if the cause was true. Empyrean Knights held fire in their hearts, but were not unthinking brutes. Knights held tight to sword in one hand, and strategy in the other. That strategy was determined first and foremost by the Knights' commander, Brathtar.
Brathtar studied the shadowed gallery, squinting, and said, "Keeper Telarian, I didn't realize you were observing the War Room. Please forgive my lapse." A questioning, attentive mask settled upon the Knight Commander's face. A mask, because Telarian knew the commander had come to view him with grave misgivings.
Telarian allowed one gloved hand to fall, as if by accident, upon the pommel of his darkly sheathed sword. With its touch, even through the barrier his glove offered, the confidence of his convictions reasserted itself. He said, "I couldn't help overhear the concerns you and your people were discussing regarding my orders. Did I hear correctly?"
Brathtar visibly steeled himself, then replied, "Keeper Telarian, I'm afraid I must admit to real tactical incomprehension regarding the foray you've ordered. I judge such an action will merely draw the attention of the wood elves. My intelligence gatherers assure me the Causeway's location, and perhaps even the existence of Stardeep itself, remains a well-kept secret in the Yuirwood. If we venture forth in force . . ."
Telarian nodded, saying, "My orders may seem counterintuitive, Commander. But, as I'm sure you appreciate, as a Keeper my sources of information reach farther than yours. I assure you, Brathtar, this foray is imperative. A physical patrol is warranted, lest sympathizers of the Traitor creep too close."
Rank disbelief battled across the face of Telarian's most trusted commander. The Keeper wondered from where his first reaction came—to bash sense into the man with the blunt side of his sword, and if that did not suffice . . .
Telarian shook away the impulse. Not the most diplomatic of responses. But the commander had been showing more and more disregard for Telarian's orders the last few years. His insolence was becoming tiresome.
As Keeper of the Outer Bastion, the Empyrean Knights answered ultimately to Telarian. He should not have to suffer Brathtar's second guesses and impudence. When had the trust between them evaporated? In the not too distant past, Telarian had occasionally joined Brathtar and his captains for their dice games. Other times Telarian had invited the Commander to his quarters for a glass of the sparkling white he imported once a year, at great cost, out of Sild?yuir. Once they'd even ventured into the first leg of the surrounding dungeon tunnels, tunnels whose existence hadn't been realized when Stardeep was initially sited and constructed. Apparently, Stardeep hadn't been the first prison to occupy this out-of-the-way locale. Brathtar had saved his life during that foray, when they'd disturbed a swarm of fossilized . . . undead? They were mindless but cruelly animate. Brathtar had ordered the tunnels closed after that, of course.
Telarian supposed things began to change between him and Brathtar after his Epoch-enhanced gaze first glimpsed the glyph-scribed blasphemy in the clouds. When he'd foreseen that the citadel of the Traitor's hope was fated to emerge from prehistory, Telarian immediately bent all his thought toward averting that fate. With his investment in saving the world from catastrophe, time to nurture friendships was difficult to schedule.
Altering a fated future was said to be impossible—all the classic divinatory texts warned against such attempts. It was a fundamental philosophy of his school. When one attempted to thread destiny's needle, unplanned consequences always followed. But it wasn't in Telarian to give up. Even when sacrifices were required.
The Keeper's gaze fell to the silent, brooding blade sheathed at his side.
The stakes were too high to back out now. Nis was a requirement of his plan, even if his dreams were sometimes tainted by the thing's dark influence. If his relationship to Brathtar was another requisite sacrifice to change the future, then so be it. Better a soured friendship than a world overturned.
He looked back to his commander, who was impatiently enduring Telarian's long silence. He could relieve the man of his office . . . but Brathtar's competence was unmatched. He needed Brathtar in his current role. Too bad force wouldn't secure him Brathtar's trust. Nor would truth—his plan spiraled too far from what any sane person would accept without the proof that only an Epoch Chamber vision could provide. And no one in Stardeep was properly trained to endure such a vision. Except himself. So secrecy was required. Yet his commands still met resistance.
So he'd tried diplomacy. It had always been one of his strengths. Had he completely lost the knack? No, it was Nis. The blade put everyone off, even if they didn't realize why. But Telarian couldn't bring himself to leave the blade unattended, even locked in his inaccessible quarters.
But beyond Nis, the falsehoods he daily mouthed were taking their toll. The justifications he provided for all his recent decisions were a tapestry of partial truths.
To be sure, the carefully constructed bed of untruth served as the necessary and moral foundation of his true effort to avert the final apocalypse. In the balance, he doubted a few truths twisted for sake of all Toril would stain his soul.