Midnight shivered. When Mystra, the Goddess of Magic, had been destroyed in her attempt to enter the Planes without the Tablets of Fate, she had granted Midnight a vision of the artifacts. Now the tablets and the death of her god were irrevocably linked in the magic-user's mind. "They look like simple clay tablets," Midnight said with a sigh. She closed her eyes, and an image of the Tablets of Fate formed in her mind. "They're a little less than two feet high. Runes naming all of the gods and their duties are etched upon the stones. The runes are magical. They glow with a blue-white light."
Cyric tried to picture the tablets. However, each time he tried to form an image of them in his mind, thoughts of what he could do with the Tablets of Fate, or, more precisely, the power they could give him, charged into his consciousness. The thief saw himself as a powerful ruler, with armies strong enough to trample the mighty forces of King Azoun of Cormyr into the dirt. The tablets will give me the power to do what I want, the thief thought. At last I will be free to run my own life!
"Cyric?" Midnight said and leaned over to tap the thief on the shoulder. "I said, let's forget about the tablets for now. All right?"
Cyric frowned. "Yes, yes. Whatever you say." The thief paused for a moment, then attempted to smile warmly. "We should eat something. We need to keep our strength up if we're ever going to reach Tantras." Adon whimpered softly.
Midnight relaxed a bit and nodded. "I'm glad you agree. We need to start acting like friends again."
Cyric guided the skiff toward the shore. Thick forest flanked the river, and when they got close to the bank, Cyric leaped into the shallow water. The thief guided the craft close to the shade of a large, gnarled tree. Securing the boat to the base of the tree, Cyric reached out to help Midnight climb to shore.
When she got a firm footing on the boggy shore, Midnight turned back to the skiff and held out her hand. "Come on, Adon."
The cleric did not move.
"Adon, get out of there and join us!" Midnight snapped and put her hands on her hips. The cleric trembled, then rose to his feet.
"And bring us some food while you're at it!" Cyric yelled as he searched the shore for a likely campsite.
Adon reached down and picked up the smaller of the canvas bags that lay near his feet. He handed the sack to Midnight, then grabbed the mage's other hand and climbed from the boat.
"We're a good little dog, aren't we?" Cyric said in a high-pitched, taunting tone. The cleric's shoulders sagged.
"That's enough!" Midnight snapped. "Why do you keep badgering him?"
The thief shrugged. "When he acts like a man, I'll treat him like one. Not before." Cyric dusted off a small rock and sat down.
"There's no need to be so cruel," Midnight said. "When you were wounded in the Stonelands, Adon stayed with you. He did all he could to help you. The least you could do is return the favor." The mage threw the bag of food to the ground.
Instead of responding, Cyric leaned forward, grabbed the sack, and started to rummage through it. In the rough canvas bag, the thief found carefully wrapped preserved meats and flasks filled with mead. "At least you could see my wounds, when we were ambushed in the Stonelands. Adon's are merely in his head."
"That doesn't make them any less real," Midnight said coldly. "You could at least make an effort to be pleasant… if our friendship means anything to you. A little compassion won't kill you."
Cyric looked up and saw Adon leaning against the tree their boat was secured to, one arm around the warped and knotted trunk. The cleric's eyes were filled with apprehension, and he was standing on his toes as if he were prepared to jump out of the way instantly if anything threatened him.
Digging into the canvas sack, Cyric found a chunk of bread and brought it to the cleric. Adon wiped his hands on his tunic. His entire body quaked as he cautiously reached out and took the bread from the thief. Staring at the offering in amazement, the cleric looked as if he were going to burst into tears. "Thank you," Adon said in a small, broken voice. "You are kind."
"Aye," Cyric mumbled as he exchanged glances with Midnight. "I am far too kind."
They ate quickly and in silence. When they were done, Cyric went to the boat and withdrew the oars. He found a tree stump and set the oars down, then searched until he found a fallen branch the width of his thigh and chopped the log into two even pieces. These he sunk into the earth on either side of the stump. The thief sat down and positioned the oars, using the stumps as the oarlocks in their boat.
"You've trained with a staff," Cyric said as he led Midnight to the stump, "so the basic movements of rowing should be easy for you to master."
"Just a minute, Cyric," Midnight snapped as she brushed his hand away from her arm. "I've rowed a boat before. You don't need to teach me."
"But do you know the best way to row, the most efficient technique?" When Midnight didn't respond, Cyric grabbed her arm again and almost pushed her down onto the stump. "If you row the wrong way, you'll only tire yourself out, and you won't be of much use to anyone then. Sit down and pick up the oars."
For the next fifteen minutes, Cyric taught Midnight the proper rowing technique for their skiff. The mage learned quickly, and soon Cyric leaned back and let her practice on her own.
As he lounged against a rock, twirling his dagger, Cyric noticed Adon staring at the oars. "You'll learn next, cleric. I want the boat in motion as much as possible."
Adon nodded slowly and a half-smile crept across his face. Cyric continued to look at the cleric for several seconds, but the thief turned away quickly when he realized that he had balled his hands into fists. "Midnight can teach you later, when we stop for eveningfeast."
The heroes packed up quickly after that, and Cyric was careful to hide any evidence of their presence on the shore. Midnight took a turn at the oars for several hours that afternoon, and the thief seemed to relax a bit when he saw that Midnight had learned to row properly. In fact, Adon and Midnight were more comfortable, too. The cleric even laughed once when Cyric stretched after a long yawn and nearly fell out of the skiff.
While Midnight was rowing, the boat passed into a section of the river where there seemed to be no current at all. That made rowing quite a bit easier for a while, but the current picked up again suddenly — still in the wrong direction, of course. Though this was disheartening for the heroes, they tried to be cheerful. That was difficult, though, and tempers were flaring again by the time Cyric headed toward shore for eveningfeast.
When they docked, Midnight let Cyric start a small fire while she waded into the river to cool off after a long afternoon of rowing. Adon sat on the mossy bank, dangling a long stick in the water as he daydreamed. But as the mage stood in the chilly water of the Ashaba, a sharp pain bore into her leg. She let out a sharp cry and nearly fell over.
Cyric rushed into the waist-deep water and steadied Midnight as she tried to regain her footing. "What's wrong?" the thief asked as he helped the raven-haired mage toward shore.
"I don't know," she gasped through clenched teeth. "I think something bit me." Midnight felt another spike of pain shoot through her leg. When she looked down, the mage could see a pair of shimmering, crimson lights darting back and forth beneath the surface of the water. Cyric cried out then, too, and a third blood-red glow blinked to life in the Ashaba.
On shore, Adon paced back and forth, holding out his hands. "Get out," he said softly, over and over again.
The water churned as Cyric and Midnight rushed to shore. The tiny, lancing pains came more frequently, and more than a dozen of the strange blood-red lights were visible in the river now. The number had doubled before the heroes reached the bank and Adon helped them to shore.
The cleric stood by, smiling contentedly as Midnight swabbed a myriad of tiny cuts on her legs. Cyric crouched over the edge of the water, his right hand poised to snatch something from the river. The thief plunged his hand into the water once, then stepped back from the bank. When he opened his hand, a small, wriggling fish dropped to the ground. The glowing creature's razor-sharp teeth accounted for half the length of its body, and its tiny body seemed to have been set afire with the blood it had stolen.