“Get that portal open,” Mehen growled as Lorcan passed.
“We need to go down,” Dahl said, looking nervously at the crackling ball of magic. It had doubled in size since Brin and he had started watching for the twins. “We need to get the doors shut.” Brin didn’t move.
“Brin!” Dahl shouted. He didn’t want to go down any more than Brin did, didn’t want to assume the worst. But the longer they waited, the thinner their chances grew. “Gods books, Brin, come on!”
“I should have stayed with her,” Brin said.
When he didn’t turn, Dahl ran from the open door to the Cormyrean’s side and grabbed hold of his arm. “She gets out, and you’re going to be looking back from the afterlife a great fool,” he said.
Brin looked at him, as haunted as Dahl had ever seen a man. “And if she doesn’t?”
“Then I think she’ll forgive you waiting a few days,” Dahl said, “if you’re going to be a great fool and join her. Come on.”
He shoved Brin toward the door, ignoring his own racing fears. They were nothing beside Brin’s-and it was an insult to the other man, he thought, to make the comparison. But as Dahl pulled the wooden door shut and followed Brin down into the dark, he said a little prayer to Oghma.
If you don’t let her figure out a way to escape, he said, then I really am through with you.
The girl who had long since offered her name up to Shar watched the field of magic that had grown to the size of a cart, sizzling and flashing in the air beyond the study’s open windows. As she slipped into the room, her eyes fell on the wizard, twitching uneasily in his sleep, but they didn’t linger. She came to stand instead over the basins with their ice-cold waters. She didn’t ask her goddess for deliverance-no one thought she understood what she had pledged herself to, but she knew down in her bones that Shar would not save her, not a second time.
She took a pinch of the powdery blue blossoms and scattered them over the surface of the water, closing her eyes for a moment and cursing her want. “Show me Sakkors. .”
Zahnya looked over the shimmering runes that burned into the forest floor, the lines of power that strengthened and directed the spell. Her two remaining apprentices lay dead on the ground, their blood spilled-quickly and quietly-to bolster the magic. Nothing in the grove breathed but Zahnya.
In the camp beyond the dancing light of her spell shone down on the huts like a second, sickly sun and reflected off the polished tower, green and orange and gold.
Zahnya held her wand before her chest and spoke the last words of the spell. They struck the air like the rattle of grave dirt on a casket lid, and turned into motes of darkness that swirled together over the runes, collecting into a mass that suddenly evaporated into the ether.
And beyond the wall, everything became sound and light.
Chapter Twenty-five
26 Ches, the Year of the Nether Mountain Scrolls (1486 DR) The Lost Peaks
The silence after the explosion felt like a living thing to Dahl, something tense and ready to pounce. He climbed the crumbling stairs and pushed the remains of the wooden hut off the exit, scrambling out through the dirt. Beyond, there was nothing left but rubble and the faint, winking remains of the Thayan wizard’s spell.
Dahl’s breath turned heavy in his lungs. The tower was gone. The wall was gone.
Farideh was gone.
Others came up out of the ground, surveying the damage. Dahl found he couldn’t look at any of them.
Oota clapped him on the shoulder. “Well done, son. I won’t lie. I was half-expecting to come out and find nothing changed.”
And instead, Dahl thought numbly, everything’s changed.
He turned to see Brin step out of the shelters, squinting at the light unimpeded by the many buildings. Brin shaded his eyes, looking toward the spot where the tower had stood, ignoring the people pushing past him. Staring as if every part of his mind refused to accept what lay before him. There was nothing Dahl could say.
A line of red light split the air beside them, followed by the scent of brimstone, the sizzle of the moisture burning out of the air. Dahl leaped back, the instinctive parts of his brain sure there was another explosion happening-and then Havilar stepped carefully down onto the ground, pulled Mehen after her, and then Mehen led Farideh down, still holding onto a scarlet hand. She looked back into the portal, as if she weren’t sure she ought to leave. But then Lorcan’s hand released her, and the portal sealed itself shut.
Havilar shuddered violently, looking through the crowd. “I can’t believe you looked,” Dahl heard her say, moments before Brin threw his arms around her. “Oh!” she cried. “Oh, you’re all right!”
Farideh looked out at the place where the tower had been, marveling at the empty crater. A chilly breeze stirred the air and lifted her dark hair. “Karshoj.” She looked back over her shoulder at Dahl. “We were lucky.”
“Very,” he said, smiling.
“Goodwoman?” Vescaras stood beside Farideh, holding a pair of shackles. “Your hands, please.”
“What?” Dahl cried. “No-don’t be ridiculous. She’s not a spy.”
“We have to be sure,” Vescaras said. Farideh looked past him, up at Mehen who stood over Vescaras like an unwelcome shadow.
“It’s just until we reach Waterdeep,” Mehen said. “We’ll be with you every step.”
“And you’ll not be harmed,” Vescaras said.
Dahl couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You don’t have to do this. You have nothing to prove.”
“Yes, I do,” Farideh said with a sigh. She held out her hands. “I always will.”
The prisoners wasted no time leaving the destroyed camp behind. Beyond the wall, down on a lower plateau, they made a makeshift camp, even as groups of them vanished into the forest, heading for faraway homes. Dahl considered the sheer numbers of people milling around-there was no surveying them, no keeping track of who’d been lost and who had left, who had which powers and whether they were safe. But at least, he could make sure that folks heading for Waterdeep or Everlund waited for the Harpers who would be returning that way. Oota and her most loyal were heading north. Cereon and the elves, south. Armas, Vanri, and Samayan would go with them for a ways.
“Turmish,” Armas said. “Then Airspur.”
Dahl frowned. “What about the other little boy?”
“Stedd has things to do,” Samayan said quietly, poppies unfolding around his feet.
“And the Harpers?” Dahl asked. Armas turned away angrily. “Be gentle with Tharra,” he finally said. “She wasn’t all bad.” Daranna had found a solid tree root, arching out of the ground, and slipped Farideh and Tharra’s shackles through it. Farideh quietly dealt Wroth cards in a tight square atop the rocky ground. Khochen, standing guard, looked up as Dahl approached.
“I’ve found a score who want to head to Waterdeep,” she said. “We’re going to be ages walking.”
“Better than not making it back,” he said. “I need to make a sending to Tam. Have you seen Vescaras?”
“He’s bothering Daranna. Don’t tell him I gave her the cards,” she said, nodding at Farideh. “He’ll think she’s sending messages to a confederate in the trees.” She grinned at Dahl. “And then you’ll have to admit you gave her them.”
Farideh looked up, puzzled. “Were you not supposed to?”
“Ignore her.” Dahl scowled at Khochen. “Do you have a cover of some sort?”
Khochen shook her head. “How many of them already figured you out? — there’s no pretending at a cover. Better to just get them where they’re going. Collect a few to our cause.”
Dahl considered all the clever folk he’d met in the past tenday. “I can think of a few.”
But the sending came first. He found Vescaras standing off at the edge of the rocky plateau, leaning against a tree and talking to Sheera, Daranna’s fledgling with the crossbow.