As they were leaving, Nikol pulled shut the castle's heavy oaken door, made to lock it. Then, abruptly, she changed her mind. "No," she said, shoving it wide open. "This home is blessed, as the knight said. Let it shelter those who come. I have the feeling I will never see it again anyway."
"Don't speak words of ill omen," Michael warned her.
"It's not an ill omen," Nikol said quietly, looking up at him with a sad smile. "Our path lies far from here, I think."
She placed her hand upon the cold stone wall in final farewell, then the two gathered their meager belongings and started down the road, heading south.
If they had known how long the journey would take them, or how hard and dangerous it would be, they would have never left the castle's walls. They had been forewarned of terrible destruction farther south, but they were unprepared for the tremendous changes that had occurred, not the least of which was a sea where no sea had been before.
Reaching Caergoth, they were amazed to discover that the ground had sunk. Seawater, rushing in from the Simon Sea, now hid the scars of sundered lands. The two were forced to halt and work to pay their passage on a crude raft, run by a group of villainous-looking Ergothians, who had been separated by the sea from their homeland to the west.
The Ergothians ambushed them outside of Caergoth, demanded they hand over food and valuables. Nikol, disguised as a knight, refused. A fight ensued that left no one seriously injured, but gained Nikol the men's respect. They eyed Michael's blue robes with sneering suspicion but accepted Nikol's explanation that "her brother" had made a vow to their dying mother to remain faithful to his goddess.
As it turned out, the Ergothians were basically honest folk, made savage in their ways by the hardships they had been forced to endure. Nikol, maintaining her disguise as a knight, aided them in wiping out a band of goblins that had been raiding their hovels. Michael showed them plants and herbs they could use to supplement what had been a steady diet of fish. In return, the Ergothians ferried them across what they were calling "Newsea" and promised that they would have a return voyage, should they care to come back. Which they soon would, they promised, once they saw what had become of Xak Tsaroth.
On the opposite shore, Michael and Nikol soon lost their way, wandered in the mountains for weeks. No map was trustworthy. The land had altered and shifted beyond recognition. Roads that once led somewhere now wound up nowhere — or worse. Survival itself was a struggle. Game was scarce. Farmland was either scorched by drought or flooded by newly created rivers. Famine and disease drove people to flee wrecked homes and villages and seek a better life that, rumor had it, was always over the next mountain. Even good men and women became desperate as they listened to their children cry from hunger. Rumor had it that several elven cities in nearby Qualinost had been attacked by humans.
This must have been true, for when Michael and Nikol accidentally came too near the borders of that land, a flight of elven arrows warned them to turn aside.
Nikol wore her sword openly; the bleak and chill sun shone on the blade. Her armor and breastplate and her knightly air of confidence daunted many. Most robbers were nothing more than ruffians, who wanted food in their bellies, not a sharp blade. But, on occasion, she and Michael met with those who were well armed and were not afraid of a "beardless knight."
Nikol and Michael fought when they were cornered, ran when they were outnumbered. The cleric had taken to carrying a stout staff, which he learned to swing with clumsy effect, if not skill. He fought for Nikol's sake, more than his own. Plunged into despair over the chaos he saw in the world, he would, if he had been alone, gone the way of so many others before him.
Nikol credited him with keeping her alive during the dark days before the Cataclysm. Now it was she who returned the favor. Her love alone bore him along. Michael even ceased to ask Mishakal's forgiveness when he bashed a head. Eventually, after many months of weary travel, they reached their destination.
"The Great City of Xak Tsaroth, whose beauty surrounds you…" Michael whispered the inscription on the fallen obelisk, traced it with his hand on the broken stone. His voice died before he could finish reading. He lowered his head, ashamed to be seen weeping.
Nikol patted his shoulder. Her hand was roughened, its skin tough and calloused, cracked and bleeding from the cold, scarred from battle. But its touch was gentle.
"I don't know why I'm crying," Michael said harshly, wiping his hands over his cheeks before his tears froze on his skin. "We've seen so many horrible sights — brutal death, terrible suffering. This" — he gestured at the fallen obelisk — "this is nothing but a hunk of stone. Yet, I remember…"
His head sank into hands, hurting sobs wrenched him. He thought he'd prepared himself. He'd thought he was strong enough to return, but the devastation was too much, too appalling.
From this point, long ago, one could have seen the city of Xak Tsaroth, heard its life in the throbbing, pulsing cries of its vendors and hawkers, the shrill laughter of its children, the rush and bustle of its streets. The silence was the most horrible part of his homecoming. The silence and the emptiness. They told him Xak Tsaroth was gone, sunk into the ground on which it had been built. He had not believed them. He had hoped. Bitterly, he cursed his hope.
Nikol pressed his arm in silent sympathy, then drew away. His grief was private; she did not feel that even she had a right to share in it. Hand on her sword hilt, she kept watch, staring out over the ruins that surrounded the obelisk, peering intently into the shadows beyond.
Gradually, Michael's sobs lessened. Nikol heard him draw a shivering breath.
"Do you want to keep going?" she asked, purposefully cool and calm.
"Yes. We've come this far" He sighed. "It's one thing to see strange cities lying in ruins, another to see one's home."
Nikol climbed on the obelisk, used it as a bridge to cross the swamp water. Michael, after a moment's hesitation, followed after her. His feet trod over the inscription:
THE GODS REWARD US IN THE GRACE OF OUR HOME.
Grace. The land was barren, almost a desert, its trees charred stumps, its flower ing plants and bushes nothing but soft ash. There was no sign of any living being, not even animal tracks.
Michael looked out over the ruins of the city's outskirts. "I can't believe it," he said softly to himself. "Why did I come? What did I expect to find here?"
"Your family," said Nikol quietly.
He looked at her in silence a moment, then slowly nodded. "Yes, you're right. How well you know me."
"Perhaps we will find them" she said, forcing a smile. "People might live around here still."
Nikol tried to sound cheerful, for Michael's sake. She did not believe herself, however, and she knew she hadn't fooled Michael. The quiet was oppressive, perhaps because it was not true quiet. A thin undercurrent of sound disturbed the surface. She could tell herself it was the wind, sighing through the broken branches of dead trees, but its sorrow pierced her heart.
Michael shook his head. "No, if they survived, which I doubt, they must have fled into the plains. My mother's people came from there. She would have gone back to find them."
Nikol paused, uncertain of her way. "You know, I could almost think that Xak Tsaroth IS haunted, that its dead do lament"
Michael shook his head. "If any of the dead walk these broken streets, it is those who are unable or unwilling to pass beyond, to find the mercy of the gods."
What mercy? Nikol almost asked bitterly, but she bit her tongue, kept silent. Their relationship over these past hard months had deepened. Love was no longer the splendid, perfect bridal garment. The fabric was worn, now, but it fit better, was far more comfortable. Neither could imagine a night spent outside the refuge of the other's arms. But there were several rents and tears in the shining fabric.