He knelt, examined more closely.
There was something deep and important he was forgetting.
It was time for the Anlage.
The lucerna closed over the old elf's eyes as he entered the deep recollection of his people. Abstractly, he fingered the gems.
He remembered the years of mining beneath the city. The bright eyes of the Kingpriest's guards, the serpentine, human-faced nagas, with their enchant shy;ments that dried and paralyzed the Lucanesti, the wanderings in the Age of Might.
Remembered the Age of Light, of Dreams, his thoughts tunneling back into Starbirth, into the God-time …
Then he looked at the stones in his hands, and cried out in horror.
"Bones," Spinel told the assembled miners. "The glain opals, the special black ones the Kingpriest covets, are the bones of our deepest ancestors."
Tourmalin frowned in disbelief, but her gaze fal shy;tered under the withering stare of the ancient elf.
"No, neither your fathers nor your grandfathers, nor the bones of any in five generations of Lucanesti. But the eldest of the race-those who entered the company of Branchala in the years before the ward and the wanderings. How could we have been so blinded?"
He extended his pale, encrusted hands.
"Istar has blinded us!" someone shouted from the borders of the torchlight, but Spinel shook his head.
"Istar has used our blindness," he insisted. "Used our greed and our cowardice for its own dark strategies. All the while, the Anlage was there for us, bear shy;ing this terrible secret. Why did we never consult it?"
His words tumbled into a long silence. Spinel leaned against the rock and gazed out over the torches and lamps, over the glittering eyes of his people.
"Blame and punishment are not the answer," he insisted, and others-the oldest of the company- nodded in eager assent. "For years we have com shy;plied, have knelt in submission to the Kingpriest and his minions. Now we must redress our wrong shy;doing. Regardless of the guards and venatica, one road remains for our people. We must reclaim and rebury our ancient dead."
The rebels reached the shores of the lake at mid shy;night.
Barely three hundred of Fordus's followers remained. In early evening, Larken and Stormlight, who had been following at an unfriendly distance, had taken a sloping path into the sunset, headed for the Western Pass and a safe route back to the desert.
Fordus did not acknowledge them. With North-star and three of the younger bandits, he approached the lapping waters of Lake Istar, dark and spangled with the reflections of a thousand stars. He knelt, recovered his breath, and stirred the waters with his hand.
The surface of the lake glittered with starlight and torchlight, for the bandits had brought fire with them, the better to burn the city.
"With neither glyph nor interpreter, he finds the greatest of all waters," Fordus pronounced, an eerie
laughter underscoring his voice. Resolutely, he stepped into the water, took another step, and waded waist-deep into the lake. Pensively he traced his finger across the glittering surface.
"I had thought to run to Istar," he murmured cryptically. "Perhaps my steps would skip over the water, or the lake itself would buoy me …"
"But we must travel like mortals," he conceded with a smile. "For all of you are my charges, my min shy;ions, my. . celebrants. And though to cross the water would be more swift, I would have to do it alone-to leave you here to plod in your brave little paths."
He stepped forward, sank to his chest.
"I choose not to travel alone," he declared. "At least not yet."
The drama that played out in the mountains was small, insignificant compared to the large struggles among the pantheon of Krynn.
Deep in the Abyss, the dark gods felt the absence of the Lady. In the dark unfathomable void they waited-Zeboim and Morgion, Hiddukel and Chemosh, the dark moon Nuitari hovering over them all. It was strangely restful, this respite from her chaos and torment. Oh, there would be time to gather and turn on one another-to intrigue and rend and divide and wrestle for power. But for now they were content to recline and bask on the dark currents, to recover and regroup their failing energies.
All except one: the most devious of all the evil pantheon. Sargonnas circled the void in a thousand pieces, his fragmented thoughts on the War Prophet whose campaigns he had inspired and nurtured. He had been foolish, trying to break into the world through the sands of the desert, but the knowledge that Takhisis walked the earth and spoke to his min shy;ions, his Prophet, was too galling, too frightening for silence and inaction.
Now, fragmented and abstract, he spread through the void like a cloud of locusts, like a monstrous contagion.
There would be a time. He would watch and wait. In her desire to destroy Fordus, Takhisis's attentions would shift elsewhere, and there would be a time for him to strike.
He would precede her into the world. His clerics would build their fortresses of stone and lies. And even if they failed, he would spoil the plans of the Dark Queen.
His mind on vengeance, Sargonnas dropped a thousand miles through the chaos, glittering darkly as he fell like a fiery rain.
Alone in the rena garden, Vaananen stirred the sand over yet another futile message of glyphs.
The druid had done all he could. And the hope that stirred within Vaananen was now the hope of flight. Solitary and recklessly brave, the druid had remained in the city, gathering information and sending it nightly through the white, decorative sands to a distant point in a distant country-infor shy;mation that could save rebel lives, perhaps ensure rebel victory.
Absently Vaananen rubbed his tattooed arm. His efforts had gone unheeded. And now Fordus stood at the outskirts of Istar, and it was time for the druid to save himself.
He'd tied his belongings in a hide bag not much larger than the one he had given Vincus. Three druidic texts, as yet uncopied, took up most of the space. For the last time, in the hopes that somehow Fordus would receive the message, Vaananen scrawled the five glyphs in the sand of the garden, beside the yellowed, rapidly swelling cactus.
Desert's Edge. Sixth Day of Lunitari. No Wind.
The Leopard and the fifth and warning symbol- the sign of the Lady beneath the sign of the Dark Man.
It was all he could do.
The turgid cactus beside him trembled. The plant, usually deep green and healthy, had suffered like this for days. Three nights before, searching for rain, the druid had passed his hand just above its spiny surface and sensed a tremor, a boiling from the cen shy;ter of the cactus, as though it heralded a new and unnatural life.
He had ignored it at first, and now he chided him shy;self for his negligence, searching his memory for a healing chant, for something to soothe and settle the plant.
He began slowly, whispering an old warding from Qualinesti. But a humming sound from the heart of the cactus, unlike any song or language of plants the druid had ever heard, drowned out the chant before he had really begun. Alarmed, Vaananen stepped back from the plant, which swelled more and more rapidly, like a grotesquely inflated waterskin, its shiny yellow surface mottling and browning.
Vaananen realized that the cactus was no longer just a plant, but had been transformed into some shy;thing monstrous and menacing. Run! the druid's instincts told him.
He turned to the lectern to gather the last of his belongings-his copying pens and inks-as the cac shy;tus sizzled and whined, the sound reaching above audibility. Mesmerized, the druid stayed one second too long-and with a shattering boom, the cactus burst open. The room filled with a hot, swarming rain of something fierce and stinging and relent shy;lessly hungry and alive. Vaananen felt searing heat course up his legs and run down his back, and he futilely lifted his arms to shield his face.