“Excellent.”
“We have an agreement then,” Gregor said. “Send your men after them, and you can do whatever you want with the rogue. I don’t want to know about it.”
Vraith snorted. “It’s insincere to get squeamish on me now,” she said. “I’m sure you’ve done worse to thousands of pilgrims by exposing them to experimental elixirs. We’re just going to test the extent of his ability.”
Gregor bristled. Vraith’s comparison was unfair and grossly inaccurate. Not only would the results of his research save vastly many more lives that had been lost, but every single pilgrim who had taken his elixirs had done so willingly. Vraith was not offering Duvan a choice here.
Vraith gave a slight bow. “May the Blue Fire burn inside you.” And without waiting for a response she turned and walked from the room.
Gregor followed. In the courtyard Vraith commanded her man, Beaugrat, to mount up and head out in search of Duvan and Slanya, with clear instruction to return them both here to the monastery when he found them. “Do not let them escape,” she said.
The sky lightened in the east just as they rode away south. Perhaps it was all for the best, Gregor thought. This way the Order would owe him a favor, and their partnership would be that much stronger. The arrangement would even be good for Slanya, because she’d likely get back faster and in more comfort.
In fact the only one who stood to lose from the arrangement was the rogue, Duvan, and his preferences mattered little in this. It was unfair, perhaps, but he would simply disappear, and for all important parties, that was for the best.
The only backlash for Gregor would be if Tyrangal learned of his involvement in Duvan’s capture. He couldn’t afford for the powerful woman to be his adversary. If only there was some way he could absolve himself of complicity in Tyrangal’s eyes or mitigate her anger.
This was a delicate dance. Gregor hoped his skills were up to the performance of it.
Letting his anger fuel him, Duvan picked his way down the steep incline and deeper into the Plaguewrought Land. He kept silent, focusing instead on the task at hand: survival.
The bare rock of the landscape gave way to a grove of rapidly growing maples. Duvan picked a quick path through the grove. Saplings grew into trees, and soon they were arching overhead, branches budding green leaves, turning yellow, and then raining down in a vermillion shower around them.
Slanya looked up from the fixed point on the ground. “It’s beautiful,” she said.
“Stay close,” Duvan said, breaking his silence. “It may look beautiful now, but it could change into something dangerous at any time.”
As they continued through, the trees aged around them. They shrivelled and died. Undergrowth of vines and bushes rapidly filled the space. Duvan took Slanya’s hand and pulled her. Fueled by the remnants of the Spellplague, this undergrowth could easily grow fast enough to trap and suffocate them.
The pungent odor of decaying plants and humus rose around them like a palpable tide of death. Duvan headed left and up a slope that seemed to be rising as they ran. Leaves and rotting vegetation deepened until they threatened to suck the two down into the muck.
Duvan scrambled up the slope, finding footholds easily. Slanya seemed be struggling to match his pace, but she managed it-a fortunate thing. If they stopped they’d be trapped.
“Will you know how to get back out?” Slanya said.
Duvan nodded. “Of course I will.”
Slanya followed him step for step as they snaked further into the changelands. He kept his eyes open for plaguegrass, but so far there was no sign of the elusive plant. Duvan marveled at the level of trust that Slanya put in him, amazed that she did not question his choices.
Perhaps her faith in the elixir was so strong that she felt protected. The thought of such blind trust in anything so experimental angered him, and he wanted to get her to question it. But he held his tongue. Even if it provided no additional protection from the changelands, at least it reassured Slanya and helped her avoid panicking.
Staying calm was critical in negotiating the dangers of the Plaguewrought Land.
Duvan took them over hills and through the rapidly shifting landscape. Spellplague was ubiquitous in here, all around them, but there were waves and pockets of blue fire, where its intensity was far higher. Duvan tracked these by sound and sight and smell, but also by feel. His stomach grew heavy when remains fo the Spellplague stirred like stormclouds, filling him with a gut-churning irritation.
“Can you feel that?” he asked.
“Feel what?”
“The spellplague-a flare of it is off to our right, moving toward us.”
Slanya shook her head. “I have no sensation of it,” she said.
“You’ll become attuned to it,” he said.
“I doubt it,” she said. “If it were possible to attune myself to something like that, my training would make it simple for me to focus. You have a gift.”
Duvan scowled at her and guided them away from the approaching wave of spellplague. It wasn’t visible yet and seemed to be passing underneath them. Suddenly the fire changed direction and rose up toward them.
The earth heated up around them.
“Run!” But every way Duvan turned, he felt the blue fire. Finally, he stopped running and crouched next to Slanya. “It’s all around us.”
The sky darkened to a deep purple as the smell of burning rock smoldered into the air. The ground beneath their feet started to drift upward.
Slanya covered her ears as the screech of rock against rock crashed in on them. A spiderweb tendril of blue fire spun into existence around Duvan and Slanya.
“Stay close,” Duvan said. “Do what I do.” As long as she remained within about ten paces, his spellscar would keep her safe from the blue fire. And if she wanted to attribute that to Gregor’s elixir, Duvan would just have to hold his tongue.
Duvan’s stomach felt like lead, and the hairs of his back and arms stood straight up. The tendril of spellplague arced toward them, snapping like a whip …
And dissipated just as it was about to hit them, vanished like a puff of smoke in the wind.
The storm seemed to howl with frustration, and underneath them, the ground shifted. Another whiplash of spellplague struck at them. More gut churning, but now Duvan was moving. He didn’t see what happened behind them as he led Slanya in a run away from the spellplague wave.
The earth beneath their feet lurched and rumbled as Duvan dodged the hottest flares. The tilting earth made him stumble, and Slanya fell to her knees behind him, but soon they were back on their feet and heading farther and farther from the surge of blue fire.
The ground seemed to be lifting slowly now, floating upward perhaps. They ran across a narrow patch of hot, dry desert, then down a trail into a shaded cleft. At the bottom of the cleft, Duvan led Slanya across a mossy creek, the rocks slippery from the green growth and dewy moisture.
He reached out to her, and she grabbed his hand. He did so at least as much for his own benefit as hers. The stream’s water misted into the air like rainy fog around them, and for a moment they existed only in a white cloud, drenched and cold and unable to see. But her hand was still in his.
Together meant that she’d be safe. He’d promised to keep her safe.
Then the cloud gave way as they pushed through and up a short incline, emerging to sun and the smell of wildflowers. Warm breezes dried the dew from his forehead and neck as he led them into the tall grass of the meadow.
“Look,” Slanya said. “This meadow is filled with plaguegrass!”
The grassy field ended abruptly, Duvan noticed, at a cliff. The shifting ground and the sensation of rising was clear now. They were on a mote, a large one to be sure. “Get as much as you can now,” he said. “This meadow might not be here much longer. Beyond that edge there is nothing but a long fall.”