Afraid to turn his back on the advancing monstrosity, Vheod continued to back quickly away. The animated statue stopped. Vheod stopped. Obviously, this thing was a guardian-perhaps it wouldn't follow him out. Still, it halted in the juncture of the two passageways, and Vheod imagined that it would react with hostility if he attempted to get past or even approach it.
Perhaps a spell could destroy it, Vheod mused, staring at it from just a few steps from the entrance. Obviously, it was a creature animated by magic, and perhaps that would be its undoing. Unfortunately, Vheod's spells were minor. He doubted he could do anything that might affect a giant stone statue given life by sorcery. Then, he considered-
His thoughts were suddenly torn away from him by the sound of Melann's scream from outside. He whirled around and ran, still magically hidden from normal sight, into a danger even greater than that of the magical statue.
The gnolls had returned.
Chapter Seventeen
A raven is not a creature that enjoys disappointment. Take something away from one, and it only gets angry. Denied completely, and the raven sulks.
The Ravenwitch sat before her divinatory pool, watching black rose petals float about the surface. She leaned heavily on the water basin, sighing. One by one, she poked the petals down into the water. Some sank to the bottom some bobbed back up.
With a dramatic gesture she brushed at the surface of the water, sending a petal-laden wave splashing to the wooden floor. She stood as she did this, glaring down into the pool then up at the ceiling.
"Damn them!" she screamed, clutching her hands into fists.
She was without a manservant and without even so much as a good candidate. What was worse, she'd slain dozens of her own ravens to execute the process that would have granted that young man-Whitlock?-the power and abilities required of her servant. The ritual had been ruined, and the cursed one who ruined it was beyond reproach. She didn't dare retaliate against the descendant of Chare'en, when the balor would rule over all the Thunder Peaks in so short a time.
She slumped back into her chair. What good could come of revenge anyway? She'd lived long enough to know that in the end, it earned nothing. What was lost, was lost. She had more important things to worry about right now, like how to cope with the coming events. The Ravenwitch enjoyed things as they were. She was more than pleased with her tree, and the flock flourished nicely-even despite the losses it had suffered lately at the hands of… what was his name? Vheod? As well as those who'd died by her own hand.
The Ravenwitch hadn't liked that at all. She would never have had to attempt the blood ritual in the first place had the gnolls not slain Yrrin-the gnolls that sought to serve Chare'en. Everything seemed to point to the same conclusion. His release would bring only change and hardship for her. She sighed again.
Her attempts at divining potential futures based on different approaches she might take-defiance, subservience, friendliness, outright attack-had all been horribly skewed. Something was upsetting the tides of time here. Some presence had thrown off all her divinations.
Perhaps the young demon Vheod was to blame for that too.
How could she know?
No, the Ravenwitch thought, at this juncture the only "way to predict the future with any great accuracy was to control it. She had to take some sort of action, not sit here gazing into mist-shrouded "ifs" and "what-might-have-beens."
Gathering her feathered cape behind her, the Ravenwitch stood and glided out of the room, down a passage through the heart of the grandfather tree, and into a chamber ill used of late. This oval-shaped room was filled with shelves sunk into the wood of the walls. Each shelf was lined with books. She owned thousands of tomes, some acquired long ago, some more recent, some bought, some stolen. A few she'd even written herself.
With a fevered intensity, the Ravenwitch pulled books from shelves, placing them on a table located in the middle of the room. Her long, black-nailed fingers glided along familiar paths across the well-worn shelves, deftly finding each tome she required. She ignored the dust accumulated from neglect, carefully brushing away the spiders without harming their delicate webs.
Utilizing magically conjured light, the Ravenwitch read through the night, pouring over histories and accounts of days long lost, as well as texts regarding the fiendish denizens of the Lower Planes. The stacks of books pulled down from the shelves towered above the table at which she sat. Much to her delight, her research proved fruitful, as she found more than one reference to the balor Chare'en. Apparently, he'd come to Toril in the last, fading days of Myth Drannor, in the Year of the Toppled Throne, as a part of the Army of Darkness that warred with the elves of Cormanthyr.
Chare'en remained long after those battles, attempting to raise up an army of chaos and evil in the Thunder Peaks. Most of his servitors were-not surprisingly-gnolls. The gnolls worshiped Chare'en and erected a huge idol dedicated to the tanar'ri made of a strange, semitransparent magical stone not native to this world. The green, glass idol stood as a testament to the balor's dark power.
Chare'en's defeat came, hundreds of years ago, at the hands of a human wizard named Piotyr Braendysh who had crafted an amulet that rendered him immune to the balor's power. Using his own sorcery, Piotyr destroyed the green idol and imprisoned
Chare'en in a cell made of some of the statue's shattered remains. The rest of the stone was scattered throughout the mountains. Braendysh then sealed the prison with his magical, rune-covered staff and buried it deep underground.
A raven burst into the room, coming to rest on the chair next to the Ravenwitch. It cawed softly.
She turned to the bird and stared into its opaque black eyes. "Yes, my darling, I know morning has come. Go and find yourself something to eat in the woods with the others. I shall be fine here."
The raven squawked shrilly and flew from the library.
An amulet that rendered him immune to the balor's powder. Interesting. With such an item, the Ravenwitch would have nothing to fear from the future. Chare'en would mean nothing to her. But where would such an amulet be now? It could be anywhere in all Faerun. She sighed. There was no time to search for it. If it was lost-buried in some vault or fallen amid some ancient ruin-she would never find it soon enough for it to be of any help.
No, the only way she could hope to find the amulet would be to presume that someone else found it first and had it with him now. Perhaps a person who knew about the coming of Chare'en and the power of the amulet-or at least something of its history-had already discovered it. More than likely, that person would be nearby, concerned somehow with the current events.
This required some thought.
Chapter Eighteen
Gnolls swarmed from every possible angle, as though they'd been scattered and were regrouping. Unfortunately, their chosen rallying point lay within the clearing right outside the entrance to the prison, at the edge of which stood Whitlock and Melann. Prison, Whitlock thought. The prison of Chare'en. Had he already completely given up on the idea that this might be the crypt of Chare'en-the goal of the entire journey? If this was a prison, and Chare'en was a demon and not a wizard, what in Helm's name were they doing here?
The situation at hand hardly presented Whitlock with the opportunity to think about that at length. Fortunately, it appeared that the gnolls were expecting to find him and his sister here even less than Whitlock expected the gnolls to return right at that moment. Bestial eyes stretched wide, and howls of surprise and confusion seemed to occupy the gaping mouths of the creatures rather than commands or warnings. Whitlock's combat training and experience took over as he looked all around him, sizing up the enemy and possible strategies to defeat them. He fired the loaded crossbow at the first gnoll he saw through the trees and watched it drop into the foliage at its feet.