The walls of rubble formed a circle, ringing a circular expanse several acres in diameter. A shimmering sea of dark glass covered the expanse, its smooth finish reflecting the night sky. The vault of night was at their feet.
For a long while no one spoke. Everyone stared at the shimmering, glittering spectacle before them. Jyme broke the spell of silence with a whisper.
"Gods."
"What is this place?" Nix asked.
Rakon threw open the carriage door and stepped onto the rock.
"It's a holy place," Rakon said. "The Vwynn will not come here. That's enough for now. Set camp, Baras. We'll remain here only a short time before continuing to Afirion."
"A word, lord Adjunct," Nix said to Rakon.
Rakon eyed him coolly, nodded. They moved to the side.
"What in the Pits happened back there?" Nix said. "With your sister? With you?"
Rakon's hooded eyes narrowed, the thoughts visibly turning behind them. "Did you… hear her? What did she say?"
"She said to kill you."
Rakon was quiet for a time, then said, "She won't do that again."
"What was that you gave her? Drugs?"
"My sisters are dangerous," Rakon said. "I told you that. You have nothing more to fear. Leave me now. I have work I must see to."
With that, he left Nix. As the guards set up the camp and tended the horses, Rakon walked out onto the glass sea, striding among the stars.
"I think I'd like to do that," Nix said, watching Rakon.
They started a fire, placed Derg near it for warmth, ate a meal of cheese, bread, and dried meat, and washed it down with bitter coffee. Baras toasted the men they'd lost, spoke their names, told Egil and Nix of their lives. Rakon remained on the glass throughout. After they'd eaten and honored the fallen, Nix made up his mind.
"I'm going to go walk on it," Nix said.
"I'll come," Egil said, grunting as he rose.
"Is that… wise?" Baras asked.
"Probably not," Nix said with a smile. "But even so."
He and Egil walked the short distance to the edge of the glass sea, shared a glance, and stepped onto it. Nix's feet tingled and the hairs on his body rose and stood on end.
"It's enspelled," he said.
"I didn't need you to tell me that," Egil said.
They walked gingerly across the glass, treading on stars, noting constellations and planets in reflection. Nix found it surreal.
"Maybe this is what it would be like to travel night's vault," he said.
Egil only grunted.
The glass covered acres. They ranged far on it, though always keeping a good distance between themselves and Rakon. They discovered that other roads like the one they'd traveled cut through the ring of ruins and reached the glass from other directions.
"Like the cardinal points," Egil said. The priest seemed winded.
"Aye. And all leading here. Curious." Nix looked over at his friend. "You all right?"
"I'm all right. Just winded."
"Had enough, then?" Nix asked.
"Aye," Egil said. The priest stumbled and nearly fell as they walked back.
"Mind the smooth surface there," Nix chided with a chuckle.
They returned to the fire, and enjoyed more coffee with Baras, Jyme, and the other guards. The eunuch emerged from the carriage and took station outside its door, arms crossed over his chest.
Rakon remained on the glass, and as the night deepened, the sorcerer's voice carried across the mirror of stars, incanting in the Language of Creation. Flashes of green light accompanied his spellcasting. The guards seemed untroubled by the sorcery and fell asleep in their tents, while the eunuch stood forebodingly outside the carriage. Egil and Nix sat around the fire while Rakon continued his exploration of the glass sea.
"What do you think he's doing?" Nix asked.
"I don't care," Egil said, worrying at his arm.
"I do," Nix said, and stood. "Let's go see."
Egil considered, sighed, stood, and joined his friend.
They picked their way through the moonlit ruins until they reached one of the highest parts that ringed the glass expanse. Both of them were skilled climbers, and even without gear they reached the peak.
Nix spotted Rakon out on the glass, walking among the reflected moon and stars. The sorcerer incanted a spell, touched a hand to the glass, and thin veins of green light snaked out from his touch and wormed deeply into the translucent surface of the glass before fading out.
"Look like feelers almost," Egil said. He was still breathing heavily.
Rakon rose, moved off twenty paces, and repeated the process. Again jagged lines of sickly green lit up the subsurface of the glass sea.
"He's searching for something," Nix said. "Something under the glass."
"Gods," Egil said. His voice sounded tense.
"I know, it's-"
"Not that," Egil said, putting a hand on Nix's shoulder and turning him around. " That."
Behind them, lit eerily in the green light of the Mages' Moon, the ruins-dotted ground outside the ring that bordered the sea of glass crawled with so many Vwynn it looked as if the landscape itself was undulating. They prowled through the ruins, lithe, inhuman forms picking their way through the megaliths, their slit eyes always on the circular border of ruins that encircled the mirror. There were thousands of them, a horde of fangs and teeth and scales.
"Gods," Nix echoed.
"Indeed," Egil said. "Why do they wait, I wonder?"
"Rakon said this was a holy place," Nix said. "Maybe they fear it?"
"They don't seem the religious type."
Nix chuckled. "Neither do you, and yet your head wears the eye of a god."
"A dead god," Egil said.
"Your words, not mine. I'll not blaspheme in this place. That many Vwynn is going to make leaving here a complicated affair."
"Aye. I need to get down, Nix."
"Well enough."
They picked their way back down the mountain of stones, Egil struggling far more than Nix would have expected.
"What's wrong with you?" Nix asked, when they reached the bottom. "Egil?"
He took his friend by the arm and recoiled at the febrile heat he felt.
Egil opened his mouth to speak, but instead sagged to the ground.
"Egil!" Nix said.
The priest's eyes rolled in his head and he sagged. Nix caught him to prevent a hard fall, and lowered the priest's limp weight to the ground.
"Baras!" he called. "Up! Everyone up!"
CHAPTER TWELVE
Nix rolled Egil over onto his back. The priest's eyes were closed, his breathing rapid and shallow. He looked pale. Nix cursed. How had he missed it before? The stumbles, the breathing.
"Are you sick? Wounded? What?"
No answer. He tried to imagine his life without Egil and couldn't, no more than he could imagine it without Mamabird.
Baras, Jyme, and the other guards rushed over, blades drawn.
"What is it?" Baras asked. "Oh, shite."
"What happened?" Jyme asked.
Nix gently tapped his friend's face.
"Egil? Egil?"
Egil's eyelids fluttered open. Glassy eyes fixed on Nix and the priest smiled.
"Bit," the priest said, and tried to lift his left arm. "Like Derg."
"Shite, shite, shite," Nix said, and pushed up the sleeves of Egil's cloak and shirt. His forearm was black, as big around as Nix's calf. The guards gasped.
"Why didn't you say something? Godsdammit, Egil!" The priest must have been bitten by the same Vwynn that bit Derg. "We could've used the jasper on you."
He felt the eyes of Baras and the guards on him but he didn't care. If he'd had to choose between one of them and Egil, it would've been no choice at all.