“I don’t believe it,” Teron muttered. “I’m starting to think like the damnable gnome.” He snorted. “Maybe that Sphere is affecting me more than I thought.”
But still, every night he stepped outside to watch the moons, Nymm, Therendor, Eyre and Aryth raced closer and closer to the full.
And he wondered where the pattern would end.
24
The Crying Fields
Praxle seethed with anger. Not at his double-crossing bodyguard—that feckless animal lay rotting in a Brelish field—but at the one who’d turned his back on the dragon and wrenched Praxle’s apotheosis from his hands.
He thought back on Jeffers’ betrayal, how he’d slapped the dagger from his hands, how he’d used his overlarge body to pick up Praxle, and how, somehow, he had found the window and hurled them both out. In that moment of crisis, Praxle had proved his worth to ascend by drawing upon the power of the elements, lightning to obliterate the skull of his disloyal servant, and wind to save himself from striking the ground too hard. Conversely, Jeffers had proved with his action that he was indeed an insect, a worthless drone sacrificing itself for the benefit of the pathetic hive of so-called sentients, by striking at a pending god. Praxle hated being surrounded by those who couldn’t work magic. There were so many of them, crawling everywhere …
But that monk. He had the potential. The dragons had blessed him with their blood. The dragons had called to him in his dreams. His mind had accepted the discipline, and his soul could sense the truth, but in the end he’d proved his heart to be merely mortal, recoiling in fear from the greatest test ever given to mortals. He’d refused to rise to the challenge of overcoming his own death.
Either that monk was apprehensive of the effort that it would require, or he was squeamish at the need to devour the souls of the underlings. It didn’t matter. He had scorned the dragons. He had thwarted the new ascendant gnome. And he and his foul partner had done so by taking advantage of their larger size. Such a grotesque, fleshly advantage; Praxle was humiliated to have been undone in that manner. Such blundering size should be inefficient.
“It matters not,” spat Praxle out loud. “I am more powerful!”
He stood on a hill, looking over the rolling red fields. In the distance, he saw the shards of the monastery defiantly reaching for the sky.
Soon, he thought, they will reach to me.
Teron stood outside and watched the fires of the setting sun stain the sky red. The color blended the horizon almost to nonexistence. The ring was faintly visible overhead. To the east, orange Aryth was at the full, its last sliver just being devoured by Eyre’s silver disk. The faintest arc of Therendor rose beneath them in turn, eclipsing a portion of Eyre’s face.
Teron watched as the sun fully set. Then he turned to the other direction, and for a long while he watched the moons in their gentle race across the sky. Aryth was devoured by Eyre’s larger size, while Therendor’s clean, while shape slowly overtook Eyre. At last Nymm also rose, hiding itself behind its larger kin.
He had planned for this night a long time, ever since the end of the Last War. If things worked out as he expected, he would give himself the ultimate test of his ability, proving to himself whether he was still worthy to exist. If he failed, he would die, and quite possibly never be seen on Eberron again. If he lived … well, he didn’t expect to, but he’d deal with that when it came.
Odd, he thought, that Therendor, the moon of the month, should be called the Healer’s Moon. And Eyre is the Anvil. There must be a message there.
Then he hesitated. If he should die, who would stand between the gnomes and the Orb of Xoriat? He looked back at the monastery, now starting to be lit from within. Would he trust anyone there with such a duty? Should he? Master Keiftal, of course, but how much longer would the old monk stay alive? And none of the other brothers had undergone the same intense training as the Quiet Touch had.
Then it struck him: He didn’t have to abandon his position as the keeper of the Sphere.
He turned back to the monastery.
“Praxle d’Sivis!” Master Keiftal, surprised in the middle of lighting candles in his room, all but dropped his taper. Wax dribbled unattended on the floor.
“Yes, I am back,” said the gnome, menacing in presence despite his small size, “and I’ve come to get what I originally came for: the Thrane Sphere, the Orb of Xoriat.” He walked right up to the speechless Keiftal and glared up at the old man. “Where is it?” he bellowed.
“I—I don’t—don’t know,” stammered Keiftal, his gaze darting about.
Praxle reached up, grabbed the elder monk’s scraggly beard, and yanked hard. “Don’t lie to me!”
Thus affronted, Keiftal’s courage rose to surpass Praxle’s presence. His eyes hardened from surprised and fearful to solemn and determined. Praxle saw it and started to react, but Keiftal was quicker. He jerked his head up to pull the sorcerer’s arm higher, stretching his body. Then he kneed Praxle as hard as he could, striking the gnome in the midriff.
Praxle stumbled back, snarling as he fell to the floor. Angrily he slammed his glowing fist into the floor of the monastery, and the paving stones exploded beneath Keiftal’s feet, heaving him upwards in a geyser of masonry. Battered and thrown off balance, Keiftal fell to the floor. Sharp stone shards and heavy slabs up to a foot wide fell all about, some striking his frail body.
Keiftal started to rise, causing stones to clatter to the ground, but Praxle was faster. He grabbed the old monk’s ankle with one hand, uttering words of power. Electrical charges raced through Keiftal’s body, and the old man screamed.
“You’re—you’re too loud,” he panted. “Help—will come.”
“Really?” responded Praxle. “I think not.” He turned to the doorway, left open to the hallway. Keiftal followed his gaze, and saw three young monks run right past the open door and begin pounding on the wall beside it. “Illusions are the first step in creation,” he explained. “They see a closed door where the wall is, and a bare wall where the door is. Such a simple thing to deceive those without the dragon’s eye.”
Bruised, bloody, and trembling from the electrical shock, Keiftal turned his gaze back to the gnome, and fear returned to his countenance.
Praxle grabbed the old man’s forehead and chanted his words again, sending another jolt of electrical power through the old man’s body. “Now tell me, old man,” he growled, “where is the Orb?”
“You’re too late,” Keiftal gasped. “Teron—he—he took it.” He chuckled weakly.
Praxle grabbed Keiftal’s throat, his hand tingling with unspent power. He pressed his face nose to nose with the old monk. “Where did he take it?” he hissed.
Keiftal reflexively glanced in the direction of the Crying Fields.
Praxle smiled beatifically. “Thank you,” he said, standing. “I allow you to live.” He whirled his hand above his head, making two full circles. He put his hands in his pockets and walked to the unattended open doorway, whistling softly to himself. And as he passed through the doorway, he vanished.
The monks continued to pound on the illusory door, calling Keiftal’s name.
The spirits of the past writhed into being all around Teron as he walked the unnatural grass of the Crying Fields. Overhead, Therendor and Eyre shone brightly. The Healer’s Moon, full and potent, slowly devoured the Anvil as they moved slowly toward conjunction. According to the astronomers, they would move into alignment at midnight, just as the day changed.
Just as the month changed. For an instant, the month’s moon would be full in two months at the same time. It was the first time that had happened since the end of the Last War. He’d planned for this evening for two years, to test himself. And suddenly his planning had a second purpose. Teron wondered if this was that pattern that he and Praxle had been drawn to.