Unfortunately, even when she reached the spot where the ground fell away, she still couldn’t tell if that power was doing what the Chosen intended it to. Once again, the rain obscured too much. She could make out some of the nearer peaks composing the Elder Spires, but that was all.
“Seven black stars,” she growled in annoyance, and could barely even hear herself. But then the pounding of the rain abated, if not the roar. Surprised, she looked around and found one of the treants looming over her and Anton. The leafy branches that spread out above the creature’s face blocked some of the downpour.
She and Anton weren’t the only folk to whom the tree man was providing a sort of shelter. Several of the winged sprites perched in its lower branches.
“Thank you!” Umara bellowed.
The treant smiled, its mouth bending slowly. It extended a huge, bark-covered hand.
Umara hesitated, then took hold of a bark-covered fingertip. Anton gripped another.
The wizard wondered how long a polite treant handclasp was supposed to last. Then images surged into her mind.
Her immediate impulse was to defend against psychic intrusion, to snatch her hand back from the treant’s and sear the creature with a burst of fire while she was at it. It was the prudent way to react when anybody sought to touch one’s mind uninvited, and besides, the contact reminded her of Kymas riding in her head.
Yet another part of her-the part that had decided a measure of trust was possible even with outlander pirates, farm boy prophets, and druids-doubted the treant meant her harm. So, telling herself the contact was neither an attack nor an intentional violation, she focused on the visions and perceived them clearly.
When she did, she realized that either by virtue of its participation in the ritual or simply because of some inherent bond with the land, the treant could see farther than she could. In fact, it discerned what the rain was doing across the length and breadth of Turmish, and it wanted to share that knowledge.
The storm fed streaming floodwater that gnawed at the base of the peninsula that was home to the House of Silvanus and Sapra. Already eroded by months of rain, soil and even bedrock crumbled, falling away to form a gigantic ditch. Scattered steadings and hamlets slid and tumbled into the gulf. Umara hoped the folk who’d lived therein had abandoned them. If not, well, the druids had sent messengers to warn them.
Plainly, even after a year of torrential storms and even given the climactic fury of the current one, the collapse was occurring with impossible speed. But as the Chosen had realized, the Great Rain was in its essence a transcendent mystical force, not a mundane one, and apparently, it could do impossible things.
When the channel across the peninsula opened, the sea came rushing in to fill it. Smiling, Umara could only assume that even Umberlee was powerless to stop it, for the Queen of the Depths surely wouldn’t approve of the results.
Before the Spellplague, the Emerald Enclave had ruled a holy island called Ilighon as its particular domain. With the straits reopened, Ilighon was reborn.
The reshaping of land and sea brought a rush of spiritual power. Green light rippled and flickered in the sacred pool known as Springbrook Shallows. Treants laughed and danced with slow, swaying steps in the meeting place they called Archentree.
Then Umara’s benefactor looked farther afield. Once again, the sea was advancing, but this time, it wasn’t racing down a newly created channel. It was rolling over a long expanse of shore and drawing ever closer to a gray stone city.
“That’s Alaghon!” Anton shouted. “The capital! Before the Spellplague made the waters recede, it was a great port. Now, it can be again.”
That’s assuming the water knows when to stop, Umara thought. But in truth, she expected that it would.
The treant shifted its clairvoyant gaze. Now Umara beheld patches of plagueland in the south. Pounding down, the rain extinguished Blue Fire as easily as it could have doused ordinary flame.
Then the visions faded, and the wizard found herself wholly in her own body and limited to her own perceptions once more. She was clutching the treant’s finger and Anton’s callused hand tightly, and the reaver was squeezing back. For some reason, she found herself reluctant to let go of him.
She did, though. The rain wasn’t falling nearly as hard as before, and the lightning and thunder had abated. She and Anton no longer had any reason to cling together like timid children.
All around her, the druids and their allies had an exuberant look; despite their exertions and the stinging drenching they’d just endured, they experienced the same exhilaration as the enormous dancers in Archentree.
Grinning, Ashenford struck chord after chord from his harp. Shinthala wore a kind of satisfied sneer, like the magic just concluded was an adversary she’d wrestled into submission. A centaur galloped, his hooves throwing up mud, and the sprites that had sheltered in the foliage of Umara’s treant friend flew into the air and whirled around and around one another.
But Stedd made a little gasping sound that almost sounded like a sob.
Anton and Umara both pivoted to the boy. His golden hair dripping, Stedd winced and held up a trembling hand to signal that he was all right.
The adults hurried over to him anyway. “What’s wrong?” Anton asked.
Stedd shook his head. He looked unhealthy and spent, with discoloration like bruises under his bright blue eyes. “Nothing.”
“Tell me!”
“It’s just … There are three grown-up Chosen and all these other druids and creatures to draw down Silvanus’s power. There’s only me to draw Lathander’s. And this new … well of strength we just dug. It’s for them, not me. It doesn’t give me any extra power. But don’t worry. I can do what I need to.”
“I’m sure you can,” Anton said, “when you take up the work again tomorrow. The druids can stop for today and give you time to rest.”
“No, they can’t.” Stedd pointed to the glowing lines and symbols at his feet. “The designs and the … things the designs tie together … won’t last until tomorrow. Lathander says that when folk start a big, complicated work of magic, they need to push through to the end.”
“That’s true,” Umara said, “but perhaps the others can finish without you.”
Stedd sighed. “You know that isn’t true.”
Umara and Anton exchanged worried looks.
The boy scowled up at the pirate. “You told me to concentrate on finishing Lathander’s business.”
Anton scowled. “Would it sway you if I took it back? No, plainly not, stubborn brat that you are. Do what you have to, then. But be careful.”
“All right, everyone!” Shadowmoon called from her station to the west of everyone else. “Prepare yourselves. We have to press on.”
Umara squeezed Stedd’s shoulder. Then she and Anton moved back to stand with the treant.
The ritual resumed in the same incremental fashion in which it had begun. The Chosen at the cardinal points started conjuring in their various fashions. Stedd looked to the eastern horizon, prayed, and a golden glow lit his body from within. Shinthala murmured words that made the toes of her bare feet lengthen, burrow into the earth, and root her in place. Shadowmoon danced, and Ashenford harped. And gradually, over the course of the several breaths, the rest of the celebrants joined in.
Umara felt the intricate design on the ground pour out the power it had amassed. Or perhaps the luminous figure could more accurately be described as a lens focusing an ongoing torrent of spiritual energy rising from the Morninglord, the Treefather, and their worshipers. She suspected both descriptions were true in their way, and neither was sufficient.
However the magic functioned, she and her companions were about to find out if it was equal to the colossal task before it. The treant offered its hand, and she took hold of a fingertip as she had before.