“There was a time when this whole kingdom existed in another place. Then the Spellplague picked it up and dumped it in Faerun. If the… disruptions were that strong here, it makes sense that there are traces of them left.”
“I suppose,” Gaedynn said, “but are we marching into genuine plagueland or not?”
Aoth peered as far down the canyon as he could, looking for any hint of blue mist or earth and rock oozing like candle wax. Everything appeared all right. “It doesn’t look like it,” he said. “I’d guess the area’s no worse than the Umber Marshes.”
Gaedynn grinned. “Now that’s encouraging.”
Aoth smiled back. “Isn’t it? But Son-liin says that as long as it doesn’t rain, the gorge is safe. And the only alternative to moving ahead is miles of backtracking and a hard climb back up onto the ridge.”
The archer shrugged. “Son-liin strikes me as a reliable sort.”
“Forward it is, then.”
They strapped themselves back in their saddles, and the griffons sprang into the air. In time, Aoth spotted another fleeting blue gleam in another cliff face, as if the brown, striated stone were a mirror reflecting a flash of azure light. But nothing else happened as a result.
Standing on a neighboring peak, long armed, round shouldered, and barrel chested, a lone hill giant watched the griffon riders pass overhead. Aoth considered making contact to ask the hulking savage about the region but then decided not to bother. The giant would probably start throwing stones the instant a human came within range and might not speak any language but his own.
Then the column stopped. Cera brandished her mace. As before, Aoth left Gaedynn in the air while he swooped down to find out what was going on. “What is it?” he asked as, wings snapping, Jet settled on a tongue of granite protruding from the base of the eastern cliff.
“She doesn’t know,” said Mardiz-sul. He was trying not to sound impatient but not quite succeeding.
Aoth smiled at Cera. “I imagine you know something,” he said.
“Not really,” she replied. “But… you understand that Amaunator is the great timekeeper. Night follows day and spring passes into summer because he makes it so.”
“Right,” said Aoth. He had some firsthand experience with her god’s connection to time. But he had no idea why she was bringing it up at that moment.
“As his priestess,” Cera said, “I sometimes feel it as the wheels turn. As some natural cycle is reaching its culmination.”
“What does that mean?” asked Mardiz-sul. For an instant blue light rippled through the water flowing around his drake’s four-toed feet.
“In this situation?” she replied. “I don’t know.”
But suddenly Aoth thought he might. “I once traveled all the way to the Lake of Steam,” he said, speaking quickly. “Heard of it?”
Mardiz-sul shrugged. “Vaguely.”
“They have hot springs there… and geysers. Boiling water that shoots up out of the ground. And with a few of them, it happens at very regular intervals.” Aoth turned back to Cera. “Could you sense something like that?”
She frowned. “I’ve never seen a ‘geyser,’ but perhaps.”
“I don’t see the relevance,” said Mardiz-sul, waving his lance at their surroundings. “This creek is cold.”
“True,” said Aoth, “but there’s still spellplague festering in the ground. Mostly it’s too weak to cause any trouble. But over time, the power builds up until there’s too much. And then some of it sprays out like a geyser. I think that’s about to happen now.”
“How could you possibly know that?” asked Mardiz-sul.
“You’re a brother to fire,” Aoth said. “And I’ve got a little spellplague burning inside of me.” He pointed to his eyes.
“What will happen?” asked Son-liin.
Aoth shook his head. “There’s no way to predict.”
“Then what we do? Run?”
“No. It’s too late to get clear. We just have to be ready for anything.” Aoth raised his voice: “Everyone, ready your weapons! If you know any protective charms, cast them!”
Cera started praying and swinging her mace over her head. The sunlight grew warmer. After a moment’s hesitation, some of the genasi muttered their own incantations. Ruddy hands flicked up and down in a manner that suggested leaping flame and sketched trails of fire in the air. Breezes gusted and the stream gurgled louder than before.
Then everybody waited while blue light flickered through the creek and the granite walls, the pulses coming faster and faster. The sight of them made Aoth’s mouth go dry and his guts queasy. He’d been caught in a storm of blue fire on the day the Spellplague began and watched his fellow legionnaires die by the score. And though he’d faced a thousand foes in the century since, he’d always avoided a second encounter with that particular danger. Until now.
“Well?” asked Mardiz-sul, still blind to the power flaring all around him. “Is anything happening?”
Aoth opened his mouth to say yes, then saw he wouldn’t have to. Blue mist swirled into existence all along the canyon, or at least for as far as he could see. The genasi cried out and the drakes shrieked at its dank and somehow filthy touch. Aoth felt Jet’s spasm of revulsion and the way he had to clench himself not to take flight immediately and climb above the nasty stuff.
The touch of chaos made some of the stones in the creek bed catch fire. Others rattled together with a sound like chattering teeth. Water heaved itself high and crashed down like waves rolling in from a stormy sea.
Cera continued to pray. The air grew warmer again. The blue fog thinned as if the sun overhead were burning it away.
When the vapor was nearly gone, Mardiz-sul sighed and slumped forward. “Thank Kossuth. And Amaunator too.”
But as the last of the vapor dissipated, a kind of glare shot through it, and blue light flared in the eyes of the drakes. For an instant, Aoth had the crazy feeling that he was looking at his own deformed face in a cracked mirror, as though some mage had disfigured him with a curse and he hadn’t even known.
Some reptiles screeched, reared, or tried to bolt. Two others fell, convulsing. One of the riders, a windsoul, floated up out of the saddle, but the other, a watersoul, couldn’t slip his feet out of the stirrups and jump clear in time. As his thrashing steed rolled back and forth, it ground him beneath its bulk.
Meanwhile, Mardiz-sul’s drake bucked and flipped him into the stream. Then it reared onto its hind legs and grew until cinches snapped, and its saddle, halter, and reins fell away. Its forelegs appeared to wither, although perhaps they simply weren’t expanding like the rest of it. It held them tucked against its chest while a second head and neck wriggled up out of its shoulders like a worm squirming out of an apple.
Another reptile lost its earthsoul master when it, too, grew, and its back bulged upward like a hill. Triangular plates sprouted down the length of its spine and tore its saddle to pieces, dumping the firestormer on the ground. A spike grew from the beast’s snout, and long horns jutted from over the eyes. A bony ruff or collar swelled into being behind the head, and spikes erupted from the tip of the tail.
The two transformed saurians roared and snarled, seemingly communicating with one another. Then they attacked the creatures around them. The reptile standing on two legs leaped at Aoth and Jet like a cat. Its comrade’s charge was a ponderous waddle by comparison. But the spiked tail lashed back and forth in a frenzied blur and actually drew first blood, smashing the head of Son-liin’s mount to gory scraps and spatters.
Aoth leveled his spear and hurled a blaze of force from the point. It stabbed into the onrushing saurian’s torso but didn’t stop it. At the same time, Jet leaped upward and lashed his wings. It seemed impossible that the griffon could rise high enough quickly enough. The reptile was just too tall and too close. But then they were soaring over the creature’s upturned heads, just beyond the reach of the snapping fangs.