Anezka laughed at them and continued down the hill. The hiss grew louder, changing into a steady, loud sizzle that echoed off the trees. Agis tried to imagine what kind of strange creature could be making the noise, but he had never heard anything like the sound and failed to think of a single possibility.
At last they came to a break in the underbrush. Rikus and Neeva stopped dead in their tracks. Sadira and Agis quickly stepped to either side of the two gladiators, then also stopped, their eyes wide with shock.
A twenty-foot ribbon of water blocked their path, flashing silver and white as it ran down a narrow, rocky channel. Agis stood at the stream’s edge, listening to it roar and gurgle as it flowed down its jumbled course. Anezka waded out into the stream and began to drink.
“Where does it all come from?” Rikus asked, taking his satchel off so he could fish out his waterskin and fill it.
“From the rain,” Agis answered, also fetching his waterskin.
“There’s too much water for that,” Neeva said. “It would have to rain every day to keep this gully full.”
“What makes you think it doesn’t?” Sadira asked, waving her hands at the dense forest around them. “Plants need water. This many plants must need a lot of water.”
“Rain every day?” Rikus scoffed, “That’s impossible. I’ve seen five rainstorms in my life, and that’s a lot for someone my age.”
“Perhaps the rain is attracted by magic,” Agis suggested, his mind wrestling with the problem of how something as wondrous as a forest could exist. “If sorcerers draw their magic from plants, maybe plants can make magic that causes it to rain.”
“There’s no doubt that something magic is at work here,” Sadira said. “But who can say what? It could be the forest itself or it might be something else, I’m not sure we’ll ever understand-and maybe we shouldn t.”
“No, that’s where you’re wrong,” Agis countered. “If the forest can exist in the mountains, then it can exist in other parts of Athas. For that to happen, we need to understand what makes it grow first.”
Rikus finished filling his waterskin. “The noble’s soft in his head as well as his body,” the mul mumbled.
“I don’t know about that,” Neeva said. “Did you see his faro orchards? If anyone could grow a forest, I think it would be Agis.”
“My thanks, Neeva,” replied Agis, encouraged by her support. “If I could just live in the forest for a year-”
“Whatever Kalak has planned for Tyr would be done and over,” Sadira said. “Maybe we can make Athas green with trees someday, but not now.” She pointed downstream. Anezka had left them and was already far ahead, picking her way silently along the stream bank. “Let’s try not to lose her again. I’m afraid she won’t come back for us.”
They quickly closed their waterskins, then crashed down the gully in pursuit of the halfling. Eventually the ravine descended into a deep, steep-sloped canyon, and the stream transformed into the frothing waters of a wild river. The whole canyon trembled with the power of the mighty watercourse, and the thunder of its torrents overwhelmed every other sound within the valley.
Although the drizzle had finally let up and the sun was baking the rocky shoreline, Anezka continued without letting the party stop to marvel at the river. The halfling led the way along the shore, and eventually they came to a trail overhung by mossy tree boughs.
As they stepped onto this path, Agis caught sight of a quaking branch out of the corner of his eye, then glimpsed the silhouette of a halfling hiding behind the tree itself. The halfling was pointing a small bow at Rikus’s back.
“Rikus, down!” Agis called.
The mul obeyed just before a twang sounded from the small man’s hiding place. A tiny, foot-long arrow sailed over Rikus’s head and lodged in the bulbous trunk of a frond tree. When Agis looked back to the attacker’s hiding place, the halfling was no longer in sight. Neeva and Sadira swung around with their weapons ready. When Agis drew his sword, Anezka disappeared into the forest on the opposite side of the trail.
“Where are they?” Rikus demanded, returning to his feet.
“I only saw one, and he disappeared,” Agis reported.
“You lost sight of him?” the mul snapped angrily.
“You didn’t even see him,” Agis pointed out, his eyes still searching the trees.
Neeva plucked the arrow from the white bark. “They’re not going to do much damage with this thing.”
Rikus snatched the arrow from her hand and peered at the tip. “It was coated with something,” he said. “There are still traces above the tip.”
The other three spoke at the same time. “Poison!”
Another twang sounded from the side of the trail. This time, the arrow struck Neeva in the thigh. She let out a frightened scream and slapped it off her leg. With her other hand, she pointed her trikal at a clump of trembling conifer boughs. “There he is,” she said, stepping in the direction she pointed.
Her knees buckled on the second step, and she pitched face first onto the ground. Sadira kneeled at her side. Screaming in anger, Rikus leaped over the two women. Ignoring Agis and Sadira’s panicked cries to be cautious, he disappeared into the shadowy forest.
Agis started to follow, but almost immediately Rikus yelled, “Got the little varl!”
A sharp smack sounded, then the mul stepped back into the trail with the halfling’s unconscious body in one hand. “Maybe a hostage will discourage-”
Another twang sounded from the other side of the trail. An arrow lodged in the mul’s bare chest. Rikus brushed it away with a quick swipe, then hurled the unconscious halfling at his attacker. He charged toward the underbrush again, cursing and growling, but collapsed before he left the trail.
Sadira pointed her cane over the mul’s head, but Agis called, “No!”
Without explaining further, he pointed a hand to each side of the trail and closed his eyes. Opening an energy path from his nexus to both of his arms, the noble imagined an invisible cord that ran from deep inside him to his fingers. An instant later, his hands tingled with psionic power.
Remembering the halfling taste for giant spiders, Agis decided to use a pair of mental constructs to seek vengeance in Singer’s name. He visualized each of his hands changing into a huge spider, but not the chirping kind Anezka and her fellows liked to eat. These were black and shiny, with great bulbous bodies and carapaces as hard as rock.
The spiders had no physical existence, for they lived only in the noble’s thoughts. After the halflings turned their attention on Agis, however, the spiders would seem as real to the little warriors as anything else in the forest.
Assuming that the warriors were watching him by now, Agis visualized the illusionary spiders leaping off the ends of his arms. When they landed, each was as large as Rikus. They scurried into the forest on eight sturdy legs equipped with claws as sharp as a rock leopard’s nails and as long as a dagger.
By fixing their attention on Agis, the halflings created a faint mental contact between themselves and the noble. The enormous spiders located two of these tenuous threads and followed them like silky strands of web back to their sources. Through his spiders’ eyes, the noble saw the two halflings who were watching lift their bows. They each nocked a black-tipped arrow into the bowstring.
As the halflings took aim, Agis’s hunters entered their minds. Both halflings screamed and released their bowstrings, shooting their tiny arrows into the ground. They dropped their weapons and reached for their daggers, totally convinced that the psionic creatures were real. Agis visualized the spiders’ fangs dripping black poison, then the two beasts struck. The astonished halflings cried out and clutched the enormous fangs they believed to be piercing their bodies. They struggled briefly, arms flailing wildly as they tried to free themselves. Finally the warriors grew lethargic and fell silent, convinced that they had been killed.