Khyber Elessedil climbed the steep pathway toward the cluster of caves that tunneled back into the cliff face, feeling the strain of the effort in her aching legs. The Druid Sleep might arrest aging, she thought, but it did nothing to help you stay fit and strong. She kept her silence as they advanced, following the Tracker Skint and Farshaun, Garroneck bringing up the rear. Their exposure on the open cliff face made her uneasy, but there was no choice in the matter if they were to reach whichever cave sheltered the Speakman. She needed to hear what this strange man had to say, to discover if he recognized any of the landmarks the dream had revealed. She found herself wishing—not for the first time since setting out—that she had possession of the seeking-Stones, making all of this unnecessary. If the seeking-Stones had worked for Aphenglow, even after all these centuries of revealing nothing, there was no reason to think they shouldn’t work for her.
But they didn’t have them, and they were very fortunate even to have been shown a vision of where the missing Elfstones might be found. She must settle for that.
The climb wore on, and the light faded. Once the sun was down, it would be pitch-black on the cliffs and any sort of progress would become very dangerous. She might summon magic to light the path, but doing so would reveal them to anyone who might be looking. She felt her frustration growing. Perhaps she should have waited until morning after all.
They reached the first series of caves and began to wind their way along the twisting trail that led past them. Now and then, Skint would drop to his knees to study the ground or examine the rock. At several entrances he paused as if he were considering going inside. Each time, he moved on. Khyber glanced upward along the cliff face. There were more openings ahead, all still higher up.
“This one?” she said to the Gnome at one point, pausing at a broad, high entry that seemed a perfect hiding place.
Skint made a sour face. “You wouldn’t like what you’d find in there, Ard Rhys. Be patient. Leave this to me.”
They trudged on, working their way back and forth past dozens of cave entrances. Not once did Skint suggest they enter one, or ask for illumination. Overhead, the clouds remained thickly massed and impenetrable. West, the sun had dropped behind the horizon, leaving little more than a thin wash of golden color.
Finally the Tracker stopped at what appeared to Khyber to be just another cave entrance, knelt to study the ground, and then said, “Here.”
“He’s inside?” Farshaun asked.
Skint nodded. “Should be. Call out to him and see.”
“Speakman!” Farshaun shouted into the cave entrance, standing close, leaning in. “Are you there? It’s Farshaun Req!”
Silence. They waited a few minutes, and then Farshaun called out a second time. Still nothing. More time passed. It was nearly dark now, the last of the light faded away. Khyber was growing impatient.
Then from somewhere back in the cave’s blackness, a voice whispered suddenly. “Farshaun?”
“It’s me,” the old man answered. “I’ve brought someone who wants to speak to you. Can she come in and do so? It’s very important.”
“I don’t like speaking to other people.” The voice was soft and whispery, the soft sound of clothing being unfolded, hardly more than that. “I won’t speak to anyone but you.”
“You can speak to me, but she has to hear you, too. She’s a Druid and she’s searching for something you might be able to help her find. She’s had a vision.”
“A vision?” Khyber caught a note of interest in the paper-thin voice.
“She needs you to interpret it for her. There’s no danger in this. You know I wouldn’t bring trouble to your doorstep. Now, talk to us. Just to her and me.”
Another long silence. Then a light flared back in the darkness, its source a mystery. “Just you and her. No one else.”
“I promise,” Farshaun agreed at once.
He started inside, groping his way forward with Khyber Elessedil right on his heels, leaving Skint and Garroneck behind. The strange light held steady as they advanced on it, but when they got close enough they could see it was a flameless torch of the sort favored by the people of the Old World. Immediately, it began to recede into the gloom.
“Come this way,” the voice called back to them.
They went deep into the cave, following a passageway that frequently branched in more than two directions. The cave was a honeycomb of tunnels, and Khyber knew that if she’d had to ferret out the Speakman on her own, it would likely have taken a very long while. If ever, she amended, because she was willing to bet there was more than a single entrance and exit, too.
Finally, they reached a place where the light stopped moving as they caught up with it. They were in a wide space empty of everything but themselves and the light. The flameless torch was wedged into the rocks on one wall, but Khyber had to search the blackness to find the Speakman. He was sitting off to one side, obscured by gloom and shadows. She could not see his features at all and could only barely make out that he was tall and skeletally thin, his hunched-over body with its long legs and arms and oddly elongated head giving him the look of a praying mantis.
“Sit,” he whispered to her. “Tell me of your vision.”
She did as he asked. Seated on the cave floor, wrapped in her black robes, she recounted everything she could recall of the memory she had skived from Aphenglow. She described it all, from the peculiar landmarks to the colors she had seen and sounds she had heard. She described it all carefully, trying hard not to leave anything out save the identity of what it was she was seeking. The insect in the dark shifted its long limbs now and again, but otherwise sat quietly and said nothing.
Even after she had finished, the Speakman remained silent. And when she started to ask him a question, Farshaun quickly held up his hand to silence her. Wait, he mouthed silently.
The seconds ticked away, becoming minutes. Not a sound broke the deep stillness.
And then suddenly the Speakman shifted just enough to bring his angular features into the light, his body swaying slightly as he spoke in ragged, jumbled sentence fragments.
“Dark ways … dreams of death in death’s own realm … all swept away but one … lost to the vision …” He went still, then began to sway once more, his voice ephemeral and ghostly. “Not strong enough to weather … such deep places, all in shadow … spikes and iron plates … stairways … that don’t come out and …”
He shuddered, his head jerking up suddenly, and Khyber Elessedil could see that his eyes had gone entirely white, the iris in each having disappeared.
“These places exist. The landmarks you seek. All exist. I know them, can tell you where to find them, all but the last. The waterfall of light is neither here nor there but somewhere in between. You should not go there. You should not. I see a killing ground. I see dead bodies scattered everywhere. I see … something so dark it dwarfs …”
He groaned softly; she could feel the sound rumbling in her chest, could hear its frightened shiver.
“This is a bad place. Very bad, very far away, this place, this kiln that hammers out men’s souls and leaves them to blacken in the sun, a pit that will allow neither entry nor exit and holds evil and breeds monsters and …”
He trailed off and went silent. Khyber and Farshaun exchanged confused glances. Neither could decipher what the Speakman was saying. Perhaps even he didn’t know, given that he appeared to be communicating while in a trance. For the moment, there was no way to find out. He was lost in a vision of his own, gone to a place where they could not reach him.
“One!” he hissed suddenly, causing both of them to jump. “One will return! One only!”
Then he gave a deep sigh, and his eyes regained color and focus. He shuddered as they did so, arms and legs unfolding to splay out like broken sticks.