“I saw him slay a drowning halfling and torture another,” Midnight objected, pointing an accusing finger at Cyric’s head.
“We can’t kill him while he’s helpless,” Adon insisted. He looked past Kelemvor and addressed the magic-user.
Midnight, however, was not easily convinced. “Cyric deserves to die.”
“It’s not our right to judge our fellows,” Adon said softly, still holding off the fighter. “Any more than it was the right of the Harpers to condemn you and I to death.”
Kelemvor frowned at that memory, then sheathed his weapon. During the Battle of Shadowdale, Elminster had disappeared. The locals had leaped to the conclusion that someone had murdered the sage, then falsely accused Adon and Midnight of the crime. Had Cyric not broken them out of jail, the pair would have been executed.
“This is different,” Midnight insisted. “He betrayed us, and he played me for a fool.” She reached for Kelemvor’s sword.
The warrior placed a restraining hand on his hilt. “No,” he said. “Adon’s right.”
“If we kill him,” Adon said, waving a hand at Cyric’s helpless form. “We’re murderers—just like he is. Do you want that?”
Midnight pondered that for a moment, then jerked her hand away from the sword. “Leave him, then. He’ll die anyway.” She turned and started up the road.
Kelemvor looked to Adon for instruction.
“We shouldn’t kill a helpless man,” the cleric said. “But we don’t have to help him, either. He can’t do us any more harm. He’s lost his men and if we hurry, we’ll put some miles between us before he wakes up.” He started after Midnight. “Let’s hurry, before she disappears again.”
They caught Midnight quickly, then Kelemvor asked, “Where are we going?”
Midnight paused.
Though just barely, she was still within Cyric’s earshot. Had she looked at the thief, she might have noticed him turning his head to hear her answer.
“I’m going to Dragonspear Castle,” the raven-haired mage said, her hands on her hips.
“Then we’re all going to Dragonspear Castle,” Adon noted calmly. “Are Kelemvor and I going to have to split the watch to keep you from sneaking off, Midnight?”
“The gods themselves are against me,” the magic-user warned, looking from the cleric to Kelemvor, then back again. “You’ll be risking your lives.”
“We’d be risking more by leaving you alone,” Adon retorted, a smile growing on his face.
Kelemvor caught Midnight’s elbow and turned her so he could look straight into her eyes. “Gods or no gods,” he said firmly, “I’m with you, Midnight.”
Midnight was warmed by the devotion of her friends, but still was not ready to accept their offer. Though she was talking to both Adon and Kelemvor, she looked only into the warrior’s eyes as she spoke. “The choice is yours, but you’d better hear me out before you decide. Somewhere below Dragonspear Castle, there’s a bridge to the Realm of the Dead.”
“In Waterdeep?” Kelemvor cried incredulously. He was thinking of the city’s famous cemetery, which was properly known as “The City of the Dead.”
“No, the Realm of the Dead,” the mage corrected. Then Midnight looked at Adon. “The other tablet is in Myrkul’s castle.”
Kelemvor and Adon stared at each other in dumfounded silence, hardly believing that she meant the resting place of souls.
“Don’t feel bad if you choose to go home,” Midnight replied, interpreting their astonishment as hesitancy. She gently removed her elbow from Kelemvor’s grasp. “I really don’t think you should come anyway.”
“I thought the choice was ours,” Adon said, snapping out of his shock.
“Aye! You’re not going to lose us that easy,” Kelemvor added, taking Midnight by the arm again.
It was Midnight’s turn to be astonished. She had not allowed herself to hope that Kelemvor and Adon would want to accompany her. But now that they had declared their intention to do just that, she felt less lonely and immeasurably more confident. Midnight threw herself into Kelemvor’s arms and kissed him long and hard.
11
Dragonspear Castle
The rise was so gentle Adon hardly knew he was walking uphill. Halfway up, the cleric stopped and shifted the saddlebags with the tablet to his other shoulder. It was the most exciting thing he had done in almost four hours.
Along with Kelemvor and Midnight, Adon had been traveling along the desolate road for five days. To the west, coarse stems of tall golden grass rose from a prairie of wet, slushy snow. A mile to the east stood the dark cliffs of the High Moor. Ahead, running mile after mile, was the straight and endlessly boring road to Waterdeep. Adon had never thought he would long to feel a steep mountainside beneath his feet, but right now he would have gladly traded a mile of easy road for twenty miles of precarious mountain trail.
Despite a hard morning’s march, Adon’s toes were shriveled and numb. Three inches of slushy snow covered the road, soaking through even the well-oiled boots High Horn’s quartermaster had provided. Judging from the pearly complexion of the sky, more snow would soon fall.
Even accounting for their northward progress, the season had changed early this year. A white shroud already blanketed the High Moor, and sheets of ice crowned the streams that poured from the wild country’s heart.
Adon felt as if the nature gods were conspiring to make his journey difficult and cold. It was far more likely, he realized, that the unseasonable cold was a reflection of the absence of those gods. Without their supervision, nature was running rampant, randomly changing as one mindless force gained supremacy over another.
The unpredictable weather was just one more reason he and his companions had to succeed in their quest. Without an orderly progression of the seasons, it would not be long before the farmers lost their crops and whole populations starved.
As Adon pondered the importance of his mission and the dreariness of completing it, a sharp bark sounded from the other side of the rise. He immediately turned and waved Kelemvor and Midnight off the road, then began searching for a hiding place himself. The land was so barren he finally had to settle for kneeling behind a scraggly bush.
A band of gray appeared at the top of the rise. The cleric squinted and looked closer. Twelve wolves were walking abreast in a straight line. Another rank followed the first, and then another and another, until a whole column of wolves was marching down the road in perfect step.
As the column advanced, Adon wondered whether he should run or continue hiding behind his pathetic bush. One of the wolves barked a sharp command. The first line drew abreast of the cleric’s hiding place, then each wolf snapped its head to face him in a perfect dress left maneuver. Each succeeding line repeated the drill as it passed.
Adon gave up hiding and returned to the roadside, shaking his head in disbelief. Kelemvor and Midnight joined him.
“Nice parade work,” the fighter noted, observing the wolves with a critical eye. His voice was as casual as if the trio had been watching an army of men instead of animals.
With studied disinterest, Midnight asked, “I wonder where they’re off to?”
“Baldur’s Gate or Elturel,” Kelemvor observed, turning and looking to the south.
“How would you know that?” Adon demanded, frowning at the warrior.
“You haven’t heard?” Midnight asked. She lifted her brows to indicate incredulity at Adon’s ignorance.
“The sheep are revolting in the south,” Kelemvor finished.
The cleric put his hands on his hips. “What are—”