Jaleigh Johnson - Spider and Stone

“The anvils of the forge symbolize our home beneath the earth,” Joya explained, “but the constellations mimic the world of Faerun above. Between the two stand Haela Brightaxe’s followers. In answer to your question, it is a room for all, but I am the only one who comes here now. I thought it appropriate to bring you here. I have news to share.”

“What news?” Icelin asked, her heart thudding against her ribs. “Is it Ruen?”

“Word came not long ago of the first of the survivors. Ruen is among them. He and the others, including the wounded, are on their way back to the city even as we speak.”

Icelin closed her eyes and swayed on her feet. Joya’s strong arm on hers kept her upright. “Thank the gods,” she breathed. “What of your family-your father and Obrin?”

“They live,” Joya said. “His comrades say Obrin is speaking in the common tongue-whether that heralds a miracle or the end of all things, they cannot say, but clearly there’s a tale to tell of what they went through in the battle.”

“Thank you for telling me,” Icelin said, her throat tightening around the words.

“Are you all right?” Joya asked, looking suddenly concerned. “I thought this news would make you happy, yet your face is so full of sorrow. What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing,” Icelin said, “nothing that can be helped or changed. I think I’ll go for a walk, if you don’t mind my leaving you.”

“Not at all,” Joya said, squeezing Icelin’s hand. “Go out the rear door of the temple and circle around the waterfall. There is a hidden garden attached to the temple. Few go there, especially now. It is a good place to be alone with your thoughts.”

“Thank you.” Icelin passed out of the red-lit chamber and exited the temple. She did not look around her or pay attention to the people she passed.

Ruen was safe. Unspeakable relief washed over her, making her dizzy, but coldness had settled in her stomach. Ruen would return, and she’d have to tell him that she intended to stop searching for a cure for her spellscar.

What would he think of her? Icelin thought she already knew the answer. He would leave, of course. What reason did he have to stay with her, if not for that goal?

All of a sudden, Icelin felt very cold. She walked around the outside of the temple until she saw the waterfall Joya had mentioned. It enclosed the garden on three sides, creating a private little space accessed by a walkway.

A perfect place to hide.

When Ruen at last saw the buildings of Iltkazar reveal themselves through the widening tunnel, he wanted to go to Icelin immediately.

Moradin’s clerics had other ideas.

They pushed and prodded him into following the wounded to Haela’s temple, where he accepted more healing and let them clean him up and give him fresh clothes. He hadn’t realized how filthy he was with dirt and caked blood until he caught one of the dwarves wrinkling his nose in disgust.

Amidst these ministrations, he asked for Icelin and learned that she’d gone out to the temple garden. He left to find her as soon as they let him.

The temple garden was peaceful-not at all what Ruen would have expected from a goddess who’d reveled in battle, but perhaps even Haela Brightaxe needed peace and solitude sometimes.

A waterfall spilled from channels in the upper balcony, enclosing the garden below on three sides with water and the fourth side with a wall of stone. The narrow footbridge Ruen stood upon provided the only access to the garden. The stone path gently parted the water curtain, revealing silvery blue lichen hanging from wire baskets on the far wall.

Through the entry, Ruen saw Icelin. She moved past the opening and then behind the water curtain to become a distorted shape, a play of shadows and light, not quite real but no phantom either.

Ruen’s silent steps carried him to the opening. His heart beat an aching rhythm in his chest. Her back was to him now. She faced the wall, her arms knotted around herself.

The garden was made of stones. Beds of them ringed the base of the waterfall, the outermost stones dark with wet, and the inner ones silver from the light of the glowing lichen. Ruen allowed himself a small smile. He should have expected no less from the dwarves.

He stalled. Ruen wanted to speak, to make Icelin turn and look at him, but now that the moment had come, he couldn’t speak. How was he supposed to give voice to everything that was inside of him, to what had been building for months.

You’re a coward, Ruen thought. You always have been. You’re a coward, and she’s fearless.

Not in that moment. In that moment, she trembled. He read the anguish in her hunched shoulders, neck muscles rigid. She would retreat into herself and disappear if she could.

“It says on a plaque here that travelers used to visit this garden, bringing offerings of stone,” Icelin said, shattering the silence and startling Ruen so badly that he actually jumped.

“How did you know I was here?” he asked, trying to tamp down his incredulity.

She turned to face him. Her eyes were clear-clear, and so remote, so distant that he grew more frightened. Was he already too late?

“She said travelers chose the rarest, most beautiful stones from their journeys in Faerun and brought them back to Haela’s temple to place in the gardens.” Icelin walked along the stone beds, her eyes on the rocks. She seemed to be looking everywhere in the tiny garden except at him.

“The goddess’s memory is strong here,” Ruen said. He could think of nothing else to say. The pain in his chest nearly overwhelmed him.

“There are stones from Aglarond and Cormyr,” Icelin went on, “from Thay and Rashemen and from Mulhurond-lands that have disappeared from the world. Can you imagine it? It made me wish I’d brought a stone from South Ward in Waterdeep. A flat rock, worn down by caravan wheels and caked with dust, though I doubt Haela would have minded. So many goddesses lost,” Icelin murmured, speaking as if to herself.

“You’ve been in that damn library too long,” Ruen said suddenly, harshly. “Surrounded by sorrow-filled lore and with that drow creature haunting your every move, it’s no wonder that you’re …”

“What?” She did look at him then, waiting for him to finish, but he just stared at her. He took a step toward her, unsteadily, his arm half-raised.

She backed away from him. If she’d used magic to erect a barrier, it could not have been more effective. Ruen dropped his hand to his side and closed his fingers into a fist.

“Did I lose you then?” He said it in a whisper. The hand he clutched at his side trembled. “Did I go so far wrong that you won’t let me … that I can’t be with you?”

Icelin closed her eyes, and a tear slid down her cheek. “I am so very tired, Ruen,” she said. “I’m very sorry too.”

“Why?” he demanded. “What have you got to be sorry for?”

“Because I couldn’t do it.” Her voice echoed in the small garden, swallowed up by the water. “The king’s library was beautiful. All those books filled with knowledge from dead dwarf scholars. Books that have souls, living memories, stories that draw you in-literally! — to their pages. So much that’s been lost, and I remember it all now. I can’t forget all the names I read or the people who used to inhabit the city and gave it life.” She slid into a crouch, leaning against the temple wall. “I don’t mind remembering it all,” she said, so softly he almost didn’t hear her. “But Zollgarza is there too. He speaks, and I remember everything he says-”

“I knew it-that bastard drove you out of there.” Ruen lashed out, kicking the stone wall in frustration. A wave of pain shot up his leg. It was a stupid thing to do. “The king told me you stopped looking for the sphere.”