Troy Denning - The Sentinel

“No,” Kleef said. “Then he’ll know we’ve seen him.”

“He probably knows already.” Arietta waggled the tip of her bow. “I’m afraid I wasn’t very subtle when you said we were being watched.”

Kleef frowned, taking far longer to consider her words than he should have. Finally, he removed a hand from an oar and pointed at the tree.

“There,” Kleef said. “It’s the second time I’ve seen him.”

“When was the first time?” Arietta asked, trying not to show her growing concern. “And why didn’t you tell us?”

“Because I wasn’t sure,” Kleef snapped. “But I am now.”

“That’s good,” Joelle said, in a tone of exaggerated patience. “Where did you see him the first time?”

“In the mouth of that little cave we passed,” Kleef said. “I thought it was just a trick of the shadows-”

“Until you saw his eyes follow us down the river,” Malik finished. He was in the front of the raft, and had just sat up.

“You saw him, too.” Kleef looked toward the little man. “Why didn’t you say something?”

“Because then he raised his cowl and disappeared,” Malik said. “I thought my eyes were deceiving me.”

“They weren’t,” Kleef said. “I saw him pull his cowl up, too.”

“Perhaps the shadows were playing tricks on both of you,” Joelle suggested. “And even if you did see someone, wasn’t the cave on the other side of the river? How would he get across and up to that ledge?”

Kleef furrowed his brow and looked down river again, and his eyes grew doubtful.

Seeing that they were thirty paces from the ledge, Arietta said, “There’s an easy way to find out. Just move the raft closer to the cliff. If he’s there, maybe Joelle and I will see him, too.”

Kleef looked back down river, then shook his head. “It’s too late,” he said. “He’s gone.”

Arietta exchanged worried looks with Joelle and realized they had both come to the same conclusion. She tucked her bow back beneath the security line they had rigged to keep their equipment from falling off the raft, then returned to Kleef’s side.

“I’ll take the oars for a while,” she said. “You can rest, and Joelle will ask Sune to guard your dreams.”

Kleef refused to yield the oars. “I’m not imagining things.”

“All the more reason to get some sleep,” Joelle said. “If someone has been watching us, it may be that the Shadovar have found us on their own.”

“He didn’t look like a Shadovar,” Kleef said. “Too pale.”

“And yet, he emerges from the shadows on both sides of the canyon,” Joelle said. “Who else could cross the river and appear in front of us so easily?”

Kleef looked uncertain.

“Kleef, even Helm can sustain you only so long,” Arietta said. “Your thinking is clouded and slow, and you can barely stand. You are going to fall asleep.”

“And it’s better to do it now, when we can try to protect you,” Joelle said. “And when Yder may not be looking for your dreams.”

“Indeed,” Malik agreed. “It has been so long since you have dreamed that Yder may even believe you’ve finally figured out how to keep him away.”

“Finally?” Arietta asked. Fighting to keep the anger out of her voice, she turned toward the little man. “Are you saying you already know how to keep Yder away?”

Malik looked genuinely confused. “You do not?”

“No.” Joelle’s voice was seething. “If we knew, why wouldn’t we have tried it four days ago?”

Malik shrugged. “Because it is not for you to try.” He looked toward Kleef, then said, “And I can only believe the oaf has never tried it because it is easier to fight shades than to forsake his bitterness.”

“Bitterness?” Kleef asked. He leaned so far forward between the oars that Arietta reached out and caught him by the arm. “What does that have to do with my dreams?”

“You are angry at your god,” Malik said. “And that is what gives Shar power over you. Give up your anger, and we will all be the safer. Yder won’t be able to use his goddess’s power to enter your dreams.”

Kleef scowled and shook his head. “I’m not angry at Helm,” he said. “Why should I be? Helm’s been dead for the last hundred years.”

“And yet, you’ve spent your whole life serving him,” Arietta said. She was not happy to find herself agreeing with Malik, but her recent disappointment with Siamorphe gave her some insight into what Kleef must have been feeling all those years. “You’ve kept faith with Helm’s Law and honored your duty, all while watching your superiors profit outrageously by turning their backs on everything you stand for. Of course you’re angry. Who wouldn’t be?”

Kleef turned to her with a confused look. “You think Malik is right?”

“So do I,” Joelle said. She laid a hand on his arm and smiled. “And so do you, if you look inside yourself. Will you try to give up your anger? For us?”

“And for our quest,” Malik added. “After your mistake at the citadel, it is the least you can do to protect the Eye from our enemies.”

Kleef glowered at the little man for a moment, then finally nodded. “I’ll try.” He relinquished the oars to Arietta, then stepped to the back of raft and said, “If I start to talk or thrash around-”

“I’ll wake you,” Joelle promised. “But you won’t. Sune and I will be watching over your sleep, too.”

Kleef’s only response was an unintelligible grunt, then the raft rocked as he dropped onto the deck and stretched out. Arietta heard Joelle whisper a soft prayer to Sune, and two breaths later, Kleef was snoring. Instead of dropping back into his usual repose, Malik remained alert and anxious, scanning the canyon rims and studying every shadow they passed. Once, he raised his arm as though to point, but quickly lowered it again and announced that he was no better than Kleef. He thought he had seen the bald-headed man again, but it had only turned out to be a turtle resting on a boulder.

Arietta spent the rest of the day keeping them in the middle of the river, where it would be difficult for the Shadovar or anyone else to launch an attack. Then, toward the end of the afternoon, the current started to move much faster, and the gorge grew so deep that the bottom was cloaked in permanent twilight. They began to hear a faint whispering in the canyon ahead, and soon the whispering became a constant drone.

Finally, the drone became a steady thrum, and Arietta said, “We must be getting near the end. That’s beginning to sound like the waterfall Theamont warned us about.”

“I am sure it is.” Malik pointed toward a hanging ravine on the south wall of the gorge. “And there is our way out.”

Arietta barely glanced at it before shaking her head. Although there was a small gravel bank beneath the ravine where they could beach the raft, the mouth was nearly fifty feet up a sheer cliff.

“We’re not that close to the waterfall yet,” Arietta said. “There’s bound to be a bigger gulch or side canyon before we reach it.”

“Perhaps, but it is not the waterfall I am worried about,” Malik said. “It is that.”

He pointed again, this time straight down the canyon. At first, it was difficult for Arietta to identify the source of his concern. All she could see was the river disappearing into the gloom that filled the bottom of the gorge.

And then she realized that the gloom was his concern. It lay on the water like the approaching dusk, a gray dimness seeping into the air above, spreading upriver toward the raft, creeping along the canyon walls around them.

It was the Shadowfell, and it was coming for them.

The mouth of the ravine hung fifty feet above the ground, a gray wedge of nothingness opening into the cliff’s craggy dark face. While there were no crevices into which a fist or foot could be jammed while a climber paused to rest, there were plenty of rough-textured knobs and flat-bottomed divots to use as handholds and toe rests. The ascent was going to be tiring but fairly safe-and not really much of a challenge compared to some of the palace towers Joelle had climbed in her time as a jewel thief.