Маргарет Уэйс - Dragons of Spring Dawning

Tanis was right. After an hour tracing back their own footsteps, they discovered a small animal trail none of them had noticed in passing. It was Flint who saw the man’s tracks in the mud. Calling excitedly to the others, the dwarf plunged into the brush, following the clearly marked trail easily. The rest hurried after him, but the dwarf seemed to have experienced an unusual surge of energy. Like a hunting hound who knows the prey is just ahead of him, Flint trampled over tangleshoot vines and hacked his way through the undergrowth without pause. He quickly outdistanced them.

“Flint!” Tanis shouted more than once. “Wait up!”

But the group fell farther and farther behind the excited dwarf until they lost sight of him altogether. Flint’s trail proved even clearer than Berem’s, however. They had little difficulty following the print of the dwarf’s heavy boots, not to mention the broken tree limbs and uprooted vines that marked his passing.

Then suddenly they were brought to a halt.

They had reached another rock cliff, but this time there was a way through—a hole in the rock formed a narrow tunnel-like opening. The dwarf had entered easily—they could see his tracks—but it was so narrow that Tanis stared at it in dismay.

“Berem got through it,” Caramon said grimly, pointing at a smear of fresh blood the rock.

“Maybe,” Tanis said dubiously. “See what’s on the other side, Tas,” he ordered, reluctant to enter until he was certain he was not being led a merry chase.

Tasslehoff crawled through with ease, and soon they heard his shrill voice exclaiming in wonder over something, but it echoed so they had trouble understanding his words.

Suddenly Fizban’s face brightened. “This is it!” cried the old mage in high glee. “We’ve found it! Godshome! The way in—through this passageway!”

“There’s no other way?” Caramon asked, staring at the narrow opening gloomily.

Fizban appeared thoughtful. “Well, I seem to recall—”

Then, “Tanis! Hurry!” came through quite clearly from the other side.

“No more dead ends. We’ll get through this way,” Tanis muttered, “somehow.”

Crawling on hands and knees, the companions crept into the narrow opening. The way did not become easier; sometimes they were forced to flatten themselves and slither through the mud like snakes. Broad-shouldered Caramon had the worst time, and for a while Tanis thought perhaps they might have to leave the big man behind. Tasslehoff waited for them on the other side, peering in at them anxiously as they crawled. “I heard something, Tanis,” he kept saying. “Flint shouting. Up ahead. And wait until you see this place, Tanis! You won’t believe it!”

But Tanis couldn’t take time to listen or look around, not until everyone was safely through the tunnel. It took all of them, pulling and tugging, to drag Caramon through and when he finally emerged, the skin on his arms and back was cut and bleeding.

“This is it!” Fizban stated. “We’re here.”

The half-elf turned around to see the place called Godshome.

“Not exactly the place I’d choose to live if I were a god,” Tasslehoff remarked in a subdued voice.

Tanis was forced to agree.

They stood at the edge of a circular depression in the center of a mountain. The first thing that struck Tanis when he looked upon Godshome was the overwhelming desolation and emptiness of the place. All along the path up into the mountains, the companions had seen signs of new life: trees budding, grass greening, wild flowers pushing their way through the mud and remnants of snow. But here there was nothing. The bottom of the bowl was perfectly smooth and flat, totally barren, gray and lifeless. The towering peaks of the mountain surrounding the bowl soared above them. The jagged rock of the peaks seemed to loom inward, giving the observer the impression of being pressed down into the crumbling rock beneath his feet. The sky above them was azure, clear, and cold, devoid of sun or bird or cloud, though it had been raining when they entered the tunnel. It was like an eye staring down from gray, unblinking rims. Shivering, Tanis quickly withdrew his gaze from the sky to look once more within the bowl.

Below that staring eye, within the center of the bowl itself, stood a circle of huge, tall, shapeless boulders. It was a perfect circle made up of imperfect rocks. Yet they matched so nearly and stood so close together that when Tanis tried to look between them, he could not make out from where he was standing what the strange stones guarded so solemnly. These boulders were all that was visible in the rock-strewn and silent place.

“It makes me feel so terribly sad,” Tika whispered. “I’m not frightened—it doesn’t seem evil, just so sorrowful! If the gods do come here, it must be to weep over the troubles of the world.”

Fizban turned to regard Tika with a penetrating look and seemed about to speak, but before he could comment, Tasslehoff shouted. “There, Tanis!”

“I see!” The half-elf broke into a run.

On the other side of the bowl, he could see the vague outline of what appeared to be two figures—one short and the other tall—struggling.

“It’s Berem!” screamed Tas. The two were plainly visible to his keen kender eyes. “And he’s doing something to Flint! Hurry, Tanis!”

Bitterly cursing himself for letting this happen, for not keeping closer watch on Berem, for not forcing the man to reveal those secrets he was so obviously holding back, Tanis ran across the stony ground with a speed born of fear. He could hear the others calling to him, but he paid no attention. His eyes were on the two in front of him and now he could see them clearly. Even as he watched, he saw the dwarf fall to the ground. Berem stood over him.

“Flint!” Tanis screamed.

His heart was pounding so that blood dimmed his vision. His lungs ached, there didn’t seem air enough to breath. Still he ran faster, and now he could see Berem turn to look at him. He seemed to be trying to say something—Tanis could see the man’s lips moving—but the half-elf couldn’t hear through the surge of blood beating in his ears. At Berem’s feet lay Flint. The dwarf’s eyes were closed, his head lolled over to one side, his face was ashen gray.

“What have you done?” Tanis shrieked at Berem. “You’ve killed him!” Grief, guilt, despair, and rage exploded within Tanis like one of the old mage’s fireballs, flooding his head with unbearable pain. He could not see, a red tide blurred his sight.

His sword was in his hand, he had no idea how. He felt the cold steel of the hilt. Berem’s face swam within a blood-red sea; the man’s eyes filled—not with terror—but with deep sorrow. Then Tanis saw the eyes widen with pain, and it was only then he knew he had plunged the sword into Berem’s unresisting body, plunged it so deeply that he felt it cleave through flesh and bone and scrape the rock upon which the Everman was leaning.

Warm blood washed over Tanis’s hands. A horrible scream burst in his head, then a heavy weight fell on him, nearly knocking him down.

Berem’s body slumped over him, but Tanis didn’t notice. Frantically he struggled to free his weapon and stab again. He felt strong hands grab him. But in his madness, the half-elf fought them off. Finally pulling his sword free, he watched Berem fall to the ground, blood streaming from the horrible wound just below the green gemstone that glittered with an unholy life in the man’s chest.

Behind him, he heard a deep, booming voice and a woman’s sobbing pleas and a shrill wail of grief. Furious, Tanis spun around to face those who had tried to thwart him. He saw a big man with a grief-stricken face, a red-haired girl with tears streaming down her cheeks. He recognized neither of them. And then there appeared before him an old, old man. His face was calm, his ageless eyes filled with sorrow. The old man smiled gently at Tanis and, reaching out, laid his hand on the half-elf’s shoulder.