Paul Thompson - Destiny

The sun was gone from the sky—not because of Faeterus’s fell magic, but simply due to the natural passage of time. The blast had occurred just after midday. The elves had been unconscious half a day and dusk had come. The sky over Inath-Wakenti was cloudless as usual, but the air shimmered like cloth-of-gold, as though minute crystals had been cast into the heights to catch the failing daylight. None of them could explain the remarkable phenomenon.

A shout from below brought them to the edge of the Stair. Hytanthas was climbing up. Close on his heels was Robien.

“I thought you were wounded?” Kerian called.

“I thought he was dying!” Hytanthas retorted, grinning.

“I thought him long dead,” put in Favaronas.

He and Robien were pleased to find each other again. Favaronas exclaimed over Robien’s escape from Faeterus’s entombment spell. The bounty hunter, uncertain how he’d survived, credited his rescue to the timely intervention of Taranath’s patrol.

“And this?” Favaronas pointed at the bloody rent in the breast of Robien’s tunic.

“I understand that even less. Hytanthas had managed to draw the bolt”—Robien grimaced at the memory—“but got no further. Then we awoke a few minutes ago and I was completely healed!” He fingered the rent open, showing the smooth, unbroken skin beneath.

Kerian asked Favaronas what he made of the miraculous occurrences. The scholar was silent for some time. Perhaps the healing had come about because he himself had completed the poem with the injunction “live,” but the once-ambitious elf had no desire to claim credit. Besides, who could know what really had happened?

Choosing his words carefully, he answered with perfect honesty, “The healing power must have come from the valley itself.”

Robien had gone to inspect the fallen Faeterus. With one foot, he rolled the body over. As it moved, the layers of robe covering it fell away in decayed clumps. The others came in response to his shocked exclamation.

All that remained of Faeterus were bones and scraps of dry flesh. If they hadn’t known better, the elves would have sworn he’d been dead for months rather than hours. He had claimed great age, Favaronas mused. Perhaps the rapid decay was due to the cessation of the preservation spells that had kept him alive for so many centuries.

Robien was disgusted. “What do I tell Sahim-Khan? He hired me to bring the sorcerer to justice.”

“He’s met his justice.” Kerian leaned down and picked up Faeterus’s skull. “Give this to Sahim. Tell him your job is done.”

Disgust became curiosity as Robien studied the grisly memento. Frowning, he said, “It doesn’t look much like an elf’s skull.”

Favaronas took it from him and quickly bound it in a square of cloth from the sorcerer’s robe. “When you have the best of all possible outcomes, it isn’t wise to ask too many questions!”

Dusk was fading into darkness, and a handful of stars had appeared overhead. Kerian wanted to complete the steepest part of their descent before full night set in. She told them to make ready to depart.

Favaronas had one last task he wished to perform. The blast had knocked the Key from Faeterus’s hand. Scanning the Stair, he saw the parchment some yards away, unfurled and fluttering in the evening breeze. The librarian in Favaronas could not abandon so rare a text. But when he tried to pick it up, the parchment fell to pieces at his touch. Kneeling, he used the hem of his robe to cover his fingers and tried again. It crumbled further. He was staring helplessly at the remains of the Key when the Lioness came to tell him they were ready to go. He explained his predicament and the importance of the parchment.

Without a word, she walked around him and deliberately trampled the fragile parchment beneath her boots. Favaronas was aghast.

“Now no one can try to do what Faeterus did,” she said flatly.

He knew she was right. But watching the knowledge of eons ground into dust was painful. He closed his eyes against the sight.

Her calloused hand tugged gently at the neck of his geb. “Leave it, Favaronas. It’s time to go.”

They departed, descending carefully in the gathering darkness.

Nearly half an hour went by before Breetan emerged higher up the slope.

Blown into a crevice by the explosions, she had awakened to find her broken ankle entirely mended. Her foot wasn’t even swollen. From her hiding place, she could hear the small party of elves moving about and speaking but couldn’t make out what they said. They didn’t seem wroth over the death of their leader, the Scarecrow. That much she could tell.

She found her sword buried in the rocky soil. It was undamaged, but her crossbow had not been so fortunate. Hurled directly into a boulder, the stock was shattered. To keep its secrets from unfriendly hands, she completed its destruction.

The Black Hall was such a long way away, she decided instead to go over the mountains and present herself in Neraka. Her mission was complete. The Scarecrow was dead. As more and more stars crowded the sky, Breetan headed for home.

Farther down the valley, another was awakening after the terrific blast. Wounded by the Lioness’s party when he attacked the bounty hunter, Shobbat had crept under a low thread-needle bush—to rest or die, he wasn’t sure which. He awoke in darkness.

He was human again.

Joyous relief changed quickly to alarm. The thread-needle bush was covered by sharp, inch-long spines, and he was completely naked. Little more than a nuisance to the tough, thickly furred hide of his beastly form, the spines would wreak havoc on his delicate human flesh. He inched his way very carefully out from under the bush and into the cold night air.

He couldn’t possibly cross the mountains in his current state, so he went back the way he had come, through the southern pass, into the valley. He needed clothes and would have to avoid the laddad patrols, but he was himself again. Even shivering and exposed, Shobbat grinned in triumph.

Kerian’s party crossed the valley in mounting excitement. Moonlight and starlight showed them the many changes wrought in the landscape. The monoliths were gone. Where the thousands of snowy quartz blocks had stood were only scorched patches of turf or shallow pits. The air was drier, with none of the clammy mists that usually clung to the ground at night.

And the valley was full of trees! Not the stubby, twisted plants they’d grown accustomed to in the benighted vale, but soaring giants such as they’d not seen since leaving their homelands. Oaks towered forty feet above their heads. Pines and cedars thrust skyward like enormous green spires. The ground was littered with palm-sized acorns and pine cones the size of melons. The air was drenched with the perfume of a riot of blossoms. The open landscape was gone. Although loathe to destroy such beauty, the elves were forced to hack a path through the newly grown foliage.

Periodically their way was blocked by water. Rivulets they’d crossed the day before in a stride or two were rushing streams. Creeks had matured into small rivers. The valley’s few small springs gushed like fountains.

Passing one of the larger pits left by a departed monolith, they saw a rabbit shoot out of the hole, dart around their legs in confused fashion, and vanish into the night. On its furry heels came more creatures: a pair of squirrels, half a dozen starlings, a cloud of flies.

“The same power that cured our personal hurts has restored the animals of Inath-Wakenti,” Hytanthas said.

“How so?” asked Favaronas.

Hytanthas told him about the layers of dry bones he’d found in the tunnels under the valley. Favaronas had entered the tunnels during the Lioness’s original expedition and hadn’t encountered any remains, but his stay had been very brief, and the captain’s theory seemed logical to him. The bones of the valley’s animals had been given flesh again.