Keith Baker - The Gates of Night

“Hello?” Lei whispered. She felt a vague flicker of emotion, the faintest acknowledgment … but no words in response. Could it actually speak? She turned the staff so she could look directly into the eyes of the carved face. Before she could say anything, a hand closed on her arm and spun her around.

“You want to tell me what that was about?” Daine had a gash across his scalp, and blood was streaked across his forehead. “By now, I thought I could rely on you to follow orders.” While he was angry, concern was the stronger emotion.

“I … can’t explain it.”

“Try. Betrothed? Hadrian’s dead.”

“So are we,” Xu’sasar pointed out. The drow woman was helping Pierce recover the arrows scattered across the battlefield. Most were intact, and given the circumstances they couldn’t afford to waste a single one.

Lei shook her head. “I still don’t believe that.”

“But he knew you.”

“I don’t think he did,” Lei said. “I think he knew this.” She pushed the staff between them.

“Go on.”

“Remember my Uncle Jura? Jura … Darkhart?”

Daine nodded slowly. “You said his wife died.”

“And that she was a dryad,” Lei said, turning the face on the staff toward Daine. “I think some part of her still lingers within.”

“So it’s a haunted staff?”

Lei shrugged. “Dryads are bound to trees. If this is from the heart of her tree … I don’t know. But perhaps we should save this discussion for another time.”

“And why’s that?”

“She doesn’t want to talk about it.” Since the Huntsman had fallen, the presence within the staff seemed much stronger-and throughout the conversation, Lei could feel the spirit’s discomfort growing.

Daine shot a glance at Pierce. “Am I the only one without an imaginary friend?”

“Perhaps you should ask Jode.”

“Good point.” Daine sighed. “So now what?”

“Surely we have another battle to fight,” Xu’sasar said, sticking her head into the conversation. “I do not think that we truly defeated the Huntsman, and we must still earn our passage. More blood must be spilled.”

I’ve had quite enough for one day, Lei thought. The gore from the hounds had largely evaporated, but the memory of warm blood flowing across her skin was all too fresh. “No,” she said. “The vision I had said the answers lie in twilight. Beyond the Gates of Night.”

To Lei’s exasperation, Daine glanced over at Xu’sasar.

“She doesn’t know anything about this place-” Lei began, but the drow cut her off.

“The spirits told you this?” Her musical voice was low and serious. Xu’sasar was a head shorter than Lei, and she pushed closer and stared up into Lei’s eyes.

“I suppose you could say that …”

The drow girl reached up and placed her hand on Lei’s forehead. Her skin was smooth and cool to the touch. Lei wondered if the blood of the dark elves was colder than that of humans. Then Xu reached out with her other hand, touching the face of the carved dryad.

“Ask her,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Ask her. This tortured one, whose spirit has been bound in wood. She is of this world. She can show us the path to Dusk.”

Lei frowned. She didn’t like the drow girl. Lei had learned planar theory in the Towers of the Twelve, and she didn’t want to debate with a jungle savage. The problem was, this time Xu was right. Darkheart knows the path .

She looked at the staff. “Can you lead us to the Gates of Night?” she said.

And the spirit showed her the way.

Daine caught the moonlight on the edge of his sword, watching the light shimmer across the steel. In the chaos of recent events he hadn’t had the time to study it, but he knew that something had changed. It wasn’t that he felt a living presence in the weapon, and thank the Sovereigns for that; between Lei’s sobbing staff and Pierce’s unusual behavior, the last thing Daine wanted to deal with was another strange spirit. Still, he could feel some force stirring within the weapon, a power he couldn’t quite touch with his conscious mind, which he could draw out in moments of anger. Just days ago the traitor Gerrion had been stunned when he’d tried to sunder the sword with Daine’s own dagger-a blade of Cannith-forged adamantine, which should have sliced through the steel with ease. In Karul’tash, Daine had been filled with rage and fear at the sight of Lei in peril. Somehow, that emotion flowed into the sword. He’d brought the warforged assassin to the ground with a single blow. He should have been pleased; it seemed he had a powerful weapon at his disposal. Still, he didn’t like mysteries. What were the limits of this power? How could he control it? And what was its origin? Daine had inherited the sword from his grandfather, and if it had a fabled history, Daine had never heard it. But it seemed there was much Daine didn’t know.

One more thought nagged at the back of his mind, the faintest fear. When Daine and his companions had first arrived in Sharn, Jode had pawned Daine’s sword. Some time later, the blade had been returned to by Daine by Alina Lorridan Lyrris, a gnome with considerable magical talents. Daine had scored the House Deneith sigil off the pommel when he had left the house, but Alina had restored it and refurbished the blade. Today, the sword was in better condition than it had been when Daine had first received it. Alina was a manipulator by nature. While she worked to increase her own wealth and power, her favorite pastime was toying with the lives of others-and she certainly wasn’t known for her altruism. Alina did nothing without a reason.

So why had she gone to the trouble of finding and returning Daine’s sword?

For that matter, how did he know that it was his sword? The balance was perfect. Refurbished as it was, it was the very image of the blade he’d seen his grandfather wield in battle. Still, could it be that Alina had given him a different weapon?

Daine sighed.

Lei led the way across the rocky plains, her staff held before her like a torch. Occasionally the staff would murmur, a fluting sob that sent a chill down Daine’s spine. After their experience with the Huntsman, he found himself studying each stone face buried in the ground with suspicion, wondering if a new warrior would rise out of the soil.

“How much farther?” Daine called.

“I don’t know,” Lei said. “It doesn’t talk. I just sense emotions, I guess. I don’t know what we’re looking for, or how far we have to go. Just that it’s …” She paused and changed direction. “This way.”

“There’s nothing out there!” Daine gestured ahead of them. The light of the full moon spilled across the plains, illuminating a seemingly endless expanse of grass and stone. “What are we looking for?”

“Dusk.” Xu’sasar and Pierce had been bringing up the rear. The two seemed well matched in the arts of stealth and stalking. Daine hadn’t noticed the drow girl’s approach, but now she stood between him and Lei. “The spirits say we must find our way to twilight. We wander through the deepest night, and head toward the day.”

“Lei?”

Lei shrugged. “I wish I knew more, but that is what I heard in the vision. The answers lie in twilight.”

“So why don’t we just set camp and wait for a day?”

Xu’sasar blew out her breath. “Do you truly know so little of the way of the world?”

Daine bit back an angry remark. Most of his experience was on the battlefield, but in dealing with enemy officers, he had learned a little about reading his opponents, and he could sense something Xu’sasar didn’t want to share. She was afraid. The drow woman had lost her companions, been thrust in among a band of strangers, and torn from her world. She didn’t want to admit it, but Daine could read the fear behind her carefree mask. Xu’s aggression, her search for conflict, was her way of pushing back the terror. Daine had to respect her skills. While Xu was at least a foot shorter than Daine, a fraction of his weight, unarmed, and barely armored, she’d taken on three of the Huntsman’s hounds and brought two of them down with her bare hands. It was hard to reconcile such deadly prowess with her youthful appearance.