Jak Koke - The Edge of Chaos

Gregor shook his head. No , he said. There must be another way to stop her. If I don’t make the elixir, then thousands of pilgrims will die. I can’t be responsible for that .

Tyrangal’s anger was like the lash of a whip. You will not supply her with the elixir. Trust me: you do not want me as an enemy .

I trust that , Gregor said. I don’t want to be your adversary . He felt Tyrangal’s charm dissipating fully. But I cannot have the deaths of thousands on my conscience when I know that I can prevent it. I will make the elixir to protect the pilgrims. That is why I came to Ormpetarr, and that is what I will do .

That decision is regrettable , Tyrangal said. I have supported your quest to perfect the elixir because such knowledge is critical to diminishing the impact and power of the spellplague in Faerun. I have provided you with knowledge and with Duvan’s services .

But there’s a reason it’s called a plague , Tyrangal continued. And if Vraith succeeds in her ritual, she will be set to wreak far more havoc and cause countless more deaths than a paltry few thousand pilgrims .

There must be another way , Gregor said. There must be a way to save the pilgrims .

Your concern for the pilgrims is disingenuous, monk , Tyrangal sneered. You were fine sacrificing pilgrims to serve the greater good when you were experimenting on them. As long as you were going to be the hero, it was all right to lose a few hundred or a thousand ‘volunteers.’

Gregor cringed at the anger in her voice. I’m sorry , he offered.

You’re not as sorry as you will be if you enable Vraith’s plan , Tyrangal said.

But I can’t oppose her; the Order is too powerful. They will make me pay a high, long-term price .

Then you have a decision to make , Tyrangal said. You are fortunate, actually; you get to choose your enemies. Most people don’t have that freedom .

Gregor’s awareness snapped back across the distance. He was in his own body, his heart pounding and his breath coming in gulps as a sheen of sweat chilled his skin.

Gods, he thought, what have I done?

Duvan woke to wind whipping across his face and the red glow of the sun shining through his closed eyelids. He could feel the sun’s heat slowly roasting him.

Duvan’s lips cracked as his tongue-dry as a dusty road itself-pushed through his glued-together lips and tried to wet them. I need water, he thought, breathing in hot air as dry as a desert wind.

There was a waterskin attached to his backpack. His backpack was still on his chest. Slanya was still on his back. She lay beside him, unmoving. The makeshift leather straps that he’d used to attach her to his shoulders had dug so deep into his flesh that the muscles burned at the slightest movement.

First, he thought, untie the straps so that he could move.

His hands protested, pain shooting down the muscles of his fingers and forearms with the very smallest effort. But after repeated attempts, he had managed to detach himself from Slanya and his backpack.

Second, sit up.

That step proved to be far more difficult and painful. His could barely move his arms; they felt dead, numb and heavy. Yet he needed to sit up. He kept trying and falling down, trying again, only to fall down again. But Duvan knew he needed to drink, and he knew that the more he moved, the more the ache would fade. Mobility would come back.

Eventually, Duvan had propped himself against the squat boulder.

Third, drink.

Duvan rested with his back against the hard stone. He struggled with the straps, but eventually he managed to detach his waterskin from his pack. The liquid inside was warm and bitter, but it quenched his thirst ever so slightly. It wet his mouth and throat. He resisted the urge to take a second drink. Who knew how long they’d need to make it last?

Duvan examined Slanya, sprawled in an unnatural position next to him. The gentle rise and fall of her chest meant she lived. Good.

Her unconscious, open-eyed stare was partially protected from the sun by the shadow of the squat boulder. One of her arms was pinned awkwardly behind her back and looked broken, but when he checked it he found that not one of the bones was fractured.

She was anything but whole, however. Duvan had never seen anything quite like the network of spellscarring that pervaded Slanya’s body. Usually someone with so much exposure died instantly.

Duvan carefully straightened Slanya’s back, which had been severely twisted. He closed her eyes and propped her feet up as he’d been taught by the Wildhome shaman who had trained him for a summer. He dribbled some water from the skin onto Slanya’s lips and held her mouth closed.

“Come on,” he said aloud. “You can’t die. Not after I was being so nice to you.”

Duvan had learned rudimentary healing skills during his imprisonment at Wildhome. He carried some oils and ointments to help healing. They would help protect Slanya’s skin from prolonged exposure to the sun.

“I’m never nice,” Duvan said. “You should know that about me. I don’t like caring about people.” He spread healing salve over the skin of Slanya’s face and skull.

“But,” he said, “I’m going to tell you a secret: I like you. You remind me of-of people I cared about in the past.” Talfani. Rhiazzshar. “Not that things worked out so well with them,” he continued wryly. One he allowed to die, and the other betrayed him.

“And since I do care, I will bend the world for you. I’ll even try the superstitious and stupid, just on the belief that I don’t know everything, and perhaps something I don’t know can help.”

With that thought hanging in the air, Duvan rummaged through Slanya’s belongings. He knew she must have some of Gregor’s elixir left. Maybe it would help her after the fact. Maybe Gregor’s alchemy could save Slanya when he couldn’t.

Duvan found the last flask of the elixir in her smallish pack, which he had stuffed inside his own. The crystal vial was nearly empty, but surely the shimmering liquid was a single remaining dose.

He parted her dry lips and poured the contents into her mouth. He hadn’t felt such a strong bond for anyone since Rhiazzshar. Perhaps it was because he felt responsible for her well-being, as he had felt for Talfani’s. The symmetry was uncanny, and that had to mean something. Slanya did not deserve to die. She was a good person. Better than he was, that was for sure. She wanted to help people. She wanted to make Faerun a better place.

When he’d done all he knew to do for her, Duvan made the heroic effort to stand up. He needed to survey their new mote. But painful as it was, getting to his feet proved easier than he’d expected.

Smooth rock, covered in places with sharp gravel, the mote was small, perhaps only a handful of paces across. The boulder that had been shading them took up a chunk of the level land near one side. And the whole thing was moving fast, heading almost due north from what Duvan could tell.

The mote was flying lower than the previous mote, but high enough that he could see the Chondalwood far off to his right, like a dark stain against the dusty green hills in the distance. High enough, hopefully, to clear the cliff wall at the border.

They hadn’t left the changelands yet, but they were out of the vortex, which is what Duvan had hoped would happen. There was no food or water on this mote, however, and his stores were almost out.

There was also no shade except for the table-sized boulder. But at the rate they were flying, Duvan estimated they’d reach the border of the changelands before midday. The challenge then would be to figure out how to get safely off a mote moving at such speed.