Paul Thompson - Riverwind

Riverwind turned her grimy, slightly sunburned face to him. A new bruise was showing on her jaw where he'd hit her. It stabbed him to his heart. Brushing the dried dirt from her lips, Riverwind bent down and kissed Di An lightly. He raised the glowing staff of blue crystal and laid it across her body. Just as he did, her eyes fluttered open.

“Riverwind,” she said clearly, staring directly at him.

In a single, silent, blinding flash, the elf woman and the sacred sapphire staff vanished.

Gone!

Riverwind groped in the dirt where Di An and the staff had been. This was no figment of his sickness-strained mind. The woman and rod were gone. He rocked back on his haunches and stared blankly at the spot. He had made the wrong choice. The Blue Crystal Staff was lost, his quest had failed. Pain welled up in his heart and exploded. His anguished scream reverberated across Fever Lake. Animal sounds ceased, and all was quiet.

Riverwind fell face down on the ground. Tears welled up in his eyes. He had chosen wrong. He had failed Mishakal. He had failed Goldmoon. Catchflea had died for nothing. He pressed his face into the dirt, feeling it scrape his cheeks. How could he go home? How could he face Goldmoon again without the staff? She was lost to him forever.

The plainsman lay quiet for a long time, a great despair consuming him.

Finally, he got slowly to his feet and looked toward the Forsaken Mountains. The shaft leading down to Hest was there; he would throw himself down it. Riverwind's bowed back straightened a bit with this decision. The magic in the shaft was gone; he would die in the fall. Then no one would know his shame.

Mors, master of the realm of Hest, sat unmoving in a hard stone chair, listening to the chosen representatives of the diggers and warriors argue over how to distribute the meager harvest of wheat. They had been disputing for a long time, and Mors was rapidly losing what little patience he had. The crop was the smallest in Hest's history, and word had come that the fruit trees were dying as well. Without magic, there was no way to preserve them. There would be hunger in Vartoom before long.

Mors resolved to quell the petty bickering by force if need be, but even as he prepared to shout for order, a strange thing happened. He saw a glimmer of light. It stunned him, for he had lived in total blackness since the day Karn had blinded him. The light was only a gleam, a firefly flash of blue, but still he saw it and it shocked him.

Mors stood. A digger representative called a question to him. The blind warrior did not hear him. Gradually the hall fell silent. Mors remained standing, motionless. The twinkle of light still glimmered before his sightless eyes.

“Muster fifty soldiers in the street,” he said evenly. “Lightly clad, with spears only.”

“My lord,” said an elder digger, “what is it?”

“Something is happening,” Mors replied. “I can see it.” For the first time in many years, he strode out of a room without staff or elf to guide him. The assembly stirred with curiosity. What was afoot?

Mors followed the light out to the street. Somehow he knew where it was-he could feel it as well as see it. Though his surroundings were as invisible to him as ever, by following the flickering light he avoided all obstacles. He simply knew where to put his feet. The light beckoned him on. The tramp of soldiers' feet told him that his escort had arrived.

“Who is in command?” Mors asked.

“I, my lord, Prem,” said the elf officer.

“Do you know the great temple of our ancestors?”

“The haunted temple?” asked Prem.

“The same. We will go there at once, but only I will enter. Is that clear?”

“Certainly, my lord. What is going on?”

“I don't know yet,” Mors replied firmly. “I fear-” He did not finish. How could he say it? How could he tell them his fear that the blue glimmer was caused by Li El. Dead Li El.

Mors led them across the ruined fields. The flickering glow grew stronger and steadier. The soldiers jangled along in close formation. Mors was consumed by curiosity and dread. A hundred days had passed since the deaths of Li El and Vvelz. No magic had occurred in Hest since then. Both brother and sister had been burned on funeral pyres. Nothing of them remained. And now this…

After two hours' quick march, the warriors scrambled up the broken rocky path to the temple. As they gained the plateau where the temple stood, they stopped dead in their tracks. Mors heard their footsteps cease. He sharply demanded a reason.

Prem said, “There's a light in the temple, my lord!”

“You see it, too!”

“We all do.”

“Form a line!” Mors barked. “I'm going inside. I don't want anything to get out, understand?” The warriors formed a half-circle facing the vast entrance to the abandoned temple. They watched in awe as Mors advanced up the worn steps into the field of azure light.

A feeling of gentle beneficence wrapped around Mors like a blanket. Part of him was aware this was a magical effect, perhaps not real, but it was such a profound feeling that he lost most of his apprehension. The blue glow intensified until his eyes began to burn. A groan escaped his lips, and he lifted his hands to his face. He saw the rough, thickened tips of his fingers. His groan of pain changed to a strangled cry of astonishment. He dropped his hands and staggered back against a massive, fluted column.

Mors could see. Before him was the floor of the temple, littered with broken columns and other debris. He saw all of it with startling clarity. He really could see.

The light still called him forward. He walked among the lordly columns until he came upon the source of the brilliant blue light.

Floating a foot off the rutted floor was the upright figure of an elf woman, eyes closed, arms tight against her sides. She was clad in the black shift of a Hestite digger, but the copper cloth was torn and the black paint chipped and scratched. A few inches in front of the woman, hovering vertically, was a magnificent staff of sapphire. The blue light emanated from it.

Mors went down on one knee. “Who-who are you?” he whispered.

Listen, said a fluting voice inside his head. Hear me.

Tears formed in his newly cleared eyes. Mors asked again, “Who are you?”

I am the one your ancestors knew as Quenesti Pah.

Mors inhaled sharply. “The goddess?”

This woman of your race I return to you. She has striven mightily in the cause of good. To save her from madness and death, I have brought her back home.

“Who is she, divinity?” Mors asked.

Her name is Di An.

“My little eyes! An Di-” He started to rise, but the goddess spoke one final time to him, and the strength of her voice drove him back to his knees.

Let this place become sacred again. Keep my laws, and the bounty of health and healing shall be yours. This woman shall be my priestess, and through her I will make myself known to all your people.

Mors bowed his head. “It shall be done,” he vowed.

“Thank you, divinity, for restoring my sight.” But the goddess was gone.

The blue aura vanished next, leaving Di An standing on the floor. Finally, the sapphire staff disappeared, too. Di An wavered like a sleepwalker. Mors moved quickly to her side and braced her up.

Her eyes opened slowly. “Mors? Is that you?” she asked weakly.

“It is. You have changed, little digger.”

“I've grown up. Are you… angry that I went away?”

“I was, but no longer.”

Di An thought that it was strange to feel Mors's arm around her waist. Strange, but good. She asked, “Did you hear the words of the goddess, too? Did you see her sacred staff?” When Mors nodded, she added, “I dwelled in the realm of the gods. For how long, I don't know. Riverwind and I were trying to escape from the dragon, and there were men like lizards-”