Douglas Niles - The Druid Queen

"Then you're making a great mistake," Keane replied bluntly, meeting her indignant gaze with a thoughtful look of his own.

Still annoyed, the princess bit her tongue and tried to understand what he meant. "Well? How did this water get here?"

"As near as I can tell, it isn't really here at all. It just seems to be."

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

"Perhaps he means that the righteous wrath of the gods wishes to direct your faith in more proper directions," said Parell Hyath, who had approached, unnoticed, to join in their conversation.

"Speak plainly!" Alicia snapped, in no mood for theological discourse.

"I mean this tired obeisance you show to an ancient and withered goddess! You tell us not to trample the grass in that 'sacred' place. You forbid the taking of game for food, and treat each wildflower as some kind of miracle! This goddess holds you in thrall, and by doing so, she holds you, holds your people, back!" replied the patriarch, his tone equally firm. "It is time for these isles to welcome the pantheon of deities that are known to all the rest of the Realms."

Alicia's eyes blazed, and for a moment, rage swept through her, fomenting a torrent of angry words that nearly exploded from her. Instead, however, she remembered an early lesson of her mother's: Such rage could only be destructive, and thus it should be conserved for those times when destruction was necessary.

Drawing a deep breath, the princess felt the tension flow from her body, replaced by a serene calm that enabled her to meet the cleric's arguments rationally. In the clarity that followed, she recognized the supreme arrogance that propelled him and knew that her own faith could be strong enough to prevail.

"This 'tired' faith you deride is the lifeblood of my people," the princess explained. "It flows in my veins, and in the veins of all the Ffolk, and it won't wither or weaken in the face of your conceits!"

"Conceits?" Now it was the patriarch who sounded amused. "My dear child, you haven't begun to see the glories that the true gods can work."

"I saw glory enough in Myrloch Vale to last the rest of my life," Alicia retorted. Indeed, there she had felt the magical power of her island, of her home, in a fashion that she had never known before.

"A point in this debate-perhaps minor, but I think significant," Keane ventured, after listening carefully to this exchange. "But it seems that we shouldn't mistake the acts of humans, however potent and arcane, for the will of the gods they purport to serve."

"What do you mean?" snapped Parell Hyath, turning on the lanky tutor with a menacing gaze.

"This swamp, for example," Keane continued, unperturbed. "The will of the gods? The acts of vengeful deities, determined to prove us wrong? Or is it instead the work of a treacherous cleric-one who presents himself as friend and ally, but works instead to thwart the true purpose of our mission?"

"What lies do you speak?" demanded the Exalted Inquisitor.

"There is a spell I know of… called 'hallucinatory terrain,' I believe." He turned to Alicia, explaining calmly. "It can only be wielded by a powerful cleric, though I'm certain it falls within the range of ability possessed by our erstwhile companion here."

"Did you bring this water around us?" the princess demanded, confronting the patriarch.

"He's mad!" protested Hyath, fixing Keane with a baleful gaze. "What would a simple ambassador know about magic and gods?"

Alicia laughed once, a quick and bitter sound. Keane, too, seemed mildly amused. "My 'simple ambassador,' " the princess shot back, "has a certain familiarity with the arcane arts."

"Denterius-valteran!"

Keane's sharp, magical incantation cut through the air like a thunderclap, and the blood drained from Parell Hyath's face as he recognized the spell.

"The wizardly enchantment of 'dispel magic,'" Keane confirmed.

But his remark proved unnecessary as, with miraculous speed, the water standing in pools around the tree trunks vanished, leaving ground as dry and musty as a highland forest. Indeed, Alicia saw with astonishment, none of the bark, leaves-nothing near the ground, where the water had stood-was even the slightest bit wet!

"This is preposterous!" sputtered the cleric. "This might even be your own illusion, designed to trick the princess into following an obsolete faith!"

"I'd stay here and argue with you all day," the princess responded curtly, "but now that we've got a path before us, I think it's time that we who are loyal servants of King Kendrick moved out!

"Your treachery might have cost us days of march!" she continued, confronting the flush-faced patriarch. "If it had, it would also have cost you your life! As it is, we no longer desire your presence in this expedition. You are not to accompany us when we march! Return to Corwell or to your own land as you see fit!"

"Your father needs me to heal his wound!" the cleric objected forcefully. "Even now he embarks alone on a great quest in the name of the gods. He'll need me when this matter is concluded!"

"For all we know, it might have been your spell that sent him on this wild errand, your deception that brings this matter onto our heads. Leave us, before I change my mind about your punishment!" Alicia declared, uncowed.

Keane stood firmly beside the princess, and when the cleric's eyes met those of the wizard, Hyath apparently thought better of any further objections. Without a backward glance, he spun on his heel and stalked away. When he was out of earshot, he mumbled an arcane command.

The magic-user tensed, ready for treachery, but then he saw a familiar shape, the glowing wheels bracketing the Chariot of Sustarre, taking shape in the air before the Exalted Inquisitor. Slowly the two horses, prancing eagerly, outlined in fire, materialized.

By the time the cleric took to the air, Alicia had already gone to gather the sergeants, while the wizard watched the final departure of Parell Hyath, the trailing cloud of sparks marking the path of the chariot as the horses lunged into the sky.

Within a few minutes, the men of Corwell had hoisted their weapons and standards to their shoulders and once again resumed the northward trail, accompanied by their chant: "For the kings of Corwell!"

The wizard found Alicia at the head of the column, riding at a fast walk through the once more passable forest. He spurred his old nag up to the side of the princess, lighting up when she turned to him with a smile. Still, a sense of foreboding lingered inside him, and he had to tell her of his twinge of misgiving.

"Good riddance to him, I say," Alicia declared.

"I certainly hope so, but perhaps not," Keane cautioned. "Corwell's to the south of here, Baldur's Gate to the east. Yet when he flew away, he was making straight for the north."

Tavish waited for fifteen painful minutes after she heard the last sounds of firbolg conversation. The rough landing when the giant-kin had dragged the longship onto shore had twisted her spine one final time, and she wasn't at all sure that she'd be able to walk when she did dare to venture out

Nevertheless, she finally crawled forth, wriggling from beneath the bench to lie in the bottom of the hull. Dismayed, the harpist found that she was even more stiff and immobile than she had expected. It took her another ten minutes before she could sit up, and even then her feet remained numb and her arms tingled painfully with slowly returning circulation.

Yet finally she could look around and breathe air unfouled by firbolg feet. White clouds scudded across the mostly blue sky overhead, while a fairly dense forest extended to both sides, just back from the flat and gravelly beach. Above the trees, now with its summit shrouded by wisps of clouds, rose the distinctive cone of the Icepeak.