Douglas Niles - Goddess Worldweaver

“By sacrificing yourself or this novice druid to his whim? Either stone or ash is a terrible enough fate!”

“But she is just guessing!” Miradel retorted.

“I am willing to try,” Shandira said quickly. “Indeed, this is a sacrifice I prefer to the other task that has been explained to me.”

Belynda shook her head. “That doesn’t change the fact that you are almost certainly doomed if you go to Loamar. I cannot be a party to that fate!”

“But you must help us,” Miradel pressed. “It is our best, not our only, chance. When the great teleporting is done at Darken, when the druids are sent to the Swansleep River, you can simply send us to a different location.”

“Even if I consent to do this, and supposing that you do enter the citadel of Karlath-Fayd and learn something of use, how do you propose to return here with that knowledge?”

“There, too, I will need your help,” said Miradel quietly. “You will have to seek me periodically in your Globe of Seeing-perhaps you could look twice each day, as the Hour of Darken commences and the Lighten Hour begins. Those times will be the same throughout the circles, though much colder and darker on Loamar than they are here. If we have learned what we seek and are ready to return here, we will await your sighting around some swirling current of water, so that you can bring us out with a teleport spell.”

“I tell you, I don’t like this,” Belynda repeated, but there was a sense of resignation in her voice. “Though I begin to understand your glimmer of hope. You have thought about this carefully, I see.” She looked at Shandira. “You understand that you will probably perish in this quest?”

“I am prepared for whatever might happen. I have made peace with my Savior and within myself,” the tall woman replied with great dignity.

“Very well,” the sage-ambassador acquiesced, turning back to Miradel. “But what about Natac?”

For the first time she felt the tug of regret, but she pushed it out of her mind. “He risks his life every day in this war. He and I must both accept the same imperilment.”

“Have you made your preparations? Provisions? Weapons?”

Miradel nodded, indicating the two backpacks they had brought with them. “Enough food for five or six days. Also, I have a knife, and Shandira her stave. Though I do not think weapons will decide the success or failure of this mission: we are going there to learn, not to fight.”

The notes of a flute trilled along the lakeshore, and the druids started moving toward the pools, the ten circular wells of water that had been carved into the bedrock of the shore. The teleportation spell required a focus of swirling water, both at the beginning and the destination of the magical transport. A hundred miles away, on the banks of the Swansleep River, elven warriors had prepared an equal number of eddies to serve as destinations. The druids would be sent, ten at a time, until all hundred had made the journey.

“I presume you have spotted an appropriate destination?” Belynda said.

“Yes, I have viewed Loamar through the Tapestry. There is a great waterfall that spills from the front of the citadel, down a thousand feet of cliff. At the base it has hollowed out a great bowl in the rock, and the water swirls violently there before flowing onward. There is a flat shelf of rock nearby. All I ask is that you send us there and let us proceed on foot.”

“Very well.” Belynda’s Globe, the crystal sphere that allowed her to view any place in the first Six Circles, rested on a pillow on one of the stone benches, covered with a velvet cloth. She pulled the cloth away and peered close at the glass. Miradel could see a vague glow, pearly light growing pleasantly bright within the ball, though she could make out no details. The image shifted and wavered, light fading and then growing to sudden sparkles, until it blinked out as quickly as if someone had shuttered a lamp.

“I see the place,” the sage-ambassador said. “The water will work for the spell, though I beg you again to reconsider! What a barren, awful place it is!”

“I know,” Miradel said. “But we have to go there.”

“Then, my friend, I can only wish you the best of luck. I will check twice each day, seeking you, hoping to bring you back. But remember, you must stand close to a swirl of water for my spell to bring you out.”

“I remember,” the druid said. “I am grateful, too.” She gestured to the shore, now etched in the growing swell of daylight. “Now, good women, it is time for us to go.”

Natac had walked the bank of the Swansleep River for more than ten miles and was dismayed at the low water level. Rocks poked from the bed where once-deep waters had flowed unbroken. The shores were muddy and flat, overgrown with cattails and reeds. The ground in both directions rose only gradually: toward the coastal hills in the direction of metal; while centerward the land opened on a long, open highway leading to the Ringhills and Circle at Center.

Nevertheless, if his army was going to make a stand, it would have to be here.

Late in the long day, nearly forty-eight hours after the army had fallen back from the beach, he met the vanguards of the two elven columns. He led the elves to the two good fords, where the smoothly graveled riverbed spanned the distance between dry, open approaches. He was relieved to discover that most of the batteries had escaped the battle at the shore, and he had the centaurs quickly haul them into position for a vigorous defense of the two fords. Nearly half the wheeled weapons were placed at these two junctures. The rest he scattered along the length of the river, counting on the centaurs’ speed to bring them into position when the enemy, as he inevitably would, forced other crossings of the water.

“Go and find the trolls,” he ordered Horas of Gallowglen, who had returned to the general with confirmation of the great teleportation spell from Circle at Center. The faerie was accompanied by several dozen of his fellows, and Natac was grateful for the extra couriers and scouts. “Tell them to get to the river as quickly as possible. Also, can you return here and tell me how far they are? When I should expect them?”

“As you wish, General Natac. It is my honor!” replied the bold courier. He flew off with five comrades, while Natac addressed the others. “I need some of you to find the gnomes-any that survived the battle on the beaches. Get them heading this way if they can, or tell them to hide out until the Deathlord’s army has passed. The rest of you have to locate that army… get an idea of the strength and the locations of his columns.”

Quickly the winged messengers darted away, and the general had already turned to his next problem.

He had set the elves to work in parties of a score of diggers, striving to create ten circular bowls beside the river. These were to be filled with water and manually stirred to create the focal point for the teleportation. But though the elves found good spots to dig and quickly channeled trenches across the short distances between the riverbank and the circular waterholes, there was not enough water in the channel to carry more than a trickle into most of the crucial sites.

Natac found Tamarwind, worrying about that same problem. “There are lots of deep spots within a mile up-and downstream,” the general explained. “One thing we have is numbers; let’s send ten thousand elves out to fill their waterskins. We’ll get our waterholes that way.”

The elf agreed and set the troops to work. Hundreds of elves marched away, carrying empty water sacks, returning an hour later with those containers dripping full. Though the day was drawing to a close by the time the last of the holes was filled, the elves transported enough water for each of the ten pools to serve as a focus of the spell. As soon as the sun began to pull away, a dozen elves knelt at each basin and used makeshift paddles to start the water swirling.