Alliances by Paul B. Thompson

Author:Paul B. Thompson [Thompson, Paul B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-7869-6365-2
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast Publishing
Published: 2012-07-30T16:00:00+00:00

12

Like a vast black mirror, the Lake of Death covered what had once been the great city of Qualinost. By day, the water was a deep jade color, but at dawn, before the sun first broke over the eastern rim of the sky, the water resembled the darkest ink imaginable. Despite the summer season, the air was chilly, and perpetual fog drifted over the lake. Beryl’s impact had created so mighty a crater, the ground around the lake sloped down to its forbidding shore. Here and there, bits of masonry stood out dull gray against blasted trees that reached into the lightening sky like blackened, fleshless arms. Everything dripped gray moss and smelled worse than a hundred cesspits.

“You fell into that?” Samar exclaimed. “Somewhere there’s a sorcerer who does not like you.”

Kerian did not agree. Whoever had plucked her from Khur and dropped her here was watching out for her, not trying to harm her. A malign magician could have left her where she was, facing death among the nomads, or could have let her plummet unchecked into Nalis Aren. She had been saved for a reason. To fight in Porthios’s rebellion? Perhaps. There were many questions. Being here again, beholding the awful lake, invited questions.

The column of elves paused briefly to rest just after dawn. No one wanted to leave the road and pitch a tent or unroll a blanket in the murky domain surrounding the lake, so they slept in or under their carts or didn’t sleep at all.

The lake and its immediate environs were cloaked in a perpetual twilight. Only the elves’ own innate sense of time told them when an hour had passed. Alhana rode the length of the caravan, rousing the Bianost militia and wishing them good morning. Weary shoulders straightened, and the townsfolk bowed their heads respectfully as she rode by. She was very different from Orexas, who appeared seldom, spoke rarely, and commanded by mystery. With a kind smile and warm words, Alhana revived their spirits as she progressed along the line.

At the tail of the caravan she asked Samar, who rode with her, to send a few riders back down their path to look for signs of pursuit. The heavy atmosphere around the lake blunted vision and smell to an alarming degree. They did not want to be surprised by bandits.

Back at the head of the column, Alhana found Kerian and Chathendor studying the map Kerian had found in Bianost. It didn’t show the lake, of course, having been drawn well before the fall of Beryl, and they were trying to reconcile the current topography to that shown on the map.

“This must be the road we are on,” Kerian said, tapping the map with a blunt nail. “Silveran’s Way.”

“I recall it,” Chathendor said, eyes closed, drawing on his memories. “It wended gently across the land north of the city.” Opening his eyes, he returned to reality with a jolt. “It does not seem possible.”

Alhana asked if they’d seen Orexas. Kerian had. She’d been dozing on the ground when he ghosted by her, heading straight down the road.

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