Chapter Twelve

Crysania knew something was wrong the moment she opened the door to her study. Something didn't feel right. The word "invader" leapt to her mind, raising the hair on the back of her arms.

Behind her, Lagan Innis uttered the kind of sound he'd likely not made in years, a low, angry growl. He took her arm and held her back.

"Lagan, what's wrong?"

"Wait, lady!" The dwarf got in front of her, keeping her from the room. "Someone has been in here. The chairs are all overturned, the pillows scattered."

She would risk tripping and falling if she ventured into that chamber, whose rigid order, now disturbed, was meant to allow her to walk easily and safely.

"Someone's gone through your desk, lady." He made a sound of disgust. "The door to your bedchamber is open. Come away. Whoever did this might still be here."

Crysania shook her head. "I don't think so, Lagan. The room feels—how shall I describe it?—it feels wrong, but it also feels empty. Guide me, please. I want to go in."

Another unclerical sound escaped from Lagan, but the dwarf obeyed his lady. He guided her round the mess of pillows and toppled furniture to her desk. All the drawers were open; the few things she kept in them were spread out on the desktop.

"What are these?" she asked, touching sheet after sheet of paper.

"Maps—the ones you keep in the right-hand drawer at the top."

Thanking him, she neatly stacked the maps that her advisors sometimes used in meetings, then put them back into the drawer. The quick movements disguised the shaking of her hands.

"What else is here?" She ran her hands over the desktop again.

"Nothing more." Lagan came close. "What would anyone have been looking for in here? Who would do such a thing? The Revered Daughter's own study—her very bedchamber!"

If greater scandal were known, it seemed Lagan couldn't imagine it.

"What were they looking for, lady?"

She almost said she didn't know. She passed her fingers across the Dragon Stones in her pocket. But who knew about them? Dalamar, of course, and perhaps Jenna. Valin did, but he was days gone and far away with an enemy army between him and Palanthas. Tandar knew, but he… She would have thought, but he is a tiger. She amended that, realizing that he was sent to her by Dalamar.

Impossible! Even though he was Dalamar's gift to her, she could certainly trust her own instinct about the beast, the instinct that told her he was trustworthy. Or was that hope, not instinct?

Crysania purposefully discarded that thought. She must not mistrust her own instinct. Yet the fact remained that someone had wanted something from her chambers badly enough to defile the temple for it. The idea sickened her.

"Lagan, will you do me a kindness? Please find Jeril and Kela and bring them here to join me."

"And leave you alone, lady? No, I—"

Softly, behind him, came the loud breathing of a tiger. Tandar stood in the room, growling.

"I won't be alone," Crysania said, smiling. "Please, will you do as I ask?"

Of course he would, and he did so in good time. Crysania had no sooner found the chair to her desk than she heard voices and footsteps coming down the hall to her study.

"It's time now," she said to Tandar, speaking as though the beast could understand her. The last cold tendril of her doubt left her as the tiger came to her. He stood close as the others entered the room, his head under her hand as they ranged themselves before the doorway, one to either side.

"My friends," she said, "it's time to talk about our journey."

She slipped the Dragon Stones from her pocket and lay them upon the naked desktop.

"Lagan, come take up these stones."

He came close and held out his hand, his breath catching in his throat as the Dragon Stones nestled into his palm.

"Ah, lady," Lagan sighed. "What wonders are these? Is the god himself in them? I haven't felt such peace in a long while. Not since before…"

He stopped, but Crysania knew what he meant. Not since before he tried to heal Nisse and failed.

Lagan held the stones a long moment before reluctantly passing them to Jeril. The desert warrior held them, rolling them together so that they clicked against each other in the silence.

"They are stones, lady. What of them?"

"You don't feel them, Jeril?"

He passed the stones to Kela with a word, then said, "No, lady. What should I feel?"

At once, a wave of loss, of regret—a sudden flash of anger!—washed over Crysania. She wanted to snatch the Dragon Stones back, to thrust them deep into her pocket, to send these people from her chamber. Shaking, dismayed, she clenched her hands into fists, which remained hidden beneath her desk. She had not expected to feel such possessiveness!

"Power," Kela breathed, answering Jeril's question. Her words came breathless with awe. "Power such as we seldom feel in this life."

Jeril laughed, the first such sound Crysania had heard from him. "Oh, well, if that's it. Valin always says I'm a lump when it comes to magic. I've never felt any of it."

Tandar pushed up against his lady, breathing heavily, unhappily. Crysania forced herself to wait a decent moment before extending her hand to Kela, silently asking for the stones back. Once they sat in her hand again, all tension drained from her.

Hush, she told herself, it is the day that makes me feel like this, the rifling of my chamber, the growling of war at the gates of the city.

Crysania motioned for the others to sit. "My friends, we must start our journey. You have all agreed to come with me, and none of you has asked where or why. The time has come for you to know, and I tell you now, whoever wants to decline this journey may do so with all my goodwill."

Silence filled the room. Outside, the city's heartbeat sounded—the rise and fall of countless voices, the rumble of wagon traffic, the clatter of a horse beyond the temple walls.

"I have learned that Ariakan's troops will attack the High Clerist's Tower at dawn. His forces are strong, and though ours are good and brave…" She stopped, unwilling to condemn Thomas's knights with her doubts. "I must go and find the mates to these stones, that we may hope to use their power for the coming battles."

The tiger rumbled unhappily. No one else made a sound.

"Seralas will be in charge of the temple while I am gone. She will follow the plans we have worked on these past weeks and give the tower as much aid as we can. We five will be gone from here tonight."

"Gone where, my lady?" Lagan asked.

"To Neraka," Crysania said, the name falling like a dark stone into their expectant silence.

Neraka! The city of the Dark Queen, the fortress of her baleful champions, the place where her dark temple sat, twisted and ugly as some abomination, ill-born and evil.

"Any of you who want to stay here, please speak now."

Someone sighed. Crysania thought it was Kela by the sound. No one else made even the slightest sound.

"Jeril," Crysania said, her heart swelling with love for these friends and their quiet courage, "can you lead us east out of the city without taking us near the Westgate Pass?"

There was a rustle of leather and a rattle of steel as the man stepped forward. "Yes, lady. We'll have to go through the desert. There's a way. It's not well known, but the tribes have been using it for decades. Along the shore, through a pass, then skirt the mountains through the desert."

"Is there no shorter way?" Lagan asked.

Jeril snorted. "Plenty of them. It makes better sense to take this longer way, though. I'm sure your lady would prefer adding a couple of days travel to her journey to being captured by the Dark Knights before she's even out of sight of the High Clerist's Tower."

No one disagreed with that, and no one had more to say.

"Take what you need for the journey," Crysania said, her voice gentle. "But remember that we are traveling light. I want to make up those extra days in speed. We will leave after the sun sets."

In her hand, the Dragon Stones warmed. It was as though they'd heard and understood.

Hooves clattered on cobbles, the sound echoing eerily from building to building as the five seekers set out from the Temple of Paladine. They went in simple garb, lightly cloaked and hooded against the sun, looking like nothing so much as a group of travelers bound home from the city. Gone were the white robes of the clerics, replaced by the rough clothing of wayfarers. Only Kela retained her normal attire, with robes doubtless as white as Valin's own. Gone too was Firegold, on a reconnoitering mission for the Solamnic knights. The memory of her brushed Crysania's mind like a caress of his wing.

And how are you, Valin? Crysania wondered. I would like to have seen you one more time, my friend… .

The thought surprised her. She put it quickly aside.

Jeril rode in the lead, Kela in the rear. Crysania and Lagan shared a mount, a fine strong gelding the dwarf had chosen himself from the stables. With Lagan up front and Crysania behind, they managed well enough, for Lagan had insisted on leaving off the saddle. "We'll do better that way," he'd said, "neither of us bumping the horn or the back."

Tandar, unswerving, loped alongside the gray, keeping close to his lady.

Crysania marked their progress from the temple grounds, through narrow back streets noisome with unhealthy odors of rotting food, waste, and worse. She knew by the cleaner scent when they passed by the gardens of the Old City and those of New City. The rank smell of rotting fish and brackish water told her they passed along the docks to the bay.

"Ach!" Lagan said, his voice muffled against his sleeve as he pressed his arm to his face in hope of hiding from the scent. "The breeze off the water is like a furnace wind. I hate this Anvil Summer!"

Crysania smiled grimly, agreeing silently as they veered away from the bay and the stink of rotting fish, and up into the foothills to the west.

The air cooled from the burning of sun on sand and water to the shade of small trees as they climbed along a narrow hunting path. The cooler scent of the forest pervaded now, the light fragrance of oak and maple and elm twined with the tang of evergreens and the poignant aroma of moisture lifted up from earth long covered in leaves.

Sometimes Crysania managed to let her mind range freely, seeing in memory sights she'd not experienced in more than thirty years. Light and shadow and trees, all called up by their scents. Other times her mind returned to the one question that had haunted her since she first accepted the Dragon Stones from Dalamar: When she found the rest of the stones and connected all five, which god would answer her call?

She remembered the warmth of Paladine's voice as she had known it for so long, the deep, rich tones as he spoke to her of love and compassion. And she did not forget the sound of the Dark Queen's voice, the harsh crowing laughter, the raking shrieks of rage, the full-throated roar of power. She'd heard that voice thirty years ago. She had never forgotten it.

"There are ferns in the shadows, and that must mean water somewhere," Lagan said. "The squirrels have made nests high up, and they are new. They must be finding nuts from last year's hoard. I wonder how they will fare next year?

"We are on hunting trails, lady. We are on narrow paths, with stones jutting out from the sides. Jeril is scowling so deep you'd think he was born with the mask of a daemon glued on his face. Your Tandar never leaves our side… .

"Lady," Lagan said when the gelding halted. "Jeril has found us a campsite."

He slid from the horse's back and reached up to help her down. The muscles in her back and legs had long ago started aching. It seemed everyone must hear them screaming by now. Water gurgled nearby and she said, "Lagan, will you guide me?"

He did, the tiger close beside them. She knelt, reaching for water, and had to reach farther than she'd imagined. The stream was but a narrow ribbon.

"It's happening everywhere," Lagan said. "The streams are getting smaller."

"I was hoping we'd be farther along before we stopped," she said. She dipped her fingers into the lukewarm water and washed her face and hands. Beside her, Tandar lapped noisily.

"We're within an hour of the pass," he answered. "Jeril says it's too dangerous to try to navigate it at night. We'll go through early tomorrow morning, and then we'll be in the desert. The timing is good."

She nodded and made her way back to the campsite. Already the party was settling into a pattern that she thought would hold in the days to come.

Jeril carefully cleared a large circle on the forest floor, leaving nothing but dirt in its center. Kela started a small fire in it, using softly spoken words of magic. The essence of it passed over Crysania's skin, awakening a tingle from the stones. Lagan pulled out their supplies, and Crysania made them tea to go with their bread and cheese, while Jeril unpacked their bedrolls.

Despite the tension urging her to move on, Crysania was tired, and she thought she'd have little trouble falling asleep soon after she'd eaten. She curled up on her bedroll, shifted several times until she'd gotten all the sticks from beneath it, yet still she lay awake.

"There are stars, lady," whispered a voice from out of the night… Lagan's. "I see the constellations, and they are like diamonds sewn into a swath of blackest velvet." His voice fell still. Crysania heard him breathing. So quiet was he that she believed he'd fallen asleep. Then, satisfaction couching his words, he said, "I see him, lady. Paladine's dragon shining."

"He looks down upon us," she whispered. "He sees us."

"Yes, he does."

Jeril made some slight sound in his sleep. The fire hissed, and a log fell to ashes as Kela poked the flames awake. The only one missing from their group was Tandar, gone hunting for his supper.

"Good night, my friend," Crysania said to Lagan.

Lagan's soft snoring was his only answer, and she barely heard that before falling asleep herself.

The tiger roamed the night by the light of two moons, the red just rising, a crescent of the silver already shining in the sky above him. The taste of hare, three fat bucks lingered in his mouth. His belly had stopped rumbling after the second kill, the yearning for blood-rich meat subsided soon after. He'd have been happy to have more, but no more hares, or game of any sort, were to be found. His tigerish scent hung in the air like a threat.

Fed, he wandered the night, keeping close to the place where Crysania and her companions passed the night. He heard their voices low against the silence, and when those voices fell still, yet he heard their breathing.

From a distance of twenty paces, he paced the campsite round, a silent warden at the perimeter, keeping back all creatures of the night who might prey upon his sleeping friends. He paced, and knew his pacing to be a delay There was a thing needed doing tonight, a thing he'd agreed to. He must reach out with his mind and speak with the Master of the Tower of High Sorcery.

Did he doubt he could do that? No, he didn't. The ability lay within him, unused since the dark elf had changed him from man to beast. He felt it like a throbbing somewhere deep in his mind, like a light pulsing. He'd need only reach for that light, that pulse, and he would be able to speak to Dalamar in his tower.

He hesitated, pacing round and round the clearing, caught between his obligations. He'd made a promise to the black robe, one that must be kept. And it was a promise he hated, for it seemed to him that to report to Dalamar about this journey was no less than spying upon his lady.

In the clearing, Jeril and Kela traded places, the woman going to her bedroll while her husband stood watch.

Her husband! Tandar shook his head, growling low in his throat. He could not doubt his brother's word that the woman was his wife. But who was she really? He didn't recognize her as a woman of his tribe. Perhaps she came from one of the neighboring tribes, or from a band wandering through. The wind blew from the west, warm and carrying the scents of all those in the clearing. Tandar lifted his head, breathing deeply.

Why hadn't Jeril told his brother in far-off Palanthas of the impending wedding? Why hadn't his parents let him know so he could come and stand by Jeril's side at the ritual, as was right and proper?

The tiger shook his head again, growling once more. It might be that the answer lay in what he well knew—that Jeril was impulsive, quick to friendship, quick to anger, quick to love.

I will trust you, Brother, the tiger thought.

It was more a wish than a promise, though.

Moonlight spilled down upon the beast. Solinari would soon set. Lunitari would hang on into the morning sky. Time passed; the stars in their constellations turned, wheeling toward night's end.

I will do what I must, Tandar told himself.

He paced once more round the clearing, listening to the night, to the birds deep in the forest, to the breeze rattling through the dry grass. Jeril sat straight and tall, Desert Light unsheathed and set across his knees. All would be well with him watching.

In silence, the forest barely aware of his passage, Tandar left his watch and found a small glade. There grass still grew green, fed by an unseen underground stream. He lay down in the middle of the glade, in the cool grass. Moonlight poured down on him; the shadows of trees fell over him. He was, he knew, nearly invisible in that light, his white pelt but a splash of Solinari's light, the gray bars but shadows of branches.

He settled. He closed his eyes. He slowed his breathing.

He reached deep within to the light and the pulsing, and when he touched it, he felt himself drawn out from his body, out from the world itself.

He stood upon a twilight plain, a place with no shadows, no sun, no moons, no stars. He felt no breeze; he sensed no other living creature. In his belly, fear clenched, and at the same time a kind of exhilaration welled in him.

He called, Dalamar!

And a dark figure came walking in the eternal twilight.

Dalamar!

I hear you, said the figure.

Tandar squinted into the chancy light, never seeing more than the outline of the dark elf. He smelled nothing on this strange plane, tasted nothing on the air, felt no breeze on him, heard no sound that was not Dalamar's voice. This was a plane between the waking world and the sleeping world, a magical place.

He did, however, have another sense, a sixth sense that seemed native to this magical plane, and that told him the mage was weary. Weary in body, weary in spirit. He felt like a man who'd been too long observing some terrible thing.

Blood. Screams. Terror.

Tandar growled uneasily, then fell still.

I am here, the tiger said, remembering he was a mage, remembering he'd once had the power to create a spell like this one. His tension eased.

As am I, Dalamar said, no hint in his voice of what Tandar had sensed. Speak.

Tandar told of the journey from the moment they'd set out from the temple. He said nothing of what had happened before, choosing to take his orders literally and seeing no need to tell the dark elf of the rifling of Crysania's quarters. He half believed Dalamar had something to do with that, or at least knew about it.

It is all very ordinary so far, my lord.

The figure in the twilight stood still, hands folded deep within the sleeves of his robe, head low, a man thinking. When he lifted his head, his eyes shone bright and startling.

Something puzzles you, sir tiger, he said, his voice in Tandar's mind as softly dangerous as ever it had been in waking life. You are wealthier by one sister-in-law and you don't understand why.

Tandar admitted it was so.

Well, the mage said, perhaps it is the usual reason. They love. Or, he chuckled, they loved too soon and now must mend the matter with a wedding.

It might be. No doubt my brother has his reasons.

Unruffled, Dalamar agreed.

With no other word, the dark elf turned and walked away across the empty plain. He did not vanish; rather, he dwindled, growing thinner, losing dimension, finally shrinking to a tiny point of what could only be described as dark light.

The kind, Tandar thought, that glows in the heart of a black crystal.

The tiger found himself suddenly alone, lying in a glade from which all moonlight had vanished. Only the stars hung in the sky now, and by their light and the scents on the hot night air, the beast made his way back to the camp.

He went round the campsite, passing near each of his companions. As he passed Kela, asleep on her blanket, he sniffed the air, breathing deeply. Then he snorted. Dalamar was right—the woman was with child. Only lately so, he knew by the scent of her. Perhaps she was not even a month along. He looked once at Jeril, still sitting his watch, in his mind laughing to imagine what conversations must have raged in his father's tent when Jeril told their parents the reason for his sudden wedding.

The big warrior glanced his way, nodded respectful greeting, and tossed another log onto the failing fire. Yawning mightily, as only such beasts as he can do, Tandar padded to Crysania's bedroll. She lay asleep on her side, the curve of her hip gently rising, the whiteness of her neck gleaming. Her dark hair clung in wisps to her damp cheek.

I am near you, lady, the tiger thought as he lay down beside her.

He pressed his back into the curve of her own. It felt like stolen intimacy, and yet he didn't change position. He fell asleep listening to her heart beat.

Crysania, he said to her, in the silent voice of the heart. One day you will say that you love me, my lady, and then no intimacy will be stolen.

Crysania!