"What the-" Dezra gasped.
"We're outside the faerie realm," Borlos replied.
Fanuin and Ellianthe nodded, gliding beside the lugruidh. "The ridge was the border between yer world and ours," Ellianthe said. "And yer time and ours, too."
Caramon glanced around, trying to get his bearings. "I still don't see anything I recognize. Not Prayer's Eye Peak, not Tasin and Fasin. I don't think we're even in the Sentinels at-"
He broke off suddenly as he looked back the way they'd come, then paled, his eyes widening.
The others regarded him with concern. "Big guy?" Borlos asked. "What's wrong?"
"Gone," he gasped when he found his voice. "Sweet Reorx's beard. Look."
Startled, the others turned to follow his gaze. Caramon was right: of the fey folk's vale, which should have been right behind them, there was no sign: nothing but a succession of snowy peaks.
"Whoa," Dezra remarked, impressed. "Where'd it go?"
The sprites laughed. "Oh, it's still there," Fanuin said. "But ye'll need our help finding it again. Ye can't just walk into the faerie realm. One of us has to take you, or ye'd end up wandering the mountains forever."
"I don't understand," Dezra said.
"Ye're not supposed to," Ellianthe said, grinning. "Ye're not one of us, after all. Now stop fretting. We'll get ye back safely-if the Guardian doesn't get the lot o' ye, that is."
Borlos gulped as they glided onward. "Do me a favor," he said. "Stop saying things like that, all right?"
28
If the sprites hadn't pointed out the tower to her, Dezra wouldn't have recognized it. The centuries had left nothing but a tumble of stones, standing on a broad shelf halfway up a towering, snow-capped peak. The black-veined marble that had been its walls was jumbled with slabs of slate that had broken loose from the slope above.
She shivered as the lugruidh descended. A hand touched her shoulder, startling her. "Dez?" her father asked. "You all right?"
"I'm fine," she snapped. "Just leave me alone."
He was silent a moment, then turned away, shrugging.
The lugruidh stopped at the edge of the shelf. They slipped on the frost-rimed rocks when they stepped off, but soon found purchase, their breath fogging in the chill air. Steel rasped as Caramon drew his sword. He eyed the ruins and the mountainside, then turned to Fanuin and Ellianthe, who hovered nearby.
"Anything live around here?" he asked. "Mountain cats, trolls, wyverns?"
"Nay," Fanuin answered, shaking his head. "Nothing's dwelt here for ages. I reckon beasts fear it, for what the wizard once did here."
"They do," Trephas said quietly. His nostrils were wide, his tail twitching. He shifted from hoof to hoof. "I can feel it. If I were more horse and less man, I might panic at being so close."
Borlos eyed him nervously. "But you're fine now?"
The centaur grinned. "Don't worry. If I have the urge to bolt, I'll tell thee first."
The wind whipping their cloaks and hair, they strode toward the ruins. Fanuin and Ellianthe flew along, but the other sprites remained behind. Caramon kicked at a small, jagged chunk of slate, then nodded at the stone pile. It was taller than even Trephas could reach, and fifty paces across.
"So," he asked the sprites, "where's this pit your great-granddad threw the axe into?"
"Near the middle, according to the story," replied Ellianthe. "I'll look ahead." She flitted to the top of the rubble, then perched on a jagged shard of slate, staring down. She turned and nodded. "I can see it from here. There's some big stones blocking it, though."
Fanuin darted after her and drew up alongside. "Aye," he said, then glanced at the peak above. "Reckon there's been a rockslide in the past century."
"Is it totally choked?" Dezra asked.
Ellianthe shook her head. "Not totally. Come look for yer-selves."
They climbed slowly, the slate shifting beneath their feet. Trephas's hooves scrabbled as he made his way up the rubble. Dezra reached the top first, Borlos right behind, then Caramon and the centaur. Together, they stared down into the ruins.
For a moment none of them saw anything amid the shattered stone; then Dezra pointed. "There," she said. "Under that big slab."
Then they saw it: a sliver of darkness, mostly blocked by a massive chunk of slate that had smashed down and cracked into pieces. The huge, flat rock nearly plugged the hole shut.
"Great," Borlos muttered. "That isn't big enough to fit a greased kender, let alone any of us."
They climbed down to it, but the gap didn't get any bigger up close. Testing, heedless of what might lurk in the darkness, Dezra stuck her foot into the hole. She slipped her leg in up to the knee before getting stuck, then pulled herself out again.
"No luck," she muttered. "Now what do we do?"
Trephas ran his fingers over the slab, probing the cracks where it had split. "How much rope do we have?" he asked after a moment.
Caramon, who had the rope looped over his shoulder, unslung it and let it slide down onto the rubble. "Guithern said three hundred feet."
"And pitons?" the centaur pressed.
"About a dozen. What's your plan, Trephas?"
"Bring them to me," he said, resting a hand on the slab. "I'll show thee."
An hour later, after much hammering and arguing over which rope should be secured where, they'd rigged together a complicated harness. One end was attached, with pitons, to the slab; the other to a crude yoke made by lashing together Caramon's spear and Trephas's lance. They stepped back, regarding it thoughtfully. It was just the four of them now. The sprites had gone, too frightened of the shaft to stay near for long.
"Will it work?" Caramon asked. "That rock looks heavier than anything I ever lifted."
"Maybe, but thou art human," Trephas replied confidently. "I've a warhorse's strength behind me. I won't be able to hold it long, though. We should decide which among thee will climb down."
"I'll go," Dezra said at once.
"Are you sure?" Caramon asked, his brow knitting.
"What about the Guardian?" Borlos pressed. "It'll kill you if it finds you."
"I don't think any of us could survive a fight with a golem," she returned, grinning crookedly, "not even you, Father. But I might be able to outrun it, if it gets ornery. Now get the rope ready. The day's wearing on, and I'd rather not still be down there when the sun sets."
Relenting, Borlos and Caramon drove a piton into the shaft's lip. The bard tied one end of their remaining rope to it, then leaned back, hauling with all his strength. Satisfied it would hold, he tossed the rope into the hole. It slithered down, more than two hundred feet of it.
Dezra pulled out a torch and lit it. "All right," she said.
"Let's get this over with."
Trephas took up the yoke and laid it across his broad shoulders. He dug his hooves into the loose rubble, then closed his eyes and pulled.
At first, nothing happened. Trephas's face turned crimson, and muscles stood out all over his body, from his neck to his fetlocks. Sweat coursed down his face and lathered his coat. He groaned, a harsh sound that grew into a roar. With a grinding scrape, the slate shifted. It moved an inch, then another, as Trephas strained and bellowed. Finally, when it had lifted nearly three feet from the shaft, he stopped pulling, and dug in to hold it.
"Go!" he hissed.
Dezra didn't need to be told twice. Gripping her torch in her teeth, she grabbed the rope and swung down into the opening. She slid down several feet, then set her feet against the shaft's wall, held on to the rope with one hand, and grabbed the torch with the other. She looked up at Borlos and her father, who stood over the hole.
"Be careful," Caramon added.
She smiled crookedly. "Why, Father," she told him, "when have you ever known me to do otherwise?"