"Taboo?" said the belkagen. "I am sorry, Lady. I do not know this word." "Why am I stumbling around in the dark? My toes are bruised and my shins feel scraped raw. Is it forbidden to carry light on the Mother's Bed?" There was a short silence, then Amira heard the old elf chuckling. "My apologies, Lady Amira. There is no… taboo. I merely forgot the limits of your eyes. Forgive my discourtesy." The belkagen spoke a short incantation, and green flames began to lick up the top quarter length of his staff. They were not the pale sickly green of fire magic she'd sometimes seen dark wizards use, but a vibrant, living flame, like spring sunshine filtered through a canopy of newly sprouted leaves. Amira thought she even caught the scent of blossoms. The light they cast was meager, but in the near-total dark to which her eyes had become accustomed it seemed like a beacon. They set off again, and Amira looked over her shoulder to Gyaidun. "How do you see so well in the dark? You're human." "I am athkaraye.
Elf-friend. Even though I am now an exile, the blessings remain."
Amira remembered him speaking of this once before, of the "blessings" he'd gained in becoming Lendri's blood brother and elf-friend to the Vil Adanrath. She knew of similar rites among elves to the west, though she'd never met one of the so-called "elf-friends." But it would go a long way toward explaining how Gyaidun moved with such grace and stealth in the wild, how he ran seemingly tirelessly for scores of miles… and how he could see on such a dark night. The group walked on a bit more, and soon the trees thinned as the ground rose. In the clearing, the belkagen stopped, and by the light cast from his staff, Amira saw a large fang of rock breaking through the ground. A great fissure split the stone from the ground to half its height, forming a door into darkness. "This is it?" said Amira, her voice hushed to a reverent whisper. Even after hearing the belkagen's history of this place, she hadn't put too much weight in it. Every people from the crudest barbarians to the most cultured societies had their own traditions, histories, and legends. She didn't discount any of them, but neither did she accept them without question. She had sifted through the old shaman's tale, hoping that this might be one of Faer?n's sites of power, that she might find some aid in rescuing Jalan. But standing there in a thick darkness broken only by the shimmering light cast from the belkagen's staff, far from her home with shapeshifters at her back and a fell sorcerer somewhere out there, for that moment she believed. Something in her deepest heart, some buried race memory, perhaps, of a time when all men walked in fear of the ancient powers of the world… something inside Amira woke up and hummed with life at the sight of the yawning darkness in the rock. "This is Hro'nyewachu," said the belkagen. Amira heard a rustling in the grass behind her, and she turned. Gyaidun had placed the deer in the grass before him, and both he and Lendri knelt with their heads bowed. Behind them, among the trees, Amira saw silver shadows keeping a respectful distance. They too knelt, and even those that walked on four legs through the trees stopped and lowered their heads. "From here," said the belkagen, and Amira turned back to face him, "we go alone, you and I." Amira tried to swallow but found her throat dry. "Lead on," she rasped. The belkagen knelt beside the deer carcass. "If you would, Yastehanye…" Gyaidun lifted the deer and placed it over the elf's shoulders. He moved with a reverence that only deepened Amira's trepidation. The belkagen stood, holding the deer secure with one hand and his staff in the other. If the carcass was a great burden to him, he didn't show it. "If we are not back by sunrise," said the belkagen, his voice raised for everyone to hear,
"do not tarry. Go to the aid of Jalan, son of Amira of Cormyr, and bring the vengeance of the Vil Adanrath upon those who took him." The belkagen turned and proceeded into the cave. Amira followed. Behind them, the howling of wolves rode the autumn dark. She hoped their song was a salute, but to her the mournful howls sounded more like a dirge.
Their path descended almost at once, the ground beneath Amira's feet ranging from steps hewn out of the rock to gravel-strewn sand.
The trail wound back and forth, deeper and deeper into the heart of Akhrasut Neth. At times they walked through tunnels low enough that both were forced to crouch, and the green flames from the belkagen's staff lit the path before and behind them a long way. At other times they emerged into caverns so vast the darkness swallowed the light.
Amira expected to hear the chitter of bats or the scuttle of insects, but there was nothing. Save for the shuffling of their feet and the sound of their breath, all was utter silence, a heaviness beyond even sound that weighed upon Amira the farther they went. The beating of her own heart sounded loud in her ears. They left the biting cold of autumn night behind them and fell into a uniform coolness that did not change through the seasons. The air tasted dry and clean, and the change in it was Amira's first clue that they were approaching something new. Dampness. That's what it was. Amira could smell water in the air. She and the belkagen descended a flight of stairs in a tight tunnel, then emerged into a cavern, broad beyond the reach of the staff's light but with a low ceiling littered with stalactites.
The inverted cones of stone glistened in the green light of the belkagen's flame, and they drip-drip-dripped into a pool that filled all but a sandy strip of dry land before them. If the path continued on the far shore, Amira could not see it, for the far side was beyond the reach of the staff's light. "From here," said the belkagen, his voice lowered to a reverent whisper, "you must go on alone. I cannot aid you." "Go on?" said Amira. "Where?" "Through the water. You can swim?" "Yes." "It is not deep, but before you reach the other side, the water will be over your head. On the far shore is an opening to the Heart. You must go alone. What happens there is between you and Hro'nyewachu." "And if"-Amira took a deep breath-"if something happens to me, if I need your help…?" "There is no help I can give you, Lady. If Hro'nyewachu takes you, I will honor your memory. But there is nothing I can do to hinder the will of Hro'nyewachu." Amira considered that. It was not bravery or blind faith that decided her, but simple pragmatism. She knew she was no match for the thing that held Jalan. She knew that without help her best hope would be to get away with her son and spend the rest of her life running, jumping at every shadow, never trusting to a night's rest, and putting everyone who aided her in danger. If there was a way to defeat Jalan's abductors once and for all, if even an inkling of the belkagen's suspicions and counsel were true, she'd be a fool not to try. "You'll be here when I return?" she said. "I will." "How… how am I supposed to take the oracle's gift?" She pointed to the deer carcass. "I can swim well enough, but not carrying that." "Take it as far as you can.