“I know she will,” Kestrel said. A week ago she never would have volunteered for the job, never would have put herself at greater risk than she had to—certainly never would have offered to face an evil archmage alone. Still they could not fail, and she knew in her heart that of them all, she had the best chance of reaching the sapphire. “This is my battle, too. Let me fight it to the best of my ability.” As she spoke, her collarbone vibrated so hard it ached. Had she just written her own death sentence?
Corran searched her face for a long moment. Respect lit in his eyes. “All right, then.”
At his words, the tingling in her collarbone subsided, and with it her fear. Courage washed over her, chasing away the shadows of self-doubt and cynicism, filling her with the belief that victory was indeed possible. Despite the incredible odds, they might just pull off their mission.
She regarded the paladin with a mixture of surprise and new understanding. This must be the aura of which Ghleanna spoke—the reason the others had followed Corran almost without question from the beginning. The sorceress had been right. Until now, Kestrel had never allowed herself to feel it.
Their circle broke up as each person made individual preparations. Ghleanna readied her spells, Faeril and Corran offered devotions to their gods, Durwyn arranged his arrows near the doorway for easy access. Athan paced impatiently, eager to wet his sword with cult blood.
Kestrel withdrew a small pouch and sprinkled white powder onto her hands. The chalk would help her maintain her grip as she scaled the wall. Her rope and grappling hook hung from her belt, but she hoped to find enough natural holds in the rock to free climb. Mordrayn might be entranced now, but once the sorcerers set off their fireworks, Kestrel didn’t want to risk the archmage kicking her grappling hook loose while she dangled from a rope.
She went to the doorway once more and studied the cavern, plotting her course. Fewer cultists gathered on the west side of the pool, but approaching the ledge from that direction required her to leap over a stray arm of the vile amber liquid. The east side held no water trap but twice as many human obstacles. She would dart west.
Behind her, Corran drew near. “Don’t let even a drop of the pool touch your skin,” he cautioned.
She gazed at the insidious lake, recalling the horrible fate of the bandits she’d observed in Phlan. “I’ve seen what it can do.”
He leaned on his sword and cleared his throat. “I was thinking... perhaps I should follow you to the ledge. In case the cultists spot you. And so that when you face Mordrayn—”
“No.” She turned toward him, struck by the look of genuine concern she discovered in his eyes. “You will slow me down, Corran. Or attract attention.” Besides, she preferred to work solo—at least, she always had before. As tempting as she found his offer to cover her back, she shook her head. “If I’m to succeed, I must do this alone.”
Reluctantly, he nodded his agreement. “After you destroy the sapphire, the rest of us will close in as quickly as we can.”
Quickly enough to save her from a cruel death at the archmage’s hands? Standing here with the paladin, she actually believed it was possible. “I’ll see you there.”
“Take care, Kestrel.”
She shrugged. “Always do.” But as she walked away, she cast one last glance at her former adversary. “Corran,” she called. The paladin turned. “You, too.”
Kestrel slipped out of the antechamber and slunk into the nearest shadows. Though Ghleanna had cast a hastening enchantment on her, she crept down the slope slowly, relying on stealth instead of speed. Once she reached the outer wall of the cavern she stuck close to it, darting from shadow to shadow as she made her way toward the ledge. And Mordrayn.
The cultists’ chanting muffled her movements. She realized, after she reached the cavern floor and could observe them more closely in the dim light, that only some of the cultists were participating in the Mythal ritual. The sorcerers all had their eyes on the Sapphire of the Weave as they repeated their profane mantra. The cult fighters, however, who comprised at least half the assembly, stood quietly on alert. She would have to proceed very cautiously as she wended her way past their ranks.
She paused and pressed herself against the wall. She’d traveled about a third of the distance to Mordrayn’s ledge and had another third to cover before reaching the arm of the pool that obstructed her way. All the cultists had gathered on this side of the tendril, so once she passed that obstacle she’d have a clear path to the ledge. First, however, she had an army of dragon-worshipers to avoid.
She glanced up at the antechamber. Good—her companions betrayed no hint of their presence. She knew Durwyn, still invisible, watched her progress from the doorway. Faeril and Ghleanna were to initiate a distraction when she reached the pool arm, unless she had need of it sooner. With so many eyes focused on the sapphire, even she couldn’t climb all the way up the ledge unnoticed.
The pool hissed louder down here, a sinister murmur that sounded almost sentient. By the gods, she couldn’t wait to stop those foul whisperings from entering her ears. Still hugging the wall, she continued her surreptitious journey.
Ahead, three cult fighters leaned against the cavern wall, engaged in low conversation. She couldn’t make out their words, and she didn’t much care—she was more concerned about getting around them. She studied the shadows dancing across the cavern floor. There was no good route, but she found one that might work. If she was very lucky.
With a deep breath, she stepped away from the wall and into the pulsing blue light of the sapphire. She walked quickly and silently, hoping the combination of her speed and the strobe effect of the gem’s light would play tricks on the cultists’ eyes and obscure her exact position.
It didn’t.
The trio raised an alarm. Kestrel didn’t wait to see what happened next—she ran for all she was worth. Magically sped by Ghleanna’s prior incantation, she practically flew past the cultists as the sorceress’s lightning bolt streaked across the east side of the cavern to strike a cluster of unwary cult mages.
She’d expected the chant to stop abruptly after her party’s initial strike, but many cult sorcerers were so absorbed in the Mythal ritual that a second attack hit before all the dragon-worshipers mobilized. Fortunately for Kestrel, most of the cultists focused their attention on finding the source of the magical attacks. Units of fighters hurried around the edge of the pool, trying to reach the west side to uncover the renegade sorcerer in their midst. Those cultists on the target side, meanwhile, scurried out of the line of fire.
The resulting pandemonium enabled Kestrel to get nearly to the pool tendril before anyone else noticed her.
“You!” a cult sorcerer cried, his voice all but lost in the din. He pointed his sinister claw at her and unleashed a cone of swirling white vapor.
Kestrel tensed as the funnel enveloped her, but she felt no harmful effects. With a grateful thought for the baelnorn, she rubbed her thumb over the band of one of her mantle rings and hurried on.
As fire and ice, poisoned gas, and conjured missiles soared and billowed through the air, Kestrel lost track of which spells were cast by her friends and which were retributive strikes. She just did her best to ignore the chaos erupting around her and focused on reaching the ledge. Mordrayn remained locked in communion with the Mythal, oblivious to the mayhem that had overtaken the cavern. The blue aura, undisturbed by mortal turmoil, continued to surround the archmage and the sapphire.
She reached the pool arm—a slough, really, an extension of the main pool filled with watery muck. From the foul smell that greeted her, she wondered if the gray sludge comprised the remains of victims tossed into the wicked pond. The slough was about six feet across. With her running start, she should have no trouble leaping its breadth. She boosted her speed in preparation for the jump.