“Then I guess so.” Wynn ducked his head as one of the clerics shot him a sour glance. It wasn’t hard to decipher that look. “You need to rest, Tia,” he said, passing along the unspoken message.
“I think that’s a good idea.” She sighed. “Will you stay with me?”
“Of course.”
Wynn watched over her until she fell into a fitful sleep. He dozed in the chair beside her bed. He woke when she woke, slept when she slept, and ate when she ate. In between, they pointedly did not talk about the relic or the attack.
When the sun went down, one of the healers brought Wynn a cot. It was hard and narrow, but it let him remain at Tia’s side. He lay down, and eventually, fell into a fitful sleep.
* * *
“Twice! Twice the vermin wench has beaten the warriors of the Chosen. It is shameful. A disgrace! An outrage!”
Zarfensis remained silent. He knew that it was better for Xenir to burn off his anger and frustration through vitriol rather than try to answer any of his heated comments. In truth, Zarfensis felt much the same way and he knew that Chrin had had some harsh words for the Warleader when they had returned to the Warrens.
In fact, the only thing that tempered the High Priest’s rage was the small piece of living stone that he held in his belt pouch. It was an unexpected, but incredibly valuable gift. The Swordmage could have slaughtered Chrin and the rest of the warriors and it would have been worth the losses. A gargoyle! Zarfensis doubted the vermin knew what a treasure they had held in their reliquary.
“Well?” The Warleader was obviously waiting for an answer to a question that Zarfensis hadn’t heard. Xenir stood, gripping the edge of the table with extended claws, glaring at the High Priest. It would do no one any good to provoke the Warleader, so rather than show that he hadn’t been paying much attention to the tirade, he took a different path.
“You are absolutely correct, Warleader. It is a shameful disgrace. However, what if I told you that even being subjected to such dishonor, the Chosen came out of the entire encounter with the advantage?”
“How?” The Warleader was plainly skeptical.
“We have this,” Zarfensis replied, taking the stone fingertip from his belt pouch and laying it on the table between them.
Xenir glanced at the stone, then to Zarfensis, and back again. He shook his head slowly.
“You mock me? We lose four of our warriors to the vermin and yet you mock me?” The Warleader’s voice had grown in volume until the end of his sentence was little more than an ear-splitting roar.
The High Priest spread his hands, palms up, a gesture of supplication. “I mock no one, Warleader. Not you, and not the memory of our fallen brothers. This is no simple stone,” he said, tapping the table with one claw. “What lies here before you is incredibly valuable. Its appearance is deceiving.”
“Then what is it?”
“The living finger stone of a gargoyle.”
Again, the Warleader looked from the High Priest to the stone and back. Xenir picked up the stone and turned it over in his palm. His tongue flicked out, circling his maw. His ears twitched in agitation.
“You have the living stone of a gargoyle?”
“It was a happy coincidence, to be sure. I’d be lying if I said otherwise. However, we do have it. The sacrifice of our brothers was great, but so was the reward that came from our endeavor.”
Xenir dropped the stone back to the table as if it had burned him. “So what do we do with it?”
“We find the relic and ensure that we get to it before the Swordmage or any of the other vermin.”
Without waiting for Xenir to ask any more questions, Zarfensis took the gargoyle’s finger and cupped it in his massive hands. As he spoke the ancient words of power, calling on the forces of the sphere, he felt the stone vibrate in his hands. He pressed the fingertip to the wall of the council room and watched as it melted into the stone. Xenir rumbled deep in this throat, but Zarfensis ignored him.
The cavern began to tremble and the two Xarundi had to brace themselves against the table to keep from being knocked over. The shifting of the walls and floor was enough to unnerve even Zarfensis, so he could forgive the stink of fear wafting off the Warleader.
A moment later, the earthquake stopped and an area of the council room wall began to glow with the reddish-orange color of molten rock. As they watched, the molten area became larger, eventually spreading from the ceiling to the floor. A face formed in the center of the glowing mass and pushed outward into the room, extruding itself. Arms and legs appeared next, as the gargoyle hauled itself out of the fissure. The opening closed behind it, leaving only the stifling air in the room and the odor of charred stone in its wake.
“High Priest. Warleader.” The gargoyle nodded to both Xarundi.
“How did you-” Xenir blurted, but the gargoyle cut him off.
“The stone hears all, and we hear the stone, Warleader. Please forgive my brusqueness, but our time is short. The moon’s rays do not reach us here. My name is unspeakable by your race, so you may address me as Sleeper.”
“Sleeper,” Zarfensis said with a respectful half bow. “We wish to know-”
“The location of the relic which you seek, so that you might obtain it before the humans.”
“Yes.”
“I must commune with the stone,” Sleeper replied, stretching out his hands and caressing the rock as one would touch a lover. His touch lingered here and there, tracing lines and striations in the wall as he mumbled to himself in a language Zarfensis had never heard.
“Yes,” Sleeper said. “The stone remembers. It remembers many relics the Chosen have sought over many hundreds of years. You seek one relic, a special relic, buried in snow and ice.”
“Yes!” Xenir’s skepticism seemed to have waned at the mention of the relic from his vision. “That is the relic I saw!”
“The stone remembers. Many Xarundi have sought this relic.”
“My great grand-sire among them, Sleeper.” Zarfensis was nearly as excited as Xenir. “Can you show us where it is?”
“I can show you what the stone remembers.” Sleeper took his hands from the rock and traced a series of symbols on the wall with one stony finger. The traced sigils glowed bright orange on the dark stone before they seemed to take on a life of their own. The symbols spread out, twisting and writhing across the wall. A mountain range of tiny little spikes grew from the stone. In other areas, the stone dropped away, leaving deep valleys and wide expanses of emptiness.
It took Zarfensis a moment to realize that what was forming before them was a map of Solendrea. Xenir’s startled yelp from behind him satisfied the High Priest that the Warleader had come to the same conclusion. Sleeper tapped his finger deep in a rocky range of hills.
“This is the area you call the Warrens.” Sleeper traced a circle with his finger and the area began to glow with a pale orange luminescence. He traced a line from the Warrens, zigzagging up through the clan lands and into the icy wastes far to the north. Farther north than the Xarundi had ever explored.
“Here,” Sleeper said, tapping the spot where his finger had stopped. “Here is the place you will find your relic. Beware, the thing you seek is ancient and powerful. Perhaps more powerful than you can control.”
Zarfensis stared at the map, trying to commit every detail to memory. Xenir had the presence of mind to grab a scrap of parchment from the scroll case and was rapidly scratching out a crude replica of what was displayed on the wall before them. Xenir gave an inarticulate cry as the map began to fade into the same glow that Sleeper had emerged from.
The gargoyle stepped into the molten rock, his body half consumed by the unlikely portal, he inclined his head toward Zarfensis.
“Farewell, High Priest of the Xarundi. Our alliance is concluded. Thank you, again, for freeing me from the humans.”
Without another word, he vanished into the stone, the molten portal sealing behind him.