Slanya’s eyes widened as she gazed out over the rim of the cliff. The ground below, dotted with flares and wisps of blue and white spellplague, receded quickly. “By the gods, how do we get off of this?” Slanya said.
“We don’t,” Duvan said. “We’re too far up now, and the plaguegrass is right here. We’ll have to wait until it floats back down.”
The mote they were on was a good three hundred feet above the rest of the land. And it was rising. Fortunately, it seemed to be heading toward a swath of the changelands that was relatively stable, for the moment. Duvan breathed a little relief; it looked like they’d have clear sailing on still waters, for a short while at least.
Ahead, however, they would run into trouble. If the mote stayed on course, it was headed directly into the center of the changelands. Still a good distance away, but definitely in their current path, was what Duvan recognized as the vortex of a spellplague storm.
A dark blue sky streaked with purple made the backdrop for a swirling whirlwind of destruction. Gossamer threads of white and blue entangled with flames of red and yellow in an angry and wild display of raw nature. It was beautiful and terrible, awesome and indiscriminately perilous.
And they were heading directly into it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A hot, grassy meadow stretched out around Slanya, an illusion of peace in this landscape of unpredictability and turmoil. Beyond the edge of the meadow-mote, she knew the Plaguewrought Land boiled with the rising blue fire.
Still, the smell of flowers and the warm tran-quility of the meadow in the hot sun lulled her. The peace of the here and now was a pleasant anomaly. A vision of how life could be, how life should be despite the larger landscape of danger and chaos. It was too easy to forget the world beyond-the world that would rapidly intrude without warning.
“It’s going to be calm for a little while, I think,” Duvan said, shading his eyes from the last rays of sunlight slicing down through the clouds and the constellation of smaller motes above them.
Looking over at Duvan, so confident and reassured amid the surrounding hysteria and flux, Slanya thanked Kelemvor for Duvan’s presence. The man could be infuriating and pig-headed, but he was proving strong and knowledgeable. Indispensable. Slanya would be dead without him. Right now he was staring into the distance, his brow knitted in consternation.
Duvan’s black eyes sparkled in the light. His broad nose and boyish face were at odds with the three-day beard and straggly mane of hair. When he turned to look at her, his gaze was gentle. “Gather up as much as you can while we have time,” he said. “I’ll try to figure out how to get us off this rock and out of here.”
Slanya tried to quiet her mind, but in the recesses of her consciousness a little girl couldn’t stop screaming. She needed the quiet seclusion of the temple to order her mind and regain control over her body. Or perhaps she just needed to surrender to the fire. Maybe she could let chaos overtake her, move inside her.
How good would it feel to give in and let all her control go? Could she abandon her hold on order and still survive? She had no real idea, but the temptation to lose control surged up inside her like never before.
Focusing on the ground in front of her, Slanya knelt down into the dewy grass. Her knees dampened from the moisture, and the heavy smell of grass and earth filled her nostrils.
Grab. Pull. Bag.
The long, translucent, yellow stalks came easily out of the ground, roots and all. Rich dirt clung to the rhizomes as Slanya shoved the grass into the magic bag of holding that Gregor had given her for carrying it. The bag would hold all the plaguegrass they’d need for a long while.
“How much time do we have?” she asked.
Duvan stood and looked out past the edge of the mote-the rim of which dropped off to the shifting ground far, far below. “Not sure,” he said. “The good news is that we seem to be in an eddy of spellplague for the moment. It’s not too strong or too fast.”
“And the bad news?”
“We’re heading away from the border and into the most intense blue fire I’ve ever seen.”
Slanya let that sink in. She fought against the dread welling up inside her. Stronger changelands. Wilder and more chaotic-pulling them toward madness. Slanya was not afraid of death, but she did fear insanity. Accept what comes, she told herself, but the words rang hollow.
Grab. Pull. Bag.
The plaguegrass gave off a sweet smell when the stalks broke, reminding her of the herb garden back at the monastery. She used the smell and the manual labor as an anchor. Focus on the here and now, she reminded herself.
The last rays of the sun dimmed to darkness, and the blanket of night stretched over the sky above them. The high clouds overhead were thickening. Their gray bellies glowed blue and red, flickering with the reflection of the turmoil of the fires below.
Grab. Pull. Bag.
The repetition was calming. Slanya lost herself to the act of harvesting the plaguegrass. There was plenty of light to continue to work, and she was happy to lose herself in the rhythm of the task.
“I need food,” Duvan said suddenly. “Need to figure out a way off this mote.”
The edge in his voice was less than reassuring, but eating was a good idea. They needed energy to keep going.
Grab. Pull. Bag.
As she worked, Duvan gathered up what looked like dried wood and piled it up at the inner edge of the meadow. She wondered at first what he was doing, but it soon became clear that he was building a fire. What do we need a fire for? she wondered. None of the food they’d brought with them needed to be cooked. A campfire was unnecessary-a waste of energy.
After about a half hour, she was finished filling the sack, her knees were soaked through, and her hands were numb and icy cold, covered with tiny scrapes from the sharp edges of the grass. Duvan’s fire didn’t seem so wasteful anymore.
Slanya stood up and brushed dirt and dry grass from her legs. She felt centered and focused for the first time since they’d entered the Plaguewrought Land. And famished.
“Come and eat something,” Duvan said.
“Thank you,” she said, walking over to the fire. She warmed her hands, relishing the tingle as the flames nudged away the chill from her fingers and palms. When they were sufficiently warmed, Slanya helped herself to the dried rations and fruit they’d brought and sat down on the ground across the small blaze from to Duvan. “I think we have enough plaguegrass.”
Duvan nodded. He swallowed his bite, then said, “Good. Unfortunately, I don’t see how we can get off this rock any time soon. Perhaps you should’ve hired a wizard instead of me.”
Laughing, Slanya said, “No, I can see now that you were the clear choice. Despite your inability to magic us back.”
“Well,” he said, his dark eyes soft in the firelight, “we could be stuck on this mote for a long time.”
Sitting there talking to him, the fire a warm glow next to them, Slanya felt herself relax. The searing screech of the heavens and the earth below faded to background, and all that mattered was the here and now. Her mind could contain this moment and make sense of it.
“Do you always assume the worst will happen?” Slanya asked.
Duvan smiled. “Yes, I suppose I do. In my experience the worst is more likely to happen than the best, and it’s far better to be prepared for the worst.”
So cynical, she thought. But there was practicality in that way of thinking.
“For me, being stuck doing nothing is worse than death,” he said.
“There’s not much we can do right now.”
“True, but if we’re stuck up here for hours or days …” Duvan let the idea linger in the air.
There were scars on this man’s soul, Slanya could see that in sharp relief now. But what had happened to him? He kept his past bottled up inside. How could he have turned out so bitter and jaded?