Darkwell - Douglas Niles [81]
This roomy chamber had been the best of many they had discovered. It had a slow but steady draft that carried the smoke from the room, and yet it was far enough from the outside that the light of the fire would be invisible to anyone beyond the walls of the lair. And now the fire had generated enough coals to warm the chamber appreciably.
Robyn and Tristan, too, massaged their numbed feet beside the fire. The moorhound lay sound asleep, curled between them and unmindful of the steam sizzling from his drenched coat. Yak snored loudly in a corner of the chamber, and Newt had gone off somewhere to explore the ruins.
"I suppose we'd better wake him when his fur starts to singe," Robyn said with a smile, gesturing at the dog.
Tristan nodded. Weariness flowed through his body as he relaxed for the first time in days. "I never thought I'd be glad to see this place again!"
"Nor I. We were glad enough to get away the first time! I only wish Yazilliclick had turned up. I fear for him."
"Yes." Tristan felt a wave of melancholy. He thought of the good friends he had had, and lost, in the time since they had first discovered this lair and he had gained the Sword of Cymrych Hugh. Keren, the master bard, who had died in the fight against Kazgoroth the Beast. Hugh O'Roarke, bandit lord of Callidyrr, fallen in the battle against the High King. And of course, Daryth.
"Hey, you guys! Get up! Let's go exploring!" Newt darted into their chamber from one of the side passages. "There's all kinds of tunnels, and a deep well – Oh, and there's a bunch of dead firbolgs that got squished when the place – " He stopped suddenly, with a guilty look at Yak, but the giant snored on.
"I don't think we're going anywhere for a while," groaned Robyn. "My feet are finally getting warm and dry again, and I'm keeping them that way for as long as I can!"
"Awww! You guys are no fun at all! Say, what's for supper? Didn't you say we could eat after we found shelter?"
Newt eagerly dove at a piece of hardtack, seizing the dried biscuit and chewing contentedly. Despite his bluster and humor, his color had faded to a bluish green, and Tristan saw him glance frequently toward the entrance. Even the faerie dragon was worried about Yazilliclick.
"How far is it to the grove of the Great Druid? That's where the druids are now, right?" Tavish asked Robyn.
"It used to be two days march or so to Myrloch and along the eastern shore, about halfway up the vale. Now, what with blizzards and gas fissures and tar pits, I don't know how long it will take."
"And what will we do when we get there?"
Tristan had wondered about the same thing for some time.
"I assume that things have gotten worse since last I saw the Moonwell. At that time, the surviving druids of the vale, a score or so of them, had been frozen into stone statues by the power of the goddess. It was either that or face death at the hands of zombies and walking skeletons under the command of the evil cleric.
"Now, with the extent of the corruption through the vale, I can only guess that the Moonwell itself has been desecrated. It is the spiritual heart of the islands, and only through it could enough power be channeled to cause destruction on the scope we're seeing."
"But how do we face something that powerful?" Tristan didn't like the odds.
"I have a single hope, found in the scrolls the northman gave me. Those parchments, the Scrolls of Arcanus, contain secrets of ancient clerical lore. They were scribed by a cleric of another goddess, called Chauntea. But many of the tenets of her faith are very close to those of the Earthmother. Included among them are the mastery of the four elements!"
"Air,