Darkwell - Douglas Niles [86]
The sprite's shoulders hunched and shook as he wept. His antennae wobbled, and great, round tears rolled to the tip of his pointed nose. There they gathered, one on top of the next, until a small icicle had formed, growing until Yazilliclick sneezed it away.
Well, he had to do something. The sprite got to his feet and started trudging through the snow toward the north. He dreamed wistfully of happier times, times spent in Myrloch Vale when this was a living and pastoral place, and even more distant times spent in the realm of Faerie itself.
Ah, Faerie! Now, there was a land for the likes of a sprite, or a faerie dragon, or a pixie – or indeed any of the myriad creatures who originated in that place of magic and beauty. Yazilliclick, plodding through snow piled higher than his knees, lost himself in reverie.
Faerie was a distant land, far from the Realms, but in some respects it was very near. He remembered making the journey from his homeland to the Moonshaes. It had simply been a matter of stepping into a narrow crack in a mossy tree trunk and popping out the other side in Myrloch Vale.
He, like many of his brethren, had stayed in this world. Perhaps he had not been able to find his way back, or perhaps he had not wanted to return. Certainly he had never spent much time looking for a gate back to Faerie, for there had always been so much to do here. Then, of course, he had played with the other sprites of the vale, and taunted the pixies, and followed the dryads. In those days, Myrloch Vale had been a place so much like Faerie that it seemed as if he and his kind belonged here.
Now, of course, things had changed. In fact, for the first time, he wondered what had become of the pixies and sprites and other faerie creatures of the vale. Had they returned home, leaving him here alone? Or had they all been killed by the monsters and the evil cleric?
That thought was too horrible to contemplate, and so he didn't. Instead, his mind returned to the awful, miserable present, to the snow that now reached his waist, and the biting wind that stretched his wings behind him, and this depressing vista of death and decay that even the white snow could not conceal completely. There, like that looming dead tree stump before him, with the ugly crack down the side. He could see the places where moss had fallen away from the stump, leaving only ghastly barren patches of rotting wood.
And then the crack widened and a great, clawed hand reached out to grab the sprite by the tunic. It pulled, Yazilliclick squealed once, and then he was gone.
"What was that?" Tristan sat bolt upright, wide awake and already drawing his sword. Again he heard the rumbling, and he felt the unmistakable shaking of the ground beneath him.
"Cave-in!" Robyn jumped to her feet and looked around. For a moment, all was still, and then another distant rumble shook the earth.
"Yipes! Who did that?" Newt demanded.
"Everyone outside!" shouted the king. "Hurry!"
"Where's Pawldo?" Tavish gathered her possessions and noticed the halfling's empty bedroll.
"He took over the watch when I went to bed. He's got to be around here somewhere!" Tristan lifted a glowing brand from the fire and swirled it in the air until it blazed into flame. Then he looked around the chamber as the others gathered their things. "Pawldo? Where are you?" For several moments, they froze and listened, but the stronghold mocked their ears with complete silence. At least the rumbling had stopped again.
"Let's have a look around," suggested the king. "He might be hurt."
A quick search of their chamber and the adjacent passages revealed no sign of the halfling. Though the rumbling did not resume, Tristan had grave doubts as to the security of their shelter.
"Everyone go outside. I'll take Canthus and see if he can