Depths of Madness - Erik Scott De Bie [115]
Not that it matters, she thought, though she wondered if she lied.
As though he sensed her uncertainty, Gargan laid a stony hand on Twilight's shoulder. Some of the tension flowed from her.
"We go," one of the four escorts said to Twilight.
Taslin's earring, dangling from her left lobe alongside three new silver rings with colored stones, translated the words, though she fancied that the few days she had spent among the goliaths had taught her enough to understand. That this was cursed ground went unsaid, but she caught hints of it in their bodies. There was regret in their voices, but only a touch.
The goliaths purposefully ignored Gargan, bowed to Twilight, and turned, never to look back. Twilight knew the goliath would not talk to his clan brothers-ever. The escorts walked one way, toward the desert mountains, and the elf and her companion went the other, into a wide expanse edged with rock pillars and broken crags.
"Why do they treat you so?" she asked as the escorts vanished over a dune.
"Exile,"Gargan said. His syntax was simple: declarative and efficient. "I am dead."
That made Twilight smile in helpless sympathy. Perhaps she and the goliath had more in common than she had thought.
She gestured to the red markings that patterned his flesh. "What do they mean?"
"My destiny," Gargan said. "My flesh is the parchment."
That made Twilight blink. "You have tried to read it?"
Gargan shrugged. "That is why-part of the why, not the whole why."
"But you know what they say."
The goliath nodded. "Follow the fox with the white claw," he said. "My destiny."
Twilight had nothing to say to that.
She spent some time within herself. Her hip felt light without a sword. Betrayal lay somewhere in those caves-lost in the confrontation. She had to get in, elude discovery long enough to recover the weapon, find Liet, then somehow defeat Gestal.
She wondered, abstractly, how she would do all these things. She wondered about Gargan. She wondered what had become of Slip. She wondered about her dreams.
The one thing she knew for certain was what she had to do.
"We arrive," Gargan said at last.
They had come to the center of a grove of stone trees two spearcasts in width-the Plain of Standing Stones, Twilight recalled, if her geography was correct. Gargan knelt in the sand and put his ear to the ground as though listening for approaching pursuit. Twilight knew better than to disturb him.
"His magic covered the hole, "Gargan said. "/ willfind the cave I entered first."
The elf agreed, though she knew it could not fail to be a trap. "There," Gargan said. "This sand is shallow. Whispers." Twilight shivered. Whispers beneath the ground. He pointed.
They walked to the nearest of the stone pillars and searched its base. Sure enough, between two boulders they found an opening just large enough for a goliath to squeeze through-or a fiend-stitched troll, perhaps.
"You are the stronger in a fair fight, but we will not fight fairly," she said.
He growled in his throat. "We fight without honor? "
"Best to eschew honor, when our foe can defeat both of us at once."
Gargan finally nodded. He put a hand to his sword hilt. "Wait," said Twilight, motioning' Gargan to stop. "I have a plan."
The goliath eyed her with uncertainty but obeyed.
Closing her eyes and falling into the shadow, Twilight reflected on the stakes. She hated using this power, as it meant letting part of herself go. She hesitated to let any part of herself out, but somehow, after her dreams, she felt calm. She wasn't so alone.
"This will only take a breath."
She began the ritual.
The elf padded through the tunnel to the catacombs, her hand on the rapier hilt. She cast her eyes one way, then the other, then proceeded, as though certain she was safe. She moved on, stealthy and hidden to all sight.
All sight except the sight that comes with a demon prince's