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By Root 672 0

of dirt and pine. He longed for a breath of wind-an eternal companion on the moor-and yet not a breeze stirred the trees. Toward the middle of the day they reached the bank of a deep, cold creek. “The Birchbrook,” Stefanik announced. “If we follow it upstream, we'll come to the place where I found the dagger.” Even the waterway lay within the shroud of Llyrath's canopy, for the trees on either bank were so huge and soaring that the width of the streambed could not keep their branches from mingling. Gray boulders jutted from the murky waters, the river washing around them in eerie silence. For the rest of the afternoon the halflings made their way along the banks of the Birchbrook. The stream surged with relentless force, but it seemed unusually quiet to Pawldo. The water was deep, often collecting in dark pools after a tumbling spill down a chute or over a short drop. Yet even in these rapids the Birchbrook did not splash and froth as he would have expected. The veteran traveler found something in the stealthy stream even more unsettling than the cloaking forest. “There!” cried Stefanik, urging his pony forward. “See where the two creeks come together?” “Yes. Good guiding, lad,” Pawldo replied, pleased. Two smaller streams formed a Y as they merged to create the deeper, wider Birchbrook. The right branch frolicked down a stairway like progression of stone

shelves. In some places, the branches overhead actually gapped slightly, allowing thin beams of sunlight to reflect brilliantly from the surface. The river's left branch seemed to Pawldo more like the Birchbrook proper-it meandered through a channel that was not as steep as the other. Though the current moved quickly, the water didn't splash with the same vitality as its neighboring stream. “In the middle-that's where I camped. I found the dagger there,” Stefanik explained. As they approached the spot, Pawldo saw that the place between the two channels indeed seemed like a perfect camping site. The ground was flat, free of trunks and roots. Several large rocks had been gathered in a protective circle, providing a windbreak for a fire and screening any blaze from casual observation. “We can cross the right branch,” continued the young halfling. “There's a good ford there.” The two ponies waded into the stream, which splashed only to their knees, then emerged onto the flat clearing. The charred embers of an old fire huddled between several of the boulders Pawldo had seen earlier. “Is that the remnants of your blaze?” he asked Stefanik as they both dismounted. “Yes. Here's the old birch root I pulled out before I went to sleep,” replied the younger traveler, kneeling beside the gritty fire scar. “No one's been here since me.” “I'm not surprised,” muttered Pawldo. The murkiness of the forest was now unnervingly oppressive, but he shrugged off the feeling as best he could. “Where did you find the knife?” “Over here.” Stefanik crossed to the left fork of the converging streams, indicating a shallow depression near the bank. “It was lying right here. This hole is where I pulled it out.” Pawldo knelt beside the shallow excavation. Freshly turned dirt lined the hole, although tufts of moss already tinged the exposed earth. The depression matched the dagger's length. The object had rested just above the water level of the stream, between a pair of rocks. Looking up the channel, Pawldo saw gloomy outcrop-pings of granite looming through the trees. The creek emerged from a deep cut between these high walls. Though tree trunks blocked much of the view, he saw the passage nestled between these bluffs-a narrow canyon, source of this left branch of the Birchbrook. He studied the steeply sloping streambed, dropping from that narrow gap to the small backwater at his feet. Confidently Pawldo took the dagger out of his pouch and held it before him. “Show me the Palace of Skulls,” he commanded, waiting for the telltale flush of heat to infuse the handle. Nothing happened. “Maybe you have to drop it on the ground,” Stefanik suggested. Pawldo threw the blade to his feet, but it lay lifelessly