The Druid Queen - Douglas Niles [31]
At first they could see nothing more than a shapeless form in the mist, yet even in this vague outline, it had a certain solidity that belied its gaseous nature. Slowly the vapor drew together into a white form that seemed to glow like a full moon in the darkness of the night air.
Not a sound escaped the lips of a single dumbstruck firbolg or troll as they stared at this intangible message from they knew not where. Slowly, gradually, the white shape grew firm and solid, taking on an obvious image… the image of a snow-capped mountain summit. A rocky crag jutted sharply upward, surrounded by steep shoulders of sweeping icefields and long, precipitous cliffs.
"The Icepeak!" breathed a firbolg. Garisa didn't see who made the identification, but she had known that one of her tribe would do so. After all, the towering mountain, capstone of Oman's Isle, had long been attributed as the birthplace of the giant clans. There was no other mountain in the firbolg realms that loomed so high, or bore such a distinguishing crown of snow upon its summit.
Then the image began to waver and change. Slowly the picture of the mountain faded, returning to its shapeless circle and then, ever so slowly, forming another likeness, an object that appeared so solid that it might really have floated over the fire before the awestruck watchers.
This time they saw the picture of a monstrous axe, its huge, double-bitted blade nicked and scarred by combat so that the runes inscribed upon its broad surface were all but unintelligible.
"An axe!" gasped the same firbolg who had spoken before, this time quite unnecessarily.
"The Silverhaft Axe!" Garisa broke the silence with a sudden screech of definition. "Such was the blade borne by Grond Peaksmasher at the forging of the clans!"
Murmurs of astonishment, tinged with awe, rippled from the onlookers. They well remembered the tale, chanted by them all, on the night before they had embarked on this adventure. The presence of that very axe, found in this village, could not fail to stir the warlike pride of each and every one of the giant-kin, and even to a lesser measure the trolls.
"What does it mean?" inquired Thurgol after a few moments of stunned silence.
"Does the Ancient One awaken?" asked another giant-kin.
"It's a sign!" croaked Garisa, sensing her cue in the firbolg's question.
"A sign of what?" demanded Baatlrap suspiciously. The hulking troll's black eyes bore into the shaman's skull, but Garisa shrugged away his attention.
"Who knows?" she said, with an exaggerated glance at the heavens. "The will of the gods is displayed, but it remains to us mortals to determine how that will is understood and acted upon. But know this, my villagemates: The gods are well pleased with the Clan of Blackleaf, for we have righted a great wrong in restoring the axe to its proper owners!"
"Aye! The gods are pleased!" A chorus of congratulations rose from the shadows around the great fire.
"They are pleased, but they are not satisfied. This can only mean that our work is not done!" hissed Garisa, fixing them all, one at a time, with the balefully gleaming orb of her wandering eye.
"Tell us!" demanded a troll, nervously following Garisa's glance at the sky. "What is the will of the gods?"
"Tell us!" came the chorus of agreement, a basso rumble of voices, all turning to the ancient shaman for advice and comfort. "What do the gods desire?"
Garisa made a great show of shuffling about the full periphery of the large fire, examining the floating image of the axe from every angle, cocking her head this way and that to confront the different firbolgs and trolls with her challenging gaze. To an individual, they would not meet her eyes.
At last she came back to the place where she had started. The image of the huge axe remained poised in the air; once Garisa had established the simple illusion, she hadn't had to pay attention to it. Instead, the image would remain for some time, unless she chose to adjust it.
Staring back at it, mumbling unintelligibly, she suddenly did just that. The axe disappeared with shocking