The Druid Queen - Douglas Niles [37]
"Are you absolutely sure?" he asked. "That there's no threat, no danger out there?"
She was sure, in her own mind, but again she saw that look of fear on her husband's face. It was a look she had seen very rarely, and now, as always before, it frightened her to think that Tristan was afraid. She couldn't increase that fear with a curt rejection of his hope.
"I don't know how it could be otherwise," she said gently. "But in order to make certain, I'll journey to the vale and see for myself. I hope your schedule will allow you to remain a day or two until my return," she added in an icy tone to the Exalted Inquisitor.
"Of course," he bowed, ignoring her manner. "But isn't this valley some distance away? Can you journey there and back in two days?"
"Patriarchs of Helm," Robyn concluded pointedly, "are not the only persons of faith who can travel with speed."
Her preparations were simple, and ten minutes later the High Queen bid her family farewell. She quickly climbed the steps of the high tower, acknowledging a tiny voice of alarm inside her, a voice that warned that the cleric of Helm might just possibly be right.
No! She would know if some evil disturbed the vale! Wouldn't she? Angrily but unsuccessfully, she tried to dispel the nagging doubt.
She reached the platform atop the tower and paused for a moment. Again the sweep of moor and firth spread below, but now the scene did not soothe her. Too many questions disturbed her mood as she stepped to the rim of the parapet.
Spreading her arms out wider, she toppled into the air.
Then a white hawk soared from the high tower, catching a powerful updraft and rising swiftly into the sky. The bird's course remained constantly northward, toward the wide valley of Myrloch.
* * * * *
Almost holding his breath in tense anticipation, Thurgol watched Garisa prepare for her foretelling. She had before her a smooth copper bowl, half filled with clear water. She sprinkled some dark dust into the bowl and stirred it with a grimy finger, smiling with satisfaction as the water dimmed to a murky brown.
She had placed the bowl beside the gleaming form of the Silverhaft Axe, explaining that the nearness of the artifact could only help the accuracy of the foretelling. In this she was right, for she had already decided what the prophecy was to be, and the weight of evidence provided by such a potent artifact, she knew, would make it virtually impossible for the thick-skulled firbolgs to dispute her.
"Now the gold," she declared, holding out a hand behind her. Several young firbolgs hastened to drop shining coins in her hands, coins that had just been liberated from dwarven treasuries.
Beyond the bunch of eager giant-kin, a sullen group of trolls, naturally centered around Baatlrap, looked on in rank skepticism. Thurgol was relieved that his firbolgs outnumbered the gangly beasts. It would be just like trolls, he thought, to ignore the clear will of the gods, the will that Garisa would certainly reveal to them. Wolfdogs skulked restlessly around the periphery of the gathering, nervously sensing the giants' agitation. Growls and snarls accompanied their anxious pacing, the smaller dogs staying well out of the paths of their larger kin.
Before the fire, the shaman spun her fingers around the bowl, bringing the water into a swirling whirlpool that washed up the insides of the bowl without losing a drop over the edge. Eagerly the firbolg chieftain watched the coins plop, one by one, into the water.
"I see…" Garisa mumbled after three coins had plunked into the bowl.
"What? What?" Thurgol pressed, before his comrades rudely hushed him. To the chieftain, the water had seemed relatively unchanged, still dark in color but quickly swallowing the coins without any display of pyrotechnics or, so far as he could see,