The Fading Dream_ Thorn of Breland - Keith Baker [45]
They walked between the vast roots of the tree, which rose around them like walls sculpted from silver. There were no sentries standing watch at the gate, though Thorn saw archers looking down from the ledges formed by the wide strands of withered ivy. A face was carved into the door. Once it might have been a handsome male elf, but half of the face was worn away, and the other side was starting to crack. With all that they’d seen and all that she’d heard, Thorn wasn’t terribly surprised when the wooden lips moved and a deep voice issued from the gate.
“Two come before me I’ve not seen before. Tell me, Sir Casoran, should I open the door?” It spoke in the Elven tongue with an accent Thorn had never heard before.
The commander took a step forward and answered in Elven. “I bring visitors to see the Lady of the Tree. Open your door. I will stand for their actions.”
A crack ran down the center of the gate, and it slowly swung inward. The knight led them inside.
The hall that lay beyond the door was vast, as grand in its size as the entrance to Brokenblade Castle in Wroat. Yet Brokenblade felt alive. Even when Thorn had visited late at night, the castle was bustling with guards, pages, and emissaries attending to critical business. By contrast, the Silver Tree felt abandoned, a haunted castle whose inhabitants had vanished in a time long past. No one was waiting inside. A few floating globes of light, scattered far apart and flickering and unsteady, created scattered pools of illumination in the gloomy hall. It took only a moment for Thorn to realize that they moved. One drew close and she saw that it was a tiny, winged sprite, glowing with an inner radiance. It shivered, faltering in its flight, and that was when the light faded. It caught itself quickly, and the light returned.
“Guest quarters,” Casoran told the spirit. The creature nodded, darting forward. The knight glanced back at them. “Follow, and for you own safety, stay within the light. And you”—he looked at Thorn—“sheath your blade, lest it be taken from you. It is a dangerous thing, to carry bare steel in our citadel.”
Unfortunate but hardly unexpected, Steel said. I will listen. Study every detail, Lantern.
“Understood,” Thorn told the knight and Steel at once. She sheathed him on her belt instead of hiding him in her glove; from the scabbard, he could at least hear what was going on around them.
“It’s horrible,” Drix told her quietly as they ventured deeper into the hall. “Look at the cracks along the walls! When I was here, the hall was filled with light and music. There were hundreds of sparks in the air, like stars filling the sky. Now … look there.”
Thorn followed his gesture and saw a host of carved wooden sprites, perched in alcoves in the walls.
“They’re dying,” he whispered. “The tree … I think it’s absorbing their energy to survive.”
“Lovely,” Thorn said, keeping her voice low. She stepped over a large crack in the floor, a fissure that ran across the length of the hall. “Could that happen to us?”
“I don’t think so,” Drix whispered. “I think it’s because they’re part of the tree to begin with. Still, probably best to keep to the light.”
The hallway narrowed, branching into multiple paths; their hovering guide led them up a curving passage. The walls were rounded, every surface carved from silvery wood. The hall was filled with light, though Thorn couldn’t see any source of illumination aside from the little sprite; it was as if the air itself were glowing. Only when the air grew warmer did Thorn realize just how cold it had been in the outer hall. They passed doorways with signs and symbols carved into the surface of each portal. Thorn heard faint music and laughter, and she could smell the recent passage of many people, of wine and hot food. A tavern, she thought. The next door was open. She caught a glimpse of an old elf—no, an eladrin; she was beginning to see the differences herself—polishing a bow while another was setting fletching on arrows. Weapons