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By Root 658 0

hemming them in. The warmth of the sun turned to dank, cool shadow, and the light faded. Soon overhangs and projections formed a ceiling that shut them away entirely. That there was any light at all was due solely to the fact that the defile was so rife with fissures that small amounts of illumination penetrated at virtually every turn. Their eyes adjusted to the gloom, and they were able to continue. The birds, they realized, were able to maneuver easily at the higher elevations, where the walls broadened. They found white feathers and bits of old grass and twigs that might have been carried in for nests. The nests, of course, would be farther on, where there was better light and air. The company pressed ahead.

After a time, the overhangs dropped so low that they were forced to proceed at a crouch. Then the defile branched left and right. Preia told them to wait and went right. She returned after a very long time and took them left. After a short distance the defile widened again, and they were able to stand once more. Ahead, the light grew brighter. They were nearing the passageway’s end.

Fifty yards farther on, the cleft opened out onto the edge of a vast lake. The lake was so unexpected that everyone stopped where they were and stood staring at it. It rested within a vast crater, its waters broad and still, undisturbed by even the faintest ripple. Overhead, the sky was visible, a cloudless blue dome that channeled light and warmth to the crater. Sunlight reflected off the lake, and the lake mirrored the rock walls surrounding it in perfect detail. Tay scanned the cliffs and found the nests of the seabirds, set high in the rocks. No birds were visible. Within the shelter of the mountain walls and across the flat expanse of the lake, nothing moved, the silence vast and complete and as fragile as glass.

After a short, hushed conference with Jerle, Preia Starle took them left along the edge of the lakeshore. The shoreline was a mix of crushed rock and flat shelves, and the scrape of their boots as they proceeded echoed eerily in the crater’s cavernous depths. Tay cast his magic forward of where they walked, hunting for pitfalls, exploring for hidden dangers. What he found were lines of earth power so massive and so old that they tore apart his fragile net and forced him to rebuild it. He drew Jerle close to him and gave warning. There was tremendous magic at work here, magic as old as time and as settled. It warded the crater and everything that lay within. He could find no specific danger from it, but could not trace its source or discover its use. He did not think them threatened by it, but they would be smart to proceed with caution.

They went on until they were nearly halfway around the lake.

Still there was no sign of life, no indication of anything beyond what they could see before them. Neither Tay with his Druid magic nor Vree Erreden with his locat talent could discover what they searched for. The sun had moved out of the shadow of the cliff rim so that it blazed directly down on them, a burning orb against the blue. They could not look up at it without being blinded, and so kept their gaze lowered as they walked.

It was then, with the advent of high noon, that Tay Trefenwyd saw the shadow.

He had moved off the waterline momentarily to higher ground, trying to see the far shore through the dazzling reflection of the sun on the lake’s still surface. As he searched for a position that would lessen the brightness, he saw how the sun had thrown the shadow of a rock projection far overhead across the length of the lake onto the cliff face several hundred yards ahead. The point of the shadow climbed the rock wall to a narrow fissure and stopped.

Something about the fissure caught his eye. He sent his magic to probe the opening.

What he found, carved into the rock above, was writing.

He went forward quickly to catch Preia, and together they turned the company inland. Moments later they stood before the fissure, staring upward in silent contemplation of the writing. It was ancient and indecipherable. It was Elven,