The Gates of Night_ The Dreaming Dark - Keith Baker [58]
And then she hit the water.
The light was blinding. Lei’s eyes had grown accustomed to the dim moonlight of the forest, and now brilliant light flooded the world.
Sunlight.
The air was warm, moist, but it was air. Where was the water? Lei reached down, or tried to. She could feel the warm breeze, she could smell the rich soil. But she couldn’t move. No, she simply wasn’t there. She could see the world around her, but she was trapped, a disembodied presence.
Where am I? she thought.
Wait. It was a woman’s voice, low and liquid, filled with deep sorrow. Lei had never heard the voice before, and yet it was immediately familiar to her. Despite the mournful tone, Lei found she was comforted, as if she’d just seen an old friend.
Who are you?
Wait, the voice said, and now Lei realized that it was a thought, more like a memory than a voice. Watch. Learn.
Lei’s vision cleared, and she knew where she was.
Xen’drik.
She didn’t recognize her exact surrounding. She hadn’t been in this particular clearing, she was sure of it. But there was no mistaking the land. The foliage around her was painted in vivid orange and yellow, colors so sharp that the trees and shrubs appeared to be on fire. This was the jungle where they had first encountered the drow, the region surrounding Karul’tash and the obsidian city Daine had spoken of. As she studied the ground, she saw a patch of darkness, a circle of smooth, black glass half-hidden beneath fiery orange moss. She heard sounds coming from behind her, people moving through the undergrowth, but try as she might, she couldn’t turn toward the sound.
Wait. Watch and learn.
The sounds drew nearer, closer with every moment. A figure stepped into her field of view.
It was Lei.
She was wearing her green and gold jerkin, and holding a wand of white wood in her hand—a wand Lei herself had never seen. Her eyes were hidden behind goggles, a complex array of crystal lenses bound to leather straps, and she was studying the ground. She stopped when she spotted the patch of black glass, and pointed her wand at the earth. The moss shriveled away, turning to dust, and a wide patch of black glass was revealed. “Here!” she cried out. Something was wrong. Her voice wasn’t Lei’s voice.
Another figure came forward from the jungle. It was a man, a tall young man armored in deep blue chainmail. He held a long gray staff in one hand. His skin was pale, his short, wavy hair brilliant red. Lei knew this man. She had seen him in a dream only days earlier. It was her father.
“Excellent, Aleisa,” he said, pausing as he reached the edge of the glass.
Aleisa! This wasn’t Lei at all. It was her mother. The sahuagin guide, Thaask, had told Lei that he had met her parents decades earlier, that they had come to Xen’drik in search of knowledge. Was this a vision of the past? It made no sense. House Cannith certainly had an interest in the secrets of the shattered land, but why would her parents have come alone? Surely Cannith would have sent a full expedition if there were knowledge to be claimed. Xen’drik was a land of many dangers, and if this could benefit the house, it would look after its own.
Watch and learn, came the voice.
“There’s immense power in the glass,” the woman said, and now Lei recognized that voice. “Are you sure of this?”
“Beloved, are you questioning my faith?” The man’s voice was cold, accusatory, but Lei could see the hint of a smile playing around his lips. Lei remembered her father as an intense, driven man, utterly dedicated to his work. He rarely smiled. “Do you distrust the gifts of our lord?”
“Of course,” Aleisa said.
The man—Talin d’Cannith—nodded, and now he truly smiled. “You are as wise as you are beautiful, my dear,” he said. “But I do trust in the grand design. I won’t die today.”
He reached into a pouch on his belt and produced a massive gauntlet, longer than