Chapter Five
Gwydion dreamed.
When he was a boy
of twelve or so, he had often taken service as a swamp guide with visiting
nobles who wished to hunt the Rift Marsh. He had been born in the
marshlands, the third son of an ex-soldier who had migrated to the marsh
from the more civilized province of Annwyn and founded a meager homestead
on its border.
His family had been
poor, and his two older brothers had both died from the black fever when
Gwydion was still an infant, leaving only him and his father to provide
for his mother and three younger sisters. The farming was difficult
near the marsh, as the soil was poor, and he had toiled many long hours
alongside his father trying to eke out sustenance from the land.
The work was hard, but they had always managed to avoid starvation.
Still, Gwydion was enterprising as well as a hard worker, and when he realized
that he might earn a few extra coppers as a swamp guide to some foreigner
hoping to brave the dangers of the swamp, he had eagerly jumped at the
opportunity. The swamp was well known as an excellent hunting ground
for waterfowl and other exotic wildlife. Though it may have appeared
dark and forbidding to the foreign merchants and noblemen who wished to
hunt it, to Gwydion it was a second home. He and two boyhood friends
from neighboring farms had, as boys are wont to do, thoroughly explored
the swamp at an early age, and he was well-familiar with it. Certainly
it had held its dangers, but Gwydion had known them and how to avoid them.
The swamp crocodiles were rare, and more likely to duck beneath the inky
black waters and flee than to menace passing humans. Patches of sinking
earth dotted the swamp in places, but Gwydion knew how to spot and skirt
them. As for the stories of swamp hags and bog monsters which abounded
among the local tavern crowd, Gwydion never saw a shred of evidence that
either even existed, and gave no credence to the wild rumors.
In his dream he was
there again, although no longer a boy. And the swamp was not as he
remembered it either. No longer did he find its depths welcoming
and familiar. Instead, they were treacherous and forbidding, and
he percieved that peril lurked within the murky depths on all sides of
him. In the dream he was lost, wandering blindly through darkened
paths. Twisted marsh trees loomed overhead, their winding branches
creating an unbroken canopy which shut out all light from the sun (if,
indeed, it was daytime at all), and spiky growths of marsh grass clutched
at his clothing as he passed, attempting to drag him down as he fought
through the undergrowth.
Again and again he
came to the edge of the inky black waters which ran through the swamp.
Though in real life he had often forded them easily, wading across their
shallow lengths, here he did not dare to tempt their depths, for in the
dream he knew that terrible things lay waiting just beneath the still surface.
There was movement all around him, and though he could see nothing in the
twilight darkness, he knew he was in surrounded by creatures of darkness
which slavered and hungered for him. He could hear their growlings
and terrible keenings.
He reached for his
sword and found that he was unarmed. In terror, he fled blindly,
hoping to fight his way clear of the swamps and make for drier, more familiar
ground. Instead, his wild flight only bore him further into the murky
depths.
He pulled up short
at the edge of an earthy embankment covered with rotting leaves, beyond
which lay a small stretch of the inky water. Before him, standing
on a similar embankment on the other side of the dark water, stood a man.
At first the man was blurry but gradually his features became more distinct.
Gwydion gasped as he realized he was looking at a reflection of himself,
but a reflection which was twisted in some malevolent way.
"Come," said the other
Gwydion with a malicious smile, gesturing at him.
Gwydion felt an icy
terror grip his heart, and sought to flee, but discovered his feet were
frozen in place. Horrified, he realized he no longer had control
over his limbs. He felt the pull of the other Gwydion's will, and
desperately fought it.
"Come," the other
Gwydion said again, and Gwydion began to move. Jerkily he stepped
forward, down the embankments and towards the waiting waters. Something
moved just beneath the surface there, stirring ripples. Gwydion caught
of something pale, the color of a week-old corpse, deep beneath the black
waters, stirring in hungry anticipation.
Just then, when he
was beginning to think all hope was lost, a single ray of light pierced
the darkness of the swamp, falling on him, and his body was his own again.
"Come!" the other
Gwydion cried in dismay, fury etched on his face as he realized he had
lost control. "Come!"
Gwydion started to
flee, then stopped. The single wan ray of light was coming from somewhere
off to his right, and it beckoned him.
He started towards
it, but was brought up quickly. The path which led towards the light
was the darkest and most treacherous of all. He could see nothing
of it, but knew that it was filled with danger. He tried to look
at the ground before his feet, but could not make it out.
Instead, he looked
back up at the light, and started forward. The light, he knew, would
guide him.
He walked a narrow
path, and on either side lurked terrible creatures, vast places of sinking
earth, even great precipices from which he might plummet to his death.
A single mistep would mean death. He knew all this even though he
could not see the dangers to either side. The ray of light, however,
did not fail him, and as long as he kept his eyes on it, the ground beneath
his feet was safe and firm. The monsters and creatures which waited
hungrily for him on either side wailed and moaned as he passed beyond their
grasp.
The ray of light led
him to a small clearing which was brightly illuminated by sunlight which
streamed down through a hole in the canopy above. In the clearing
were two beautiful flowers; one a stately and cultured rose, the other
a hearty wildflower. The two flowers strove against each other, but
he knew somehow that he would need them both, and that they were equally
important.
Beyond the flowers
was a man in gleaming full-plate armor, the helm down. The man bowed,
and Gwydion nodded, for he knew the man would make a noble companion, though
he also knew the man was cursed in some terrible way.
Beyond the brightly
lit glade an inky shadow lurked above all. The shadow stood tall
and powerful, though no man was there to cast it, and though it was greatly
malevolant and radiated a palpable sense of danger and evil, it too stood
as a companion, and guarded him. This, of all that he had seen, was
the most baffling, for the shadow surely meant harm to all. As Gwydion
looked at it, two glowing red eyes appeared in the midst of the shadow.
"Your command," it
spoke. "I await."
* * *
He awoke to the gentle
pressure of Brianna's fingers on his arm. The transition from sleep
to consciousness was instantaneous; one moment he was dreaming, the next
he was fully aware. There was none of the fuzziness or sleepiness
that normally attended waking. He wakened to full clarity, as if
he had never slept, and recalled each detail of his dream as if it were
a real event he had just lived through.
He glanced over at
Brianna. Though she must have turned some during the night, for she
now lay on her side facing him instead of her back, she slumbered still.
It was well past dawn, and the rose light of the early morning highlighted
her sleeping face. The makeshift bandages he had wound about her
head had shifted during the night, some having fallen away and the
rest hanging askew. In the morning's light he saw how pitifully ineffectual
they really would have been. If not for the miracle, she would be
dead now.
He pondered on that
for a few moments. Of the terrible wound that had been there the
night before there was no sign, not even a faint bruise to mark its passing.
Her face was a little smudged with dirt and faint streaks of dried blood,
no doubt left over from his panicked and inexperienced efforts to wash
it in the darkness last night, but other than this there was no sign that
only hours ago she had been on the brink of death.
He found himself gazing
at her face. It held a peaceful expression now, serene in sleep.
Had he thought her exotic, alien? She had said she was as human as
he, and with her eyes closed, it was difficult to see any differences.
If not for her strange glowing eyes, she might easily have passed for an
ordinary woman on his homeworld. No, that's not quite true, he thought
a moment later. Ordinary? No, never that. She was beautiful,
lovely in a way that was difficult to describe, and that alone would have
made her anything but ordinary. She was strikingly beautiful, and
he wondered that he had failed to notice it before. He sat there
for a moment, enraptured, regarding the contours of her face, losing himself
in the delicate sweep of her nose, the sensual swell of her lips, the elegant
lines of her cheekbones. His appreciation, however, while full and
unreserved, at the same time was entirely innocent of any impure desire.
His was not the hungry stare of a man overcome with lust who desires to
bed a woman, but rather the respectful and quiet appreciation of someone
admiring the natural beauty of a particularly striking work of art.
He glanced down at
his forearm. Her right hand had closed on it sometime during the
night, and even now he felt the gentle pressure of her fingers there.
The miracle that had joined them so briefly last night had forever changed
how he would view her. For a split instant, he had known her inside
and out, in a way he had never known another person. Was it possible,
then, that she had experienced something similar? She seemed to draw
some comfort from his presence, as evidenced by her touch. When she
awoke, would she recall the miraculous joining? Or would she remember
nothing of what had passed between them? She had, after all, been
unconscious when the healing had been performed. And what should
he tell her of it, if she didn't remember? What, for that matter,
did he really know of it himself? The strange power that had flowed
through him was as much a mystery to him as it would be to her.
The miracle.
He remembered the healing with a sense of wonder. Roughly eight hundred
years had passed since the prophet Manti had been gifted with divine power
and used it as a weapon against the foes of light, leveling mountains with
a word and smiting the armies of darkness, so the histories said.
And that had been the last recorded miracle. Eight hundred years
since the last miracle, and he had been chosen as the instrument to perform
another one. It was a sobering thought. Surely the importance
of his mission must be very grave to warrant such an event. And Brianna's
importance must be equally great.
Of a sudden, he became
aware that they were not alone. And though initially he was surprised,
he was not alarmed. Somewhere in the back of his mind he had been
unconsciously aware that they were not alone ever since he had awakened.
Only now did it register consciously.
Slowly he rose to
a sitting position, looking across the small clearing.
Laying on its side
and staring back at him with yellow unblinking eyes was the largest cat
he had ever seen. It had tawny brown fur, a black mane and a tufted
tail. Its mouth was massive, and though it was closed and he could
not see its teeth, Gwydion had no doubt that its jaws were powerful enough
to crush a man's skull. Its paws were crossed over each other, and
the claws were retracted and not visible, but Gwydion was certain that
when enraged, the cat would make short work of opponents, rending them
with its powerful claws.
Yet, for all that
he realized the great cat could be a dangerous opponent, Gwydion was still
not alarmed. The cat's expression was peaceful, and though its eyes
were alert and attentive it did not seem hostile. It almost seemed
regal.
Though Gwydion could
not say why, he sensed that the great cat was an ally.
Brother, its
eyes seemed to say, I have watched over you. You have not slept
unguarded.
For several long minutes
the two regarded each other, unblinking.
Then, almost lazily,
the cat rose to its feet. Leisurely it turned and began to pad away.
It stopped once at the edge of the grass and looked back at him, then turned
and slipped away.
Gwydion sat unmoving
until several minutes after it had passed out of sight.
"What," said Brianna
in a shaky voice, "exactly was that all about?"
He looked down at
her, a little surprised to find her awake. Her grip on his arm had
tightened and she was staring wide-eyed in the direction the great cat
had gone. "I'm not... completely certain," he replied. "It
was one of those creatures you were telling me about yesterday, wasn't
it? A lion, I mean."
She nodded.
"Looked like, though I've never seen one that large before. And we're
well out of their territory." She swallowed. "I don't know
why it didn't attack. They're supposed to be ferocious. You'd
better keep that oversized sword of yours ready. It might come back."
Gwydion shook his
head. "He didn't mean us any harm."
"And how do you know
that?"
He shrugged.
"It's a feeling. I just... know. It watched over us while we
slept. If it had any hostile intentions, it would have attacked us
then, while we were both helpless. Neither of us could have put up
much of a fight, not after... well, not after what happened last night."
How much will she remember?
She gazed at him,
a curious expression in her eyes. "Last night," she murmured, as
if struggling to recall a dream. "Something..." Suddenly her
expression changed as the memory came flooding back. "The fiend!"
She looked frantically about. "What happened to it?"
"Dead," said Gwydion.
"Dead?" She
was disbelieving. "How?"
Gwydion touched Tylith-senshai.
"The sword took him."
She looked at him
in amazement. "You slew it?"
He shook his head.
"The sword did."
"I don't understand.
Where is the body?"
"Tylith-senshai's
touch is death for the unworthy," said Gwydion. "The demon touched
it. It consumed him."
Her mouth fell open.
"The... sword consumed him?"
Gwydion nodded.
She stared at the
blade as if seeing it for the first time, and drew back from it as if it
might suddenly spring to life and lash out at her. "Gods!" she breathed.
"The power that would take! When you said your weapon was magical,
you weren't joking, were you?"
Gwydion shook his
head solemnly. "It is a holy relic. The power it commands should
not to be taken lightly."
"Apparently."
She considered. "A Clueless wandering around with an item that powerful
is bound to attract attention in high places."
"I already have."
She looked at him.
"What do you mean?"
"The demon," he said.
"It was sent for me."
"How do you know?"
"It spoke to me."
She was flatly disbelieving.
"It spoke to you? While it was trying to slay us?"
"Yes. It didn't
consider us much of a threat, and decided to take its time killing me.
Apparently it was arrogant."
"Not unknown among
fiends, arrogance" she admitted. "What did it say?"
He shook his head.
"Not very much. It seemed surprised at my weakness. Apparently
it had been sent by a superior to eliminate me, and it wondered aloud what
'they' could fear in me. But it was sent for me," he stressed
with a shudder, "and whatever force could command that thing must be powerful
indeed."
"Yes," she said after
a moment of considering, "you are right. If it is as you say, then
you have a very powerful enemy."
"Or enemies," he added.
"Or enemies," she
agreed. "First the sword, and now this. I am beginning to doubt
my wisdom in joining you on this quest, paladin. You certainly attract
powerful attention, and that's something I could do without."
"Someday," he said,
brushing himself off and getting to his feet, "you'll have to tell me more
of these 'paladins' you keep comparing me to." There was some
stiffness in his neck muscles and a dull aching in his knee, but other
than these minor complaints he found himself to be in good working order,
well-rested and physically whole. He was a little surprised by this,
after the rough treatment he had recieved from the demon last night.
Perhaps the healing worked both ways, he mused.
Brianna was still
looking around the campsite. She glanced at her scattered clothing
and gave a surprised yelp of outrage. "Who dumped my stuff all over
the place?" she demanded. "Here, look, they're covered with dirt
and ashes from the fire. And where's my blouse?"
"Oh," said Gwydion,
a little sheepishly, "um, well, I guess I'm sort of responsible for that."
She glowered at him.
"Sort of?"
He cleared his throat.
"Yes, well, yes. It was me. I was searching for bandages."
"Bandages?"
"Yes. You didn't
have any."
She gave him an irritated
look. "I know I don't have any. Why were you looking for bandages?
And why don't I remember any of this?"
"You were unconscious.
After the demon struck you, I thought you were dead."
She looked at him
as if he were speaking another language. "After the demon struck..."
her voice trailed off, and the light of understanding came into her eyes
as she remembered the terrible blow. "I was wounded," she said.
"Badly," said Gwydion.
"I thought you were going to die."
Hesitantly, as if
fearing what she might find, she lifted her fingers to her head.
They encountered the lumpy bandage he had hastily wound around her head,
and she jerked them back as if shocked.
"It was my first try,"
said Gwydion. "I did the best I could, but I'm afraid it isn't much
of a bandage."
"How bad is it?" she
asked. "I can't... I don't feel any pain."
Gwydion started to
answer, but she had already started to unwind the bandages. As the
first strip of cloth came off, she stared at it. There was dried
blood staining it, a lot of it.
"You were bleeding
pretty badly," explained Gwydion. "I did what I could to clean it
up."
The rest of the strips
of cloth were off a few moments later. Each was more saturated and
stiffened with dried blood than the last. Steeling herself for the
worst, she raised her fingers to her forehead. "I don't... Why don't
I feel anything?"
Uncertain of exactly
what he should tell her, Gwydion kept his silence.
She touched her forehead
in wonder. "There's no pain." Her fingers traced the region
where the wound had been. "I don't feel any..." she muttered, then
abruptly scrambled over to her backpack and began rifling through her discarded
possessions, searching hastily for something. After a moment, her
hands emerged from the small pile holding the small mirror Gwydion had
tossed aside during his panicked search the night before. She held
it up and examined herself critically, turning the small mirror this way
and that as she looked over herself.
"I don't believe it,"
she murmured a moment later, astonished. "There's no mark.
Not even a bruise." She looked over at him. "But I remember
the blow. I should be dead."
"The wound is gone,"
said Gwydion. "It has been healed. I'm not really certain I
understand it well enough to explain it any better."
"Healed?" she asked.
"How?"
Gwydion hesitated,
choosing his words. "It was a miracle, the first in eight hundred
years. I bore witness."
"You did this?" she
demanded.
Gwydion shook his
head. "I was merely the vessel."
"You did this."
Her tone was final, and tinged with a spark of anger. "Why?"
Gwydion was taken
aback by the hostility in her tone. "I couldn't stand by and let
you die. Would you have had me do nothing?"
"Listen to me, paladin,"
she said, "I am bound by no oaths, to you or anyone else. I make
my own way in the world, and I ask nothing from anyone."
He was confused.
"What has that got to do-"
"I pay my debts,"
she said angrily, "and I don't ask for charity from anyone. I don't
owe anyone anything. I never have and, if I'd had my way, I never
would have. But now, behind my back, you do this," - she gestured
at her forehead - "and put me in your debt."
"There is no debt
owed," he protested.
"Yes there is," she
countered. "You've gone and kept me from dying. That's a pretty
big debt, as I see it."
Gwydion was a little
flustered. He had not expected this reaction at all.
"But it wasn't me that healed you. I was just the instrument-"
"I like the thought
of being in debt to your god even less," she said, cutting him off.
"Very well, done is done, and you can't very well go back in time and un-heal
me."
Was the woman mad?
She talked as if she would rather have died!
"Look," he started,
"I didn't-"
"Don't try to apologize,"
she said, forestalling him with an upheld palm. She sighed.
"It doesn't matter now anyway. You were just doing what all paladins
do: what you thought was right. You didn't know any better.
There's no hope for it. I shall simply have to find a way to put
things square again."
"I wasn't going to
apologize," said Gwydion, a little nettled. Apologize? For
saving her life? "Look," he said, after a moment, "you've guided
me through a hostile land, provided me with priceless information.
You've probably saved my life a dozen times over. So let's just call
the whole thing even-"
"Not a chance," she
said, shaking her head. "You saved my life, I just served you as
a guide. And I didn't do it for free, either. No, we can't
just call it even."
A thought flashed
into Gwydion's mind. "Why don't you guide me to Sigil in payment.
Release me from my debt to you and take me there for free. That way
it's a fair trade; one life-saving for one leading-me-to-Sigil..." his
voice trailed off as he realized how silly he sounded. "You understand
what I mean?"
She nodded.
"I think so, though I'm not certain that would be a fair trade. I
planned to make a lot of jink off this little venture, and now I'll make
nothing. It seems like I'm coming out on the minus side."
"But you've got your
life!" protested Gwydion. "Surely that would be worth a little 'jink'."
"I didn't say a little
jink," she corrected him. "I said a lot of jink."
The woman was mad.
"What difference," he asked, "does it make whether it was a little money
or a lot of it? Either way, you can't spend it if you're dead.
We never really talked about a specific price anyway."
"Never talked about
a price!" she cried, taken aback. "Gods above, I must be slipping!
First rule of any negotiation is to settle price first. Grandam would
have a fit if she knew I'd given service before payment! Next I'll
be handing out charity!" She looked at him. "All right, deal.
I take you to Sigil in return for what you've done. But remember
this, paladin. The moment we arrive in Sigil, all debts are off.
I owe you nothing, and you owe me nothing."
Gwydion nodded, relieved
that the matter was settled. It was, he reflected, probably a very
good thing that she had agreed to guide him for free. He had had
no way of paying her for her services anyway, and, as highly as she seemed
to value her 'jink', he doubted she would have been pleased to discover
that fact after she had led him to Sigil.
Still, he felt a pang
of guilt that he had decieved her at all. Quickly he forced it down.
The matter was settled, after all. There was no need to speak further
of it now, especially when it would only lead to trouble. She was
better off not knowing.
She knelt beside her
pack, quickly folding the remainder of her clothing and stuffing it in.
A moment later she was on her feet. "Well?" she asked, looking at
him. "Let's get a move on. We've still a long way to go, and
there's precious little sense in dawdling here all day."
* * *
They struck out boldly,
Brianna again leading the way. At first they made even better time
this day than on the previous, as the grasslands fell behind and they entered
a fairly level plain which favored their progress. But as they continued,
the ground became more and more broken and rocky, until eventually they
were forced to slow their pace to a crawl to negotiate the treacherous
rocks. Here, only a few scraggly patches of coarse grass grew, windblown
and struggling tenaciously to hold their place in the rocky ground.
The soil here was dry, of a reddish-brown color and a rocky consistency.
And more and more often they passed by looming spires of jagged rock which
were thrust upwards towards the sky, carved into eery shapes by the constant
pressures of wind, rain, and time. There was no clear path to follow,
and now and again they had to alter their path as they encountered pits
or high piles of rocks, or even the occasional boulder. It was slow
and difficult going as they struggled to wend their way through the increasingly
difficult terrain. At one point Brianna led the way down a shallow
ravine and into a dry riverbed. For several hours they followed its
winding length, making better time on the former river bottom, which was
for the main part smooth and flat, then they would have had they chosen
to pick their way across the broken terrain which lined the dried river.
The sky, too was different.
Although mostly clear except for a few withered clouds which wandered aimlessly,
it seemed darker than it had yesterday. It was not blue in color
as might be expected, but rather a dull lifeless red, which illuminated
the broken terrain in a baleful manner and made the shadows among the rocks
twist weirdly in the corners of Gwydion's vision.
The very air itself
seemed to hover oppressively over them, and more than once Gwydion had
the uneasy feeling that they were being watched, but each time he halted
and stared about him he saw nothing. The day was silent, save for
the scratchy sounds of their progress. They seemed to be moving through
a dead land.
"This is an evil place,"
said Gwydion to himself, halting for the fourth time and looking about
him, his flesh crawling.
Brianna shrugged.
"Some cutters are more sensitive to that sort of thing than others, I guess.
Don't worry, where we're going is far worse."
Around midday they
sighted mountains in the far distance. While not as strange to Gwydion
as the Spire which still pointed up to the sky like a knife behind them,
they were not like the mountains of his homeland. Those had looked
like gigantic waves, capped with white patches of snow and dotted with
greenery on the lower slopes. These, by contrast, seemed some how
taller and more threatening, while not quite as broad, and had no snow
that Gwydion could see and absolutely no greenery. There were two
main ridges of mountains, and though it was difficult to tell at this distance,
they seemed to curve towards each other in some unnatural fashion.
"What's that?" asked
Gwydion, pointing at them.
"Our destination,"
replied Brianna, "the Vale of the Spine."
"There's something
wrong with them," said Gwydion. "They are not like other mountains."
"No," said Brianna.
"They are not."
She led on, and he
trailed behind. Eventually they abandoned the dried riverbank and
returned to the rocky terrain that had been so difficult to negotiate earlier.
It was not much further before they came across a trail which cut through
the broken land towards the mountains. It was a wide path, well-worn
from the looks of it.
"Humans have passed
here," said Gwydion, bending and examining the sandy dirt, "and not long
ago. I see the marks of wagon wheels and the imprints of horses hooves,
though I cannot be certain how many of each passed. We are only a
few hours behind them. This is a road?"
"A trade road," Brianna
confirmed. "It's what I was looking for. We should make Ribcage
before dark. No doubt these are the marks of a merchant train, though
they could have passed here days ago." She glanced at him.
"Things work differently here. This part of the Outlands is called
Kestrel's Vengeance. There is little weather here to disturb the
tracks of those who pass, and the merchant train you see signs of may have
passed weeks ago."
Gwydion accepted this
with a nod. "Why is it called Kestrel's Vengeance?"
She shrugged.
"Who knows? Doesn't really matter anyway."
"And Ribcage?" he
asked. "What is that?"
"A real nasty place,"
she answered. "But that's where we've got to go, if we want to make
it to Sigil."
He nodded.
Brianna started to
lead on, then suddenly halted, looking at him. "I've been thinking,"
she said. "About what you told me about last night. There's
something I've been wondering about; something that I can't settle in my
mind."
He was surprised by
her sudden shift. "What's that?"
"The demon," she asked.
"You said that it spoke to you."
Gwydion shuddered
at the memory. "Yes."
"It spoke planar common?"
He was unfamiliar
with the term. "Planar common?"
"The language you
and I are speaking now," she supplied impatiently. "It spoke the
same language we're speaking? I ask because, although most fiends
can speak it, it's kind of unusual for them to do so in the midst of battle."
He shook his head.
"No. Either it did not speak this... this planar common, or it chose
not to, perhaps assuming that I would not understand it. No, the
language it spoke was... darker."
"It spoke in its native
tongue then?"
Gwydion shrugged.
"I can only assume so. Though any place where they speak a language
like that is a place I would very much prefer to avoid."
Her eyes narrowed.
"How, then, did you understand it? Very few mortals know anything
of the fiendish tongues. I know of only three people who might -
might - be able to decipher it if they saw the written version of it, and
I'd lay odds that if they heard it spoken aloud, they wouldn't recognize
it. And they are experts, sages who've studied the ancient chant
on fiends for years." She shook her head. "But you are a Clueless
who doesn't know anysthing more about fiends than what I told you yesterday."
"I was born with the
gift of tongues," Gwydion said simply.
"The gift of tongues?"
It was plain from her tone that she had no idea what he was talking about.
"I can speak foreign
languages as if I was born to them. I only have to hear someone speak,
and I understand."
"Indeed?" she was
fascinated. "Such abilities are usually reserved for Powers and their
immortal minions. I have never heard of any mortal possessing such
a talent. This is not magic?"
He shook his head.
"I know nothing of sorcery. Such arts are not within my realm of
experience."
"And you are able
to speak any language?"
He shrugged.
"Any that I hear spoken aloud."
"You only have to
hear it, once, and you can speak and understand the full language?"
She shook her head. "But what about words you don't know, differences
in sentence structure, subtleties in context? Surely you cannot
speak a new tongue flawlessly from hearing only a few words."
He gave her a wry
grin. "As a matter of fact, the language in which you and I are conversing
now was foreign to me until yesterday."
She was surprised.
"You mean that you never spoke planar common until yesterday?"
"I had never heard
it before you spoke to me on the black staircase," he admitted. "It
is an unusual tongue, beautiful in its way, flowing with rich subtexts."
She goggled at him.
"Remarkable. You understand all languages, then?"
"All that I've encountered
so far. I suppose it is possible that someday I might run into a
language that I don't immediately comprehend."
"Then... you might
read wizards symbols and understand them. Or communicate with the
secret hand signals of the underdark. You could break codes and decipher
ancient languages. Or..." she paused, then looked at him. "You
spoke to that lion this morning, didn't you? That's how you knew
it intended us no harm!"
He smiled and shook
his head. "No, that was something else... a feeling. My gift
is for the spoken word only. It does not extend to written languages,
I'm afraid, nor can I communicate with plants or animals. It is not
magic."
"Still, it is a remarkable
skill." She was silent for several moments. "Is this... trait...
common on your homeworld?"
He shook his head.
"I have never met another who possessed it." He shrugged. "I
have never really thought that much of it; I was born with it, and it is
simply part of who I am."
She turned and started
down the well worn path. "Nevertheless, paladin, you would do well
not to take it for granted. It is a valuable skill." She glanced
back at him. "It may well be that it will be more valuable to your
quest than that great sword you carry."
* * *
"Astonishing," murmured
Gwydion. "I have never seen its like before. This is Ribcage?"
They crouched next
to a stand of rocks, gazing out over the valley that stretched beneath
them. It was difficult to judge the exact time of day, for this seemed
a place of eternal dusk, but several hours had been spent since they had
left the broken lands of Kestrel's Vengeance and entered the mountains
themselves. The track through the winding mountain pathways had not
been easy, but neither had it been too difficult. The well-beaten
path they had followed had proved level and sure, and relatively clear
of debris. Strangely, the dry air had grown warmer rather than cooler
as they gained elevation and made their way further into the mountain passes.
She nodded at his
comment. "Yep, that's Ribcage all right. You can see where
it gets its name."
Indeed he could.
From where they stood, at the mouth of the pass, they could see nearly
the entire length of the valley which stretched out below. The city
which dominated the center of the narrow valley was small, but impressive.
Its black walls towered over the little valley, reaching impossibly high,
with a gate and barbican which stood even taller, and towers and spires
within which stood even taller. Even from this distance Gwydion could
see the cruel barbs and spikes which seemed to line every wall and tower
within the city, jutting out malevolantly at different angles. Something
like ripped cloth fluttered from the spikes here and there; he couldn't
be certain of what it was from this distance but he had the uneasy feeling
that it was bits of dried flesh. From place to place along the wall
were stationed the bleached yellow-white bones of human skeletons, no doubt
impaled on the spikes as well, and placed there as both a threat and a
warning.
The mountains which
lined the valley were extremely narrow and curved, and the way they jutted
up over the city and curved over it made them appear as if they were the
massive skeletal remains of some titan who had lain down here long ago
and died. They had a faint reddish tinge to them, and the long shadows
they cast over the city were desolate.
"Listen up, cutter,"
said Brianna, looking over at him, "we're about to enter one of the meanest
burgs in all the planes. Greed and power are what makes the difference
here, and this city's filled with bad sorts. Murder, extortion, rape;
that's the sort of thing you can expect here on a good day. But that's
just the way it is here, so don't do anything stupid. Stay behind
me, keep your mouth shut, and don't lock eyes with anyone. And above
all, follow my lead. Got it?"
He nodded. "Mouth
shut, follow your lead."
"And none of that
'charge at evil' stuff you paladins seem to go for so much."
He smiled. "No
worry of that. I'm not a paladin, remember?"
She was unconvinced.
"Yeah, right." She looked back down at the narrow valley and took
a deep breath as if steeling herself for something unpleasant. "Hopefully
I can get you through this in one piece," she muttered. "All right,
let's get this over with."
Together they made
their way down the rocky slope and into the desolate valley, to where the
mouth of the gate of Ribcage yawned ominously.