The Edge of Chaos (4 page)

“Several days at least,” Gregor said. “One of the ingredients is very difficult to acquire.”

“Get started right away. This is critical.” The sharpness in Vraith’s voice made Slanya wince.

When Gregor spoke again, there was a warning in his tone. “Let me do my job and you do yours. I am provisionally committed, because this ritual of yours seems to be the key to containing spellplague. That is a worthy goal, and one which can make a profound change in the world. But do not take that tone again with me. I do not take orders from you.”

“Can you create more elixir or not?”

Gregor paused. “Yes, I don’t expect it to be a problem.”

Vraith’s tone was back to sweet and peaceful, “Perfect. I’ll let you get to it then.”

Abruptly there were footsteps and the sounds of movement. They were headed this way, toward the door where Slanya was standing. Getting closer.

Slanya’s heart shot into her throat, and in her panic she

missed the next part of the conversation. She was about to be discovered, and the punishment would no doubt be the switch across her back. Memories threatened to overwhelm her.

Stop it, she told herself. There were no punishments like that in the monastery. That fear came from a long-ago life she hardly remembered. That was in a past that could never hurt her again.

And with that thought, some of the adrenaline fog lifted. She focused and relaxed her breathing, calmed her heart. And she knew what to do.

She knocked on the door. After all, she had been summoned. She was supposed to be on the way.

The door opened almost immediately, revealing Gregor with his silver-dusted black hair and neatly trimmed beard. A patch over his left ear where, his spellscar had bleached his hair and skull to the pale, milky blue color of moonstone lay bare.

Gregor gave Slanya a warm smile, “Ah, Sister Slanya, prompt as usual. Thank you for coming.”

Slanya’s heart warmed slightly at the sight of Gregor’s pleasure with her, and then she became aware of how irrational her response to Gregor was. She wanted to please him; she had held a special affinity for him ever since he’d saved her; he’d judged her and found her worthy. She knew that her reaction was less than objective, but it didn’t hurt anyone but herself.

“I am just escorting our guests here, including Commander Accordant Vraith of the Order of Blue Fire, to the gates.”

Gregor indicated a diminutive elf woman holding a wooden box, who radiated power and confidence. “Just ‘Vraith’ is fine,” she said with a slight nod.

Gregor continued, “Our business has concluded. Please walk with us.”

Slanya stood to the side as Gregor and Vraith stepped into the hallway, followed by four others who apparently did not merit introduction. Vraith wore sky-blue wizard’s robes, which shimmered in the dim light, the embroidered Order symbol of a flaming blue iris glittering on her heart. Her blonde hair was cropped short in back and straight across her brow in front, giving her an angular look.

Two of the four others, well-muscled human men in plate armor displaying the Order symbol on their chests, flanked Vraith and walked just slightly behind her. Trailing in the rear was a dwarf woman with curly red hair and glowering eyes under bushy red brows. She sported pale blue clerical robes, a faded copy of those worn by Vraith, bound at the waist by a white rope.

Next to the dwarf walked a genasi woman, wearing the bright robes of a wizard, which served to accentuate the aquamarine color of her skin. The genasi looked to be a mage to Slanya’s eyes, and considering the hydra-shaped spellscar that seemed to drip like a liquid crystal stain over her left ear, she was bound to be quite a dangerous one.

Slanya brought up the rear, grateful that her anxiety hadn’t been noticed. She would wait until she was called upon. Following Gregor and Vraith out into the late afternoon heat of the monastery courtyard, Slanya listened as their conversation shifted from business to superficiality.

“Your orders have accomplished a great deal in the short time you’ve been here,” Vraith said. “You’ve built the bulk of your temple in such a short time. It’s most impressive.”

Gregor smiled and nodded, apparently appreciative of her compliments. After a few more moments, they were at last out through the main entrance and standing in the shadow of the billowing black cloud rising from the funeral pyre off to the right.

“Brother Gregor,” Vraith said, handing the wooden box

to the dwarf cleric, “thank you again for undertaking such important work.” Gregor nodded.

“I look forward to your attendance at our ritual tonight, and I am hopeful that with your elixir we shall be successful.”

“I wouldn’t miss it,” Gregor said.

Vraith smiled. “Perfect.” Then with a slight bow, she said, “May the Blue Fire burn inside you “

The elf priestess turned and picked a path through the vast disarray of pilgrims’ tents, which filled the fields between the monastery and Ormpetarr’s main gates.

Standing next to Gregor, Slanya looked over the broad plain. The camp outside the monastery sprawled like an infection, and all attempts at establishing organization among the tents had been futile. So many new pilgrims arrived every day.

Slanya glanced across the distance at the wild city into which she rarely set foot. Unlike its ancient namesake, modern Ormpetarr was a frontier city—ruled not by a hierarchical leadership or a figurehead but governed instead by a loose alignment of power brokers.

A blue-brown haze cut a swath through the city. This was the veil—the Plaguewrought Land border that the pilgrims came here to cross, if only briefly. There was a steep drop-off just through the hazy veil, and rumor said that the terrain inside the changelands was as inconstant and volatile as a storm-wracked ocean.

The once-mighty city told of a rough history, of a glorious past now worn down by the ravages of time and the Spellplague. Ormpetarr may have once been a monument to order and to the rule of law, but the monument had shattered, and the only order or law that had arisen from the wreckage was survival of the cunning and the strong. “We are here to help establish order on the edge of chaos,” Kaylinn had told her, “where it is most needed.”

But Slanya, who preferred the quiet and ordered life in the monastery, found it hard to avoid openly gagging from the smells drifting across the fields—the aroma of food cooking mingled with the charred smell of the roasted dead from the funeral pyre. And beneath it all was the summer stench of the Plaguewrought Land itself, like rotting flesh crammed with sour oranges.

The vast encampment was no more than a disorganized jumble of tents and makeshift shelters that served as a refuge for the grotesque plaguechanged who had come for hospice care. It was also a last stop for pilgrims without the means to afford lodging in Ormpetarr.

Pilgrims! To purposefully expose the sanctity and wholeness of their bodies and minds to the destructive chaos of the Plaguewrought Land—it was insanity.

Slanya shook her head, chiding herself for the derision she felt for the pilgrims. These people came from all over the world in search of improvement, and most of them met with death or illness. She should admire their courage.

Still, as much as she tried, the most she could summon for them was pity. The lucky ones walked away alive, with some Unforeseen and unearned magical power to counterbalance some physical or emotional deformity. And, she thought, the very lucky ones die quickly and in little pain. They go to Kelemvor.

Gregor sighed. “So very many souls come here looking to better themselves,” he said. “It is part of our mission now to help them accomplish that goal.”

Slanya nodded.

“And in that light, I have an important task for you,” Gregor said. He wasted no time getting to the point. “This task will require you to face chaos beyond anything you’ve ever experienced.”

Slanya felt a chill despite the afternoon sun. Over the years, Gregor had changed from the nurturing father figure

who’d rescued her off the streets when she was a girl. He was no longer the man who had brought her into the fold, who had mentored her, who had treated her like his own daughter for so many years. Was that man still there behind the obsession and the fervor?

She believed he was, for shesaw the old Gregor come out sometimes. His frequent acts of kindness and his thought-fulness for her well-being were evidence, were they not?

Still, he had been altered somehow, and Slanya could pinpoint the exact time it had happened. A little over a year earlier, Gregor had reported that spellplague had manifested in his chambers. They had lived far north of the Vilhon Wilds in Impiltur. Gregor claimed that spellplague had appeared and given him a vision. Then it had marked him with the spellscar he now manifested on his head.

He’d fallen ill for a month. And when he’d recovered, Gregor had told her that the spellplague manifestation had given him a new mission.

Gregor then proceeded to convince Kaylinn, and together they uprooted the temple’s clerics and monks and led them south to the Vilhon Wilds and Ormpetarr, to rebuild their monastery and offer aid to those who sought the Plaguewrought Land and those who died in its borders.

In light of his recent conversation with the leaders of the Order of Blue Fire, Slanya worried that Gregor’s new mission had become a dangerous obsession—one that was about to involve her. She looked over at him. “What must I do?”

“You must leave the temple complex and travel past the border and into the Plaguewrought Land.”

Reflexes borne of a thousand escapes brought Duvan into hyperawareness. The humid air clung like a heavy blanket on his skin, and his breath quickened as he crouched in the shadows of the leaning citadel tower. Duvan watched as the manticore ripped away more brick from around the widening window. The beast grinned, exposing needle teeth.

It was almost upon them.

The creature stretched its membranous wings and took brief flight, only to crash back down against the tower. Abruptly, the floor under Duvan’s feet shifted as the tower beneath him groaned under the manticore’s impact. Its wings sent gusts of wind through the ever-widening window arch, causing dirt and dust to swirl up in the room around Duvan.

“Run down!” he called to the sorcerer who had remained invisible.

A quick glance at the treasure cache told him that besides the tome that he’d come for, there were also a large number of valuables worth taking, many more than he had time to get. Without hesitation, he scooped up an armload and dumped it into his backpack, paying no heed to what it contained.

That would have to do. Now to get out of—

The window frame’s masonry exploded, showering Duvan with rubble. The creature burst through the wall, landing in a crouch in the center of the room and deafening Duvan with a load roar. Throwing his backpack over his shoulders, Duvan darted for the door and the stairs that would take him down and out.

The manticore brought its tail around and flicked it, sending a sharp spike hurtling toward Duvan. The thing might not kill him, but it would hurt, and it would certainly slow him down enough that the creature could catch him and eat him.

Duvan’s awareness grew clear as he watched the spike. He dodged to the side and the spike whizzed past him.

A low grunt came from behind him. Turning, Duvan saw the sorcerer reappear. Surprise showed on the man’s face, and it drained of color as Duvan started toward him. The manticore tail spike protruded from the sorcerer’s chest. He slumped to the floor as a dark stain of blood spread over his robes.

The man would die.

“Fin sorry, friend,” he said, “but I can’t tarry.” The sorcerer merely lay there losing life by the moment.

From behind him came the snick of the manticore’s tail snapping again. Duvan didn’t hesitate; he sprinted out the door. He was halfway to the stairs when the floor shifted again, tilting from sloped to vertical. Duvan fell and landed against the wall which was now the floor.

Duvan’s mind raced. He had to get out before the tower tore completely away from the cliff face. Sky showed through the wall of the baron’s offices where the stones and masonry around the window hole had crumpled away, leaving only the empty network of woody vines.

The manticore had lost its footing when the tower had tipped, but was now angling toward Duvan again for another attack.

Duvan mentally catalogued his weapons: twelve throwing daggers in a bandolier across his chest, three of them coated with a paralytic poison; his single-shot crossbow at his hip; twin stiletto daggers in thigh scabbards; a pouch with flash powder.

There is no way I can kill that thing by myself, he thought.

The tower groaned and tilted farther so that the ceiling was coming around below him. Duvan danced along the leaning wall, keeping a precarious balance—but keeping it nonetheless.

The beast behind him huffed as the rotating wall sent it sprawling..Duvan took a glance back to see its shadow go reeling. The darkened shape of large membranous wings stretched across the stone wall as it used them to right itself.

Taking advantage of the few seconds’ reprieve, Duvan scanned for a way out of the tower. Going down the stairs was no longer an option; the tower was jutting nearly horizontally out from the ledge. All he found was a stone wall—breaking apart to be sure, but with holes and cracks too small for him to fit through.

His gaze passed over the floor, wall, and ceiling, growing more desperate when all he saw was stone and more stone. Getting trapped inside the tower would mean certain death when the tower hit bottom.

Behind him, the manticore finally righted itself and

jumped for a closer position to Duvan, then clung to the door frame that was the only thing separating Duvan from being killed and eaten. He hoped, at least, it would be in that order.

A flash of light, up and to his left, caught Duvan’s attention. A small slit window, previously too narrow for him to squeeze through, had widened a little. Duvan didn’t know if he could get through, but it wasn’t as though he had an abundance of choices at the moment.