"It hardly—ahhhh!" Orisino clutched Tavis's arm, nearly falling and sending them both off the edge of a monolith. The verbeeg regained his balance, then said, "We can't use this shortcut. We'd lose half our warriors on this ice."
Tavis disengaged himself from the chieftain's grasp. "You go back if you want. The trail may dry out up ahead."
"Dry out? This whole place is one... big..." Orisino let his sentence trail off, then his voice grew sly. "What are you looking for? It's no shortcut."
The high scout did not reply. He continued forward, finally stopping at the head of a steep chute where one boulder stood against another. The corner between their two faces formed a long, angular ravine that descended into inky darkness beyond Tavis's light. Some ancient giant had cut a series of huge, zigzagging stairs down the trough, but the frost-rimed treads were spaced at eight-foot intervals. Anyone as small as Tavis or Orisino would have to jump from one icy platform to the next.
The only alternative was to climb down the center, using 1 the seam between the monoliths for fingerholds. If 1 either of the 'kin slipped, there was no telling how far I they would fall. |
"We'd better get our rope," Orisino suggested. |
Tavis did not bother to remind the chieftain of the | line's true ownership. Verbeegs considered private prop-1 erty an uncivilized and archaic concept, claiming instead j that all things belonged to all people. "If you want my rope, you fetch it," Tavis said. j
"And I suppose you'll wait here until I return?" the ver- ¦) beeg scoffed. "You go down first. I'll watch how you do ; it."
The wily chieftain was proving more difficult to scare , off than Tavis had expected. The high scout sighed in ¦ exasperation. "If I don't want you falling on me, I'd better 1 teach you how to do this." :
Tavis passed his glowing dagger to the verbeeg, then ! removed his gloves and demonstrated how a person \ could support himself by jamming his fist into a narrow ; crack, such as that between the two boulders. Though \ the concept was simple, the art itself was full of nuances.; Depending upon the width of the seam and the climber's j position, the fingers had to be folded into all manner of different configurations to lock the hand securely in \ place. Orisino paid careful attention, and was quickly \ able to run through the standard positions. \
"You can twist your boots against the sides of the \ seam to wedge them in place, but don't trust any | footholds on the walls themselves," Tavis cautioned. | "The stone is too slick. Stay in the crack and you won't \ have trouble." :!
The high scout retrieved his glowing dagger and | slipped the handle between his teeth, then lay on his j belly and swung his legs over the chute. He wedged a j foot into the crack and climbed down a short distance to |
wait for Orisino. The verbeeg reluctantly dangled his toes over the edge, kicking blindly at the crevice and grunting in frustration. For a time, Tavis thought his unwelcome companion would turn back, but the chieftain finally locked a boot into the crack and started to creep downward. After that, it did not take long for the verbeeg to gain his confidence, and soon the two 'kin were moving at a steady pace.
The stones grew colder as they descended. After a few minutes, Tavis's bare hands felt so numb that he had difficulty feeling his handholds. It was impossible to tell how far they had come, or how far they still had to go. There was nothing but darkness below, with shadowy boulders and jagged, murk-filled passages advancing on them from all sides. In the bewildering array of gray corners and gloomy hollows, only the faithful tug of gravity prevented Tavis from losing his bearings and becoming completely disoriented.
A startled shriek broke from Orisino's mouth and skipped through the crooked labyrinth in all directions, nearly concealing the clatter of the chieftain's boots slipping free of their holds. Tavis pulled himself tight against the rock and twisted his hands and feet into the crack, locking himself in place. He gritted his teeth against the coming impact and silendy cursed his companion's clumsiness. Despite the frosty walls, the chute was no more difficult to descend than a ladder; as long as a climber kept a hand and foot lodged in the crevice at all times, falling was next to impossible.
Orisino did not land on him.
"Tavis, did you feel that?" The verbeeg's voice was shrill with panic.
Tavis looked up and saw his companion dangling by a single arm, the soles of his hobnailed boots scant inches away. The chieftain was looking over his shoulder into a lopsided triangle of empty air.
The high scout freed one hand to take the dagger from his mouth. "The only thing I felt was you—almost knocking us both to our deaths. What's wrong?"
Orisino gestured at the dark triangle. "Something pushed me! I felt a gust of warm air—a giant's breath, maybe—then something big reached out of there and tried to push me off!"
Tavis raised his glowing dagger, illuminating the mouth of the dark passage Orisino had indicated. The high scout could not see far, but it was readily apparent that while a gianf s arm might squeeze through the hole, not even a verbeeg could actually crawl into it.
"I don't see anything now," the high scout said. "Maybe it was a bat."
"It pushed me, like a hand!" Orisino insisted. "I'm not imagining this."
"I didn't say you were," Tavis replied. "But we can't do much about it now."
The high scout returned his dagger handle to his mouth and continued downward. Orisino kicked his feet back into the crevice, then drew his own knife and followed. Their descent slowed significantly. Not only did the verbeeg insist upon keeping one hand free to hold his weapon, he spent more time peering into dark crannies than he did searching for handholds. Even then, he continued to cry out at random intervals, claiming that he smelled a foul odor or felt a gust of hot breath. Tavis never shared any of these sensations, nor did he hear the slightest clatter or flutter to suggest something was stalking them.
The high scout had finally decided his companion was imagining things when a sharp crack sounded above. A loud, clattering rumble reverberated down the chute, and the walls shuddered beneath the power of a tumbling boulder. Tavis pulled the dagger from his mouth and held it out over the trough, illuminating a pair of
frost-rimed steps on the walls below. "Jump!"
Knowing Orisino would leap for the closest step, the high scout jumped toward the one on the opposite wall. With the rumble reverberating ever louder in his ears, he dropped through eight feet of darkness and hit above the stair he wanted to reach. He turned his face toward the stone, scratching at the cold granite with his dagger and numb fingers.
A crack sounded from the center of the chute. The gray blur of a boulder bounced past his shoulder, with Orisino's shrieking figure sliding down the trough close behind.
The stone vanished beneath the high scout's face and chest, then he slammed onto the front half of the stair he had tried to reach. He flailed at the icy shelf with both hands.
A tremendous crash reverberated in the bottom of the chute.
Tavis's glowing dagger caught in a crack and brought his fall to an abrupt halt. He glimpsed the blade bending under the sudden strain, then a sharp ping echoed through the cavern. Basil's light rune abruptly faded, and the scout slipped.
Tavis released the hilt and grabbed for the broken blade. He felt a strange, painless sensation as the edge sliced into his numb palm, but he stopped sliding. He slipped the fingers of his free hand into the same crack where the blade had caught, then pulled himself onto the step.
A booming voice, deep but wavering with age, echoed down the chute. "You 'live, stupid thieves?"
Tavis did not respond, nor did Orisino—whether due to wisdom or injury, the high scout did not know.
"Answer Snad, stupid thieves!" quavered the giant. "You dead, or what?"
The dull-witted questions and low, booming voice left littie doubt that Snad was a hill giant—but he was hardly an ordinary one. Though hill giants were clumsy and no more able to see in the dark than firbolgs, there had not been so much as a rustle or a glimmer of torchlight as this one slipped into place for his ambush.
" 'Kay, stupid thieves! Snad comin' down," the giant warned. "Better be dead when he gets there!"
Tavis cupped a hand to his ear and craned his neck to look up the chute. There was not the slightest rustle, nor the faintest gleam of light. For all the high scout could tell, Snad was a mere voice in the dark—a resentful voice.
Tavis crawled to the edge of his step, then lay on his belly and stretched his bleeding hand along the face of the dark granite. He barely managed to reach the center of the chute and slip three cold fingertips into the narrow crevice. The high scout pulled himself toward the opposite wall, at once swinging his legs off the stair and reaching for the fissure with his good hand.
The soles of his boots landed on the far side of the trough, slipped on the hoarfrost, and shot out from beneath him. Tavis started down the chute, then caught the crevice with his second hand and jammed a fist inside. The craggy stone scraped away long ribbons of skin, driving the numbness from his flesh, but the hand held. He brought himself to a halt.
Tavis resumed his descent, moving as quickly as he dared in the darkness. He had no idea whether Snad was descending the chute above or coming via another passage, but he suspected it would not be long before the hill giant arrived. Before then, the high scout wanted to have Orisino's torch lit and be well down the trail.
A dozen steps later, the sole of Tavis's boot came down on the jagged corner of a small boulder. He lowered himself onto the rock, then slipped down its side to
something that felt like a jumbled platform of firewood. With a series of brittle cracks, his weight settled onto the sticks.
The sharp point of a sword poked Tavis in the short ribs. The scout leaned away from the tip and thrust a leg out, aiming a rear stomping kick just below the weapon. His boot sank into something soft. The breath left his attacker's lungs with a muffled whumpf, then a 'kin-sized body slammed into a monolith and slumped to the floor. A series of receding clangs echoed through the cavern as the ambusher's weapon skittered down an unseen slope.
Orisino simultaneously groaned and wheezed for breath. 'Tavis... why'd... you do that?"
"Why did you stick a sword in my back?"
"I didn't mean... any harm." Aside from his lack of wind, Orisino sounded healthy enough. "I thought you were the giant."
"He'll be here soon enough," Tavis replied. "Give me your torch."
When Tavis reached down, the verbeeg grabbed the proffered hand and used it to pull himself up. "I don't think a torch is smart. It'll lead the giant straight to us."
"He'll find us anyway." Tavis reached around the verbeeg and pulled the torch from his belt. "Until he does, we need to see where we're going."
Tavis removed his tinderbox from his satchel and knelt on the floor, spreading a mound of tinder before him. He found his flint and steel and fumbled with them until his numb fingers struck a fire. As the flames flickered to life, the high scout was surprised to see that the floor was covered not by sticks, but by a yellow tangle of bones.
"It appears we're not Snad's first victims," Orisino said.
"We're not victims yet."
Tavis touched the torch to the tinder, which was | already burning out, and blew gently on the flames until I the oil-soaked head caught fire. The brand's broader cir-1 cle of light revealed thousands of bones. A few were v fresh enough to have bits of withered hide clinging to i their surfaces, but most were naked and almost petrified 1 with age. A few were so gray and soft that they would powder at the slightest touch. They came in all sizes and j shapes, from tibias no thicker than arrows to ribs as * long as the floor planks of Keep Hartwick. Giants and| 'kin were represented in equal proportions among the | skulls scattered through the tangle, as were humans, ; elves, and other small races.
Tavis led them away from the bones, following the well-worn trail along a contorted route of corners and doglegs that took them ever downward. They heard no ' more of Snad until his splintered voice echoed through the stones above their heads.
"Snad the One! Not you, stupid thieves!" The giant's voice sounded more imploring than angry. "Come back now, or Snad—"
The rest was too garbled to make out.
"The giant's moving!" Orisino whispered.
"True, but at least he seems to be behind us." Tavis passed the torch to Orisino, then pulled Mountain Crusher off his shoulder. "Assuming you'll lead for a while, I'll be ready when he catches up."
Orisino looked dubious, but turned down the path. Tavis kept pace easily, even with his bow in hand, and stopped often to study the murky passages around them. Once a warm draft wafted out of a side passage. The high scout fired an arrow into the breeze on the off chance Snad had caused it; the shaft clattered against an unseen rock. Their pursuer remained a mere voice in the dark.
They continued to descend, slipping and sliding over
the frosty stones, until at last they traversed the face of a long monolith and came to a fork in the trail. One route turned sharply to the right, while the other zigzagged down a small shaft. The ruts descending the shaft looked about twice as deep as those in the horizontal passage.
Orisino passed the torch to Tavis and sat on the edge of the pit. "I'm going to need both hands for this climb." He glanced at the scout, then added, "That is, unless you're so mad that you really are looking for a shortcut."
When Tavis did not reply, a crafty smile crossed Orisino's lips. "I thought as much."
The chieftain climbed down to the limit of the torchlight, where he sat upon a huge, well-worn step to wait for Tavis. The high scout dropped the brand to the verbeeg, then slipped his bow over his shoulder and climbed down to the same place. They had to repeat the process only twice more before Orisino reached the bottom of the shaft.
"I think we're almost there." The verbeeg turned to peer down a dark, diamond-shaped passage. "The floor in there is solid bedrock, and I can see—"
A large stone flew out of the side passage and struck a glancing blow off Orisino's brow. The chieftain's head snapped back, flinging blood across the walls, and he collapsed in a crumpled heap. His eyes remained open and vacant, focused somewbere in the darkness high above Tavis's head.
"Snad warn stupid thief!" rumbled the giant's quavering voice. "Snad the One!"
Tavis dropped the torch into the pit, then descended to a ledge above the diamond-shaped passage. He pulled Mountain Crusher from his shoulder and started to nock his last runearrow, then thought better and selected a normal one. He had killed plenty of hill giants with regular arrows, and it would be wiser to save his
magic for a more desperate situation. ,
"Go back, stupid firbolg thief!" cried Snad. "Snad^ keeper of Great Axe, not Tavis Burdun!"
"How do you know my name?" Tavis slipped out of his ? cloak. j
"Snad know," Snad replied. "Axe have Snad."
Tavis raised his brow at the choice of words, then nocked his arrow. He tossed his dark cloak into the pit. i
A large rock sailed out of the passage. The stone; caught the cape in midair and carried it across the shaft, < where it bounced off the wall and came down on Orisino's arm. The verbeeg's fingers flinched, but Tavis < had no time to consider what that meant. He dropped J onto the pit floor with his bowstring drawn and his | arrow pointed into the diamond-shaped tunnel. 1
Tavis could not quite grasp what he saw. At the end of | the corridor, the darkness changed from soot-black to a 1 silvery hue that was neither glow nor gloom. Standing j before this strange ether was the shadowy skeleton of a 1 hill giant. It was as though Tavis and Orisino had J descended through the talus boulders into the realm of j the dead. I
"Stupid tricks not fool Snad!" J
The dark skeleton twisted toward the wall, stretching \ his arms out to grab another stone. Tavis drew Moun- j tain Crusher and aimed at Snad's midsection. Normally, 1 he would have tried for the heart, but he doubted that j strategy would kill a skeleton. His only chance of a swift \ victory was to shatter the spine.
Snad pulled his boulder from the wall. Tavis forced | himself to wait, struggling to keep his arms from trem- \ bling. Once, he could hold a true aim and a taut bow for i minutes, but now he was too weak for that. As Munairoe had warned, his strength was failing.
The skeleton turned, exposing the dark line of his spine. Tavis let the arrow fly, but he could feel by his
trembling hands that his aim was not true. He stepped away from the passage mouth, already reaching for his last runearrow—then Snad bellowed. A muffled bang echoed down the corridor as the giant dropped his boulder.
Tavis peered around the corner, half-expecting to be knocked as senseless as Orisino. Instead, he saw his foe turning away, hunched over and holding the bones of one hand to his midsection. The arrow hung in the emptiness where Snad's stomach should have been, a foot short of the spine.
Tavis's jaw fell. He was looking not at a living skeleton, but at the skeleton inside a living giant.
He traded his runearrow for a normal one, then nocked and fired again. The shaft caught its target between the shoulder blades. Snad roared and tumbled into the room beyond. If his body crashed to the ground, there were no shuddering stones or thunderous booms to betray that fact. The giant simply dropped into the eerie gray murk and vanished.
A pair of flat feet slapped the shaft floor behind Tavis. He spun and saw Orisino already upon him. The verbeeg's eyes were mad with battle lust, and he held the torch in his upraised hand. Tavis brought his bow up to block, at the same time reaching for his sword.
Orisino brushed past without attacking. "What's wrong with you?" he shouted, racing down the corridor. "Hurry up, or well be on the wrong end of our axe!"
The scout started down the passage, feeling rather foolish. From the verbeeg's perspective, there was no reason to argue over the axe. After they recovered it, the weapon would belong to him as much as it did to Tavis.
A loud wail broke from the far end of the passage, then a fierce gale tore through the narrow corridor, extinguishing Orisino's torch and hurling him back into Tavis. Both 'kin lost their footing and went tumbling
down the corridor, bouncing from one jagged wall to the other.
Tavis covered his head with his free hand and used the other to keep a firm grasp on his bow. He lost contact with Orisino, then his arm was nearly jerked from its socket as Mountain Crusher caught on something. He held fast and dragged himself out of the scouring wind into a small cranny alongside the passage.
'Tavis?" Orisino's voice was barely audible over the wind, but it came from someplace ahead. "What's happening?"
Tavis cupped his hands to his mouth. "The axe's magic!" Basil had said the weapon could control weather. "Are you hurt?"
"Can't understand you," came the reply. "Come forward."
Though Tavis had long ago learned the wisdom of pushing his arrows into a cork pad fastened in his quiver, he took the precaution of checking his supply. He had lost half-a-dozen shafts, but the runearrow remained in place. The high scout pushed it deeper into the cork, then squirmed into the passage and crawled. He stayed flat on his belly and kept his eyes pinched shut against the blowing ice and sand. Every now and then he risked raising his head to peer forward, and eventually he found himself a mere arm's length from the strange pearly hue at the end of the passage.
Though Tavis could see only the top half of the chamber, it looked as vast as a castle bailey. The ceiling was formed by the haphazard vaulting of a dozen huge monoliths, which had fallen together like the steepled fingers of two gnarled hands. Ribbons of snow and ice were whistling around the room and whirling down upon him with bone-battering force.
"Orisino?" Tavis could not tell whether the verbeeg was waiting at the tunnel mouth, for the interior of the
passage remained black as soot to the very edge of the vast chamber. "Are you here?"
The wind was roaring so loudly that Tavis barely heard his own voice. He repeated the question, then finally crawled to the brink of the gray room.
Ahead lay a craggy funnel littered with the petrified bones and abandoned possessions of hundreds—if not thousands—of dead giants and 'kin. Upon every ledge lay heaps of frost-rimed armor and curving spines; from every rock spur dangled rotting haversacks and yellowing pelvises; against every crag leaned tarnished shields and smirking skulls. At the heart of this gruesome mess, in a small space kept meticulously clear of clutter, stood Snad's skeletal form.
In the light of the chamber, it became apparent that the gianf s flesh had not fallen away. Rather, it had grown almost transparent. Tavis could see the heads of his two arrows lodged deep inside his foe's torso, yet he could also make out the ghostlike contours of an ancient and withered face. Snad looked to be at least four hundred years old.
The giant was touching the heft of an enormous hand axe whose blade was buried deep in a granite cleft. The eight-foot handle angled up from the floor at a steep incline, so that the pommel hung within easy reach of Snad's long arms. The entire shaft was made of ivory, and wondrously carved with scenes of godly might. The huge head, fashioned from obsidian as black as a mountain's heart, was bound to the handle with golden twine.
A lump of awe formed in Tavis's throat. Without realizing it, he slipped from his hiding place and started down the slope. Even without Basil's description, the scout would have recognized the glorious weapon below as Sky Cleaver, the lost hand axe of Mighty Annam, and he had to have it.
Tavis soon realized he was not the only one who
coveted the axe. Orisino huddled in the bones at the edge of Sky Cleaver's small clearing, and his eyes were fixed on the prize. The verbeeg grabbed a spear from the rubble and began slowly pacing back and forth beyond the hill giant's reach. As the scout approached, he heard the two talking.
"You're being selfish and stingy, Snad," Orisino said. "All I want to do is touch it."
"No! Snad the One, not stupid verbeeg." The hill giant's voice was quavering more than it had been a few moments earlier. Snad shot a scowl up at Tavis, then added, "And not stupid Tavis Burdun, either!"
Orisino cast a jealous glance at Tavis, then slipped away from the safety of his bone pile. "You can't even pull it out of the ground, Snad! Let me try!"
"Snad the One!"
"You're not!" the verbeeg yelled. "You've had centuries to pull it free!"
"Liar!" Snad slipped around to place himself between the axe and Orisino. "Snad only find axe last winter— after he kill old Kwasid."
The name brought Tavis to a halt. Not many years before, he had known a fire giant by that name. But Kwasid had been an athletic young fire dancer—hardly someone that even a dull-witted hill giant would call old.
"And how old are you Snad?" Tavis yelled down.
"Still plenty young to be the One." Snad kept his eye fixed on Orisino. "Fifty summers."
Tavis gasped. At fifty, a hill giant was barely an adult. The high scout began to consider the wisdom of turning back while he still had the strength—then Orisino leapt for the axe's ivory handle.
Tavis's reservations vanished as suddenly as they had appeared. He found his runearrow in his hand, nocked and ready to fire, and in his heart there burned a fierce desire such as he had not known since his wedding
night
Tavis aimed at Orisino's heart.
Snad's ancient foot lashed out and caught the verbeeg in the chest. The chieftain crashed back into the bones from which he had crawled, and Tavis switched targets without thinking. The runearrow caught Snad squarely in the ribs.
"esiwsilisaB!" Tavis yelled.
Nothing happened, except that Snad reached up and snapped the shaft off at the head.
"Stupid firbolg magic can't hurt the One!" Snad chor-ded. He cast a suspicious glance at Orisino's motionless form, then stepped away from the axe to finish what he had started. "Kill verbeeg dead this time—then kill Tavis Burdun."
"esiwsilisaB!" Tavis repeated.
A resounding crack shook the cavern, then a brilliant blue light flared inside Snad's translucent body and scattered his dark bones in every direction.
The rumble had not even faded before Orisino was on his feet and charging the axe. The ivory hilt was nearly as long as the verbeeg was tall, but that did not stop him from wrapping both arms around the shaft. He braced his feet on the floor and tried to pull it free.
"Come to me!" Orisino cast a nervous glance in Tavis's direction, then stooped beneath the motionless handle and pushed against it with his shoulders. "By Karontor, I shall have you!"
"Wrong god."
Tavis dropped Mountain Crusher and stretched both hands toward the axe. Then, speaking the ancient syllables that Basil had made him repeat a thousand times in the last two days, the high scout called Sky Cleaver to him:
"In the name ofSkoraeus Stonebones, Your Maker, O Sky Cleaver, do I summon you into the service of my
hand."
With a groan as ancient as Toril itself, the mighty axe pulled its dark blade from the cleft and rose into the air. Orisino leapt up and snatched the ivory handle with both arms. The axe shook him off as a dragon shakes off a mountain lion, then floated into the scout's waiting arms. The weapon stood as tall as its new owner, with a head as big as his chest. It was so heavy that the mere act of swinging it would drain the last ounce of Tavis's strength, but he did not care.
Sky Cleaver belonged to him.
The BLeak Plain
Tavis sat upon a moonlit drumlin, staring down at the narrow rift as though he could force it open through will alone. The crevice ran northward across the frozen plain for nearly a thousand paces, ending beneath a cloud-scratching wall of ice that could only be the Endless Ice Sea itself. Nowhere along its entire length was the fissure as wide as a dagger blade, yet the titan's trail stopped here at the near end, beneath a lonely, ice-caked inselberg that Basil had dubbed Othea Tor. Somehow, Lanaxis had descended into that narrow cleft, and with him he had taken Brianna.
The high scout would have her back, and it did not matter that a titan had locked her away in a prison of solid bedrock. Tavis was the One Wielder, and he would have whatever he wanted. With Sky Cleaver in his hand, there was no enemy he could not slay, no riddle he could not solve, no evil he could not conquer. He could do whatever he wished, have anything he wanted—anything, that is, except what he needed most: sleep.
Tavis had lost count of the days it had taken to cross this frozen waste, but it had been more nights than that since he had rested. He trembled almost constantly with exhaustion, and he moved about in a waking stupor that
would long ago have given way to deep sleep, save for Sky Cleaver. It was not that the axe gave him strength— though perhaps it provided more than he knew—but that Tavis did not dare close his eyes. The verbeegs watched him constantly, their thieving gazes riveted on his weary eyelids, waiting for him to nod off so they could steal his axe. They were watching now, gathered below in the still, cold air, sitting on their haunches and staring at him with the gluttonous patience of vultures.
Tavis knew better than to think he could send them away. They came with Sky Cleaver. They would do anything he commanded—march across barren snows, jump into dark abysses, fight ancient titans—but never would they leave him. They would always flock to the One Wielder, as ready to serve as to usurp. Six of the boldest had tried already and died for their trouble; more would follow tonight. He could feel their thirst building.
Tavis hoped one would be Orisino. The verbeeg had actually touched the ivory handle, and he had heard the ancient words of command. Like the One Wielder himself, Orisino had not slept since Split Mountain, and his eyes never left the axe's sable head. His lips often twisted into strange configurations, forming the half-remembered syllables of the ancient words of command. Sooner or later, the chieftain would try for the weapon. Then Tavis could kill him, but not until then.
The crunching of boots on ice sounded behind the One Wielder. He laid Sky Cleaver at his feet and jumped up, straddling the mighty axe and pulling his sword from its scabbard. Sky Cleaver was much too awkward and heavy for Tavis to heft in battle, and so far he had been forced to defend it with bow and blade.
"Easy, Tavis," urged Galgadayle. The seer stopped a cautious distance away and turned up his palms to show that his hands were empty. "I didn't come to steal your
axe."
Galgadayle looked as haggard as Tavis felt. The seer's beard was caked so thick with ice that his cheeks sagged beneath the weight, making the circles beneath his eyes seem even darker and deeper. The cold had long ago turned his flesh as white as the moonlight, and the tip of his nose had lost several layers of frozen skin.
Tavis sheathed his sword. He picked up Sky Cleaver, resting the pommel in the snow and the obsidian blade against his shoulder.
"Come closer, my friend. I didn't mean to frighten you." Tavis glanced around the base of the drumlin, where his verbeegs sat waiting on the milky snowpack. "But I must be vigilant. Orisino is waiting to steal my axe. They all are."
Galgadayle's face twitched with some emotion destined to remain hidden beneath his frozen flesh. "You belong more to that axe than it does to you. It would have been better for us all if you had died in the cavern and left Sky Cleaver unfound."
"How can you say that?" The One Wielder was aghast. "Think of all I can do! Drive the giants from the north-lands! Unite the 'kin under one law!"
"What if our brothers have no wish to live under the law?"
The question left Tavis confused and blank-minded, for it had never occurred to him to think of what they might want. He considered the matter for a moment, then decided there would be no need to compel the obedience of the verbeegs and fomorians.
"They will live under the law. Uniting will make them strong, and the only way to unite is to live under the law."
Galgadayle shook his head. "The law is the firbolg way. Fomorians do not understand it, and verbeegs only twist it to their own ends—this journey has taught me
that much."
"Then they will follow me," Tavis insisted. "With the giant-kin behind me, I can drive evil from all Toril!"
"How?" Galgadayle scoffed. "You can barely lift Sky Cleaver, much less wield the weapon."
Tavis stepped closer to the seer, carrying the axe with both hands. "I could if I were only a little larger."
Galgadayle's eyes grew as round as saucers. "What are you saying?"
"I'm as much a firbolg as you or any of Meadowhome's warriors," Tavis replied. "You could show me how to change size."
"No." Galgadayle raised his hands as though to push the scout away. "If the gods wanted the evil chased from Toril, they would do it themselves."
"Why do you think they gave me Sky Cleaver?" Tavis was growing more exhilarated by the moment. It was all becoming so clear to him. "Why, of all the thousands of warriors who found their way down to the axe, was I the only one who could pull it free?"
"That had nothing to do with the gods," Galgadayle growled. "If Basil hadn't taught you the magic words, you'd still be down there fighting with Orisino."
"But I'm not," Tavis retorted. "The gods sent Basil to me so I'd know the magic words."
Galgadayle stepped close enough to grab Tavis's arm. "Listen to this madness spilling from your mouth! It's the axe speaking!"
"What does it matter who's speaking?" Tavis spun the seer around. He pointed past the looming shoulder of Othea Tor, toward the unseen mountains beneath the frozen horizon. "Think of it—a world without evil! Is that madness, from my mouth or Sky Cleaver's?"
Galgadayle's gaze did not falter. "Yes, if you think such a world can be won by might of arms." His voice calmed. "Tell me Tavis, before you strike someone
down, who will decide he is evil, you or the axe?"
"I will!" Tavis's voice broke, making the statement sound more like a horse's whinny than an honest claim. "I mean, I summoned Sky Cleaver. It serves..."
When his voice continued to squeal like rusty winch gears, Tavis dropped the axe into the snow. He let his sentence die and stepped away from the weapon, glaring at the thing as though it had suddenly come alive and cut off his arm.
Galgadayle's eyes filled with sadness. "You retrieved Sky Cleaver to rescue your wife, and to..." The seer paused to choose his next words carefully. "And to prevent Lanaxis from turning her son against his mother's realm. If you have forgotten that, you would do better to discard the axe and attack the titan with your bare hands."
Tavis's eyes remained locked on Sky Cleaver. It seemed to him that a shimmering mist of darkness was rising off the obsidian blade and slowly spreading across the snow in his direction. He glanced at Galgadayle, but saw no sign that the firbolg also saw the ebon fog.
Tavis shook his head. "Even if I could cast it off, it's too late." This time, his voice did not crack as he spoke. He slowly turned to study the verbeegs gathered below. Save for Orisino, who continued to sit on his haunches with his lips moving, they had all risen and taken a single step up the drumlin. Tavis bent down and retrieved the axe. "I have taken Sky Cleaver in hand, and now I must use it."
"May Hiatea have pity on us."
Tavis fixed his gaze on the seer. "Help me," he pleaded. "Help me do what I came for. If I can't wield this weapon, it will wield me."
"And after you have freed your queen?" Galgadayle pointed at Sky Cleaver. "Who will you turn it against after the titan?"
"I have no idea," Tavis answered honestly. "But I do know this: only Brianna can give me strength to make that choice wisely. Otherwise, it will be Sky Cleaver that decides."
The seer closed his eyes and nodded. "I'll help you," he whispered. "But first, let me call Basil. We must find our way into Twilight, and he knows more about the place than anyone."
Tavis clutched Sky Cleaver more tightly to his breast and glanced down the slope. The runecaster stood a short distance away from the other verbeegs, his thick brows arched expectantiy.
"Call Basil," Tavis said. "But stay between him and the axe. With his magic, he is more dangerous than any of Orisino's warriors, and the temptation will be great for him. I think Sky Cleaver's draw is stronger than even he realized."
"I have no doubt about that." Galgadayle cast a wary glance at the axe. "I have sworn not to touch the weapon, and all that vow has earned for me is the constant temptation to break my oath."
The seer nodded to the runecaster, who quickly ascended the drumlin. Like Galgadayle, Basil looked half-frozen and entirely exhausted. His eyes were pinched and bloodshot from his constant battle with snow blindness. His beard had become a single great icicle, and most of his face had turned white with frostbite. If there was no healer available when he thawed, the runecaster would lose both of his ears. The drooping appendages were as stiff and translucent as ice.
Basil stopped a dozen feet away and kept his eyes on the snow. "Thank you for letting me come up."
"There's no need to thank me." Tavis struggled to focus his thoughts on the friendship he and the runecaster shared. "We want the same thing."
Basil smiled, and his gaze flickered to Sky Cleaver.
Tm glad to hear you say that"
"I'm not talking about the axe," Tavis warned. "And let's not pretend that it means nothing to you. I know you're tempted to steal it—"
"Borrow!"
"It doesn't matter," Tavis said. "Sky Cleaver's hold is just as strong on me as it is on you. I couldn't lend it to you any more than I could lend you my heart."
Basil bit his lip and looked away. "I know that"
"Good, then we have things well in hand." Galgadayle slipped between Tavis and Basil. "Now, how do you suggest we go about entering the Twilight Vale?"
Basil stepped around the seer and moved to the front of the drumlin, where he could peer down at the narrow rift. "The stone giant histories say little about the Twilight Vale itself." He apparently did not notice as Galgadayle once again slipped between him and the axe. "But there's no need for concern. If all else fails, we can use Sky Cleaver to 'cut to the heart of the matter', as the stone giants describe it."
"We?" Tavis demanded.
"I mean you," Basil sighed. "But I wouldn't advise doing so lightly. From what you described of the previous wielder's condition, calling upon Sky Cleaver's powers carries a heavy price."
Tavis cringed at his memory of Snad's translucent flesh. "I hope you're saying there's another way into the vale."
"I have several ideas, yes," Basil replied. "But before I can say which is correct, we must examine the signs and see how each one fits our theories."
The runecaster motioned for his companions to follow and started to plow down the snowy slope toward the southern end of the rift. Tavis laid his heavy burden over his shoulder, then, using one hand to balance it there, drew his sword and followed. The descent was
treacherous. Tavis was so cold and weary that he found it difficult to keep his footing on the snowy slope, especially with Sky Cleaver's unwieldy bulk pulling him off-balance. By the time he caught up to Basil and Galgadayle, he was panting and sticking his sword into the snow like an alpenstock.
Orisino trudged up to join the trio. "Have you found the way in?" the chieftain asked. "Are we going after the titan?"
Tavis cast a warning glare at the verbeeg. "Not yet I'll call you when we're ready—but stay away from me until then."
"As you wish." A sly grin crept across Orisino's lips, and he bowed deeply, but did not back away. "I have no wish to trouble you—provided we make a bargain."
"I've no interest in bartering with you," Tavis sneered.
"Not even if it allows you to sleep?" Orisino countered. "I will promise not to take Sky Cleaver as long as you live."
"Why would you make such a promise?" Galgadayle interposed himself between Tavis and the verbeeg.
"Obviously, because I don't think Tavis will live very long," the verbeeg retorted. "Even if he doesn't destroy himself like Snad and all the other Ones, the titan will do it for him. All I ask is that he teach me the calling command, so that I may retrieve the axe after he's dead."
Tavis, he won't wait," Basil warned. "You can't trust him."
"I wouldn't make the bargain even if I could." Tavis kept his eyes fixed on Orisino. "Whether I'm dead or alive, I certainly wouldn't want a verbeeg to be the One Wielder."
"I suppose thaf s wise," sighed Basil.
Orisino was not so accepting. "Have it as you will, fool!" Despite his anger, the verbeeg backed away as he spoke. The axe shall be mine in the end, and it makes
no difference to me if I have it sooner rather than later."
Tavis pushed past Galgadayle, pressing the tip of his sword to Orisino's throat. "My thanks for the warning," the high scout hissed. "It's a courtesy I wouldn't have expected from you, and I shall repay it with a warning of my own: if you come within ten paces of me again, I shall take you at your word."
Tavis stepped away, then turned and followed Basil toward Othea Tor. The mount towered more than two hundred feet above—hardly as high as the ice wall at the other end of the crevice, yet somehow more looming, more imposing. Even beneath the thick mantle of ice, it was not difficult to see why Basil insisted the inselberg was the lifeless body of the ancient Mother Queen. The crag resembled the figure of a fleshy woman kneeling deep in the snow, with her haunches resting on her heels. Her thighs were two snow-capped knolls that led up to the rounded slopes of her rolling stomach, her bosom was a pair of stony buttresses, and her arms were steep aretes that curved down sharply from her massive shoulders. An ice-draped boulder hung tipping out over the goddess's chest, resembling a rather flat-faced head with deep, shadowy hollows for a mouth, nostrils, and eyes.
Basil stopped at the base of the tor, where a small, deep-shadowed crater lay at the southern end of the rift. Beyond the basin, a chain of smaller depressions—the titan's snow-filled footprints—advanced from around the corner of Othea Tor. Despite the clear night and bright moon, it was difficult to tell much more about the site. Since Lanaxis had passed through, several storms had battered the area, blanketing the entire site beneath three feet of fresh snow. Tavis had been waiting for dawn's light to make his careful inspection and learn the secret of his quarry's escape.
Apparentiy, Basil saw no reason to wait. He gathered a
handful of snow and packed it into a tight sphere, then removed an awl from his cloak and carefully traced one of his magic symbols on the surface. The ball's surface turned icy and hard. In the heart of the orb, a shimmering glow sparked to life and rapidly brightened. The runecaster waited until the light had grown painfully brilliant, then tossed it into the sky above the crater. As the globe reached the top of its arc, he pointed a crooked finger at it and commanded, "Stay."
The ball stopped in midflight and hung motionless, casting a dazzling silver radiance over the face of Othea Tor, the surrounding drumlins, and the crater at their feet. Tavis could now see that the small basin was about fifteen feet deep, with the indistinct outline of a buried firecircle in the center. Flanking the fire-scar were a pair of ten-foot terraces where the titan had placed his feet, and on the rim above was broad depression where his rump had rested.
"The titan stopped and made camp." Tavis glanced back to make sure Orisino and the other verbeegs were keeping their distance, then sheathed his sword and climbed over the rim into the crater. "He was waiting."
"That rules out one of my most troublesome theories." Basil started down the slope after Tavis. "If Lanaxis stopped to wait here, his magic isn't what opens the rift—or holds it closed."
Galgadayle had to scramble to catch up. "What were they waiting for?"
"Lanaxis's punishment was to live forever in the twilight of Othea's shadow," Basil explained. "So it seems probable that the rift opens at twilight. That would be the only time it could open without allowing the sun to pour in."
Tavis reached the bottom of the crater and scraped the snow away from the fire-scar, then pulled a half-burned torch from beside the stump.
"That can't be, Basil," he said. "If they were waiting for the sun to go down, they wouldn't have needed this."
The high scout tossed the torch to the runecaster.
Basil caught the stave. "Oh, dear."
"Perhaps it stays open only during twilight," Galgadayle suggested. "If they arrived during the night after twilight, then they would have had to wait until the next evening."
Tavis scraped more snow away from the fire circle, then pointed to the charred stubs of a dozen thick logs. "When was the last time you saw a tree?"
The seer shrugged. "A tenday ago?"
"So Lanaxis carried this wood across the Bleak Plain," Tavis said. "He planned to arrive after dark."
"Which would imply the vale opens at dawn," Basil said. "But that makes no sense for a place of perpetual twilight."
"Maybe it does."
Tavis climbed the crater wall, using Sky Cleaver's shaft as a walking stick. When he reached the rim, he found Orisino and the other verbeegs cautiously stealing forward to look into the basin. The scout cast a warning glare at the chieftain, then fixed his gaze on the ground and started to count the number of paces between them.
Orisino gave him a sneering smile and slowly backed away.
When Basil and Galgadayle climbed out of the crater, Tavis asked, "Can you move that light over the rift, Basil?"
"Of course." The runecaster pointed a finger at the glowing sphere and whispered, "Move."
Basil swung his crooked digit toward the rift, and the silvery snowball drifted into place. Tavis went to the end of the crevice and knelt in the snow, sighting down the entire length of the fissure. As he suspected, the snow-pack sloped away from the dark line ever so gently.
"The snow is higher along the rift," Tavis reported. "The sun never shines on it, so it melts more slowly." "Yes—now I see!"
In his excitement, Basil tried to approach Tavis and collided with Galgadayle, who, as he had promised, remained between the scout and the runecaster. Basil scowled briefly, then seemed to realize what was going on and backed away.
He continued his explanation without complaint: "As she was dying, Othea told Lanaxis, 'Already I have laid my curse upon you... Can you not feel my shadow? When I leave here, it shall remain behind.'"
"And there can be no shadow without the sun," surmised Galgadayle.
"Exactly," Basil said. "The vale opens in the morning, when Othea's shadow first touches it. It doesn't close until evening, when the dusk shadows take the place of the goddess's. That way, the valley always remains in shadow; it never knows the light of day, or the dark of night."
"So it's always in twilight," Tavis surmised.
"Yes... precisely." Basil's tone was absentminded. He turned toward Othea Tor, at the same time swinging his glowing snowball toward the goddess's head. "I wonder..."
The runecaster let his sentence trail off and said nothing more, lost deep in thought.
"You wonder what, Basil?" Tavis asked.
The old verbeeg smiled broadly. Then, speaking to himself as though the others were not there, he uttered, "By Stronmaus, I think it might work!"
"What, Basil?" Tavis stepped toward the runecaster, only to find Galgadayle scowling down at him. He remembered himself and clutched the axe more tightiy, then peered around the seer's flank. "What might work?"
The runecaster smiled broadly. "What do you suppose
would happen if tomorrow after the vale opens, you used Sky Cleaver to split Othea Tor down the center?" Without awaiting a reply, he answered his own question, The vale would have its first sunrise in thousands of years!"
"Or it would close instantly," Tavis countered. "I'd never reach Brianna."
That's a possibility, of course, but I don't think so." Despite his assertion, Basil appeared far from certain. The key must be different shadows; once Othea's shadow opens the vale, it'll stay open until dusk. Then it will close and, assuming we have cleaved the tor cor-rectiy, it will never open again."
Tavis shook his head resolutely. "If you're wrong, Brianna will be trapped forever."
"He can't be wrong!" Galgadayle sounded as excited as Basil. "As I recall, the titan is no friend of sunlight."
Tavis backed away, raising Sky Cleaver and holding it between them. "What else would you say?" he snapped. "Nothing would please you more than to see the rift slam shut forever, with Kaedlaw and Brianna trapped inside."
Galgadayle's hurt showed even through his frozen flesh. "Before we became friends, perhaps—but not now. No one hopes that my vision can be changed more strongly than I do. And, more importantiy, I know how much you need Brianna. If you cannot control Sky Cleaver, what Kaedlaw wreaks on the world will pale by comparison to the evil you unleash."
More than anything, Tavis wanted to hear Galgadayle's voice break, to hear the telltale squeal of a lie and know that the seer was trying to manipulate him. But Galgadayle's voice remained steady and deep. The scout could only conclude that it was Sky Cleaver, not the firbolg, trying to manipulate him, to undermine the only power in the world that could save the One Wielder
from himself: his true friends.
Tavis lowered his axe. "If you think that's best. All I ask is that you do everything you can to be certain of yourselves."
Basil's glance drifted to the axe, and a hungry gleam came into his ancient eyes. "If you want to be certain, we could use Sky Cleaver's power."
Tavis shook his head. "No, there are some things better left to the judgment of friends." The high scout turned away from Basil's shining snowball and studied the stars until he found the Midnight Circle, high overhead. "We have about six hours until dawn, Galgadayle. Is that enough time for me to learn how to change sizes?"
"It should be plenty, even with the disadvantages of your upbringing," the seer replied. "I have taught the technique to children in six minutes."
Tavis glanced back toward the verbeegs. They were standing twenty paces down the rift, near the drumlin upon which the high scout had been sitting earlier. Their hungry eyes were locked on Sky Cleaver's dark blade, and Orisino's cold-burned lips were silentiy moving to the half-remembered syllables of the axe's ancient summoning call.
Tavis looked back to Galgadayle. "Now's as good a time as any to teach me, as long I won't be impaired."
"You might feel a little dizzy as you grow larger." The seer glanced toward the verbeegs. "But I doubt Orisino or his warriors will dare approach when they realize you're big enough to swing Sky Cleaver. I suggest you lay aside anything you don't want to grow with you. Whatever you're touching when you start the process will grow larger along with you."
Tavis glanced down at Sky Cleaver. Something inside whispered not to set the weapon aside, that Galgadayle was only trying to trick him and steal it.
* The high scout dropped the axe at his feet. "I'm ; ready."
; The seer glanced at the weapon, then nodded and smiled. "I believe you are," he said. "Now, changing sizes is basically a breathing exercise. You start by exhaling slowly, then draw a deep breath and hold it"
Tavis filled his lungs with icy air.
"Look inward and see yourself growing larger," the seer instructed. "Sometimes it helps to close one's eyes, but that's not necessary—especially if it's going to make you worry about what you're not holding."
Tavis closed his eyes.
"Good," Galgadayle said. "Exhale again, but don't open your mouth. Blow the air out of your lungs into the rest of your body, and you'll start to grow."
Tavis tried to do as the seer instructed, but the air came rushing out his nose.
"That's okay," Galgadayle said. "You're not really blowing yourself up—it's only one way to visualize the change. Try again, and push your tongue back to block your throat. It'll help you seal off not only the air passage, but the energy channels as well."
Tavis took another frigid breath, held it, and pushed his tongue to the back of his throat. He tried to exhale. He felt a terrible pressure inside his chest, and it seemed his sternum would crack under the strain. An instant later, the force simply melted away. His torso felt strangely hollow, then his entire body swelled up, not with air, but with muscle and bone. The One Wielder heard Basil's voice, and something dark and sinister whispered that the runecaster might be calling Sky Cleaver.
Tavis put the thought out of his mind and drew another breath.
"Good. You've grown half-a-foot already," Galgadayle reported. "Continue as long as you can. Your body will
know when you can't take any more."
Tavis expelled the breath and felt himself swell, then > inhaled again. He continued for many minutes, never i opening his eyes, growing larger and stronger with each lungful of icy air. Soon, his head began to spin, as Galgadayle had warned it would, and his muscles started to burn with weariness.
"By Stronmaus!" Basil hissed.
"How are you feeling, Tavis?" Galgadayle asked.
"Dizzy," the high scout replied. "Weak."
Tavis gulped down another lungful of frigid air.
"Perhaps you should stop," Galgadayle suggested. "Given your condition and lack of sleep, it might be best not to press matters."
Tavis expelled the breath into his body, and again felt his chest grow hollow. "One more time," he gasped. "When I face Lanaxis, I want... to... be..."
A whistling roar filled the scout's ears, replacing his own voice. He felt himself falling. It seemed to take forever before his face met the ground, and then he heard a strange choking sound: himself, trying to breath snow as fine as flour. A pair of tiny hands, no larger than those of a child, grasped his shoulder and laboriously rolled him over. Another hand, no larger than the first, slipped between his lips and cleared his breathing passage.
'Tavis!" It was Basil's voice, but much more tinny and high-pitched than normal. "Are you all right?"
"He'll be fine." Galgadayle's voice also sounded sharp and high. "He needs to sleep. I should have known that as tired and feeble as he is, he wouldn't have the strength to—"
Galgadayle suddenly stopped speaking, and Basil hissed, "What's that?"
Tavis opened his eyes and saw the faces of his two friends, barely half their normal size. They were looking away from him, back toward the drumlin where the ver-
beegs were waiting. Then the One Wielder heard it, Orisino's shrill voice calling out to Sky Cleaver in the ancient language of its divine maker "In the name of—"
Tavis sat up, his hands flailing about for the axe, but finding only snow.
"—Skoraeus Stonebones, Your Maker, O Sky Cleaver—"
"Enough of that. Move!" hissed Basil.
The runecaster pointed at the shimmering silver snowball that still hovered over the fissure, then swung his finger down at Orisino's distant figure.
"—do I summon you in—"
The snowball crashed over Orisino's head, ending the intonation in midword. The silver sphere shattered into a thousand pieces and spilled its shimmering radiance over the chieftain, who immediately fell motionless. His flesh turned as glossy and hard as ice, then he toppled onto his side and did not move.
"That will keep him quiet," Basil chuckled. "At least until he thaws out—which could be quite some time."
Tavis continued to thrash about in the snow. "My... axe," he gasped. "Sky Cleaver!"
Galgadayle grabbed the high scout's wrist and guided his hand through the snow. Tavis felt a familiar handle in his palm. Though the shaft was much smaller than he remembered, the One Wielder could feel the energy of Orisino's half-completed call coursing through the ancient ivory. He pulled the weapon to his breast and collapsed back into the snow, his weariness descending upon him like a flight of starving wyverns.
"That's right, Tavis. Sleep." Galgadayle's whispering voice was fading fast. "Rest. Let your friends watch over you until dawn."
+ 16* Titan's VaLe
Tavis stood on the summit of Othea Tor, watching a veil of flaxen sunlight cascade down the Endless Ice Sea's looming face. As the sun behind him rose higher, the curtain fell faster, until it was descending so swiftly that when the sallow light finally reached bottom, it splashed out onto the bleak snows and spread across the entire empty plain in the span of a single expectant breath. Othea's shadow did not fall over the rift so much as appear along its length all at once, and suddenly the high scout found himself staring into the purple bowels of a deep, gloomy abyss. He could hardly comprehend what had happened. There had been no earthquake, no plume of billowing darkness, nor even a thunderous rumble to proclaim the opening of the fissure. The vale had simply appeared, as though it had been there all along and required only the goddess's umbral touch to reveal itself.
The abyss was shaped exactly like Othea's shadow: a long, narrow triangle that stretched from the base of the tor to the foot of the Endless Ice Sea. Its walls were as sheer and black as slate, descending more than a hundred feet before they vanished into the swarthy murk that filled the bottom of the chasm. In the center of this
gloom hung the silhouette of a palace roof, supported by nothing that Tavis could see except viscous shadow. The structure appeared to be a harmonious balance of three symmetrical wings arranged around a central cupola, but it was impossible to tell more. The rest of the building remained a dusky, half-sensed enigma, as nebulous and obscure as the vale itself.
Tavis turned away from the palace and started down the back of the rugged tor, occasionally stumbling over a crag as he struggled with the length of his new stride. That morning, he had awakened refreshed and famished and not quite the size of a hill giant, as he had discovered when he reached for his rucksack with a hand as large as a buckler. Only after devouring all of his food, and much of Galgadayle's as well, had he paused to inspect his new body. He had found legs as thick as spruce trunks and arms as big as putlogs, and a chest so large a cooper could have bent cask hoops across it. Though the scout stood a full head taller than any firbolg he had ever seen, Galgadayle had not been particularly surprised. The ability to change sizes was primarily a matter of spirit, the seer had explained, and anyone who intended to battle a titan certainly had an ample supply of that.
At the bottom of the tor, Tavis found the verbeeg warriors lingering a safe distance away, their hungry eyes fixed, as always, on Sky Cleaver's obsidian head. After witnessing Orisino's fate, they had grown temporarily more cautious. Their attitude would change the instant they had a chance to steal the weapon, of course, but their current wariness had allowed the One Wielder a few hours of rest. He now felt stronger and more clearheaded than he had since Wynn Castle.
Tavis stepped over to Basil and Galgadayle, who were huddled together at the center of the tor. Over their shoulders, he could see a labyrinthine diagram of glowing
green strokes that the runecaster had traced on the mountainside. The scout had seen enough runes to realize this was not one. Rather, the lines seemed to be a chart of the mount's fracture zones and stress points. He waited in silence while his friends discussed internal forces and cleavage planes, then Basil selected another runebrush from his cloak and traced a single red line down the spine of the mount.
When he finished, the runecaster stepped back and gestured at the red line. "That's where you should strike, Tavis," he said. "Did the rift open? I didn't hear anything."
"It opened, but not like we expected," Tavis answered. "When Othea's shadow fell over it, the vale just appeared."
"Appeared?" Galgadayle echoed.
Tavis nodded. "Like the shadow is the Twilight Vale."
"Oh, dear!" gasped Basil. "We can't destroy Othea Tor without destroying her shadow!"
"And destroying her shadow would close the vale?" surmised Galgadayle.
Basil shook his head. "Worse. If Othea's shadow is the vale, then, by definition, eliminating the shadow wouldn't close the valley—it would eliminate it"
"And what happens to those inside?" Tavis asked.
The runecaster set his ice-crusted jaw in determination. "I don't know, but we've already lost Avner," he said. "I won't take chances with Brianna."
"Even if you're right, destroying the shadow shouldn't hurt her, or the child," Galgadayle said. "It would be like opening the drapes in dark room. The sun will illuminate whafs inside."
"Assuming they still have an independent existence, of course—but there's only one way to be certain." Basil pointed at the axe in Tavis's hands. "Perhaps you'd better use Sky Cleaver."
The One Wielder nodded. "I think I will."
Tavis stooped down to gently push his companions aside, then raised Sky Cleaver over his head. The mighty hand axe was still too large for him to wield one-handed, but he was now large enough to swing it with both arms.
"That's not what I meant!" Basil slipped between Tavis and the mount. "Cleave our quandary, not the tor!"
"Isn't cleaving a prime power, whether it's substance or circumstance?" Tavis asked.
Basil had explained that the axe possessed two kinds of magical power. The most potent was the ability to cleave anything, be it a material object like a mountain, or a circumstance like ignorance. The weapon's lesser ability was the capacity to defend the wielder from most kinds of harm.
Unfortunately, Sky Cleaver's magic carried a heavy price. After hearing the high scout describe Snad's ancient and translucent body, Basil and Galgadayle had deduced that the weapon's magic was too powerful for mortals. Cleaving burned away the bonds that connected the One Wielder to the physical world, until they finally grew too weak to bind his spirit to his bones. Defending was more insidious. The axe invoked this magic on its own, filling the bearer's body with powerful energies that aged him far beyond his years. Accordingly, the three companions had decided Tavis would use the axe's powers as little as possible, and even then only when the damage to the titan would balance the harm to the One Wielder.
After a thoughtful silence, Basil said, "Cleaving is a prime power, but it would be wise to use it now. If Brianna and Kaedlaw are eliminated with Othea's shadow—"
"They won't be." Tavis motioned for the runecaster to step aside. "You said yourself they'd be all right if they still exist apart from Twilight."
Basil refused to move. "I hesitate to bring this up, but I have made one or two mistakes in my life."
"Not this time," Tavis said. "If daylight didn't destroy Lanaxis, then he exists apart from twilight. Why would Brianna and Kaedlaw be any different?"
"Besides, it's safer to trust our own judgment than to rely on Sky Cleaver's power," Galgadayle pointed out. They had already discussed how fast the axe's magic destroyed its wielders and decided they could not even guess. "For all we know, Tavis could turn as transparent as Snad when he cleaves the answer you want, and vanish entirely when he cleaves the mountain. Then where would Brianna be?"
Basil reluctanfly nodded. "It would be better for her to disappear with Othea's shadow." He stepped away from the tor and flourished a hand at the red line he had traced down the spine. "Swing away, my friend."
Tavis brought Sky Cleaver down, whispering, as Basil had taught him, the ancient word for cleave. A stinging fire erupted in the bones of his hands and rushed through his arms to spread into the rest of his body. The axe struck with a sharp crackle, slicing clear through the rock to the icy plain below. A loud, sonorous sigh rose from the other side of the mount, and a gust of wind went rustling across the plain toward the distant glacier. A crack appeared at the base of the tor, then ran up the spine to the summit
Nothing else happened, save that Tavis stumbled away from the mount, his breath hissing through his clenched teeth. He pulled up his cloak sleeve. His skin was sparkling like a fresh powder snow and had turned as white and lustrous as polished silver, but it still seemed fairly opaque. From the looks of his flesh, he guessed that he would be able to use the cleaving power five or six more times before turning into a ghost. The high scout stepped forward, raising Sky Cleaver to
strike again.
There was no need. The spine of the tor suddenly turned to talus and cascaded down toward Tavis. As the scout turned to flee, an eerie chill rose from Sky Cleaver's heft and engulfed his body. A boulder came bouncing at his head, then inexplicably rose and sailed past without striking him. The rest of the landslide scattered around his flanks and arced over his head. Tavis looked at his arm again and found the flesh hanging more loosely than he remembered, and etched with lines that had not been there before.
A low, rumbling groan rose from deep within the tor. The two halves of the mount slumped away from each other, and the rockslide came to an abrupt halt as the boulders fell into the cleft instead of tumbling down the slope. The rent continued to open, and Tavis gasped at what he saw emerging from the murky abyss beyond: the palace whose roof he had glimpsed earlier.
Clouds of purple gloom were rising off the walls like a ground fog in the dawn sun, and Tavis could see that the monumental structure was larger than all of Castle Hartwick. The entrance portico alone was as spacious as the inner bailey, while each of the colonnaded side wings could have held the entire keep beneath its roof.
"Bleak Palace," whispered Basil, coming up behind the high scout. "He must have rebuilt it for Brianna."
They come at dawn. Of course.
How the sunlight scratches my eyes! like scouring hot sand after thirty centuries of cool, purple-shadowed snow. My skin, it does burn beneath the fiery light; in my joints there flares such a sweltering ache I swear my marrow will boil. Thus does Lanaxis the Chosen, Maker of Emperors, greet golden dawn: racked with fever, so
weak and anguished that he would lie upon the stone floor next to mighty Kaedlaw and roar his pain.
But I cannot set such an example. My young charge is just beginning to understand why I bring him here when he groans, to he alone upon the throne hall's cold floor. Emperors must not cry. That is the first lesson, and if I wail my grief, how will he learn?
Through the antechamber echoes the tick tick of the Emperor Mother's feet, then her tiny figure scurries out from among the column pediments. What a trifling thing she is. If my palace had vermin, even they would dwarf her.
Brianna crosses the floor at a dead run and snatches the child into her arms. She knows better. I have forbidden her to hold him when he is crying, but the sun has made her rebellious. The light strengthens her as much as it weakens me, and she delights too much in that.
"Put the emperor down. He has not stopped crying."
Brianna raises her face toward the golden rays streaming through the cupola and clutches Kaedlaw closer to her breast. "I have been praying to Hiatea," she says, as though that should exempt her from my commands. "I will take my son to see the dawn."
"After he stops crying."
I flick my hand in her direction. The Emperor Mother falls to the floor and drops her son on the cold stones, for she is bound to my will by the power of the oath she swore. She promised not to escape, and disobedience is nothing if not fleeing. The child howls, and Brianna stretches a hand toward him. She does not touch him; she cannot reach him until he is silent.
I rise from my throne and walk toward the exit. "I will go and see to the fools who have caused this dawn."
The antechamber is more comfortable than my throne hall, for there are no windows here, and only the dimmest light filters in from outside. But as I pass down the great
colonnade, the glow grows steadily brighter. A headache throbs behind my eyes, and my legs tremble with weakness. By the time I reach the foyer, the glare is so brilliant that it seems as though I am walking into the flaming forge of Surtr himself.
I step onto the portico where in ancient times my brothers and I would stand to greet the dawn, long before men and their ilk ruled Toril. Now, I hardly dare to peek at the light upon the stones, and only from the shade of a pillar larger than I. My palace stands upon a jetty of sunlit rock, its sides flanked by a chevron of abyssal shadow that points toward the sundered figure of Othea's stone body. It almost seems she is giving birth still; the two halves of her craggy figure have fallen wide apart, creating a broad cleft that is filled with the crowning orb of the blinding yellow sun.
Silhouetted against the shimmering disk stands a figure the size of a hill giant. Something is familiar about his shape, but it is the axe that keeps me staring into the searing dawn. The obsidian head swallows light as dragons swallow gold, and even half-blinded, I see every figure carved into the ivory handle: Stronmaus smashing moons with his mighty hammer, Hiatea thrusting her flaming spear into the heart of the fifty-headed hydra, Iallanis joining the hands of Memnor and Karontor in brotherly love.
Sky Cleaver!
It cannot be. No mortal can wield my father's hand axe; its magic would destroy me. Yet, I would know the weapon anywhere; it is impossible to mistake Sky Cleaver. What are you doing to me?
"As you wish. But don't expect me to condone your treachery..."
.. slice you open and feed your entrails to my swine, and there's nothing you can do..."
"... last time! No more, my husband. Away, away with
you forever..."
Do you wish me to fail?
No matter. Even you cannot stop mighty Lanaxis, for I have allies of my own. I turn and point to the drumlins where my poisoned brothers have lain these three thousand years.
"Arise, my brothers!" I call. "Arise, cowards! You who in life would not defy faithless Othea, arise now and serve the Mother Queen again, in her death and yours!"
First one, then two, and a moment later many low groans echo across the barren plain. The drumlins crack like eggs as the bejeweled fingers of my dead brothers push up through the snow. Their hands are not skeletal, but emaciated and black, as flesh becomes when it has been frozen for three thousand years. One after another, their heads pop from their snowy cocoons and look toward me. Tufts of ropy hair protrude from beneath their dirt-crusted crowns. Their faces are as withered and dark as their hands, with yellow teeth showing through their ripped lips and puckered eyes that hang from the sockets like shriveled apples.
I point at Othea's cleaved body. 'Take vengeance for the sundering of our mother," I command. "Go and punish the one who has defiled her legacy!"
My brothers rise and obey. They are no match for Sky Cleaver, of course, but I suspect neither is the bearer. And even if he is, the delay works to my advantage. The day is not long in the north country, and twilight shall return soon enough.
*****
One by one, the dead giants climbed from their scattered drumlins and stumbled toward the sundered tor, their golden crowns and bejeweled rings too rimed with dirt to sparkle in the morning sun. There were more
than a dozen of the kings, one for each true giant race that had ever walked Toril. When the world was young, they had been immortal monarchs, born of gods and destined to rule their progeny as long as Ostoria endured. Now they were mindless zombies, called back from a restless sleep by the same brother who had poisoned them.
Tavis did not fear so much as pity them the indignity of this second betrayal. Despite their shriveled flesh and the grotesque disfigurements wrought by so many centuries of lying frozen beneath the plain's barren soil, Tavis recognized many of them from ancient stone giant tales.
The tallest, wrapped in a cloak of the whitest linen, would be Nicias, dynast of the cloud giants. Behind him was red-bearded Masud, khan of the fire giants, his dark armor glimmering through even the thick layers of dirt and ice crusting the steel. Next were Vilmos, paramount of the storm giants; Ottar, jarl of the frost giants; Ruk, chief of the hill giants; Obadai, sage of the stone giants; and several others, among them the progenitors of some races that had not been seen in the Ice Spires since before Hartsvale was a kingdom. In their black and withered hands, all the monarchs clutched ancient weapons of splendor and power.
"Hiatea watch over us!" Galgadayle was standing with Tavis and Basil between Othea's sundered halves, looking over the verbeegs toward the drumlins south of the tor. "We're doomed!"
"Yes, we are," agreed Basil. He was looking in the opposite direction, toward Bleak Palace's looming mass. "By the time we finish with those cadavers, twilight will be upon us."
Tavis said nothing. He knew better than to think he could defeat all of the dead giant kings, even with Sky Cleaver in his hand. The weapon's defenses would age
him to dust long before he could strike half of them down. Still, the titan had been appallingly haughty to call his own victims to his defense, and there was always a way to use an enemy's arrogance against him.
A cry of fear went up from the verbeegs. Tavis glanced back. The giant kings had stopped well short of the tor, and now they were raising their weapons over their heads.
"Grab hold of me!" Tavis hefted Sky Cleaver. He had no idea whether the axe would protect his friends, but he hoped that if they were close enough to him, the attacks would also be deflected around them. "Don't let go."
Nicias whirled his pearly morningstar over his head, spraying a cloud of boiling white vapor toward the sundered tor. In the same instant, Vilmos brought his sword down on the plain, Ruk smashed his ebony club into his own palm, Masud pointed his flaming spear at Tavis's chest, and a dozen different kinds of cataclysm struck the tor. The air turned as foul and thick as arsenic; sheets of lightning swept across the plain to crackle and dance off Othea's battered stones; great rifts opened in the ground, and earthquakes pummeled the mount; fire gusted through the cleft like wind, reducing everything it touched to ashes and smoke.
Through it all, Tavis stood motionless, watching in gape-mouthed awe as Toril herself groaned and wailed in complaint. A savage, biting cold rose from Sky Cleaver's handle and hovered about his body. He felt his skin wrinkling and folding over his flesh, his shoulders stooping beneath the weight of years not yet gone, his bones aching with rheumatism he had not earned. Yet no lightning touched him, no fire scoured him, no poison seeped into his breath; with the world itself ending around him, he did not fall.
At last, the cataclysms ceased, and all that lay between
the giant kings and Tavis had vanished. The icy plain had become a torn and churned wasteland, with no sign of the verbeegs or anything else that had cowered there. Except for the stones beneath his feet, Othea Tor herself had crumbled to dust and blown away. Even her abyssal shadow had vanished, save for a single purple shaft at the base of the boulder upon which he stood. And there, lying at Tavis's feet and clinging to his legs like frightened children, were Basil and Galgadayle. The eyes of both 'kin were white with shock, their expressions as void as the ground around them, their mouths gasping for air.
Seeing that their foe still stood, the giant kings lowered their weapons and started across the wasteland. Where their magic had failed, their strength would not
"Your brother has made fools of you!" Tavis called. He gently freed his legs and turned to face Bleak Palace, which still stood proud and tall behind Ottar, the frost giant, and Obadai, the stone giant. "He murdered your mother, he poisoned you, and now he has summoned you from your rest to serve his foul purpose."
The giant kings continued to approach, their shriveled eyes vacant and blank.
Tavis fixed his gaze on Lanaxis, who was peering out from the portico's shadowy depths. He pointed Sky Cleaver's head at the titan's dark figure.
"No!" Lanaxis's voice echoed out of the colonnade, trembling and quivering with fear. "I forbid it!"
"See what the titan has made of his immortal brothers!" Tavis cried. "Cleave!"
A stinging fire erupted inside the One Wielder's hands and rushed up his arms into his body. Ottar stopped, then Obadai, Vilmos, and the others. Their shriveled eyes sparkled with glimmers of reason, and one by one they turned to face Bleak Palace.
Lanaxis's looming figure strode forward through the
shadowy portico. As he neared the entrance, he hunched over and scuttled sideways, presenting his shoulder to the sun and shielding his face behind his dingy cloak. He looked more ancient than ever, with a bald pate pro-truding through his golden crown and a back as hunched as a fomorian's. He waved a gnarled hand at the giant-kings.
"I release you!" His voice was brittle with age. "Return to your graves!"
The giant-kings raised their weapons as they had done when they attacked Tavis. One of Lanaxis's eyes opened wide, then the titan abruptiy drew himself to his full height and turned to meet his brothers head-on.
Tavis leapt off his boulder and left his dazed companions behind. He sprinted across the broken ground, praying that the angry zombies would not destroy Bleak Palace before he rescued Brianna and Kaedlaw.
He needn't have worried. As the giant-kings released their cyclone, Lanaxis retreated into his portico and called out the incantation to some spell so ancient and powerful that Tavis felt the air draw tight and crackle with faerie lightning. A shimmering silver curtain fell over the portico, and the zombies' cataclysms ricocheted off the screen like stone-tipped arrows off steel armor.
Tavis stopped running and crouched on the ground, watching in awestricken wonder as rivers of flame and seas of lightning broke over Bleak Palace. The plain itself was melting around the portico, filling the air with billowing clouds of gray steam. Lanaxis's citadel did not even quiver beneath the attacks. The giant-kings continued to press forward, persevering in their assaults until at last they reached the building's entrance.
The cataclysms faded as suddenly as they had begun. Tavis rose and started running again, but he was still a hundred paces from the entrance. Nicias whirled his
pearly morningstar and swung it against the shimmering screen Lanaxis had raised. The magical curtain vanished with a blinding flash and a deafening crackle, then an entire corner of the portico crashed down upon the cloud giant's head.
Nicias fell beneath the avalanche, his huge body broken beyond recognition. The other giant-kings rushed through the opening he had created. Lanaxis stepped forward to meet his zombies, swinging a great sword as tall as gate tower. A thunderous tumult erupted from within the colonnade. Ruk came crashing out of the side wall, his body severed in two. Next fell Masud, who perished beneath untold tons of stone when he knocked a pillar from its foundations. The slaughter continued; Obadai, then Vilmos, and the rest, the portico crashing down around their heads, battering the plain so severely that crevices and rifts shot out hundreds of paces in all directions.
By the time Tavis danced around the pools of melted stone and reached the bottom of what had once been the palace's entrance, the giant kings had all fallen. Lanaxis stood amid the ruins of his portico, leaning on his great sword and huffing gusts of searing wind across the plain. As far as the One Wielder could tell, the titan had suffered no injuries. The zombies were shattered beyond recognition; bits of their blackened flesh hung across toppled pillars, shards of their broken bones lay scattered through the rubble, and pools of their blood boiled in the cratered floor.
Tavis dragged himself up the great stairs as though he were climbing a cliff, his lungs burning with exertion and his muscles aching with fatigue. The stones jumped beneath his body as the titan pounded down the shattered colonnade to meet him. The scout tried to climb faster, but his aged body simply would not move as quickly as he wanted to. His liver-spotted skin had
turned slightly translucent with his last use of the cleaving power, and he did not know whether to attribute his quivering muscles to his racing age or to the general weakness he had suffered since Wynn Castle. It did not matter; the battle would be over soon enough, and as long as he had the axe, Lanaxis could not harm him.
When Tavis clambered atop the last stair, he found himself staring at the titan's ancient knee. He raised Sky Cleaver to attack. Lanaxis backed out of range, stepping over a toppled pillar as thick as Tavis was tall.
"You have done well, but Sky Cleaver is not for mortals," the titan rumbled. "I shall take my father's axe."
"Never!" Tavis could not tell whether concern for Brianna or love of Sky Cleaver inspired his anger, but at least he was sure of its target. "I am the One Wielder!"
Tavis charged, leaping onto a column pedestal and from there to the toppled pillar over which Lanaxis had retreated. This time, the titan did not withdraw. He lowered his hand and called to Sky Cleaver in the same ancient language that Basil had taught Tavis.
"In the name ofSkoraeus Stonebones, Your Maker—"
Tavis felt Sky Cleaver's handle slipping. "No!" The One Wielder's fury became a fiery red curtain, so brilliant and hot he could barely see. He began his own chant. "In the name ofSkoraeus Stonebones—"
"—O Sky Cleaver—" boomed Lanaxis.
So fierce was the titan's angry voice that it knocked Tavis backward off the pillar. He felt a cold surge rise from the axe's handle, then landed on his feet amidst the jumbled rubble. Sky Cleaver slipped another inch through his fingers.
"—Your Maker—!" Tavis yelled, but he could tell that his voice was no match—and never would be—for the titan's.
"—do I summon you into the service—"
Tavis grasped the shaft with all his strength and leapt
toward the titan. "Cleave!"
"—of my hand," Lanaxis finished.
A fiery surge of pain shot through the One Wielder's body, then he felt himself being pulled through the air as Sky Cleaver answered the titan's call.
Tavis held on to the axe's ivory handle with all his strength. He slammed into Lanaxis's palm, and the titan's fingers closed to crush him. Another wave of cold energy surged from the axe handle. The scout found himself falling, holding on to Sky Cleaver by no more than its pommel.
It was enough. The blade bit Lanaxis's leg above the knee, then sliced through the great limb as cleanly as it had cleaved Othea Tor. A thundering cry of pain pealed across the steam-shrouded skies, then Tavis dropped, once more cushioned by Sky Cleaver's defenses, onto the bloody, rubble-strewn floor.
Lanaxis tumbled from the portico and slammed into the shattered ground below. The entire building bucked beneath the force of his fall, bringing the remains of the colonnade tumbling down about Tavis's head. Another cold surge rose from Sky Cleaver's shaft. Two pillars smashed down beside the One Wielder, then a section of entablature landed across them. Tavis found himself buried in a sheltering cave of rubble, sitting in a pond of the titan's hot blood.
The portico continued to shake and tremble for several moments, until at last all of the massive debris had finally fallen. Even before the quake subsided, Tavis was already working to dig his way out, pushing cornices and capitals away as fast as his exhausted body would allow. He had no idea how old he had grown in the past few moments, but the wheezing that he heard in his ears did not sound as if it came from the chest of a young firbolg.
At last, Tavis reached the surface and clambered over
the rubble to the front of the portico. To his surprise, he did not find Lanaxis waiting to attack, or even lying helpless at the foot of the palace stairs. Instead, a river of blood led across the broken plain to the single boulder that was all that remained of Othea Tor. There was no sign of the titan himself, but Basil and Galgadayle were kneeling atop the stone, staring down at its purple shadow with their faces twisted into expressions of utter astonishment.
BLeak Palace
The battle roar continued to ring in Brianna's ears long after the portico had come crashing down, so she did not hear the scuttling boots until the walker had already crossed most of the fume-choked antechamber. The steps were ponderous and slow, not loud enough to be the titan's, but too heavy to be man or 'kin.
Brianna slipped off the plinth where she had been sitting and rushed to place herself between the entrance and Kaedlaw, who remained wailing upon the floor. She did not try to take her child into her arms. It would have been easier to grab a cloud. No matter how closely she approached before kneeling beside her son, the queen always found herself beyond arm's length. She removed Hiatea's talisman from her neck and pulled a sliver of broken mirror from her cloak pocket, determined that if she could not touch the child, neither would anyone else.
While the battle raged outside, Brianna had stayed in the throne hall with Kaedlaw, so she could only guess who, or what, was coming after her son now. By the sound of his shuffling gait, he was large, patient, and either wounded or exhausted—possibly both. He also had to be someone of incredible power; no one else
could have survived the harrowing battle that had shaken Bleak Palace for the last ten minutes. The queen half-expected to see a god's avatar stepping out of the fumes to claim her son.
It hardly mattered to Brianna. She would attack, and without fear. The queen had long since worried herself into such an emotional frenzy that she could no longer feel anything except a seething, mindless anger: at Lanaxis for leaving her unable to defend her child, at Tavis for failing to stop the titan at Wynn Castle, and, most of all, at herself for drinking a spy's drug and allowing an ettin to get a child on her. Whoever was coming did not realize it, but he was doing her a favor. She would fight him to the end. She could no longer bear to watch her child suffer, and death was the only escape left to either of them.
A large, stooped shape shambled into the smoky doorway, the silhouette of a great axe clutched in his hands. Brianna silently called upon her goddess's magic and felt the talisman growing warm. When she uttered her spell incantation, the sliver vanished. A silvery light flashed from her hand and bounced off the throne room walls, returning in the form of a thousand long, gleaming needles. The queen pointed at the gray figure, and the silvery darts hissed toward him in a deadly stream.
A weary groan rose from the newcomer's throat. The torrent of needles suddenly parted and tinkled off the floor around him, changing into harmless sparkles of light. Brianna cursed and reached for her knife.
"Brianna?"
The voice was a reasonable imitation of Tavis's, save that it quivered like an old man's and was far too deep. She hurled her dagger at the doorway. The weapon flew as level and true as any throwing blade, for she had enchanted it with a feather from the shadowroc's wing.
Again, the stranger groaned. The knife veered off
course and shattered against an unseen pillar. The fellow let the axe head drop to the floor, and he leaned on the heft.
"Stop that." He sounded even older than before. "I can't stand more of this."
Brianna pulled a ball of candle wax from her pocket. "Imposter!"
"That was Julien, not me." The stranger shuffled into the hall, moving with the weary steps of an old man. "And what he did doesn't matter. Remember what I said when he claimed to have gotten a child on you? It's still true today: 'I believe you. I always have.'"
Brianna returned the wax ball to her pocket. 'Tavis? It's really you?"
"None other," replied the ancient voice. "I'm sorry I took so long, milady."
The newcomer—Tavis—stepped out of the smoke, revealing a beardless, elderly firbolg who would have stood as tall as a small hill giant, if not for the hunch in his back. His hair had turned as silver as a coin, a blue haze hung over the pupils of his ice-colored eyes, and his wrinkled skin was so thin and translucent that Brianna could see through it to the stringy muscles beneath. In his liver-spotted hands, he held a huge axe with an obsidian head and a wondrously decorated ivory shaft.
Tavis squinted around the room for a moment, then finally seemed to find Brianna. He smiled. "I hope you can do something about my eyes." He shuffled toward her. "Fighting Lanaxis is hard enough when I can see."
'Tavis!" Brianna screamed again. She couldn't quite believe he had really come, or comprehend what she was seeing. "Has it really been so long? How can it have taken you a lifetime to find me? Kaedlaw has aged only a month!"
The high scout glanced down at himself, then chuck-
led grimly, almost madly. "It has been a lifetime—but not the way you mean. My age is Sky Cleaver's doing."
Tavis raised the great axe in his hands, and a wave of heated nausea rushed over Brianna. She had experienced such feelings before. They were premonitions sent by her goddess to warn her of some terrible danger, but the sensations had never been this strong.
The queen backed away. "Don't come any closer."
The high scout frowned, but stopped. "What's wrong?"
"You tell me," Brianna said. "Put that axe down."
Tavis's eyes narrowed. "What for?" He did not lower the weapon. "It's mine. I won't let you steal it."
Brianna slipped her hand into her pocket and rolled the wax between her fingers, suspecting it would do her no good even if she had to use it.
"You don't sound like Tavis Burdun," she said. "The lord high scout would never disobey his queen's order."
An angry light flashed in Tavis's eyes. "As you command, milady." He laboriously stooped down to place the axe at his feet. "But I must warn you, Sky Cleaver's hold on me is great. If you try to steal it, I—"
"Steal it!" Brianna scoffed. She was beginning to understand her premonitions of danger. It was not her husband that was dangerous, but the weapon's hold over him. "What would I want with an axe so large I could not pick it up?"
Tavis's gaze remained suspicious for only a moment, then he blushed in shame. "Forgive me, Brianna. It seems my heart is not as pure as yours."
Brianna shook her head, relieved. "We both know that can't be. It's just that I'm more accustomed to dark temptations."
The queen had almost decided it was safe to embrace her husband when she heard the distant clamor of more 'kin clambering across the rubble-strewn portico. She positioned herself between her wailing son and the door-
way, clutching her goddess's talisman in one hand and dipping the other into her cloak pocket. "Valorous Hiatea—"
"There's no need for that." Tavis raised a silencing hand. "That would be Basil and Galgadayle. They won't harm Kaedlaw."
"How can you say that?" Brianna demanded. "Galgadayle wants him dead!"
"Perhaps, but he's pledged not to kill the child himself."
"What? He would never make such a pledge, unless you..." A chill crept down Brianna's spine. "And what did you promise, Tavis?"
"We can decide what to do about Kaedlaw's destiny later, after we've had time to think," the high scout replied, in the same breath both answering and avoiding the queen's question. "At the moment, we'd better prepare ourselves. I only wounded Lanaxis, and twilight is not so far away."
The slap, slap of Basil's flat feet rang off the walls of the antechamber, with the thud of Galgadayle's boots close behind. Tavis's baggy eyes grew narrow and wary, and he stooped over to retrieve Sky Cleaver. An instant later, the two 'kin raced into the throne room. They appeared as battered and exhausted as the high scout, if much younger.
Basil threw his arms wide and rushed Brianna. "Majesty, you're well!"
The queen started to back away, saying, "Stay where you—"
Basil gathered her up and embraced her for a long moment. Finally, he seemed to hear Kaedlaw's wail and put her down, then knelt beside the child. His heavy hps cracked a delicate grin, and his ice-crusted eyebrows slowly formed an awestruck arch.
"What a handsome child!" he exclaimed. "He looks
just like his father!"
Brianna felt someone peering over her shoulder and glanced back to find Galgadayle standing behind her. Though the seer remained silent, the disdainful sneer beneath his beard made it clear that he wondered which father Basil meant. The queen found the differing reactions of the two 'kin surprising. Kaedlaw might look as handsome as Tavis one moment and as sinister as the ettin the next, but she had never seen both faces at the same time.
Basil turned to the queen. "Far be it from me to criticize, but I thought only verbeegs let crying infants lie. Don't human mothers comfort their children?"
"Don't you think I've tried?" Brianna was filled with such a sense of shame that she could barely whisper the admission. She knew that the affliction was no fault of hers, but that did not prevent her from feeling like a failure. "I can't do it."
"You don't have to keep him quiet," Galgadayle said. "I doubt Lanaxis can hear him anyway. But we really must hurry if we are to leave this place."
Brianna whirled on the seer, her frustration and fear pouring from her mouth in a tempest of angry words. "Why, so Tavis can commit your murder for you?"
The queen had no defense left except her rage. Her magic would not work against her husband, and she could not best a trio of giant-kin—even 'kin as old as these three—with her bare hands.
She cast an accusatory glare at Tavis. "If you have come to keep your vow, do it now, Husband!"
Tavis's cloudy eyes turned as soft as water. "I have come to keep my vow," he allowed. "But not by killing you or Kaedlaw."
"Tavis, must I remind you of our agreement?" Galgadayle demanded. "You promised—"
"I know what I promised!" The high scout's head
swiveled toward the seer, anger flashing like lightning behind his cloudy eyes. When Galgadayle voiced no more objections, Tavis exhaled slowly, then stepped over to Brianna. "Milady, do you trust me?"
Brianna started to ask what he meant, but then she heard Avner's voice ringing inside her head: Tavis will see what you see... It's your only hope.' The young scout had spoken those words less than a day before his death, but the queen seemed to hear him now more clearly than ever. Whatever her husband intended to do, it would be the right thing. It simply was not in his nature to do anything else.
Brianna nodded. "Yes, Tavis. I trust you completely."
The high scout stroked her cheek with a huge, wrinkled finger, then stepped around her and knelt beside Kaedlaw. He scooped the child up in his palm and studied him for a moment, a broad smile creeping across his cracked lips.
Kaedlaw's wails began to subside, and Tavis said, "You're right, Basil. He is handsome—and he has my
eyes."
Galgadayle brushed past Brianna to peer at the infant "I don't see that, not at all," the seer said. "To me, he's as ugly as a troll. Use the axe."
Now that Kaedlaw was growing quiet, his face had once again assumed a handsome and loving aspect in Brianna's eyes. Her deepest instincts urged her to leap forward and snatch her child from Tavis's palm. She desperately wanted to know the truth about her son and just as desperately wanted to remain ignorant. It was the conflict between those two emotions more than her willpower that kept her standing fast as her husband covered her helpless child with the flat of Sky Cleaver's obsidian blade.
Tavis spoke a word in the same ancient tongue the titan used to cast spells. He grimaced with pain, and the
last of the color faded from his pale skin. Even his muscles turned partially translucent, so that beneath the stringy cords of sinew, Brianna could see the yellow outlines of bone and the more nebulous shapes of internal organs.
Kaedlaw's growls gave way to a muffled chortling.
The high scout took Sky Cleaver's blade away. In his palm lay a rather plain-looking baby, neither as handsome as Tavis, nor as hideous as the ettin. The infant had a rather cherubic face with pudgy jowls, rosy cheeks, and twinkling eyes as gray as steel. Brianna could see her husband's influence in the child's straight nose and even features, while the ettin's could be seen in the cleft chin and dark, curly hair.
"He's not handsome any more!" Basil gasped. "He just looks normal!"
Tavis's smile broadened. "He's always looked that way," he said. "But we couldn't see it."
Galgadayle frowned. "What? I know what I saw before. It was as plain—"
"Of course it was!" interrupted Basil, growing more excited by the moment. "Kaedlaw is no different than any child. We see in him what we expect to see—isn't that what the axe showed you?"
"More or less," Tavis answered. "Like any child, Kaedlaw has the capacity for both good and evil. How we rear him will decide which comes to dominate."
"That is the more," said Galgadayle. "What is the less?"
Tavis cast an uneasy glance at Brianna, and the queen felt a cold dread seeping into her heart. She began to fear that Galgadayle's prophecy had been right, after all. Whether Kaedlaw grew up good or evil, he would lead the giants against the rest of the northlands.
When her husband still did not speak, Brianna said, "Tell me."
Tavis took a deep breath. "Kaedlaw has two fathers," he said. "I'm sorry, milady. Please forgive me for allowing it."
Brianna hardly heard the apology. She felt no need of one, and there were other, more pressing matters on her mind. The queen took a tentative step toward her son.
"What of his future?"
Tavis shrugged. "No one can say. It's impossible to tell the future—at least Kaedlaw's."
Galgadayle shook his head violently. "What of my dreams?" he demanded. "You're lying!"
Brianna swept Kaedlaw from Tavis's hand, then whirled on the seer. "Don't be ridiculous." She was almost laughing. "Firbolgs can't lie!"
"Then what of my dreams?" the seer demanded. "They have always come true!"
"Have they really?" Basil's tone was more one of curiosity than debate. "Has anything ever happened exactly as you saw it?"
"Of course!" the seer replied. "A landslide swept Orisino's village away, just as I dreamed."
"In your dream, what happened to Orisino's tribe?"
"They were buried."
Basil smirked. "Obviously, your dream was inaccurate. We both know you warned Orisino in time to save his tribe."
Galgadayle furrowed his brow.
"The same thing happened with the fomorians, I presume," the runecaster continued. "You dreamed they would drown, then saved the entire tribe by warning Ror of their danger."
The seer's face grew almost as pale as Tavis's, then he fell on his knees before Brianna. "By the gods, I have made a terrible mistake!" he cried. "How can I earn your forgiveness?"
There was a time when Brianna would have turned
the firbolg away in contempt, perhaps even struck him, but the joy she felt now was more powerful than any fear he had ever inspired. She could not condemn the seer for what had been an act of conscience—and ultimately one of kindness and concern as well.
Brianna took Galgadayle's hand and urged him to his feet. There's nothing to forgive. You may have frightened me half to death in the silver mines, but it was better that you were chasing us than the fire giants—and they would not have been so kind to their prisoners," she said. "Fate has a way of pursuing its own course; all you or I can do is follow our consciences and hope for the best"
"You are more generous than I deserve," Galgadayle replied. "But I thank you."
Basil cleared his throat. "Now that all's forgiven, perhaps we should turn our thoughts to leaving before Lanaxis comes back. As bad as he's wounded, I doubt the titan has given up."
Brianna felt her joy changing to hot tears. "That's what I was trying to tell you earlier! I can't leave the palace. The titan's magic is too strong!"
"By my brush!" Basil gasped. That's what he meant!"
"What?" Tavis asked. "He said something?"
"As he was slipping down the hole into Twilight" Galgadayle confirmed. "I believe it was, This is not done, not done at all.'"
"It doesn't matter," Tavis said. "I can cleave even the titan's magic."
"But I can already see your bones!" Basil objected. "At most, you can use the axe twice before it destroys you— perhaps only once."
"I'll have to take that chance," Tavis said. "And if I fade, Galgadayle can... he can always..."
"What's wrong?" Brianna asked.
Tavis stepped toward the seer and raised his axe men-
acingly. Galgadayle wisely lowered his gaze and retreated.
"He can't have Sky Cleaver!" Tavis shouted. "Ill never give it up! I'm the One Wielder!"
"Of course you are," the queen replied. She stepped back and motioned for Basil to do the same. "We all know that."
This seemed to calm Tavis, and they all stood in silence, considering their options.
At last, Brianna said, "Running won't do us any good. One way or another, we're going to end this thing tonight."
Tavis shook his head. "We'll lose. I can't beat Lanaxis—and the rest of you can't even touch him."
"Don't worry about your sight," Brianna said. "The goddess still favors me. I can repair your eyes, at least"
"My eyes aren't the problem!"
Brianna frowned. "What's wrong? I know your concern can't be for yourself."
"Oh, I'm frigbtened enough for myself." Though Tavis's skin was so transparent that it was difficult to tell his expression, he seemed unable to raise his cloudy gaze from the floor. "But my first concern is still for you and Kaedlaw. I'm just not strong enough to best Lanaxis."
"Perhaps you could go into Twilight and slay him while he rests," suggested Galgadayle.
"He'll expect that," Brianna said. "Besides, the only time I've ever seen him rest was when he got caught in daylight Twilight restores his strength."
"Then it's better to wait for him here," Basil said.
Tavis clutched the axe to his chest. "Hell steal it from me!"
"Steal it?" asked Galgadayle. "If Lanaxis gets close enough to grab it—" "Not grab—call," Tavis said. "How do you expect me
to outshout a titan? He almost stole it before!"
"That makes no sense," said Basil. "The bond between Sky Cleaver and its wielder is an emotional one. Even Lanaxis shouldn't be able to call it simply by shouting."
"Of course he should!" Brianna said. "Lanaxis is mad with power-lust Tavis's anger is no match for that"
Galgadayle sighed heavily. "Then we are finished."
Brianna shook her head. "Perhaps not. There are plenty of emotions mightier than power-lust." She turned to Tavis. "When Lanaxis tries to call Sky Cleaver away, fight him with a stronger emotion. Call it back with compassion in your heart, and you will win."
Basil shook his head. "That won't work. How can Tavis fight while he's trying to be compassionate?" the runecaster demanded. "He'll never kill the titan that way!"
Brianna let her eyes drop to her son's cherubic face. "Of course not Basil." She kissed Kaedlaw on the brow. "We can't defeat Lanaxis by killing him."
Fools. Watch this.
* * * * *
A gloomy hand appeared first, as they knew it would, rising from the pit as the ashen afternoon darkened into twilight. Tavis stood on the boulder, Sky Cleaver in hand, with Basil and Galgadayle to either side of him. Brianna, unable to leave Bleak Palace, stood beside Kaedlaw at the end of the demolished portico.
Waiting was the hardest part. The queen's plan called for the One Wielder to attack last, but he wanted nothing more than to leap now and finish the battle. They had made their plans and completed all their prepara-
tions. He felt as though the combat had been fought already and they were only awaiting news of the victor.
The arm climbed slowly, filling the pit so completely that it seemed to drag the edges of the hole up with it. The limb continued to rise until it loomed above the boulder to twice Tavis's height, then tipped toward Bleak Palace and lay flat as a fallen tower. The hand wedged its fingers into the broken plain and pulled. An enormous, gloom-cloaked shoulder appeared in the hole.
"Now, Galgadayle!" Tavis urged. "Before he can call to Sky Cleaver."
The seer stepped forward and threw a glowing dagger. The blade sank deep into the titan's flesh, illuminating his shoulder in a brilliant halo of light.
If Lanaxis felt the weapon's sting, he showed no sign.
Basil attacked next, rushing forward with a javelin-sized knife stolen from the palace kitchen. For once, his flat feet made no sound as they slapped the ground, for he had painted runes of silence upon his boots. The runecaster lowered his weapon as though it were a lance and drove the point deep into the titan's clavicle.
Basil's legs were still pumping when the tenebrous arm abruptly dissolved into wisps of purple murk. He plunged forward. The verbeeg's mouth opened in a silent scream. He flailed his arms, dropping his weapon into the dark pit where the titan's shoulder had been a moment earlier.
Tavis leapt off the boulder and grabbed Basil's arm, pulling him away from the hole before he followed his knife into what remained of the Twilight Vale.
"It was an illusion!" Galgadayle continued to stare into the pit as he spoke.
"Then he'll be returning from someplace else." Tavis spun toward Bleak Palace, expecting to see the titan's looming figure charging across the demolished portico.
There was only Brianna, standing at the edge of the lowest step, with twilight rising around her like a ground fog. Tavis turned slowly and saw the purple gloom seeping up all across the plain.
No, not across the entire plain. To the east, a blanket of damson light was falling from the sky to cover the ashen snows. Twilight did not rise from the ground, not on a tableland as vast as the Bleak Plain.
"Watch yourselves!" the high scout yelled. "He's coming up under—"
Four purple talons burst from the ground and seized Tavis, crushing his arms to his sides. Sky Cleaver popped free and tumbled away. The shadowroc's foot closed only tightly enough to hold the high scout motionless, as though the bird thought he still had the axe and feared squeezing too tightly would trigger the weapon's defenses.
The shadowroc was emerging upside down. As its enormous breast rose from the plain, both Sky Cleaver and Basil tumbled off. The runecaster hit first, with the axe's enormous heft falling across his chest.
The verbeeg's baggy eyes grew as round as plates. His thick-lipped mouth fell open, and he glanced up at Tavis. When he found the high scout still locked helplessly in the raptor's enormous claw, he raised his sagacious eyebrows in apology. He looked away and wrapped both arms around Sky Cleaver's ivory handle.
Tavis felt the syllables of the axe's ancient summons rise spontaneously in his chest, but he could not force so many strange words past his trammeled ribs. An unreasoning panic welled up inside him, not because he was caught in the titan's grasp, but because he had lost Sky Cleaver.
As the shadowroc's enormous wings and tail rose from beneath the plain, Basil rolled onto his stomach and covered Sky Cleaver. The runecaster murmured
something, then he began to pale—hair, flesh, even his clothes.
A shrill screech erupted from the shadowroc's throat as it broke completely free of the ground. Tavis felt himself whirl. The enormous bird rolled off its back, and then the air throbbed beneath the force of its great wings. Basil's figure, already as translucent as alabaster and still paling, began to recede. The raptor beat its wings again. The plain spread out beneath Tavis like a milky-blue sea. In the center lay a dark island of shattered ground, the ruins of Bleak Palace.
There was nothing above save the shadowroc's umbral torso, a ceiling of purple feathers as vast as a cloud. Every few seconds, the bird's distant wingtips dipped below its gloomy abdomen, lifting them ever higher into the sky. Perhaps twenty paces away, the sticklike stump of a severed leg dangled beneath the fan of a monstrous tail.
Tavis began to work his pinned arms back and forth. Though it required only a few moments to free an arm, by the time he succeeded the shadowroc had carried him so high he could have looked down on the moon. The immensity of Bleak Palace was a mere dot in the milky snows below. He could look across the Endless Ice Sea to where it spilled off the northern edge of the world, and in the opposite direction he saw the dark valleys of Hartsvale lying beyond the white teeth of the Ice Spires North.
The shadowroc leveled off. Tavis wrapped his free arm around a talon toe and jerked back as hard as he could. There was a muffled crack, and the bird opened its claw. The high scout dangled for an instant, then pulled himself up to wrap his free arm around the raptor's ankle. He shimmied up the tarsus as fast as he could, trying to reach the jungle of feathers overhead.
The shadowroc's ebony beak darted back beneath its
breast, a blue tongue fluttering in its gaping maw.
Tavis grabbed a handful of feather vanes and pulled himself into the dark thicket that covered the bird's meaty thigh, barely escaping the hooked mandible that came scraping across the tarsus below.
Suddenly, the high scout's legs began to rise, as though floating, and his entire body followed, straining away from the shadowroc's thigh. The vast expanse of the Endless Ice Sea flashed past his eyes, then the starlit sky, the jagged Ice Spires, and finally the creamy snows of the Bleak Plain. Tavis pulled himself deeper into the feathers and held on for his life, trying to keep from being thrown clear as the raptor tumbled. Again, the Ice Sea flickered past, followed so quickly by the stars and distant mountains that the sky and ground blurred into a kaleidoscope.
The shadowroc pulled a beakful of feathers from its thigh and tossed them to the wind. Tavis could not tell how far the bird had already fallen, but he felt certain those hooked mandibles would find him long before the raptor crashed itself into the ground. Nor could he climb to a safer hiding place. It was all he could do to keep from being flung off the tumbling creature. He realized now why the titan had attacked in this form. As long as they were in the air, Lanaxis was the master; even if the high scout had been holding Sky Cleaver, he could not have killed his foe without sending himself plummeting toward the wasteland below.
For the next several seconds, the shadowroc struggled against the force of its wild fall to bring its beak to bear. Then, with the ground so close that Tavis could see his friends standing on Bleak Palace's shattered portico, the raptor's beak closed around the feathers to which he was clinging.
Tavis thrust one hand into a nostril. The air inside was as bitter and cold as ice. He grabbed hold of a jagged
edge and clung tight as the shadowroc flicked its head to rip the feathers from its thigh. The high scout felt his feet swing around and sink into the soft tissue of the bird's eye. It squawked in shock, then whipped its head in the opposite direction. Tavis slammed against the side of its beak and reached over the top, sticking his hand into the other nostril. "Try to get rid of me now!"
The high scout had barely growled the challenge before he floated into the air, remaining connected to the beak only by the strength of his trembling old hands. The shadowroc's enormous wings spread out to both sides of its body. The bird swept low over the ground, and the kaleidoscope of their long, tumbling fall abruptly gave way to the milky snows of the Bleak Plain.
They glided toward Lanaxis's palace, flying no higher than the cupola. Basil was standing on the portico, supporting his ancient frame on Sky Cleaver's heft. Already, the runecaster's organs and most of his bones showed through his transparent skin.
"Throw it, Basil!" The cry was not so much a command as a prayer, for not even Basil had believed he would have the strength to part with Sky Cleaver once he touched it. "Now!"
As they passed by, Tavis kept his gaze fixed on the palace. To his amazement, Basil grasped Sky Cleaver's heft and began to spin like a hammer-hurler. The shadowroc dipped a wing and wheeled around. Tavis lost sight of the verbeeg, then felt a sudden rush of wind as Lanaxis drew a deep breath through the cavernous bird nostrils.
The high scout whipped his head back around in time to see Basil releasing the axe. In the same instant, the shadowroc voiced the terrible screech Brianna had warned them about. An anguished ringing erupted in Tavis's ears, and his entire body stung from the power-
nil vibrations that reverberated through the bird's beak. The cry swept Basil from his feet and hurled him across the portico into Galgadayle and Brianna.
Sky Cleaver dropped toward the ground.
Tavis pulled one hand from the shadowroc's nostril and stretched it toward the axe. "In the name o/Skoreaus Stonebones, Your Maker—" The high scout's ears were ringing so painfully he could not be certain he was uttering the syllables correctiy, but the axe began to rise into the air. "0 Sky Cleaver, do I summon you—"
The shadowroc screeched again, and wheeled around so violently that Tavis slammed against the side of its head. As they turned, the high scout glimpsed the axe sailing after them. He finished the last part of the command, unable to hear his own words:
"Into the service of my hand."
Sky Cleaver flew to Tavis, turning its heft toward his outstretched palm. The shadowroc flapped its wings madly. Once more the vibrations of its deafening screech racked the high scout's body; then he felt the axe's ivory handle in his palm.
The bird flung its head wildly, trying to throw its passenger away before he could strike. Tavis glimpsed the moonlit snows a thousand feet below. He knew Sky Cleaver would save him even if he destroyed the shadowroc, but Brianna had warned him against thinking he could kill the titan so easily. He would have to defeat Lanaxis another way.
Tavis waited and hung on, more for his son's sake than his own. When at last he felt himself bouncing toward the shadowroc's face, he struck not with the edge of the axe blade, but with the flat.
"Cleave!" he commanded. "Sunder this madness!"
Tavis could never speak of what happened next, not even to Brianna. He remembered a wind that shined like light and a radiance that boomed like thunder. He stood
on the whirling emptiness between the stars, with the titan kneeling at his side, head bowed toward a majestic figure that resembled the smell of freshly cut spruce and the sizzle of lightning and the howl of a lonely wind sweeping over an endless glacier. A voice like oak coursed through the high scout's body and, he supposed, through Lanaxis's as well.
"I can return, but why?" demanded the majestic figure. "You poisoned your brothers. You destroyed Osto-ria. You cannot raise it again."
"But the voices, Father!" Lanaxis seemed as young as the day he had walked from Othea's birthing caves, with a strapping lean body, curly brown hair, and a brow unfurrowed by centuries of worry. Only his eyes, as deep and sad as twilight, betrayed his timeless remorse. "I have listened to them—I have studied them—for decades of centuries. You want me to rebuild Ostoria. The message is clear!"
"Message? There is no message! The time of giants has passed without notice on Toril, and that is your doing. The voices are punishment, nothing more."
A sob of boundless anguish rose from Lanaxis's throat. "No, Father!"
"Your punishment is not eternal, Lanaxis." The god's voice had grown so hard that it scraped along Tavis's bones like a rasp. "After all, you are a mortal now."
Lanaxis gave a cry, then suddenly dropped through the whirling emptiness and vanished from sight. The high scout prepared himself to follow, but instead felt Annam's voice, as supple as a chamois brushing over his skin.
"You have something of mine," the god said. "Return it, and I shall return what is yours."
Tavis held Sky Cleaver out at arm's length. 'Take your axe, please. It has no place on Toril."
"That shall be for you to decide," Annam replied. "I
know you mortals. It is easy enough for you to behave when you are frightened, but you do tend to change your minds at the last moment."
Tavis felt himself sinking through the emptiness. He tried to toss Sky Cleaver toward the god, but the ivory handle would not leave his palms.
"Wait! How do I—"
He emerged above the Bleak Plain, with Lanaxis's palace below. He was in exacdy the same place as when he had cleaved the titan's madness, but the shadowroc was no longer there. Tavis clutched Sky Cleaver to his breast, waiting for the familiar cold tingle that would mean the weapon was saving him.
The high scout continued to fall, the cold wind whistling past his ears ever faster. He started to cry out for the weapon to work its magic, then remembered Annam's comment about mortals. He drew his arm back and tossed the axe into the sky.
Take it!"
Tavis never saw what happened to Sky Cleaver. He had hardly released the handle before the shadowroc swooped down between them, obscuring his view of the weapon. The bird's powerful claw closed around his body, bringing his fall to an abrupt end.
The great raptor wheeled on its wingtip and dived toward Bleak Palace, where Brianna and the two 'kin still stood on the ruined portico, staring into the sky. For a moment, Tavis thought the bird actually meant to rescue him. Then its claw bore down, squeezing the air from his lungs. His bones began to pop and groan under the terrible pressure, and he felt a talon slip between his ribs.
The shadowroc swooped low over the palace cupola, then beat the air with its great wings. It came to a near stop over the shattered portico and started to drop, sending Brianna and the others scrambling for
weapons and cover. Then, just when the high scout thought his captor meant to land, the bird beat its wings again. Its claw opened, dropping Tavis on the rubble-strewn portico.
Brianna was on him almost before the pain. "Where does it hurt? Can you feel..." The queen's mouth fell open, and she gasped, "In the name of Hiatea!"
Tavis peered to the suddenly empty sky. He pushed himself upright, expecting to feel the anguish of some gruesome injury. Instead, he seemed amazingly well, save for a few bruises from his fall and the talon wound in his torso. The high scout raised his hand and saw that not only had his flesh returned to its normal ruddy complexion, it was no longer wrinkled or spotted with age.
"You're young again!" Brianna cried.
"For the most part, anyway." Galgadayle stepped over to the scout's side and fingered a lock of gray hair. "I doubt this will ever be bronze again."
"I'll settle for gray." Tavis stood up and looked from Brianna's empty arms to Galgadayle's. "Now where's my son?"
"Be patient," growled Basil. "We're coming."
The runecaster sounded older and more tired than ever. Tavis turned to see a disconcerting figure tottering toward him. Unlike the high scout, Basil had not recovered from Sky Cleaver's effects. His face was a mask of yellow bone set with moving eyes and a few translucent strings of muscle. The runecaster's body was worse; it looked as though he had somehow survived being flayed by fomorian hunters.
Basil passed Kaedlaw into Tavis's arms. "What happened to Sky Cleaver?"
"I gave it back... I'm sorry."
The verbeeg looked down at his translucent body, then shrugged. "It's not your fault. Even knowing the cost, I'd do the same again. I had to know."
"What?" Brianna stepped to Tavis's side and took his hand. "What did you have to know?"
Basil's mouth twisted into an ecstatic, if particularly gruesome, smile. "Everything," he answered. "Everything that matters."
An uneasy chill ran down Tavis's spine, though he could not say whether it was because of the runecaster's reply or the eerie keen he heard building across the plain. The high scout turned to face the noise. He saw the shadowroc's silhouette wheel high in the sky, then dive toward the western horizon. The screech arrived a moment later. At such a distance, it was hardly powerful enough to knock anyone off his feet, but the skirl set their ears to ringing and caused Kaedlaw to start crying.
"Ssssshh." Brianna stood on her toes, holding Tavis's arm while she comforted their son. "The titan can't hurt you. Your father's here."
Epilogue
I soar upon the ashen winds of dusk, a restiess shadow in the eternal eventide, a hunter always chasing and never catching. The sun lies just below the horizon, sinking as fast as I fly, forever retreating, forever calling me onward. Below passes Toril, the world the giants should have ruled: swarthy deserts behind gloom-shrouded mountains that loom over twinkling cities standing upon the shores of glimmering seas strewn with islands as numerous as stars, an endless procession of savage lands and forbidden realms and lost kingdoms, a vast, exquisite reward for a crime as dark as the night.
Now and again, I see the ones who did this to me, standing upon the parapets of their brittle castie, holding my nephew in their arms and teaching him to be a frail human king. Often I swoop low over their heads and cry a greeting, shaking the loose stones from the crenela-tions and blasting the guards from their feet. This frightens the groveling humans, I know, but never Kaedlaw. He has begun to walk now, and in the summers he often sneaks onto the keep roof and waits for my umbral wings to appear in the dusk sky. When I screech, he claps his hands with glee and chortles madly until his father the firbolg rushes out to gather him up.
There was no reason to save Tavis, I know. Do not ask me to explain. Perhaps I was repaying him; he struck
with compassion when he could have slain, and I suppose that creates a bond of sorts.
"If that's what you believe, then it's true..."
Or perhaps it was Sky Cleaver's doing; Tavis was the One Wielder, after all, and I was as bound by Annam's will then as I am now.
"... to be free? Stop crying, now you are..."
It was my own mortality, then. I didn't know this before I left the Vale—how could I?—but there is a bond between all things that die, and in the firbolg's passing I saw reflections of my own.
.. sound like a sop. Talk like that..."
Say what you will, whoever you are! I have learned better than to listen to your voices.