A Song Without a Voice

Chapter 22 — A Song Without a Voice

Xil made it less than an hour before deciding they had made a mistake.

“Stop.”

Deacon stopped immediately.

Zook turned from the front of the line.

Vegon nearly walked into him.

Jandar, soaked to the skin and still visibly grieving the loss of his hat, looked at Xil through wet strands of dark hair.

“What?”

Xil looked back the way they had come.

Rain softened the trail behind them until it became little more than a broken line through standing water and hanging moss.

“We are going back.”

Jandar blinked.

“To Ilbus?”

“The grung village.”

“That is considerably worse.”

Deacon watched Xil.

“Mills.”

“Yes.”

Zook’s expression changed.

He understood first.

“We shouldn’t have left him.”

“No.”

Jandar folded his arms.

“They were keeping him alive.”

“They were keeping him alive by poisoning him.”

“That appeared to be working.”

Xil looked at him.

Jandar raised a hand.

“I hear it now.”

Vegon pulled his wet cloak tighter around his narrow shoulders.

“What changed?”

“Nothing.”

“That seems a poor reason to reverse direction.”

Xil turned toward him.

“I changed my mind.”

Vegon waited.

Xil knew that would not be enough.

It was barely enough for himself.

When they had left the grung village, Mills had been stable.

Safer, perhaps, than if they dragged him through the swamp while three or four different toxins fought inside his body.

The grung healer knew those poisons.

Xil did not.

That had seemed decisive.

Now it did not.

“We freed him from a cage,” Xil said. “Then put him back in it because it was convenient.”

Zook frowned.

“That isn’t why.”

“No.”

Xil looked into the rain.

“But it is what we did.”

Deacon nodded once.

“Back.”

Vegon sighed.

Jandar looked at him.

“You object?”

“I am wet.”

“We are all wet.”

“I had achieved a philosophical acceptance of traveling north.”

“You can philosophically accept south.”

Vegon stared at him.

“I preferred you with the hat.”

“So did I.”

They turned around.

The grung were surprised to see them.

Xil did not need a shared language to understand that.

The small sentries appeared among the trees with weapons raised, recognized Zook, then began clicking to one another.

Zook held up the carved wooden frog he had been given.

The reaction changed.

A path opened.

“Swamp prince,” Jandar said.

Zook smiled.

“I told you.”

“You have subjects now.”

“I have frogs.”

“Many rulers begin with less.”

Xil walked past both of them.

Mills was where they had left him.

The cage door remained unlocked.

The minstrel lay beneath a blanket, his breathing shallow but regular. A blue-skinned grung sat beside him with a bowl containing some foul-smelling paste.

The grung healer looked up as Xil approached.

Xil knelt.

Mills’s eyelids fluttered.

He did not wake.

The purple discoloration along his arm had faded slightly, but it remained.

The poison had not left him.

Only settled.

Xil touched two fingers to the man’s throat.

Pulse.

Slow.

Too slow.

The healer clicked at him.

Xil looked up.

The grung pointed at Mills.

Then touched its own throat.

Then shook its head.

Xil understood enough.

“He’s not improving.”

Zook crouched beside him.

“You can help after you rest?”

“I believe so.”

“Believe?”

Xil looked at him.

“Divine magic is not a locksmith’s tool, Zook.”

Jandar came closer.

“That sounded like a yes disguised as a lecture.”

Xil ignored him.

Healing was simple.

Not easy.

Never trivial.

But simple.

A wound was a wound.

Flesh torn apart could be closed. Blood could be restored. Bones could be encouraged toward what they had been before violence changed them.

This was different.

Mills was not injured in one place.

Something had altered the way his body worked.

Poisons had slowed him, confused him, weakened him.

Perhaps the grung had understood exactly how much of each toxin to use.

Perhaps they had simply been fortunate not to kill him.

Either way, Xil had spent enough power since the bridge, the swamp and the grung fight that what remained in him was suited to closing wounds.

Not undoing what poison had changed.

That required something else.

Restoration.

He had used such prayers before.

Rarely.

They demanded more.

Not more strength exactly.

More precision.

Divine power could mend a cut by returning flesh toward wholeness.

Restoration required knowing that the body had become wrong and persuading it to remember right.

Xil looked at Mills.

“We take him.”

The grung healer immediately began clicking.

Xil held up a hand.

“I know.”

The healer clicked louder.

“This would be easier if either of us understood the other.”

Zook produced an apple.

Xil looked at him.

“No.”

“It worked before.”

“We are not buying him again.”

“Technically, we’re renting.”

Jandar nodded.

“That is worse.”

The grung healer stared at the apple.

Then took it.

Xil closed his eyes.

“I dislike this swamp.”

They left with Mills.

Six apples remained in Zook’s pack.

Jandar counted.

Xil told him to stop.

Mills could walk for short stretches, though calling it walking was generous.

He drifted.

His feet moved because someone pointed him in a direction and his body remembered the mechanism.

Deacon took most of his weight.

That made an odd picture.

Deacon was broader than Mills and carried him almost without effort, one of the minstrel’s arms thrown across his shoulders. The fighter’s face had settled into the expression he wore whenever something unpleasant had become necessary.

Not anger.

Acceptance.

Xil had begun to understand Deacon through those distinctions.

Jandar carried Mills when Deacon tired.

He complained more.

That did not mean he carried less.

By late afternoon, they found the cave.

Zook found it, technically.

A shallow opening in a limestone rise hidden behind curtains of hanging moss. It extended deeper than Xil expected, widening into a dry chamber perhaps thirty feet across.

Dry.

That word had become beautiful.

Jandar stepped inside and raised both hands.

“Stone.”

Deacon followed.

“Yes.”

“Dry stone.”

“Yes.”

“No mud.”

“We can all see it.”

Jandar looked at him.

“I am appreciating.”

Vegon entered behind them.

“We may have found the first thing in the swamp you understand.”

Jandar pointed.

“That was uncalled for.”

Zook inspected the back of the cave.

“No tracks.”

“Animal?” Deacon asked.

“Nothing recent.”

Xil looked toward the ceiling.

“No spiders.”

Zook grinned.

“You checked.”

“I have traveled with all of you long enough to learn caution.”

They made camp.

No fire at first.

Then Deacon decided the risk of smoke was preferable to spending another night damp.

For once, nobody disagreed.

Steam rose from cloaks and bedrolls.

Boots gathered near the flames.

Vegon spread several pages beside the heat and began the painstaking process of rescuing his notes.

Jandar held one sock toward the fire with the solemnity of a priest conducting a ritual.

Zook ate.

Xil attended to Mills.

The minstrel woke shortly after dark.

Actually woke.

His eyes focused.

That was an improvement.

“Where am I?”

His voice was almost gone.

Not merely weak.

Ragged.

Each word scraped from him.

Xil moved closer.

“A cave.”

Mills stared.

“Wonderful.”

Xil raised an eyebrow.

The minstrel swallowed and winced.

“Still alive?”

“Yes.”

“Less wonderful.”

“You said that before.”

“I did?”

“Yes.”

Mills thought about it.

“Still funny.”

Jandar looked over from the fire.

“I like him.”

“You like everyone who validates your worst habits,” Xil said.

Mills turned his head toward Jandar.

His eyes narrowed.

“You.”

Jandar smiled.

“Me.”

Mills stared at him for several seconds.

“You had a hat.”

Silence.

Zook immediately began laughing.

Jandar looked wounded.

“Thank you, Mills.”

“Where is it?”

“Dead.”

Deacon sat beside the fire.

“It was a hat.”

Jandar looked at him.

“You have no poetry in you.”

Mills coughed.

The sound was ugly.

Xil placed a hand behind his shoulders and helped him drink.

Mills managed three swallows.

“Poetry,” he whispered, “does not keep hats out of swamps.”

Jandar stared at him.

Then pointed toward Xil.

“Fix him. Immediately.”

Xil almost smiled.

Almost.

Mills settled back against the rolled blankets beneath his head.

He looked around the cave.

At Zook.

At Vegon.

At Deacon.

At Jandar.

Finally back to Xil.

“Who are you?”

Xil frowned.

“You know who I am.”

“No.”

Mills coughed again.

“I know you’re the dark elf who keeps glowing at me.”

“Drow.”

“Right.”

Xil had heard that correction spoken with anger, pride, threat and exhaustion across his life.

He had never expected to give it to a poisoned minstrel who appeared genuinely interested.

“Xil.”

Mills nodded.

“Xil.”

He looked toward the fire.

“The small one?”

Zook raised a hand.

“Zook.”

“Red hair.”

“Yes.”

“That I remember.”

Then Vegon.

Vegon did not wait.

“Vegon.”

Mills stared at him.

“You look expensive.”

Jandar laughed.

Vegon looked down at his mud-stained clothes.

“I assure you I currently do not.”

“You still look expensive.”

“I do not know whether that is an insult.”

“It can be both.”

Jandar nodded approvingly.

Mills turned toward Deacon.

“And you’re...”

“Deacon.”

“The serious one.”

Deacon sighed.

“You said that before too.”

“Still true.”

Then Mills looked toward Jandar.

He squinted.

Jandar waited.

Mills smiled.

“The pretty one.”

Zook nearly choked.

Jandar pointed at Mills.

“That is twice.”

Deacon looked toward Xil.

“The poison may have damaged his judgment.”

“I cannot repair everything.”

Mills attempted to laugh.

It became another cough.

Xil waited until it passed.

“You need to rest.”

“I’ve been resting.”

“You have been unconscious.”

“More efficient.”

Xil looked at him.

Mills smiled weakly.

There was more personality in him now than there had been in the cage.

That was good.

It also made his condition harder to ignore.

His voice should not sound like that.

His hands should not tremble.

A healthy man should not exhaust himself by speaking six sentences.

Xil looked toward the cave entrance.

Night had settled outside.

Rain continued.

He needed time.

One night.

Then he could try.

Mills did not sleep immediately.

Perhaps because he had spent too long in a stupor already.

Perhaps because fear finally had enough room inside him to become questions.

“How long?”

Zook sat near him.

“With the grung?”

Mills nodded.

“Couple weeks.”

His expression twisted.

“I think.”

“What happened?” Vegon asked.

Xil gave him a look.

Vegon lowered his voice.

“When you are able.”

Mills closed his eyes.

“Beer.”

Jandar nodded.

“A strong beginning.”

“Too much beer.”

“An excellent continuation.”

Deacon threw a scrap of cloth at Jandar.

It hit him in the shoulder.

Mills smiled.

“I had a boat.”

“You stole a boat,” Jandar said.

Mills opened one eye.

“Borrowed.”

“Ah.”

“You approve?”

“Professionally.”

Xil looked between them.

“That should concern everyone.”

Mills continued.

“I was going to write something.”

“A song?” Zook asked.

“A good one.”

Jandar leaned back against the cave wall.

“Ambitious.”

“Ilbus needed one.”

“Ilbus has fish.”

“Exactly.”

Mills’s voice weakened.

He drank again.

“I thought... swamp. Strange lights. Old stories. Something worth singing about.”

“You found the grung,” Deacon said.

“Yes.”

Mills closed his eyes.

“I would not recommend them.”

“They fed you poison?” Xil asked.

Mills opened his eyes again.

This memory seemed clearer.

“Yes.”

“Every day?”

“I think.”

“What did it do?”

“Everything far away.”

Xil leaned closer.

“Pain?”

“Sometimes.”

“Paralysis?”

“What?”

“Could you move?”

Mills considered.

“Not when they didn’t want me to.”

That matched.

“Did you see things that were not there?”

Mills laughed weakly.

“I’m a minstrel.”

Xil waited.

“Yes.”

“Did you hear anything?”

The question changed him.

Very slightly.

But Xil saw it.

Mills looked toward the cave entrance.

“Songs.”

Jandar stopped smiling.

“What kind?”

“I don’t know.”

“Like what you were singing in the water?” Zook asked.

Mills frowned.

“I was in water?”

Xil and Zook exchanged a look.

“You don’t remember,” Xil said.

“No.”

“What songs?”

Mills stared at the fire.

“I don’t know.”

“You just said—”

“I heard them.”

His ruined voice fell almost to a whisper.

“I didn’t know them.”

Nobody spoke.

Mills rubbed one hand against his arm.

“The frogs would give me the food when I started hearing it.”

Xil felt cold despite the fire.

“Because the poison stopped the song.”

Mills looked at him.

“I thought it caused it.”

Perhaps it had.

Perhaps not.

They did not know enough.

Mills swallowed.

“Do I sound this bad?”

Jandar answered too quickly.

“No.”

Everyone looked at him.

Jandar sighed.

“Yes.”

Mills closed his eyes.

“That is cruel.”

“You asked.”

“I sing.”

“I assumed.”

“No.”

Mills touched his throat.

“That is what I do.”

There it was.

Not fear of dying.

Something smaller.

More personal.

Perhaps, to Mills, larger.

Xil understood.

A sword fighter who lost a hand.

A wizard whose magic went silent.

A cleric whose god stopped answering.

“You will sing again,” Xil said.

Mills looked at him.

Xil had not meant to promise it.

Too late.

“Are you sure?”

“No.”

Mills stared.

Xil continued.

“But I am going to try.”

“That is a terrible bedside manner.”

“I have been told.”

“By him?” Mills nodded toward Jandar.

“Frequently.”

“Then ignore him.”

Jandar looked offended.

“I saved you.”

“So I’m told.”

“Repeatedly.”

Mills closed his eyes.

“You seem like the kind of man who would mention it.”

Zook laughed.

Xil noticed Deacon smiling into the fire.

They had rescued a minstrel.

He was going to be a problem.

Xil took the last watch.

Not because Deacon assigned it.

Because he asked.

The others slept around the dying fire.

Zook had curled into a space that would barely have fit Deacon’s pack and appeared perfectly comfortable.

Vegon slept with his rescued notes beneath his bedroll.

Jandar had draped a cloth over his face in apparent replacement for the missing hat.

Deacon slept lightly even when exhausted. One hand remained close to the crossbow beside him.

Mills lay nearest Xil.

His breathing had improved.

Not enough.

Xil watched him.

Restoration.

The prayer existed in his memory.

Words were part of it.

So was faith.

But neither was the whole thing.

Magic had become unreliable across Istram long before Xil had reached the surface. Divine magic suffered less obviously than arcane power, but it was not untouched.

Sometimes prayers answered cleanly.

Sometimes something resisted.

Sometimes power arrived with edges that did not belong there.

The gods were not broken.

Xil believed that.

The paths to them might be.

He looked at his own hand.

Dark skin.

Long fingers.

A faint scar across one knuckle from a life no one in this cave knew very much about.

Restoration asked the caster to distinguish injury from alteration.

Not simply heal what hurt.

Recognize what did not belong.

Xil understood that idea better than he liked.

The surface had spent years telling him what did not belong.

A drow in daylight.

A drow cleric.

A drow walking openly through human settlements.

People looked at him and decided something must be wrong before he ever spoke.

Restoration was not making something resemble everyone else.

It was returning a thing to itself.

That distinction mattered.

Perhaps more than the prayer.

Mills moved.

His eyes opened.

“You don’t sleep?”

“I do.”

“Not convincingly.”

Xil looked toward the fire.

“You should.”

Mills was quiet.

Then:

“Are they always like this?”

Xil looked at him.

“Who?”

Mills moved one finger around the cave.

“Them.”

Xil considered.

“Yes.”

Mills smiled.

“The tall one argues about everything.”

“Vegon.”

“The little one thinks rescuing people is obvious.”

“Zook.”

“The old—”

Xil looked at him.

Mills reconsidered.

“The older one.”

“Better.”

“He watches everyone.”

“Deacon.”

“And Jandar thinks if he says something with enough confidence, it becomes true.”

Xil looked toward the sleeping human.

“Yes.”

Mills stared at the ceiling.

“You argue a lot.”

“Yes.”

“Thought you hated each other.”

Xil waited.

Mills smiled faintly.

“But you don’t.”

“No.”

“You argue like people who know the others will still be there tomorrow.”

Xil turned his head.

Mills’s eyes had closed again.

Perhaps he had already fallen asleep.

Xil looked around the cave.

At Deacon’s crossbow within reach.

Vegon’s notes beneath him.

Zook asleep near the entrance because he had chosen the place where he would hear anything approach.

Jandar’s sword resting across his lap even in sleep.

People who, not long ago, had been assignments.

Complications.

Strangers.

Xil disliked how accurate Mills had been.

Minstrels were dangerous.

Morning brought clarity.

Not weather.

The rain had stopped.

That seemed miraculous enough.

Xil knelt beside Mills.

The others gathered nearby.

Mills looked frightened now.

He tried to hide it.

Badly.

“Is this going to hurt?”

“I do not know.”

Jandar crouched behind him.

“His bedside manner has not improved.”

Xil looked at Jandar.

“Would you like to perform it?”

“No.”

“Then be quiet.”

Mills laughed once.

The sound rasped.

Xil placed one hand against his chest and the other near his throat.

“Do not fight it.”

“Very comforting.”

Xil closed his eyes.

He prayed.

Not loudly.

He did not need performance.

Divine power gathered slowly.

Warmth entered his palms.

Then resistance.

There.

The same wrongness he had felt before.

Not corruption exactly.

Foreign things layered through Mills’s body.

Poisons.

Several.

Xil could feel them not as substances but as effects.

Muscles commanded to remain still.

Thoughts pushed toward confusion.

Breath slowed.

Sensation muted.

A body being told, repeatedly, not to be itself.

Xil pushed deeper.

The magic resisted.

For one dangerous instant he felt the path slip.

Power could heal Mills.

That was not what he wanted.

Healing would mend damage caused by poison while leaving the poison itself.

He needed restoration.

Not repair.

Removal.

Remember yourself.

Xil did not know whether the thought was part of the prayer.

It became one.

Mills arched beneath his hands.

Jandar caught his shoulders.

“Xil.”

“Hold him.”

Dark veins appeared along Mills’s neck.

Zook moved closer.

Deacon did not.

He trusted Xil enough not to interfere.

That helped.

The divine power sharpened.

Xil found one alteration.

Then another.

He did not destroy them.

He separated them from Mills.

Showed the body where it ended and the poison began.

For one instant, Xil felt something else.

Farther away.

A thread.

Thin.

Black.

Leading beyond the cave.

North.

Something pulled.

Xil almost followed it.

Then Mills gasped.

The thread vanished.

Xil opened his eyes.

Mills rolled onto one side and vomited across the cave floor.

Jandar jumped backward.

“Oh, good.”

Zook grinned.

“That seems promising.”

Vegon stared.

“Why?”

“People who are dead usually don’t do that.”

“A remarkably low standard.”

Mills coughed.

Again.

Then inhaled.

Deeply.

The first full breath Xil had seen him take.

He touched his throat.

“Say something.”

Mills swallowed.

“What?”

The word came out rough.

But stronger.

His eyes widened.

Xil waited.

Mills tried again.

“My name is Mills.”

Clearer.

He smiled.

Then hummed one note.

It broke halfway through.

His smile faltered.

“Again,” Xil said.

Mills tried.

The note held.

Weak.

Imperfect.

His eyes filled with tears before he looked away.

Jandar suddenly became very interested in examining his boots.

Zook smiled openly.

Deacon nodded once.

Vegon watched Xil.

Not Mills.

Xil felt the last of the divine power fade.

Exhaustion followed.

“Better?” Mills asked.

Xil sat back.

“Yes.”

Mills touched his throat.

“You did it.”

“Mostly.”

“Mostly?”

“You are still annoying.”

Jandar laughed.

Mills smiled.

Then tried another note.

Stronger.

Not a song.

Not yet.

But a voice.

They ate before leaving.

Mills ate more than Zook.

This created immediate competition.

Xil refused to participate in judging it.

During the meal, Mills asked questions.

Too many.

“What happened before Ilbus?”

“No,” Vegon said.

Mills looked at him.

“I only asked—”

“No.”

Jandar smiled.

“He has learned.”

“Learned what?”

“That questions are dangerous.”

Vegon glared.

Mills looked delighted.

“Did you actually go to the bottom of the ocean?”

Jandar pointed at Vegon.

“His fault.”

“It was not my fault.”

“You activated it.”

“I did not design it.”

“Did you know it would move us?”

“No.”

Jandar looked at Mills.

“His fault.”

Mills nodded thoughtfully.

“And the volcano?”

“Also him.”

Vegon stood.

“I am leaving.”

Zook looked up from breakfast.

“We’re all leaving.”

Vegon sat again.

Mills began to laugh.

Then stopped.

“Wait.”

He looked between them.

“Volcano?”

Jandar smiled.

“Oh, now you’re interested.”

Mills reached automatically toward his belt.

Nothing was there.

“No instrument,” he said.

“You had one?” Zook asked.

“Lute.”

“Grung?”

“Probably.”

Jandar looked toward the south.

“No.”

Mills frowned.

“I did not ask anything.”

“We are not going back for the lute.”

“It was a good lute.”

“We already went back for you.”

Mills seemed to consider the relative value.

“That is fair.”

He found a piece of charcoal near the fire and a scrap of Vegon’s ruined parchment.

Vegon immediately objected.

“That is still usable.”

“It has water damage.”

“It contains notes.”

“It contains half a sentence about mud.”

“It may become relevant.”

Mills looked at Xil.

“Is he always like this?”

“Yes.”

Mills stole the corner anyway.

He began writing.

Not lyrics exactly.

Words.

Fragments.

Tavalon.

Blue stone.

Road beneath the world.

Five fools at the bottom of the sea.

Jandar leaned over.

“Fools?”

“Meter.”

“That is not a defense.”

“It is for a song.”

Vegon read the page.

“You cannot call it a blue stone. It was crystalline.”

Mills looked at him.

“Blue crystal.”

“Better.”

Jandar groaned.

“You’re helping.”

Vegon sat beside Mills.

“If you are going to record events, accuracy matters.”

Mills smiled.

Xil realized what had happened.

“Oh no.”

For the next twenty minutes, Vegon explained the Travel Stone.

Mills wrote almost none of the explanation down.

Jandar corrected Vegon’s version to make himself sound more heroic.

Deacon corrected Jandar.

Zook contributed details nobody else had noticed.

Mills listened.

Asked questions.

Made marks on the page.

Occasionally hummed a line and discarded it.

Nothing polished emerged.

Nothing that deserved to be called a ballad.

Only fragments.

But Xil understood what he was seeing.

Their experiences were becoming a story outside themselves.

That unsettled him.

There was power in stories.

Not magic.

Something less predictable.

People remembered stories differently from reports.

A Silver Crown report might say five operatives discovered a functioning pre-Sundering transport device.

A song might say five fools stepped onto a lost road and found an ocean waiting at the end.

Xil suspected the song would travel farther.

That made Mills potentially more important than any of them realized.

It also made him irritating.

Xil was beginning to understand why those qualities so often traveled together.

They left the cave late that morning.

Mills came with them.

No one debated it.

He was not strong enough to fight, but he could walk.

For now, that was enough.

The rain had stopped.

The swamp had not improved.

If anything, the absence of rain made the insects worse.

Within an hour, Jandar announced that he preferred drowning.

Within two, Vegon had killed three biting flies with magic and denied doing so.

By midday, the ground became harder to find.

Water spread between the trees in broad stagnant pools. Roots formed the only reliable footing.

Mills moved carefully between them.

Zook stayed close.

Deacon watched the trees.

Vegon watched everything that looked ancient.

Jandar watched his boots.

Xil watched Mills.

The minstrel tired quickly, but the stupor did not return.

Neither did the blackness in his eyes.

That was good.

The memory of the thread Xil had felt during the restoration was not.

North.

Something had been attached to Mills.

Or reaching for him.

Xil had broken it.

He thought.

That final uncertainty followed him for hours.

Near sunset, Zook stopped.

Xil almost walked into him.

“What?”

The gnome did not answer immediately.

He was looking through the trees.

Xil followed his gaze.

At first he saw only swamp.

Black water.

Vines.

Moss.

Cypress trunks.

Then the geometry emerged.

A straight line where nature preferred curves.

Stone.

Far ahead.

Barely visible through the trees.

Mills moved beside them.

“What is that?”

Vegon came forward.

His expression changed instantly.

“Structure.”

Deacon looked at him.

“Yes, Vegon.”

“No.”

The high elf pointed.

“Look at the height.”

More stone became visible as they moved.

Not a cottage.

Not a wall.

Something larger.

Much larger.

The upper edge rose above the swamp trees in the distance, dark against the pale evening sky.

Too straight.

Too deliberate.

Xil felt a pressure in his chest that had nothing to do with exhaustion.

Orozon.

They could not see the temple yet.

Not fully.

But after days of rain, poison, gnolls, grung and water, the first piece of it had finally appeared.

Mills stared ahead.

“That,” he said quietly, “looks like a song.”

Jandar stepped beside him.

“Try to survive it before you write the ending.”

Mills nodded.

“Good advice.”

Xil looked at the distant stone.

Something about it bothered him.

Not merely that it was ancient.

Tavalon had been ancient.

Tavalon looked old.

Broken.

Buried.

Defeated by four centuries.

This did not.

Even from here, the lines seemed too clean.

The stone rose from a place that should have swallowed it long ago.

The swamp grew over everything.

Trees.

Roads.

Ruins.

Bodies.

But ahead, stone stood above the water as though the centuries had passed around it.

Xil touched the holy symbol at his chest.

Behind them was a cave where divine power had restored a poisoned man.

Ahead waited the temple of a warlock remembered for twisting magic itself.

Mills hummed softly as they walked.

One unfinished line.

Then another.

A voice returned, but not yet a song.

Beyond the trees, more of the ancient stone emerged.

And for the first time since entering the Great Swamp, Xil wished the rain would start again.