The Forgotten Shrine

The dead led them north.

Xil could think of no better way to describe it, though Deacon objected whenever anyone did.

“They aren't leading us,” he said late on the second morning. “I hear them. That's all.”

Zook glanced back from the narrow trail. “And when they get louder, which way are we going?”

Deacon did not answer.

Jandar smiled. “That sounds suspiciously like leading.”

Deacon kept walking.

The road out of Oron had vanished before the first day ended. What remained was little more than an old cut through the foothills, its stones buried beneath roots and soil. The ruined city had fallen behind them, replaced by steep forest and outcroppings of dark rock that rose through the trees. For the first time since reaching the island, they had climbed high enough to escape most of the mist. Pale sunlight reached the slopes in broken shafts, weak but still bright enough that Xil kept his hood drawn well forward.

The clear air should have made the island feel less oppressive.

It did not.

Deacon had slept badly again. Xil could see it in the slight heaviness of his steps and in the way the older fighter occasionally stopped with his head tilted, listening to voices no one else could hear.

Aaron Silverhand had not appeared again.

Neither had any of the other spirits.

They remained close enough that Deacon sometimes caught fragments from them, but never enough for a conversation. Once he heard his own name. Twice he stopped because he thought someone had called a warning.

Nothing followed.

Nothing appeared.

By midday, Deacon had stopped telling them when it happened.

Xil understood that response better than he liked.

Some burdens became easier to carry once no one asked about them.

His own had acquired a new shape in Ilbus.

Your mother is looking for you.

Days had passed since the drow attackers entered his room. He had crossed a sea, fought creatures that could call lightning, walked through a dead city and watched a thing climb inside Deacon's body.

None of it had made the statement less impossible.

His mother was alive.

Perhaps.

The surviving attacker had believed it.

That did not make it true.

Xil had spent enough years among drow politics to know that truth was rarely required for a useful lie.

He had also spent enough years away from them to recognize when he was using that knowledge to avoid thinking about something.

Ahead, Zook stopped.

The gnome crouched beside the trail.

Deacon immediately raised his crossbow.

“What?”

Zook touched the ground.

“Tracks.”

Jandar looked down.

“I see dirt.”

“That's because you're very talented.”

Mills laughed quietly.

Jandar ignored him.

Zook moved several feet into the brush, following impressions Xil could barely distinguish from the surrounding soil.

“Four,” he said.

“People?” Deacon asked.

“No.”

The gnome stood.

“Dogs, maybe.”

“Normal dogs?”

Zook looked toward the trees.

“No.”

Jandar sighed.

“Of course not.”

The first growl came from the west.

A second answered farther north.

Then a third.

Xil brought his shield around and reached instinctively for divine power.

The response came with the now-familiar resistance.

A hesitation in the world.

The magic did not fail, but for one unpleasant moment it felt as though his prayer had been spoken through water. Power gathered around him slowly, tainted at its edges by something he could neither identify nor remove.

The others were already spreading out.

They had stopped needing to discuss that part.

Deacon found elevation beside a fallen tree. Zook disappeared into the brush. Vegon moved behind a broad section of rock where he could see the trail without standing exposed. Jandar remained close to Xil and Mills, though Xil suspected the swashbuckler would describe his position differently if asked.

The first creature emerged between the trees.

It had two heads.

Both were watching them.

Its body was shaped like a large hound, but there was too much bone beneath the hide and something diseased in the patchy fur. Saliva hung in strings from two sets of jaws.

Mills stared.

“I don't suppose they're friendly.”

One head snarled.

The other barked.

Jandar drew his rapier.

“That feels like a no.”

Three more shapes moved among the trees.

Then they came.

The fight was short and ugly.

The hounds attacked without fear, splitting around the party instead of rushing together. One went directly for Vegon and nearly reached him before Deacon's bolt struck through its shoulder. Another lunged for Mills, forcing Jandar between them with barely enough time to turn the first bite aside.

Zook fought from the flank, appearing from brush only long enough to loose an arrow or cut at a passing leg before vanishing again. He moved through the forest with a confidence Xil envied.

The island made sense to Zook even when nothing else did.

One of the hounds reached Xil.

The first head snapped at his shield.

The second went low.

Teeth closed around his thigh.

Pain flashed white.

Xil struck downward with his weapon, caught the creature across one skull and felt bone give beneath the blow. The other head twisted toward him.

Something burned in the wound.

Not ordinary pain.

Sickness.

Xil knew poison well enough to recognize its approach before it spread. Heat crawled outward beneath his skin.

He called on divine power.

For himself this time.

The magic answered reluctantly, then surged through the bite. The spreading heat stopped.

The hound did not.

Jandar's moon-touched rapier entered behind one shoulder.

Zook's arrow struck the opposite side almost simultaneously.

The creature collapsed.

Xil looked toward them.

Jandar pulled his sword free.

“We coordinated that.”

Zook was already turning toward another target.

“No, we didn't.”

“It looked coordinated.”

“That isn't the same thing.”

Deacon killed the final hound before Jandar could answer.

The bolt entered through one throat and ended whatever argument the creature's two heads might have been having about which of them should attack first.

Silence returned to the forest.

Xil looked down at the bite.

Blood darkened his trousers.

Zook came closer.

“Poison?”

“Something like it.”

“Can you fix it?”

“I already did.”

Jandar looked at the dead hounds.

“Do we know what those are?”

Vegon emerged from behind the rock.

“Death dogs.”

Jandar looked at him.

“You knew that before?”

“I suspected.”

“When?”

“When I saw them.”

“That information feels more useful before they bite us.”

Vegon adjusted the strap of his pack.

“I assumed the two heads and diseased appearance were sufficient warning.”

Mills nodded thoughtfully.

“They were.”

Jandar looked around.

“Wonderful. Everyone agrees with Vegon.”

Deacon had not joined them.

He stood several yards farther up the trail.

Listening.

Xil noticed first.

“Deacon?”

The fighter raised one hand.

His face tightened.

Then he looked north.

“That way.”

Jandar glanced at Xil.

Xil said nothing.

Deacon noticed.

“They're louder.”

“How much louder?” Zook asked.

“Enough.”

No one called it leading.

They simply followed.

The path climbed steadily through the afternoon.

By four o'clock the forest had thinned enough that Xil could see the line of the mountains beyond the trees. The island rose sharply inland, its central heights dark beneath clouds gathering against the peaks.

The spirits drew Deacon west.

Or Deacon followed the road west while the spirits happened to complain more loudly in that direction.

Xil had stopped arguing over the distinction.

They found the first brazier near the top of a long stone stair.

It stood on a square plinth nearly swallowed by moss. The metal bowl above it had rusted through in several places, but enough remained to show that fire had once burned there.

Another stood farther up.

Then another.

Zook studied the ground between them.

“No recent tracks.”

“That sounds promising,” Mills said.

Zook looked at him.

“It means whatever is here doesn't use the path.”

Mills reconsidered.

“Less promising.”

The stairs rose toward open sky.

Xil felt the place before he saw it.

Not magic.

He was no longer willing to trust his instincts enough to call every sensation magic.

This was something else.

Arrangement.

Intent.

The land had been shaped here.

The stairs ended on a broad plateau extending out from the mountainside, high above the forested valley. Wind moved across the open stone, carrying away the last of the mist.

Large upright stones surrounded the plateau.

Some had fallen.

Others remained in pairs, supporting massive horizontal slabs across their tops. Their surfaces were cracked and weathered, but the geometry survived: a circle of ancient stone framing the sky.

Near the outer edge stood two statues.

Or what remained of them.

One had lost its head and much of one side. The other had eroded so badly that Xil could no longer tell whether it had depicted a man, woman or something else.

At the center of the plateau rested a low stone block covered in faded markings.

Around it stood smaller plinths.

Each supported a black sphere.

Jandar stopped.

“I don't like those.”

Vegon looked at him.

“You don't know what they are.”

“I have become comfortable disliking mysterious black objects before they prove dangerous.”

“That is surprisingly reasonable.”

“Thank you.”

“It was not a compliment.”

Jandar smiled anyway.

Xil moved toward the center.

The spheres were smooth, dark enough that they seemed to absorb the afternoon light, though when Vegon cast his spell to detect magic his expression became confused.

“Well?”

Deacon asked.

Vegon walked slowly around the nearest plinth.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“They are not magical.”

Jandar looked at the sphere.

“Then I dislike them for ordinary reasons.”

Vegon ignored him.

The central stone interested Xil more.

Old markings covered its upper surface, almost erased by centuries of weather. He brushed moss from one edge.

Not Common.

Not Elvish.

Not Undercommon.

The forms were angular but flowing, repeated in patterns that suggested language rather than decoration.

“Can you read it?” Zook asked.

“No.”

Vegon came beside him.

Neither could he.

Xil looked beyond the stones toward the valley.

Something about the place reminded him of shrines he had seen on the surface, though its openness felt alien after the enclosed worship spaces of his youth. No roof separated the supplicant from the sky. No walls controlled approach or departure.

The stones defined sacred ground without imprisoning it.

“Nature worship,” he said.

Vegon looked toward him.

“You're certain?”

“No.”

Xil moved around the central stone.

“The orientation. The open sky. The lack of enclosed sanctuary. Possibly something tied to land, seasons or weather.”

Jandar looked over the cliff.

“Do they worship falling?”

“Only briefly,” Deacon said.

Jandar glanced at him.

A tired smile touched the older fighter's face.

Good.

Xil knelt beside the stone.

Something was wrong here.

Not visible.

Not yet.

The shrine had been abandoned, but abandonment was not the same as desecration. He had stood in forgotten temples before. Old sanctity tended to fade gently when no one remained to tend it.

This felt wounded.

He placed one hand against the stone.

Cold.

Nothing else.

Xil closed his eyes.

His mother came to him unexpectedly.

Not her face.

A memory of ritual.

His childhood had contained ceremonies long before he understood what any of them meant. Sacred words spoken beneath stone. Offerings placed with exact precision. Blood when tradition demanded it. Silence when priestesses entered.

Faith in Silnorith had rarely been gentle.

Perhaps that was why Xil had learned to value the forms that were.

A sacred place did not have to be his sacred place for desecration to offend him.

He opened his pack and removed a small flask of holy water.

Jandar saw it.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying something.”

“That answer has caused us problems before.”

Vegon crouched near the markings.

“What do you expect it to do?”

“I don't know.”

Jandar stepped away from the central stone.

“At least he admits it.”

Xil ignored him.

The shrine had belonged to something once.

Whatever had happened here, he could at least offer a gesture toward restoring what had been defiled.

He poured the holy water across the weathered runes.

For half a heartbeat, nothing happened.

Then darkness erupted from beneath him.

It did not fall.

It rose.

Black vapor poured through cracks in the stone and twisted around Xil's legs. The daylight vanished as though extinguished, not only dimmed but erased. Wind disappeared. The mountains, the sky and his companions were swallowed.

Voices came with the dark.

Whispers.

Hundreds of them.

Xil recoiled.

The darkness burned.

Not with heat.

Acidic cold crawled across exposed skin, biting wherever the black vapor touched him.

Someone shouted his name.

Jandar.

Close.

Xil could not see him.

A shape formed inside the darkness.

Human.

Dead.

It rose from behind the central stone in ruined robes, flesh drawn tight across a face that had forgotten life centuries ago. Pale light burned deep within its eyes.

Power radiated from it.

Corrupted.

Not like the taint.

Older.

Deliberate.

Xil knew immediately what his holy water had done.

He had not cleansed the shrine.

He had disturbed what was bound to it.

The dead mage raised one hand.

Xil felt magic gather.

“Move!”

A crossbow cracked through the darkness.

Deacon.

The bolt struck.

The spell broke.

The darkness vanished.

Daylight returned so suddenly that Xil flinched.

The dead mage stood near the center of the shrine, one bolt buried in its chest.

Deacon fired again.

The second struck its shoulder.

Whatever dead thing inhabited the body recoiled, and Xil saw something like fear enter its face.

Deacon advanced.

“Stay down.”

The creature answered in a language none of them understood.

Then another corpse climbed from behind the stone ring.

This one wore the remnants of armor.

Unlike the mage, it did not speak.

It crossed the plateau in a blur of unnatural movement and appeared beside Xil before he could turn.

Its claw struck his chest.

Cold spread through him.

Not across his skin.

Through him.

Xil gasped.

Something was being pulled away.

Strength.

Life.

He struck back with his weapon, but the creature twisted aside.

Jandar arrived next.

The moon-touched rapier cut through the undead thing's side, silver light flaring along the wound.

The creature hissed.

Jandar smiled without humor.

“That bothered you.”

It attacked him.

Xil stepped away and tried to breathe.

His limbs felt heavier.

The claw had done more than injure him. He could feel absence where vitality should have been, as if some portion of him had been extinguished rather than wounded.

Healing might restore flesh.

He was not sure it could restore that.

The dead mage moved.

One moment it stood beside the central stone.

The next it vanished into pale mist and reappeared beside Vegon.

Vegon barely had time to react.

A claw struck him.

The wizard stumbled.

His face went white.

Jandar swore.

Zook rushed toward Vegon while Deacon shifted aim.

The fight separated into two fronts.

That was dangerous.

They had become good at concentrating their strength. They did poorly when forced to divide it.

Xil reached for divine power.

The taint answered.

He felt it twist through his prayer, contaminating something that should have been clear.

For one instant anger overwhelmed caution.

Not at the island.

Not at the undead.

At magic itself.

Every prayer now required negotiation with something broken.

He forced the frustration aside and raised his holy symbol.

“Enough.”

Divine power rolled outward.

The armored corpse recoiled.

The dead mage did not.

Xil felt resistance slam back against him.

Neither fled.

So much for that.

Jandar attacked the armored one again, forcing it away from Xil. Zook joined him, striking from the opposite side. They moved with the same instinctive coordination Xil had watched growing since the swamp.

Mills remained near the stairs.

Wise.

He had his dagger out anyway.

Less wise.

Deacon concentrated on the mage.

A bolt struck its thigh.

Another hit the torso.

The creature raised one hand toward him, but Deacon did not allow it time to complete whatever spell it intended.

He fired again.

The mage staggered.

“You're frightening it,” Jandar called.

Deacon reloaded.

“Good.”

The armored corpse caught Jandar across the shoulder.

He spun with the hit rather than fighting it, turned the movement into distance and came back inside the creature's reach before it recovered.

The rapier flashed.

Zook struck low.

The corpse stumbled.

Xil's spectral weapon appeared beside its head and crashed into it from the opposite side.

The undead thing fell to one knee.

It did not stay there.

Vegon shouted.

Xil turned.

The mage had reached him again.

Vegon's shield spell flared into existence just before a dead hand struck. Arcane force bent around him. The impact drove him backward but did not reach flesh.

For an instant something else appeared around Vegon as well.

The reflexive distortion Eticus had called arcane deflection.

The War Mage discipline.

Two defenses overlapped.

Vegon looked almost as surprised as the creature.

Then his surprise became anger.

Arcane force exploded from his hand.

The dead mage flew backward.

Deacon shot it before it landed.

It struck the stone and collapsed.

Its body began to come apart almost immediately, dissolving into dark vapor that the wind tore away.

One remained.

The armored corpse turned toward Xil.

Its dead eyes fixed on him.

Xil understood.

He had woken them.

It came for him.

Jandar moved to intercept, but the creature drove him aside with one arm.

Zook attacked from behind.

The blade cut deep.

Still the corpse advanced.

Xil held his ground.

He could have stepped back.

Probably should have.

Instead he thought of the shrine beneath the black spheres, of sacred ground occupied by something that had twisted death into imprisonment.

He thought of the spirits following Deacon.

Dead who could not rest.

Perhaps the two things were unrelated.

Perhaps not.

Either way, Xil had spent too much of his life watching corruption claim places and people because everyone else accepted that nothing could be done.

The creature reached him.

Xil called the spectral weapon down.

At the same moment Deacon fired.

The bolt entered the corpse through the side of its skull.

Divine force struck from above.

The undead thing collapsed at Xil's feet.

For several breaths, no one moved.

Then Jandar pointed at the body.

“Dead?”

Vegon leaned against one of the stone uprights.

“It was dead before.”

“You know what I mean.”

The corpse dissolved.

Jandar nodded.

“Good.”

The whispering stopped.

Real wind returned to the plateau.

Xil stood above the central stone, breathing harder than he should have been.

The emptiness inside him remained.

He touched the place where the undead claw had struck.

Xil knew his own body well enough to recognize that something had been diminished. Not permanently, he hoped, but more deeply than a cut or bruise.

He would recover.

The thought lacked conviction.

Mills approached carefully.

“Is pouring holy water on things usually that exciting?”

Xil looked at him.

“No.”

Jandar wiped his rapier clean.

“It is now.”

Deacon moved toward the edge of the plateau.

His attention had gone distant again.

Xil noticed.

“The voices?”

Deacon nodded.

“What are they saying?”

The fighter listened.

For several seconds his expression gave away nothing.

Then he looked toward the central stone.

“They stopped.”

Zook frowned.

“Stopped completely?”

“Quiet.”

Xil looked at the shrine.

Black spheres still rested on their plinths.

The runes remained unreadable.

Yet the atmosphere had changed.

He felt it now.

The wound in the place had closed.

Not healed.

But emptied.

Whatever had been bound here was gone.

Vegon had reached the same conclusion.

“That was not random.”

Jandar sighed.

“Nothing we meet anymore seems to be random.”

“The darkness came from the central stone when Xil attempted to reconsecrate it.”

“I was standing here. I noticed.”

Vegon ignored him.

“The undead were either bound to this shrine or using whatever corruption had settled here.”

Xil crouched beside the stone again.

The remaining holy water had run into the grooves of the old markings.

For the first time he noticed a pattern.

Not letters.

A repeated shape.

Branches.

Or roots.

Perhaps lightning.

He traced one with a finger.

“This place wasn't theirs.”

Vegon nodded.

“No.”

“So they took it.”

“Or corrupted it after whoever worshipped here disappeared.”

Xil looked out over the valley.

Oron lay somewhere beyond the hills behind them, hidden by forest and distance.

A dead city.

A corrupted shrine.

Spirits who had waited centuries.

The pieces still did not form a picture.

But they had begun to resemble one another.

Jandar moved to the cliff's edge.

He looked down.

Then immediately moved back.

“Very scenic.”

Mills joined him.

“How far?”

“Far enough that I am not demonstrating.”

Deacon glanced at them.

“Disappointing.”

Jandar looked offended.

“You were the one who tried to kill us yesterday.”

The words came out lightly.

The silence afterward did not.

Jandar's expression shifted.

“Sorry.”

Deacon considered him.

Then said, “You'd have deserved it.”

Jandar smiled.

The moment passed.

Xil watched them and wondered when that had become something the group could do—touch a wound without reopening it.

Perhaps somewhere between Arrowdale and the swamp.

Perhaps they had simply accumulated enough wounds that avoiding all of them had become impossible.

Zook began checking the perimeter.

“We can camp here.”

Jandar stared at him.

“We were attacked by dead spellcasters because Xil sprinkled water on a rock.”

“They're gone.”

“You don't know that.”

Zook looked around.

“Do you see more?”

“No.”

“Then they're gone.”

Jandar turned toward Deacon.

“Why is everyone becoming him?”

Deacon sat beside one of the fallen stones.

“Because he's usually right.”

“That is deeply upsetting.”

They stayed.

The plateau offered visibility in every direction and only one easy approach from below. Zook declared it the best defensive position they had found since leaving the Wind Dancer.

No one poured anything on anything else.

By sunset, the clouds around the mountain peaks had thickened.

Mist filled the valleys below them but did not climb to the shrine.

Mills played softly near the old stones.

No song about heroes.

No joke about the Hand.

Just music.

His voice joined it once.

One line.

Quiet.

Rough around the edges.

But it held.

Xil did not look at him.

Neither did Jandar.

That seemed important.

Deacon took first watch.

Xil joined him shortly after dark.

The fighter sat near the edge of the plateau, crossbow across his knees.

“The spirits still quiet?”

“Yes.”

“Does that concern you?”

“Yes.”

At least he answered quickly.

Xil sat beside him.

Below them, moonlight touched the upper layer of mist, turning the valleys into pale rivers between black hills.

For a long time neither spoke.

Then Deacon said, “They wanted us here.”

Xil looked toward him.

“You're sure?”

“No.”

An unusual admission.

Deacon continued.

“But they grew louder the closer we got.”

“Until the undead died.”

“Yes.”

Xil considered the shrine behind them.

“Maybe Aaron and the others were trying to warn you.”

“Maybe.”

“Or guide you.”

Deacon sighed.

“We agreed not to call it that.”

“You agreed.”

“That should have been enough.”

Xil almost smiled.

Deacon looked toward the mountains.

“What bothers me is that they went quiet.”

“Perhaps we did what they wanted.”

“Then why not tell me?”

“Can Aaron speak whenever he wants?”

Deacon thought about that.

“No.”

“Then perhaps he can't.”

The fighter nodded slowly.

The answer did not satisfy him.

It did not satisfy Xil either.

Xil leaned back against the stone.

“My mother may be alive.”

Deacon turned.

Xil had not intended to say it.

That annoyed him.

Deacon waited.

Xil looked out over the valley rather than at him.

“I spent years knowing she was dead.”

“Knowing?”

“Believing.”

“Different.”

“Yes.”

Deacon did not ask whether Xil wanted her alive.

Xil appreciated that.

After a while Deacon said, “Dead people are becoming unreliable.”

Xil looked at him.

For perhaps three seconds Deacon remained completely serious.

Then Xil laughed.

Quietly.

The sound surprised both of them.

“Jandar is affecting you.”

“Don't say that.”

They returned to silence.

Sometime after midnight, Deacon stiffened.

Xil saw it immediately.

“What?”

The fighter stood.

The spirits had returned.

Xil did not need to ask.

Deacon's face told him.

“How many?”

“I don't know.”

“Can you understand them?”

Deacon looked north.

Toward the mountains.

For several seconds he listened.

Then one word escaped him.

“Danger.”

Xil rose.

Behind them, Zook stirred in his sleep.

Deacon's hand tightened around his crossbow.

“Not here.”

Xil followed his gaze.

“Where?”

Deacon listened again.

The answer came slowly.

“North.”

The dead had brought them to a forgotten shrine and gone silent while they cleansed it.

Now they were speaking again.

Whatever waited farther into the island frightened men who had already survived death.

Xil looked toward the dark mountains.

By morning, they would follow.