The Emerald Scepter

The sickness was too strong.

Arbeenok opened his eyes and looked at his companions. Both were watching him intently. He had seen such looks before by those who had never heard him use his magic. He paid their stares no mind. "It ca

"Do it," Vambran said again, once more in that forceful, demanding tone. For him, failure was a fate too horrible to contemplate. Arbeenok could see that.

"It will not cure her," Arbeenok warned, wanting the soldier to understand that it was a temporary solution and would hold for a day at most. "She will still be ill, but the sickness will not… progress."

Vambran began nodding even before Arbeenok finished speaking. "Buy us time, that's good enough," he said. "And we'll go to the bottom of the Reach, burrow into the rock if we must in order to find whatever it is we're supposed to find."

Arbeenok smiled, glad that Vambran was ready to accept the alaghi's vision, to follow their entwined fates to their logical conclusions. "Yes," he said. Then he closed his eyes and began to sing once more, a different song, one to slow the poisons in Elenthia's body rather than drive them out. He felt the contagion begin to slumber, fall dormant. Satisfied, he finished the song, locking the magic in place for as long as he was able.

When it was done, Arbeenok opened his eyes and nodded to tell his companions so. The relief on both their faces was clear. "We must rest," he said.

"There's no time," Vambran argued, his intense eyes looking away to some distant place, not just in space but also in time. He was peering toward the future, always toward the future, trying to catch up to it and yet never seeing it as it went by. "We have to go, get out of the city. People are dying."

"No," Arbeenok said. He stood, then, pulling Vambran away from the woman, off to the side where they could talk alone. "We must rest. She must rest." Vambran stared hard at the alaghi for a long moment, his eyes glittering dangerously. "I have seen you yawn many times just since we arrived in this garden," the alaghi added. "When was the last time you slept?"

Vambran looked away. "I don't remember," he said, avoiding the question. "A lifetime ago."

"You have not slept since I met you, when you were dangling from a pole by your tied hands and feet, hardly a good bed. And that was in the small hours of this morning. How long before that?"

Vambran sighed. "Not since the ship," he said. "Not since two nights ago."

"You ca

Vambran sighed then, letting his shoulders slump. "All right," he agreed at last. "If she needs the rest, I could do with some as well. But we've got to find some place safe. Some place where we can defend her, you and I, without her needing to fight. Better yet, someplace where damnable zombies won't bother us at all."

Arbeenok looked toward the house. "Up there?" he asked, pointing to a second floor window that overlooked the garden. "I do not think the former owners will mind," he said.

Vambran nodded. "I'll take a look inside, just to make sure nothing is hiding in there. You stay here with her."

When the soldier was gone, Arbeenok sat beside Elenthia. She leaned against a tree, her breathing eased somewhat by the effects of Arbeenok's song, but it was still raspy. The alaghi thought it best not to discuss the sickness. "Do you love him?" he asked, thinking to begin a nice conversation.

"Vambran?" Elenthia replied, looking aghast. "Ilmater's mercy, no. He's… he's just a friend."

"But you are mates," Arbeenok said, puzzled. "I can sense it in the way you look at one another. You have shared a bed."

Elenthia blushed slightly. "Yes, we have," she admitted. "But only as friends. Our lives are much too different. He visits me from time to time, and I enjoy his company when he comes to Reth. That's all."

Arbeenok considered the woman's words for a few moments. "It must be that way between Vambran and Shinthala, too."

"Pardon me?" Elenthia said, looking sharply at the alaghi. "Who in the Nine Hells is Shinthala?"

"Shinthala Deepcrest, Grand Cabal of the Emerald Enclave. They, too, are friends."

"I see," Elenthia said, but her tone was strangely flat. "So, he's bedding a druid, is he?"

Arbeenok looked at the woman strangely, not understanding the question, but at that moment, Vambran returned.

"The house is empty, save for a few unfortunate souls in one downstairs room. I checked to make sure they were really dead." His eyes flickered away for a moment, gazing into that invisible distance. "It was the rest of the family," he concluded, his voice thick.

Together, Vambran and Arbeenok carried Elenthia up to a bedroom and laid her on a thick, soft mattress. Vambran settled onto a divan against the wall, facing Elenthia as though to watch over her. The alaghi saw her give him one curiously unpleasant stare, and she turned her back on him, wrapped the silk sheet about herself, and closed her eyes.

Vambran was breathing slowly and softly a moment later.

So they rested, with the alaghi keeping watch, listening for the approach of enemies, of undead, of anything that would disturb them. Outside, beyond the garden wall, fires still burned everywhere in the city. Occasionally, shouts rose from down in the streets, though Arbeenok could not see what transpired there. Nothing came to disturb them.

Arbeenok felt a small amount of gladness in watching his companions sleep, for their faces were peaceful. He was thankful that he had done something, some small thing, to thwart the terrible sickness, to thwart the strange men of the cities who had brought it.

The three of them remained in sheltered quiet for several hours. At last, Arbeenok spied the sun begi

CHAPTER 7

Pilos peered through the cracked doorway out into the hall beyond, but no one stood near. Sighing with relief, he shut the portal again and made certain that it latched properly.

"Must have been some stray draft, blowing the door open," he said as he returned to the far end of the room, well away from the door. "There was nothing out there."

Pilos and Quill, along with Hetta-still hosted inside Laithe the wizard's body-had retreated to the library where the young priest and Emriana had hidden before, when they had been searching the Generon for Xaphira. After failing to locate the mirror in which Emriana was trapped, they had decided to hide out for a while and plan their next move.

Hetta had located a set of keys in the prison chamber that freed the two men from their manacles, for which Pilos was truly thankful. His wrists and ankles were sore and bruised from being jerked and banged about by the metal. Once they had the restraints off, they wasted no time departing the dungeon, retracing the path the Abreeant and the girl had originally taken to get down there.

"Why don't you tell me exactly what has happened here?" Hetta demanded, standing over Quill, who sat leaning against one of the bookshelves, looking forlorn. "Start from last evening, when you met with my daughter and granddaughter, and don't you dare leave anything out."