Son of Thunder (28 page)

“Yes, Berun indeed,” hissed the woman. “A name that has floated through the ages misremembered and distorted. The Bey was ancient even for us, his true name lost to history, but it is known that he fled dead Netheril, leading our ancestors west from that fallen land.”

“With the Heart of Runlatha,” extrapolated Kellin. “And in Delzoun, the dwarves tied its magic to that of the axe you carry. The axe serves as a key,” she went on. “It can dissolve the illusions. It can, and it did.”

The Shepherdess nodded sadly. “With the axe in his hand, Bey battled the foul three who troubled his people, giving his own life to defeat Zukothoth.” Vell realized that he must have caught a glimpse of that ancient battle in the Fountains of Memory, where it rippled like an afterthought. What a wonder! To lay eyes upon the Bey of legend!

“The axe was recovered by his followers and held as sacred, as they tamed the land. The weapon of the truest of heroes, it craves heroism from those who wield it. Its true powers lie dormant in the hands of mediocre men like your chiefs, though it twists the minds of the weak, always seeking a stronger wielder.”

“And the Heart of Runlatha?” prompted Thanar.

“It has preserved us.”

“And with it gone…”

“Yes,” the Shepherd said. “We will die.”

“A pity,” said Thanar. This provoked a dark glare from the Shepherd.

“Magic!” cursed Thluna. “The unreliability of magic! No wonder Sungar disposed of the axe—would that it had stayed lost.”

“Sungar!” the female Shepherd shouted. This was the strongest anger they’d heard from the ancients—she shouted the name like an epithet. “Wolfkiller! The blame is his! Where is he? He left our secrets ripe for the pillage.”

“He lies in the hands of our enemies,” Rask Urgek said. “We can only guess that, if he lives, he is in the dungeons of Llorkh.”

“Llorkh.” The name was whispered among the other Shepherds, still standing nearby in the marsh. “This orc-man speaks a name we have heard already,”, said the male Shepherd, pointing at the soldier displayed on the phandar tree. “That is where our behemoths are, and the Heart with it. The survivor of this invasion, save the dark lady who fled by magic, revealed their plans to us.”

“A fine burial you gave him,” Rask said, eyeing the disgusting spectacle. “A thousand years of isolation has clearly caused your souls to atrophy.” The Shepherds did not blink an eye in response to his insult.

Thluna asked, “Why do you not take your powers back from Vell?”

“They cannot,” said Kellin. “Not without the Heart.”

The male Shepherd nodded.

“As it always was with magic,” Thluna told him. “You relied on it—you based your existence around it. And it has failed you.”

“You have failed us,” the Shepherd retorted. “You have all failed us.”

“I’m curious,” said Kellin. “Did you mean to summon me here as well, or was that an accident?”

“It was not our intention,” said the Shepherd woman. “Our contact with the world outside this Sanctuary was limited. We could not…”

“You could not send clear messages, obviously,” said Thanar. “Why say, ‘Find the living’? Why not say, ‘Come to the shadow of the easternmost Star Mount’? Why not, ‘Recover the lost axe’?”

“Our ability to act was limited,” came the answer. The man hesitantly went on. “The shard of your totem that remains in our possession is limited indeed.”

“What can this mean?” asked Vell. “What shard of our totem?”

“I can explain,” said Kellin. “At least, I’ll try. Before the coming of Uthgar, the barbarians of the North—Netherese-blooded survivors from the exodus of Runlatha—worshiped powerful nature spirits rather than gods. This was common in those days. There were fewer gods then, and the conditions of the gods’ existence were less stringent, as they were not bound by Ao to their followers. You know the names of these totem spirits—Blue Bear, Black Raven, Elk, Red Tiger, and more, and of course the Thunderbeast. When Uthgar became a god, his tribal followers began to worship him and their totems at once, so they became aspects of Uthgar: fragments of his personality representing different tribes.

“We know that worshipers can be stolen away, as the Blue Bear tribe was by Malar. When none of the Blue Bear tribe worshiped Uthgar any longer, the Blue Bear itself no longer represented him, but became part of the Beastlord instead. So, too, is it possible for new totems to be added, as with the Tree Ghosts,” she explained, looking to Rask. “But this place is special. For the most part, worship of the Thunderbeast flowed to Uthgar, but a portion of it trickled here instead. Therefore, the Shepherds have some ability to act through the Thunderbeast outside of Uthgar’s authority—perhaps even without his knowledge.”

“The Thunderbeast is more legitimately ours than Uthgar’s,” said the male Shepherd haughtily. “Our claim is prior. We of Netheril’s line possess nobility the Ruathan race could never possess.”

Thluna paced for a moment, but his youth got the better of him and he delivered a punch to the Shepherd’s chin.

The old man crumbled, falling to his knees. “A bold blow,” he cursed through clenched teeth, “against a defenseless opponent.”

“You deceived our tribe into believing it was given a summons from the divine!” Thluna shouted. “You have masqueraded as the spirit of our tribe for far too long! We lost warriors fighting your fight for you, and our shaman as well. Our tribe is left weak in a time of danger. Worst of all, you twisted us into believing we were doing Uthgar’s work, while instead we were serving ancient rivals of his.” He snatched up the greataxe lying at his feet. “You deserve this axe in your skull.” He turned and walked away, back toward the pass that had led them there.

Vell caught up to him across the high mountain field. “We must continue with our mission,” he said.

“Why should we, Vell?” asked Thluna. “Do they not deserve their fate?”

“They do, but the behemoths do not. They are blameless.”

“They are beasts,” Thluna replied, but when he saw the anger rise in Vell’s eyes, he amended his statement. “Sacred beasts, truly, and in some ways our kindred. But can I justify marching our warriors into a city of darkness? Surely that will bring doom down on our tribe more swiftly”

“And Sungar?” asked Vell. “What of him?”

The question gave Thluna pause. “We do not know if Sungar still lives.”

“We do not know that he doesn’t. Kellin, Thanar, Rask, and the rest… I am certain that all of them will be willing to make the trip to Llorkh. They will not refuse because the journey serves the Shepherds as well.”

Thluna closed his eyes and nodded. “In addition to everything else, Vell, the beast inside you… they put it there.”

“And they can take it away,” said Vell. “If we aid them.”

“We came into the forest looking for answers. Looking for a destiny.” Thluna frowned. “I said that myself, did I not? That our destiny would be found in the High Forest. And so it was. I wonder if we should never have come here.”

He cast a glance back at the Sanctuary. The menhir standing at its center looked so much like those at Morgur’s Mound and at a dozen other sites sacred to the Uthgardt. The Shepherds seemed to have vanished; how did they live in this marsh? How did they survive? What did they use for food? What would they do now that the marsh was cold and their protection gone?

Next to the great phandar tree stood Thluna’s companions, including the three Uthgardt warriors who had come so far without complaint. Ilskar, Hengin, and Draf represented the characteristics of the Thunderbeast tribe: sturdy and solid, largely silent in the face of orders from their chief, and willing to march and die at his whim.

“We have the answers now, wretched though they may be,” Thluna told Vell. “How can they be our ancestors? How could we have come from them?” A new thought dawned on him. “What will our tribesmen think if they learn all this? Must we keep the truth from them?”

“A question for a chief,” said Vell. “Chieftains face difficult decisions, as Sungar did that day in the Fallen Lands. I was not there, but I heard what happened. Many questioned his decision to throw the axe away, but I did not think it was my place to question that decision.”

“He made the wrong choice,” Thluna said, looking down at the axe in his hands. “But I understand why he made it.”

“This is your decision,” said Vell. “We will follow you. Back to our people, to tell them what you will; or onward to Llorkh, a city completely unknown to us, to death or glory, and to that destiny we came seeking.”

Thluna forced a smile. “I have little choice,” he said, “when you put it that way.”

Thluna faced the marsh, and the Shepherds approached him once again. His seven companions clustered about him.

“I have made a decision,” he said, holding the ancient axe. “We will go to Llorkh and reclaim that which was taken from you. We will bring it back here.”

The Shepherds seemed unimpressed. “Do you believe you can do this?”

“We believe we must try,” Thluna answered. “But there is one condition.”

“Which is?”

“This Heart of Runlatha obviously holds great power,” said Kellin. “Now that the outside world knows of its existence, it will be doubly difficult to keep yourselves secret. All avenues must be closed.”

“Therefore,” concluded Thluna, “we will leave this axe with you inside the Sanctuary. Forever.”

The Shepherds looked at each other then nodded to the Thunderbeasts. “This is well.”

“And something further,” said Vell. “You must renounce all claims on the Thunderbeast tribe and on our totem. Abandon this ‘shard of the spirit’ you have used to mislead us. We cannot have you interfering in our affairs any further.”

This brought a violent reaction from the Shepherds. “Our claims are older than yours!” one roared. “We cannot forsake them simply because you ask it!”

“It is our price,” said Thluna.

The druid Thanar added, “It is not often that fate affords the opportunity to bargain with one’s own past.”

“You will fail,” predicted another of the Shepherds. “You have failed already, and you will fail again. Any bargain is immaterial.”

“Then it should not matter if you enter one,” said Thluna. “Swear. Who else will help you? Or shall we just leave you here to die?”

They sneered, then with great reluctance they relented with the slightest of nods. “May the gods speed you to Llorkh,” one of them said.

“Any god but Uthgar?” asked Thluna. He turned his back to the Shepherds and led his followers away; they did not look back.

The Central Square in Llorkh had been emptied of its usual town market, but now it held more folk than ever. Onlookers swarmed around its edges where the Lord’s Men stood guard, all hoping to catch a glimpse of the strange newcomers. The exotic lizards, each taller than the buildings that surrounded them, were tethered by magic. Each behemoth wore an iron ring around a hind ankle, connected by a massive chain to a stone post in the middle of the square. The chains were enchanted to dissolve flesh that touched them, lest any fool try to release the behemoths. The chains were only long enough for the creatures to reach feed bins placed at the square’s edges by some brave Lord’s Men.

The great beasts occasionally raised their feet, pulling the chains to their tightest and lifting them off the ground, but the chains could not be broken. And as long as the lizards bore the rings around their ankles, they could not lift more than one foot off the ground at any time. The magical formulation had proven to be simple but effective, for which Geildarr was vastly proud.

From the heights of the Lord’s Keep, Geildarr enjoyed stepping onto his balcony and watching the behemoths. He never tired of watching them. A honey-colored bird alighted on the balcony’s rail and chirped merrily; its cheerful song echoed in Geildarr’s heart.

The fate of the behemoths was an open question for Geildarr. He considered dissecting them, harvesting their organs for whatever magical value they might possess, and making armor of their hides. Naturally, the Dark Sun temple wanted the dinosaurs turned over to them, so they could explore corrupting them, perhaps turning them into beasts of Cyric. Geildarr would need time to weigh his options. In the meantime, he just enjoyed their presence. Huge creatures of living, breathing art, they were more of a monument to his success than any statue of Geildarr could ever be.

And yet, these animals were but a side show. The real bounty was the Heart of Runlatha. A piece of Netherese magic from before the fall was worth many more lives than had been spent on the expedition.

“You expect me to discipline you for letting the Antiquarians die,” Geildarr told Ardeth as he met with her in his study. “But I will not. I was very fond of them—I know you were, too. I will miss having them crawl through ruins on my behalf. They were useful. But your success—” he gripped the red hunk of magic, its scarlet glow escaping through his fingers, “—does much to counterbalance that loss.”

“I’m glad you think so,” said Ardeth. “But what is that thing?”

Geildarr smiled and answered, “Nothing less than our redemption.”

“You will deliver it to Zhentil Keep, then?” Ardeth asked.

“In time,” said Geildarr. “I want more time to study it first—to see what it truly is. It’s clearly capable of weaving powerful illusions, from what you report. Perhaps it even extended the lifespan of the Shepherds you encountered in the Sanctuary.” The excitement rose in his voice. “Netherese magic, Ardeth! I’ve never before had my hands on a piece of magic from before Karsus’s folly. I wonder how it survived. This could be magic of the sort Mystra now denies to Faerun!”

“Fzoul and Manshoon will be very pleased with it, then,” said Ardeth. She watched Geildarr’s crestfallen reaction to that statement.

“Truly,” he said. “It’s a shame that the Heart should only be ransom for my preservation as mayor.”

“Is not your reign more secure now?” asked Ardeth. “Or did I kill Mythkar Leng for nothing?”

“His death pleases me, for certain.” It’s a shame the Antiquarians needed to die also, he silently added. He would save that issue for another time, a future blackmail.