The Sentinels

  Joen wasn’t paying attention. As I rambled on, she took up the torch and set it to the center candle. After a few heartbeats, the wick fell to the left, lighting the next candle, and that one soon followed, and again. And as the fourth and final candle lit, the one all the way to the left, that bridge began to glow with a faint white light.

  I looked at Joen with some amazement. “How did you know to do that?” I asked.

  She shrugged and walked to the bridge.

  “Wait a moment,” I called. “You don’t know it’s safe.”

  “Learn to fly in the last few hours?” she asked me over her shoulder. She knew I hadn’t, and we both knew we couldn’t get back out the way we came. She shrugged and kept walking, taking the torch with her. I followed so as not to be left in darkness.

  “So how much farther do you think it is, anyway?” she asked when I joined her on the other side. “To whatever it is we’re looking for here, that is?”

  “I don’t know. I saw a light down this way, but it was far off and I couldn’t really judge the distance.”

  “What kind of light? Was it that bridge, then?”

  “No,” I said. “It was a blue flicker, like a magical torch.”

  As I finished my thought, a blue light sprung up in the darkness, not a hundred yards from us, and maybe thirty feet off the cave floor. I stared at it a moment and would have liked to look a bit longer. I thought, though I couldn’t be sure until my eyes better adjusted, that it was, indeed, in the shape of a flaming blade.

  But as soon as the light sprung up, Joen gasped, and off she went again at a swift walk, then a light jog, and soon a dead sprint. With the magical boots I’d stolen from Sali Dalib, I had no trouble keeping up with her. But I wasn’t sure I wanted to be going that direction so fast, so unprepared.

  The blue light blinked out again, not as if it had been put out, but rather hidden from view. Joen slowed as we neared the spot where it had been, and we approached cautiously.

  Two massive obelisks rose out of the cavern floor. Each stretched heavenward, to the darkened ceiling, coming to a point far above us. The torchlight caught on their surfaces, each of white marble, perfectly smooth except for runes carved around the thick stones, starting at the bottom and winding their way upward. The surfaces shone brightly, without a speck of dust on them despite the untold centuries they’d spent here undisturbed. They caught Joen’s torchlight and threw it back at us, seemingly brighter than before.

  My eyes traced the runes, following their parallel paths toward the ceiling. It took me only moments to be sure that, as I’d suspected, they were perfect mirror images of each other.

  Joen’s gaze, though, fell to the cavern floor between the spires.

  “Oi,” she said quietly. “Get on your guard, eh?” She gently set down her torch and drew her daggers.

  I followed her gaze to the ground, to the object lying there, which she approached. Four feet across, perhaps, oddly shaped …

  “It’s a body,” Joen said, kneeling beside it. “A dwarf. Doesn’t look too old either.”

  “Not too old? A young dwarf?”

  “Not too long lying here, I meant,” Joen explained. “Dwarf’s old, though, gray beard … and what’s this?” She stood up, holding something that glittered in the light. As I sorted the object out, an empty feeling hit me in the stomach.

  “Spectacles,” I whispered. “Big nose?” I asked, moving slowly toward her.

  “Big nose,” she said, even as I finally saw the dead dwarf’s face. “And he’s holding something.”

  “His name is Alviss,” I said, bending solemnly to regard him. I don’t know why I did that, but I felt the need to look at him closely, to confirm his death, as if I were letting his spirit know that someone cared he was gone. I’d lost a lot of friends, I realized then, and many closer to me than Alviss had been, but I did care. I had to care, as I had to hope that someone might care if it were me lying there. It seemed obvious, and somehow I knew it anyway, that Alviss had died alone, in this dark and empty place. No one should die like that.

  “He’s a friend,” I said.

  Joen gently pried open his fingers to get at the object he held.

  “Any wounds on him?” I asked.

  “Don’t see any,” Joen said. “Look at this, though.” She grasped some object and pulled it from his hand.

  The still air was suddenly filled with wind, a powerful, swirling gale. Dust flew everywhere, obscuring everything. The two pillars glowed ever more brightly until they were unbearable to look at. I saw Joen stagger and fall, but I couldn’t move to help her. A low hum resonated throughout the area, echoing off the distant cavern walls. Then, as suddenly as it started, the wind died away.

  And all the light from the obelisks and from our torch died with it.

  I drew my sword and looked around, listening for any potential danger.

  “Joen,” I whispered harshly, but got no response.

  I tried to remember exactly where Joen had fallen, but the storm had been so disorienting. I moved slowly, feeling my way across the ground until I bumped into an object lying motionless. But it was Alviss, not Joen.

  “Joen,” I said again, more loudly.

  I heard a shuffling noise to my side, much like the one we’d heard earlier when Joen had nearly lost her dagger. We’d never actually found out what had made that noise, I remembered. I could only hope that this noise was different, that this noise was my fallen companion.

  I moved toward it, leading with my sword, flat side down so as not to accidentally cut Joen.

  Something brushed past my shoulder and I spun, sword sweeping across.

  Someone caught the blade and held it fast.

  “Calm now,” she said, but it wasn’t Joen’s voice, it was Jaide’s.

  “You’ve been following me, following us,” I said.

  “No,” she replied. “I got here first.”

  “You knew where this place was? How to find it?”

  “I do.”

  “How?”

  “That should be obvious by now, child,” she said somberly.

  Only the darkness prevented Jaide from seeing the shocked expression on my face—eyes wide, jaw slack. “You’re a Sentinel,” I said. “Tymora’s Sentinel.”

  “Take this,” she said, forcing something into my open hand—the hilt of a sword. The hilt of my sword, my old magical blade that I’d thought lost. “How …?” I started to ask, at the same time bringing the sword’s magical blue flame out. But as the area was bathed in a soft blue glow, my question caught in my throat.

  On the ground, beside poor, dead Alviss, Joen lay motionless.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “Joen!” I grasped her shoulders and shook her, but she didn’t stir.

  “She’s … is she …?” I stammered.

  Jaide put a hand on my shoulder and grasped Joen’s hand with the other. She closed her eyes, concentrating for a moment. “No,” the elf said. “She isn’t dead, just unconscious.”

  I breathed a long sigh of relief, then wrapped Joen in a great hug.

  Suddenly the air around me felt different, denser somehow, and I became acutely aware of Jaide’s hand. It had grown impossibly hot. The light from my sword flickered then died. The air seemed almost solid, and I found breathing impossible. Then I was bathed in bright light and breathed freely. It took my eyes a few moments to adjust. Jaide took her hand from my shoulder. The wind rustled my hair.

  The wind.

  I was outside, kneeling in the sand beneath a beautiful desert night sky, a few hundred yards from the cavernous hole that formed the entrance to the ruins of Twinspire.

  And the girl wrapped in my arms was awake.

  “Oi!” Joen said. “It’s just me, eh? Relax!”

  “I thought you were dead,” I said, breathless.

  She looked around. “I ain’t dead? Well, that’s a relief, eh?”

  “What you picked up,” I said, “is it the size of a fist? Perfectly round
and black, heavier than it looks?”

  She nodded. “Black pearl, right? Yeah. Why, what is it?”

  “The Stone of Beshaba, I think,” I said.

  “Oi, I should probably put it back, then.”

  “I don’t think you can,” I said, but hesitated to say the rest. “I think it’s bound to you now.”

  Joen’s face fell as she ran through a stream of confused emotions. She started breathing in gasps.

  “But we needed both to destroy both,” I reminded her.

  “Oi, but this is not good, eh?” she said, managing to catch her breath. “Now where do we go, and how fast can we get there?”

  “We’ll ask Jaide,” I said, turning to the elf.

  “We’ll ask—?” Joen sputtered.

  Jaide stood a few yards away, patting Haze gently on the neck, offering the mare a drink from one of the waterskins tied to her saddle. The mare was obviously happy to see the priestess.

  “Oi, what are you doing here?” Joen said, rising to a sitting position. “Come to get your horse back?”

  “First,” Jaide said, “we have to be out of this desert.”

  I took Joen’s arm, helping her to her feet. She rose unsteadily, but once she was standing she found her balance

  Perhaps it was the light—though the moon was full and the stars shone brightly, it was still dim—or perhaps the dust, but Haze’s coat of striking white hair seemed somehow more lustrous than normal. Jaide, though, seemed somehow diminished from the last time I’d seen her. Her porcelain skin looked dull, wrinkles framed her eyes, and even a streak of gray laced her black hair. As usual, she wore her hair pulled over one ear, but the point of the other had a notch in it.

  She saw me looking, and brought her hand up to her ear. “Shark bite,” she said, “while I was recovering that fine sword of yours.”

  “Oi, do tell us how you managed that,” Joen said. Anger tinged her voice, as it always seemed to when Jaide was around.

  “Magic, mostly,” Jaide answered. “Besides being one of the Sentinels, I am also a priestess of some power.”

  While I blinked and shook my head at that matter-of-fact admission, Joen seemed entirely unfazed.

  “But how’d you know he lost it, eh?” she asked.

  I piped in, “Sentinels watch their bearers, don’t they?”

  “Indeed,” Jaide answered.

  “So you were watching me when I fought Asbeel on the island.”

  “When we fought him,” Joen said.

  Jaide nodded.

  “So you came out after me, what, to check on me? To give me Haze? To find my sword?”

  Jaide nodded again. “Yes, and in that order,” she said. “But also for another task.” She turned to look at Joen, staring intently, as if she meant to drill a hole through the girl with her eyes.

  Joen matched her intensity, even took a step toward Jaide. For a long time their eyes locked on each other until finally, Jaide blinked and turned away.

  “I also came to ask your good Captain Deudermont to arrest and detain the pirates he had on board, and not to honor his word to them.” She said it so simply, it took me a good moment to register her meaning.

  “You told him to lock them up?” I said, unbelieving. “Even Joen?”

  “Especially Joen,” she answered.

  Two sounds stuck me in rapid succession: the airy burst of Joen’s horrified gasp and the soft sound of steel on leather as her daggers slid from their sheaths.

  “Oi, you wanted me … killed?” Joen said with difficulty. She advanced another step, her pose threatening. I moved forward to intervene, but Jaide spoke first.

  “Never that,” she said. “I simply wished to keep you away from this place.” Joen approached another step, but Jaide stood her ground, arms out wide, unthreatening.

  “Keep me away, eh?” Joen snarled. “By whatever means?”

  “Obviously not,” Jaide answered. “I could have killed you any number of times or had you forcibly held in Silverymoon, or in the Tower of Twilight, or captured on the road. You have no idea the influence I could wield should I so desire.”

  “So why didn’t you, then?” Joen pressed.

  “I wanted him to come here.” Jaide motioned to me. “I just hoped he would come alone.”

  Joen shook her head, either unsure or unbelieving.

  I had it figured out, though. “You wanted me to take the stone because it wouldn’t be bound to me,” I said. “The Stone of Tymora is already bound to me, so the Stone of Beshaba would have no power over me. But now it’s bound to Joen.”

  Jaide nodded. “After what I witnessed on that island, I knew she would follow you to the ends of the world if you should ask,” she said.

  I recalled my first experience with clairvoyance, the magic of distant seeing, also called scrying. I had sat in a darkened room in the back of an inn, watching through a crystal ball as Perrault, my mentor, had retrieved the Stone of Tymora from this very same elf. I should have known right from then that she was one of the Sentinels. Who else, after all, would be protecting the sacred stone? And my guide for that magical journey had been …

  “What happened to Alviss?” I asked.

  Jaide’s gaze dropped to the floor. “He tried to take the stone, but it was not meant for him,” she said, a great sadness filling her voice. “That is why I wanted to keep you away, Joen. Not only because I feared it would bind to you but because I feared the stone may well kill you.”

  Joen’s stance had slackened some. She no longer seemed ready to pounce at Jaide. She even sheathed her daggers, though she kept her hands near their hilts.

  “None of this answers my question, though,” I said. “Where do we go from here? I suppose you know who and where the other Sentinel is?”

  “I do,” Jaide answered. “But it is not in my power to tell you.”

  “Not in your power?”

  She smiled, a sad smile if I’d ever seen one. “The goddesses put many blessings upon the Sentinels, but also many curses. We are not allowed to interfere with you, only to watch and to ensure the stones pass as they should. We cannot tell you of the other bearers, past or present, or of the other Sentinel.”

  “Oi, can’t or won’t?” Joen asked.

  “There is no ‘or,’ ” the elf replied. “There is no choice. You seem to forget, both of you, the nature of the goddess I have sworn to serve for all eternity. Tymora is not the goddess of quests or processes. She rules the sphere of fortune, and as such, she impels us all to seek our own fates, to make our own ways. What I can tell you, though, is that you already know the name of the other Sentinel.”

  Joen and I looked at each other and it was obvious she wanted me to say something, but all I could do was shrug. What was I to do, tell a priestess she was wrong in the way she’d served her goddess for centuries? She was right, and no matter how unfair it felt, I knew she wouldn’t tell me. But that didn’t mean I had any idea who the other Sentinel was, or why she thought I should know.

  “Now come, dawn is not far off,” Jaide said. “We should camp and rest, and set out in the morning.”

  “Set out for where?” Joen asked. “Oh, wait, don’t tell me, you—”

  “Pick a place,” I cut in, thinking maybe I was finally starting to understand the nature of the goddess of luck. “Anywhere, anywhere at all.”

  We thought a moment.

  “The Tower of Twilight,” I said at last. “We should inform Malchor of what’s happened, and we can stay there a while before we move on.”

  Joen smiled, skipped over, and gave me a hug. She and Jaide moved—together, and not in anger—to Haze to unpack and set our camp.

  But I wasn’t sure we were much better off with Jaide than we had been with Chrysaor.

  Part Three

  THE SENTINELS

  “I was wond’ring,” the pirate captain said, “when ye’d mention this.”

  The sun peeked over the eastern horizon, illuminating the beach. The pirates’ torches had long sinc
e burned out. I’d been speaking in the darkness since, but neither my audience nor I seemed to mind much.

  “Mention what?” I turned to face him, to find him holding a small metal object.

  My stiletto.

  I growled slightly. “That doesn’t belong to you,” I said. “You don’t deserve to hold it.”

  “No, I don’t,” he agreed, tossing it lightly to me. I was so stunned, I almost failed to catch the dagger.

  “You’d return my weapon so easily?”

  “Ye’re already armed,” he said. “Ye’re outnumbered fifty ter one. Do ye think the weapon ye hold when we kill ye much matters?”

  “So you do intend to kill me.”

  He laughed. “Yer story’s nearly done, ain’t it?”

  “That’s yet to be seen,” I said, twirling my dagger about. “But tell me, what comes after that?”

  He laughed again.

  “Haven’t ye already figured that out?”

  “Well, then, I think this is where the story ends.”

  His eyes widened a bit. “Haven’t we been over this?”

  “If I don’t tell you the story, it dies with me,” I said. “Well, I think the rest of the story I’d rather let die.”

  For once, the pirate captain wasn’t laughing. “Now, boy—,” he started.

  “Don’t call me ‘boy,’ ” I said. “The last one to call me that got run through.” I flicked my wrist, and the magical blade in my hand rippled and extended, stretching into a fine saber.

  “Young man, then,” he said. “I’m not sure ye know what ye think ye know.”

  “I know what pirates do to their prisoners.”

  “Do they arm their prisoners?” he asked, leading.

  “Apparently so.”

  “No, and ye know it,” he said. “We don’t be meaning te kill ye, or ye’d already be dead.”

  “You want to hear my story, or I’d already be dead.”

  “Aye, a fine story it be. But, ye see, there be a shortage o’ fine sailors on the seas these days.”

  “And you fear I might kill one of your fine sailors?”

  “I think ye might be one o’ them,” he said.