I heard a scream and a curse. Two different voices. I began to run.
Chapter 11
I passed the niche and kept going. Beyond it, there was a natural trail winding upward. I mounted this.
I could see no one as yet, but my sense of the Jewel’s presence grew stronger as I moved. I thought that I heard a single footfall from off to my right and I whirled in that direction, but there was no one in sight. The Jewel did not feel that near either, so I continued.
As I neared the top of the rise, the black drop of Chaos hanging behind, I heard voices. I could not distinguish what was being said, but the words were agitated.
I slowed as I neared the crest, lowered myself and peered around the side of a rock.
Random was a small distance ahead of me and Fiona was with him, as were Lords Chantris and Feldane. All, save Fiona, held weapons as if ready to use them, but they stood perfectly still. They were staring toward the edge of things-a shelf of rock slightly above their level and perhaps fifteen meters distant-the place where the abyss began.
Brand stood in that place, and he was holding Deirdre before him. She was unhelmed, her hair blowing wild, and he had a dagger at her throat. It appeared that he had already cut her slightly. I dropped back.
I heard Random say softly, “Is there nothing more you can do, Fi?”
“I can hold him here,” she said, “and at this range, I can slow his efforts at weather control. But that is all. He’s got some attunement with it and I do not. He also has proximity going for him. Anything else I might try, he can counter.”
Random gnawed his lower lip.
“Put down your weapons,” Brand called out. “Do it now, or Deirdre’s dead.”
“Kill her,” Random said, “and you lose the only thing that’s keeping you alive. Do it, and I’ll show you where I’II put my weapon.”
Brand muttered something under his breath. Then: “Okay.-I will start by mutilating her.”
Random spat.
“Come on!” he said. “She can regenerate as well as the rest of us. Find a threat that means something, or shut up and fight it out!”
Brand was still. I thought it better not to reveal my presence. There must be something I could do. I ventured another look, mentally photographing the terrain before I dropped back. There were some rocks way off to the left, but they did not extend far enough. I saw no way that I might sneak up on him.
“I think we are going to have to rush him and chance it,” I heard Random say. “I don’t see anything else. Do you?”
Before anyone answered him, a strange thing occurred. The day began to grow brighter.
I looked all about me for the source of the illumination, then sought it overhead.
The clouds were still there, the crazy sky doing its tricks beyond them. The brightness was in the clouds, however. They had paled and were now glowing, as if they masked a sun. Even as I watched, there was a perceptible brightening.
“What is he up to now?” Chantris asked.
“Nothing that I can tell,” Fiona said. “I do not believe it is his doing.”
“Whose then?” There was no answer that I could overhear.
I watched the clouds grow brighter. The largest and brightest of them seemed to swirl then, as if stirred. Forms tossed within it, settled. An outline began to take shape.
Below me, on the field, the sounds of battle lessened. The storm itself was muted as the vision grew. Something was definitely forming in the bright place above our heads-the lines of an enormous face.
“I do not know, I tell you,” I heard Fiona say in response to something mumbled.
Before it finished taking form, I realized that it was my father’s face in the sky. Neat trick, that. And I had no idea what it represented either.
The face moved, as if he were regarding us all. There were lines of strain there, and something of concern to his expression. The brightness grew a little further. His lips moved.