“What?” Pearson Bluth blurted, for he knew as the others knew that the chill was no natural phenomenon, and he felt as the others felt a malevolence in that coldness, a sense of death itself.
Resmilitu was the first to scream out in pain as some unseen creature came over the side of the wagon, its raking hands clawing at the old mage.
“Light! Light!” cried Dalebrentia.
Pearson Bluth moved to heed that call, but the ponies began to buck and kick and whinny terribly. The poor driver couldn’t hold the frantic animals in check. Beside him, Wanabrick waved his arms, daring to dive into the suddenly unpredictable realm of magic for an even greater enchantment. He brought forth a bright light, but it lasted only a heartbeat—enough to reveal the hunched and shadowy form assailing Resmilitu.
The thing was short and squat, a misshapen torso of black flesh and wide shoulders, with a head that looked more like a lump without a neck. Its legs were no more than flaps of skin tucked under it, but its arms were long and sinewy, with long-fingered, clawing hands. As Resmilitu rolled away, the creature followed by propelling itself with those front limbs, like a legless man dragging himself.
“Be gone!” cried Dalebrentia, brandishing a thin wand of burnished wood tipped in metal. He sent forth its sparkling bolts of pure energy just as Wanabrick’s magical light winked out.
The creature wailed in pain, but so too did poor Resmilitu, and the others heard the tearing of the old wizard’s robes.
“Be gone!” Dalebrentia cried again—the trigger phrase for his wand—and they heard the release of the missiles even though they couldn’t see any flash in the magical darkness.
“More light!” Dalebrentia cried.
Resmilitu cried out again, and so did the creature, though it sounded more like a shriek of murderous pleasure than of pain.
Wanabrick threw himself over the seat atop the fleshy beast and began thrashing and pounding away with his staff to try to dislodge it from poor Resmilitu.
The monster was not so strong, and the wizard managed to pry one arm free, but then Pearson Bluth screamed out from in front, and the wagon lurched to the side. It rolled out of the magical darkness at that moment, and the light atop Wanabrick’s oaken staff brightened the air around them. But the wizards took little solace in that, for the terrified team dragged the wagon right off the road, to go bouncing down a steep embankment. They all tried to hold on, but the front wheels turned sharply and dug into a rut, lifting the wagon end over end.
Wood splintered and the mages screamed. Loudest of all came the shriek of a mule as its legs shattered in the roll.
Dalebrentia landed hard in some moss at the base of a tree, and he was certain he’d broken his arm. He fought through the pain, however, forcing himself to his knees. He glanced around quickly for his lost wand but found instead poor Resmilitu, the fleshy beast still atop him, tearing at his broken frame in a frenzy.
Dalebrentia started for him, but fell back as a blast of lightning blazed from the other side, lifting the shadowy beast right off his old friend and throwing it far into the night. Dalebrentia looked to Wanabrick to nod his approval.
But he never managed that nod. Looking at the man, the magically-lit staff lying near him, Dalebrentia saw the shadowy beasts crawling in behind the younger mage, huddled, fleshy beasts coming on ravenously.
To the side, Pearson Bluth stumbled into view, a beast upon his back, one of its arms wrapped around his neck, its other hand clawing at his face.
Dalebrentia fell into his spellcasting and brought forth a fiery pea, thinking to hurl it past Wanabrick, far enough so its explosion would catch the approaching horde but not engulf his friend.
But the collapsing Weave deceived the old mage. The pea had barely left his hand when it exploded. Waves of intense heat assailed Dalebrentia and he fell back, clutching at his seared eyes. He rolled around wildly on the ground, trying to extinguish the flames, too far lost to agony to even hear the cries of his friends, and those of the fleshy beasts, likewise shrieking in burning pain.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, old Dalebrentia could only hope that his fireball had eliminated the monsters and had not killed his companions.
His hopes for the former were dashed a heartbeat later when a clawed hand came down hard against the side of his neck, the force of the blow driving a dirty talon through his skin. Hooked like a fish, blinded and burned by his own fire and battered from the fall, Dalebrentia could do little to resist as the shadowy beast tugged at him.
Had he remained at the door where he’d sent the wizards off more than an hour before, Cadderly might have seen the sudden burst of fire far down the mountain trail, with one tall pine going up in flames like the fireworks the priest had often used to entertain his children in their younger days. But Cadderly had gone back inside as soon as the four from Baldur’s Gate had departed.
Their inability to discover anything pertinent had spurred the priest to his meditation, to try again to commune with Deneir, the god who might, above all others in the pantheon, offer some clues to the source of the unpredictable and troubling events.
He sat in a small room lit only by a pair of tall candles, one to either side of the blanket he had spread on the floor. He sat cross-legged on that blanket, hands on his knees, palms facing up. For a long while, he focused only on his breathing, making his inhalations and exhalations the same length, using the count to clear his mind of all worry and trials. He was alone in his cadence, moving away from the Prime Material Plane and into the realm of pure thought, the realm of Deneir.
He’d done the same many times since the advent of the troubles, but never to great effect. Once or twice, he thought he had reached Deneir, but the god had flitted out of his thoughts before any clear pictures might emerge.
This time, though, Cadderly felt Deneir’s presence keenly. He pressed on, letting himself fall far from consciousness. He saw the starscape all around him, as if he floated among the heavens, and he saw the image of Deneir, the old scribe, sitting in the night sky, long scroll spread before him, chanting, though Cadderly could not at first make out the words.
The priest willed himself toward his god, knowing that good fortune was on his side, that he had entered that particular region of concentration and reason in conjunction with the Lord of All Glyphs and Images.
He heard the chant.
Numbers. Deneir was working the Metatext, the binding logic of the multiverse.
Gradually, Cadderly began to discern the slightly-glowing strands forming a net in the sky above him and Deneir, the blanket of magic that gave enchantment to Toril. The Weave. Cadderly paused and considered the implications. Was it possible that the Metatext and the Weave were connected in ways more than philosophical? And if that were true, since the Weave was obviously flawed and failing, could not the Metatext also be flawed? No, that could not be, he told himself, and he moved his focus back to Deneir.
Deneir was numbering the strands, Cadderly realized, was giving them order and recording the patterns on his scroll. Was he somehow trying to infuse the failing Weave with the perfect logic and consistency of the Metatext? The thought thrilled the priest. Would his god, above all others, be the one to repair the rents in the fabric of magic?
He wanted to implore his god, to garner some divine inspiration and instruction, but Cadderly realized, to his surprise, that Deneir was not there to answer his call to commune, that Deneir had not brought him to that place. No, he had arrived at that place and time as Deneir had, by coincidence, not design.