To the ramp's left, an object, half stone, part color, and perhaps partly living-slowly heaved up out of the undulating earth below. It was the size of a city building, and it blazed like an azure bonfire. It groaned and shrieked, reached a hand-like appendage for the pilgrims. It dissolved into a cacophony of screams, gleams, and flowing liquid before it could reach them.

"Gods!" Hadyn burst out. He backpedaled but was blocked by the burro.

Finara grabbed Hadyn's shoulder and yelled loud enough to be heard above the roar of the subsiding object, "Wait! Stay with us!"

The young man struggled in her grasp. Finara spun Hadyn around and said, "We knew we'd find something like this! We knew the spellplague still cavorted here! We can't turn back now!"

Finara's eyes sought Raidon's. Despite her words, her tone and glance seemed to be asking Raidon: or can we turn back after all?

Raidon studied the wooden bridge, which stretched forward across and through the tumult. Somehow, the wooden construction remained inviolate. At least as far as he could see, though a bend in the path took it behind a glimmering indigo mound and out of sight.

The monk said, "I intend to press onward."

Finara let go of the young man. He released a shuddering breath, then he said, "Sorry about that. I-I was caught off guard. I want to keep going too. I want a spellscar."

They started again. Raidon tried to keep his eyes on the wooden planks before him, but flashes of light, roars of outrageous sound, and sudden winds kept flicking his attention up to one side or the other. Each time he did so, his focus trembled.

A hundred paces farther on, Hadyn stopped, bent over the side of the wooden bridge's railing, and was noisily sick.

They waited, saying nothing, eyes averted. Raidon suspected the wavering perspective was confusing the young man's senses as much as it tried to disrupt his own. Raidon's martial focus provided protection, and by the smell of Finara's breath, spirits apparently provided her some insulation from the mad panorama. The young man had to rely on willpower alone to keep shuffling forward.

"What keeps this bridge safe from the spellplague?" Hadyn gasped, wiping his mouth.

Finara squinted at the wooden struts, then shook her head. "I've lost my sensitivity to magic. Perhaps it is enchanted? I can't tell."

Raidon had wondered the same. Hopefully it wasn't some quality they needed to know about to survive.

Hadyn signaled he was feeling better by taking the lead. Raidon allowed it. Finara and her burro brought up the rear.

They rounded the great mound, and Hadyn pulled up short. The monk looked up and saw the object of Hadyn's fear. The wooden bridge extended out over a great pit, without apparent support. A grinding, splintering sound emanated from the hole, and rock dust blew into the air. The bridge vibrated with a terrible rending sound. Raidon edged forward, past the still motionless Hadyn, until he too paused when the trembling planks beneath him grew worrisome, as if they intended to fly apart, leaving behind their former unity as a bridge.

Even from where he stood, Raidon could see some distance into the pit. Great slabs of stone, all in motion, swirled around a central column of sapphire flame. Each slab stretched a hundred feet or more in length. When the slabs slammed into each other, a booming crash rang out. From above, the sound was so loud it threatened to collapse the monk's eardrums.

A hand touched his shoulder. It was Finara. She yelled into his ear, "This is the Granite Vortex. This is the first landmark on the Pilgrim's Path!"

Raidon produced the map and studied it. Yes, that must be what this was. Unfortunately, the vortex had apparently shifted somewhat since the map had been drawn-the path wasn't supposed to pass right over it.

"We should consider leaving the bridge here," Raidon yelled back. "It looks like the burro will be able to just make it down too-"

"But then we'll be off the path!" protested Hadyn. "We'll be vulnerable!"

Raidon shrugged and returned, "Whether here or five miles farther on, we were destined to leave the marked path. I dislike the look of this vortex. You must choose."

Captain Thoster studied the distant mote on the horizon through a tube of black iron. He stood at the Green Siren's bow with the kuo-toa priestess, Nogah, at his side. Her skin was mottled with saltwater droplets.

Japheth watched the two, wrapped in his cloak against the direct light of the sun. He was trying to figure out what Behroun was up to, how and why he had allied with an eladrin noble out of the Feywild, and just what was in it for a creature of her power to throw in with a mortal.

Nogah croaked, breaking the warlock's reverie, "Do you see it? Can you see Taunissik?"

"Aye, I see it, your fishy greatness," replied Thoster. "Don't get your scales in a twist."

Japheth shaded his eyes with a hand and squinted into the glare. A smudge was still several miles off, just above the horizon. But even so far, and without a spyglass, he could just make out regular planes and angles that bespoke a city of some sort.

Seren lightly elbowed Japheth in the side, murmured, "What do you think of our chances, really? I am not without power, and my foes would not call me a coward. But a great kraken! Are you not concerned?" Seren was companionably close, even though he'd edged away twice. Each time he'd done so, she'd bridged the distance again. Was she needling him purposefully?

Japheth rewarded the woman's persistence with a nod. He said, "Our task will not be easy. But I have no choice. I must see this through to the end."

Seren smiled suddenly and said, "You are a noble one, aren't you? You come off all hard and nasty, but it turns out you have a soft spot running through you a mile wide."

The warlock frowned, uncomfortable in the woman's overly wide smile and eyes that kept trying to meet and hold his own.

He looked away, only to feel the wizard's hand on his shoulder. She said, "It's an endearing trait, you know. Thoster, here, he cares for nothing but himself. But you! You have a heart large enough to care for others. That is something I could come to admire."

Seren's hand remained on Japheth's shoulder and squeezed lightly. Even through his thick, batskin cloak, he could feel the warmth of her palm.

Japheth took a step away, so that her hand fell loose. He said, "If you think I am softhearted or noble, you have woefully misjudged me."

Seren gestured so that both palms lay open and empty, a gesture of entreaty. Her wrists were thin and shapely, her hands well formed. Japheth looked up to her face. She asked, "Why do you constantly pull away from me, Japheth? I like you. Are you so wrapped up in your gloomy thoughts that you haven't noticed that?"

"Yes, I have been preoccupied," allowed the warlock. He recalled Anusha's sleeping body in his arms as he'd carried her from his fey castle.

"Well, there's no more excuse to ignore me, now that all our cards are on the table, so to speak." Seren grinned with a certain ferocity.

"I… I am flattered, Seren. But now is not the time. We go into the lair of the beast. Best we do not even begin down that road."

"Are you lonely?" she inquired, her voice soft. "I know I am, by myself in my cabin each and every long night."

An image of Anusha on his bunk eating trail rations briefly obscured Seren's form. She was wearing a shift that left her neck and shoulders bare. His cheeks warmed, though he doubted the wizard could see him blush under the shadow of his hood. If she could, she'd likely misinterpret it. He and Anusha were working toward something, it was clear, something more than friendship. His heart beat faster.