Kagonesti

Chapter 30

Despair wighed on Iydahoe, pinning him to the ground, a physical weight that overwhelmed his puny strength. Cataclysm had come to Ansalon, and he and his tribe would die as surely as any insects on a lightning-struck log. If another earthquake wracked the ground, the convulsion would kill the battered elves. Even if the ground remained still, Iydahoe was lost-how could he seek the heights of the Grandfather Ram when he lay directionless on this ruined plateau? Around them stretched a tangle of quake-racked forest. Progress would be painfully slow, perhaps impossible, in every direction.

Abruptly a glimmer of white showed through the chaos of broken trees. The brightness caught Iydahoe's eye-it seemed the only pure and wholesome thing in this nightmare of a day. Straining to rise, the wild elf found that his muscles worked again. Grimly, desperately, Iydahoe staggered to his feet and took several steps toward the wood.

"What is it?" asked Vanisia, while Bakali and Kagwallas looked at him curiously.

"There!" he croaked, as the white patch showed again.

Then he saw the head-huge, with the broad forehead a swath of alabaster fur. The huge, round eyes, soft and luminescent, studied him with a wisdom and compassion that moved Iydahoe to tears. Glowing pale yellow, those eyes touched him in a way that made him stand more steadily, helped him to swallow his fear and clear his head.

Only then did he notice the horns, spiraling to either side of that great head. Triple circles, each of them, culminated in the proud, curling points of a mountain king.

"What are you looking at?" cried Vanisia, stepping after him, touching his hand. Iydahoe knew then that only he could see the Grandfather Ram-and even as he realized this the animal turned, with a flick of its snowy tail, and vanished into the woods.

"Come. Gather the children. I know which way to go." He stooped and picked up Dallatar. The young elf's breathing was shallow, his eyes rolled back in his head, but he still lived.

Iydahoe led them into the forest, picking a route through the felled timber that best followed the elusive white figure. He discovered that, by walking along on the trunks instead of the ground, the Kagonesti could make fairly rapid progress. Gradually the plateau sloped again, a gentle incline signaling the beginning of another ascent.

They broke from the trees onto a grassy slope that extended more steeply upward. The wrenching earthquake had torn numerous fissures in the soil, but Iydahoe had no difficulty finding a straight, smooth path between these frequent chasms. Soon they arrived at a ridge extending from the north to the south, seeing a deep canyon and then lofty, rugged mountains beyond.

Vanisia instinctively turned north, toward the highest mountains of the Khalkist range and the heart of the smoking inferno that racked the world. Beyond those heights, hundreds of miles away, lay Istar.

To the south, the mountains were not so high, rounded summits and sheltered, tree-lined slopes. In the far distance beyond them lay the southern lowlands of Silvanesti. Iydahoe stared in that direction and felt the warming comfort of a soothing, return embrace of wisdom. Were those luminous eyes gazing at him from somewhere in that distance?

"Wait," Iydahoe said, looking at the seething wave of the cloud. The highest ground lay to the north, but he felt strangely drawn to the south. "Follow me. We'll go this way," he declared, trusting his instincts. Still carrying Dallatar, he led the others toward that more gentle terrain.

The elfwoman's face was streaked with smudges of dirt, her once golden hair tangled with mud and brambles. Vanisia looked at the rising, gentle slopes, then at the tall, black-haired elf. Nodding, she followed, and the youngsters came on behind.

Wind whipped over the ridge, pushing them first to one side, then, sheering viciously, twisting to send them staggering in the other direction. The clouds had risen high, blanketing the land from far above, and now they could see for dozens of miles.

On the vast plain beside the mountain range, the ancient flatland that had been known as Vingaard and Solamnia, the northern horizon shimmered. A white edge advanced, with smooth grayness flowing behind. The ground dissolved into something like sky-a bright, smooth surface that swept steadily closer, obscuring woodlands and fields, roads and towns.

With growing horror, Iydahoe understood. "It's water- the sea flows onto the plain! Ansalon is sinking!"

Again the elves turned and climbed, this time propelled by a clear sense of urgency, moving toward the southern heights on the path chosen by Iydahoe. They trotted along the smooth tundra of the rising ridge crest, gaining altitude quickly, avoiding the cliffs that towered all around.

The flood continued below, a deceptively gentle- appearing blanket drawn over the land. As the wave drew closer, the elves saw an angry fringe of furious white water burying forests, sweeping across pasture lands with the speed of a strong wind. It rushed from the north, swelling to fill their entire western horizon, filling out in a great bay to the southwest. Spray, closely followed by massive breakers, surged against the foothills, inundating the grotto where the tribe had made its village. More and more water flowed into the new sea, and the level of its tempestuous surface continued to rise.

Quickly the surge swept upward, splashing over the slopes that the Kagonesti had climbed only that morning. Waters swept over the ridge, the sea filling the plateau where the tribe had weathered the earthquake. The water churned close now and Iydahoe sensed the menace in the storm-tossed surface. Gales whipped monstrous waves upward, exploding into showers of spray that rose all the way to the ridge crest.

In the saddle behind the tribe, where that crest dipped low, the waves lunged all the way through the pass, showering into the canyon to the east. The sea level continued to rise, and these waves became a steady current, then a thundering cascade forming a permanent barrier between the mountains of the high Khalkists and the tribe's own southern ridge. And still the Newsea grew, chasing the fleeing elves with almost palpable desire- like a predator racing desperately after choice prey.

For hours they ran, though the incline of the ridge lessened for a long time, until they were running along level ground. Higher summits beckoned them to the south, the nearest several miles away, and Iydahoe could only hope that they reached it before the flood swept them away.

Waters continued to cascade into the canyon to the east. It seemed that an entire ocean thundered into the depths, shaking the ground with mighty impact. Still the sea grew, the waters rose, crashing into the mountainous gorge faster and faster, until a great wave filled the canyon to the top, equalizing the water level to east and west.

Instead of a lofty ridge, the wild elves now ran along a peninsula of rock, with angry waves slashing the shore to either side-and steadily rising behind them.

Tiffli stumbled, then collapsed. Vanisia halted beside the girl, trying to hoist her up, but her own strength gave out and she, too, sprawled onto the rocky ground. Halting on unsteady legs, Iydahoe realized that fatigue had stopped him as well-if he put down the unconscious Dallatar, he would never be able to pick the boy up again.

They would lose the race with the sea. A wave, surprisingly chilly, splashed forward until it eddied, ankle deep, around them. The heights to the south were cut off, as higher surges swept across the ridge, connecting the eastern valley to the sea in many places, rendering the once- lofty ridge into a chain of low, rounded islands. The gale roared so high that any one of these spots of land could be momentarily buried below a wave.

With crystalline clarity, Iydahoe saw that the formerly enormous ridge beneath his feet would become a reef of shallow water between two deep basins. He looked to the heights of the Khalkists, still towering to the north. If they had turned in that direction, they might be safe now, working their way into true mountain heights. Yet that strange compulsion he had felt, the penetrating gaze of the Grandfather Ram, had caused him to turn south.

His eyes remained fixed on those lofty summits, watching the smoke and debris belch skyward from beyond the jagged horizon. He blinked, wondering if the ground beneath him suddenly surged upward, for the mountains did not look as tall as they had before.

Then, in a bolt of shock, he understood-the high Khalkists were sinking! Landslides rumbled downward in clouds of dust and debris. The remaining glaciers broke free, sliding in avalanche toward the unseen valleys. Then the ridges themselves began to crumble, the summits breaking apart and falling away.

The great mountain range settled quickly, water rushing between the crumbling summits until a series of conical islands jutted upward from the tempest. One by one, these towers of rock disappeared, their foundation collapsing as they melted into the raging ocean.

As the mountains tumbled down, water flowed from the rest of the sea to fill the vast and growing crater. Around the Kagonesti, the Newsea retreated, spilling down the slopes of the ridge and clearing the route toward the forested highlands to the south.

By the time the raging waves settled into a rough chop, the water level remained steady against the ridge, some fifty feet below the level reached by the fleeing tribe. The peninsula extended for perhaps a mile to the north, then ended in a barren, wave-racked outcropping of rock. It was no more than two hundred paces wide for most of its length, though its base widened as it met the mountainside to the south.

"Look! A seashell! Like on your belt!" Faylai exclaimed to Vanisia. "But no!" she pouted. "It's too big!"

The warrior saw the curled shape on the rocks, glistening wet, as though it had been cast here by a wave, before the sea had fallen back. He knew the three spirals, recognized the wide bell with a growing sense of awe.

"Not a seashell." Iydahoe had not seen the treasure, intact, since the years when it had been played by Washal- lak Pathfinder. "It's the Ram's Horn of the Kagonesti," he said quietly, kneeling to pick up the precious horn.

"Look." Vanisia's fingertip outlined the pattern of tiny cracks in the horn's surface.

Iydahoe nodded, recognizing several of the shapes as fragments that he had recovered from the Silvertrout village. Many more, including some sizeable pieces, he had never seen before.

"Play it-play the horn for us," urged Bakali, stepping forward.

"No! Only the Pathfinder…"

"Play it. Pathfinder Iydahoe," said Vanisia, taking his free hand in both of hers.

He put the horn to his lips, and it felt as though it belonged there. When he played, the notes were warm and soothing. Iydahoe was immediately lost in the muse, felt his despair sloughing away. He thought of Istar, and that thought awakened no hatred, no lust for vengeance. There was no enemy there, now-Istar was a place of the past.

The elves, except for Dallatar, got up from the ground. Iydahoe slung the horn at his side and lifted the unconscious youth, relieved by the fact that Dall's breathing had become stronger, and his eyes closed more naturally, as if he were merely asleep.

A herd of deer stampeded southward along the ridge, passing within a few yards of the elves in their fear-but Iydahoe could see that this was proper fear, now, not the madness that had earlier afflicted the wild creatures. The deer bounded along, seeking the tree-fringed range of hills they could see in the distance.

When he saw the herd, Iydahoe knew that the tribe, like Krynn, would survive-their Pathfinder had led them from the greatest threat that had ever wracked the world. He held Vanisia's hand, finally, and led the elves toward the still-verdant forests, where Iydahoe saw towering firs. In the lower valleys, aspen groves shimmered in the wind, a stretch of woodland that promised haven for the weary, frightened elves. Already the deer had vanished there, seeking a new forest home.

Iydahoe knew that the deer would find sanctuary in that woodland, and soon the wild elves would as well.