She smiled as though attention embarrassed her. Meanwhile, her drake, a breed with black- and green-pebbled skin, twisted its head, tracking a dragonfly as long as Aoth’s hand. The reptile’s long, pink tongue shot out, slapped the insect, stuck to it, and snatched it into its mouth. The drake slobbered as it crunched the morsel up, and Aoth felt Jet’s flicker of amusement.

“Up ahead,” Son-liin said, “there’s a trail that leads down into a valley. If we take it, we can reach the Old Man’s Head a day or two sooner.”

The Old Man’s Head was the mountain where Vairshekellabex probably laired. If not, his refuge was at least in the vicinity. Or so Alasklerbanbastos had maintained.

“Why didn’t you mention this route before?” asked Aoth.

“Because I didn’t know what the weather would be like,” Son-liin said. “It’s not a path you want to be on if it storms. A flashflood can sweep you away. But now we’re here, and it’s not going to rain.”

Aoth suspected she knew because she was a stormsoul. He wasn’t, but like any commander worth his pay, he’d learned to read the weather, and he agreed with her assessment. The clear blue sky showed no signs of clouding up anytime soon.

“I’m against this,” said Yemere. “We made a plan. We should stick to it.”

“Moving over these peaks and ridges,” said Mardiz-sul, “we can be seen from a long way off.”

“But if we’re going through a valley,” replied Yemere, “an enemy could easily get above us.”

“Don’t worry about that,” rasped Jet, startling a fresh round of hisses out of the drakes. “Those of us in the air will spot any threat before it can come within a mile.”

“Still,” said Yemere.

Mardiz-sul turned to Aoth. “What do you think?”

Aoth thought that it would be nice to consult Alasklerbanbastos about the best way to approach the Old Man’s Head, but it wasn’t feasible. He hadn’t even told the genasi about the dracolich yet, and they needed a decision.

“We’ll take Son-liin’s path,” he said. Why not? She was the one who knew the Akanapeaks, and Jet was right that the griffon riders should still be able to spot any potential problem from a long way off.

Yemere scowled as though the folly of his companions verged on the unbelievable.

“Let’s get them moving again,” said Mardiz-sul. He urged his drake into motion and rode down the column to give direction to the warriors who, when their leaders halted to palaver, had climbed down off their mounts to stretch their legs.

Aoth smiled at Cera. “Want to fly for a while? Someone can lead your drake.”

“No, thanks. I’m enjoying myself down here, and I suspect Jet is enjoying not having to carry double.”

The familiar grunted. “As his females go, you’re more tolerable than some.”

Cera grinned. “High praise indeed.”

It took only a little longer to reach a narrow, branching trail that switchbacked down a mountainside into shadow. Aoth watched with a certain amount of trepidation as the drake riders headed down one at a time. But the reptiles were more surefooted than horses, and they reached the shallow, brown creek at the bottom of the gorge without so much as a stumble.

Then they trekked on southward, plodding over sand and smooth, round stones, splashing through the rippling current, and bounding over the occasional tangle of driftwood or whole fallen tree deposited by one flood or another. Sometimes Aoth and Jet flew high enough to survey the tops of the cliffs that towered to either side of the brook. Sometimes they swooped to see what was lurking on the ledges and in the crannies lower down. Gaedynn and Eider did the same and surprised a goat. The skirmisher put an arrow in it, landed on the outcropping where it lay, and quickly dressed the carcass before returning to his proper task.

Aoth would have done the same, had he been the one to come across some game, because so far the way seemed safe enough.

But after another half mile of twisting canyon, that changed when, for a heartbeat or two, a smear of blue glimmer flowed across a barren scarp like a luminous fish swimming beneath a sheet of ice. Aoth raised two fingers to his mouth, used them to whistle, and pointed with his spear. Gaedynn looked, then turned to Aoth and shook his head to indicate that he couldn’t see anything unusual.

Aoth pointed to the top of the cliff to the east. Jet furled his wings and swooped in that direction, and Eider followed him down. Once they landed, their riders could talk without shouting over the distance that flying steeds needed to maintain between themselves.

Gaedynn swung himself out of the saddle and started slicing pieces of raw, bloody goat meat off the carcass he’d tied behind it. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“For a moment I saw blue fire inside the mountainside,” Aoth replied.

Gaedynn tossed a piece of goat to Eider, and the griffon snapped it out of the air. “How in the name of the Black Bow did I miss that?”

“You needed spellscarred eyes to see it,” Aoth replied, stretching. His spine popped. “Maybe it was more like the memory of blue fire.”

Gaedynn tossed the other piece of meat to Jet. Perhaps thinking it beneath his dignity to catch it in his beak, the griffon reared and snatched it with his talons. “And what does that mean exactly?” the bowman asked.

“There was a time when this whole kingdom existed in another place. Then the Spellplague picked it up and dumped it in Faerun. If the… disruptions were that strong here, it makes sense that there are traces of them left.”

“I suppose,” Gaedynn said, “but are we marching into genuine plagueland or not?”

Aoth peered as far down the canyon as he could, looking for any hint of blue mist or earth and rock oozing like candle wax. Everything appeared all right. “It doesn’t look like it,” he said. “I’d guess the area’s no worse than the Umber Marshes.”

Gaedynn grinned. “Now that’s encouraging.”

Aoth smiled back. “Isn’t it? But Son-liin says that as long as it doesn’t rain, the gorge is safe. And the only alternative to moving ahead is miles of backtracking and a hard climb back up onto the ridge.”

The archer shrugged. “Son-liin strikes me as a reliable sort.”

“Forward it is, then.”

They strapped themselves back in their saddles, and the griffons sprang into the air. In time, Aoth spotted another fleeting blue gleam in another cliff face, as if the brown, striated stone were a mirror reflecting a flash of azure light. But nothing else happened as a result.

Standing on a neighboring peak, long armed, round shouldered, and barrel chested, a lone hill giant watched the griffon riders pass overhead. Aoth considered making contact to ask the hulking savage about the region but then decided not to bother. The giant would probably start throwing stones the instant a human came within range and might not speak any language but his own.

Then the column stopped. Cera brandished her mace. As before, Aoth left Gaedynn in the air while he swooped down to find out what was going on. “What is it?” he asked as, wings snapping, Jet settled on a tongue of granite protruding from the base of the eastern cliff.

“She doesn’t know,” said Mardiz-sul. He was trying not to sound impatient but not quite succeeding.

Aoth smiled at Cera. “I imagine you know something,” he said.

“Not really,” she replied. “But… you understand that Amaunator is the great timekeeper. Night follows day and spring passes into summer because he makes it so.”

“Right,” said Aoth. He had some firsthand experience with her god’s connection to time. But he had no idea why she was bringing it up at that moment.

“As his priestess,” Cera said, “I sometimes feel it as the wheels turn. As some natural cycle is reaching its culmination.”

“What does that mean?” asked Mardiz-sul. For an instant blue light rippled through the water flowing around his drake’s four-toed feet.