Slightly more than an hour later, the drumming began. From somewhere up ahead, a deep, rhythmic beat carried through the torpid air and shook the leaves from the cedars. The gnolls whimpered amongst themselves nervously, whining and sniffing at the air.
"They're summoning the Fane," Jak whispered to Cale.
"Or acknowledging its arrival," Cale said.
Eerily, the drums reminded him of a heartbeat, as though the heart of something old, huge, and dark had awakened. The air itself seemed to be vibrating. Jak's bluelight cast more shadows than it should.
Cale called up to the gnoll, "Dreeve, we need to move more quickly."
The rest of the gnolls cringed at the loudness of his voice. Except Gez. Gez stared at Cale with something akin to hunger in his dark eyes. Cale remembered Dreeve's words regarding Gez—He has tasted of man-flesh. Cale stared the gnoll down. Gez licked his lips, winked, and looked away.
Dreeve stalked back to Cale, obviously agitated.
"Do not raise your voice, fool human." He looked from side to side and added, "The lake's demons are about."
"Then we're near?"
Dreeve nodded and said, "Come."
Cale, Riven, and Jak followed. The rest of the pack trailed them at several paces, ears flat and hackles up.
"This is probably as near the lake as they've ever been," Jak whispered.
Cale only nodded.
Dreeve led them forward through the undergrowth. He signaled a halt near a line of stones. Intuitively, Cale knew it to be a border.
"Look," Dreeve said, and he gestured beyond the line of stones. "Once, a large lake covered much of this area. Humans regarded it as holy. A great temple-city stood near here at the edge of the water." He kicked the nearest stone with his foot. "Worked stone. This was a wall."
Cale kneeled down and examined the stone. Age had left it pitted and cracked, but its sharp corners and smooth face did suggest worked stone. Perhaps a wall, perhaps something else. The area beyond the stones, while otherwise similar to the rest of the forest, looked dimmer, as though the darkness was thicker there. Jak's bluelight seemed to be shining through fog.
"You see that?" Cale asked Jak.
The halfling nodded and kneeled beside him to run his hands over the stones. Cale withdrew his holy symbol and whispered the words to a spell that allowed him to see dweomers. The stones glowed a faint blue in his sight, as did the air beyond them.
"Magical," he said to Jak. "The whole area. Only slightly, but it's there."
"Old, probably," Jak said.
The drumbeats stopped. A cold breeze stirred the trees. Cale and Jak shared a look; they both sensed it. They were nearly out of time.
Cale leaped to his feet and said, "Dreeve, lead us to the lake. Now!"
Dreeve snarled, backed up a step, and held up his hands.
"We go no farther, human," said the gnoll. "None of mine cross those stones. The lake is a few miles ahead, through the trees. I've done what you asked. Now, pay as agreed."
The rest of the pack snarled agreement, while they eyed the forest nervously.
Cale didn't want to waste time arguing. He figured that he, Riven, and Jak should be able to locate the Lightless Lake from there.
"Very well," he said to Dreeve.
He reached for his belt pouch—and froze in mid-gesture.
Seven or eight paces behind Dreeve stood Gez, and the gnoll's entire body glowed blue in Cale's magically augmented eyes.
Their gazes locked, and in the eyes of the gnoll, in the eyes of whichever one of Vraggen's agents had taken Gez's form, Cale saw understanding dawn. The gnoll realized that Cale knew. Gez grinned, made a little half-curtsey, and that feminine gesture told Cale all he needed to know: it was the woman who had first invaded Stormweather Towers and taken Almor's form.
Cale whipped free his blade and holy symbol.
Dreeve, understanding nothing, and seeing only that Cale had drawn, snarled, leaped backward, and unslung his axe.
"Cale," Jak began.
"Treachery!" shouted Gez in Common, and he howled.
"You'll die for this, human," barked Dreeve, who brandished his axe.
He barked orders in his own tongue.
Behind Cale, Jak and Riven pulled their steel.
The rest of the pack, hackles up, pelted forward, goaded on by Gez.
Cale saw immediately that the situation could only go from bad to worse. Clutching his holy symbol, he whispered a hurried prayer to Mask. Impenetrable darkness cloaked the area, darkness through which only Cale could see.
The gnolls arrested their charge, but Dreeve, undeterred despite his blindness, lunged forward and swept his axe in a semicircle. Cale dodged out of reach, got behind Riven and Jak, and grabbed both by the cloaks.
"It's me," Cale said above the growling gnolls, to stop Riven from slicing open his chest.
He pulled both of them beyond the border stones and out of the darkness.
Rapidly, Cale said, "Gez is one of Vraggen's shapeshifters; the female from Stormweather. Jak, stay back and counter any spell she attempts to cast. She shows that teleportation rod, incapacitate it."
Jak shook his head and replied, "No, Cale! I—"
"This isn't the one that hurt you, Jak," Cale told him. "I need you to do this."
Jak held his gaze for a moment before nodding and taking his holy symbol in his hand.
Cale turned to Riven and said, "This one doesn't get away. Understood?"
Riven gave a hard smile and readied his sabers.
"I've no problem with that," the assassin said. "Get rid of that darkness and let's work."