A startled grunt caused him to look across the altar. The goblin priest who had been sleeping on the other side was standing there, staring at James in wide-eyed amazement. James grabbed the cloth and flipped it, sending it spinning across the altar to cover the goblin’s nose and mouth. The priest blinked in surprise then started to reach up, but as his black-clawed fingers touched the cloth, his eyes rolled back up into his head and he slumped to the floor. Silently, James said, “Thank you, Jazhara,” and scooped up the baby.
Taking the child’s blanket, he rigged a shoulder sling, and fled the terrible place, carrying the baby as he had often carried treasure after burglarizing houses as a boy. He climbed the rock face and quickly made his way back around the rim, expecting a cry of alarm every step of the way. When he reached a place where it was safe to descend, he jumped down and started running.
It seemed to take forever to get back to the others; but they had the horses ready and were in the saddle by the time he reached them.
“I have her,” James said, and Jazhara held out her arms. James handed the child to the magician, then mounted his own horse.
The four of them urged their horses forward and soon were trotting down the trail.
An hour later they found Farmer Toth, sitting beside a small fire waiting anxiously. When they rode into view, he leapt to his feet and hurried toward them.
Seeing the bundle in Jazhara’s arms, he cried, “Is that her?”
Jazhara handed the baby down and said, “She will sleep until morning, then she will be a little listless for the next few hours. After that, she will be fine.”
“Thank you! Praise the gods! She’s still alive and well. Thank you so very much.”
James glanced around. “We’ll ride with you back toward your farm. The goblins may not realize she’s gone until dawn, but it’s better to be cautious.”
“I’m grateful to you,” said the farmer, turning to walk beside them along the trail.
Jazhara said, “We have other - ill - news, I’m sorry to say. Your friend Lane is dead.”
Toth said, “I suspected as much when you returned without him.”
“He gave the bastards a fight of it,” said Solon. He glanced at Kendaric, who was wise enough to stay silent. “He was a hero, of that there is no doubt.”
Toth was silent for a moment, then said, “We had yet to name our baby, but I think from now on I shall call her ‘Lane’ in his memory.”
“Tis a fine honor,” agreed Solon.
As dawn broke, they were miles down the road. They had taken a couple of short breaks and James and Solon had let Toth ride for periods while they carried the baby, Lane.
A little after sunrise the baby stirred and fussed. “She’s hungry and her mother’s nowhere nearby,” said the farmer. “She’ll have to wait until we reach my farm and I can milk the goat.”
“How far?” asked Kendaric, who was getting a stiff neck from looking back over his shoulder every few minutes.
“Not far,” answered Toth. “And with luck, if my missus got any help in Krondor, she might be back at the farm by the time we get there.”
James and Jazhara let their horses fall back a little and Jazhara said, “You’ve been very quiet about what you saw in the camp.”
“Yes,” agreed James.
“Something disturbed you,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Something you don’t wish to talk about?”
“Yes,” James replied, then after a moment, he said, “No, perhaps I should talk about it, to you at any rate. You’re the Prince’s advisor on things magical.” He described the altar and the body parts.
“Some black necromancy, certainly,” said Jazhara. “It’s a very bad business, but it fits in with that monster we found in the sewers of Krondor. Someone is creating agents of chaos to unleash upon the Kingdom, but toward what end . . . ?”
“Could it be a coincidence? Maybe the goblins just happened to be interested in the same . . .” The questions petered out under her disapproving look.
“You know better,” she replied. “There is an agency behind this, some force that’s orchestrating it all.”
“The Crawler?” asked James.
Jazhara shrugged. “Perhaps, or perhaps it is someone in league with the Crawler, or someone using the Crawler, or perhaps the coincidence is that there are two malevolent forces loose in the West of the Kingdom.”
“Wonderful,” James muttered. “My old bump of trouble tells me that none of this is unrelated. It’s just that we can’t see the pattern.”
“What if there is no pattern?” mused Jazhara.
“What do you mean?”
“What if everything we see is the product of some set of random choices? What if there is no single plan in place but, rather, a series of events designed to destabilize the region?”
“To whose benefit?” asked James.
Jazhara smiled. “Do you have an hour to run through the entire list, James?”
James nodded, yawning. “I must be getting tired,” he confessed. “Kesh, Queg, some of the Eastern Kingdoms even, then a half-dozen minor nobles who would find opportunity in an unstable period to become major nobles, etc.”
“Those are just the political realities,” said Jazhara. “There are dark forces who have no political aims, but who have social ambitions, or worse.”
“What do you mean?”