though, Cyric was startled to see Adon holding out a large chunk of bread to him. A warm, foolish smile, like that of a simpleton,
flickered across the cleric's face.
"Get away from me!" Cyric growled and slapped the cleric across the face with the back of his hand. Adon fell backward in a
heap, and the bread flew from his hand. The boat rocked from side to side as Cyric made a grab for the oar he had released and
Adon crawled as far away from the thief as he could manage inside the skiff.
"Damn you!" Midnight cursed. She climbed over Cyric and moved to Adon's side. The cleric was quivering, his knees drawn up
to his chest. A strange mixture of fear and anger lingered in his eyes.
"Why did you do that?" Midnight snapped to Cyric as she caressed the cleric's shoulders.
Cyric thought of making a nasty retort, but instead he only narrowed his eyes and remained silent as he watched Midnight brush
the hair from the younger man's face. Adon had pulled himself up into a ball, his hands covering his face as he rocked back and forth,
humming an unfamiliar song.
"Answer me!" Midnight hissed. She leaned closer and glared at Cyric.
The thief was silent. There was no answer he could give that Midnight would be able to accept. Ever since Arabel, where their
journey began, Cyric had viewed Adon as a liability. Very little had happened to change his opinion. The cleric could not call on his
deity for spells, so he was useless as a healer. Adon's fighting skills, when they had been employed, were adequate but not
exceptional. We can get along perfectly well without him, Cyric thought. That's why I hate him. I just don't need him.
"Tell me about Tantras again," Cyric sighed, anxious to change the subject.
Adon stopped rocking and looked up at Midnight. Any anger in his face had disappeared, and now only fear showed in the
cleric's features. Don't tell him, Adon whispered in his mind. He doesn't need to know.
However, Midnight didn't see Adon's expression. The mage stopped caressing the cleric's back and looked down at the bottom
of the boat. "One of the Tablets of Fate is hidden there. At least, that's what Elminster told us at the Temple of Lathander before the
battle with Bane."
All emotion drained from Cyric's face. "Where is it hidden in Tantras?"
"Elminster didn't know." The mage sighed and looked up at the hawk-nosed thief. "All the sage could tell us... before he died...
was that one of the tablets was hidden there."
At mention of Elminster's death, Adon started to rock again and began to whistle a mindless tune. Cyric scowled at the cleric.
He probably would have slapped Adon again if Midnight weren't sitting in his way. "So how are we supposed to find it? I'm not even
sure I know what the tablets look like."
Midnight shivered. When Mystra, the Goddess of Magic, had been destroyed in her attempt to enter the Planes without the
Tablets of Fate, she had granted Midnight a vision of the artifacts. Now the tablets and the death of her god were irrevocably linked in
the magic-user's mind. "They look like simple clay tablets," Midnight said with a sigh. She closed her eyes, and an image of the
Tablets of Fate formed in her mind. "They're a little less than two feet high. Runes naming all of the gods and their duties are etched
upon the stones. The runes are magical. They glow with a blue-white light."
Cyric tried to picture the tablets. However, each time he tried to form an image of them in his mind, thoughts of what he could do
with the Tablets of Fate, or, more precisely, the power they could give him, charged into his consciousness. The thief saw himself as
a powerful ruler, with armies strong enough to trample the mighty forces of King Azoun of Cormyr into the dirt. The tablets will give
me the power to do what I want, the thief thought. At last I will be free to run my own life!
"Cyric?" Midnight said and leaned over to tap the thief on the shoulder. "I said, let's forget about the tablets for now. All right?"
Cyric frowned. "Yes, yes. Whatever you say." The thief paused for a moment, then attempted to smile warmly. "We should eat
something. We need to keep our strength up if we're ever going to reach Tantras." Adon whimpered softly.
Midnight relaxed a bit and nodded. "I'm glad you agree. We need to start acting like friends again."
Cyric guided the skiff toward the shore. Thick forest flanked the river, and when they got close to the bank, Cyric leaped into the
shallow water. The thief guided the craft close to the shade of a large, gnarled tree. Securing the boat to the base of the tree, Cyric
reached out to help Midnight climb to shore.
When she got a firm footing on the boggy shore, Midnight turned back to the skiff and held out her hand. "Come on, Adon."
The cleric did not move.
"Adon, get out of there and join us!" Midnight snapped and put her hands on her hips. The cleric trembled, then rose to his feet.
"And bring us some food while you're at it!" Cyric yelled as he searched the shore for a likely campsite.
Adon reached down and picked up the smaller of the canvas bags that lay near his feet. He handed the sack to Midnight, then
grabbed the mage's other hand and climbed from the boat.
"We're a good little dog, aren't we?" Cyric said in a high-pitched, taunting tone. The cleric's shoulders sagged.
"That's enough!" Midnight snapped. "Why do you keep badgering him?"
The thief shrugged. "When he acts like a man, I'll treat him like one. Not before." Cyric dusted off a small rock and sat down.
"There's no need to be so cruel," Midnight said. "When you were wounded in the Stonelands, Adon stayed with you. He did all
he could to help you. The least you could do is return the favor." The mage threw the bag of food to the ground.
Instead of responding, Cyric leaned forward, grabbed the sack, and started to rummage through it. In the rough canvas bag, the
thief found carefully wrapped preserved meats and flasks filled with mead. "At least you could see my wounds, when we were
ambushed in the Stonelands. Adon's are merely in his head."
"That doesn't make them any less real," Midnight said coldly. "You could at least make an effort to be pleasant... if our
friendship means anything to you. A little compassion won't kill you."
Cyric looked up and saw Adon leaning against the tree their boat was secured to, one arm around the warped and knotted
trunk. The cleric's eyes were filled with apprehension, and he was standing on his toes as if he were prepared to jump out of the way
instantly if anything threatened him.
Digging into the canvas sack, Cyric found a chunk of bread and brought it to the cleric. Adon wiped his hands on his tunic. His
entire body quaked as he cautiously reached out and took the bread from the thief. Staring at the offering in amazement, the cleric
looked as if he were going to burst into tears. "Thank you," Adon said in a small, broken voice. "You are kind."
"Aye," Cyric mumbled as he exchanged glances with Midnight. "I am far too kind."
They ate quickly and in silence. When they were done, Cyric went to the boat and withdrew the oars. He found a tree stump and
set the oars down, then searched until he found a fallen branch the width of his thigh and chopped the log into two even pieces.
These he sunk into the earth on either side of the stump. The thief sat down and positioned the oars, using the stumps as the
oarlocks in their boat.
"You've trained with a staff," Cyric said as he led Midnight to the stump, "so the basic movements of rowing should be easy for
you to master."
"Just a minute, Cyric," Midnight snapped as she brushed his hand away from her arm. "I've rowed a boat before. You don't need
to teach me."
"But do you know the best way to row, the most efficient technique?" When Midnight didn't respond, Cyric grabbed her arm
again and almost pushed her down onto the stump. "If you row the wrong way, you'll only tire yourself out, and you won't be of much
use to anyone then. Sit down and pick up the oars."
For the next fifteen minutes, Cyric taught Midnight the proper rowing technique for their skiff. The mage learned quickly, and
soon Cyric leaned back and let her practice on her own.
As he lounged against a rock, twirling his dagger, Cyric noticed Adon staring at the oars. "You'll learn next, cleric. I want the
boat in motion as much as possible."
Adon nodded slowly and a half-smile crept across his face. Cyric continued to look at the cleric for several seconds, but the thief
turned away quickly when he realized that he had balled his hands into fists. "Midnight can teach you later, when we stop for
eveningfeast."
The heroes packed up quickly after that, and Cyric was careful to hide any evidence of their presence on the shore. Midnight
took a turn at the oars for several hours that afternoon, and the thief seemed to relax a bit when he saw that Midnight had learned to
row properly. In fact, Adon and Midnight were more comfortable, too. The cleric even laughed once when Cyric stretched after a long
yawn and nearly fell out of the skiff.
While Midnight was rowing, the boat passed into a section of the river where there seemed to be no current at all. That made
rowing quite a bit easier for a while, but the current picked up again suddenly - still in the wrong direction, of course. Though this was
disheartening for the heroes, they tried to be cheerful. That was difficult, though, and tempers were flaring again by the time Cyric
headed toward shore for eveningfeast.
When they docked, Midnight let Cyric start a small fire while she waded into the river to cool off after a long afternoon of rowing.
Adon sat on the mossy bank, dangling a long stick in the water as he daydreamed. But as the mage stood in the chilly water of the
Ashaba, a sharp pain bore into her leg. She let out a sharp cry and nearly fell over.
Cyric rushed into the waist-deep water and steadied Midnight as she tried to regain her footing. "What's wrong?" the thief asked
as he helped the raven-haired mage toward shore.
"I don't know," she gasped through clenched teeth. "I think something bit me." Midnight felt another spike of pain shoot through
her leg. When she looked down, the mage could see a pair of shimmering, crimson lights darting back and forth beneath the surface
of the water. Cyric cried out then, too, and a third blood-red glow blinked to life in the Ashaba.
On shore, Adon paced back and forth, holding out his hands. "Get out," he said softly, over and over again.
The water churned as Cyric and Midnight rushed to shore. The tiny, lancing pains came more frequently, and more than a
dozen of the strange blood-red lights were visible in the river now. The number had doubled before the heroes reached the bank and
Adon helped them to shore.
The cleric stood by, smiling contentedly as Midnight swabbed a myriad of tiny cuts on her legs. Cyric crouched over the edge of
the water, his right hand poised to snatch something from the river. The thief plunged his hand into the water once, then stepped back
from the bank. When he opened his hand, a small, wriggling fish dropped to the ground. The glowing creature's razor-sharp teeth
accounted for half the length of its body, and its tiny body seemed to have been set afire with the blood it had stolen.
"The river!" Midnight gasped as she pointed to the Ashaba. There was a large concentration of the glowing parasites, and the
water roiled where the creatures attacked one another. More than a hundred had entered the bloody frenzy. Even as the heroes
watched, the patch of red luminescence from their gorged bodies continued to spread.
"There must be thousands of them," Cyric said as he moved back to the bank. "I can see them swarming." The thief paused for
a second, then turned back to Midnight, a sardonic grin on his face. "Rather reminds me of the dalesmen after your trial in
Shadowdale."
"I can't see a thing other than the glow," Midnight replied, turning away from the thief.
"I have very good vision, even at night," Cyric said as he stared at the fish tearing each other apart.
Midnight didn't look at the thief. "Just like Kelemvor," she said absently as she started to break up the camp.
"You're still thinking about him?" Cyric's voice was suddenly as cold as the river's icy water. "What's wrong with you?"
"Cyric, I'm grateful for all that you've done for me, and even for Adon," Midnight sighed. "I'd be dead right now if it weren't for
you. I know that. But I felt something for Kelemvor that I can't even explain." The mage shook her head and carefully placed her
spellbook into a pack.
Cyric was very quiet. His attention seemed to be riveted on the glowing parasites. The blood pool was widening steadily.
"Even in Shadowdale, before the battle, Kel refused to stand with me," Midnight said flatly. "Then at the trial, I was certain I was
going to die, and -"
"Say, Adon, why don't you take a dip!" Cyric yelled, gesturing for the cleric to come closer.
"Don't start in again, Cyric," Midnight snapped wearily as she tied the drawstring on the pack she was filling. "Why do you even
talk to me at all if you don't care to hear what I have to say?"
"You know what I care about?" Cyric growled as he crouched beside the river, the blood-red glow from the fish reflecting in his
eyes. "Getting to Tantras alive. Those tablets are important, and together we can find them." He turned to look at Midnight, but the
red glow seemed to linger in his eyes even after he'd turned away from the river.
Adon had wandered over to Midnight and now sat huddled at her feet. The cleric was staring at Cyric as if the thief were some
horrible creature that had crawled from the forest. Midnight stopped fidgeting with the pack and stood shaking her head. "Even with
