by Jean Rabe
Gair bent over her shoulder. "I would say someone who saw a creature like this could be driven to drink. I wish his companions would have left him alive, though. I would've liked to question him if I could have found some way to understand him. I want to know if these were the creatures who attacked us a few days ago. I wonder where he came from. I don't think he's native to Schallsea. The one with the cape—"
"It was a flag from Kothas or Mithas."
"Kothas. Cuda, to be precise."
"A Blood Sea flag. The creatures are definitely not native to this island," Goldmoon agreed. "I've never seen their like in all my years on Krynn." She paused and examined the hyena-man from muzzle to clawed feet. "He's not dead. Not yet."
Gair's keen eyes narrowed, and he noticed with surprise that the hyena-man's blood-soaked chest faintly but irregularly rose and fell. Blood continued to seep from the deep gouges on the creature's stomach and chest, dyeing what was once a dun-colored tunic a deep scarlet.
"But he is dying," he observed.
"Yes." Goldmoon closed her eyes and reached inside herself, focused on her heartbeat, as she had taught Gair and Jasper and her other students to do, ignoring the elf's continued speculations about the creature. Her heartbeat was all she heard now as a comforting warmth rose in her chest and extended down her arms, made her fingers pleasantly tingle. She placed her palms on the creature's chest and coaxed that warmth to flow from her into him.
"What are you doing?" Gair stepped back, amazed. True, he wanted to question the creature, but he wouldn't have wasted his energy healing him. The creature was a monster, and if the tale Goldmoon heard was correct, he'd been killing Schallsea's trappers and therefore didn't deserve to live. He might even be the one who killed Harrald and the Solamnic knight. "Better to show him mercy with a swift stroke of my sword. His fellows certainly gave him no mercy. Monsters. We can find out about them another way, by speaking to this one's corpse. You could talk to it, just as you talk to Riverwind."
Goldmoon didn't reply. She couldn't hear him. She was listening only to her heart, and to the hyena-man's, which was growing stronger with each passing beat. A faint glow covered his chest, radiating out from her fingers. Pale gray like the sky, it intensified slightly above the deepest of the monster's wounds.
As Gair watched, the gouges started to close. The elf marveled at Goldmoon's ability. Healing magic was relatively easy for him, but he doubted that even his most potent spells could mend wounds this severe and this quickly. He made a mental note to press her for information about this nurturing glow she'd created. Perhaps it was how Jasper had healed him. He wanted to learn this advanced mysticism almost as much as he wanted to talk to the spirits of the dead.
The creature made a gurgling sound, coughing up blood and spittle. His eyes flew open and locked onto Goldmoon's, and he started to struggle, to push her away. Her eyes held his, and she used all her strength to keep her hands on his chest.
"Don't move," she said. Words could interrupt her spell. "Don't move." She said nothing else.
The hyena-man lay still, staring unblinkingly at Goldmoon, growling softly as the glow covered more of his body and healed more of his wounds. Several minutes passed, and the healer's breath became shallow and her shoulder's sagged. Just as the glow brightened, she pitched forward against the creature's chest. The glow disappeared.
Gair darted in to pull her back, keeping a wary eye on the creature. Her long tunic and leggings were covered with the monster's blood, and the ends of her hair were matted with it. Gair dabbed at a streak of blood on her cheek, then returned his attention to the creature. It lay still, regarding them.
When Goldmoon was breathing more deeply and regularly, Gair tugged her to her feet. "Are you all right?"
She nodded yes. "The creature will live."
The creature made a guttural barking noise, then repeated it and raised a hairy eyebrow.
"I think maybe he's talking to us," Goldmoon suggested.
"Well, unless you have some mystic enchantment that will let us learn his language, I think it's likely to be a one-sided conversation," Gair pointed out. "I don't speak hyena."
"Do you have a name?" she asked.
He growled a word.
"Orvago?"
He struggled to prop himself up on his elbows.
"Orvago?" she repeated. "Is your name Orvago?"
He nodded and his eyes narrowed warily.
"Well, Gair, it looks as if he understands us." Goldmoon was leaning against the elf for support, still weak from the powerful healing spell she'd invoked. "It appears you can talk to him after all."
The elf stared at the creature for several moments. Goldmoon took a step away from him. The blood on her tunic had soaked through to her skin, and the wetness was chilling her. Gair edged forward and squatted, eye-to-eye with the hyena-man. Where to begin? What questions first?
"What are you?"
The creature's gaze drifted back and forth between the elf and Goldmoon, resting longer on her.
Gair sighed and rocked back on his heels. "How did you get here?"
The creature nodded toward the boars.
"I can see that you followed the boars. That's not what I mean. Goldmoon, this is getting us nowhere. Maybe he can understand us. Maybe he can't. He's an animal, and a dangerous one, at that." The elf groaned and stood, paced in a tight circle, then whirled on the creature, who, still in some pain, was gingerly getting to his clawed feet. "Did you and your fellows attack us a few days ago? Have you hurt others? How did you get to the island? And where did you come from? How many of you?"
The creature cocked his head. A string of spittle edged over his lower lip and dripped to the ground.
Exasperated, Gair ran his fingers through his hair. He pivoted to face Goldmoon and gestured with his head toward her, concentrating to retain an even, polite tone. "She healed you, creature. She saved your life. Because Goldmoon saved your life, you should answer my questions."
The creature nodded toward Goldmoon, then brushed by the elf and slowly walked in the direction his companions had dragged the boars, limping on his leg that had been gored. A heartbeat later, he had disappeared into the trees.
Gair drew in a deep breath and shook his head. He stared into the woods, hoping to catch another glimpse of the creature. "We should go after him. He can't move very fast with that injured leg. We could force him to come with us, take him to town. The authorities there might get something out of him. Maybe we should—"
"Let him go?" Goldmoon's eyes gleamed, and her lips edged upward slightly, giving away her amusement. "Join me for breakfast?" She turned and started back toward the settlement. "I don't know about you, Gair, but I need to wash up and change clothes, and I'm hungry. No reason to stay out any longer and catch a cold, or worse. There's no reason for you to undo all of Jasper's hard work. I think I'm going to sit by a cookfire for a while and warm up. Perhaps I'll have a chat with our Solamnic visitors. Coming?"
Still flustered, he hurried to catch up. "I wanted to find out about that flag," he muttered softly to himself.
5
Gray Tidings
Gair padded silently through the woods, tracing roughly the same path that Goldmoon and he had followed early this morning. This time wisdom prevailed, and he wore a heavy coat that draped to his ankles and brushed the top of the snow. Dark green, it helped to conceal him among the trees, a shadow among shadows. Like the shirt and trousers he wore, it was relatively new and exquisitely made. Only his boots were well worn, kept because of their comfort. However, he made a mental note to buy another pair on his next trip to town and start breaking them in.
The elf had a significant cache of steel and gems, an inheritance from his family. And while he had given a more than generous amount of it to Goldmoon for her citadel and various other causes throughout the past several years, he still had plenty to indulge his pleasures—fine clothes and good food—for a long while, likely for the rest of his life.
As the w
oods became thicker, blocking out the early evening starlight, he focused on his heightened senses. His keen eyes separated the shadows so he could continue on his way without slowing his pace. The snow helped to brighten the area, reflecting the light of the stars and the moon where it penetrated gaps in the pine canopy. He mused that the stars sparkled like the lady knight's eyes. Gair found himself thinking of her again and wondering if he should be spending time with her rather than on this macabre errand. He admitted he was captivated by the face that had hovered over his when he was injured by the spears. Perhaps he would visit with her in the morning.
He was as careful as possible where he walked, avoiding passing beneath certain trees where the crunch of his boots on fallen nuts and pine cones might give him away. Were the snow harder, he would worry about the crunch of that, too, but the snow, which had fallen most of the day, was downy soft.
Though he wasn't particularly worried about others being out in the woods at night, he didn't want to take any chances of being discovered. He didn't want to be followed by any of Goldmoon's curious students, and he didn't want to be discovered by any green-furred creatures such as he and Goldmoon had encountered this morning or by any bandits. He shuddered when he recalled his brush with death several days ago on the trail to the settlement.
Gair moved almost silently, listening carefully for wild boars, wolves, anything that might pose a threat. He wanted to be about his business, then return to Goldmoon's camp before his absence had been noticed.
The wind had died down considerably, or so it seemed in the thick woods. He breathed deep. The scent of pine needles was pleasant to one who had spent much of his early life in the forest, and he detected a trace of rotting wood from a few dying trees. These were the earthy smells of winter, and they reminded him of his home so far away along the southeastern coast of the elven country of Silvanesti.
Stepping off the path and striking off deeper into the woods, he came to a grove of willows, huge trees halfdead from age and errant lightning strikes. Some had carvings on their trunks, symbols he tried to commit to memory and hoped to decipher later. The oldest of the carvings—the bark had grown to nearly cover the scars—showed a half sun, and under it a stick figure carrying a spear. There were smaller symbols around the figure, words perhaps, much of it not readable anymore. The more recent carvings looked like masks with empty eyes, with more symbols around them. He knew several languages, but nothing here was familiar. He traced one of the symbols with a bit of charcoal and a piece of parchment he'd brought along, then thrust them deep into his coat pocket.
He turned north and followed a trail he had missed on his first few explorations of these woods in the early fall. Other eyes would have continued to miss it, but Gair's years in the forest had taught him to look for branches artfully trained to touch the ground. When the leaves began to thin with the fall, he noticed it. They were hiding a narrow trail, one not often traveled, at least on this end, and one certainly not intended for the uninvited.
The elf ducked beneath the limbs and walked faster now, listened more carefully. He'd placed a few branches across the path on his last visit, and they were still here and unbroken, indicating this part of the trail had not been traveled in the past few weeks by people or any animals of significant size.
The trees were so dense here that they blocked the mild evening breeze almost completely. They helped to lessen the cold, too, though his breath still huffed out in a vaporous cloud. There were more symbols on trunks here, none of them recent. Gair made another tracing of a few more symbols, then continued on his way.
The elf felt a mix of excitement and apprehension. He was heading toward what he believed was a sacred spot. Why else would someone hide the trails and carve symbols into trees along the way?
Finally he came to edge of a circular clearing. In the clearing was a series of earthen mounds, radiating outward from a pebble-dotted center. The mounds nearest the center were the oldest and therefore the most worn, weather and time eroding the dirt and stones and the various objects on top of them.
He crept quietly up and down the paths, slipping from mound to mound and hurriedly brushing the snow aside so he could inspect them more closely. The elf had been here twice before, both times briefly and at night. Each trip had added to his knowledge. He was certain the mounds with the smoothest, flattest stones covering them contained the remains of people of importance. Many of these stones had intricate carvings on them. Words, perhaps. On this trip, the elf pocketed one of the more elaborately carved rocks and rearranged the others so it would look as if nothing was amiss. His fingers trembled from the cold. He intended to take the stone into the port town, with the rubbings of symbols he'd made, to the scribes there. Perhaps they could be translated.
Some of the mounds had only small rocks scattered atop them, and Gair decided these graves were for commoners. The smallest mounds were likely for children or animals and had the fewest decorations. A mound near one edge of the circle was fairly recent, made within the past month, since the earth had not yet settled. He brushed away more snow. There were mounds decorated with shells and rotted nets—for fishermen, he suspected. Those graves with daggers thrust into the earth were undoubtedly the resting place of warriors. Arrowheads artfully arranged were likely for hunters. He stopped and his breath caught in his throat. Arrowheads. He dropped to his knees and tried to tug one free of the mound. The frozen earth resisted his efforts, and he resorted to pulling out a small knife from his belt and working the arrowhead free. It was made of stone, with the same jagged edges of the spear tips and the arrowhead had that found their way into him several days ago.
"Who is buried here?" he said too loudly for his liking, and instantly turned his thoughts to a whisper. "Iryl Songbrook said the natives of Schallsea couldn't have been responsible for the attack, that they are peaceful." Gair ran his fingers over the arrowhead, wincing when a sharp edge drew blood. His leg seemed to throb in response, and he shuddered. "It wasn't bandits who attacked us. Bandits don't bury their dead in elaborate graves. So this arrowhead proves Iryl was wrong. It was natives, and I must show this to her and Goldmoon." He stood and pocketed the arrowhead, then frowned. "If I show them, I'll have to tell them where I got this. Do I want to do that?" He stared at the remainder of arrowheads on the grave. "Perhaps I should say nothing. They might never attack us again."
Deciding he would give the matter more thought tonight, he padded toward the opposite edge of the clearing, passing by one mound in particular that had caught his eye on his first visit. He knelt beside it now. It seemed to be one of the oldest graves, and almost reverently he brushed the snow off it. The rocks atop the mound were so carefully arranged and so deeply embedded into the earth that they seemed to form an intricate mosaic. The pattern meant nothing to Gair, though he studied it intently in the light of the moon, trying to commit it to memory. He worked one of the larger, more intricate stones free and pocketed this too. When he returned to his tent later, he would sketch the mosaic on the grave and see if someone in town could tell him what it signified. Perhaps the man beneath the stones had been a king or a chief. Definitely someone important, as more work had gone into this mound than into any others here, and it seemed as if it were still being carefully tended. Gair's fingertips traced the pattern of the stones, and he concentrated on the feel of them, on the various textures.
"One more attempt," he whispered. "Who are you?"
He focused on his heartbeat as Goldmoon had taught him to do with healing magic, and he raised a hand to his temple to help him concentrate. He felt his heartbeat slow, sounding rhythmic and soothing in his ears. Warmth pervaded his limbs, chasing away the cold of winter. He reached out now with his senses as he had done when he calmed the boars. This time, though, he reached down, down into the earth. He sensed the coldness of the dirt, the age of the stones atop it. He sensed a hint of life—insects wintering beneath the ground. He concentrated harder, listened more intently to his heart, listened, searched.
He imagined a man beneath the earth, perhaps wrapped in regal, ceremonial burial garb, imagined that what was left of the man was only a skeleton covered with scraps of rotting cloth.
"Nothing." He rocked back on his heels, frustrated. The elf could not sense the body in the mound nor in any mound he had approached on his previous trips, but he was certain there were bodies here. It was a burial place.
He simply could not sense the spirits of the dead.
"I have to know. I must." Gair had hoped his nearness to the dead in this place would help him to contact spirits. He'd certainly had no luck trying to contact spirits from inside his tent. "It seems it won't be tonight. Maybe not ever."
Reluctantly he rose and carefully inspected the ground, brushing at his boot prints to conceal them. He retraced his steps, covering all of his tracks, and stood at the edge of the clearing, staring at the circle and realizing that if anyone happened by, he would know the snow on the graves had been disturbed.
"One more try." He knew he should leave, told himself that he shouldn't stay here one minute longer and risk discovery, but he was here, and the dead were here. Who else would come to visit them on such a cold winter night? Winter, he mused, a season of death. It was appropriate that he was here at this time of year. "Besides," he whispered, "It would be for the good of the settlement if I can learn about these people, whose descendants almost certainly attacked us."
He knelt at the most recent mound, a small grave at the edge of the clearing, a child's grave, by the size of it. The elf splayed his fingers over the snow, above where he guessed the body's heart was in life. Again he concentrated on his heartbeat, let his senses drift into the frigid, hard-packed earth, sensing the husks of insects, stones, twigs, bones. Bones! He let out a long breath and tried futilely to dig his fingertips into the earth. He sensed the bones of someone who had lived on this island!
His mind was feeling them, not imagining them, guessing their length—indeed it was a child, a child who had lived to be perhaps ten or twelve. Bones were covered by flesh and muscle partially eaten away. Long hair was braided with beads and shells. Young… recently dead. Of what? Disease? Disease that perhaps Goldmoon or he could have cured? An accident? His senses revealed no broken bones. So young. So very few years on Krynn. Beads and shells and braids… a clue to these people.