by Jean Rabe
"They are people you knew, Roeland. Knights stationed at the settlement. Gregory, Leland, Markus…" The three creatures darted in at the introduction, swiping at the downed knight as they went and scattering his daggers far from his grasp. "Bernard and… let's see… yes, Bolivar. You remember Bolivar? He got along so well with Jasper."
The shortest of the wraiths came near to Roeland, the intense cold of its body making the big man shiver uncontrollably. Roeland's eyes were wide with dread and disbelief.
"You killed them, Gair?"
"Well, not precisely. I had them killed. I didn't really have a choice, Roeland. I didn't want to be found."
"Goldmoon will find you."
Roeland stepped back, bumping into a crumbling wall of what used to surround Castle Vila as the spirit of Bolivar reached forward to touch his stomach. The mere contact with the undead felt like a hammer blow. Roeland's knees shook, and he did his best to steady himself.
"Goldmoon will find me when I want her to."
"She'll stop you."
Gair shook his head.
Nothing can stop the master. It was the elder Graymist, the wraith crouched over the downed knight, poking a jagged black claw into his ear.
"Call off your creature!" Roeland barked. "Take me, Gair. We were friends. Take me and let the knight go. He's not dead yet, but they'll kill him if you don't stop them."
More powerful in death, the wraiths chanted in unison.
"He is in such pain," Gair said, forcing his voice to sound compassionate. "They will kill him, Roeland. It's just a matter of how soon. I can have them end his misery now."
"Do it!"
"Ah, that requires a little cooperation on your part. Tell me about Goldmoon. What is she doing now? You said she'd find me. How? How hard will she look?"
Roeland vigorously shook his head. "I'll tell you nothing!"
The elder Graymist had his claw all the way into the downed knight's ear. The wraith was saying something, but its whispery words were drowned out by the man's screams.
"Look at the pain he is in, Roeland! Look what you are allowing him to endure. Squirming so. Very unbecoming for a knight. Camilla will not squirm."
Gair's father chose that moment to thrust his thumbs into the knight's eyes.
Roeland fell to his knees, sobbing, pulling his gaze away from the knight and the malicious wraith. "Gair, please…"
"Tell me about Goldmoon."
The big man's shoulders shook. "No."
The knight was whimpering now, no longer having the energy to scream. He lay still, only his hands and feet twitching.
"Tell me."
"No!"
Gair nodded, and his father and the other wraiths fell on the knight, insubstantial claws reaching through the armor to tear at the flesh the way a rabid animal might tear apart its prey. The knight was dead long before they stopped their rending.
The elf moved closer, being careful not to step in the blood and soil the soles of his boots. "Your turn, Roeland," he pronounced. "Tell me what I want to know, and your death will be swift. I'll even let your spirit rest. I'll not turn you into one of my minions."
Roeland's voice froze. Whatever words he was trying to say came out as a string of unintelligible gibberish.
"Come now, my friend." Gair knelt in front of him, took the club from his quivering hands. "I admired you. I venture to say I even considered you a friend once. I'll give you the grace of staying dead."
More powerful in death, the wraiths chanted.
"I'll let your spirit wander about the misty realm beyond the doorway. Maybe you'll even meet Riverwind, Goldmoon's dead husband."
Sweet death.
Roeland numbly shook his head.
"Just a little information. That's all."
His lips moved, but no sound came out.
"I can get it from you after you're dead, you know, but the words will not sound so pretty, your voice not so deep. Maybe the knights know, but you are one of Goldmoon's students. Were, that is. You would have more information than they. Cooperate, Roeland."
"Go to hell." The former miller drew on the last of his courage and found his voice. "Go to hell!"
"Father…"
The elder Graymist was a shadow on the ground, moving slowly and inexorably toward the elf and Roeland.
"Roeland… one last chance."
"Roeland…" Goldmoon pictured a doorway in her mind, the one she had seen when she first became aware of Riverwind's spirit. There was darkness beyond the doorway, a black sky cut through here and there by wisps of fog.
Riverwind floated beyond the doorway in the fog, looking tall and handsome and young, as she remembered him from their first meeting. She probed further, seeing other people, some she vaguely recalled from her youth—great-grandparents, nameless aunts, her parents' friends. Goldmoon inhaled sharply. They looked so real, yet when she glanced away, out of the corner of her mind's eye, they looked as insubstantial as ghosts, as if they were part of the mist. They are ghosts, she reminded herself. It was the first time she had tried to contact someone other than Riverwind.
Her mind stretched out, picturing Roeland Stark. Of the men she'd sent with Camilla's knights looking for Gair, she was closest to him. She prayed to the spirit of Mishakal that she would not find him here.
"Roeland…"
Roeland screamed as the elder Graymist drew a claw from his sternum to his waist. Roeland's coat and tunic fell from him like a peel of a fruit. A second slash cut the skin beneath. A line of red formed, and blood started dripping on the snow.
Gair moved back a bit, not wanting his garments soiled.
"Roeland. It's only a little information I'm looking for. I want to know what Goldmoon's intentions are toward me. Will she leave me be? Does she intend to send more searchers? Will she come for me herself? Does she talk about me? The Silver Stair… does she climb it often? Does she pull power from it as I do? Or… perhaps she does not know that she can."
Roeland spat at the elf. "She'll stop you! She'll—" His words ended in a high-pitched scream as the elder Graymist reached into his chest and squeezed his heart. The man slumped forward, dead.
"Father, I was not finished. I wanted to talk to him a little more."
More powerful in death. His father's whispery voice was sonorous.
More powerful in death, the other wraiths joined in.
Speak to him in death, Darkhunter suggested.
Gair made a tsk-tsk sound and stared down at the broken form of Roeland Stark. "I've no choice but to talk to him in death now," he replied.
The man's voice would not be so interesting to listen to. Roeland had possessed a rich voice, and in life his laughter sounded like a pleasant song. In death, it would be raspy and sound only like a harsh whisper. All the wraiths sounded the same to Gair. The elf circled the body, finding a spot to stand next to it where the blood hadn't seeped out to tint the snow.
Nearby, the wraiths tugged the other bodies away from the ruins of Castle Vila. The elf knew they would play with the flesh a little while before Gair raised the dead men's spirits.
"Roeland." Gair knelt, almost reverently. He closed his eyes and imagined the doorway. The door was never closed anymore. He'd shattered it with a thought. The elf's mind moved easily now between the world of the living and the dead. He fancied himself a part of both realms, and soon he would be master of both.
He saw other spirits hovering in the wispy realm, some of their visages repulsed by him, some horrified, some pleading, wanting to be given some semblance of life again.
"Roeland," he repeated. He glanced at the body, used the man's club to turn it over so he could gaze at the face. The man's eyes were open, the mouth open as well in a final scream. Gair pictured them closed and serene. Handsome. "Roeland."
Mist always pervaded the realm of the dead. Roeland formed out of part of that mist, transparent at first, then gaining substance and color. He looked like a miller again, wearing the trappings of a merchant, as he had t
he day Gair met him.
The elf stretched out a hand as if to shake Roeland's in a simple greeting, but the image of the miller tried to retreat. Gair shook his head and stoked the heat in his chest, sent the warmth from his heart into his arms and fingers, pictured his fingers glowing red like Darkhunter's bright eyes. A magnet, his fingers began pulling Roeland to him, closer to the shattered doorway. The elf began uttering a string of words, fragments of part of an ancient spell that Darkhunter taught him, old magic he had corrupted and coupled with Goldmoon's enchantment that required no words. Que-Nal and elven words mixed, powerful words that would not permit the spirit of the miller to flee.
"Roeland…" Gair beckoned.
"Roeland…" Please do not be here, Goldmoon pleaded silently. Please be alive and whole, be on your way back to the settlement with Gair in tow.
"Roeland… gods!"
He was there, in the misty other-realm, looking as he had the day he first strolled into her camp. On the young side of middle age, jaw firmly set, eyes filled with curiosity. He'd come to meet her, as he'd been brought up on stories about her and the other Heroes of the Lance. She was a hero on a pedestal to him, and he wanted to see her in person, to shake the hand of a legend.
Goldmoon had been cordial to him, had welcomed him as she had the others who'd journeyed that day from the port town of Schallsea. She shook his hand and said she was pleased to meet him. She had meant it, and his heart skipped a beat. A hero in the flesh.
She showed him around the settlement, told him about the plans for the citadel, about giving Krynn hope. She made it clear that this was all about helping people and restoring a sense of purpose in a dragon-devastated world. Roeland wanted to be part of that. He wanted to be something more than a miller, and he badly wanted to make a difference in the world.
Goldmoon. His eyes took on a sadness, and a lone tear fell shimmering from his eye, disappearing into the mist. Where am I?
She was instantly puzzled. Where was he? Didn't he understand?
He does not know, Riverwind told her. His spirit just arrived.
Her face grew ashen. Just died? She watched the mist swirl around him, heard dozens of voices in many languages, all of them speaking words of welcome and explanation, flooding her senses.
She watched his handsome face grow stern, as if he were instantly filled with a purpose and understanding. I am dead, aren't I, he said. It was a statement, not a question.
She nodded, a tear edging down her cheek. "Gair?"
He walks with the dead, Goldmoon. He's sent men to your worldly realm, slaying for no reason. He takes spirits from this realm, willing and unwilling ones who serve him, or who at least pretend to. Giving them half-life, denying them rest. The spirits slew me. Such pain. The image of Roeland paused. They slew the Solamnic knights, too, and he's drawing their… Roeland's face contorted, wavered.
"Roeland?" Goldmoon reached a hand out, but she was in her world, not his, and her fingers brushed Camilla's arm.
…spirits. Not letting them rest. The knights—
"What?"
Taking them.
"Roeland?"
Taking me. No! Goldmoon, no! By the will of Solinari and all the vanished gods, don't let this—
"Roeland!"
The image of the former miller seemed to fold in upon itself, and the images of men and women around him recoiled and disappeared in the mist, which writhed angrily, like a storm-worried sea.
They're taking me!
"Roeland!"
"Roeland Stark." Gair stood and brushed the snow off his pants.
A sheet of blackness hung before the elf. It shimmered in the light of the moon and began to shape itself. A head with a wild mane of spiderweb hair sprouted; eyes glowed palely white, then red. Arms thrust out of the blackness, and hands and claws grew from these. Legs emerged, with feet that hovered above the ground.
Master, the specter of Roeland Stark said in its whispery voice.
More powerful in death, its brothers chanted. They had returned from rending the bodies.
"Now," Gair began, "you will tell me about Goldmoon."
The specter laughed hauntingly. I do not know her plans regarding you. In life or in death, the answer is the same. I do not know. Its laugh was long and eerie, sending owls shooting from the branches of trees. Her plans are her own. Nothing shared. Perhaps she has none. The wraith laughed deeper, whispery-coarse, no longer musical.
"Is it possible Goldmoon has no plans regarding me? Was I that inconsequential to her? Impossible." Perhaps he would concentrate solely on this mysterious link between himself and Goldmoon, probe her mind and get all of his questions answered that way. "When does she use the Silver Stair?"
If there's a pattern to it, the newly birthed wraith said, I don't know it. But someone climbs the stair almost every night the moon is out, searching for visions.
"Only in the moonlight does the stair reveal itself," Gair admitted.
So someone will climb the stair tonight, the wraith of Roeland continued. Shall we go there, Master? Slay the one who seeks insight from the Celestial Ladder? Let me take the climber's sweet life.
Powerful in death, the wraiths chanted.
"It is a long way to the Silver Stair," the elf mused aloud. "Too far to travel tonight when I must be inside this castle come the morning."
Not far to us. Darkhunter was at Gair's side again. Master, may we show you?
The small part of the elf not yet corrupted was apprehensive, but the chill touch of Darkhunter seemed to bolster him. He nodded. The wraith of the Que-Nal took his left hand and the wraith of Roeland took his right. Together the undead lifted Gair from the ground and flew him toward the southeast.
Much more powerful in death, Darkhunter whispered.
Goldmoon buried her face in her hands and wept. All of the men she and Camilla had sent looking for Gair were dead, and all by his hands. The once-gentle elf whom she considered her most promising student, so gifted and intelligent, so filled with curiosity, so obsessed, so…
"Corrupt," she said aloud. "Gair's dark magic has thoroughly seduced him, and ultimately I am to blame. I showed him the door."
Orvago poked his head inside the tent, stooping low this time to enter. He carefully regarded the women.
Camilla was silent for several minutes as the aging healer composed herself and busied herself finding glasses and a jug of bitter cherry wine. She poured a glass for each of them and revealed what she'd experienced. The healer drank her wine slowly, worrying her thumbs around the edge of the glass, staring into its dark surface at the reflection that stared back in the lantern light.
"He must be stopped," Camilla said finally. She forced herself to appear stoic, thrust to the back of her mind all the happy thoughts of Gair she once indulged in. It was silly anyway, she told herself, to entertain a notion that a knight might find room in her heart for romance. She took a deep swallow of the wine. Then another.
"Roeland said weapons couldn't harm the whisperers," Goldmoon said. Her voice was weak. She dabbed at her eyes and returned to worrying about the lip of the glass. "My magic, perhaps, might. I want nothing to do with this… sort… of mysticism. It's dark magic, but maybe it's the only way to stop Gair."
The gnoll drained his mug and wiped his snout on the sleeve of his tunic. He tugged the sword free from his belt, laid it on the table, and reached for the jug of cherry wine. "Whisperers, dead by this sword."
Goldmoon ran her fingers over the edge of the blade.
"This is a magic weapon, Orvago."
He nodded.
The healer looked into his big eyes. "Why did you wait so long to talk to us, my friend?"
The gnoll gave a shrug. "Did not have anything important to say." He stared at his reflection in the sword, then met the gaze of the women.
Camilla drained her mug, and the gnoll courteously refilled it, spilling only part of the jug's contents on the table. "I've a magic sword in the Sentinel. It belonged to my brother. I've nev
er used it. Maybe I was saving it in case he ever came back for it." She took a long pull, felt the warmth of the bitter wine flow down her throat. It felt like it was starting a fire in her belly. She barely felt the ache from the wound in her side that Goldmoon finished healing a few days ago. Her broken arm had been mended magically, too. "I'll leave to get the sword in the morning. It will give me a chance to check on the Sentinel and the town and to bring more soldiers here."
Orvago filled himself a third mug and handed the empty jug back to Goldmoon. She stoppered it and set it under the table. He wiped his hairy arm across the table to clean up what he'd spilled. His elbow smacked the lantern and it teetered precariously.
"I have a staff," Goldmoon said. It was wrapped in blankets at the side of her bed. "One I used a long time ago." During the War of the Lance, she added to herself.
"Maybe you won't have to use this dark mysticism of yours after all," Camilla said. "Maybe we can deal with Gair and his whisperers a more direct way." "Gair is my responsibility," Goldmoon said to herself.
"He was." Camilla finished her second glass and stood, balancing herself by holding the table. The knight was not used to drinking. "This island, and everyone on it, is mine to watch over. He's my responsibility, too."
The gnoll looked back and forth between the women and tucked the short sword protectively into his belt.
14
Solamnic Visions
"They said Vinas Solamnus had visions." Camilla stared at the translucent silver steps that spiraled up and out of sight. Like gossamer, they didn't seem at all real, shimmering strips of fabric that she would slip right through to the ground if she tried to stand on them. She bent to touch the bottom step. "Solid," she pronounced, holding on to it for support. She felt slightly lightheaded. "I guess it'll hold me." She slowly stood and let out a long breath that fanned like a puff of smoke away from her face. "It'll hold me better than I can hold wine."
Camilla glanced upward and felt a wash of dizziness as she tried to spy the top step. "Of course, without the wine I probably wouldn't be standing here. False courage. Or foolishness. I wonder if the people who make it to the top really do have visions?" The knight found herself on the first step and then the second. She wasn't thoroughly aware she was climbing the stair until she glanced down and discovered that she was higher than the tallest tents. "Oh my." She felt instantly dizzy again. She closed her eyes and steadied herself.