[Meetings 05] - Steel and Stone

by Ellen Porath - (ebook by Undead)

  * * * * *

  The village had all the charm of stale beer.

  Tanis and Kitiara pulled up their horses. The community boasted two short lanes and several faded grayboard houses, some no more than one large room with a thatched roof and a greased-parchment window. One house, larger than the rest, stood out; its owner had stained the exterior planks rich brown. The gray buildings looked dead next to the warmth of the brown one. A picket fence and double row of tall rachel flowers circled the place, the globes of bright pink and purple brightening an otherwise dismal scene. The companions saw no residents.

  Kitiara sniffed and pointed at the open front door of the brown home. "Spices and yeast," she said. "Can you smell them?"

  Tanis had dismounted and was on his way to the dwelling. "The owner may sell us some bread," he called back. Kitiara's empty stomach growled an affirmative.

  Kitiara remained mounted on Obsidian while Tanis hopped onto the porch of the brown house, knocked at the doorjamb, waited a moment, then entered despite the lack of a hail from within. The town had no stable, no public house where a traveler could lift a tankard of ale, but it wasn't that different from dozens of other villages where Kitiara had stopped over the years. Someone in such towns usually was willing to provide refreshment to strangers for the right price.

  Yet this community appeared deserted. Doors and shutters had been closed fast. "Anybody home?" Kitiara called. She waited. Obsidian, accustomed to the siege as well as the charge, stood quietly, her only sign of life the switching of her black tail. The place was rife with flies.

  Finally a plank creaked. "Why are you in Meddow?" came a woman's strident call from behind a cracked door. "What is your friend doing in Jarlburg's confectionery? We have many men here, all armed with swords and maces. We can defend ourselves. Go away."

  Kitiara hid a smile. Defend themselves indeed! They were as frightened as rabbits. She removed her helmet. "We are travelers bound for Haven. We desire food and drink, nothing more. And"—she paused significantly—"I can pay."

  Another pause, then a middle-aged woman dressed in the gathered skirt, scarf, and leather slippers of a peasant stepped hesitantly onto the porch of the shack next to the brown building. Her chapped hands held a large wooden crochet hook attached by a strand of green yarn to what looked to be the back portion of a child's sweater. Her hands never stopped moving, looping the handspun yarn; the hook's end bobbed like a chickadee. Kitiara traced the yarn to a bulging pocket in the front of the peasant's skirt. Every few stitches, the woman gave a yank on the yarn, which made the pocket jump and released a few more circles of yarn from a ball in the pocket.

  "I can give you water, but I have no food to spare," the woman said edgily. She kept flicking her gaze from Kitiara to the floor of the porch.

  "No bread?" Kitiara demanded. "But I can smell the yeast."

  "We get. . . got.. ." The woman took a deep breath and started again. "Jarlburg . . ." Her courage fled; she pressed the crochet hook against her quivering lips, then pointed with the implement to the open front door of the brown building. "There." Her eyes filled with tears. "Jarlburg's dead, too. I just know it. One by one, we're all dying."

  "Dead, too?" Kitiara repeated and pulled Obsidian back a pace. "What is it—a plague?" Her skin crawled. Kitiara would gladly take on any living foe, but a plague? No one on Krynn knew what caused disease, although some people said that clerics and healers who had followed the old gods, years ago before the Cataclysm, could cure such illnesses. These days, seekers of the new religions said the sick invited their own fate by straying from moral purity.

  The woman shook her head. "No, no plague. People just . . . disappear. I think they go into the swamp." She pointed to the east with a thin hand that, all at once, could barely hold the crochet hook.

  "Any signs of a struggle?" Kitiara asked.

  The peasant, shaking her head in reply, seemed suddenly convinced that the strangers were not the force behind whatever preyed on Meddow. She ventured from her front door. The woman didn't look at her crocheting; her nervous chatter kept pace with the frenetic movements of the wooden yarn hook.

  "We find their doors open in the morning and they're gone," she said tearfully. "I just know they're all dead—Berk, Duster, Brown, Johon, Maron, and Keat so far. And now Jarlburg! We've only three men left, and half a dozen women, and more than a dozen children. What will our babies do if all the parents are taken?" She began to wail, wiping her tears with the crocheting. She gazed at Kitiara through wet eyes. "You appear to be a soldier, ma'am. Can you and your friend help us?"

  Kitiara considered. "What can you pay?"

  The woman took a step back. "Pay?" she quavered. "We have no money."

  "Sorry, then," Kitiara announced curtly. "My companion and I have urgent business in Solace. We cannot delay." She turned Obsidian's head toward Jarlburg's confectionery. The woman burst into fresh tears behind her.

  "Wait!" It was the woman again. "I can give you this." She waved the sweater piece at Kitiara. "It will be finished soon. Perhaps you have a daughter or son it would fit?"

  "Gods forbid," Kitiara said with a short laugh. "That's all I need!" She refused the peasant again. "I must meet my companion and be moving on. We hope to be in Haven by dark."

  The woman's hands ceased their crocheting, fluttered to her apron, and entangled themselves there. As Kitiara turned away, the beseeching look in the peasant's eyes faded. "There's a shortcut," the peasant called to Kitiara. "Follow the path behind Jarlburg's; take it to the east. You will quickly reach a fork at the rose quartz boulder. The left fork winds a bit, but it will take you to Haven."

  "And the right fork?" Kitiara turned as she stepped up on Jarlburg's porch.

  "It goes straight into the swamp. Be careful."

  Kitiara thanked her and entered the brown dwelling.

  The peasant turned back toward her shack. "Or maybe it's the other way around," the woman muttered with a humorless smile. "I forget."

  * * * * *

  Despite the open door, Jarlburg's confectionery was stuffy. A trickle of sweat curved down Kitiara's back. She could detect the odors of cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and something sweet, like flower petals. She heard Tanis moving about in the back room, a huge kitchen, she now saw, with a brick oven at one end and a wooden slab of a table that dominated the center of the room. A sack and a half of wheat flour lay under the table.

  Tanis stood near the split door into the alley. The bottom half was closed, but the top was open. "You can smell the swamp from here," he said, adding, "The place is deserted, yet obviously someone was here baking recently."

  "Something's been preying on the village. It happens at night, a peasant woman told me." Kitiara related the peasant woman's story, leaving out her futile request for help. "We should take some provisions and get moving." Bleached flour sacks protected a few trays, including one on a shelf near her elbow. Kitiara peered under the towel and saw a dozen frosted buns. She pierced one with the point of her dagger and bit into the morsel.

  "Mmmmm," she said, talking before she swallowed. "Persimmon filling. Want some?"

  Tanis was digging out a coin—payment for the provisions, no doubt—from a pouch at his waist. He looked around, then placed it on a knife-scarred counter. "Someone will find it there. Anyway, how can you eat in this place?" he demanded. "The owner is probably lying dead somewhere out in the swamp."

  She finished the confection in three bites, licked her fingers elaborately, and took another bun. "If I went off my feed when circumstances were less than perfect, half-elf, I'd starve. And I'm no good as a swords-woman if I'm weak with hunger." She brushed her hands on her short leather skirt. "Do you see any bread? Check under that towel by the door."

  Tanis didn't move. He didn't say anything.

  "Squeamish?" Kitiara snapped. "I doubt old Jarlburg will mind if we sample his stock. What good are a few biscuits to him now?"

  Tanis still didn't say anything. Kitiara slipped her dagger into its
sheath. She emptied a tray of buns into a towel and tied it in a knot. "These will come in handy later," she commented.

  "Aren't you even a little curious about what has happened to everyone?" Tanis asked.

  Kitiara shook her head. "As long as it isn't me that's in danger, I have no curiosity." Tanis watched dispassionately, his expression unreadable. "What?" she demanded.

  "I'm trying to decide something," the half-elf said mildly, turning toward the alley.

  "What?" she asked.

  "Whether you're inhuman or typically human."

  Tanis stepped into the alley, leaving Kitiara standing motionless in the middle of the kitchen, one hand

  clenching a loaf of rye bread, the other holding the towel full of biscuits. Kitiara watched him leave, her blood pounding with anger.

  Damn the man. And damn his arrogant elven blood.

  * * * * *

  Tanis didn't say anything to Kitiara as they left Meddow. She pointed out a shortcut she said she'd learned about, and when they reached a fork after a few minutes of riding, she motioned wordlessly down the left path. They kicked their horses into a trot as dusk descended around them.

  Soon the path grew spongy, and the horses's feet began to make sucking noises as they pulled their hooves from the sodden peat.

  "This can't be the right trail," Tanis said, looking back from his position in the lead.

  "The woman said the left fork curved a bit," Kitiara snapped. "This is the left fork, damn it. Hurry up. It's getting dark."

  Tanis nodded. "I'd hate to see the right fork," he murmured.

  The vegetation changed as they continued along the trail. The trees now sagged under festoons of gray-green moss that resembled tresses of a desiccated corpse. Strange grasses, red, shoulder-high, with clouds of tiny insects around their tips, poked up beside the path. Kitiara touched one and snatched her hand away with a cry. "I've been bitten!"

  Tanis reined in Dauntless and leaned over to examine her hand. "By the insects or by the plant?" he asked. Blood oozed from a pair of cuts at the base of her thumb. "They look like teeth marks," he mused.

  Kitiara's temper snapped again. "Don't be ridiculous. Whoever heard of plants that bite?"

  The half-elf's expression was thoughtful. "I've heard of stranger things," he said.

  She jerked her hand away. "You're trying to spook me, half-elf. Let's get moving." She shoved Obsidian past the chestnut gelding into the lead. Tanis followed slowly.

  The path narrowed; red grasses pushed in from the sides until Tanis and Kitiara could barely see to the right or the left. There was only room for the horses to pass in single file. The smell of muck increased, as did the whine of insects. Once something purple, the size of a horse's hoof, scampered across the path right in front of Obsidian, dragging a small, fluttering bird. So startled was the mare that it was all Kitiara could do to restrain her rearing mount. When Obsidian had settled down at last, Kitiara shouted back, "What in the shadowless Abyss was that?"

  "Bog spider," Tanis said tersely. "Poisonous."

  As evening darkened, mosquitoes descended in hordes upon the travelers. Tanis unrolled a blanket from his bedroll and wrapped it over his head to discourage the biting insects. Kitiara followed suit. "Don't brush against the plants," he warned. Kitiara grunted in reply but kept Obsidian in the center of the trail.

  Tanis suddenly dismounted, picked up a stone from the trail, and tossed it into the reddish grasses. A splash followed. "The left fork led to Haven?" he repeated.

  Kitiara stopped and looked around. "So she said." Her gaze flicked from moss to grass to the narrow path. "So she said."

  Grasses pressed in on each side. As dusk deepened, they heard something large splash into the water off to their left. Bats swooped and circled overhead, feasting on nighttime insects. A humming, like the sound of a thousand insects, thrummed through the marsh.

  "Have you ever done battle in a bog?" Tanis asked quietly. Ignoring the mosquitoes, he let the blanket fall from his head and felt for his sword.

  Kitiara shook her head. "You?"

  Tanis nodded. "Once. With Flint."

  By some unspoken decision, they kept their tone offhand. "What lives here?" Kitiara asked.

  "Ever heard of the Jarak-Sinn?"

  Again she shook her head.

  "They're a race of lizard people. Their venom is deadly," Tanis said. With the night growing more dense around them, it seemed more appropriate to whisper. "And of course, there are ogres; you find them everywhere," he continued. "And shambling mounds. They look like piles of rotting leaves—until they rise and envelop you. Swamp alligators; I fought gators with Flint. They carry venom in a spine at the ends of their tails. They try to paralyze you and pull you into the water and drown you." He didn't mention that the feisty dwarf had almost lost his life in such an encounter, surviving only after liberal doses of Qualinesti herbs to offset the poison.

  Kitiara pushed the blanket back from her head and drew her sword. Tanis's was already out.

  "So we're in the swamp. Should we retreat or go on?" the swordswoman asked.

  Tanis looked at the scarlet grasses. "We couldn't turn the horses on this narrow path if we wanted to. Push on, but be ready, Kit."

  They moved on more slowly, their ears pricking with every new splash and bubble from the swamp. The stench of rotting plants and animals grew worse. Solinari had risen and was bathing the travelers in platinum moonlight.

  Then, all at once, what looked like two silver moons hung in the sky. Kitiara pointed and shouted. "Look, half-elf! A light! It's Haven after all!" Ignoring the half-elf's cry of dismay, she kicked Obsidian in the sides and clattered confidently ahead. The half-elf had no choice but to force Dauntless into a gallop.

  "Kitiara, wait!" he shouted. "It's a will-o'-the-wisp!" The swordswoman raced on as though she hadn't heard him.

  The path widened and curved to the right of a black pool. Solinari shone above them, its light giving an otherwordly glow to the sphagnum moss in the trees that ringed the travelers. Tanis drew up behind the mounted swordswoman and lunged for Obsidian's reins. Kitiara turned toward him. For a moment, confusion flickered across her face. Then her countenance cleared. "A will-o'-the-wisp?" she asked.

  The second orb hung lower, behind the pond. It was an arm's length in diameter. Its pulsating color shifted from white to pale green to violet to blue.

  "A will-o'-the-wisp is intelligent," Tanis explained, his sword still at the ready. "It lures its victims, masquerading as lanterns and confusing people until they stray into quicksand."

  "Quicksand?" Kitiara looked about her.

  Tanis pointed to the black pool at their feet. "Quicksand."

  Her voice was hushed. She glanced at the hovering globe of twinkling lights. "Will it attack?"

  "It may. Don't let it so much as touch you. You'll receive a shock that could kill you outright."

  Kitiara dismounted, sword in her right hand, dagger in her left. "That must be the creature that killed Jarlburg and the others," she said. "It probably came to the edge of the swamp near Meddow and coaxed them in." Tanis nodded his agreement. "What does a will-o'-the-wisp eat?" the swordswoman persisted.

  "Fear."

  Kitiara's glance showed that she thought Tanis was making fun of her, but the half-elf continued. "I've heard that a frightened person emits an aura. Some creatures can sense it. Instead of killing its victims immediately—by brushing against them, for example—the will-o'-the-wisp prefers slow death for its victims because the creature can absorb fear and store it as food."

  At that moment, the pulsating ball brightened, slowly but steadily, until its glow allowed the half-elf and swordswoman to make out the litter around the pool of black quicksand. In the eerie glow, they spotted skulls, swords, and pouches of money. Kitiara pointed. "Treasure?"

  "Probably thrown to the will-o'-the-wisp by victims hoping to buy mercy," Tanis said.

  The lower branches of trees that overhung the pool were bare of leaves, eviden
ce of desperate hands groping for anything that could resist the black sand's pull.

  Kitiara's face was shiny with perspiration—as was Tanis's own, no doubt, the half-elf realized. The will-o'-the-wisp glowed ever brighter, its color transformations coming more swiftly now. "Kit," he said, "it's feeding on our fear! Think about something else."

  She closed her eyes. "Solace."

  "That's good," Tanis said soothingly. "The vallenwood trees . . . think about them."

  "Everywhere I've gone," she said, "people have asked me what it was like to live in houses in the great Solace vallenwood trees."

  "With the rope bridges from tree to tree."

  "You could live your entire life without putting a foot on the ground."

  "Which is not the way for a dwarf," Tanis commented. "Flint Fireforge has one of the few houses at the base of the trees. He rarely leaves the ground except to visit Otik's tavern."

  The light dimmed, then brightened, then dimmed again.

  Then darkness.

  Suddenly, the only source of illumination was the faint light of Solinari. Tanis leaped from Dauntless, slinging his bow across one shoulder. "It's going to attack!" He slapped the gelding on the flank while Kitiara followed suit with Obsidian. The two horses galloped down the path in opposite directions. The half-elf and swordswoman placed themselves back to back, waiting. Tanis heard Kitiara whispering to herself, "Solace, Solace."

  "Vallenwood trees," he replied. "Remember the vallenwoods."

  Then the night burst around them. There was an explosion so bright that it momentarily blinded the half -elf. When his vision cleared, he saw a ball of blue flame streaking toward them. Grabbing Kitiara by the arm, he dragged her down on the path, and the cometlike creature, lightening to pale green, whisked overhead. The ends of Tanis's hair crackled as the will-o'-the-wisp rushed by Kitiara swore.

  "Huuumannnzzz!" The ghostly voice seemed to surround them, ebbing and strengthening and insinuating itself into every pore of their bodies. Yet the will-o'-the-wisp itself had returned to its position above the quicksand. The creature oscillated, its swirling colors shifting many times with each breath the companions drew.