Destiny

by Paul B. Thompson

  Their commander wasn’t satisfied with leaving the lights cowering behind monoliths. He wanted to destroy them. He and his second each had half a pot of water remaining, and he intended to continue the fight. Ordering the rest of the patrol to remain at a safe distance, the two rode slowly toward the monoliths. Strange business, two veteran fighters stalking their enemy with nothing more lethal than a few cups of water and a pair of straw brushes. But there was no arguing with the efficacy of the human priestess’s preparation.

  The elves veered apart, one passing on each side of a slender standing stone. The will-o’-the-wisps were clustered together, flying in tight circles. They were as far from the elves as they could get within the cluster of stones—only six feet away, the easiest of targets. The commander smiled grimly. What was the kender phrase? “Pickings easy as a one-eyed shopkeeper.”

  He stood in his stirrups and flung drops at the mass of lights. Five or six immediately flashed out of existence. The rest reacted strangely. Instead of a last, blind charge at their tormentors, they swarmed even more tightly together and dived at the ground. With a loud crash like the fall of heavy stones, the lights bored into the soil. An aura shone briefly from the hole they’d made, then all was dark once more.

  Commander and second exchanged an astonished look. They rode forward and the second dismounted to inspect the hole. Four feet wide, it bored straight down through the layers of blue-green soil. The sides were hot to the touch and smooth, but cool, stale air wafted from the hole. Evidently the lights had breached one of the many tunnels.

  The warrior lying on the ground by the hole called a whimsical greeting. “Anybody there?”

  “Yes! Keep calling! I am coming!”

  The elf recoiled sharply and jumped to his feet. His commander set him to shouting into the hole then summoned the rest of the patrol. They all crowded into the grove of white stones, weapons bared. The unknown person in the tunnel drew near the opening and shouted his relief at being found. The commander demanded his identity.

  “My name is Robien. I’m a Kagonesti bounty hunter. I met your General Taranath some days ago. He can vouch for me.”

  They hauled him out, and he offered heartfelt thanks. The tale he told was a strange one—picked up bodily by the valley’s ghosts and tossed, weapons and all, down below. Just before he heard the warrior calling, the fleeing orbs had flown straight down the tunnel at him.

  “I thought I was doomed! But they passed right through me, harmless as sunlight,” Robien finished.

  The commander described his patrol’s defeat of the guardian lights and the lights’ desperate method of escape.

  Robien accepted a skin of water from the riders but not their offer of a ride. His deadly encounters hadn’t dissuaded him from his original mission, the capture of the sorcerer Faeterus. He settled a pair of yellow-tinted spectacles on his nose.

  “Give my regards to General Taranath,” he said and jogged away.

  The warriors sat staring at each other for several seconds. If not for the hole in the ground, the entire affair would have seemed a collective illusion. One of the warriors, a soldier from western Qualinesti, had heard of Robien the Tireless. Kagonesti by birth, the bounty hunter had lived nearly his whole life among humans, which accounted for his foreign accent and odd appearance. It was said that in all his career, he had never failed to get his quarry. Some he did not return alive, but none ever escaped.

  The commander turned his horse’s head back toward camp. Despite the encounter with the bounty hunter, the real story of the night was the success of Sa’ida’s blessed water. General Hamaramis must be told how well it had worked. The riders followed their leader out of the grove of monoliths.

  The water was meeting with similar success in camp. Even after the liquid soaked into the ground, the barrier persisted. Will-o’-the-wisps approached the camp, came to the line drawn in the soil, and halted. They meandered up and down, left and right, but none could advance an inch farther. Everyone was delighted and the children acted upon their jubilation. Standing safely inside the line, they flung stones and dirt clods at the will-o’-the-wisps. The lights were not easy targets, dodging nimbly away from the projectiles, but when a lucky child did connect, the will-o’-the-wisp staggered in flight.

  Hamaramis was drawn by the children’s loud cheers. To their disappointment, he ordered an end to their merriment. None knew how long the spell would work, he said sternly, and there was no sense antagonizing the lights. He could not be everywhere, however, and the teasing and harassment of the will-o’-the-wisps continued all around the camp.

  As the night progressed, more and more lights arrived. By midnight, hundreds drifted around the camp beyond the invisible barrier. Word spread, and elves were roused from sleep to witness the spectacle. The lights represented every color of the rainbow, from deepest purple to pale green to fiery red. White was the commonest hue, and those tended to be the largest will-o’-the-wisps. The lights ebbed and flowed along the barrier like schools of bright fish. Sometimes a pair would put on a burst of blinding speed and chase each other skyward in an ever-tightening spiral. At the apex of the spiral, the pair would collide, and only one would survive. The other disappeared.

  The noise in camp roused Sa’ida. Blinking against the torchlight, she emerged from her tent. The festive atmosphere did not please her. After donning her cloak, she stopped the first warrior she saw and demanded to be taken to Hamaramis. The old general was on the east side of camp, halting yet another group of children from throwing pebbles at the lights.

  “This must stop!” Sa’ida said, hurrying up to him. “It’s very dangerous!”

  He gave her a look of deep frustration. “We’ve been trying to stop it. The children—”

  “Never mind the children! The lights are massing for a reason. They’re trying to overcome the ward placed around camp!”

  “What can we do?”

  Sa’ida brushed the tangled hair from her face. “Is there any of the blessed water left?”

  Three clay pots set aside for late-night patrols were brought to her. She asked that more water be drawn for her to bless. Hamaramis sent out the order then accompanied the priestess and two dozen warriors to the monolith the Speaker had overturned.

  Most of those responding to Hamaramis’s call fanned out to search the camp for extra water, but three elves, thinking to save time, took up buckets and rushed toward the spring. Unfortunately it lay outside the warded area. The celebratory air in camp had caused them to forget the very real danger posed by the will-o’-the-wisps at night. Standing atop the toppled monolith, Sa’ida saw their peril and shouted a warning, but the three had already stepped outside the barrier and they were swarmed by dozens of lights. All three disappeared instantly, without time even to cry out. Shocked, the noisy crowd fell silent.

  “No one goes across the line!” Hamaramis roared. It was not an order he had to repeat.

  Sa’ida had sent for straw brooms. These arrived, and the two dozen warriors were ready. Veteran soldiers, bronzed by the brutal sun of Khur and bearing the scars of combat, they felt faintly ridiculous facing a foe armed only with brooms. Sa’ida made it plain their task was serious. The overturned monolith was near the edge of camp and, thus, near the protective barrier. Each warrior dipped a broom in the water and swung it in a wide arc, flinging droplets at the will-o’-the-wisps massed only yards away.

  The first salvo claimed a dozen lights. They vanished in a flare of sparks. The others ceased moving, hanging utterly still in midair. Many emitted a faint buzzing sound.

  Sa’ida called for the warriors to resume their efforts, and the motionless lights were easy targets. They succumbed in great numbers. More water arrived. The buckets and ewers were handed up to Sa’ida to be consecrated to Elir-Sana. While she worked, the noise from the will-o’-the-wisps intensified. All were buzzing and the sound grew so loud, it distracted the priestess. She had to begin her incantation all over again.

  The soldiers contin
ued flinging water at the lights. The largest, brightest lights ceased buzzing. First one, then a handful, then dozens soared into the night sky, blazing brightly. When they’d ascended several hundred feet, the remaining lights joined them, and the entire assemblage shot upward until it disappeared among the stars.

  A profoundly stunned silence blanketed the elf camp. Then a single voice shouted, “Long live Sa’ida! Long live the high priestess!” Thousands took up the cry.

  Robe soaked (one of the water pots had spilled) and looking more harassed than heroic, Sa’ida was as amazed as anyone by the departure of the lights.

  “Are they all gone?” Hamaramis demanded.

  She nodded. By her special sense of such things, the priestess knew that not a single will-o’-the-wisp remained in Inath-Wakenti.

  A group of elves raised a clamor at the foot of the overturned monolith. They were kin of the three who had disappeared while trying to reach the spring, and they wanted the tunnels searched immediately for their lost loved ones. The frame still stood above the hole at the base of the monolith, and despite a guard’s efforts to pull him back, the brother of one of the newly vanished elves clung to the frame and shouted frantically down into the hole.

  Hamaramis was trying to address the elves’ demands when the sentinels guarding the camp’s perimeter raised a warning.

  The ghosts were coming.

  Sa’ida had seated herself on the other end of the monolith. She jumped up with creditable agility and hurried to Hamaramis’s end of the slab. Looking west, she could see ranks of pale, translucent specters appearing from the cover of trees and other monoliths. The spirits were no more numerous than usual, but they moved with slow determination directly toward the camp.

  “I feared this,” Sa’ida murmured. She held her hands down to the warriors standing by the monolith. Two soldiers helped her descend. “General, without the guardians, the spirits are free to roam at will. They’re drawn to the living. They’ll move among us, bring panic, melancholy, even madness, if we allow it.”

  Hamaramis paled. “Allow it? What can we do? More water—?”

  “The dead are beyond the goddess’s blessings.”

  “Then what?” he demanded.

  The beloved of Elir-Sana responded to his frightened anger briefly and with formidable calm. When she’d finished explaining what must be done, the old general dispatched warriors to ride through camp and spread the word. Everyone was to retire inside their tents, close the flaps, and admit no one. The dead couldn’t enter a home closed to them unless they were invited. That was the prevailing theory, anyway. Sa’ida couldn’t be certain it would hold true for flimsy tents and the spirits inhabiting the “Refuge of the Damned,” as Inath-Wakenti was known in the texts of her goddess.

  “How long?” the general asked.

  “Until sunrise. I pray the new light of day will banish the spirits, at least until night falls again.”

  Hamaramis insisted she must pass the night with the Speaker’s household. Her lone tent was too exposed. She accepted the invitation and urged haste. Leading elements of the ghostly horde were halfway to the camp.

  The sides of the Speaker’s tent had been drawn down. Only the main door flap remained open, and the last members of Gilthas’s household were hurrying inside. Hamaramis delayed to watch as elves hurried into shelter. Warriors led their horses into corrals. Parents scooped up straggling children. In moments the camp’s many paths were deserted.

  The old general held back the heavy tapestry that served as the door flap to the Speaker’s tent and gestured for Sa’ida to precede him.

  “What exactly will they do?” he asked.

  “What ghosts always do. Haunt us.”

  18

  The eastern half of the valley had fewer monoliths, and thick foliage filled the void. It wasn’t lush, healthy verdure, but a mass of thorny creeper, trumpet vine, and barberry bushes. The ground covers were a tangle guaranteed to trip the unwary. The bushes were head high, with branches thick as an elf’s wrist and covered by half-inch spines. Kerian and her comrades were forced to cut their way through. Arms and faces were soon covered by scratches.

  Sometime after midnight Kerian halted to catch her breath. Her thoughts turned to her husband. His malady made sleep heavy but unsettled, tormenting him with fever, drenching sweats, and nightmares. As she looked back over her shoulder toward the distant camp, even more than usual she wished him pleasant dreams.

  One by one her companions ceased their labors and followed her example, gazing across the starlit landscape in the direction of those they’d left behind. During their eastward trek, the land had risen slowly and they had a clear line of sight to the camp, below them. The bonfires were faint at this distance.

  As the three elves watched, a great column of light suddenly blazed upward from the camp. The column resolved into a multitude of will-o’-the-wisps, streaking into the night sky, corkscrewing, crashing into each other, and washing the monoliths in frantic rainbow glory. High in the sky, the lights abruptly winked out, leaving the valley cloaked in darkness once more.

  The three elves regarded each other in silent consternation.

  “What was that?” Hytanthas demanded.

  “The lights must have attacked the camp.”

  Taranath regarded Kerian in horror. Fearing the worst, he whispered, “The Speaker?”

  She reassured them both. The bond between husband and wife was so strong, she knew without a doubt that Gilthas still lived. But something extraordinary had occurred, and she was equally certain he was at the center of it.

  No other displays disturbed the night, so Kerian turned her face eastward again.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “Whatever it was, it’s all right.”

  The mountains rose gray and massive before them. The thick growth had seriously impeded their progress. Turning their anxiety into strength, they cleared the bushes with renewed vigor. The vines and barberry gave way to wild sage, and each stroke of their swords filled the air with its heavy odor. The smell was not a pleasant one. Trust the cursed valley, Kerian thought bitterly, to warp a savory herbal aroma into a nauseating stench.

  The heavy foliage ended abruptly, and all three elves stumbled gratefully into the open, breathing deeply of fresher air. The ground ahead was dotted with stunted pines and plain gray boulders rather than the usual snow-white monoliths. High, thin clouds had begun to cover the stars above Mount Rakaris.

  They paused to clean their blades. Kerian had just slipped hers into its scabbard when she spotted someone sitting on a nearby boulder, watching them. She’d had no warning of his presence. When she glanced up at the clouding sky, he hadn’t been there. When she looked down again, he was. Unnerved, she barked a loud challenge. Hytanthas had his sword halfway out of its sheath, but Taranath put a hand on its hilt, halting him.

  “Robien,” Taranath called. “Kerian, this is the bounty hunter we freed from Faeterus’s trap.”

  Robien slid off the boulder and approached. Starlight glinted off his spectacles. He bowed to the Lioness with a sweep of one hand. “Lady Kerianseray,” he said with formal precision.

  “Kerian will do. Taran’s told me how he found you.” Giving him an appraising look, she added, “You have a powerful friend.”

  He made an offhand comment about the khan, and she let it go. He was alive because a flock of bats had shaded the creeping sand, delaying its deadly effect until Taranath’s patrol could dig him out. If Robien didn’t realize who had sent those bats to lifeless Inath-Wakenti, it wasn’t her place to enlighten him. She asked why he was here.

  “We’re pursuing the same target. It has occurred to me we should join forces.”

  The Lioness regarded him in silence for a time. He was accomplished, and his abilities would be useful in their quest to stop Faeterus. But she didn’t trust his motives. He’d slipped away from Taranath’s elves almost as soon as they’d returned to camp. He hadn’t wanted their help then, why did he want it now? In
her usual blunt fashion, she put that very question to him. He met bluntness with bluntness.

  “What do you intend for the sorcerer?” he asked.

  Her eyes narrowed. “I intend to have his head before he can cause more grief.”

  “My contract is to bring him back to Khuri-Khan alive.” She started to argue, but he held up a hand. “Contracts can be amended.”

  Sahim-Khan would pay more for a live victim to punish. But two brushes with death in the space of a few days had shaken Robien’s considerable confidence. He told them of the attack by the spirits, that he might have wandered forever in the tunnels if not for his enchanted spectacles. Not only could they detect any trace of living beings, but they allowed him to see in utter darkness. As it was, he’d been trapped underground for two days, and in that time he’d done some hard thinking. He’d concluded that he could find Faeterus, or he could survive Inath-Wakenti. Doing both might be more than one elf, no matter how skilled, could manage on his own.

  “I agree the mage is too dangerous to take alive,” he finished. “All I ask is sufficient evidence to prove to Sahim-Khan that Faeterus is indeed dead.”

  “Two ears and a tail for you, it is,” replied Kerian with unconscious irony.

  The two elves, both Kagonesti yet so very different, clasped hands, and the Lioness found her small force greatly enlarged.

  Now that they were clear of the heavy undergrowth, she wanted to make a quick reconnaissance. In hacking their way through the tangle, they’d lost the trail. Robien offered to find it again because he was the freshest of the group. The other three rested, sharing a water bottle. They hadn’t long to wait. The bounty hunter returned and announced he’d found a trail.

  “Faeterus?” Kerian asked.

  He shook his head. “No, an elf he captured and forced to aid him. I’d know the prints of Favaronas’s ragged sandals anywhere.”