Darkness and Light p-1

by Paul B. Thompson

  And yet, when the sun next shone over Rapaldo's garden, a giant mushroom grew out of the grave of Bellcrank.

  Unlike the scarlet fungi around it, this one was pure and shining white.

  Sturm had another vision. It came to him while he walked, yet his step never faltered.

  A horse neighed. Sturm saw four bony beasts tied' to a charred post. It was day, but heavy shadows lay over every thing. Sturm looked up and recognized the ruined battle ments of his father's castle. Across the courtyard he saw a broken wagon lying with one wheel off. A man was lashed to the remaining wheel, his wrists cruelly bound to its rim.

  Sturm closed on this desperate figure. He prayed to Pala dine that it was not his father.

  The man lifted his eyes. Through the wild growth of beard and the bruises of a brutal beating Sturm recognized

  Bren, his father's companion in exile. As in Sturm's last vision, Bren looked right through Sturm. The younger

  Brightblade was a phantom, a thing of no substance.

  Four men shuffled out of the shadows on Sturm's right.

  They were lean, rough-looking men of a type Sturm had often seen on the road. Vagabonds. Brigands. Killers.

  "When is we moving on, Touk?" said one of the men.

  "This here castle is haunted, I tell you."

  "You afraid of ghosts'" said the dirty-faced fellow with the brass earring.

  "I'm afraid of anything I can't stick my billhook through."

  "When are we leavin'?" asked the last brigand in line.

  Dirty-Face laughed, showing yellow teeth. "When I'm sure there ain't no more swag here'bout, that's when." Touk spat in the dirt. "Let's have a word wi' our honored guest."

  The bandit and two of his men stood over the prisoner.

  Touk grabbed Bren by his matted hair and lifted his head.

  Sturm ached to help him, but he could do nothing.

  "Where's the treasure, old man?" asked Touk, flashing a wicked knife under the old soldier's chin.

  "There's no treasure," Bren gasped. "The castle was sacked years ago."

  "Come on! Do you take us for fools? There's always a few coins tucked away somewhere, eh? So where are they?" He pressed the tip of the blade into Bren's throat.

  "I–I'll tell," he said weakly. "Below the great hall — a secret room. I can show you."

  Touk removed the knife. "This better be a straight story."

  "No tricks. I'll take you right to it."

  They cut him loose and dragged him along. Sturm fol lowed on their heels, close enough to smell the mingled stench of sweat, grime, fear, and greed.

  Bren guided them to the cellar beneath the great hall.

  There, in a long corridor, he counted the torch sconces on the right side. At number eight, he said, "That's it, that's the one." One of the brigands lit the stump in the sconce with the brand he carried.

  "The bracket turns," said Bren.

  Touk seized the stout iron holder and shook it. It swung to the left and stayed there. A section of the tiled floor lifted with a loud grinding sound. Touk tossed his torch into the widening gap. It bounced down a steep stone staircase and came to rest, still burning, at the bottom. Something shiny gleamed in the torch light.

  "Good work," Touk said, grinning. Without another word, he shoved his knife between Bren's ribs. Angriff

  Brightblade's loyal man groaned and slid down the wall. His head sagged as the dark stain spread over his chest.

  "C'mon, lads, let's collect our reward!" Touk led his two cronies down the steps.

  Sturm bent to see Bren's face. Though his skin had gone waxen, Bren's eyes still glittered with life. "Young master," he said. Blood flecked his lips.

  Sturm recoiled. Bren could see him!

  Slowly, with terrible effort, the old soldier gripped the rough stone wall and dragged himself to his feet. "Master

  Sturm — you've come back. I always knew you would."

  Bren reached out to Sturm, hand swaying. Sturm tried to clasp his hand, but of course he had no substance. Bren's fin gers passed through him and closed on the sconce. As death claimed him, Bren fell, and his weight bore the bracket back to its original position.

  The trap door lowered noisily. One robber gave a yell and dashed to safety. At the top of the steps, he stopped, riveted, staring at Sturm.

  "Ahh." he screamed. "Ghost!" He stumbled back, bowl ing over Touk and the other brigand. The slab of stone descended, cutting off their screams for help.

  The world went red. Sturm shook his head, where the screams of Touk and the other robbers still rang. He was plodding across the plains of Lunitari as before.

  "Back with us?" asked Kitiara. Sturm made inarticulate sounds. This had been his longest vision yet, and somehow near the end, the men on Krynn had been able to see him.

  He told his companions his tale.

  "Hmm, it's said that dying men have second sight," Kiti ara mused. "Bren and the thief were both facing death; may be that's why they could see you."

  "But I couldn't help them," Sturm complained. "I had to watch them die. Bren was a good man. He served my father well."

  "Did you see or hear of your father at all?" asked Sighter.

  Sturm shook his head. That very omission preyed on his mind. What had separated Bren from Lord Brightblade?

  Was his father well? Where was he?

  Wingover let out a yell. "I see the tracks!" he cried. Where the slabs of wine-colored sandstone broke into fingers of rock, crimson sand had drifted in between. And there were the circular prints, as regular as clockwork. Kitiara's notion had been right — the Micones had come this way.

  Chapter 18

  'The Valley of the Voice

  At last Wingover spied the great obelisk. The band had come to a place where the rocky ledges reared up as low, jagged peaks. Kitiara and Wingover climbed this saw toothed barrier and reported that beyond lay a magnificent bowl-shaped valley that stretched far beyond the limits of the horizon. Kitiara could not see the obelisk, but Wingover assured them that a single, tall spire stood forty miles away, in the exact center of the valley.

  The gnomes took heart from the news. They had been uncommonly subdued on the trek from the village.

  "Bellcrank's death has them hanging their heads," Kitiara said privately to Sturm. "I guess the little fellows have never faced death before."

  Sturm agreed. What the gnomes needed was a problem, to stimulate their imaginations. He called them together.

  "Here's the situation," Sturm began. "Wingover estimates the obelisk is forty miles away. Forty miles is a ten-hour march, if we don't stop for food or rest. Fifteen hours is a more reasonable estimate, but by then the sun will be up and the Lunitarians can be on the move, too."

  "If only we had some way to get down in a hurry," said

  Kitiara. "Horses, oxen, anything."

  "Or carts, for that matter," Sturm mused.

  Kitiara shot him a knowing glance. "Yes, the slope down from the saw-toothed ridge is steep but fairly smooth. We could roll quite a ways."

  The spirit of technical challenge was infectious, and ideas — wild, gnomish ideas — began flashing about the little group. The gnomes dumped their packs into one big heap and went into a close huddle. Their rapid patter made no sense to Sturm or Kitiara, but the humans saw it as a good sign.

  As suddenly as the gnomes had put their heads together, they broke apart. Tools appeared, and the gnomes pro ceeded to knock their wooden backpacks to pieces.

  "What are you making this time?" Sturm asked Cutwood.

  "Sleds," was the simple reply.

  "Did he say 'sleds'?" asked Kitiara.

  Within half an hour, each gnome had constructed, according to his lights, a sled — that is, a Single-Gnome Iner tia Transport Device. "By these we expect to descend the cliff slope at prodigious speed," announced Sighter.

  "And break your reckless little necks," said Kitiara under her breath.

  "These are for you and Master Sturm," said Roperig. He an
d Fitter pushed two flimsy sleds to the human's feet. Hav ing only short slats of wood to work with, the gnomes held their inventions together with nails, screws, glue, string, wire, and, in Rainspot's case, his suspenders. Wingover had designed his sled to let him ride on his belly; Sighter's allowed the rider to gracefully recline. Because of their rela tive size, Sturm's and Kitiara's sleds allowed them only a wide bit of plank for a seat.

  "You can't be serious," Kitiara said dubiously. "Ride that down there?"

  "It will be fast," encouraged Sighter.

  "And fun!" Fitter exclaimed.

  "We've calculated all the available data on stress and strength of materials," Cutwood noted. He brandished his notebook as proof; there were five pages covered with tiny, closely spaced letters and numbers. "In all cases except yours, there'll be a safety factor of three."

  "What do you mean, 'in all cases except yours''" Kitiara felt obliged to ask.

  Cutwood stowed his notebook in his vest pocket. "Being larger and heavier, you will naturally put more stress on the

  Single-Gnome Inertia Transport Devices. Your chances of reaching the bottom of the hill without crashing are no more than even."

  Kitiara opened her mouth to protest, but Sturm fore stalled her with a tolerant glance. "Those are better odds than the Lunitarians will give us," he had to admit. He boosted the flimsy sled to his shoulder. "Are you coming!"

  She looked more than doubtful. "Why don't we stay here and break each others' necks? Then we'll at least save the trouble of tumbling and rolling."

  "Are you afraid?"

  He knew just how to provoke her. Kitiara flushed and took up her sled. "Want to..wager who gets to the bottom first?" she said.

  "Why not?" he replied. "I haven't any money."

  "What good is money here? How about if the loser has to carry the winner's bedroll all the way to the obelisk?"

  "It's a wager." They shook hands.

  Wingover was giving his colleagues an impromptu course on steering and braking. "Mostly you steer by leaning in the direction you want to go," he advised. "For stopping, use the heels of your shoes, not the toes. The downhill momentum can turn your feet under and break your toes."

  Rainspot and Cutwood flipped open their notebooks and scribbled furiously. "Given a maximum velocity of fifty-six miles per hour — "

  "And feet approximately seven inches long — "

  "One can expect to break three toes on the left foot — "

  "And four on the right," said Rainspot. The gnomes applauded.

  "Wingover just told us not to use our toes, so why in the name of the suffering gods do you calculate something no one in his right mind would try?" Kitiara asked.

  "The principle of scientific inquiry should not be limited to merely the practical or the possible," explained Sighter.

  "Only by investigating the unlikely and the unthought-of is the sum total of knowledge advanced."

  Sturm was looking at his feet. "What I don't understand is why more toes on the right foot would break than on the left."

  "Don't encourage them!" Kitiara told Sturm. She dragged her shaky bundle of slats to the edge of the cliff. The glass smooth slope plunged down at a breathtaking angle. Kitiara inhaled sharply and looked back. The gnomes crowded for ward to the edge, quite unafraid.

  "Obviously an example of vitreous concretion," observed

  Cutwood, running a hand over the smooth, bubbly surface.

  "Do you think? Volcanic?" Wingover said.

  "Hardly. I should say this entire valley constitutes a ther moflexic astrobleme," theorized Sighter.

  Kitiara uttered an angry snort that cut off further gnom ish theorizing. She dropped her sled and straddled it. When she let her weight down on it, the slats creaked ominously.

  "You did say even odds?" she said to Cutwood. The gnome babbled something about "within two standard deviations," and Kitiara decided not to query further. She pulled herself forward by hands and heels until she teetered on the brink.

  "C'mon, Sturm! Or do you want to pack my bedroll for the next forty miles?"

  Sturm laid his sled on the ground. He told Wingover that he and Kit were going to race. Wingover replied, "Oh! Then you'll need someone at the bottom to see who wins! Wait, wait — I'll go down first, and when I'm in place, I'll call you."

  "All right with you, Kit?" She waved a casual affirmative.

  "All right, lads. Here I go!" said Wingover. "For science!" he proclaimed, and slid over. immediately, the other gnomes lined up and went right after him.

  Cutwood called, "For Sancrist!" and went over.

  "For technology!" cried Rainspot, as he tipped over the edge.

  "For the Cloudmaster!" was Roperig's toast.

  "For raisin muffins!" Fitter followed close behind his boss.

  Sighter, the last, pushed his sled forward and slipped into the seat. "For Bellcrank," he said softly.

  The gnomes' sleds bounded down the hill, swaying and leaping over bumps in the glasslike rock. Wingover, lying prone on his mount, steered skillfully around the worst obstacles. He'd built a front yoke on his sled, and weaved a serpentine course down the slope. On his heels, Cutwood howled straight down, knees tight against his chin, his silky beard clamped firmly between them. Sturm and Kitiara heard his high-pitched "Woo-haa!" as he hit bump after bump.

  Rainspot had a drag-brake on the tail of his sled, and he coasted along at a relatively mild rate. Roperig, who had designed his sled to be ridden in a standing crouch, whistled by the weather seer, frantically waving his outstretched arms in an effort to keep his balance. His apprentice was having all sorts of trouble. Fitter's mount was wider than it was long, and it tended to rotate as it slid. This made his progress somewhat slower than the others but the spinning threatened to turn his stomach. Sighter, cool and rational, proceeded under perfect control. He would touch his heels to the ground at specific points to correct the direction he was taking.

  All was going fairly well until Wingover reached bottom, four hundred feet away. There the glass cliff face changed to dry red gravel, and Wingover's sled stopped dead on its run ners. His stop was so sudden that the trailing gnomes piled right into him — Cutwood and Roperig immediately, Fitter and Rainspot a little later. Slats and tools and gnomes flew through the air after a series of hair-raising crashes. Sturm saw Sighter move unflinching toward the pile, but averted his eyes and missed Sighter's sharp turn, which left him two feet to the right of the scrambled group.

  Kitiara burst out laughing. "Acres of slope, and they all have to stop on the same spot!"

  Sturm frowned. "I hope no one's hurt."

  Feet and legs and wreckage untangled into six shaky gnomes. Sighter helped them untangle themselves.

  Wingover finally waved to the humans.

  "That means go!" Kitiara shouted, and pushed herself off.

  Sturm was caught off guard.

  "Not fair!" he cried, but dug in his heels and tipped over the cliff lip in hot pursuit.

  He immediately lost control. The sled careened sharply to the right, and Sturm leaned away from the turn. There was a sickening snap, and his seat sagged under him. Sturm less ened his lean, and the sled slowly corrected itself.

  Kitiara barreled straight down the slope at full speed, her feet pressed together and her knees poking out on either side. "Ya-ha-ha-ha!" she crowed. She was far out in front of

  Sturm, who couldn't seem to get his sled to run in a straight line for more than a few feet at a time.

  Kitiara hit a hump and bounced several inches off her seat. Instead of frightening her, the bump only increased her delight. A whole series of bumps approached, and she didn't slacken speed at all.

  It wasn't until she hit the fourth bump that she realized she was in trouble. That bump slammed her hard against the flimsy seat struts. The left runner splintered along its length.

  Kitiara put her left boot down to slow herself. The hobnails in her shoe sole bit, and her left leg was yanked back. Mind ful of what Cutwood had
said about breaking toes, she didn't resist the pulling and was swept off the sled. She land ed hard on her right shoulder and rolled over and over.

  Sturm didn't dare try to stop his sled, and coasted to the bot tom. The second his runners stuck in the gravel, he was on his feet. Kitiara lay motionless on her stomach.

  Sturm ran to her, closely followed by the gnomes. He dropped on one knee and gently turned her over. Her face was contorted, and she uttered a ferocious curse.

  "Where does it hurt?" he said.

  "My shoulder," she hissed through clenched teeth.

  "Could be a broken collarbone," said Rainspot.

  "Is there any way to tell for sure?"

  "Ask her to touch her left shoulder with her right hand," suggested Roperig. "If she can, the bone must not be bro ken."

  "Such anatomical ignorance!" said Sighter. "One must probe with one's fingers in order to find the ends of the sepa rated bone — "

  "Don't let them touch me," Kitiara whispered. "If they can't prove it any other way, they may decide to cut me open to examine my bones." Just then Sturm heard Cut wood saying something about "exploratory surgery."

  Wingover, who was standing by Kitiara's feet, said, "No bones are broken."

  "How do you know?" asked Cutwood.

  "I can see them," he replied. "There don't even seem to be any cracks. It's probably a sprain."

  "You can see through flesh nowt" Sturm asked incredu lously. Put so bluntly, Wingover suddenly realized what he was doing.

  "By Reorx!" he said. "This is terrific! I wonder what else I can see through?" The gnomes crowded around him, Kitiara forgotten. They took turns having Wingover peer through their bodies and describing what he saw. Cries of "Hydro dynamics!" filled the air.

  Kitiara tried to sit up, but the pain took her breath away.

  "Keep still," Sturm cautioned. "I'll have to find something to bind up your shoulder."

  He rummaged through his belongings and found his only change of shirt — a white linen blouse made by the best tailor in Solace. Regretfully, he tore it into inch-wide strips and tied their ends into one long bandage.