Dragons of the Fallen Sun

Chapter Twenty-Seven The Touch of the Dead

This evening, while Silvanoshei prepared himself for his first battle, Goldmoon prepared herself as if for battle. For he first time in many long weeks, Goldmoon asked that a hand mirror be brought to her quarters. For the first time since the storm, she lifted the mirror and looked at her face.

Goldmoon had been vain as a girl. She was graced with a rare beauty, the only woman in her tribe to have hair that was like a shimmering tapestry woven of silken threads of sunshine and of moonlight. The chieftain’s daughter, she was spoiled, pampered, brought up with an exalted opinion of herself. She spent long hours gazing into the water bowl just to see her own reflection.

The young warriors of her tribe adored her. They came to blows for her smile. All except one.

One day, she looked into the eyes of a tall outcast, a young shepherd named Riverwind, and she saw herself in the mirror he held up to her. Looking into his eyes, she saw her vanity, her selfishness. She saw that she was ugly in his eyes, and she was shamed and despairing. For him, for Riverwind, Goldmoon wanted to be beautiful.

So she had come to be beautiful, but only after they had both gone through many trials and travails together, only after they had confronted death fearlessly, clasped in each other’s arms. She had been given the blue crystal staff. She had been given the power of bringing the healing love of the gods back into the world.

Children were born to Goldmoon and Riverwind. They worked to unite the contentious tribes of the Plains people. They were happy in their lives and in their children and their friends, the companions of their journeying. They had looked forward to growing old together, to taking their final rest together, to leaving together this plane of existence and moving on to the next, whatever that might be. They were not afraid, for they would be together.

It had not happened that way.

When the gods left following the Chaos War, Goldmoon mourned their absence. She was not one who railed against them.

She understood their sacrifice, or thought she did. The gods had left so that Chaos would leave, the world would be at peace. She did not understand, but she had faith in the gods, and so she did what she could to argue against the anger and bitterness that poisoned so many.

She believed in her heart that someday the gods would return.

That belief dwindled with the coming of the monstrous dragons, who brought terror and death to Ansalon. Her belief vanished altogether when word came that her beloved Riverwind and one of her daughters had both been slain by the heinous dragon Malys.

Goldmoon had longed to die herself. She had fully intended to end her life, but then Riverwind’s spirit had come to her.

She must stay, he told her. She must continue her fight to keep hope alive in the world. If she left the world, the darkness would win.

She had not wanted to heed his words, but she had given way.

She had been rewarded. She had been given the gift of healing a second time. Not a blessing from the gods, but a mystical power of the heart which even she did not understand. She brought this gift to others and they had banded together to build the Citadel of Light in order to teach all people how to use the power.

Goldmoon had grown old in the Citadel. She had seen the spirit of her husband as a handsome youth once again. Though he curbed his impatience, she knew he was eager to be gone and that he waited only for her to complete her journey.

Goldmoon lifted the mirror and looked at her face.

Lines of age were gone. Her skin was smooth. Her once sunken cheeks were now plump, the pale skin rose colored. Her eyes had always been bright, shining with the indomitable courage and hope that had made her seem young to her devoted followers. Her lips, thin and gray, were full, tinged with coral.

Her hair had remained her one vanity. Though her hair had turned silver white, it remained thick and luxuriant. She reached her hand to touch her hair, a hand that was young and smooth and strong again, and the fingers touched gold and silver strands.

But her hair had an odd feel to it. Coarser than she remembered, not as fine.

She knew suddenly why she hated this unasked for, unlooked for, unwanted gift. The face in the mirror was not her face. The face was a memory of her face, and the memory was not her own.

The memory was another’s. The face was someone’s idea of her face. This face was perfect, and her face had not been perfect.

The same was true of her body. Youthful, vigorous, strong, slender waist, full breasts, this body was not the body she remembered. This body was perfect. No aches, no pains, not so much as a tom nail or a blister on her heel.

Her old soul did not fit into this new young flesh. Her old soul had been light and airy, ready to take wing and soar into eternity.

That soul had been content to leave behind mundane cares and woes. Now her soul was caged in a prison of flesh and bone and blood, a prison that was making its own demands on her. She did not understand how or why. She could not give reasons. All she knew was that the face in the mirror terrified her.

She laid the mirror down, facedown on the dressing table, and, sighing deeply, prepared to leave the one prison she could leave, desperately wishing all the while that she could leave the other.

Wonder and amazement greeted Goldmoon’s appearance in the hall of the Grand Lyceum that night. As she had feared, her transformation was taken for a miracle, a good miracle, a blessed miracle.

“Wait until word spreads!” her pupils whispered. “Wait until the people hear! Goldmoon has conquered age. She has vanquished death! The people will come flocking to our cause now!”

Pupils and masters clustered around her and reached out to touch her. They fell to their knees and kissed her hand. They begged her to grant them her blessing, and they rose to their feet exalted. Only a few looked closely at Goldmoon to see the pain and anguish on the youthful, beautiful face, a face they recognized more by the light in her eyes than by any resemblance to the face of contentment and wisdom they had come to know and revere. Even that light seemed unhealthy, a luster that was the luster of a fever.

The evening was a trial to Goldmoon. They held a banquet in her honor, forced her to sit in a place of honor at the head of the hall. She felt everyone was looking at her, and she was right. Few seemed able to take their eyes off her, and they stared at her until it occurred to them that they were being rude, then they shifted their gazes pointedly in another direction. Goldmoon couldn’t decide which was worse. She ate well, much better than usual.

Her strange body demanded large quantities of food, but she did not taste any of it. She was doing nothing more than fueling a fire, a fire she feared must consume her.

“In a few days, they will be used to me,” she said to herself drearily. “They will cease to notice that I am so terribly altered. I will know, however. If I could just understand why this has been done to me.”

Palin sat at her right hand, but he was grim and cheerless. He picked at his food and finally pushed most of the meal away uneaten. He paid no attention to conversation but was wrapped in his own thoughts. He was, she guessed, making that journey back through time over and over again in his mind, searching for some clue to its strange conclusion.

Tasslehoff was also out of spirits. The kender sat beside Palin, who kept close watch on him. He kicked the chair rungs and occasionally heaved a doleful sigh. Most of his eating utensils, a salt cellar, and a pepper pot made their way into his pockets, but the borrowing was halfhearted at best, a reflexive action. He was clearly not enjoying himself.

“Will you help me map the hedge maze tomorrow?” asked his neighbor, the gnome. “I have come up with a scientific solution to my problem. My solution requires another person, however, and a pair of socks.”

“Tomorrow?” said Tas.

“Yes, tomorrow,” repeated the gnome.

Tas looked at Palin. The mage looked at Tas.

“I’ll be glad to help,” Tas said. He slid off his chair. “Come on, Conundrum. You were going to show me your ship.”

“Ah, yes, my ship.” The gnome tucked some bread into his pocket for later. “The Indestructible XVIII. It’s tied up at the dock. At least it was. I’ll never forget the surprise I had when I went to board its predecessor, the Indestructible XVII, only to discover that it had been woefully misnamed. The committee made sweeping changes to the design, however, and I am quite confident—”

Palin watched Tasslehoff walk away.

“You must talk to him, Goldmoon,” the mage said in a low voice. “Convince him he has to go back.”

“Go back to his death? How can I ask that of Tas? How could I ask that of anyone?”

“I know,” Palin said, sighing and rubbing his temples as if they ached. “Believe me, First Master, I wish there were some other way. All I know is that he’s supposed to be dead, and he’s not, and the world has gone awry.” .

“Yet you admit yourself you are not certain that Tasslehoff, either dead or alive, has anything to do with the world’s problems.”

“You don’t understand, First Master—” Palin began wearily.

“You are right. I don’t understand. And therefore what would you have me say to him?” she asked sharply. “How can I offer counsel when I do not comprehend what is happening?”

She shook her head. “The decision is his alone to make. I will not interfere.”

Goldmoon rested her hand on her smooth cheek. She could feel her fingers against her skin, but her skin could not sense the touch of her fingers. She might have been placing her fingers on a waxen image.

The banquet ended, finally. Goldmoon rose to her feet and the others rose in respect. One of the acolytes, an exuberant youngster, gave a cheer. Others picked it up. Soon they were applauding and yelling lustily.

The cheering frightened Goldmoon. The noise will draw attention to us, was her first panicked thought. She wondered at herself a moment later. She’d had the strangest feeling that they were trapped in a house and that something evil was searching for them. The feeling passed, but the cheering continued to jar on her nerves. She lifted her hands to halt the shouting.

“I thank you, my friends. My dear friends,” Goldmoon said, moistening lips that were stiff and dry. “I. . . I ask you to keep me in your hearts, to surround me with your good thoughts. I feel I need them.”

The people glanced at each other, troubled. This wasn’t what any of them had expected to hear her say. They wanted to hear her tell them about the wondrous miracle that had been wrought upon her. How she would perform the same miracles for them.

Goldmoon made a gesture of dismissal. People filed out, returning to their work or their studies, glancing back at her often and talking in low voices.

“I beg your pardon for disturbing you, First Master,” Lady Camilla said, approaching. Her eyes were cast down. She was trying very hard not to look at Goldmoon’s face. “The patients in the hospital have missed you. I was wondering, if you are not too tired, if you would come. . .”

“Yes, assuredly,” said Goldmoon readily, glad to have something to do. She would forget herself in her work. She was not in the least fatigued. The strange body was not, that is.

“Palin, would you care to accompany us?” she asked.

“What for? Your healers can do nothing for me,” he returned irritably. “I know. They have tried.”

“You speak to the First Master, sir,” Lady Camilla said in rebuke.

“I am sorry, First Master,” Palin said with a slight bow. “Please forgive my rudeness. I am very tired. I have not slept in a long time. I must find the kender, then I plan to go straight to my bed. I bid you a good night.”

He bowed and turned and walked away.

“Palin!” Goldmoon called after him, but either he didn’t hear or he was ignoring her.

Goldmoon accompanied Lady Camilla to the hospital—a separate building located on the Citadel grounds. The night was cool, unusually cool for this time of year. Goldmoon gazed up at the stars, at the pale moon to which she had never grown truly accustomed but always saw with a sense of shock and unease.

This night, she looked at the stars, but they seemed small and distant. For the first time, she looked beyond them, to the vast and empty darkness that surrounded them.

“As it surrounds us,” she said, chilled.

“I beg your pardon, First Master,” Lady Camilla said. “Were you speaking to me?”

The two women had been antagonists at one point in their lives. When Goldmoon made the decision to build the Citadel of Light on Schallsea, Lady Camilla had been opposed. The Solamnic was loyal to the old gods, the departed gods. She was suspicious and .distrustful of this new “power of the heart.” Then she had come to witness the tireless efforts of the Citadel’s mystics to do good in the world, to bring light to the darkness. She had come to love and to admire Goldmoon. She would do anything for the First Master, Lady Camilla was wont to say, and she had proved that statement, spending an inordinate amount of time and money on a fruitless search for a lost child, a child who had been dear to Goldmoon, but who had gone missing three years earlier, a child whose name no one mentioned, to avoid causing the First Master grief.

Goldmoon often thought of the child, especially whenever she walked along the seashore.

“It wasn’t important,” Goldmoon said, adding, “You must forgive me, Lady Camilla. I am poor company, I know.”

“Not at all, First Master,” said Lady Camilla. “You have much on your mind.”

The two continued their walk to the hospital in silence.

The hospital, located in one of the crystal domes that were the central structures of the Citadel of Light, consisted of a large room filled with beds that stood in straight rows up one side and down the other. Sweet herbs perfumed the air and sweet music added its own healing properties. The healers worked among the sick and injured, using the power of the heart to heal them, a power Goldmoon had discovered and first used to heal the dying dwarf, Jasper Fireforge.

She had performed many miracles since that time, or so people claimed. She had healed those thought to be past hope.

She had mended broken bodies with the touch of her hands. She had restored life to paralyzed limbs, brought sight to the blind.

Her miracles of healing were as wonderful as those she had performed as a cleric of Mishakal. She was glad and grateful to be able to ease the suffering of others. But the healing had not brought her the same joy she had experienced when the blessing of the healing art came to her as a gift from the god, when she and Mishakal worked in partnership.

A year or so ago, her healing powers had begun to wane. At first, she blamed the loss on her advancing age. But she was not the only one of her healers to experience the diminution of healing power.

“It is as if someone has hung a gauze curtain between me and my patient,” one young healer had said in frustration. “I try to draw the curtain aside to reach the patient, but there is another and another. I don’t feel as if I can come close to my patients anymore.”

Reports had begun coming in from Citadel masters throughout Ansalon, all bearing witness to the same dread phenomenon.

Some had blamed it on the dragons. Some had blamed it on the Knights of Neraka. Then they had heard rumors that the Knights’ dark mystics were losing their powers, as well.

Goldmoon asked her counselor, Mirror, the silver dragon who was the Citadel’s guardian, if he thought that Malys was responsible.

“No, First Master, I do not,” Mirror replied. He was in his human form then, a handsome youth with silver hair. She saw sorrow and trouble in his eyes, eyes that held the wisdom of centuries in them. “I have felt my own magical powers start to wane. It is rumored among dragonkind that our enemies are also feeling their powers weaken.”

“Then there is some good in this,” Goldmoon said.

Mirror remained grave. “I fear not, First Master. The tyrant who feels power slipping away does not let loose. He tightens his grasp.”

Goldmoon paused on the threshold of the hospital. The beds were filled with patients, some sleeping, some talking quietly, some reading. The atmosphere was restful, peaceful. Bereft of much of their mystical power, the healers had gone back to the herbal remedies once practiced by healers in the days following the Cataclysm. The smells of sage and rosemary, chamomille and mint spiced the air. Soft music played. Goldmoon felt the soothing influence of the restful solitude, and her heart was eased.

Here, perhaps, the healer would herself be healed.

Catching sight of Goldmoon, one of the master healers came forward immediately to welcome her. The welcome was, of necessity, low-key, lest the patients be disturbed by undue commotion or excitement. The healer said how pleased she was that the First Master was returned to them and stared with all her might at Goldmoon’s altered face.

Goldmoon said something pleasant and innocuous and turned her face from the amazed scrutiny to look around. She asked after the patients.

“The hospital is quiet this night, First Master,” said the healer, leading the way into the ward. “We have many patients, but, fortunately, few who are really worrisome. We have a baby suffering from the croup, a Knight who received a broken leg during a joust, and a young fisherman who was rescued from drowning. The rest of our patients are convalescing.”

“How is Sir Wilfer?” Lady Camilla asked.

“The leg is mended, my lady,” the healer replied, “but it is still weak. He insists he is ready to be released, and I cannot convince him that he would do better to remain another few days to fully recover. I know that he finds it very dull here, but perhaps if you were to—”

“I will speak to him,” said Lady Camilla.

She moved among the rows of beds. Most of the patients came from outside the Citadel, from villages and towns on Schallsea. They knew the elderly Goldmoon, for she often visited their homes. But they did not recognize this youthful Goldmoon.

Most thought her a stranger and paid little attention to her, for which she was grateful. At the far end was the cradle with the baby, his watchful mother at his side. He coughed still and whimpered. His face was flushed with fever. The healers were preparing a bowl of herbs to which they would add boiling water. The steam would moisten the lungs and ease the child’s cough. Goldmoon drew near, intending to say a few words of comfort to the mother.

As Goldmoon approached the cradle, she saw that another figure hovered over the fretful baby. At first, Goldmoon thought this to be one of the healers. She did not recognize the face, but then she had been absent from them for weeks. Probably this was a new student. . .

Goldmoon’s steps slowed. She halted about three beds away from that of the sick child, put out a hand to steady herself upon the wooden bedpost.

The figure was not a healer. The figure was not a student. The figure was not alive. A ghost hovered over the child, the ghost of a young woman.

“If you will excuse me, First Master,” said the healer, “I will go see what I can do for this sick child.”

The healer walked over to the child. The healer laid her hands upon the baby, but at the same instant, the fleshless hands of the ghost intervened. The ghost grasped the healer’s hands.

“Give me the blessed power,” the ghost whispered. “I must have it, or I will be cast into oblivion!”

The baby’s coughing grew worse. The mother hung over him worriedly. The healer, shaking her head, removed her hands. Her healing touch had failed the baby. The ghost had stolen the energy for herself.

“He should breathe in this steam,” the healer said, sounding tired and defeated. “The steam will help keep his lungs clear.”

The ghost of the woman drifted away. More insubstantial figures took her place, crowding around the sick baby, their burning eyes staring avidly at the healer. When the healer moved to another bed, they followed her, clinging to her like trailing cobweb.

When she put out her hands to try to heal another patient, the dead grasped hold of her, crying and moaning.

“Mine! Mine! Give the power to me!”

Goldmoon staggered. If she had not been holding onto the bedpost, she would have fallen. She closed her eyes tightly shut, hoping the fearful apparitions would disappear. She opened her eyes to see more ghosts. Legions of the dead crowded and jostled each other as each sought to steal for his own the blessed life-giving power that flowed from the healers. Restless, the dead were in constant motion. They passed by Goldmoon like a vast and turbulent river, all flowing in the same direction—north.

Those who gathered around the healers were not permitted to linger long. Some unheard voice ordered them away, some unseen hand pulled them back into the water.

The river of dead shifted course, swept around Goldmoon.

The dead reached out to touch her, begged her to bless them in their hollow whisperings.

“No! Leave me alone!” she cried, cringing away. “I cannot help you!”

Some of the dead flowed past her, wailing in disappointment.

Other ghosts pressed near her. Their breath was cold, their eyes burned. Their words were smoke, their touch like ashes falling on her skin.

Startled faces surrounded her. Faces of the living.

“Healer!” someone was calling. “Come quickly! The First Master!”

The healer was in a flutter. Had she done something to offend the First Master? She had not meant to.

Goldmoon recoiled from the healer in horror. The dead were all around her, pulling on her arm, tugging at her robes. Ghosts surged forward, rushing at her, trying to seize hold of her hands.

“Give us . . . ” they pleaded in their terrible whisperings.

“Give us what we crave. . . what we must have. . .”

“First Master!” Lady Camilla’s voice boomed through the sibiliant hissings of the dead. She sounded panicked. “Please let us help you! Tell us what is wrong!”

“Can’t you see them?” Goldmoon cried. “The dead!” She pointed. “There, with the baby! There, with the healer. Here, in front of me! The dead are draining us, stealing our power. Can’t you see them?”

Voices clamored around Goldmoon, voices of the living. She could not understand them, they made no sense. Her own voice failed her. She felt herself falling and could do nothing to halt her fall.

She was lying in a bed in the hospital. The voices still clamored. Opening her eyes, she saw the faces of the dead surrounding her.