Heroes And Fools

Gone
Roger E. Moore

Day 0, night

Dromel had always struck me as one of those annoying entrepreneur sorts who wander the fringes of human society, looking for a secret door to fame and wealth. I had never considered the possibility that he was completely mad, but I considered it now.

“So, what do you think?” he finished. “Are you in?” It had taken him two hours to explain his plan after coming to see me uninvited. The candles had all burned out, and only the oil lantern’s steady glow illuminated my small room. He leaned forward, waiting for my response.

My blank look and silence ought to have discouraged him, but didn’t. “It can’t fail, Red. We’ll come in below the waves in my new ship. Nothing on the island will see us, not even the shadow wights, if they still exist. We can-”

“Wait,” I said. “As I understand the tales, which may or may not be true, shadow wights can-”

“Ah!” He seemed to have expected my response. “They won’t be a problem. My relics will keep them at bay while we do what we need to do. We don’t have to worry about shadow-things.”

“You don’t seem to have much regard for them.”

Dromel spread his hands. “Well, why should I? Who do you know who’s ever seen a shadow wight? I’ve heard the same things you have, I’m sure, that shadow wights make you disappear as if you never existed, if they touch you, but where is the proof? This is going to work, I tell you. We’ll loot the ruins on Enstar and be out of there in less than a week. We’ll come back home with thousands of steels, a mountain of money. You could get out of this rat-infested warehouse and get yourself a real palace, knock elbows with Merwick’s finest and blow your nose on their tablecloths. That’s what you want, and you know it, and now you can have it.”

Dromel didn’t know whale dung about what I really wanted. It was true that the pragmatic but unimaginative folk of Merwick had prejudices against certain nonhu-mans, particularly very large and potentially dangerous races such as minotaurs, like me. I could wander the docks as I liked, but there were many places in town where I was not especially welcome and many estates outside the town’s stone walls where I was not welcome at all. I could live with that, though. Being a good citizen of Merwick was not my ultimate goal.

On the other hand, ship captains in any port would hire me the second they saw my broad, maroon horns. Curiously, even bigoted humans assume that every minotaur is a master sailor and skilled warrior. On that score, they were correct. I knew the western isles of Ansalon like the end of my snout, and I could handle myself in any brawl or battle. What I really wanted was to get my own ship and sail the world of Krynn, explore it and master it, live free as the gulls on the high seas. I had always felt I deserved better in life, which I suppose every minotaur does, and Dromel had just unfolded a plan that might let me sink my hooves into that future and call it mine.

The only drawback was that it was a plan only the insane would consider.

Dromel’s eyes glowed with his vision. “It took me months to work this all out, Red. I’ve covered every step, every possibility. I’ve talked to every sage and scholar who knows anything about Enstar or shadow wights. Tell me if you see a flaw in my plan.”

An argument was pointless. “Where are these relics you found?” I asked, half out of curiosity and half from a lack of anything else to say.

He looked surprised, then quickly reached inside his shirt. He carefully drew out a long, daggerlike item attached to an iron-link necklace, all of which he held out for my visual inspection. The “dagger” was actually an elaborately engraved spearhead with a rag tied over its pointed tip. “This is one of them,” he said with pride. “My good luck charm. I get poked by it now and then, so I usually wrap it up, at least the sharp part.”

The spearhead’s workmanship was superb. It was certainly a legacy of the days before the Chaos War, when ironworkers had the time, talent, and money to craft such fancy weapons. My gaze rested on the runes along the bladed edge. Had the runes seemed to glow for a moment? A prickling sensation ran over my skin. “Where did you get this?” I asked.

“Not every battlefield of old is marked on the maps,” Dromel said with an enigmatic smile. “Let’s say I got lucky on my last trip over to the mainland and brought back some nice souvenirs.”

I hated myself for asking, but I had to know. “How do you know that thing is a real dragonlance?”

“How?” Dromel laughed. He took the necklace off and handed the spearhead to me.

I took the spearhead in my right hand. . and I instantly knew he was telling the truth.

Dromel saw the look on my face. He grinned in triumph. “You feel it,” he said.

I nodded dumbly. My broad right hand shivered with the power flowing out of the spearhead. My palm itched and burned, my clawed fingers twitched. It was Old Magic, from the days when there were real wizards and real priests, and magic was everywhere, like air. It was exactly as the old tale-tellers spoke of it, the ruined men mumbling in their cups, remembering a better and brighter time that had ended just before I was born. The weapon in my hand brought me a taste of all that I had missed. I thought I was awake and alive for the first time in my life. And the future I wanted was within my reach.

“By all the lost gods,” I whispered.

“It came from a footman’s dragonlance,” Dromel said. “We’re lucky there, as we’d never manage with one of the big lanceheads around our necks. Well, you could, but not me.” He paused, then went on in an urgent tone. “This will work, Red. It can’t fail. If there are shadow wights, they can’t possibly get close to us, as long as we have these relics. So, are you in?” His mad, green eyes searched my face for an answer.

Was I in? Perhaps Dromel was mad, but with the spearhead in my hand, I believed in everything. If his plan worked, our troubles would be gone forever.

If anything went wrong-if Dromel was wrong about the shadow wights-then we, like our troubles, would also be gone forever.

Day 1, late morning

My kind is not prone to literary pursuits, but I am an exception and proud of it (as a minotaur is proud of everything about himself, you see). Hence, I keep this diary. I am aware that documentation of adventures has great value to other adventurers, and the more incredible the exploits, the greater the value. Dromel hopes to find steel coins stacked like mountains in the treasure room of a dead lord’s manor on Enstar. If this whale of a dream turns out to be a little fish, perhaps this work will still bring me some acclaim and a modest income to salve my disappointment. Any steel is good steel.

I awoke at dawn to meet Dromel at Fenshal amp; Sons, a family-owned business that had once been a major shipbuilder in Merwick. The Chaos War and the coming of the great dragons broke the back of the sea trade, with so many ships and ports destroyed. Fenshal amp; Sons had barely survived, restricting the family talents to making fishing boats instead of being the excellent sea traders for which they were justly famed. I found Dromel outside a huge enclosed dry dock where once the labor had gone on even during bad weather and at night. I’d last heard the building was unused and deserted.

Dromel grinned the moment he saw me coming. “You’re a prince, Red,” he said warmly. “Ready to get down to work?”

I eyed the dry dock building. I clearly heard hammering and voices coming from inside it. “I did have a few questions,” I began, scratching my muzzle. “On the issue of the shadow wights, do you have any evidence that-”

Dromel waved the question off with an anxious look on his face. “Uh, let’s talk about all that later,” he said, glancing furtively around us. “First, let’s take a look at my ship. Say nothing to anyone about our destination.” He gave me a big smile that was meant to be reassuring, then led me to a side door, opened it, and showed me inside.

Dozens of skylights were open in the long, high roof of the dock building, though it was still largely dark inside. The dim light revealed about two dozen humans, adults and children alike, working on what I thought at first was a broad, nearly flat ship’s hull turned over. My eyes adjusted rapidly to the illumination, and I walked to the edge of the dry dock to get a better look at the object of the workers’ attention.

I looked at the object for a long time. The wild enthusiasm I had felt last night was rapidly dispelled. When the shock had worn off, I went to find Dromel. He was talking with old Fenshal himself, each man holding one side of a large sheet of ship’s construction plans. Dromel gave me a broad grin and a wave as I walked up.

“You are mad,” I growled at him. “You are madder than mad.”

“Red Horn!” said Dromel happily. “Berin Fenshal, this is my new first mate, Red Horn. He’s-”

“Have you ever tested such a thing as this?” I could not control my tongue. “Do you have even the vaguest idea of the difficulties involved in underwater travel? Is this some kind of secret suicide plot you’ve cooked up for us?”

“So you like it, then?” Dromel said in a hopeful tone, looking past me to the bizarre ship in the dry dock. “Sort of like a dragon turtle shell, isn’t it? I actually got the idea from thinking about dragon turtles a year ago. You know how they cruise along just below the water’s surface so you can barely see them, with that nice, huge, protective turtle shell all around. That sort of thing.”

Old Fenshal rolled his eyes as Dromel spoke. I snorted and walked off halfway through his patter, going back to the dry dock. The other Fenshals, working on the craft in the dry dock, tried to ignore me as they quietly went on with their work.

“I call it a deepswimmer,” Dromel called out. “That big X-shaped thing at the stern, that’s the propeller. It rotates when you turn a crank on the insi-”

“This is a monstrosity1.” I roared. All work instantly ceased. “It’s a nightmare! You want us to travel all the way to. .” With terrible effort, I bit off my words. I rubbed my eyes and snout vigorously with my hands, shutting out the world. Then I sighed and stared again at the ship, the deepswimmer. I had forgotten about this part of his plan after he had showed the dragon-lance to me.

Work slowly resumed as I looked on. Dromel’s undersea craft was not very large, certainly smaller than a merchantman. It had no masts or sails, just a smooth wooden surface over which a thin, gray substance, probably a waterproofing sealant, was being painted by a boy with a broad brush. Flat wooden panels like fish fins came out from the sides in several places, pointing in every direction. Strange objects poked up from the vessel’s top. I guessed there would be enough room inside for not more than a half dozen men, but it would be a cramped journey.

As I looked on, my harsh attitude softened. The design of the deepswimmer was not unreasonable, if it were to accomplish the task Dromel had set for it. It was as well crafted as anything Fenshal amp; Sons had ever made. Small portholes around the sides of the craft allowed for clear if limited vision. Piloting the craft would be a challenge, however. The things like fish fins must be steering rudders, I thought, but the vessel would surely be clumsy and slow to respond. There was the obvious problem of getting fresh air into the craft. Then, too, it might take weeks for it to get to Enstar, if that propeller was its only propulsion.

“We’ll have it towed,” said Dromel, as if reading my mind. He was just behind me, his voice barely audible. “That’s what the bow ring is for, right there. We’ll cut loose from the tow ship after we cross Thunder Bay, then we’ll move on to the island. The ship will wait for our return off Southern Ergoth. It’ll be fast and safe, and best of all, nobody will spot us. Not even,” he whispered, “shadow wights.”

“Air,” I said. “We’ll need fresh air.”

“That round thing toward the stern, on top there, that’s a floating air vent. We’ve created a flexible tube to go from the deepswimmer to the surface, to that. We’ll release that floating intake, eject any water that gets into the tube, then pump pure air into the cabin anytime we want. We’ll be only twenty feet under the surface at most. Storms won’t be able to touch us.”

“Dromel, how did you think of all this?” I turned to face him in amazement. “You told me once that you didn’t even know which side of a ship was starboard, but now you’ve. . I don’t see how you could. .” My voice trailed off as I swept my hand in the direction of the strange vessel.

A muffled cough came from behind Dromel. He spun around. “Ah, Pate!” he cried, and he hurried over to a short, bearded figure standing nervously behind old Fenshal. “Red, I want you to meet the real designer of the deepswimmer, the genius who came up with every nut and bolt in it after I gave him the idea. This is Pate. He’ll be the chief engineer on our voyage!”

I stared down at Pate, and my worst fears came to life. I understood in a flash how Dromel, who did not know port from starboard, now owned such a monstrosity of a ship. My disbelief gave way to rage, and I glared hard at the bald, bearded, diminutive genius Dromel introduced.

A tinker gnome, the lost gods save me. Pate stared back at me with fear-stricken eyes magnified by his thick gold-rimmed spectacles. He clutched a trembling armload of ship plans, sweating like a fountain-as disconcerted to lay eyes on me, no doubt, as I was to see him. I could tell he was only moments from fainting.

“Say hello, Red!” called Dromel happily.

“No,” I said with a disgusted snort and left the building.

Day 2, evening

“Are you deaf?” I shouted. “No! Get out of here!”

“Red!” Dromel was literally on his knees on the filthy warehouse floor, blocking my doorway. “Red, you’ve got to go! I really need you for this! We’ve got to have someone who knows the sea, someone with real navigational skills, someone fearless, someone-

“Someone stupid enough to ride in a boat made by a genuine tinker gnome!”

“Berin Fenshal himself went over the plans!” Dromel cried. “He went over everything that Pate designed! Berin said it would work! You can go ask him, Red!”

I glared down at Dromel with narrow eyes, resisting an urge to strangle him. “This little runt-Pate, you call him-you said he’s going with us, right?”

Dromel was in agony. “He has to go! He designed the thing from my general specifications! He’s a real shipwright and engineer. He apprenticed under Fenshal himself, and at the Sea Kings’ shipyard under Wallers and Goss. Pate’s not like a real tinker gnome, Red, he’s a genuine troubleshooter, and he’s got-”

“Who else is on the crew? Or are we it? Get up, you look like a fool.”

Dromel swallowed and stiffly got up from his knees, dusting off his pants. “We. . we needed an outdoors sort. I found a Kagonesti, a good hunter and tracker. That’s even his name, Hunter, just plain Hunter, or so he tells me. You know the Kagonesti, don’t you, those tattooed half-naked guys, the wildlands elves? He’s really a fine fellow even if he’s not very sociable, but none of them are, I know. You’ll like him anyway.”

“Elves are dogs.” I started to close the door.

“He’s not like a real elf!” Dromel shouted in panic. “He’s good at what he does, he’s not stuck up, and he can get food for us on shore because we can’t store all that we need in the Mock Dragon Turtle! If we get lost, he can get us off the island! He’s good with all sorts of weapons! He’s a master of blades! You’ll like him!”

“Where did you get that?”

“Hunter? He was in the marketplace a week ago, and-”

“No, that name. The Mock Dragon Turtle, is that what you call the deepswimmer?”

“Oh, yeah, that’s the ship. You like the name? So, about Hunter-”

“Elves are dogs until there’s a war, and then they’re a pack of whining, floor-wetting mongrel pups.”

“Yes, I know, but no, not this one! Hunter’s head and shoulders above the rest! Everyone says so! He’s not like a real elf!”

“And what in blazes am I?” I roared. “Do you tell everyone I’m not like a real minotaur?”

It took a terrible effort to get control of myself. Finally, I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. This argument was giving me a headache. Getting rid of Dromel was worse than getting rid of a giant tick.

“Is anyone else going along?” I asked.

“No, no, that’s about it.” Dromel fidgeted. He looked very uncomfortable. “Almost, anyway. We need one more hand, someone to help with things in case of emergency, someone without fear. We can fit one more aboard without losing any comfort. We might need just that one more. Maybe. I’ll know by tomorrow.”

Silence stretched between us.

“Red,” Dromel pleaded, “I’m going to do it with or without you. If you don’t go, I’ll find someone else. This is the chance of a lifetime, the chance of ten lifetimes. I mortgaged my entire inheritance, all the lands my father left me, to build that deepswimmer and find those dragonlances. We can find out what happened over there on Enstar, find out where those islanders went during the Chaos War, and we can make ourselves richer than the ancient Kingpriest of Istar when we get to the lord’s manor I found on the maps I took from the naval library. It’s going to work, and I want you to be in on it.”

I mulled it over. There was always a chance he was right, and I’d hate myself if it really was the chance of a lifetime. I was defeated. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said. “We’ll talk then.”

Dromel nearly collapsed in relief. “By the old gods, Red, I knew I could count on you. You’re a-”

I shut the door.

Day 3, late morning

I awoke at dawn and once more went to Fenshal amp; Sons’ shipyard. I found Dromel inside the dry dock building. Beside him was someone I knew instantly and instinctively was our new and final crew member.

“Oh! R-Red!” cried Dromel. His voice shook with ill-concealed terror. “Red, th-this is our-”

“No!” I roared, and left the building.

“Hey, you big cow!” shrieked a feminine voice behind me. “You got something against kender?”

Day 11, night

My cracked phosphor-globe has gone out at last, so I write this using Pate’s globe. Our deepswimmer rests on the sea bottom now; I have no idea how close to shore we are, though Dromel guesses about a quarter-mile. All is blackness through the small portholes around us. We go ashore tomorrow.

It is very late, but Twig is awake as always, too excited to sleep. She looks endlessly through her myriad pockets. She hums to herself only two feet from my right elbow. Twig is a born talker. At least she no longer asks to read my journal. I refuse to let her see it, which infuriates her.

Dromel is awake, too. He plays with a phosphor-globe across from Twig, the pale green light leaking through his thin ringers. I cannot imagine what is whirling through his mind now that he’s so close to the land of his big plans and dreams. He has been very quiet today, his false bravado gone. Oil-stained Pate snores faintly under his filthy blankets at the rear of our cramped cabin. He sometimes mumbles in his sleep exactly as he mumbles when awake. I have no idea how he can sleep at all; after four days under the waves, we stink so offensively as to trouble the dead. I had heard that gnomes have a marvelous sense of smell, thanks to their large noses, but perhaps Pate is an exception. Hunter huddles in a ball at the bow window. I cannot tell if he sleeps or not. He calls his sleep “reverie,” like a half-conscious daydream. He cannot explain how it is different, but it does not matter. He is just an elf, as conceited as any other, but he doesn’t talk much, a blessing on a voyage where we have no privacy for anything at all, and every slight is magnified a thousand times.

We will be so busy tomorrow, however, that we will forget our petty thoughts. As soon as we see light through the portholes, Pate and Dromel will work the propeller crank as I steer with the fins, and our deepswimmer will rise and move toward the island’s shore. Our little adventure will finally begin.

What will happen then and what we will see not even the new magic users, the mystics, could tell us. If we survive, we might be famous, wildly famous, and possibly rich beyond imagining.

Yet I wonder if this is likely. This voyage was a fool’s gamble from the start. Dromel knows it better than I do, I believe, but he always spouts childish optimism, plainly hiding his true fears. We might find nothing here but death. We might have only a few heartbeats left to us after we reach the shore. We might not even have the time to scream.

I wonder what that will be like, to have never existed.

Time for sleep. More cheerful notes later.

‘Sit”

Day 12, morning

Twig awoke us at dawn. I moved my stiff legs and grunted from the pain that ran through them. I cannot bear to be cramped in this mobile tomb any longer. The air is foul, even with the air tube, and I fear I would kill to escape confinement. Today must be the day we leave, no matter what awaits us.

Little Pate, mumbling unintelligibly, worked on the reflecting tube as the rest of us ate our miserable breakfast rations. To our astonishment, he managed to un-jam the gearbox, and he carefully ratcheted the long reflecting tube up to the surface, so we could view our surroundings. This gave me some concern, as I thought perhaps that shadow wights, if any were hovering in the air above us, could pass through the tube and enter our deepswim-mer, destroying us easily in our marvelous undersea prison. No such event occurred, a point in Dromel’s favor. Perhaps shadow wights truly do not move about in broad daylight, as he stated. I can only hope his wisdom and our luck hold out.

Pate turned the reflecting tube from side to side, then twisted the lens to enhance the focus. He froze, staring with a wide eye into the tube’s lens.

We said nothing, dreading the news. Pate slowly drew back from the reflecting tube and motioned Dromel to view. Without warning, Twig thrust herself into line first and put her eye to the lens before anyone could say a word. Dromel shouted angrily at her, but she would not be budged.

“I don’t see anyone,” she complained. “They must be off somewhere fishing. We will just have to look inside those ratty little houses to find out when they’re coming home.”

It was a moment more before the impact of her words stuck the rest of us. We surged toward the reflecting tube to see the coast of Enstar for ourselves.

Few written records or spoken tales tell of the folk who once lived on the small, southern island of Enstar or its smaller companion, Nostar. We have excellent maps of them made by sailors over many centuries, and these maps show the usual features: villages and towns, roads and paths, legendary sites, a few small harbors. Most inhabitants were surely humans, but few were at all famous, and the islands merited little attention over the course of many centuries.

No records exist today to tell us what became of these people after the Chaos War, three decades ago. No one is known to have ever gone to Enstar and returned to report. However, mystics and scholars murmur disturbing theories about the possible fate of the island people once the shadow wights arrived. Gone, they say, the people are gone. Not fled, not living on the mainland or other islands under assumed names-just gone. The shadow wights did it, tales say, but of course there is no proof, as Dromel once said.

When I finally looked through the reflecting tube to the surface, I clearly saw the remains of a dock and three stone cottages, minus their roofs, on the not-too-distant shore. A half-collapsed barn stood farther behind them with a crude wooden fence before it. A light wind stirred the wild brown grass around the ruins. The eerie scene strained my nerves.

“That old map was right!” said Dromel. His face was pale, but he was ecstatic. “We found the correct fishing village, and Lord Dwerlen’s manor should be just a couple miles away! We made it! We did it!”

The din from the others was almost unbearable, especially from the shrieking Twig, but thankfully it was brief. I share their excitement, but it would be unseemly to display it. In a short while we will set foot on Enstar, the first people since the Chaos War known to do so. At last I will be free of this wretched floating coffin, thanks be to the world.

Dromel is about to hand out the relics that will, with any luck, keep us safe while we explore this lost realm. We each receive one dragonlance head, fastened to a chain necklace. Dromel assures us that if shadow wights are about, the nightmare beings will be kept at a safe distance by the magical radiation from the spearheads. Twig constantly pesters Dromel with questions about our safety, which Dromel states is absolute. She asks about this every day, probably because the subject of the shadow wights distresses him so much and for some perverse reason she likes that. I like to see him so distressed, too, as I had warned him about kender as crew before we left. I will write more from the shore if I am able. If I am not. . it will not matter, and no one will care.

Day 12, midday

I have a few minutes to pass. It is about noon and warm. We are lucky that the sky is clear, though it is windy. We will retreat if clouds come up, as any such darkness would make it easy for shadow wights to travel about. We are in the abandoned village, a few hundred feet in from the shore. All that is left of the place are stone walls and fallen timbers from the roofs. Pate digs for treasure as I write this, using an old shovel we found though he is too short to use it properly. He has found nothing in an hour of digging. He keeps tripping over the dragonlance he is wearing, and he mutters complaints about the length of the chain, how it tangles his feet, and how unnecessary it is with no obvious threat in view. He threatens to take the chain and dragonlance off, though he has been, warned he would be a fool to do so. I have enough reservations to keep my own relic safely around my neck.

Twig found a few cheap rings and necklaces, and she has probably found more hidden away but we won’t know until we empty her pockets and pouches tonight on the deepswimmer. She finds only worthless things for the most part, and these she keeps anyway. I am bored with throwing aside debris, looking for little trinkets. We await word from Hunter, who is off seeking a trail to the manor of this Lord Dwerlen, whoever he was. Dromel has not been very forthcoming about this, chattering on only about treasure. He is exploring along the shore, patiently awaiting Hunter’s return.

The village was once full of fishermen, this we believe. Maybe twelve families lived here. Scattered bits of old clothing can be seen in bushes, in cracks between stones, under logs. No bones anywhere. The place smells as if no human or elf has been here in years. I put one of the pieces of cloth to my muzzle and inhaled slowly. It smelled only like cloth, almost clean of sweat, perfume, or rot. I dropped it and wrinkled my muzzle. It disturbs me profoundly to think of it, even now. If this was once a thriving village, where are the bodies? Something should be left behind. Maybe everyone did flee the island, as I had always believed. Perhaps there are no shadow wights, or at least, none left.

Dromel is calling to us from the shore. I will write more later.

Day 12, midafternoon

Dromel has found five long fishing boats hidden in a shallow cave about three hundred feet to the left of the footpath leading up from the beach to the village. I started to walk into the cave, stooping over, when Dromel screamed, “Don’t go into shadows!” He became overwrought in an instant.

I had forgotten. It seemed like a foolish precaution, but Dromel has read widely, so I consented and stayed out in the sunlight. When he had recovered, Dromel said he thinks it possible that shadow wights can inhabit any area in shadow, as they are believed to move about at night and settle in before dawn.

Twig found a decayed rope in the sand leading to one boat, and I seized it and pulled the boat out with ease before the old rope snapped. We then examined the boat, which was cracked through by the elements and no longer seaworthy. Dry seaweed clung to it, perhaps left by a storm wave that came up the beach. The other boats seem to be disordered within the cave, as if tossed about, but of course I cannot investigate. They are far back in the dark.

Twig looked through some old rags in the bottom of the boat. She found two sandals made from tree bark and twine, a seashell necklace, and what appear to be rotted trousers-no bones or other disquieting mementos. She kept the seashell necklace. I sifted through the remainder and found a complex steel bracelet and a decayed pouch of worn silver coins of an unfamiliar make. I gave them to Dromel for packing. We are not doing too badly now, though steel coins would be better.

We are waiting now on the beach for Hunter to return. Twig is chattering about fools she’s known on sea voyages. Dromel is stretched out in the sun, seemingly asleep. Pate walked off to see the ruined cottages once more for himself. I do not look forward to packing the five of us aboard our little undersea ship again, but at least we have aired out our ship and ourselves for a few hours. I think the others find my body odor far worse than they do each other’s. They probably think it is like an animal’s, like cattle maybe. It would figure. Hunter gets utterly filthy and never notices it; Dromel is a compulsive washer but has foul breath. Our smallest companion is always spotted with oil from working with the deepswimmer’s machinery. He-

Someone is shouting from the ruins. It sounds like P-

That was strange. I had a moment of confusion, probably from the day’s tension and exertions. I cannot remember what I was going to write. Strange.

We are going to call it a day and board the deep-swimmer before evening falls. I do not look forward to packing the four of us aboard our little undersea ship again, but at least we will smell more tolerable for a short while. Time to close until I continue tonight on the sea bottom.

Day 12, evening

We waded out to the deepswimmer and got aboard without incident, before twilight came. We have survived our first day on Enstar. I wonder what we did right. I wonder if we did anything wrong.

There was a curious incident once we were aboard. I remember that the air in the deepswimmer had an alien smell to it, though at first I did not mention this to my comrades, being unsure of the cause. Twig then went in search of a change of clothing, and while rummaging in the rear of the cabin brought out a dirty blanket and a cloth bag filled with small garments. None of it looked familiar to me; it seemed to be of human make, but sized for a child or a gnome. Dromel and Hunter frowned, examining the clothing in detail. Neither claimed it was his own. It certainly wasn’t mine.

Out of curiosity, I pressed one of the items, a shirt, to my nostrils and inhaled. I did it again, then held the shirt up to my eyes in the dim phosphor light. It did not smell like any of the four of us, and the scent was fresh and strong, less than a day old. That was not possible unless-

“Someone has been aboard the deepswimmer while we were out,” I said.

The other three were stunned. “The hatch was sealed,” said Dromel, looking around. His face was notably paler even in the faint phosphor glow.

I tossed the shirt aside and grabbed for the dirty blanket, jerking it from Twig’s fingers. “Hey, I was looking at that, you big buffalo!” she yelled. I ignored her protests and pressed the blanket to my muzzle, then inhaled deeply.

“It was a gnome,” I said, sifting quickly through the odors. “A male gnome, who had machine oil on him. He has eaten our food.” I drew back from the blanket. That gnome’s scent was the alien element I had detected in the air when we had come aboard.

I moved slowly around the deepswimmer cabin, smelling the walls, the floor, and the machinery. The others moved out of my way, watching me.

“He was here among us,” I said. “He has been among us for days.” There was only one explanation, I thought. The gnome must have been invisible. We could not possibly have missed him. A gnome is not that small, and a tinker gnome would not know how to hide himself even if he had a book on the subject.

“A gnome?” shouted Twig. “A gnome got into our deep-swimmer?”

Hunter said nothing, only looking carefully around the cabin with his right hand on the long-bladed forester’s knife sheathed at his side.

“A gnome,” said Dromel. He seemed about to say something else, but fell silent instead. He looked down at the small, ragged pair of trousers in his hands.

“We’d better see if he took anything while he was here,” said Hunter, with only a brief glance at Twig. “We could be missing valuables.”

“Oh,” said Dromel loudly. He smacked himself on the forehead. “I am an idiot. Please forgive me. Nothing is wrong.”

“What? Nothing’s wrong?” asked Twig in astonishment. “Someone sneaked aboard our deepswimmer and nothing is-

Dromel waved his hands about, cutting the kender off. “Nothing is wrong at all,” he said, with some exasperation. “No one sneaked aboard. This is probably my fault. I brought a few extra items aboard before we left. I wanted some extra clothing in case of emergencies, and I bought a load from the first person I saw, someone in the dock market, a peddler. I bet these are from that batch. She must have gotten them from a gnome. I never checked. That was foolish of me. I forgot all about it in the excitement.”

There was a little silence here, broken by Hunter. He sighed with a trace of disgust. “Understandable,” he said, making it clear that he would never have committed the same mistake. He took his hand from the grip of his knife and rubbed his face.

“Ooooohh.” Twig was plainly disappointed. “So no one sneaked aboard? We’re here all by ourselves?” Her eyes darted about the cabin, hoping to pick out the intruder and prove Dromel wrong. There was no one around but us, however.

I stared at Dromel, but he avoided my gaze. “We’d best get some sleep while we can,” he said, his voice imitating confidence. “Tomorrow’s going to be another day, and maybe the lucky one for us.” He wadded up the small pair of trousers and tossed it behind him into the rear of the cabin, without a second glance.

I watched Dromel at the propeller crank, trying to lower the deepswimmer. He struggled with it in vain before asking for assistance. “I must have gotten weaker since we got here,” he said. “It was easier the first time.”

I turned the crank with one hand, with little effort. The Mock Dragon Turtle settled comfortably onto the sea bottom once more with a dull thump.

“We’re safe down here, right?” asked Twig. “I mean, those old shadow ghosts can’t find us here. That’s what you told us, right?” She had no trace of fear in her voice, only natural kender curiosity-and an innocent desire to irritate.

“Perfectly safe,” responded Dromel curtly. “Shadow wights cannot get to us here.”

“Because they hate water, right?” continued Twig. “You said that those shadow ghosts don’t seem to like water, maybe because they’re cold inside and might freeze solid and get stuck that way. You said they hate fire, too, but we can’t burn anything on the deepswimmer or we’ll burn up, too. Best of all, the shadow ghosts don’t even know we’re here, they can’t see us down here at all, and that’s why we have a deepswimmer, so-”

Dromel’s face betrayed his anger. “We are perfectly safe here, as I’ve told you many times,” he said, his voice rising. “If we weren’t, we would all be dead now. They would have killed us the first night we were here.”

Twig’s face screwed up in concentration. “I thought you said they didn’t just kill people. You told me they came to Enstar and Nostar during the Chaos War and they made people disappear forever.”

Dromel hesitated. He almost glanced toward the back of the cabin, his face radiating anxiety. “They are believed by some authorities to do something like that,” he said quietly, “but there is no proof to it. The idea, actually, is that whoever shadow wights touch and slay is forever erased from the minds of the living. It is not just disappearing, it is erasure from all living memory, much worse than mere death. The victim is obliterated, wiped completely from mind and heart, gone, forgotten for all time. The body is evaporated, or turned to vapor, or something equally horrid. Only the. . the clothing is left.”

I thought then of the clothing that Twig found in the fishing boat. Had someone gotten into that boat long ago, foolishly hoping to escape the shadow wights by hiding in shadows?

“Gone,” said Twig. She sighed. “That would be horrid. I can’t imagine anything worse than nothing at all. That would be dreadful!” Her childlike face lit up with triumph. “But we have the relicsl Relics from the warsl”

Dromel was preparing for bed. Hunter looked bored. He curled up at his usual place at the bow and drifted away into his elven reverie, or whatever it was that passed for his sleep.

Twig watched as I took out my diary, but she did not ask to read it. She merely frowned at me, sniffed, then began examining her pouches for her day’s haul in little treasures.

I penned this entry, but it is very late. Everyone else is asleep. I stared at Dromel for a long time when I was done. I wonder if he knows or suspects something that he has not said aloud. I wonder if I will be able to sleep at all tonight, thinking about tomorrow.

Day 13, midday

We are ashore again. The weather has been in our favor; it is pleasantly warm, cloudless, and bright. Much has happened already. Hunter spotted an overgrown trail leading inland, one that appeared to have been well used once. We trekked past great fields and abandoned, rusting wagons on the way. Two hours later, we discovered the ruins of what Dromel says was Hovost, a coastal human town much larger than the fishing village. I write this as I sit on a stump outside what must have been the local tavern.

Hovost was once a well-organized and well-populated settlement. I believe two hundred or more families lived here, judging from the long rows of farmhouses lining the weed-covered roads into the town’s heart. We swiftly found this tavern, several small temples to the old gods, many barns, and two granaries. Not a living thing stirs. The silence is very unsettling. Not even birds call out from the bushes and trees. Insects are about, but fewer than I would have guessed. I have not even seen a lizard.

Dromel cautioned us again to not enter any buildings. Shadows might house shadow wights, he repeated, and we cannot afford the risk of facing them. Twig appeared bored as he spoke, but Hunter listened gravely. Dromel ordered that we explore in pairs and search for valuables. I found this last comment amusing. Farmers are not commonly known to hoard great wealth.

Twig went with Dromel. Hunter seemed happy to join with me. He has said little on this trip, and at first I thought the elf merited little respect, as he was not a proven fighter. Still, he has never once complained on our trip, and that is worth a snort of respect, if nothing more.

Hunter and I were barely out of sight of the others when a curious thing happened. He spoke to me in a low, even voice. “Red Horn,” he said. “Did Dromel ever tell you why you were chosen for this expedition?”

I glanced down at him. He did not look at me but at the weather-damaged buildings we passed instead. “He mentioned it, yes,” I replied coolly.

“You are a masterful sailor, it is obvious,” said Hunter. “Dromel told me how your advice caused him to alter some aspects of the deepswimmer before we left Merwick. He said you were not like a real minotaur, being easy to work with and trustworthy. It is equally obvious that you are fearless, withstand hardship well, and are far stronger than the rest of us put together. Were those the reasons he said he picked you?”

“What business would it be of yours, tattooed one?”

“None, but I found his selection of me to be curious.

There were few trackers better than I around Merwick, but I had the impression that was not entirely why he selected me. He questioned me about my friends, family, associates, everyone. I almost felt he picked me because I had so few ties, so few connections to anyone-because I was a loner, in short.”

I blinked and looked down at the slender elf again. I had never heard an elf who did not instinctively feel he was superior in all ways to everyone else, but the last part of his statement was very unusual.

Interestingly, I thought of myself as a loner, too.

Hunter pointed. “If we are to return with riches, we would do well to look there,” he said, the previous subject forgotten. I followed his gaze to a curious building on a distant low hill, visible to us as we rounded a ruined temple. It was a stone structure, probably once a wealthy manor. The roof had fallen in, and half the shutters had been torn loose, possibly by storms.

“I believe there we will find our lost Lord Dwerlen,” Hunter said, “or at least what is left of his home.”

We stopped to study the building. Hunter turned, taking in the empty town around us. “How long would you say it has been since this place was last inhabited?” he asked in the same even tone.

I had already considered that question. I inhaled slowly, drawing in the full texture of odors the surrounded us. I exhaled and reflected. The scent of humanity was weak, nearly drowned in many seasons of sun, rain, and snow. “A full generation,” I said at last, “possibly two.”

“Ah,” said Hunter. “That would fit with the stories about Chaos and the war. It is told that Chaos drew the shadow wights from the far south and loosed them over these islands that year. If they fed upon these unlucky people, it must have-

“It is more likely,” I interrupted, “that most of the people here fled for other lands once the war began. I cannot believe an entire island of beings would vanish so utterly.”

“Unlikely, I agree,” said Hunter, unperturbed, “but the year of the Chaos War was a year of unlikely things. I would add that not one but two islands, this and Nostar, were apparently emptied of many thousands of people, and no trace of them has ever been found.”

“None has ever sought them, as far as I know,” I growled. I already knew of these tales from Dromel.

“Still, as you say, tales of the Chaos War make it clear that chaos was its primary feature. Many thousands of people could have fled to Southern Ergoth to be later destroyed by the dragon Frost, or westward to b? destroyed by his rival Beryl. It would not take much to make an island of farmers take to their boats.” I sniffed the air once more, purely for effect.

“All could be as you say,” said Hunter. “Yet I have not heard there was ever such a fleet in these impoverished isles as could carry away so many people in such a brief time.”

I mulled over his words and the impertinence of his tone. If I were to strike him with a roundhouse blow, he would likely be dead before his body hit the ground. My right arm tightened, and the clawed fingers of my broad right hand curled into a knotted fist. He would barely have time to see it coming.

But. . only four of us were here, and every hand was a needed one. Perhaps when we returned home to Merwick, there would be rime for a proper accounting. Still, my muzzle flushed with shame, and I lowered my head. I was angrier now at myself for my weakness in not settling things before we went farther, but I was not as quick to deal out judgment as the rest of my people were. I could wait a bit before acting.

However, I admitted to myself, Hunter had a point. Too many people had lived on the two islands for all of them to have escaped thusly. It just did not seem possible.

“There was one other thing,” continued Hunter. “It was very odd, but as we were walking through the fishing village, I found something near a collapsed cottage. It was lying on the ground, carefully arranged as if someone had put it there on purpose.” He started to reach inside his leather vest.

“Let us reflect on that later,” I interrupted. “We should get our all-knowing leader and return here if we are to explore that ruin and be out of here before nightfall.”

So it would have been, except that we have not been able to find either the entrepreneur or the talkative kender. It is perhaps three hours to nightfall. Hunter has suggested we retreat toward the coast to be certain to get aboard the deepswimmer when twilight is near, and I think his words are wise even if he is just an elf. It is not cowardly, I believe, to live to fight another day. I am not interested in testing my warrior’s skills against creatures that cannot be struck by normal weap-

Day 13, night

We are aboard the deepswimmer again. The others are asleep.

The afternoon went well at first for our two comrades. Dromel and Twig found a graveyard and a nearby building where burial preparations took place. The roof was gone, but this allowed them to explore the insides without fear of the shadows and things that might creep within them. Twig discovered a secret place behind a stone wall, a small treasure vault of some sort, and they used long timbers to scrape the treasures out of the darkness within. The materials recovered included a book and many items of jewelry. Dromel thinks the people who prepared the dead here were also thieves who removed valuables that were supposed to be buried with their owners. It is not unknown for this to happen among humans. The rotting book is a kind of accounting ledger, in which the treasures are cataloged with estimated prices in old Ansalonian steel pieces, the dates they were acquired, and from whom. Most thorough, these robbers of the dead. Dromel brought back most of the valuables, which were stored in a large sack strapped to his back.

As Dromel and Twig were leaving the building thus laden, they were accosted by a shadow wight.

Twig will not speak of the incident. She is not herself tonight, and her injured foot causes her much pain. Before we boarded, Hunter gathered a few plants that he said were painkilling herbs, and their ministration has let her sleep for a time. She clutched in desperation at anyone who was near her until her eyes closed.

Dromel told Hunter and me what happened after Twig was unconscious. The shadow wight was in a small shadowed area behind a pile of debris from the long-fallen roof. The debris formed a dark space against the wall by the doorway through which they had entered the ruin. Twig saw the horrible being first and cried out in fear. Dromel said he had never heard a kender make a cry like that. He had difficulty describing the shadow wight’s appearance; he had previously said shadow wights could change their shape to fit whatever the viewer found the most disturbing. He vaguely referred to this one as a dead thing and added that it spoke to them both. Dromel was not able to go further. He buried his face in his hands and wept for many minutes.

A display like that from a human would normally bore me. Instead, I found it disturbing in the extreme, and it preys on my mind even now. Dromel had struck me as immune to deep emotions, always a source of false cheer and well-meaning lies, an eggshell without a yolk. Hunter comforted him as much as he was able. I kept to myself, pretending to inspect the dirt-covered platinum rings, steel coins, and silver combs that we now possess, though I feel increasingly numb to their value.

Upon meeting the shadow wight, Dromel and Twig fled the ruined building. At some point, Twig fell off a ledge or stumbled over a rock, spraining her left ankle. Dromel’s account was confusing; I had the impression he was covering up for not having gone back right away to aid Twig. Indeed, I myself heard Twig’s cries for help as I was finishing my previous journal entry. I caught Dromel alone, asked him where Twig was, and had to go back myself to find her and carry her to the deepswimmer. We had no encounters of any sort on the way. Twig was hysterical, alternating between depressed crying and an unnatural excitement like panic. Both she and Dromel often clutched at the drag-onlances on their necklaces, which seemed to provide them with comfort.

It is uncertain what we will do tomorrow. Twig is starting to talk in her sleep. Among her stammerings she has cried, “Don’t touch me!” and repeats the word “empty” and “nothing” over and over.

I cannot neglect to mention one last incident. Before Hunter went into his reverie, he reached into his vest and pulled out a dragonlance spearhead on a chain, holding it up for me to see. I looked closely and noticed that he was wearing a second one just like it.

“Where did you get the extra one?” I asked. “Did you steal it from Dromel?”

Hunter gave me a smile he would give to a fool. “O trusting one, I did not. This is what I was going to tell you about earlier. It is the thing I found outside a hut in the fishing village. There were footprints leading up to it and away from it, going into the ruins near some shadows. Someone else came here not long before us, and that person had the same idea we did, taking an old magical relic like ours to keep away the shadow wights. Only this person was not smart enough to keep the relic on him at all times.”

I looked long at the dragonlance head. A small shiver ran through me. “We will not make that mistake,” I said sincerely.

“I agree,” he replied. “It is a shame about the fellow who had this one. Judging from the size of the footprints, I believe he may have been a gnome.”

Day 14, late morning

Awakening and breakfast were conducted without discussion. Hunter eventually revealed his find to the others, who found it very odd that someone with a dragonlance necklace remarkably like ours had been in the area before. We decided it must have been the gnome who had stowed away on our deepswimmer. His fate could not have been a pleasant one, we agreed. Dromel then cleared his throat.

“I am not sure it would be. .” He broke off in a fit of coughing before continuing. “I was saying, I am not sure we should go back to the. . um. .”

“No,” said Twig suddenly. She brushed hair from her face, looking Dromel in the eye. “I think we should. We should go back.” Her voice was clear and calm. We stared at her in amazement.

“Your leg,” said Hunter, pointing.

Twig shifted and stretched her legs out experimentally. She grimaced but shrugged it off. “I’m fine now, really. I don’t think I could stand to be stuck in here while you were out exploring and having fun. We’ll just. . stay out of dark places.”

Until that moment, I had not believed kender were worth the spit from a gully dwarf. I looked at her rather differently now. She talked like a warrior.

“There is a stone manor house,” I said. “It’s on a hill-”

“What?” Dromel’s earlier anxiety faded a bit. “What did it look like?”

“Two stories high, with a central tower,” said Hunter. “It is about a mile beyond the far side of the town.” He smiled. “Isn’t that what we’re looking for?”

Dromel swallowed and nodded. “I. . yes, of course. Of course, that’s Lord Dwerlen’s manor. We would find wealth enough for us all there. We should go back then, you know. We would be fools to come this far and not to get his money.”

Perhaps it was his stuttering or the trembling of his hands that told me he was holding back.

“Who was this Lord Dwerlen?” I asked, leaning close to him. “You haven’t told us about him. I want to know.”

“L–Lord Dwerlen was just a. . a tax collector or something for-

I had my right hand around his throat in a second. “Don’t lie to me, damn you!”

“Red!” Twig screamed. “Don’t hurt him!”

“Tell me the truth,” I whispered in Dromel’s face. “Who was Lord Dwerlen? Why have you been so determined to find his place?”

“H-H-H-He was. . a c-cartographer!” Dromel gasped, turning red. “I w-wanted m-m-maps!”

I released his throat. He fell back, inhaling hoarsely. “A mapmaker,” I repeated. “You talked us into coming here for a bunch of maps?”

Dromel hesitated, then nodded, watching me with wide eyes. “He was rich,” he wheezed. “He had every sort of map known. He retired to Enstar from the mainland decades ago, before the Chaos War.”

I leaned away from him, relaxing. This sounded like the truth, more or less-not that I still wasn’t thinking about killing him.

“So there’s no treasure there, no coins or jewels, only maps,” I said.

“No, that isn’t it!” Dromel fairly shouted. “No, 1 think there is treasure there, tons of it, but as for me, what I really want is the maps. I’ve got to have the maps!” He took a shuddering breath. “The rest of you can divide what iron pieces we bring out, but I want the maps. Please.”

“Well, I like maps, too,” said Twig. “How about if-”

“You can have the maps, Dromel,” I interrupted.

“Hey!” Twig fairly shouted.

“Shut up,” I said, still looking at Dromel. “But I want to know why you want those maps, and not just half the story.”

Dromel swallowed. “I like maps,” he said.

I knew there was more to it, but I decided to be patient. Soon enough I would see the maps for myself. I already had a fair idea of what he had in mind. “Fine. So they’re yours. The rest is ours to divide, but there had better be plenty of treasure there, as you’ve said all along.”

“We may have to go indoors,” said Hunter softly. “It may be dark in there. There may be more shadow wights around.”

Twig shuddered violently. She wrapped her arms around her as if for warmth. “We have the relics,” she said softly, “but we should not go indoors unless we can’t help it. I’m still here and breathing, so the things obviously work, just as you said they would, right? We can go where we want if we have to, just not for long.”

She was getting braver by the minute. She was a warrior after all.

“Is anyone good at locks?” said Dromel, rubbing his throat carefully, avoiding any looks at me. “I figure we’ll need to get through some doors to reach whatever his lordship had for a vault.”

Hunter wore an enigmatic smile. “I am.” He held up a dragonlance spearhead. “I can use the tip of this if necessary.”

We left the deepswimmer within the hour. I must finish this entry, as we have finished our rest break outside Dwerlen’s stone manor and are preparing to enter. The weather has held for us so far on our trip, and the sky is clear. No clouds, no shadow wights. It is close to noon. My next entry will either find us triumphant or doomed. I wish I knew the outcome, but I do not.

Day 14, evening

We have built a great fire. We are burning everything in the town we can find. There is no time to get back to the deepswimmer before the sun is gone. No time to-

Day 15, evening

My hand is not as steady as it once was. It feels like it has been a year since I last opened this diary. I barely remember what I wrote only a day ago. My memory is riddled with fog.

Twig and Dromel are sleeping, their lips stained green from chewing painkiller herb. The dark red hair across my right arm, between my wrist and elbow, has turned silver-white in a splash shape. I feel nothing there; all sensation has been lost, as if the nerves were sliced through. The fingers on my great right hand tremble, and my handwriting is like a dying elder’s.

I have only a bare recollection of what transpired when the three of us passed through the old entry arch into the stone manor. I remember the roof had caved in, partly, so there was some light. We cleared the doorway to make sure nothing would block our hasty retreat. Inside was a small greeting hall, with open doorways to a dining hall and several darker workrooms and storerooms beyond. We lit two torches each, one per hand, and went in. Weapons were worthless here, though we took them with us anyway. Only fire had a chance of driving a shadow wight back here-fire and our relics.

I am not sure what went on after that. I have a confused memory of roofless rooms and rubble-choked passages, and a narrow stone staircase leading up to a missing second floor. We wandered farther, aimlessly, until we found a broad stairway descending to a great set of old, locked doors. It was a vault. We had found our riches.

Otherwise we had seen nothing of value in the ruined manor. The doors at the bottom beckoned. Like moths to a furnace flame, we responded.

My memory is not what it once was. I do not remember who opened the doors, though I suspect it was Twig, as kender are all thieves, even those with warrior hearts. Once inside, we were exploring the room when Dromel cried out. It startled us all, but he was unharmed. He had found a seaman’s chest. He flung the lid open before we could utter a warning, and his hands carefully pulled forth long rolls of aged paper, preserved in the cellar over the decades. He did not explain to us what they were, but I knew he had probably found what he had actually come here for-the map collection of Lord Dwerlen. Dromel was no fool. A good map was worth more than steel. So many of the old maps had been lost in the Chaos War, so many cities and libraries burned, so many guilds gutted and ruined, that a single good map of our world was invaluable. Dromel swiftly put as many maps as possible into a sack that he tied to his back. One in particular made him cry out with delight when he found it, and this one he tucked into his shirt. He even allowed Twig to take a few after he had gathered his fill. The rest of us were wasting time, and the end of the day was approaching. At the far end of the great underground room was another locked door. Again, one of us worked on the lock, though it resisted easy opening. I still have a strangely clear memory of standing in the room near the stairs out, keeping guard with my torches, hearing nothing but the moaning wind above in the fallen stones and walls. Cobwebs covered the dark timber ceiling. I remember thinking, this is a bad place to be. We should move on.

The bright warm sunlight falling on the stairs going down to us suddenly disappeared, and a chill flowed down through the air.

A great cloud had covered the sun. We had not been paying attention to the weather.

I turned to shout at my comrades. I was too late. The shadow wights had waited for this to happen. They fell upon us like night.

I wrote the above lines and have done nothing else but stare at the page for a great while. My right arm tingles in a peculiar way around the area where the hair has turned white. I feel pain there, though not a normal pain. I wonder if the skin and bone are dead. I wonder if I will die soon.

A shadow wight came down the stairs at me. It spoke as it reached for me. I will never write down what it looked like or what it said to me. I struck at it clumsily with the torch, and my arm passed through its own outstretched arm by accident. I believe I screamed. I had never felt such pain as I did then. As I fell back, I saw one of the shadow wight’s arms pass through the wall at the bottom of the stairs, as if the wall was not real and the shadow wight was. Even in my agony I remember thinking, it moves so smoothly, like water flowing. It approached me again, and I hurled both torches into its face.

I have no idea if the fire did any harm to the thing. I have no idea what happened after that. I ran, though. I ran, and I should be ashamed, but shame is such an irrelevant, trivial thing. Running was all there was left to do. Shadow wights blacker than darkness came through the doors at the far side of the room, through the floor, down from the ceiling. I remember that I grabbed for Twig, as she was closest to me. It is strange I grabbed for Twig, as only a minotaur warrior is worth saving, and she is only a kender, but I caught her up and ran for the stairs.

Many shadow wights had gathered around the stairway to block our flight. They were all around us, an army of black-smoke figures that reached for me but did not make contact. I believe I was quite insane for a time. The memory of this presses hard on my mind.

I remember Dromel had a dragonlance spearhead on a chain in his hands, and another around his neck, and I hissed, “Where did you get an extra one?” The question seemed to startle him, and he stared at it in his hand. “I thought you. . or someone. . dropped it back there,” he said. Dromel swung the chain around his head, screaming as he did. He struck at a group of shadow wights, and they fell back from him, dissolving into nothing.

The chain. The dragonlance head. I remember looking around the room and seeing another, stuck into the lock in the doors across the underground room. Someone had left it there, perhaps while picking the lock. It was the kender’s fault, I thought, and I charged for it and snatched it out. I put Twig in my left arm, and I began swinging the newfound dragonlance on the chain, swinging it at the other shadow wights. They fell back. I charged for the stairs out. They fled before me, their feet never touching the ground.

It was almost sundown. Dromel, Twig, and I ran into the open for Hovost, the town near the lord’s ruined manor, and there we made our stand. As the sun fell below the horizon, I started a fire. We got a tremendous bonfire roaring and fed it with every stick of wood we could find. We burned everything that could burn, and the yellow flames crackled and snapped high in the black sky, holding back the army of darkness.

All around us, the shadow wights gathered and waited until they numbered in the hundreds, perhaps the thousands. They spoke to us. I clamped my hands over Twig’s ears to shut it out of her mind, but she screamed and screamed again as they spoke. I remember looking around until I found a kind of plant that I once heard would kill pain and cause sleep. I made Twig eat that plant, and she screamed less, then collapsed. I wrapped my extra dragonlance and chain around her body to protect her. No monster would touch her then.

I had nothing to keep the words of the shadow wights out of my own ears, nothing to keep them out of my head. They urged us to come out, to join them. Dromel and I listened to them all that night long, and no one heard us scream but ourselves.

I do not remember how we got back to the deepswim-mer. All I know is that we are here, and though we are probably safe, it comforts me not.

Day??

I have no idea what day this is. Twig and I have remained inside the deepswimmer, though only I have been conscious of late. I fed Twig too much of that painkilling «plant earlier, and she continues to sleep without waking. I do not remember why we are waiting, or how long we have been doing so. I remember only that we two came to Enstar to get rich. Twig had some maps, I believe, and we got this deepswimmer, though I do not recall how we got it. I think Twig had a lot to do with things, as I do not remember setting up the trip myself. My head is clouded with the words of the shadow wights, urging me to join them. I was one of them, they said, one of the worthless. They told me to lay aside my dragonlance and join them. When I did so, I would be free.

It is difficult to write. I have never been under such a malady as covers me now. A melancholy has crept into my body and spirit, and tears fall from my eyes. I was a fool to come here.

Day??

I am more lucid now, though not by much. I found a curious thing by my side when I awoke this morning. It was a note, written in the common language. I have no idea how long it has been sitting beside me. Twig must have written it, though she is still unconscious and very pale. Perhaps she woke up while I was asleep, too.

The note says:

A strange note. I tucked it into my diary. Twig must have been raving when she wrote it. I wish I could sleep. The voices of the shadow wights still whisper inside my head, and their words grow louder every moment. It is too much to try to get the deepswimmer going. I will shake free of this evil influence, this awful sadness that grips me, and start the deepswimmer tomorrow. We have already begun floating away from Enstar toward the open sea.

Day??

I must go. There is nothing left to live for. Twig has not awakened. I fear she may die of poisoning from the painkilling plants. It is my fault. I leave her my relic, all the relics that remain. Her body will be safe. She has a warrior’s heart, and the shadow wights will never claim her for oblivion so long as she wears the dragonlances. Me, alas, whose soul was bled by foolishness within and darkness without, the shadows can have.

Day1

Wow! What a great story! Wish I knew who wrote this. It must have been a present for me, since I’m in the story, but I have no idea who would have done it. Someone’s got a great imagination.

I must have really tied one on a few days ago, because I have no idea what I am doing inside this weird boat. I must have borrowed it to take it out for a cruise or something. My head is killing me; this must be the worst hangover ever. No more redberry wine for me, that’s for sure. I looked outside through the portholes, and there’s nothing anywhere but water. I think I remember running around on an island looking for stuff, and there were monsters that looked like empty things inside busted buildings, but that’s about it. What a tragedy! Here I’ve probably had an adventure, and I can’t remember it. It would be a great story to tell back in Merwick.

I’ve been keeping myself busy reading a manual I found on how this boat thing works, and I think I know what to do. I think I remember seeing this boat thing at Fenshal amp; Sons. Maybe if I take it back, they won’t be mad at me, and I can show them some of the great maps I found inside here. One of them looks like a map of the whole world of Krynn! It’s incredible! I bet I could buy a fleet with that map, but of course I won’t because it is much too interesting to part with, like these five spearhead necklaces I found around my neck. I wonder if they’re really dragonlances. I seem to remember hearing somewhere that they were. Wouldn’t that be a hoot!

I’m going to get cleaned up. I smell like a barn floor, and my mouth tastes like one, too. Then I’m going to figure out this boat, and then I’m gone. I want to see the world of Krynn, explore it and master it, live free as the gulls on the high seas, just like whoever wrote the stuff in this storybook said he wanted to do. I might make up my own story and write it down here, too, and maybe it would get published and I would become famous. It would be nice to do something that everyone could remember me by.