The Magic of Krynn

Harvests

Flint squinted up at the patches of fading blue sky showing through the forest's skeletal cover. Golden light slanted down from a westering autumn sun. The thought of another night in this gloomy woods did nothing to improve his mood, already soured by two restless nights. Wicked whispers and dread-filled moans were this forest's night song. He shivered and caught himself tapping the haft of his battle-axe. There was something wrong in these woods, and thoughts of Solace and home never seemed more welcome to the old dwarf than they had on this journey.

The dwarf glowered at Tanis. Blast the young half-elf's curious nature! So he hadn't been out of his homeland of Qualinesti that long. Did that mean he had to lead them down every cowpath in search of adventure? And wasn't he, Flint Fireforge, a respectable dwarven businessman, old enough to know better?

Flint heaved a disgruntled sigh. He guessed not-or he wouldn't be in this predicament, lost in some gloomy forest that wasn't on his map.

"Are you going to be peering at the dirt much longer," he grumbled, "or can we look for a camp site?"

Tanis, moving on Flint's heels and inspecting the ground to the left of the root-webbed path, gestured for Flint to join him. "Look at this."

The bushes and frost-seared grass to the side of the path were bent and trampled, marking a departure into the forest. A scrap of brown wool still fluttered in the sharp-toothed grasp of a young prickly ash.

"It looks like someone went through here," Flint said. "And recently, at that."

Tanis peered into the forest in the direction the lone traveler had taken. The song of water racing and tumbling over rocks played a faint counterpoint to the whispering rustle of leaves in the cooling breeze. But then from nearer by he heard the soft sound of something or someone breathing in the hard, short gasps that clearly spoke of fear.

"Flint?" he whispered.

"I hear it."

Tanis reached for his bow and nocked an arrow with the quick, almost absent moves of one who has used it with familiarity for years. It took only a gesture and a nod from him to tell the old dwarf to follow quietly.

Elf-silent, making no more noise than a hunted fox, Tanis stepped off the path and into the darkening woods.

Close-growing oaks and then underbrush crowded together, forming a broad wall of trunks and forbidding shadow. Tanis moved quickly from one oak to the next, keeping cover. Several growths thick, the trees ended abruptly in a clearing carpeted with their wide-fingered bronze leaves.

The girl crouched at the edge of the clearing was the most bedraggled creature Tanis had ever seen. Her hair, the color of frost-kissed aspen leaves, tumbled around her shoulders and straggled across her face. It did not hide the scratches and cuts, signs of a careless passage through the prickly ash, that scored her cheeks.

She could not have been more than seventeen and that was young, Tanis thought, even by the standards of short-lived humans. Crouched in the thick shadows of an ancient oak's trunk, she held perfectly still. There was that in her blue eyes that reminded the half-elf of a doe caught in a hunter's aim.

Flint breathed a startled oath. As though the old dwarf's whisper was the impetus she needed, the girl bolted.

"No, wait!" Tanis called. But the girl plunged through the trees, too terrified to cast even a backward look. Tanis leaped after her, slinging his bow and returning the arrow to the quiver as he ran. Behind him he could hear Flint angling toward the stream. Above them a raven screeched hoarsely and took noisy wing from a tall oak.

Tanis caught up with the girl at the stream. "Lady, wait!"

She skittered down the mossy bank. Once there she dropped to her knees, groping along the edge of the water for a rock. Her hand, raw with cold and trembling with fear, clutched a large stone. She hurled it at the half-elf with all her strength and awkward aim.

Tanis ducked and heard the rock drop harmlessly into the brush behind him. Flint breached the woods just a little upstream from the girl. He moved silently down the water's edge. While her attention was still on Tanis, who took the banks in two long leaps, Flint caught her by the elbows. He pinned her arms behind her, and brought her up to her feet.

"That will be enough of that, young woman," he said gruffly. "We've no interest in harming you."

Her eyes wide and wild with terror, the girl looked from the old dwarf to the young half-elf. Gasping, she struggled against Flint's hold. Tanis took another step toward her, showing her his hands, free of weapons.

"He means it, lady. We won't harm you. Flint, you can let her go."

"I'll be happy to-if she promises not to try to break our heads with rocks."

Tanis smiled at the girl. "She'll promise that, won't you, lady?"

Her chin came up, and though her lips trembled, she eyed Tanis defiantly. "And what warrant do you make?"

"I'll make you two," Tanis said gently. "That neither of us will harm you and that we'll offer you a warm fire for the night. Are they acceptable?"

Her whispered «yes» carried such mingled notes of hope and fear that it went right to Tanis's heart. In the twilight gloom now settling on the forest, he saw the sparkle of tears in her eyes. He took her hand and helped her up the bank.

He glanced over her head at Flint, but the dwarf only shrugged. Still, Tanis knew that his friend pondered the same question that he did: what was the girl doing alone in these woods?

Tanis managed to bring down two fat hares while Flint and the girl made camp. Riana, she'd said her name was, but she volunteered no information after that. It was Tanis's thought that she'd speak more willingly once she was fed and warm.

Riana was silent through all the time it took to roast the hares, though some of her fear seemed to leave her as she listened to Tanis's easy banter and Flint's gruff answers. She did not speak during the meal but to thank them for the food and finally to offer to clean the cookware at the stream.

Tanis listened to her careful progress down the bank. A cold wind scampered through the clearing, rustling the leaves and causing the bare branches of the trees to rub and clack together. These were the only sounds in a forest fallen silent before winter's approach.

The sky had been clear at sunset, but now thick clouds crawled up from the north. Though Lunitari's crimson glow had lighted each of their nights before this, it would not tonight; Solinari, could she be seen, was only a slim new curve. Beyond the fire's glow the trees' gnarled hands scratched at the grim sky. Ghostly mist drifted between their dark trunks, obscuring the ground and lowest growths.

In Flint's pack was a small pouch containing nothing but blocks of wood. Tanis smiled as he watched his friend reach into the pouch, taking the first one he touched. The size of his hand, the block was smooth and white, taken from the heart of a maple. Flint's dagger gleamed in the firelight as he made himself comfortable before the fire. In the companionable silence that fell between the two, the little block of wood became a rabbit, one ear dipped, one standing at the alert. The rabbit s nose, nostrils flared as though sniffing the frosty night air, required only a few last cuts when the soft dirge-like moaning that had haunted their nights began again.

Tanis shivered. "In the name of the gods, Flint, why is a child like that traveling alone in this miserable forest?"

But before Flint could answer, Riana's shadow fell across the fire, sharp and black. Her voice trembled. "I was not alone when I set out. My brother and-and Karel were with me." She set the cookware by the fire to dry and came to sit close to the warmth.

Tanis poked at the fire and watched the bright flames lick higher. "Where are they now, Riana?"

The girl shuddered, hunching closer into the poor shelter of her ragged cloak. "I–I don't know. It happened two nights ago. We were camping farther north, returning from our journey to Haven. Our village lies north of here. You might know it-Winding Vale."

Flint worked at his whittling and did not look up. "We know it," he said quietly. "What happened to your brother and this Karel?"

"Our camp-it was attacked!" The wind mourned long and low in the trees. Riana drew her knees up close to her chest, huddling for warmth. "It was attacked by-things, phantoms, ghosts-I don't know what they were. I only know that they were horrible. And when Karel ran his sword through one it-it didn't die. It laughed and the sound froze the heart in me. I've never seen such fear in Karel before! And I've known him all my life. He looked at me- It was as though he pleaded for my help. Or bade me farewell." She stopped, a sob caught in her throat, grief and an almost witless despair in her wide blue eyes. "And then it touched him, took his hand, and another one took Daryn, my brother, and-and they were gone."

She dropped her forehead to her knees and rocked there in silent misery. Moved by her sorrow, Tanis put his arm around her. She leaned against him, shivering. In the stillness of the black night the fire's crackling seemed too loud.

"And you've been lost these two days, wandering?"

"No!" Her voice was muffled against his shoulder. Tanis could feel her stiffen in anger. "I'm not lost, I'm trying to FIND them!"

"It seems to me," Flint muttered, his eyes still on his whittling, "that it amounts to about the same thing."

"It's not the same thing." Riana pulled away from Tanis and brushed at the hair straggling across her tear-streaked face.

"I see. Then perhaps you have an idea where these ghosts or phantoms have taken your brother and his friend?"

"If I knew that I'd be going there."

"Lost and wandering."

Before Riana could protest, Tanis took her hand and silenced Flint with a sharp look. "Riana, whatever the case may be, you cannot be alone in these woods. Our way lies northeast to Solace. We would be glad of your company that far."

"No. Thank you, but no. I must find my brother and Karel. Haven't you heard what I've said?" She looked from Tanis to Flint, then suddenly understood the hard line of Flint's questioning. "You don't believe me, do you?"

Tanis shook his head. "No, Riana, it's not that-"

"You don't. What do you think? Do you think I've done away with them? My own brother and the man-who has been a friend to us both for all our lives? Or do you think that I'm fey enough to wander these wretched woods alone for pleasure?" Her voice rose, sharp in the cold dark. "My brother and Karel have vanished!"

"Riana, let us help you. Let us take you to Solace."

"I must find them. I'll not find them in Solace." Her tone was bitter, cooling now with disappointment. "But I thank you for your fire tonight and the food. I'll be on my way in the morning."

Tanis took her hand again and suddenly Flint sensed his friends thought as clearly as he could sense the frost on the night air.

He's going to take up this foolish girl's quest!

He sat forward quickly to protest, but before he could speak, Tanis said, 'Then you won't go alone, Riana."

The girl's eyes lighted, her lips parted in a genuine smile of surprise and hope. "You'll help me?"

"I will."

Flint watched through narrowed eyes while Riana and Tanis talked together for a short time longer. He made no effort to join their conversation, but sat, brooding before the fire. When Riana, tired at last, bade him goodnight, he answered with only a short nod.

Once the girl was well settled and sleeping, wrapped in Tanis's blanket, Flint sat forward, still grimly silent.

But Tanis did not speak. Long experience had taught him that the best defense against Flint's disapproval was silence. Faced with no argument against which to vent his objections, Flint would, sooner or later, find a way to challenge Tanis's silence. With studied care, Tanis checked the fire and took up the arrows he'd used to bring down the hares. The green and gold fletching that marked them as his own was damaged. Tanis worked over them quietly until Flint at last spoke.

"Well?"

Tanis looked up from his work. "Well?"

"It's late to play word games, Tanis," Flint growled. "What made you offer to take up this foolishness?"

"What are we supposed to do, leave her here?"

"We could escort her to Solace."

"She won't go."

"How do you know that? You didn't press very hard."

Tanis smoothed the stiff feathers of one of the arrows. "It seems clear enough to me."

"What seems clear to me is that you've committed yourself to a hopeless task. Tanis, we don't even know what truth there is in the girl's story. Ghosts? Bandits, I might believe. But phantoms wholaugh at cold steel?" The old dwarf shook his head. "The girl is ei ther lying or a lack-wit."

"No, Flint. She's neither."

"You're so sure?"

Tanis wasn't completely certain. He only knew that her determination to go on, to find her brother and their friend, was real. Her eyes had glittered with it, her words held the passion of one who would not be gainsaid. And, too, though he could point to nothing that supported his feeling, Tanis was certain that the girl spoke the truth. He shook his head. At least the truth as she believed it.

"I'm sure, though I can't say why. Flint, the girl is terrified. There is something wrong in this forest. We've both felt it. And still she'll go on, with or without anyone's help. I can't let her go alone."

"I'll not deny that there is an evil feel to this place. I can almost smell it, and it grows stronger every day we journey north. Lad, you're not too old to be reckless, but I am."

Tanis looked from his old friend to Riana, sleeping quietly, one hand pillowing her head, the other fisted as though she clutched her courage even in sleep. Whatever doubts could be had about her story, he knew that she would go on, if she had to, without his help. And likely she would come to quick grief. He couldn't let that happen.

"Flint, I haven't committed you. I don't want to go alone. But I will if I have to."

Smoke drifted up from the fire, a thin veil between them. Even so, Flint could see the regret in his friend's eyes. Despite his words, he knew there was no decision to be made. "No, I noticed you were careful not to do that. Though I wonder that you'd think I would let you go alone." He reached for the arrows Tanis had abandoned. "Here, you'll lose these to the flame if you're not careful."

"Then you'll come with me?"

The wind whispered evil secrets to the night. The groaning of the trees under the frost might have been the mourning of lost souls. Flint shuddered, remembering the girl's tale of phantoms and ghosts. "I still have little enough faith in the girl's story of ghosts. But it's clear to me that the two of you will need someone with sense along on this fool's errand."

Tanis thanked him gravely, knowing that it would not do now to smile.

On the black stone parapet of his castle, the old mage Gadar turned his face up to a cold sky. Lunitari's red light leaked from behind the clenched fists of crimson clouds. Shadows drifted across the ground. Like dark breaths they twined around the gray trunks of stiffly ranked pines and slid down the mountain's slopes. A night-hawk, talons flashing in the moon's rising light, dropped from her nest: she was an arrow irrevocably launched toward her prey. The rabbit screamed, its first and last voicing, a brief song of the life it had lived and protest of death's agony.

Behind the mage, in a chamber red with the flame of torch and hearth, a raven cawed as though to warn him that time was passing. Gadar turned his back on the mountains and returned to the chamber.

The raven croaked again, cocked its head specula-lively, and preened its wings.

"I know," Gadar murmured wearily. "They could be trouble. But they will be dealt with."

The preening stopped then. The raven tilted its head back toward the long table standing before the hearth and eyed with deep mistrust the wooden coffer that lay in its center. Made of finely polished rosewood, hinged and latched with silver, the chest was the one thing that reflected no light from the fire.

"Yes, yes, my friend, you'd best leave while you can."

The bird did not hesitate. It lifted with awkward striving and cleared the window, drifting out into the frost-nipped night.

Alone again, Gadar took up the coffer. With careful movements he released the delicately crafted silver latch and closed his eyes. The words of the summoning spell came quickly, filling him with the power and demanding of him the strength of will needed to direct what it was he summoned.

Know who calls you: he who holds what you have abandoned .

He lifted the lid of the coffer, hardly feeling the silky wood beneath his fingers, not aware of the soundless swing of the hinges. He opened his eyes, dropped his gaze to the rich amber velvet cushioning the treasure housed within. Cool and bright, silver chased with gold, the four bejeweled sword hilts lay, each touching the other to form a cross.

Know who guides you: he who keeps what you have lost.

The fire in the hearth leaped, dancing high and roaring with the hollow voices of unhoused spirits. A wind, cold as though it had swept across glaciers, moaned through the room.

Know who sends you: he who owns what you have sold.

Black as night, insubstantial as the smoke of a funeral pyre, the four phantoms formed before the mage. Their bodies were only shades of what they had once been, living men. Their eyes were red as the flame in the hearth, their hearts as empty as winter's wind.

"Where?" the darkest one, the longest dead, asked.

"A day's journey from here. You should be able to reach them before dawn. A girl, a dwarf, and a half-elf."

"Bring them?"

Gadar hesitated.

The phantom laughed, and the hair shivered along the mage's arms. The spirits were his to control, but he feared them nonetheless. Still, he feared more any interference in his plans. He could not allow himself to be stopped now. Tomorrow was the night when the spell must be cast; tonight the night when one must be chosen from the two young men who waited in his dungeons. He must set these four phantoms prowling again. It must be certain that nothing could occur to thwart the spell.

"Stop them."

"It is done," the leader whispered.

And it was, Gadar thought as he watched the incorporeal bodies of the spirits thin and fade. It was done. These creatures had never failed to serve him before. They would not fail now.

Regret stirred in the old mage's heart. But it never rose strong enough to call him back from the shadowed path he walked. His remorse was bound by chains, made up of links forged by the deaths that he had caused. And those chains were heavy ones, colored red by the fire of his need.

Riana's sleep had been brief. Having wakened just when Flint roused Tanis to take the second of the night watches, she had drawn close to a fire that she kept blazing high with whatever fuel came to hand. She had not been a talkative companion, Tanis thought now as he watched her stirring thefire to greater brightness, but had spent most of the last watch star ing into the dancing flames.

Now he stood and gently took the long, smoke-blackened stick from her hands.

"Enough," he said, tossing the stick aside. "You put us in danger of roasting to death." He was sorry to see her flinch. He'd meant his words lightly, for the mist that had made black ghosts of the trees earlier in the night had deepened. And though dawn was only an hour away, warmth and light were welcome.

"Pardon," she murmured. She drew her cloak closer around her shoulders, holding it closed with a hand that trembled. Still she did not take her eyes from the fire.

Tanis could taste the bitterness of her fear. "You do well to be afraid, Riana. If you are considering abandoning your search, you have nothing to be ashamed of."

"No!"

Flint stirred where he lay wrapped in his blankets against the cold, damp ground.

"Hush," Tanis whispered. "He's done his watch. Let him sleep."

When she spoke again Riana's voice was low and trembling. "I will not abandon Karel or Daryn." She bit her lower lip, worrying it until Tanis thought it must bleed. "I hate this forest. I am not the fool your friend thinks I am. I–I would like nothing better than to go with you to Solace. But-I cannot. Can you not see that I must at least try to find them? They are all the family I have…" Her words trailed away, as though she did not wish to contemplate a life without her brother or her friend.

In the silence Tanis shivered as the wind grew suddenly sharper. The flames leaped high and then dropped almost to embers. Smoke, thick and acrid, billowed from the campfire, stinging hiseyes to quick tears. Above him he could hear a deep-throated roar ing, the sound wind makes racing across the treetops. Though for an instant he could not see her, Tanis knew that Riana was on her feet. He heard her coughing, a choking sound filled with ragged gasping. Behind him, Flint was up and complaining bitterly about people who could not keep a simple camping fire from burning down an entire forest.

The wind kicked harder at the fire, scattering bright embers around their feet, sucking at the smoke until it rose in a black column to vanish into the unseen limbs of the trees above their heads. Fear danced up Tanis's spine.

"Riana?" he called.

Her voice was small and pinched, only a whimpering response. Then, as swiftly as it had risen, the wind died as though it had never been. Tanis looked around in the stillness, placed Riana where she stood, frozen, across the fire from him, and Flint who braced just behind him, his axe in his hand. He read the danger in the old dwarf's eyes and spun back, his hand on the hilt of the dagger at his belt.

They might have been creatures of the smoke, so dark and insubstantial were they. But their eyes, four sets of crimson embers, spoke of some kind of unholy life. One separated from the group, taller, darker than the rest, and took a bold step toward where the camp-fire, now scattered coals, had been.

Riana's gasp was a shuddering sound of terror and dread. Tanis saw his sword lying just out of his reach and felt his heart sink even as he realized that these must be the creatures who had attacked Riana's camp three nights before. If her tale was true, no sword or dagger would prevail against these phantom raiders now.

As though he realized Tanis's thought, the leader of the black shadow attackers laughed, a high keening sound that chilled the very bones of those who heard it.

"Do not regret your sword," it said, its voice hollow and fell. "It would do you no good did you have it."

"Who-" Tanis's words caught in his throat, constricting with his fear, and he drew a sharp, tight breath. "Who are you?"

"It cannot matter to you. What matters is that we have been sent to stop you." The phantom's red eyes glowed hotly as it laughed again. "And you are stopped."

Riana's little moan of fear was only a whisper. She bowed her head and covered her face with her hands. "No," she sobbed, "no, not again…"

The phantom turned its attention to her, recognition flaring in its bright eyes. "Yes, little one, again. And this time is the last." It reached for her, the motion as smooth as smoke drifting on the wind.

Tanis dove for his sword, scattering the hot coals of the campfire as he ran. He caught up the scabbard and tore the blade from its sheath, whirling just in time to see another of the phantoms flowing toward him. The third, though, swirled away as the glowing embers tumbled like orange jewels at its feet. It feared the fire!

"Flint! Fire! The fire!"

But Flint, faced with attack from the fourth phantom, could not make a move toward the dying fire. Fighting with an instinct that denied Riana's tale of enemies impervious to honest steel, he swung his axe with deadly force at his attacker. It was a blow that would have separated a mortal enemy's head from his shoulders. The blade passed harmlessly through the phantom's neck, whistling in the cold predawn air.

Cursing in both anger and fear, the old dwarf ducked beneath his attacker's reach and dodged to the side, passing close enough to the phantom raider to feel the deathlike chill emanating from its transparent body. He scrambled out of reach, dashed his foot against one of the tumbled stones of the fire ring, and crashed to his knees. As his hand hit the ground to brace for an upward thrust to turn and defend again, burning coals stabbed his palm.

"Flint! Fire!"

"Fire," the dwarf snarled. "I KNOW it's fire-"

Tanis stood between Riana and the leader of the phantom attackers, his sword useless as a defense. Suddenly Flint understood what he meant, and knew what was wanted to fend off these ghostly warriors.

Moving quickly, not daring to look behind to see if the creature he had just escaped was moving to renew the attack, Flint grabbed for the largest pieces of wood that still bore traces of the night's fire. Heedless of their burning teeth, he swept them together into the broken fire ring. He snatched up the scattered kindling from their carefully gathered pile, and heaping it onto the smouldering embers and coals, forced himself to gather more than the shallow breaths of fear necessary to fan the sparks into flame.

"Flint!"

"I'm trying, I'm TRYINGI" Two of the phantom warriors converged on the dwarf, one from the left and one from the right. Ice was at his back. The wind howled above his head with the threat of fury and a grisly death. And the thing that reached for Tanis was about to lay its blood-freezing hand on his neck.

Riana screamed. It might have been the signal for light.

Flames leaped high, whirling and licking at the brittle kindling, snapping loud on the night air. Flint snatched a brand from the fire and tossed it to his friend. He did not wait to see whether Tanis had it, but caught up another and rounded on his attackers.

But there were none to fight. They were gone, vanishing before the bright flames. Only their high, wailing voices were left, lingering in the graying light of day.

Shuddering, Flint retrieved his axe and went to stand as near the fire as he dared. It was not warmth he sought, however, but light. He lifted his burned fingers to his mouth, eyeing Tanis and Riana over his knuckles.

Tanis drew the girl close into the shelter of his arm, dropped his sword's point, and walked her to the fire. Silently he helped her to sit, gathered up their scattered blankets, and wrapped her in them. He whispered a word to her and waited for her answering nod. When he left the bright circle of the fire, he gestured for Flint to join him. The old dwarf moved away from the light with great reluctance, still nursing his stinging hand.

"Are you all right?" Tanis asked, turning Flint's hand palm upward.

"No," Flint snapped, "I am not! I am burned and scared witless!"

"Badly burned?"

Flint scowled and snatched his hand away. "Badly enough," he growled. But when he saw the real concern in his friend's eyes, he shrugged. "But not so that I can't wield my axe if need be. Though what good that will do us against ghosts, I'd like to know."

"So you revise your opinion of Riana then?"

"That she is a liar? Aye, she's no liar."

"And a lack-wit?"

Flint snorted and shook his head. "I stand by that. And I'll add that we're both lack-wits if we continue on through this cursed forest."

"I'll go on."

"I thought you would. Well, then, so will I." He glared down at his palms, scowling at the blisters that were already beginning to form there. "I owe someone for this, and I do not like unpaid debts."

Wretched dawn silvered the eastern sky, blighting Gadar's certainty that his work of the coming night would be undisturbed. His phantom warriors had failed in their task, leaving him exposed and vulnerable. They could not be called into service again until darkness swallowed the days light. By that time the intruders might well have found him.

Or they might not. It was a chance that he would have to take. The time was right for the casting of his spells, the victim had been chosen. One night hence would be too late.

For a moment, regret, sharp and even bitter, touched Gadar's heart. It was ever this way when he was faced with this task. The young man was full of youth's bright flame. The blood ran quick and sparkling in this one, as it had in the others. Youth would dance in his eyes, sing in his veins, and light his face with his golden hopes.

The groaning that had begun with the dawn's coming now increased in persistence, telling of one who struggled against the black prison of unconsciousness, pushing against it with feeble strength and stronger heart. It would have been easier to sink back, rest for a moment, then try again. But this was a strong-willed young man. This, then, would be the one who would give his life's essence.

"Boy," Gadar whispered, "if there were another way-" But there was no other way. Any other way had been lost to him the first time he'd set his foot on this dark path. What was one more life now balanced against the many he had taken and the one he must preserve at the price of even his own soul? There was no profit, and only dangerous distraction, in regret.

Gadar crossed the chamber, stopped at a large table, and checked the components of the spell that he would work tonight. Everything was ready: the wormwood, the powdered dust of a crushed sapphire, the rosemary sprigs, the dark heart s blood of a breeding doe.

Gadar had no intention of trapping the spirit of his chosen victim in any temporal prison, and this was the difficult part of the spell. Were he to simply thrust the spirit of the young man into an en-mazed prison, he would not achieve his purpose. He had a better use for his victim's life.

For that reason he had chosen the stocky young man with the thick chestnut hair. Daryn, his name was, and he seemed strong enough to provide the life essence the mage needed.

At least until he could find someone stronger.

The mage paused, glanced again at the lightening sky. It might be, he thought, testing a new idea, that it was not such a bad thing that his ghostly assassins had failed in their dark charge. It might be that, were he to let the intruders find him, he would be well rewarded. There was no use for the persistent girl or the old dwarf. But a half-elf, young and strong as this one, would give life for many, many more years than the pathetic young humans he'd been using till now.

"Yes," he whispered, running his fingers along the edge of the table, "and peace, for a time, at least, and a rest from this weary work."

He could not send his phantoms for the half-elf now. Not with the sun's bright light shining. But the half-elf would come on his own. Gadar smiled coldly. That persistent girl would see to it. He would let them find him then. He would put no more obstacles in their way than he needed to gain the time to work this spell now.

Daryn's young life would buy him the time he needed. And time was, after all, the purchase he'd always sought to make.

The forest had darkened long before the sun set. The whisperings of the night before became ominous growlings in the underbrush, sobbing wails in the boughs of the trees. A wild wind danced. The little party of three moved upward, carefully picking a barely seen path through the giant pines. They were touched by a chill that put Tanis in mind of winter.

That morning, in grim jest, Flint had suggested that if they simply let the forest's evil feel guide them, they'd no doubt come upon their ghostly attackers.

Tanis had not taken the suggestion seriously until, moving north for lack of any better direction, they each began to feel the same nameless dread.

"Like a foul odor, a clammy touch," Riana had whispered. Her hands, clenched in white-knuckled fists at her sides, trembled when she spoke. Some fearful thing seemed to hover just beyond their sight, breathing in the trees like no wind that Tanis had ever heard before. It groaned piteously, and wept with winter's dying sign.

Shivering in the raw wind, Tanis nodded to Flint. "We could follow this feeling like a well-marked road."

"Aye, well we could," Flint said, running his thumb along the haft of his axe. "But what would we find? Nothing we'd like to, I'll guess." The memory of the phantoms sent more chill through him than the real wind stinging his face now.

The faint path broadened for a while, a rocky trail barren even of dirt, leading them ever upward. It seemed, at times, that the wind's voice really was the wail of dead things keening for life's loss. The trees, naked and stunted, warped as though by some de mented hand, were only ugly growths clinging to life by the whim of cruel nature. Then, when no thing grew at all, when the forests had beenleft far behind and their breath was coming hard and fast in the bit ter, thinning air, the path narrowed again, fading to a pass between high peaks. It vanished suddenly at the top of a boulder-strewn cliff. Behind them lay the dark forest, before them, and far below, a narrow vale.

Riana, shivering and exhausted, took the last few yards of the pass with Tanis's help. But the steely determination that had brought her this far still glimmered in her eyes. She's got more heart than strength, Tanis thought.

"We'll rest here a moment, Riana. We all need it."

She nodded dumbly, too tired to speak, and sank to a seat on an ice-kissed boulder. Tanis eyed her doubtfully for a moment, then went to join Flint at the cliff's edge.

"She's not going to be able to go much farther, Tanis. The girl's exhausted."

"I know. And she isn't the only one. You've been quiet these few hours, Flint. How are you?"

Flint blew on fingers that were stiff and achingly cold. "My bones are freezing. I suppose this is what comes of listening to the wild stories of pretty young women who lose their brothers and lovers in the forest?"

"Lover? Who, Karel? What makes you say that?"

Flint snorted and shook his head. "Anyone who's heard her story can tell that. Though its likely news to her, too. She's doubtless devoted to her brother, but it's been this young Karel we've heard about time and again, hasn't it? Young girls don't generally blush quite so deeply when they are talking about family friends."

"Flint, you surprise me."

"Why, because I can use my eyes? I'm not so old as all that, youngster. But that's not what concerns me now. What I want to know is where in the Abyss we are."

Tanis looked down into the valley, a deep cleft in the mountains shrouded in a thick mist. "I think we're about where we set out to be. Look." He pointed to a cleared patch in the mist far below.

Black, built from the heart and bone of the mountains, a vast, turreted castle rose, a jagged skeletal finger. The setting sun was a fiery wound in the brittle blue sky, bleeding light across the forbidding dark stone. Around them the sobbing wind mourned and gibbered.

"Can you feel it, Flint?"

The sense of evil that had been their guide to this place seemed to boil and rumble in the vale below as though this were the source of the keening winds and icy fear.

"Aye, I can feel it. And I don't much like it." The dwarf glanced over his shoulder at Riana, who sat hunched and shivering, her eyes on the frozen rocks at her feet. "Tanis, I could well believe that those ghosts came from this vale." He looked out into the valley again and felt the touch of something colder than the bitter wind brush up against his soul. "And I think, too, that something knows we're here."

Were he not so tired, Tanis would have smiled. He'd known the hard-headed old dwarf too many years not to be surprised by the fanciful turn of his thoughts. He looked closely at his old friend. What he saw in Flint's eyes made him shiver. It was sure knowledge that made Flint say what he had. Though the wry twist of his smile told Tanis that he'd no idea where the knowledge came from.

"Just a feeling," the dwarf muttered.

"I think you're right. And I think, too, that whatever knows we're here will not let us turn back now. It will be dark soon, and none of us is up to a trip down to that castle at night. We'd best be going."

"Aye, well, consider this, Tanis: when they attacked her camp, those phantom raiders seemed to have little interest in Riana. It was only Daryn and Karel they ghosted away. And there is something that tells me, too, that they will have small enough interest in an old dwarf."

Tanis did smile then. "Are you claiming to have The Sight, Flint?"

"No. I'm remembering her story."

He remembered it all the way down to the valley. Though it should not have been beyond his skill to find the thin, shale path, Flint, a hill dwarf who'd spent many years in the Kharolis Mountains, thought the trail came too easily to hand. He would not have sworn his oath that it had not been there before. Still, it had the look of a thing misplaced.

"Like it hasn't been here long," he grumbled to Tanis. "But it looks old."

"And it's the next best thing to vertical," Tanis said, catching hold of Riana, who slid on the loose shale. "The sooner we're off it, the safer our necks will be."

Flint had his doubts. And from the look of barely controlled fear in her eyes, he thought Riana shared them. Still, she righted herself with the same hard-eyed purpose that had brought her this far. Flint felt a new and grudging respect for her. He reached back and took her hand.

"This way, Riana. And have a care, the shale gets looser and smaller. I've no wish to tumble down the rest of the path."

"Riana?" Riana… Riana… Riana… Karel's whisper echoed in his mind with all the force of thunder crashing overhead. The flags of the stone floor were hard as midwinter's ice beneath his cheek. His leather jerkin was no protection against the chill draft wandering across the floor.

"Daryn?"

Slowly he became aware that he was alone. No chain held him, no manacle bound him to this floor. Still, he was unable to move even a finger. And Riana and Daryn were gone.

Alone! But where? Though he struggled hard with reluctant memory, Karel could not fill in the gap between the icy grasp of the disembodied warrior who'd touched his hand-how long ago? a day? two? — and the chill of this stone floor now. Yet some time had passed. He could see Lunitari riding dark clouds just beyond the window above his head. When he'd last seen the crimson moon she'd been still waning. Now she waxed, though only slightly.

Where was he?

"Where are you?"

Fear raced through Karel then, but so firmly held was he that he could not move. The voice was old but hard and touched with deadly power. Like the whisper of a ghost, he heard an aching answer.

"Here, within your reach."

"Give me your true name."

"Daryn, Teorth's son."

Though it was his friend's voice that answered the formally posed question, Karel barely recognized it. Dull, will-bereft, it held none of the steady confidence he knew as Daryn's. He trembled inwardly, nauseated by the realization that it was not Daryn's will that made his friend answer, but someone else's.

Somewhere, out of his sight, Karel heard the snap and sign of a fire. The bitter scent of burning wormwood tainted the cool air.

"Hear me, Daryn, Teorth's son."

Karel squeezed his eyes shut as that commanding voice dropped to a secret, murmuring chant. He felt the stone floor start to hum and vibrate. Magic!

Tension, so thick and real that he might have been able to reach out and touch it, filled the very air of the chamber. Leaping flames cast black shadow and lurid light through the room. The tension of the magic's power burst and filled the chamber with the dancing rainbows of light.

Daryn moaned. The sound came from deep within his heart, winding and writhing, and touched Karel's soul with dread. He struggled against his invisible bonds. His muscles shrieked with the effort, his head filled to bursting with pain. The sweat of his effort stung his eyes, splintered the shimmering rainbows of magic's light into shards of furious color.

"Daryn!" he gasped. But Daryn did not respond. He could not.

In a bloody circle, stunned with magic, dazed by his own horrified realization that Gadar clutched his soul, Daryn screamed.

Though Tanis scouted carefully once they'd crossed the scree and entered the little valley, he found no sign that the black castle was guarded. But even as he returned to his companions, darkness, thick and black as a mourner's cloak, fell with startling suddenness.

Riana gasped, but Flint only shook his head as though to say that he expected something of the sort. "Night's dark is never this heavy," he muttered. He saw his companions as faint reddish outlines in the unrelieved blackness. Tanis, too, would be able to see. But he knew that Riana, with only her human night vision, weak by the standards of dwarves and elves, must be nearly sightless.

"Tanis, give her a minute," he whispered. To Riana he said, "Close your eyes for a moment, then see if you can't get yourself adjusted to this darkness."

She did, bowing her head in concentration. But when she opened her eyes again she only shook her head.

"It's like being blind!"

"Aye," Flint agreed, "and likely that's how you're meant to feel." He took her hand and guided it to his shoulder. "Get your bearings, girl. Tanis, what did you find out there?"

"Nothing much. There is a postern gate around the north side. We can make for that. The main entry is unguarded, but I'd like to make as quiet an entrance as we can. Let's head for that postern."

"I'll not argue. Lead on then."

The path Tanis led them along was narrow and rocky, curving around the north side of the valley and down through a small decline to a tall, slim tower thrusting up from the main keep. Staying close to the black wall of the tower, Tanis crept slowly toward the weathered wooden door where he waited for Flint and Riana, still clinging to the old dwarf's shoulder, to join him.

The door opened immediately onto a tall flight of dark slippery stairs. Cracked and shattered by age, they were dangerous with sickly gray moss and only wide enough for one to walk.

"Be careful," he whispered. He waited until Riana was between him and Flint, then took the first steps carefully. So dark was the tower that they could make their way up only by slow, cautious steps. Silent as shadows they crept up and up until Flint was certain that the stairs must end on the mountain peaks.

And then, after an endless time of searching blindly for step after step, groping along crumbling stone walls for balance, Flint heard Tanis whisper back that the stairs ended in a corridor.

Light leaked into a high-ceilinged hallway from an intersection several hundred feet to the west. In the barely relieved darkness Flint saw Tanis reach for Riana's hand and help her up the last few steps.

Drawing a long slow breath, glad to be off the treacherous stairs, Flint reached behind him to adjust the balance of his axe, then stepped into the corridor. The dark stone walls wept with moisture, the floor beneath his feet was slick with green-scummed puddles.

It was then he realized that a wind was moaning where no wind should be. And beneath that moaning he heard voices, cold and gibbering.

"Tanis, I don't like this."

Riana turned, fearful questions in her eyes, her hand slipping away from Tanis's grip. Shadows leaped and danced around them as though cast there by a torch in a mad dancer's hand. Like bats smoked from a cave, the hollow, heartless voices of the dead swept round the high vaulted ceiling. The corridor filled with a tomb's chill.

Thickening suddenly, the shadows swirled to form into something black and vaguely manlike.

Before Flint could move or even shout a warning, a dark spectre reached to touch his friend, freezing him to stillness with its grasp. Horrified, he saw Tanis, his eyes suddenly still and glazed, his face like a carved death mask, turn.

Flint leaped, diving for Tanis, thinking to pull him away from the deadly hold of the black ghost. But, fast as he moved, he was too late. He felt for a moment the hard, real warmth of Tanis's arm beneath his hand. Then he felt nothing.

"No!" he howled, hitting out at the clammy stone wall in his fear and anger. "Tanis!" But Tanis was gone, vanished as though he had never been there. "No!" Flint struck the wall again, not feeling the sharp sting of stone tearing at his knuckles. "Tanis! Damn! Where are you!"

He would have hit the wall again in fury and an almost blind need to feel something solid and real, but a slim hand grasped his wrist, pulling his fist down.

"No, please stop!" Riana cried, "Flint, stop."

Flint rounded on the girl, his eyes flashing dangerously.

"Where is he?"

"He's gone-they took him, the way they took Ka-rel and Daryn. I don't know where he is!"

Voices whispered beneath the screams that filled the air, telling of torture and shattering agony. Gone, Flint thought furiously, holding onto his anger to warm the ice of fear from his blood. Gone! And left me here, damn it!

Down the corridor, toward where the gray light straggled in from some unknown source, he saw a dead torch in an old cresset. Flint ran for it, found another, and snatched them both up. Working quickly, he lighted both and shoved one into Riana's hands.

"Hang onto this," he growled, "and don't let it go out. Whatever these demons are, they do their filthy work in the dark. Aye, they had no love for our campfire: they'll keep their distance from our torches. We're going to look for Tanis. And I've no doubt that where we find him we'll find your brother and his friend."

Riana grasped her torch with both hands, to steady it. In thecareening shadows Flint's eyes were hard and frightening. "How how will we find him?"

Flint shifted his own torch to his left hand and hefted his battle-axe in his right. "We'll find him," he growled. "Have no doubt about that, girl. We'll find him." And when I do, he thought, still fanning his anger against his fear, he'll be lucky if I don't kick him from here to Solace forgetting me into this nightmare!

When they began to find the first bodies, Flint's fury turned to hollow fear. Riana, weeping openly now, stood rooted in the corridor, staring at the lifeless husks that had once been the strong bodies of young men. None of the bodies, some mouldering still, some whitened skeletons bleached by time's passage, showed the marks of a fight: no broken bones, no shattered skulls. Not one of them had battled his way to death.

They littered the corridor like discarded toys, used, broken, and cast aside.

Steeling himself to find what he knew he would not be able to bear to see, Flint moved carefully among them, searching. His blood pounded painfully in his head, his breathing was ragged, whispered fragments of prayers to gods few people acknowledge. Slowly, almost gently at times, he toed over one corpse after another, his hands locked in a death-hold on his axe. But none of the bodies was Tanis, and the most recently dead were still too long gone to have been either Karel or Daryn.

Breathing hard with his relief, he went back to Riana, took her hands in his own, and led her past the dead.

"No, there is no use struggling. You cannot move." Despite his own warning, Karel instinctively tried to reach a hand to the stranger. He grimaced and whispered again, "Don't try, you'll waste your strength. And you'll need it."

The words echoed in Tanis's head, bounding and leaping so that he could barely make sense of them. Where was he? He remembered, with heart-stopping clarity, the touch of hard, cold fingers on his wrist, the grip of a skeletal hand, and a groaning,beckoning voice urging him to follow. And he'd followed, incap able of refusal. Then darkness, bitter as dead hope, covered him, filling him with dread and piercing fear.

Flint? Riana? With a dark and hopeless feeling he recalled Flint's words on the cliff: Those phantom raiders seemed to have little interest in Riana… they will have small enough interest in an old dwarf. Where are Riana and Flint? Dead? Dead. He heard his own groan of fear and knew, then, that he could speak.

"Who is that? Where are you?"

"Here, beside you." Karel's whispered laugh was sour. "If you could turn your head, you'd see me. As it is, you'll have to be content to stare at the ceiling, friend. Wait until he's deep into the spell again. Then try to move."

Light, splitting and dancing in all the colors of a rainbow, leaped before Tanis's eyes, arcing and splashing across the field of his vision. He squeezed his eyes closed, trying to shut out the needle-sharp pain. "Who are you?"

"Karel. Hush!"

"Daryn." The mage's word was thunder, rolling across the chamber, filling the air with danger. "Rise!"

Beside him, Tanis heard Karel gasp. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to move. The effort should have taken him to his feet. He was only able to turn onto his side. It was enough to allow him to see the whole chamber, and enough to let him shudder with horror at what he saw.

It was a small man who spoke those commands, and very old. He wore his years with little grace. They lay upon him like unholy burdens. His eyes blazed with his magic, his red robes swirled about him as he lifted his hand.

Crimson blood circled a weakly struggling young man. Daryn, Tanis thought, Riana's brother! The soft murmuring of the mage's chant rose and fell in tones that were sometimes coaxing, sometimes commanding.

Then, with jerky, heartless strength, Daryn staggered to his feet. His hands twitched, his legs threatened to buckle, then stiffened as his feet found their purchase upon the stone floor. Dried rosemary leaves rustled in the mage's hand. The fire in the brazier sighed. With a practiced flourish, he sent the dust of a powdered sapphire, blue and sparkling as a high autumn sky, leaping across the distance between him and the bloody circle. It paused in mid-air, an azure halo above Daryn's head, then settledgently, with great precision, inside the blood circle, to form an other border.

Imprisoned within Gadar's circles of magic, Daryn stood, his face drawn and white. In that moment, complete understanding rippled through him, carving at his face with the sharp tools of terror.

And in that moment, the door that Tanis could barely see across the wide chamber burst open with a splintering crash. Weird light broke along the finely honed blade of Flint's axe, leaping and dancing.

Karel's sob of fear when he saw Riana standing behind Flint might have been the voice of Daryn, standing mute and terrified in double circles of enchantment. Or it might have been the voice of Tanis's own dread. Gadar spun quickly, his eyes wild and filled with hatred and thwarted purpose. White light leaped from his fingers, deadly arrows of flame.

"Flint! Down!"

But Tanis's cry wasn't needed to send the old dwarf dodging and scrambling for cover, dragging Riana with him. Karel slapped his leg hard and shouted,

"Now! Up, friend, we can move!"

The mage screamed, a mountain cat's howl of rage, and turned on Tanis and Karel. Halfway to his feet, Tanis dropped again to the stone floor. White-hot arrows of light darted past his face, stinging and burning, filling the air with a sulphurous, acrid stink. Out of the corner of his eye, Tanis saw Karel bolt across the chamber to where Daryn hung, trapped, in the enchanted circle of blood.

Daryn moaned, and Karel, crouched outside the bloody circle, reached out his hand to his friend. He cried out in pain, flung back by the spitting, stinging force of Gadar's magic.

Riana screamed, and Tanis leaped for the mage, caught him around the knees and brought him crash-ihg to the floor. From some hidden place in his sleeve, Gadar found a knife. Its cold blade flashed once, then again in the dancing torchlight, raking along the back of Tanis's hand.

Hardly feeling the pain, Tanis flipped the mage onto his belly and dashed his knife hand against the floor. The steel blade hit stone and rang loudly. Tanis jerked first one hand, then the other tightly behind the mage's back and held him firmly with a knee in the small of his back.

Frightened, filled with terror and despair, Riana's moaning sobs came to the half-elf. A bitter oath in dwarven told him that Flint was unharmed.

"Let Daryn go, mage," Tanis ordered tightly. "It's over. Let him go."

Shuddering and gasping for breath, Gadar twisted his head to glare at his captor. His voice, as hard as ice and steel, was a grating snarl. "It is not over until the spell-caster declares it over. And do not think to try to free him from the magic's circle. Whoever crosses its borders now will not live an instant."

"There is no reason to hold him now. Let him go."

"No reason in your eyes, reason enough in mine." Gadar coughed and shuddered. For a moment Tanis thought he saw the old man's eyes dim, the black glitter of hatred awash with grief. "But even that may be gone now, vanished at last, despite all I have done." Grim purpose darkened the mage's face again. "No! I will fight to the end! Fight as I have always fought!"

Knowing that he must strike before Gadar could begin to work his magic, Tanis raised his fist. But Gadar was an old man! And tired, by the look of him. Old and weary, a dry, cracked voice whispered in his mind, and it will take only one blow, young man, only one if you choose to deal it out against so fragile an opponent. What strength have I against the hard hand of your youth? Weary age, ancient burdened grief filled the voice, and blurred images of pitiful but valiant striving coalesced into pictures in the half-elf's mind, as clear as though they were his living memories. In the wavering torchlight the shadow of his own fist seemed a black and evil thing. He is an old man!

Tanis relaxed his hold on the mage and started to release him. Then, as he turned his head, shamed by the thought of striking so helpless an opponent, he saw Gadar's lips move slowly, silently chanting the words of a deadly spell. His black eyes glittered like those of an ancient snake coiled to strike.

It took only one blow to still the mage. But as magic's rainbow light surged to life again, pulsing and throbbing in the air, Tanis knew he'd struck too late.

Karel hunched his shoulders, his head bowed intending to butt through the wall of Gadar's power.

"No!" Riana screamed.

"Karel!" It was not Riana who cried out then, but Daryn. Something of himself flickered in his eyes. He reached out his hand as though he would stop Karel where he crouched, ready to leap through the blood-etched circle. Daryn's eyes were black with fear, then finally, free of the puppet-master's influence of the mage's will, understanding. At last his own will animated his limbs. He staggered toward Karel, crashed into the pulsing wall of magic, and thrust his hand into the free air of the chamber.

"No, Karel!" His voice was hollow, echoing already with the abandoned agony of the phantoms who haunted the castle.

The chamber shrieked with thwarted power, magic set free of the channels Gadar had forced it into. Daryn grasped his friend's shoulder, shoved him hard, and sent him spinning to the floor.

Writhing in agony so hideous that he could force no sound from his gaping mouth, Daryn collapsed, twitching and hunching against the pain. Then, hissing and spitting, the rainbow lights faded, drifted aimlessly for a moment, and vanished.

There was no longer a life to capture within the enchanted circle.

In the stricken silence, surrounded by the thinning power and the dawning knowledge of the sacrifice Daryn had made, Tanis moved instinctively to Riana.

Stunned, she took a stumbling step toward the now-harmless circle where her brother lay. Tanis caught her back and guided her carefully to Karel. On his knees, his head bowed, Karel reached blindly for her hand.

"Why?" she asked, the question torn painfully from her weeping heart. "Why, Karel?"

Karel held her closely but did not reply. He looked up at Tanis as though to ask the same question. But Tanis had no answer. Behind him he heard the mage groan, stir, and then fall quiet. For all the sound of his own harsh breathing and Riana's weeping, the chamber seemed suddenly silent. The old mage no longer breathed.

There must be answers, but the mage was not going to give them now. Tanis wondered if he would have found them sufficient or even comprehensible had he been able to hear them.

What twisted purpose, he thought, his head aching with the wondering, would move a man to this warped use of magic?

An old man, his skin the color of parchment, his hands gnarled claws, crawling with thick, twisted veins. Age? Was that the thing the mage had thought to stave off with the life spirit of young Daryn? Had he been pirating the youth of others to keep himself alive? Disgust, empty even of pity, filled Tanis until his stomach knotted.

Wearily he turned, looking for Flint. He found the dwarf in the darkest comer of the chamber, kneeling beside a small, richly clothed bed. In that bed, covered with thick robes and blankets, lay a slim, frail boy.

For one long moment Tanis thought that the boy was dead. His breathing, so slight that it might have been the play of shadows across his chest, made no sound.

"Flint?"

The old dwarf shook his head. "He lives, but only barely."

The boy sighed, then opened his eyes, and Tanis felt an echoing throb of the pain that he saw there. It seemed an ancient pain, long suffered and too long denied. Then, for a moment, the eyes filled with pleading, darkened with fear.

"Father?"

"No," Tanis said, dropping to his knees beside the bed.

"Father, no more."

Tanis looked to Flint, who shook his head. The boy was so weak he could barely see, so weary he could not know that Tanis was not the father he spoke to. Aching pity filled Tanis then, and he took the boy's hand in his own.

"Be still now," he whispered.

But the boy tried weakly to lift his hand. "No. No more. Father. Please, I cannot. No more."

"Hush, now, lad. Rest."

"Please, Father. I would-I would stay if I could. Please, Father. No more. I-want no more of these stolen lives."

Even as he heard Flint's shuddering gasp, Tanis knew why the mage had fought so bitterly for Daryn's life. It was for the boy! The boy might have been but twelve or thirteen, but his eyes spokeof many more years than that. And those years, Tanis realized sud denly, had all been winters.

"Father? Let me go. I am so weary… let me go. Father?"

"Tanis, give him what he wants." Flint sat heavily down on the cold stone floor, his back against the boy's bed. It was as though, Tanis thought, the old dwarf could not look at the boy any longer.

And, in truth, he would have turned away, too. But he could not, though he thought he could drown in the need he saw in the boy's eyes.

"He wants death, Flint."

The boy shivered and stirred again, groping for Tanis's hand. The quiet rustle of his bedclothes was like the sound of Death's soft-footed approach.

"Tanis, help him," Flint whispered. "He thinks you are his father."

Tanis gathered the boy gently in his arms and held him carefully. He wanted to hold the thin spark of life within the boy, as though his pity alone would keep it burning. Across the room he could see Riana, weeping in Karel's arms, one hand stroking her brother's face. Against his neck he could feel the faint breath of the dying boy, warm yet with the life that faded with each moment. He doesn't want death, Tanis realized then, but only permission.

"Yes." Tanis whispered the word the boy wanted to hear, the blessing the mage never gave. Weakly, the boy looked up, searching, and then smiled.

"I love you. Father."

"I know it," Tanis breathed, choking on the words. "But go, now, and go with my love." For one moment he would have taken back his words. Then the boy sighed, a small shudder like the fluttering of a moth's wings. Tanis's arms tightened around the frail body, empty now of life, and he bowed his head.

After a long while, he heard Flint stir beside him. The half-elf did not resist when his friend lifted the boy from his arms and set him gently back on the bed.

"Are you all right, lad?"

Tanis nodded.

"What are you thinking about?"

"That all these people were moved by love to do what they did. Riana and her brother, Karel, and even the mage and his son. But look how bitter the harvests were."

"Aye," Flint said, reaching down to help him to his feet. "Some fruits are bitter."

Tanis touched the peaceful face of the boy on the bed, thinking that it might only have been sleep that smoothed away the sharp lines of pain and not death. "And some are never harvested at all."

Flint was silent for a long moment. Then he smiled, as though to himself. He took Tanis's arm and turned him gently away from the boy's bed. "Bitter, some, and un-harvested, others. A harvest depends on the soil in which the seed is planted, lad, and the care it is given." He nodded to Riana, quiet now in Karel's arms. "Don't you think that theirs could yet be sweet?"