The Silver Stair

13

They were shadows against shadows, deep in the Que-Nal woods. The wraiths, recently given life by Gair, slipped across the drifts and clung to the darkened tree trunks, chasing their prey toward the ruins of Castle Vila and reveling in the fear the men radiated.

The elf followed the wraiths, moving almost silently across the hard-packed snow and down the winding path of a frozen stream. Darkhunter was at his side, his father floating somewhere above them beneath the spidery branches of dormant maples.

"They stood their ground longer than most men would," Gair said. "Knights are like that, uncharacteristically brave. I know two of them."

You knew them, Darkhunter corrected. The wraith floated through a tree stump that Gair had to step around. You knew them when you were with Goldmoon and her doting disciples, but you are beyond them now, as far beyond them as the stars are above the face of Krynn.

A part of Gair shuddered at the thought, the part that was being smothered by the darkness still growing inside him. That small part regretted his hand last night in killing a half-dozen Solamnic knights who had been sent to search for him, and that small part had suspected that sweet Camilla, concerned about him, sent the men. The darkness within the elf had relished watching the knights die.

The darkness helped Gair understand Goldmoon better now than he ever had before. She was too caring and sympathetic. She put other people's welfare before her own, and all of that made her emotionally weak. The night that she taught him to open the door to the realm of the dead-because she believed it would give him peace-he sensed that he had forged a bond with her. He wondered if she sensed the link as well. He could somehow tell when she was thinking about him, which she was now. However, he hadn't yet been able to divine precisely what she was thinking.

"That will come," he said to himself. "I will strengthen our bond, Goldmoon, use the magic in the Silver Stair. I will learn what you are up to and if-and how-you intend to stop me." He realized it was a newfound obsession, this wanting to know what Goldmoon was planning. "Perhaps I will question these men about Goldmoon's plans and about where she takes her walks now with Riverwind."

The elf continued to glide along after the wraiths, talking to Darkhunter. The trees were thinning out, giving way to scrub and small oaks bent by the weight of the snow on their branches. The sky loomed dark to the west, with only a smattering of stars poking through the clouds. Gair strained his eyes and saw a finger of blackness prodding up from the flat expanse of snow-covered ground.

Castle Vila, Darkhunter announced, where we chase our prey.

"Camilla's knights and Goldmoon's men. You will help me become as powerful, magically, as Goldmoon." It was more of a statement than a question.

No, Master, the wraith hissed. I will make you more powerful.

"When I am, I will face her. I'll kill her, and I'll capture her spirit as I've captured yours. She will serve me. I cannot have her remain alive."

Slay her, Gair's father agreed. The wraith fluttered down to float at Gair's other side. She might be the one person who could stop you. Her citadel must fall, and she with it. And then, my son…

"And then I will raise the spirit of every Que-Nal who died on this island. When I am finished with that, every Dark Knight, every farmer, every one of Goldmoon's followers, Smithsin's father, the elf of Red Creek…"

Schallsea Island will become the realm of the dead, Darkhunter finished.

The elf slowed his pace and watched the wraiths dart around the fleeing men, all of them shadows against the snow. The wraiths circled the men, though they did not yet know their path to Castle Vila had been cut off.

"The tallest is Roeland Stark," Gair said, his voice as soft as the small icicles gently clicking together on the branches in the breeze, "a miller from the port town. He came out one day in the early fall to meet the famed Hero of the Lance. Goldmoon impressed him, as she impresses nearly everyone. He went back to town the next day, closed his shop, gathered his belongings, and joined the settlement. He is strong-minded, just learning the rudiments of healing magic. I like… liked… him."

He shall die swiftly, Darkhunter pronounced. His body shall feel little pain.

"He'll not die until I've spoken to him. Do you understand?"

You've left that life, the spirit argued. You've no need of their company, no need to talk to them.

The elf chuckled. "I need only the company of the dead?"

Darkhunter's eyes seemed to glow a little redder.

"I only want to question him," the elf explained, "and then he will die. Yes, kill him quickly. That would please me. You may take your time with the others."

And then they will join us, his father's spirit whispered, all of them.

Made stronger in death, Darkhunter said.

The words were echoed by the elder Graymist and repeated in the distance by the other wraiths until they swelled into a chant. Darkhunter flowed away from Gair and moved to join the other undead.

In Goldmoon's tent, Camilla faced the healer across her makeshift table, sitting stiffly, as if she were at attention. Orvago sat on a crate near Goldmoon's bed, yawning and watching both of them, idly rubbing his heel in a small pool of spittle on the ground. He hadn't left Camilla's side since the fight with the Que-Nal band. He had hovered around both women throughout dinner, had followed them in here even after Goldmoon had said she needed to talk to Camilla alone. However, she finally relented and let him stay. He listened closely to their conversation.

"I did not ask for your healing," Camilla began, "though I suppose I should thank you for it. You probably saved my life, but I will not allow you to use your mysticism on me again. I truly want no part of it."

"As you want no part of this settlement," the healer added. "Commander Weoledge, I understand that you do not want us here. More precisely, you do not want me here. However-"

"However, the Solamnic Council does not share my opinion." Camilla fixed her eyes on the top of the healer's head, avoiding meeting her gaze. "The council is elated that you are building a center dedicated to your new mystic order. They have doubled the number of Knights of the Sword and soldiers under my command and have instructed me to protect you at all costs and afford you whatever other assistance is possible. Now that we know the threat is from a band of renegade Que-Nal, we can better defend you."

Camilla continued to stare, unblinking. "I understand from Iryl that the Que-Nal still revere the old gods, though they call them by names unfamiliar to us."

Goldmoon smoothed her hands on her tunic. "Let us hope I can make my own peace with the Que-Nal in the spring. I want no discord between them and the settlement. Commander, do you feel well enough for a walk?"

The women walked shoulder to shoulder, presenting a sharp contrast-Camilla young and very much the warrior, walking stately, though she was without her armor, the aging Goldmoon clad in soft browns, soft like her hair and expression and tone, her cloak shushing about her feet. Orvago followed several paces behind them.

The sky had darkened overhead, with clouds obscuring most of the stars, and the tents farthest from the few fires that burned loomed in a row like the bony spine of a great black beast.

"Have you walked the Silver Stair, Commander? The visions I've received there are quite illuminating."

She shook her head. "I have no need of visions. My own faith serves me well enough."

Goldmoon's path took them by each tent in the settlement, then around the construction site, where a dozen dwarves and humans continued to work by the light of a few large lanterns. Jasper and Redstone were putting the finishing touches on a doorframe, and they slowed their work long enough to nod their greetings and eavesdrop a little. The healer noted that Camilla made eye contact with each person in the settlement, as if she were constantly measuring them.

They passed by the row of closely spaced tents belonging to the knights and soldiers. Willum saw them and said he'd heard nothing yet from the search parties of knights and volunteers that had been sent out after Gair and his "whisperers." The men who went to collect the armor and the blankets on the trail to Heartspring had also come up empty-handed.

Goldmoon finished the tour at a small bay southeast of the tent town, taking Camilla down an overgrown path that led to an imposing cliff.

Camilla let out a long breath between her teeth, making a soft whistling sound. "Pelican Cove," she said, looking down at the water. "I was here with Gair not too long ago." Pilings rose above the choppy surface. "So you'll build a dock here when the weather breaks, which means you won't be needing the docks in town."

"This will be for visitors' use. The cove is not nearly deep enough to accommodate ships of much size. Materials can't be unloaded here." Goldmoon pointed down the cliff face. "In the spring, we'll build steps here."

Camilla glanced across the cove to the Straits of Schallsea and to the New Sea beyond. The water looked as black as ink, and the light from the few stars that showed in the cloudy sky was too faint to reflect on the surface.

"I know you do not want me here." Goldmoon finally brought up the subject again.

"It is because I do not agree with what you are doing."

"I am offering my students hope, teaching them to heal others."

The Solamnic Commander shook her head. "You teach them magic that comes from within."

"The power of the heart."

"Magic comes from the gods, Goldmoon. You were a priestess of Mishakal, and so you of all people should know that."

"You truly don't understand, do you, Commander? The power of the heart is from the gods, the last gift they gave men before they left to wherever Chaos bade them go. Mysticism, some call it. It is still god-magic, and I still believe in the gods. I am a priestess of Mishakal, to my last day."

Camilla's gaze softened. "I thought-"

"That I had forgotten the gods? I revere Mishakal with each breath." The healer sighed and drew Camilla back toward her tent. They paused outside a lean-to, where a family inside was singing an old elvish folk tune about the forest, some of the words mispronounced by their human tongues. "There is something you must know… about Gair Graymist."

Camilla pursed her lips, her brow furrowing. She followed Goldmoon back inside the tent. Orvago was quick on her heels, failing to duck in time and rattling the tent pole when his head hit a support. He scowled and offered an apologetic grin. He tried to right the pole, and in the process, he knocked down one of the blankets that was hung to keep the tent warm. He bent to pick up the blanket, butting heads with Camilla. Goldmoon stepped out of the way and patiently waited for the pair to repair the damage.

"Camilla, Gair came to Schallsea Island because of me. It is because of me that he consorts with the dead." The healer's shoulders sagged noticeably. "I am to blame for what happened to Gair. I taught him how to speak to spirits. I thought it would give him peace. The deaths of his father and sisters troubled him greatly."

"According to Orvago, he seems to have gone beyond speaking to them," Camilla returned, a slight edge to her voice.

"Gair somehow misused what I taught him. I'll teach no one else how to open the door to the spirit realm. Camilla, I should not have taught him this dark side of mysticism. It was a door best left closed to him… and to everyone."

The commander paced in the small confines, careful not to bump into the gnoll, who was standing, crouched, by the table. "If my knights and your followers find him, can you-"

"Heal him?"

Camilla's gaze was fixed on the design of a blanket that hung against the interior of the tent wall.

"I hope so. That is my intention, anyway."

Silence held sway for several moments. Even the gnoll breathed softly, careful not to make a sound.

"Three search parties we've sent," Camilla finally said. "One of them should find him. My knights, your followers… good people who know what they are up against."

"No." The word was a growl. "Men do not know at all. Men will not come back." Orvago shuffled to the tent flap and looked outside. "Whisperers will kill men."

Goldmoon watched the gnoll leave, certain by the shuffling outside that he was walking around her tent on a self-imposed patrol. Her face looked pale in the glow from the lone lantern on the table.

"Do you think the gnoll is right?" The knight showed concern on her young face.

"I will pray to Mishakal that he is wrong," the healer said softly, "but… I can see if the men we sent out are safe."

The healer sat, shoulders rounded, fingers steepled against the coarse wood. She closed her eyes and decided for the first time in her life to contact a spirit other than Riverwind's. Inside her mind, her husband urged her to try another tack, but Goldmoon paid his warning little heed.

"It will be all right," she told him. "I'll be careful."

Camilla looked curiously at her.

"I will try to contact the spirit of a man with a good heart. If I cannot reach his spirit, dear Riverwind, I will be grateful that he is not dead. And I will go myself to search for my people-and Gair-come morning."

She laid her hands flat on the table now, her thumbs drawing imaginary circles. The flickering lantern made her hair gleam like thin chains of silver and gold and made the shadows dance behind her.

"Roeland Stark," Goldmoon said almost inaudibly. "Are you in the realm of the dead, my friend?"

The moonlight edged from beneath a cloud and revealed that four men were still standing, two of them Solamnic knights. An equal number were lying facedown in the clearing, the blood from dozens of deep scratches on their bodies tinting the snow a dark red. Gair lurked at the edge of the clearing and watched, virtually mesmerized, as five wraiths danced around the men. Behind them loomed the ruins of Castle Vila.

The wraiths were the spirits of the Solamnic knights and soldiers who had made up the first search party to find Gair Graymist, their natures corrupted through the magical process the elf had used to raise them. Once kind and generous and honorbound, they were now sinister and hateful of life. They toyed with the four remaining men, darting in and slashing at the woolen clothes that covered those from Goldmoon's ranks. Icy-black claws cleaved through the thick material as if it were paper and sliced into the skin beneath. Insubstantial claws reached through the silver mail of the knights, raking deeply into the knights' chests.

Blood dripped onto the snow and brought peals of hideous laughter from the unseen mouths of the wraiths.

More powerful in death, the five chanted.

One of the men screamed as claws raked at his face. Another had come up from beneath his feet and clawed at his legs, shredding his pants and ripping through skin and muscle. He fell to his knees, and a wraith rose up through him, poking its black head out his chest, the feel of the icy dead creature sending numbing pain through the man's broken body. The wraiths left him, for the briefest of moments, retreating as if to offer him the slightest measure of hope, then darted in again, one sinking its claws into the man's shoulder, the other scratching at his eyes.

The man's screams were so shrill they hurt Gair's ears. The elf gritted his teeth and watched as the two wraiths slowly finished the man. Gair tried to place him. The elf had seen him around Goldmoon's camp before, but he couldn't remember the man's name. It wasn't important, Gair decided. He could learn his name later when he brought his spirit back from death.

The other three wraiths, now joined by Gair's father, cavorted around the two knights.

The tall one with no armor, the elder Graymist directed. He is last. My son wishes it.

"What are you?" the tall man howled at the inky figures. He brandished a club, which passed harmlessly through the bodies of the undead.

Gair smiled at Roeland Stark. Had the man been facing living foes, he likely would have dropped three or four of them by now. The two knights were also armed, one with a long sword, the other with twin daggers, his long sword lost somewhere in the woods. None of the blades gave the undead pause. They were no threat.

The men could do nothing to stop the wraiths, though one of the black creatures cried mournfully each time a weapon passed through it, pretending that it was being hurt. Gair sensed that the wraith savored offering false hope. Finally the wraith fell to the ground, a pool of unnatural icy blackness. It flowed like spilled ale under the boots of the knight with the long sword, then ran up the man's legs and clawed brutally at his stomach through the plate.

"What manner of creature are you?" Roeland howled again as he watched the knight writhe. Clenching his right hand tighter about his club, he swung it in an effort to keep the creatures away. With his free hand, he tried to peel the creature off the knight. The wraith laughed at the futile gesture and sent a bone-chilling wave of cold into Roeland.

Gair stepped forward just as the knight with the long sword succumbed under the assault of the elder Graymist.

Roeland's eyes locked onto the elf. "You! We came out here looking for you!"

"A pity that you found me." The elf displayed a suitably smug impression, cringing noticeably when the knight with the daggers cried out. "Camilla will not cry when she faces my minions," the elf whispered.

Gair's father dragged his claws along the length of the last knight's right leg, shredding the flesh beneath the armor. He fell, twitching in the snow.

Roeland glanced between the dying knight and Gair, then swung his club futilely. The wind whistled from each inconsequential blow. He hadn't been hurt much-just some claw marks on his arms and face, nothing deep, but he was frightened. His lip quivered, and his hands shook in terror.

"These c-c-creatures," Roeland stammered. "Gair, what are they? Do they hold you? Are you their-"

"Prisoner?"

Roeland nervously nodded. Tears flowed from the big man's eyes as he watched the knight twitch and moan and imagined the horrible pain he was feeling.

"That's what you'd like to believe, Roeland, that they hold me spellbound." The elf took a step closer; the wraith of Darkhunter moved at his shoulder. "Dear, gentle Roeland, I am not their prisoner. I am their master."

Master. Master, the wraiths chanted in unison. More powerful in death. The master made us more powerful in death.

"They are people you knew, Roeland. Knights stationed at the settlement. Gregory, Leland, Markus…" The three creatures darted in at the introduction, swiping at the downed knight as they went and scattering his daggers far from his grasp. "Bernard and… let's see… yes, Bolivar. You remember Bolivar? He got along so well with Jasper."

The shortest of the wraiths came near to Roeland, the intense cold of its body making the big man shiver uncontrollably. Roeland's eyes were wide with dread and disbelief.

"You killed them, Gair?"

"Well, not precisely. I had them killed. I didn't really have a choice, Roeland. I didn't want to be found."

"Goldmoon will find you."

Roeland stepped back, bumping into a crumbling wall of what used to surround Castle Vila as the spirit of Bolivar reached forward to touch his stomach. The mere contact with the undead felt like a hammer blow. Roeland's knees shook, and he did his best to steady himself.

"Goldmoon will find me when I want her to."

"She'll stop you."

Gair shook his head.

Nothing can stop the master. It was the elder Graymist, the wraith crouched over the downed knight, poking a jagged black claw into his ear.

"Call off your creature!" Roeland barked. "Take me, Gair. We were friends. Take me and let the knight go. He's not dead yet, but they'll kill him if you don't stop them."

More powerful in death, the wraiths chanted in unison.

"He is in such pain," Gair said, forcing his voice to sound compassionate. "They will kill him, Roeland. It's just a matter of how soon. I can have them end his misery now."

"Do it!"

"Ah, that requires a little cooperation on your part. Tell me about Goldmoon. What is she doing now? You said she'd find me. How? How hard will she look?"

Roeland vigorously shook his head. "I'll tell you nothing!"

The elder Graymist had his claw all the way into the downed knight's ear. The wraith was saying something, but its whispery words were drowned out by the man's screams.

"Look at the pain he is in, Roeland! Look what you are allowing him to endure. Squirming so. Very unbecoming for a knight. Camilla will not squirm."

Gair's father chose that moment to thrust his thumbs into the knight's eyes.

Roeland fell to his knees, sobbing, pulling his gaze away from the knight and the malicious wraith. "Gair, please…"

"Tell me about Goldmoon."

The big man's shoulders shook. "No."

The knight was whimpering now, no longer having the energy to scream. He lay still, only his hands and feet twitching.

"Tell me."

"No!"

Gair nodded, and his father and the other wraiths fell on the knight, insubstantial claws reaching through the armor to tear at the flesh the way a rabid animal might tear apart its prey. The knight was dead long before they stopped their rending.

The elf moved closer, being careful not to step in the blood and soil the soles of his boots. "Your turn, Roeland," he pronounced. "Tell me what I want to know, and your death will be swift. I'll even let your spirit rest. I'll not turn you into one of my minions."

Roeland's voice froze. Whatever words he was trying to say came out as a string of unintelligible gibberish.

"Come now, my friend." Gair knelt in front of him, took the club from his quivering hands. "I admired you. I venture to say I even considered you a friend once. I'll give you the grace of staying dead."

More powerful in death, the wraiths chanted.

"I'll let your spirit wander about the misty realm beyond the doorway. Maybe you'll even meet Riverwind, Goldmoon's dead husband."

Sweet death.

Roeland numbly shook his head.

"Just a little information. That's all."

His lips moved, but no sound came out.

"I can get it from you after you're dead, you know, but the words will not sound so pretty, your voice not so deep. Maybe the knights know, but you are one of Goldmoon's students. Were, that is. You would have more information than they. Cooperate, Roeland."

"Go to hell." The former miller drew on the last of his courage and found his voice. "Go to hell!"

"Father…"

The elder Graymist was a shadow on the ground, moving slowly and inexorably toward the elf and Roeland.

"Roeland… one last chance."

"Roeland…" Goldmoon pictured a doorway in her mind, the one she had seen when she first became aware of Riverwind's spirit. There was darkness beyond the doorway, a black sky cut through here and there by wisps of fog.

Riverwind floated beyond the doorway in the fog, looking tall and handsome and young, as she remembered him from their first meeting. She probed further, seeing other people, some she vaguely recalled from her youth-great-grandparents, nameless aunts, her parents' friends. Goldmoon inhaled sharply. They looked so real, yet when she glanced away, out of the corner of her mind's eye, they looked as insubstantial as ghosts, as if they were part of the mist. They are ghosts, she reminded herself. It was the first time she had tried to contact someone other than Riverwind.

Her mind stretched out, picturing Roeland Stark. Of the men she'd sent with Camilla's knights looking for Gair, she was closest to him. She prayed to the spirit of Mishakal that she would not find him here.

"Roeland…"

Roeland screamed as the elder Graymist drew a claw from his sternum to his waist. Roeland's coat and tunic fell from him like a peel of a fruit. A second slash cut the skin beneath. A line of red formed, and blood started dripping on the snow.

Gair moved back a bit, not wanting his garments soiled.

"Roeland. It's only a little information I'm looking for. I want to know what Goldmoon's intentions are toward me. Will she leave me be? Does she intend to send more searchers? Will she come for me herself? Does she talk about me? The Silver Stair… does she climb it often? Does she pull power from it as I do? Or… perhaps she does not know that she can."

Roeland spat at the elf. "She'll stop you! She'll-" His words ended in a high-pitched scream as the elder Graymist reached into his chest and squeezed his heart. The man slumped forward, dead.

"Father, I was not finished. I wanted to talk to him a little more."

More powerful in death. His father's whispery voice was sonorous.

More powerful in death, the other wraiths joined in.

Speak to him in death, Darkhunter suggested.

Gair made a tsk-tsk sound and stared down at the broken form of Roeland Stark. "I've no choice but to talk to him in death now," he replied.

The man's voice would not be so interesting to listen to. Roeland had possessed a rich voice, and in life his laughter sounded like a pleasant song. In death, it would be raspy and sound only like a harsh whisper. All the wraiths sounded the same to Gair. The elf circled the body, finding a spot to stand next to it where the blood hadn't seeped out to tint the snow.

Nearby, the wraiths tugged the other bodies away from the ruins of Castle Vila. The elf knew they would play with the flesh a little while before Gair raised the dead men's spirits.

"Roeland." Gair knelt, almost reverently. He closed his eyes and imagined the doorway. The door was never closed anymore. He'd shattered it with a thought. The elf's mind moved easily now between the world of the living and the dead. He fancied himself a part of both realms, and soon he would be master of both.

He saw other spirits hovering in the wispy realm, some of their visages repulsed by him, some horrified, some pleading, wanting to be given some semblance of life again.

"Roeland," he repeated. He glanced at the body, used the man's club to turn it over so he could gaze at the face. The man's eyes were open, the mouth open as well in a final scream. Gair pictured them closed and serene. Handsome. "Roeland."

Mist always pervaded the realm of the dead. Roeland formed out of part of that mist, transparent at first, then gaining substance and color. He looked like a miller again, wearing the trappings of a merchant, as he had the day Gair met him.

The elf stretched out a hand as if to shake Roeland's in a simple greeting, but the image of the miller tried to retreat. Gair shook his head and stoked the heat in his chest, sent the warmth from his heart into his arms and fingers, pictured his fingers glowing red like Darkhunter's bright eyes. A magnet, his fingers began pulling Roeland to him, closer to the shattered doorway. The elf began uttering a string of words, fragments of part of an ancient spell that Darkhunter taught him, old magic he had corrupted and coupled with Goldmoon's enchantment that required no words. Que-Nal and elven words mixed, powerful words that would not permit the spirit of the miller to flee.

"Roeland…" Gair beckoned.

"Roeland…" Please do not be here, Goldmoon pleaded silently. Please be alive and whole, be on your way back to the settlement with Gair in tow.

"Roeland… gods!"

He was there, in the misty other-realm, looking as he had the day he first strolled into her camp. On the young side of middle age, jaw firmly set, eyes filled with curiosity. He'd come to meet her, as he'd been brought up on stories about her and the other Heroes of the Lance. She was a hero on a pedestal to him, and he wanted to see her in person, to shake the hand of a legend.

Goldmoon had been cordial to him, had welcomed him as she had the others who'd journeyed that day from the port town of Schallsea. She shook his hand and said she was pleased to meet him. She had meant it, and his heart skipped a beat. A hero in the flesh.

She showed him around the settlement, told him about the plans for the citadel, about giving Krynn hope. She made it clear that this was all about helping people and restoring a sense of purpose in a dragon-devastated world. Roeland wanted to be part of that. He wanted to be something more than a miller, and he badly wanted to make a difference in the world.

Goldmoon. His eyes took on a sadness, and a lone tear fell shimmering from his eye, disappearing into the mist. Where am I?

She was instantly puzzled. Where was he? Didn't he understand?

He does not know, Riverwind told her. His spirit just arrived.

Her face grew ashen. Just died? She watched the mist swirl around him, heard dozens of voices in many languages, all of them speaking words of welcome and explanation, flooding her senses.

She watched his handsome face grow stern, as if he were instantly filled with a purpose and understanding. I am dead, aren't I, he said. It was a statement, not a question.

She nodded, a tear edging down her cheek. "Gair?"

He walks with the dead, Goldmoon. He's sent men to your worldly realm, slaying for no reason. He takes spirits from this realm, willing and unwilling ones who serve him, or who at least pretend to. Giving them half-life, denying them rest. The spirits slew me. Such pain. The image of Roeland paused. They slew the Solamnic knights, too, and he's drawing their… Roeland's face contorted, wavered.

"Roeland?" Goldmoon reached a hand out, but she was in her world, not his, and her fingers brushed Camilla's arm.

…spirits. Not letting them rest. The knights-

"What?"

Taking them.

"Roeland?"

Taking me. No! Goldmoon, no! By the will of Solinari and all the vanished gods, don't let this-

"Roeland!"

The image of the former miller seemed to fold in upon itself, and the images of men and women around him recoiled and disappeared in the mist, which writhed angrily, like a storm-worried sea.

They're taking me!

"Roeland!"

"Roeland Stark." Gair stood and brushed the snow off his pants.

A sheet of blackness hung before the elf. It shimmered in the light of the moon and began to shape itself. A head with a wild mane of spiderweb hair sprouted; eyes glowed palely white, then red. Arms thrust out of the blackness, and hands and claws grew from these. Legs emerged, with feet that hovered above the ground.

Master, the specter of Roeland Stark said in its whispery voice.

More powerful in death, its brothers chanted. They had returned from rending the bodies.

"Now," Gair began, "you will tell me about Goldmoon."

The specter laughed hauntingly. I do not know her plans regarding you. In life or in death, the answer is the same. I do not know. Its laugh was long and eerie, sending owls shooting from the branches of trees. Her plans are her own. Nothing shared. Perhaps she has none. The wraith laughed deeper, whispery-coarse, no longer musical.

"Is it possible Goldmoon has no plans regarding me? Was I that inconsequential to her? Impossible." Perhaps he would concentrate solely on this mysterious link between himself and Goldmoon, probe her mind and get all of his questions answered that way. "When does she use the Silver Stair?"

If there's a pattern to it, the newly birthed wraith said, I don't know it. But someone climbs the stair almost every night the moon is out, searching for visions.

"Only in the moonlight does the stair reveal itself," Gair admitted.

So someone will climb the stair tonight, the wraith of Roeland continued. Shall we go there, Master? Slay the one who seeks insight from the Celestial Ladder? Let me take the climber's sweet life.

Powerful in death, the wraiths chanted.

"It is a long way to the Silver Stair," the elf mused aloud. "Too far to travel tonight when I must be inside this castle come the morning."

Not far to us. Darkhunter was at Gair's side again. Master, may we show you?

The small part of the elf not yet corrupted was apprehensive, but the chill touch of Darkhunter seemed to bolster him. He nodded. The wraith of the Que-Nal took his left hand and the wraith of Roeland took his right. Together the undead lifted Gair from the ground and flew him toward the southeast.

Much more powerful in death, Darkhunter whispered.

Goldmoon buried her face in her hands and wept. All of the men she and Camilla had sent looking for Gair were dead, and all by his hands. The once-gentle elf whom she considered her most promising student, so gifted and intelligent, so filled with curiosity, so obsessed, so…

"Corrupt," she said aloud. "Gair's dark magic has thoroughly seduced him, and ultimately I am to blame. I showed him the door."

Orvago poked his head inside the tent, stooping low this time to enter. He carefully regarded the women.

Camilla was silent for several minutes as the aging healer composed herself and busied herself finding glasses and a jug of bitter cherry wine. She poured a glass for each of them and revealed what she'd experienced. The healer drank her wine slowly, worrying her thumbs around the edge of the glass, staring into its dark surface at the reflection that stared back in the lantern light.

"He must be stopped," Camilla said finally. She forced herself to appear stoic, thrust to the back of her mind all the happy thoughts of Gair she once indulged in. It was silly anyway, she told herself, to entertain a notion that a knight might find room in her heart for romance. She took a deep swallow of the wine. Then another.

"Roeland said weapons couldn't harm the whisperers," Goldmoon said. Her voice was weak. She dabbed at her eyes and returned to worrying about the lip of the glass. "My magic, perhaps, might. I want nothing to do with this… sort… of mysticism. It's dark magic, but maybe it's the only way to stop Gair."

The gnoll drained his mug and wiped his snout on the sleeve of his tunic. He tugged the sword free from his belt, laid it on the table, and reached for the jug of cherry wine. "Whisperers, dead by this sword."

Goldmoon ran her fingers over the edge of the blade.

"This is a magic weapon, Orvago."

He nodded.

The healer looked into his big eyes. "Why did you wait so long to talk to us, my friend?"

The gnoll gave a shrug. "Did not have anything important to say." He stared at his reflection in the sword, then met the gaze of the women.

Camilla drained her mug, and the gnoll courteously refilled it, spilling only part of the jug's contents on the table. "I've a magic sword in the Sentinel. It belonged to my brother. I've never used it. Maybe I was saving it in case he ever came back for it." She took a long pull, felt the warmth of the bitter wine flow down her throat. It felt like it was starting a fire in her belly. She barely felt the ache from the wound in her side that Goldmoon finished healing a few days ago. Her broken arm had been mended magically, too. "I'll leave to get the sword in the morning. It will give me a chance to check on the Sentinel and the town and to bring more soldiers here."

Orvago filled himself a third mug and handed the empty jug back to Goldmoon. She stoppered it and set it under the table. He wiped his hairy arm across the table to clean up what he'd spilled. His elbow smacked the lantern and it teetered precariously.

"I have a staff," Goldmoon said. It was wrapped in blankets at the side of her bed. "One I used a long time ago." During the War of the Lance, she added to herself.

"Maybe you won't have to use this dark mysticism of yours after all," Camilla said. "Maybe we can deal with Gair and his whisperers a more direct way." "Gair is my responsibility," Goldmoon said to herself.

"He was." Camilla finished her second glass and stood, balancing herself by holding the table. The knight was not used to drinking. "This island, and everyone on it, is mine to watch over. He's my responsibility, too."

The gnoll looked back and forth between the women and tucked the short sword protectively into his belt.