The Silver Stair

15

The ruins of Castle Vila were tinged a burnt orange by the rising sun. Gair traced a deep crack that ran between the age-worn stones.

"The Que-Shu sheep must die!"

He turned to watch the barbarians gathered nearby.

"It is only one Que-Shu, Shadowwalker. Hardly worth your effort. Let her be."

The old Que-Nal shaman stomped and spat at the ground, beads clacking angrily as he shook his head. "I decide if it is worth my effort, Windfisher. I decide!"

"You don't command the tribes, Shadowwalker. My brother does. He has made a truce with the elf Iryl Songbrook. You cannot command warriors to follow you on some foolish-"

"Your brother is not here."

"No. He would not dignify this gathering with his presence, but he has said the camp of the mystics is to be left alone. He gave his word."

Shadowwalker glared at the young Que-Nal, puffed out his chest, and again stomped in the snow. The pair was in front of a spirit pole, an old tree carved with oversized Que-Nal faces. The left half of each face was red, the right black. Four faces, one each facing east, south, west, and north. In decades past, the poles were believed to serve as homes for the spirits who watched over the village and who carried the shamans' prayers to the gods. Many of the barbarians believed the gods were still here but were turning a deaf ear.

Not Shadowwalker. He and his fellows were confident the gods were still here and very much attentive. "The Que-Shu sheep who leads those people has wronged us by her very presence! The gods would be happy if we killed her. The spirits will rejoice."

On the far side of the spirit pole were more than five hundred barbarians, nearly the entire village of Que-Jotun, and they were clearly divided. The youngest, by their murmurs and raised fists, sided with Shadowwalker, eager for a confrontation. The older villagers stood with Windfisher. All of them carefully regarded the two men as they shivered in the morning cold. Like the adults, the few children present were lean and muscular. Even the eldest looked graceful. All of those assembled had olive skin, which had not lightened despite the winter, and their dark hair was decorated with beads and feathers.

"You are mad, Shadowwalker. No one will rejoice if you try to kill the Que-Shu and her people." Windfisher squared his broad shoulders and ground his slippered heel into the snow. He had an impressive array of beads, easily more than Shadowwalker, each one from a kill accomplished during a special hunt or given for some act of courage, but they were not soaked in blood like the older man's. "Our fight with the Que-Shu was a long time ago, Shadowwalker, and it was based on an argument about the gods. Those years are gone. Let it rest."

"Rest. Pha!" Shadowwalker spat at the younger man's feet. "The gods care! The Blue Phoenix, Habbakuk, Zeboim, and Zebyr Jotun are still here watching over us. The shamans said Habbakuk and Zebyr Jotun would have washed away all of Abanasinia if everyone on the land did not fall down and worship them, but not all of the Que-Shu would revere them so. The fools! Perhaps they will wash away Schallsea if we do not slay the mystic."

Windfisher narrowed his eyes. "Abanasinia was not washed away, old man. Schallsea Island will not be washed away either. The Que-Shu-"

"The sheep waged war on us."

"After our ancestors attacked them! Our ancestors thought war would force them to worship our gods."

"They drove us off Abanasinia!" Shadowwalker was red-faced with anger. "Threw us to the mercy of the sea."

"And to the mercy of the gods our ancestors tried to ram down the throats of the Que-Shu."

"I have not forgotten that our people were driven from their homeland!"

"You should not, Shadowwalker. It is part of our history." Windfisher circled the spirit pole, scrutinizing the faces of those barbarians closest to him. The youths were angry, infected by Shadowwalker's fiery speech. His own words had done little to calm them. "Goldmoon, the Que-Shu sheep as you call her, did not drive us out of Abanasinia. She had done nothing to you, Shadowwalker, and you will do nothing to her."

Shadowwalker whirled on the balls of his feet, sending a shower of snow at the younger man. He stomped through the assembly toward the wall of Castle Vila, where Gair stood alone.

"One madman running to another," Windfisher said softly.

The air around his head was buzzing with questions. Could Windfisher's brother-Skydancer, the leader of all the Que-Nal-stop a war against the settlement?

Yes. Skydancer and he would stop Shadowwalker, as they had stopped his other foolish plans through the years.

Did he think the gods would swallow Schallsea Island if Goldmoon stayed?

No. There is a place for mysticism. There is a place for everything, and there is a need for such magic on Krynn.

And Shadowwalker? Could Skydancer stop him from acting alone?

The young Que-Nal paused at this question, running his fingers over his smooth chin. Behind him, Shadowwalker and Gair held a whispered conversation.

Windfisher turned to address the assembled Que-Nal. "Shadowwalker says whatever Goldmoon and her followers are building is a blight on the face of this island. Some of you obviously agreed with him and helped him set the fire at their camp. He says that Goldmoon's very presence is a slap in the face of all the villages. Yet the magic she practices is not so different from that commanded by Shadowwalker himself. Perhaps he is jealous of her and is trying to stir up all of you just for his own benefit.

"I cannot stop how he thinks," Windfisher added, "but my brother and I will stop him from provoking a senseless fight. There is room for the Que-Nal and for one Que-Shu on this island."

Windfisher led the way back to the village, unaware that several of the youngest warriors slipped away and headed to the ruined castle. Shadowwalker and Gair welcomed them inside.

There Shadowwalker continued to fume. "Skydancer could not dignify the gathering with his presence," he snarled. "He sent his brother instead. Both of them are soft."

The young warriors gathered close and hung on the old shaman's every word, cheering when he repeated that the Que-Shu and her followers must die.

Gair edged away from them. The shadows were thick inside what was left of Castle Vila, since the narrow windows on the first floor let in little of the morning light. The stone walls were covered with dirt and the remains of moss that had died when the cold weather set in. His fingers brushed at the dead moss, crumbling it.

"Everything dies," he whispered.

There were bolts in the wall where the elf imagined grand paintings once hung, images of the wealthy people who built this place overlooking the sea. There were thick, rusting chains hanging from the ceiling from which the remnants of wrought-iron chandeliers dangled. In the center of the room, a great, rotted rug spread, and atop it were splintered chair legs. A large piece of wood, oval-shaped and molded by exposure to the salty air, had a hint of beveling at the edges; it might have been an impressive table decades ago. There was a lone chair still intact, far from the windows. Rickety, it was nevertheless still sturdy enough to hold the elf. He'd cleaned the dirt off it on a previous visit, and he eased his lanky frame into it now as he continued to listen to the barbarians.

"Skydancer is a weak chief," Shadowwalker snarled. "He does not respect our heritage. If he did, he would be ordering the deaths of the Que-Shu sheep and her blind followers."

"Perhaps he should not be chief!" one of the young warriors shouted.

"Shadowwalker!" another cried.

Gair listened another few minutes, then slipped from the room and followed a winding staircase up to the second floor. There had been a carpet running down the center of the steps, thick and undoubtedly expensive. Gold and silver threads remained in the remnants of the age-worn nap. He paused on the landing, listening to the warriors swear to follow Shadowwalker to the death.

"Everything dies," the elf repeated as he was swallowed by the shadows of the level above.

And in death becomes stronger. Darkhunter waited for him.

The elf decided that decades ago this must have been a music room. The stone walls had been painted, and curled chips of pale yellow-had they been white?- clung here and there. He stared at strings lying amid a jumble of rotted wood. Strings from a harp, he guessed as he imagined a beautiful woman playing exquisite music to which others danced.

"A place of ghosts," he whispered.

In the center of the room lay the bodies of five knights and one of Goldmoon's students-the final of the three search parties sent after Gair. Darkhunter had promised to teach him a new trick with them.

Shadows separated from the wall-Gair's father, and the wraiths of Roeland and the other Solamnic knights. They floated forward slowly, and Gair fancied that they moved to the bygone music of this place. The air around the elf grew colder as the creatures came closer. Gair inhaled deeply and closed his eyes. He loved Castle Vila. It was as dead as its occupants.

What do you wish of us, Master? It was Roeland's spirit.

"At the moment, nothing, but soon I will need all of you-and more. With our living friends below, we will journey to the settlement."

And drink of the sweet life there, Roeland said.

"Yes," Gair replied. The elf padded from the chamber, retracing his steps to the lower level.

It was shortly past dawn, the Silver Stair invisible in the pale light, yet Goldmoon stood on the bottommost step. She'd found the relic by touch, and she did not want to wait until evening to climb it. She wanted to tax herself physically to reach the top-and hope that she did not plummet off, since she could not see a single step. She needed the ruin to help her find Gair. Perhaps a vision might provide a clue to his whereabouts.

She had to find him soon, before he hurt more people. Through the link she shared with him, and which she still could not fathom how she was so tied to him, she knew he was pulling energy from the ruin and that he was bent on some dark purpose. She'd discovered the cracked steps-eighteen of them-and she knew if he kept it up, he would destroy the thing. The knights posted nearby last evening to prevent him from using the stair were nowhere in sight, but less than an hour ago a soldier had spotted their tracks heading to the north. Goldmoon suspected that Gair had the knights and wanted her to know that.

Goldmoon hoped she could use the Silver Stair to shut down her link with Gair so he could not eavesdrop on her thoughts. She sensed he would rather have the Silver Stair destroyed than to have her use it. Goldmoon loathed the idea of channeling power from it to effect a spell. That was obviously how the steps became cracked, but Gair had to be found.

"Goldmoon!" Orvago was tramping across the snow toward her. He, Camilla, and a detachment of soldiers had arrived late yesterday.

She paused, as if suspended in the air, and stared down at the gnoll. "I do not need a guard here, my friend. Gair is nowhere near." She had explained the link to the commander and Orvago last night.

The gnoll left her, backing away and watching as she climbed something he couldn't see. Even when he could see the mystical site in the light of the moon, it raised the hair on the back of his neck. When Goldmoon was more than thirty feet above the earth, he turned and loped toward the knights' tents, kicking up snow as he went.

"What are you planning, Gair? And whatever caused you to stray?" Goldmoon sat on the unseen steps, high above the settlement. A pair of kestrels flew past, circling her, then continuing south.

The air was still, and it carried the scents of pine trees and breakfast and the sounds of the waking settlement. Goldmoon liked the settlement the way it was: tents and lean-tos, people existing on hope and hard work. A lot of hard work would go into the Citadel of Light. When it was finished, as Goldmoon knew it eventually would be-no matter the delays and the weather- things would be so very different. The settlement would not have the same feel, and she knew she would miss this.

"It is my fault, despite what you say." Goldmoon was talking to Riverwind. "It was my choice to teach him the dark side of mysticism. I let my emotions, not my common sense, get involved. He missed his family just as I missed you."

He would have eventually learned the dark mysticism without you, beloved, just as he's learned all manner of dark things.

"Perhaps, but I pointed him in the wrong direction and essentially gave him a shove. Now I have to stop him. How can I find him?"

I cannot help you. Each night he calls me. The door is always open for him, and each night he pulls spirits through. I have resisted.

A shiver ran down her spine. She couldn't bear the thought of Riverwind becoming an undead creature.

The life he offers is not truly life. It is an abomination of an existence.

" I have to find some way to stop him, beloved. I have to save him. Gair-the Gair I took on as my student- would not have wanted this to happen to him."

The seed was there, Goldmoon, planted long before you met him.

She sensed him back away from her just as she sensed another presence intruding in her thoughts. Gair! She could almost see his face inside her mind, and she could hear his voice as if he were right in front of her.

The Silver Stair is mine, Goldmoon!

"No! By the blessed memory of Mishakal!" Goldmoon felt instantly faint and grabbed on to the steps.