The Silver Stair

9

Gair raced forward, churning through the drifts until he came upon a path that seemed to head straight toward the blaze. As he ran, he took in the shouts and cries filling the air, the crackling of the flames. The entire settlement was awake, and panic ruled.

He could distinguish no one voice, which was what he was trying to do in hope of locating Goldmoon. So many people were shouting, arguing, screaming. Children were wailing, and parents were too preoccupied to silence them. Only a few words managed to rise above the din, and these seemed to be shouted orders. The elf closed with the crowd and slowly began pushing his way through it closer to the center of the chaos. As he went, he felt the air become warmer from the heat of the fire. His boots sloshed in snow that was melting.

Three stories of flames illuminated the evening sky. Like an orange-red waterfall, the fire seemed to pour from the roof and down the walls, sparking and snapping angrily as if it were some great, wrathful beast.

Those with tents closest to the citadel were taking them down as quickly as possible, fingers madly fumbling in the canvas, arms locked around valuables and dragging them away.

"Everything!" one woman moaned as she sank to her knees. She was one of the first who had moved into the building, Gair recalled. "Everything I own has been lost!"

"Not everything," said a man trying to comfort her. "You still have your life."

Gair blinked furiously. The heat was pushing outward, stinging his sensitive eyes. He brushed at his face, finding it smudged with ashes that filled the air. Gray snow, it looked like. He cast his gaze about, searching for Goldmoon.

His eyes locked on the shining armor of the Solamnic knights. They were carrying people away from the burning building, their exposed faces black with ash. Some of the soldiers were keeping the panicked crowd back. Others were at the edge of the burning building, calling out to see if anyone was trapped inside.

"Goldmoon!" the elf shouted as he continued to move forward. He shook the shoulders of one of the Solace twins. "Is Goldmoon in the building?"

The man shook his head. "Other side o' the fire!" he barked, his voice raspy. Gair noticed his hands were blistered, and part of his sleeves had been burned away. "She's with Roeland and my brother."

The elf made his way around the blaze, dodging people dragging their belongings farther away from the conflagration, getting out of the way of a dozen men who'd loaded up pieces of tarp with snow. They were running forward, and Gair watched as they hefted the tarps and flung the snow at the fire. The flames seemed only to laugh at them and glow more brightly.

Smoke poured from one of the citadel's doorways, and through it Gair saw dark shapes. People indeed were trapped! The elf paused in his search for Goldmoon, edged closer to the building, and breathed a sigh of relief as the three fishermen from the port stumbled out, coughing and patting their clothes. Two Solamnic knights were behind them. A pair of the Thorbardin dwarves rushed forward to tug the fishermen away from the building-and just in time. There was a great flapping sound as part of the roof came free, spiraling down, flames licking madly in the air. It landed where the fishermen had paused a mere heartbeat ago. The knights joined the crowd and began plucking pieces of their armor off, revealing blistered skin beneath it.

Gair continued his way around the massive inferno. He spotted Iryl Songbrook. She was taking stock of the followers, and by concentrating he picked out a few of her words. It seemed she was trying to determine who else might be inside.

"No one, I hope," Gair said as he continued to press himself through the hysterical throng. "Nobody else is going to make it out of there." He was knocked to the ground as another snow regiment thundered forward, futilely trying to fight the fire by slinging more tarps full of snow at it. Gair knew there was little water available. Since the snows came, everyone had been melting it for water rather than continuing to dig wells.

Still, there was one functioning well at the far edge of the settlement, and the elf could tell that a bucket brigade had formed. The line of humans and dwarves, adults and children alike, was working quickly, shuttling pots and pans, helmets, and even a few actual buckets toward the blaze.

The fire was too big, burned too quickly. "The resin," Gair muttered as he picked himself up and continued around to the far side of the citadel, finally spotting Goldmoon. "The resin's fueling it." He could smell the odd mixture of tree sap and oil that the builders had been diligently applying for days.

He turned the corner and saw that the healer was perilously close to the flames, Roeland at her shoulder, his hands clenched on her cloak to hold her back. Orvago was behind them, fur tinged black with soot and obviously singed, as if he'd been inside the building when it had caught fire.

"What started it?" Gair called as he waved to Goldmoon and weaved his way toward her.

Shadowwalker's clan. The elder Graymist had opened the door.

Gair stopped in his tracks, staring mutely at the flames that continued to pour down the sides of the citadel as if they were liquid. The heat this close was nearly unbearable, and it had melted the snow far back from the building, turning the top layer of the once-hard ground muddy. Shadowwalker, Gair thought. Darkhunter had mentioned the name.

"Let me go!" Goldmoon started to struggle with Roeland. He had his arms wrapped around her now, keeping her from bolting.

"So you can die, too?" Roeland's voice was firm. "You yourself said no one else was to go in there."

Gair swallowed hard and pushed himself through the last several people to reach Goldmoon's side. "I went for a walk," he began, for some reason believing he needed to supply a reason for his absence. "I saw the fire as I was returning, and-"

"Jasper's inside." Goldmoon's face was ashen. She was smudged with soot and tears. Her hair was plastered to the sides of her face with sweat, the edges of her cloak singed.

"Everyone else made it out," Roeland said, "but Jasper-"

"And Redstone," Goldmoon breathed. She sagged against the former miller.

"They were helping to get the last ones out," Roeland continued. "People were sleeping when it started, and-"

"Suddenly part of the roof caved in."

Goldmoon dropped to her knees, her head in her hands and her shoulders shaking. Gair had never seen her look so old and frail, so broken. He knelt at her side, brushing the hair away from her face, his fingers adding to the gray smudges.

"Maybe he got out on the other side," he offered.

You know that's not true, Son.

"Maybe…" Gair left the sentence unfinished, unable to come up with another even half-convincing prevarication.

The healer pressed her hands into the slush and sent her senses forward into the fire. "Jasper," Goldmoon whispered. "I'm sorry, my friend. By the memory of Mishakal, if only I'd-"

A growl cut her off, angry and loud and coming from the gnoll. He tore off his red cloak and charged forward, hairy arms in front of his face. Gair was on his feet in an instant, reaching out to stop him. The elf's fingers closed on air.

"No!" Goldmoon shouted.

"Orvago, don't!" Gair's words were lost in the crackling of the flames.

The gnoll leapt through a smoky doorway, growling and disappearing behind a wall of flames. The building groaned, seemingly in response to the hairy intruder. Sections of the roof tumbled down, burning and sending stinging ashes into the crowd.

There was a gasp from the other side of the citadel, followed by something like a moan. The noise grew, and there were cries of "Run!" There was a loud crash. Gair didn't need to be there to know that one of the walls had collapsed.

"Orvago is searching for them," Goldmoon's voice was soft. "He can't see them. They're in the basement. No, he's looking up."

Black smoke was billowing into the air now, thick and choking and forcing the crowd back. Over the sound of gasps and groaning beams, the elf heard the sizzling splash of water being uselessly thrown on the citadel.

His eyes were watering from the heat and the ashes, and he rubbed at them.

Sentimental, his father observed. Are they tears for your dwarven friend, or for the animal that shares your tent?

"Can you see inside?" Gair knew he was inches from Goldmoon, that the healer might realize he was talking to a spirit. "Like you saw through the snow?"

"I can't see anything," Roeland answered, thinking the elf was talking to him. "Just fire and smoke. Goldmoon wouldn't let us go in after them. She said it would be suicide, but she would've gone if I had let her."

A stalemate of wills. Fire and smoke and a foolish hairy beast who has given up on the upper levels and is heading for the basement.

"The basement?" Gair repeated.

"As far as we can tell, the fire started on the top floor," Roeland said. "Maybe the roof. Can't see how, though."

The basement, the spirit said. The dwarves fell through to the basement. I think the beast can smell them somehow.

Inside the inferno, Orvago blinked furiously. Water streamed from his eyes, and his breath came in ragged gasps. He couldn't smell the dwarves. All he could smell was the thick smoke and the overpowering acrid scent of burning wood and resin. Through the smoke and the flames, he saw a gaping hole in the floor. He was rapidly running out of places left standing on this level, so he leapt through it.

The smoke was thick in the basement as well, though the heat wasn't quite as bad. The cold of the earth offered a little protection. The gnoll flailed about with his arms, finding broken and burning beams and yowling when the flames caught at his tunic. He batted them out and shuffled forward, peering into the smoke and shadows, using the light from the fire to see bits and snatches of things.

Pots and pans were strewn on the floor, scattered by the people who'd managed to escape. He saw burning blankets and smoldering chests that held someone's cherished possessions. He felt a broken doll beneath his foot.

Above him, he heard the crackling grow louder, then heard a thunderous whoosh. Wood was groaning far above, sounding almost like the timbers on the ship on which he'd been enslaved. He found a wall and pressed himself against it, held his breath, and cringed when the groaning grew in intensity, punctuated by a great crash. Just as the ship's mast had broken through the deck, support beams from above came hurtling down. The flames licking along them leapt out to catch more dry tinder ablaze in the basement.

The gnoll coughed, then found he could scarcely draw in another breath. He fought for air, taking in smoke instead. He fell to his knees, cutting himself on shattered glass and pottery, and tried to inhale more deeply. There… a breath. His face close to the floor now, he crawled forward, arms still out and paws searching.

The gnoll had almost given up when the tips of his fingers brushed coarse hair. He groped about, finding a beard, short and singed, a broad face. He felt the dwarf's chest, barely moving-but it was moving. His paws fumbled about and found the dwarf's belt, and he locked his hairy fingers under it.

Continuing to crawl, Orvago dragged the dwarf's body with him. The gnoll was searching for the stairs now, remembered where they were from his many trips bringing lumber inside. His free paw continued to grope about, pausing only when coughs racked his body. The gnoll was breathing so shallowly now that he felt faint, but he pushed himself onward. He was nearly there when something barred his way.

His fingers moved across a lumpy shape. He felt tattered clothes, thick, short limbs. He put his head to the lump's chest and sniffed. Another dwarf. This one he cradled to his chest as he nudged himself forward, finding the stairs at last and not bothering to see if this second body still breathed. The steps were hot to the touch, brittle like summer twigs, and smoke was pouring down them so thick he couldn't see through it.

The gnoll slammed his eyes shut, took a last gulp of air against the basement floor, and drove himself upward.

"No magic," Goldmoon sobbed. "Not one enchantment to stop such a blaze."

Gair held her close.

"Someone set this fire," she said. "In my heart, I know it. Why? Who?"

The elf opened his mouth to say something but was cut off by words dancing in his head.

You mean you'll tell her it was the Que-Nal?

The elf nodded.

And that you discovered this by talking to the spirit of a man long buried? Misusing the magic she taught you so you could talk to me?

"I have to," Gair whispered.

And that you've known it was the Que-Nal for quite some time? That you could have said something to her weeks ago and possibly prevented this?

The elf stopped and pulled Goldmoon farther away from the flames. The building was groaning more loudly. Great gouts of smoke poured out. Suddenly there was a shape darker than the smoke, large and moving erratically.

"It's the gnoll!" Roeland cried. "He's got the dwarves!" The big man rushed forward, others following closely at his heels.

The gnoll fell, his tunic and hair in flames, the clothing of the dwarves burning, too. Roeland tugged his coat off and batted at the flames even as more pairs of hands were darting in and tugging the gnoll and dwarves away from the building.

"Jasper's alive!" someone cried.

"Redstone, too!"

Roeland continued to slap at the flames, discarding his coat when it caught fire and ripping off his shirt to use that. The former miller persisted until the last of the flames had been snuffed out. Someone else started beating his cloak against the gnoll as the creature continued to be tugged away from the building.

Goldmoon was on her feet, pushing away from Gair and hurrying to the dwarves' side. "Help Orvago," she said, her voice so soft Gair could hardly hear it above the constant crackling of the fire. The elf was quick to oblige, turning the gnoll onto his back and cringing when he saw how badly the hair on his body was burned and how raw the split and bubbling skin underneath looked.

Gair splayed his fingers wide over the gnoll's chest, which was still painfully warm from the fire. He concentrated on his heart, calling forth the mystical energy he'd so recently been using to communicate with the dead. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Goldmoon, and his breath caught in his throat.

The aged healer had one hand on Jasper, the other on Redstone, and she was using her magic to heal two individuals at the same time. The elf had never seen such a feat but did not doubt Goldmoon's ability to handle it.

He returned his attention to his own patient, working hard to find the healing spark and coaxing it to grow like the flames grew behind him. For an instant, he wondered if he possessed the ability to heal the gnoll, the creature being so different from a man. Then he recalled Goldmoon healing Orvago after the incident with the boars. He focused on that memory, pictured it in the back of his mind as the warmth radiated from his chest and down his arms into the gnoll. At the same time, the air grew warmer still from the fire.

Behind the healers, the citadel shuddered one last time. The flames, sucking the last of the life out of the building, rose ever higher, then erupted outward in a great show of sparks as the last few walls collapsed into the basement. Screams of terror and shouts of anger cut through the night as the settlers watched the flames finally begin to grow smaller.

A crowd formed around Goldmoon and Gair. Roeland was telling of the gnoll's heroic rescue of the dwarves. Others were crying over their lost possessions, some over the weeks upon weeks of work that had been for nothing.

"What started the fire?" It was Amanda's mother.

"Someone set it, that's for certain." It was one of the Thorbardin dwarves. "Redstone's resin. A barrel of it was dumped around the foundation."

"To feed the fire," another dwarf added. "Someone doesn't want the citadel built."

"Who? And why?"

Gair kept quiet, focusing on his spell and trying to shut out their words.

Dawn found the dwarves and Orvago in new clothes and with less hair. Jasper was speculating if he would have to shave off what little was left of his beard. He looked forlornly at the gnoll, who appeared much the worse for wear.

"Saved us, you did," Jasper stated, slapping the gnoll gently on the back. "Didn't think anyone would come down to get us."

"No one should have," Redstone cut in. "You could've been killed, Orvago."

The gnoll grinned sheepishly and scratched at the bandage on his chest.

Goldmoon hovered around them, and Gair stayed in the background, listening to his father and pondering whether he should reveal his knowledge of a Que-Nal named Shadowwalker.

"Guess this means we're not buildin' again until spring," Jasper said. He wrapped his stubby fingers around a steaming cup of tea and stared sadly at the charred remains of the once-impressive building. Occasional wisps of smoke still curled upward from the site, disappearing in the gray sky overhead.

Goldmoon shook her head. "We start again tomorrow, my friend, though I don't want any of you three lifting a nail until you've properly mended."

"Tomorrow!" Jasper gasped. He nearly dropped the tea. "Goldmoon, you can't be serious! It's obvious someone set the fire."

"And therefore obvious someone does not want the citadel built," she added.

"Exactly."

"All the more reason it must be built." She turned and walked toward the charred ruins. "We start again tomorrow."

Jasper let out a deep breath and looked back and forth between Redstone and Orvago. They were silently watching the healer.