Destiny

Chapter 17

The preparations were lengthy and obscure. After bringing the Speaker back from the brink of death, Sa’ida sequestered herself in a tent on the edge of camp. There she remained for two days, seeing no one, speaking to no one, and ignoring the food and water left outside the tent. They had no victuals to waste, so morning and evening the untouched food and water was taken away and distributed elsewhere.

At dusk on the second day, the priestess finally broke her silence, asking for water. The warrior on guard outside her tent brought her a cup and brought the old general as well.

The tent flap parted a few inches. From within the dark interior, Sa’ida said, “I shall need more water than that. Much more.”

She conveyed her requirements to Hamaramis. His brows lifted, but he agreed without argument. The human priestess had brought the Speaker of the Sun and Stars back from death and promised to free him of the terrible illness. If water she needed, then water she would have.

A motley collection of buckets, jugs, and pots was filled from a nearby spring and gathered outside the priestess’s tent. Several hours after dark had fallen, Sa’ida asked Hamaramis to summon the Speaker. She still had not come out of the shelter.

The Speaker arrived in his palanquin. He had slept much of the day. Between the priestess’s ministrations and Gilthas’s own strength of will, he arrived sitting up in the woven chair rather than lying propped by pillows. Most of his remaining army and a great many ordinary elves were already there, waiting silently. Sa’ida stood just outside her tent, her back to the crowd, her head bowed. The bearers arrived, but they did not lower the palanquin to the chill ground. Hamaramis announced the Speaker’s presence.

“You have brought me to the deepest graveyard in the world, Great Speaker,” Sa’ida murmured.

“It’s our home. Or will be. Can you help us?”

She turned to face him. Those closest in the crowd gasped at the alteration in her appearance. A robust human woman of fifty years with a typically dark Khurish complexion, Sa’ida seemed to have shrunk. Her face was sallow, and her lips were blue as with cold. In her white robe, she seemed a pallid ghost herself. She looked nearly as ill as Gilthas.

“In my service to the goddess, I have communed with many spirits: peaceful and restless, howling mad and serenely content. I have never encountered any like those who dwell in this valley. They have been crowded into this place as salted fish are packed into barrels in the souks. Row upon row of dead souls, very old and very angry.”

She swayed unsteadily. Gilthas called for a chair. Hamaramis supported her until the stool arrived. Sa’ida sank onto it gratefully. Despite his anxiety to hear what she had to say, Gilthas was concerned for her welfare. But she turned aside his offers of food and drink.

“There are at least four layers of captive spirits here.”

“Four?” Gilthas was surprised. “We thought two—the beast-people and the will-o’-the-wisps.”

She shook her head. “Deep in the primeval warp and weft of this land are imprisoned the souls of an ancient colony of your race.” Grimacing in pain, she pressed a hand to her forehead. “Deeper still are voices so old and so awesome I dared not try to speak to them.” She regarded Gilthas with burning eyes. “This is no place to live, Great Speaker.”

Murmurs arose from those nearest in the crowd. The mutterings spread as the priestess’s words were passed back to those farther away.

“We have no choice,” Gilthas told her, raising his voice. The crowd fell silent again. “All other realms have refused us. We must endure here or die.”

Sa’ida lifted both hands to knead her forehead. “Then in spite of my misgivings, I shall try to help you.”

Gilthas’s sigh of relief was nearly soundless. He smiled.

“Protect us from the floating lights, holy lady. Those they touch are transported deep into tunnels beneath the valley never to wake.”

“That can be done.”

“Our next urgent need is food. Animals must be allowed to live here, and edible plants allowed to thrive.”

“Ah, that requires doing battle with a great power. There is a mighty spell on this place. Life is severely constrained.”

“By whom?” Hamaramis asked.

She managed a weary smile. “Spells are not signed like poems. The magic here is so ancient, all telltale marks of its origin have worn off. I can tell you it was the work of laddad wizards, a great many of them, acting in concert.”

Exclamations came from the crowd. Their survival was being hampered by magic cast by their own race? The irony was very bitter.

Gilthas asked Sa’ida to bend her efforts first to controlling the will-o’-the-wisps. The elves could work on making the valley bloom if they were free of the fear of being snatched away.

He expected her to give him a list of items necessary to fulfill his demand or perhaps to say that she must rest and gather her strength before embarking on the task, but she did neither. She set to work immediately.

Rising, she removed her necklace and held the chain so the Eye of Elir-Sana dangled free at its end. She went to the first of the water-filled vessels, murmured an incantation, then dipped the amulet into the water.

“Pour the consecrated water on the ground all around the camp, being careful to form a continuous line with no gaps. It will create a barrier the guardian lights cannot cross.” She moved to the next jug, adding, “Save some of it for your soldiers. When they are stalked, they should fling a few drops at the lights. Any light struck by a single droplet will vanish forever.”

The civilians raised a cheer, which the warriors took up. Gilthas praised Sa’ida for her efforts.

“Don’t thank me yet, Great Speaker. Without the lights to act as guardians, the spirits of the Lost Ones maybe emboldened to act as they have not before.” He asked what she meant. “I don’t know,” she replied, sounding tired and cross. “Just be wary. Any good healer will tell you, sometimes the cure can be worse than the disease.”

If her warning provoked any qualms among the elves, they weren’t apparent. As soon as a vessel was treated, eager hands snatched it away. Hamaramis laid claim to a few dozen small pots that his riders could carry while patrolling outside camp. The crowd dispersed, leaving the wrung-out priestess alone with the Speaker of the Sun and Stars. Gilthas pressed her once again to eat, saying they would gladly give her the very best they had.

Knowing how short was their supply of food, she assured, him she would be well content with whatever was the usual fare.

“In that case, you shall dine like royalty,” he said, his shadowed eyes twinkling briefly.

She gave him a sagacious nod. She understood this king well enough to know he would not feast while his subjects starved. The bearers carried his palanquin away. Sa’ida followed. Several of the Speaker’s attendants accompanied her, kindly matching her slow pace.

By the time the party reached the Speaker’s tent, the repast was laid: rose hip tea, roasted peas, goat cheese, and kamenty.

This last was a Khurish staple of olives and nut meats pressed into a loaf. Comprising two elven items and two Khurish foods, the menu was diplomatic if austere. The small table was lit by two candles, the delicate lines of the silver and gold candlesticks only emphasizing their humble surroundings.

Once the tea was poured, Gilthas dismissed his attendants. “Your coming has been a blessing, not least to me, holy lady,” he said, sipping his tea. “What convinced you to leave your sacred temple?”

Sa’ida related her adventure with Kerian and the Torghanists. He’d heard the tale from Kerian but listened with interest to the priestess’s impressions. He expressed regret that the fanatics had chosen to attack the high priestess because of the presence of his consort. Sa’ida assured him she did not blame the Lioness.

“The Nerakans were behind it,” she said. “When I realized that, I knew the best way to strike back at them was to ensure the survival of their most persistent enemy.”

Gilthas ate a bit of kamenty, chewing with great deliberation. “I am no one’s enemy, merely everyone’s target.”

“You dissemble, Great Speaker.”

“Not at all. I would happily have lived my entire life in my own country and never fought a battle, but the world would not allow it.”

Sa’ida sipped her tea. It was strong stuff. The rose hips had been grown in Qualinost, dried until they were small and hard as pebbles, then packed in sawdust. The priestess found the scent ineffably sad, the essence of flowers nourished in the soil of a vanished city.

“This valley is a trap,” she said very quietly.

“I do not believe it.” Despite the warm glow of candlelight, the Speaker’s face was pale and hard as a marble bust. “Destiny brought us here. We overcame horrendous odds and survived, for what? To perish in this hidden waste? No. I believe we will make it bloom, as we did our own cities.”

Changing tack, Sa’ida said, “I know some things about the sorcerer Faeterus which might interest you.” She refilled both their cups. “He has been in Khur only since the overthrow of Silvanesti.”

“I thought his service to Kur of longer duration.”

“He came to Khuri-Khan by way of Port Balifor on a ship full of laddad refugees. Within a fortnight, all the refugees were dead, save Faeterus.”

“What happened to them?”

“One of the many misconceptions, half-truths, and lies Faeterus encouraged,” she said, nodding. “It was said they died of a plague. The Great Khan summoned my healers to tend them, lest they infect the entire city.” Her dark eyes lifted from their study of her tea and bored into his own. “The plague victims were delirious, but they were not sick, sire. They were enchanted.”

Her meaning was plain. Faeterus had caused the deaths of a shipload of Silvanesti merely to conceal the reason behind his departure from the elf homeland.

“He wormed his way into the khan’s confidence by performing various unsavory tasks. Sahim-Khan rewarded him with treasure and the freedom to work his sorcery, so long as it did not threaten the throne or the security of Khur.”

“I’ll wager Sahim came to regret his tolerance. Who exactly is Faeterus?”

The high priestess had tried to find out. His presence had caused a disruption in the city’s spiritual harmony, the worst since the great dragon. She had no success. “Seeking him out on the spiritual plane was like gazing into an open hole on a dark night. It was not only a cloak of secrecy, there was a genuine void around him I could not fathom. All I could discover was that he is very old, he came to Khur from Silvanesti, and he has no loyalty to anyone but himself.”

She pushed her teacup aside. The meal had restored some healthy color to her face. “I believe he was a prisoner in Silvanesti. His ship arrived from Kurinost, on the north coast, the location of a large prison. Many of the refugees on the ship were convicts. In the confusion caused by the minotaur conquest, I believe a contingent of prisoners escaped from the Speaker’s prison, seized a boat, and made it far as Khur.”

“With a viper in their midst.”

“Exactly.”

Gilthas knew the fortress at Kurinost. It was a large keep, erected on a solid granite pinnacle four hundred feet high. On three sides were sheer cliffs down to the sea. The fortress was connected to the mainland by a single causeway easily controlled by a standing patrol of griffon riders. There was virtually no petty crime in Silvanesti and those banished were not ordinary criminals, but dissidents, subversives, and it appeared, one rogue sorcerer. They were held without trial, often for decades.

“I pray to my goddess your hunting party finds him,” she said. “There is power here no mortal should possess. If Faeterus achieves it, we may all be lost—humans, laddad, everyone.”

With that, the repast was done. Both of them were too exhausted to maintain polite conversation. Sa’ida asked permission to retire, and Gilthas granted it.

The remains of the dinner were cleared away. Every scrap and crumb was carefully conserved for another meal.

Varanas arrived, he and his fellow scribes ready to take the Speaker’s dictation, but Gilthas waved them away, declaring himself too weary. When Hamaramis came to report that the enchanted water had been distributed around the camp, he found the Speaker in bed, but the news he brought was welcome. Although many will-o’-the-wisps drifted outside the invisible barrier, none had penetrated.

“And our friends, the ghosts?” Gilthas asked.

“They are there, Great Speaker, as always. They watch but they do not advance.”

“Good.” The word came out on an exhale as the Speaker’s eyelids closed.

Hamaramis departed with a noticeably lighter step. Dining with the human cleric, the Speaker had eaten his first meal of any size in two weeks.

Twenty mounted elves galloped through the night. They were patrolling several miles south of camp, keeping watch for threats as well as any possible provender. As midnight approached, they spotted glimmers of light in a particularly thick stand of monoliths. A host of will-o’-the-wisps emerged in a long line, flying with unusual swiftness toward the warriors.

The elves were carrying two small pots of water blessed by Sa’ida. The warriors formed a circle, facing outward. The two riders carrying the water pots positioned themselves on opposite sides of the circle. One was the commander of the patrol. He balanced the rough clay vessel on the pommel of his saddle. The lights swept in, and he held his warriors steady, counting the will-o’-the-wisps as they came: twenty. Exactly twenty lights and twenty elves. No two globes were the same color. Many were in some shade of white or gold, but greens, blues, and reds were sprinkled through the pack.

The lights formed a ring around the warriors. Horses and riders shifted nervously as the silent sentinels flashed by.

“Stand ready,” the commander said.

He dipped a makeshift brush in the water. His first attempt missed, but on the second try, he doused a brilliant green orb as it passed his horse’s nose. The effect was instantaneous. The ball of light emitted a shower of sparks. Its color changed to dark red, like a campfire ember about to go out. Falling slowly, the will-o’-the-wisp hit the ground, rolled a short way, and vanished.

The patrol cheered. At the commander’s back, his second-in-command showered their tormentors with Sa’ida’s special libation. A golden globe fell out of formation, sputtering and sparking, and disappeared.

Three more were dispatched, and their loss seemed to confuse the rest. They darted higher in the air and collided with each other in sudden flares of colored light. Commander and second stood in their stirrups and flourished their brushes at the wayward lights. Four more died, and the others gave up. They darted away like minnows fleeing a pebble dropped in their pool, retreating behind a line of standing stones where they remained, pulsating rapidly.

The elves were elated. For the first time, they had defeated the will-o’-the-wisps. Many of them had known elves who served in the Lioness’s first expedition and who died silent, lonely deaths in the tunnels because of the bobbing lights. They were finally getting their own back.

Their commander wasn’t satisfied with leaving the lights cowering behind monoliths. He wanted to destroy them. He and his second each had half a pot of water remaining, and he intended to continue the fight. Ordering the rest of the patrol to remain at a safe distance, the two rode slowly toward the monoliths. Strange business, two veteran fighters stalking their enemy with nothing more lethal than a few cups of water and a pair of straw brushes. But there was no arguing with the efficacy of the human priestess’s preparation.

The elves veered apart, one passing on each side of a slender standing stone. The will-o’-the-wisps were clustered together, flying in tight circles. They were as far from the elves as they could get within the cluster of stones-only six feet away, the easiest of targets. The commander smiled grimly. What was the kender phrase? “Pickings easy as a one-eyed shopkeeper.”

He stood in his stirrups and flung drops at the mass of lights. Five or six immediately flashed out of existence. The rest reacted strangely. Instead of a last, blind charge at their tormentors, they swarmed even more tightly together and dived at the ground. With a loud crash like the fall of heavy stones, the lights bored into the soil. An aura shone briefly from the hole they’d made, then all was dark once more.

Commander and second exchanged an astonished look. They rode forward and the second dismounted to inspect the hole. Four feet wide, it bored straight down through the layers of blue-green soil. The sides were hot to the touch and smooth, but cool, stale air wafted from the hole. Evidently the lights had breached one of the many tunnels.

The warrior lying on the ground by the hole called a whimsical greeting. “Anybody there?”

“Yes! Keep calling! I am coming!”

The elf recoiled sharply and jumped to his feet. His commander set him to shouting into the hole then summoned the rest of the patrol. They all crowded into the grove of white stones, weapons bared. The unknown person in the tunnel drew near the opening and shouted his relief at being found. The commander demanded his identity.

“My name is Robien. I’m a Kagonesti bounty hunter. I met your General Taranath some days ago. He can vouch for me.”

They hauled him out, and he offered heartfelt thanks. The tale he told was a strange one—picked up bodily by the valley’s ghosts and tossed, weapons and all, down below. Just before he heard the warrior calling, the fleeing orbs had flown straight down the tunnel at him.

“I thought I was doomed! But they passed right through me, harmless as sunlight,” Robien finished.

The commander described his patrol’s defeat of the guardian lights and the lights’ desperate method of escape.

Robien accepted a skin of water from the riders but not their offer of a ride. His deadly encounters hadn’t dissuaded him from his original mission, the capture of the sorcerer Faeterus. He settled a pair of yellow-tinted spectacles on his nose.

“Give my regards to General Taranath,” he said and jogged away.

The warriors sat staring at each other for several seconds. If not for the hole in the ground, the entire affair would have seemed a collective illusion. One of the warriors, a soldier from western Qualinesti, had heard of Robien the Tireless. Kagonesti by birth, the bounty hunter had lived nearly his whole life among humans, which accounted for his foreign accent and odd appearance. It was said that in all his career, he had never failed to get his quarry. Some he did not return alive, but none ever escaped.

The commander turned his horse’s head back toward camp.

Despite the encounter with the bounty hunter, the real story of the night was the success of Sa’ida’s blessed water. General Hamaramis must be told how well it had worked. The riders followed their leader out of the grove of monoliths.

The water was meeting with similar success in camp. Even after the liquid soaked into the ground, the barrier persisted. Will-o’-the-wisps approached the camp, came to the line drawn in the soil, and halted. They meandered up and down, left and right, but none could advance an inch farther. Everyone was delighted and the children acted upon their jubilation. Standing safely inside the line, they flung stones and dirt clods at the will-o’-the-wisps. The lights were not easy targets, dodging nimbly away from the projectiles, but when a lucky child did connect, the will-o’-the-wisp staggered in flight.

Hamaramis was drawn by the children’s loud cheers. To their disappointment, he ordered an end to their merriment.

None knew how long the spell would work, he said sternly, and there was no sense antagonizing the lights. He could not be everywhere, however, and the teasing and harassment of the will-o’-the-wisps continued all around the camp.

As the night progressed, more and more lights arrived. By midnight, hundreds drifted around the camp beyond the invisible barrier. Word spread, and elves were roused from sleep to witness the spectacle. The lights represented every color of the rainbow, from deepest purple to pale green to fiery red. White was the commonest hue, and those tended to be the largest will-o’-the-wisps. The lights ebbed and flowed along the barrier like schools of bright fish. Sometimes a pair would put on a burst of blinding speed and chase each other skyward in an ever-tightening spiral. At the apex of the spiral, the pair would collide, and only one would survive. The other disappeared.

The noise in camp roused Sa’ida. Blinking against the torchlight, she emerged from her tent. The festive atmosphere did not please her. After donning her cloak, she stopped the first warrior she saw and demanded to be taken to Hamaramis. The old general was on the east side of camp, halting yet another group of children from throwing pebbles at the lights.

“This must stop!” Sa’ida said, hurrying up to him. “It’s very dangerous!”

He gave her a look of deep frustration. “We’ve been trying to stop it. The children—”

“Never mind the children! The lights are massing for a reason. They’re trying to overcome the ward placed around camp!”

“What can we do?”

Sa’ida brushed the tangled hair from her face. “Is there any of the blessed water left?”

Three clay pots set aside for late-night patrols were brought to her. She asked that more water be drawn for her to bless. Hamaramis sent out the order then accompanied the priestess and two dozen warriors to the monolith the Speaker had overturned.

Most of those responding to Hamaramis’s call fanned out to search the camp for extra water, but three elves, thinking to save time, took up buckets and rushed toward the spring. Unfortunately it lay outside the warded area. The celebratory air in camp had caused them to forget the very real danger posed by the will-o’-the-wisps at night. Standing atop the toppled monolith, Sa’ida saw their peril and shouted a warning, but the three had already stepped outside the barrier and they were swarmed by dozens of lights. All three disappeared instantly, without time even to cry out. Shocked, the noisy crowd fell silent.

“No one goes across the line!” Hamaramis roared. It was not an order he had to repeat.

Sa’ida had sent for straw brooms. These arrived, and the two dozen warriors were ready. Veteran soldiers, bronzed by the brutal sun of Khur and bearing the scars of combat, they felt faintly ridiculous facing a foe armed only with brooms. Sa’ida made it plain their task was serious. The overturned monolith was near the edge of camp and, thus, near the protective barrier. Each warrior dipped a broom in the water and swung it in a wide arc, flinging droplets at the will-o’-the-wisps massed only yards away.

The first salvo claimed a dozen lights. They vanished in a flare of sparks. The others ceased moving, hanging utterly still in midair. Many emitted a faint buzzing sound.

Sa’ida called for the warriors to resume their efforts, and I the motionless lights were easy targets. They succumbed in great numbers. More water arrived. The buckets and ewers were handed up to Sa’ida to be consecrated to Elir-Sana. While she worked, the noise from the will-o’-the-wisps intensified. All were buzzing and the sound grew so loud, it distracted the priestess. She had to begin her incantation all over again.

The soldiers continued flinging water at the lights. The largest, brightest lights ceased buzzing. First one, then a handful, then dozens soared into the night sky, blazing brightly. When they’d ascended several hundred feet, the remaining lights joined them, and the entire assemblage shot upward until it disappeared among the stars.

A profoundly stunned silence blanketed the elf camp. Then a single voice shouted, “Long live Sa’ida! Long live the high priestess!” Thousands took up the cry.

Robe soaked (one of the water pots had spilled) and looking more harassed than heroic, Sa’ida was as amazed as anyone by the departure of the lights.

“Are they all gone?” Hamaramis demanded.

She nodded. By her special sense of such things, the priestess knew that not a single will-o’-the-wisp remained in Inath-Wakenti.

A group of elves raised a clamor at the foot of the overturned monolith. They were kin of the three who had disappeared while trying to reach the spring, and they wanted the tunnels searched immediately for their lost loved ones. The frame still stood above the hole at the base of the monolith, and despite a guard’s efforts to pull him back, the brother of one of the newly vanished elves clung to the frame and shouted frantically down into the hole.

Hamaramis was trying to address the elves’ demands when the sentinels guarding the camp’s perimeter raised a warning.

The ghosts were coming.

Sa’ida had seated herself on the other end of the monolith. She jumped up with creditable agility and hurried to Hamaramis’s end of the slab. Looking west, she could see ranks of pale, translucent specters appearing from the cover of trees and other monoliths. The spirits were no more numerous than usual, but they moved with slow determination directly toward the camp.

“I feared this,” Sa’ida murmured. She held her hands down to the warriors standing by the monolith. Two soldiers helped her descend. “General, without the guardians, the spirits are free to roam at will. They’re drawn to the living. They’ll move among us, bring panic, melancholy, even madness, if we allow it.”

Hamaramis paled. “Allow it? What can we do? More water—?”

“The dead are beyond the goddess’s blessings.”

“Then what?” he demanded.

The beloved of Elir-Sana responded to his frightened anger briefly and with formidable calm. When she’d finished explaining what must be done, the old general dispatched warriors to ride through camp and spread the word. Everyone was to retire inside their tents, close the flaps, and admit no one. The dead couldn’t enter a home closed to them unless they were invited. That was the prevailing theory, anyway. Sa’ida couldn’t be certain it would hold true for flimsy tents and the spirits inhabiting the “Refuge of the Damned,” as Inath-Wakenti was known in the texts of her goddess.

“How long?” the general asked.

“Until sunrise. I pray the new light of day will banish the spirits, at least until night falls again.”

Hamaramis insisted she must pass the night with the Speaker’s household. Her lone tent was too exposed. She accepted the invitation and urged haste. Leading elements of the ghostly horde were halfway to the camp.

The sides of the Speaker’s tent had been drawn down. Only the main door flap remained open, and the last members of Gilthas’s household were hurrying inside. Hamaramis delayed to watch as elves hurried into shelter. Warriors led their horses into corrals. Parents scooped up straggling children. In moments the camp’s many paths were deserted.

The old general held back the heavy tapestry that served as the door flap to the Speaker’s tent and gestured for Sa’ida to precede him.

“What exactly will they do?” he asked.

“What ghosts always do. Haunt us.”