The Magic Of Krynn (20 page)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

KNOW WHO CALLS YOU: HE WHO HOLDS WHAT YOU HAVE ABANDONED.

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

KNOW WHO GUIDES YOU: HE WHO KEEPS WHAT YOU HAVE LOST.

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

KNOW WHO SENDS YOU: HE WHO OWNS WHAT YOU HAVE SOLD.

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

winter's wind.

“Where?” the darkest one, the longest dead, asked.

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

“Bring them?” Gadar hesitated. The phantom laughed, and the hair shivered along the

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

“Stop them.” “It is done,” the leader whispered. And it was, Gadar thought as he watched
the incorporeal

bodies of the spirits thin and fade. It was done. These creatures had never failed to
serve him before. They would not fail now.

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

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

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

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

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

Tanis could taste the bitterness of her fear. "You do well to be

afraid, Riana. If you are considering abandoning your search, you have nothing to be
ashamed of."

“No!”

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

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

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

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

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

“Riana?” he called.

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

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

Riana's gasp was a shuddering sound of terror and dread. Tanis saw his sword lying just
out of his reach and felt his heart sink

even as he realized that these must be the creatures who had attacked Riana's camp three
nights before. If her tale was true, no sword or dagger would prevail against these
phantom raiders now.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Flint! Fire! The fire!”

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

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

“Flint! Fire!” “Fire,” the dwarf snarled. “I KNOW it's fire-”

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

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

“Flint!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Badly burned?” Flint scowled and snatched his hand away. “Badly enough,” he

growled. But when he saw the real concern in his friend's eyes, he shrugged. “But not so
that I can't wield my axe if need be. Though what good that will do us against ghosts, I'd
like to know.”

“So you revise your opinion of Riana then?” “That she is a liar? Aye, she's no liar.” “And
a lack-wit?” Flint snorted and shook his head. "I stand by that. And I'll add

that we're both lack-wits if we continue on through this cursed forest."

“I'll go on.”

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

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

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

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

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