Dragonlance 16 - Dragons Of A Lost Star (19 page)

“I wonder what it is they’re all looking for,” Tasslehoff said.

“A way out,” replied Palin.

He slung over his shoulder a pack containing several loaves of the magicked bread and a waterskin. Making up his mind, not taking time to think for fear he would argue himself out of his decision, he walked to the Tower’s main door.

“Where are you going?” asked Tas.

“Out,” said Palin.

“Are you taking me with you?”

“Of course.”

Tas looked longingly at the door, but he held back, hovering near the stairs. “We’re not going back to the citadel to look for the Device of Time Journeying, are we?”

“What’s left of it?” Palin returned bitterly. “If any of it remained undamaged, which I doubt, the bits and pieces were probably picked up by Beryl’s draconians and are now in her possession.”

“That’s good,” Tas said, heaving a relieved sigh. Absorbed in arranging his pouches for the journey, he missed Palin’s withering glare. “Very well, I’ll go along. The Tower was an extremely interesting place to visit, and I’m glad we came here, but it does get boring after awhile. Where do you suppose Dalamar is? Why did he bring us here and then disappear?”

“To flaunt his power over me,” said Palin, coming to stand in front of the door. “He imagines that I am finished. He wants to break my spirit, force me to grovel to him, beg him to release me. He will find that he has caught a shark in his net, not a minnow. I had once thought he might be of some help to us, but no more. I will not be a pawn in his khas game.”

Palin looked very hard at the kender. “You don’t have any magical objects on you? Nothing you’ve discovered here in the Tower?”

“No, Palin,” said Tas with round-eyed innocence. “I haven’t discovered anything. Like I said, it’s been pretty boring.”

Palin persisted. “Nothing you’ve found that you are intending to return to Dalamar, for example? Nothing that fell into your pouches when you weren’t looking? Nothing that you picked up so that someone wouldn’t trip over it?”

“Well. . .” Tas scratched his head. “Maybe . . .”

“This is very important, Tas,” Palin said, his tone serious. He cast a glance out the window. “You see the dead out there? If we have anything magic, they will try to take it from us. Look, I have removed all my rings and my earring that Jenna gave me. I have left behind my pouches of spell components. Just to be safe, why don’t you leave your pouches here, as well? Dalamar will take good care of them,” he added in reassuring tones, for Tas was clutching his pouches next to his body and staring at him in horror.

“Leave my pouches?” Tas protested in agony. Palin might as well have asked the kender to leave his head or his topknot. “Will we come back for them?”

“Yes,” said Palin. Lies told to a kender are not really lies, more akin to self-defense.

“I guess . . . in that case . . . since it is important . . .” Tas removed his pouches, gave each of them a fond, parting pat, then stowed them safely in a dark corner beneath the stair. “I hope no one steals them.”

“I don’t think that’s likely. Stand over there by the stairs, Tas, where you will be out of the way, and do not interrupt me. I’m going to cast a spell. Alert me if you see anyone coming.”

“I’m the rear guard? You’re posting me as rear guard?” Tas was captivated and immediately forgot about the pouches. “No one ever posted me as rear guard before! Not even Tanis.”

“Yes, you’re the . . . er . . . rear guard. You must keep careful watch, and not bother me, no matter what you hear or see me doing.”

“Yes, Palin. I will,” Tasslehoff promised solemnly, and took up his position. He came bouncing back again. “Excuse me, Palin, but since we’re alone here, who is it I’m supposed to be rear-guarding against?”

Palin counseled patience to himself, then said, “If, for example, the wizard-lock includes magical guards, casting a counter-spell on the lock might cause these guardians to appear.”

Tas sucked in a breath. “Do you mean like skeletons and wraiths and liches? Oh, I hope so—that is, no I don’t,” he amended quickly, catching sight of Palin’s baleful expression. “I’ll keep watch. I promise.”

Tas retreated back to his post, but just as Palin was calling the words to the spell to his mind, he felt a tug on his sleeve.

“Yes, Tas?” Palin fought the temptation to toss the kender out the window. “What is it now?”

“Is it because you’re afraid of the wraiths and liches that you haven’t tried to escape before this?”

“No, Tas,” said Palin quietly. “It was because I was afraid of myself.”

Tas considered this. “I don’t think I can rear guard you against yourself, Palin.”

“You can’t, Tas,” Palin said. “Now return to your post.”

Palin figured that he had about fifteen seconds of peace before the novelty of being rear guard wore off and Tasslehoff would again be pestering him. Approaching the door, he closed his eyes and extended his hands.

He did not touch the door. He touched the magic that enchanted the door. His broken fingers . . . He remembered a time they had been long and delicate and supple. He felt for the magic, groped for it like a blind man. Sensing a tingling in his fingertips, his soul thrilled. He had found a thread of magic. He smoothed the thread and found another thread and another until the spell rippled beneath his touch. The fabric of the magic was smooth and sheer, a piece of cloth cut from a bolt and hung over the door.

The spell was not simple, but it was certainly not that complex. One of his better students could have undone this spell. Palin’s anger increased. Now his pride was hurt.

“You always did underestimate me,” Palin muttered to the absent Dalamar. He plucked a thread, and the fabric of magic came apart in his hands.

The door swung open.

Cool air, crisp with the sharp smell of the cypress, breathed into the Tower, as one might try to breathe life through the lips of a drowned man. The souls in the shadows of the trees ceased their aimless roaming, and hundreds turned as one to stare with their shadowed eyes at the Tower. None moved toward it. None made any attempt to approach it. They hung, wavering, in the whispering air.

“I will use no magic,” Palin told them. “I have only food in my pack, food and water. You will leave me alone.” He motioned to Tas, an unnecessary gesture, since the kender was now dancing at his side. “Keep near me, Tas. This is no time to go off exploring. We must not get separated.”

“I know,” said Tas excitedly. “I’m still the rear guard. Where is it we’re going, exactly?”

Palin looked out the door. Years ago, there had been stone stairs, a courtyard. Now his first step out of the Tower of High Sorcery would fall onto a bed of brown, dead cypress needles that surrounded the Tower like a dry moat. The cypress trees formed a wall around the brown moat, their branches serving as a canopy under which they would walk. Standing in the shadows of the trees, watching, were the souls of the dead.

“We’re going to find a path, a trail. Anything to lead us out of this forest,” Palin said.

Thrusting his hands in the sleeves of his robes, to emphasize the fact that he was not going to use them, he strode out the door and headed straight for the tree line. Tas followed after, discharging his role as rear guard by attempting to look backward while walking forward, a feat of agility that apparently took some practice, for Tas was having a difficult time of it.

“Stop that!” said Palin through clenched teeth the second time Tasslehoff bumbled into him. They were nearing the tree line.

Palin removed his hand from his sleeve long enough to grasp Tas by the shoulder and forcibly turn him around. “Face forward.”

“But I’m the rear—” Tas protested. He interrupted himself. “Oh, I see. It’s what’s in front of us you’re worried about.”

The dead had no bodies. These they had left behind, abandoning the shells of cold flesh as butterflies leave the cocoon. Once, like butterflies, these spirits might have flown free to whatever new destination awaited them. Now they were trapped as in an enormous jar, constrained to wander aimlessly, searching for the way out.

So many souls. A river of souls, swirling about the boles of the cypress trees, each one a drop of water in a mighty torrent. Palin could barely distinguish one from another. Faces flitted past, hands or arms or hair trailing like diaphanous silken scarves. The faces were the most terrible, for they all looked at him with a hunger that caused him to hesitate, his steps to slow. Whispered breath that he had mistaken for the wind touched his cheek. He heard words in the whispers and shivered.

The magic, they said. Give us the magic
. They looked at him. They paid no attention to the kender. Tasslehoff was saying something. Palin could see his mouth moving and almost hear the words, but he couldn’t hear. It was as if his ears were stuffed with the whispers of the dead.

“I have nothing to give you,” he told the souls. His own voice sounded muffled and faraway. “I have no magical artifacts. Let us pass.”

He came to the tree line. The whispering souls were a white, frothing pool among the shadows of the trees. He had hoped that the souls would part before him, like the early morning fog lifting from the valleys, but they remained, blocking his way. He could see dimly through them, see more trees with the eerie white mist of souls wavering beneath. He was reminded of the hordes of mendicants that crowded the streets of Palanthas, grimy hands outstretched, shrill voices begging.

He halted, cast a glance back at the Tower of High Sorcery, saw a broken, crumbling ruin. He faced forward.

They did not harm you in the past, he reminded himself. You know their touch. It is unpleasant but no worse than walking into a cobweb. If you go back there, you will never leave. Not until you are one of them.

He walked into the river of souls.

Chill, pale hands touched his hands, his arms. Chill, pale eyes stared at him. Chill, pale lips pressed against his lips, sucked the breath from him. He could not move for the swirling souls that had hold of him and were dragging him under. He could hear nothing except the whispered roar of their terrible voices. He turned, trying to find the way back, but all he saw were eyes, mouths, and hands. He turned and turned again, and now he was disoriented and confused, and there were more of them and still more.

He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t speak, he couldn’t cry out. He fell to the ground, gasping for air. They rose and ebbed around him, touching, pulling, yanking. He was shredded, torn asunder. They searched through the fibers of his being.

Magic . . . magic . . . give us the magic. . . .

He slipped beneath the awful surface and ceased to struggle.

Tasslehoff saw Palin walk into the shadows of the trees, but the kender did not immediately follow after him. Instead he attempted to gain the attention of several dead kender, who were standing beneath the trees, watching Palin.

“I say,” said Tas very loudly, over the sound of buzzing in his ears, a sound that was starting to be annoying, “have you seen my friend, Caramon? He’s one of you.”

Tas had been about to tell them that Caramon was dead, like them, but he refrained, thinking that it might make them sad to be reminded of the fact.

“He’s a really big human, and the last time I saw him alive he was very old, but now that he’s dead—no offense—he looks young again. He has curly hair and a very friendly smile.”

No use. The kender refused to pay the least bit of attention to him.

“I hate to tell you this, but you are extremely rude,” Tas told the kender as he walked past. He might as well follow Palin, since no one was going to talk to him. “One would think you’d been raised by humans. You must not be from Kendermore. No Kendermore kender would act that— Now that’s odd. Where did he go?”

Tas searched the forest ahead of him as well as he could, considering the poor ghosts, who were whirling about in a frenetic manner, enough to make a fellow dizzy.

“Palin! Where are you? I’m supposed to be the rear guard, and I can’t be the rear guard if you’re not in front.”

He waited a bit to see if Palin answered his call, but if the sorcerer did, Tas probably wouldn’t be able to hear it over the buzzing that was starting to give him a pain in the head. Putting his fingers in his ears to try to shut out the sound, Tas turned to look behind him, thinking that perhaps Palin had forgotten something and gone back to the Tower to fetch it. Tas could see the Tower, looking small beneath the cypress trees, but no sign of Palin.

“Drat it!” Tas took his fingers out of his ears to wave his hands, trying to disperse the dead who were really making a most frightful nuisance of themselves. “Get out of here. I can’t see a thing. Palin!”

It was like walking through a thick fog, only worse, because fog didn’t look at you with pleading eyes or try to grab hold of you with wispy hands. Tasslehoff groped his way forward. Tripping over something, probably a tree root, he fell headlong on the forest floor. Whatever he had fallen over jerked beneath his legs. It’s not a tree root, he thought, or if it is, the root belongs to one of the more lively varieties of tree.

Tas recognized Palin’s robes, and after a moment more, he recognized Palin. He hovered over his friend in consternation.

Palin’s face was exceedingly white, more white than the spirits surrounding him. His eyes were closed. He gasped for air. One hand clutched at this throat, the other clawed at the dirt.

“Get away, you! Go! Leave him alone,” Tas cried, endeavoring to drive away the dead souls, who seemed to be wrapping themselves around Palin like some evil web. “Stop it!” the kender shouted, jumping up and stamping his foot. He was starting to grow desperate. “You’re killing him!”

The buzzing sound grew louder, as if hornets were flying into his ears and using his head for a hive. The sound was so awful that Tasslehoff couldn’t think, but he realized he didn’t have to think. He only had to rescue Palin before the dead turned him into one of themselves.

Tas glanced behind him again to get his bearings. He could see the Tower or catch glimpses of it, at any rate, through the ever-shifting mist of the souls. Running around to Palin’s head, Tas took hold of the man by the shoulders. The kender dug his heels into the ground and gave a grunt and a heave. Palin was not large as humans went—Tas envisioned himself trying to drag Caramon—but he was a full-grown man and deadweight, at this point more dead than alive. Tas was a kender and an older kender at that. He dragged Palin over the rough, needle-strewn ground and managed to move him a couple of feet before he had to drop him and stop to catch his breath.

The dead did not try to stop Tas, but the buzzing noise grew so loud that he had to grit his teeth against it. He picked up Palin again, glanced behind once more to reassure himself that the Tower was still where he thought it was, and gave another tug. He pulled and panted and floundered, but he never lost his grip on Palin. With a final great heave that caused his feet to slip out from under him, he dragged Palin out of the forest onto the bed of brown needles that surrounded the Tower.

Keeping a wary eye on the dead, who hovered in the dark shadows beneath the trees, watching, waiting, Tas crawled around on all fours to look anxiously at his friend.

Palin no longer gasped for air. He gulped it down thankfully. His eyes blinked a few times, then opened wide with a look that was wild and terrified. He sat up suddenly with a cry, thrusting out his arms.

“It’s all right, Palin!” Tas grabbed hold of one of Palin’s flailing hands and clutching it tightly. “You’re safe. At least I think you’re safe. There seems to be some sort of barrier they can’t cross.”

Palin glanced over at the souls writhing in the darkness. Shuddering, he averted his gaze, looked back at the door to the Tower. His expression grew grim, he stood up, brushing brown needles from his robes.

“I saved your life, Palin,” Tas said. “You might have died out there.”

“Yes, Tas, I might have,” Palin said. “Thank you.” Stopping, he looked down at the kender, and his grim expression softened. He put a hand on Tas’s shoulder. “Thank you very much.”

He glanced again at the Tower, and the grimness returned. A frown caused the lines on his face to turn dark and jagged. He continued to stare fixedly at the Tower and, after drawing in a few more deep breaths, he walked toward it. He was very pale, almost paler than when he had been dying, and he looked extremely determined. As determined as Tas had ever seen anyone.

“Where are you going now?” Tas asked, game for another adventure, although he wouldn’t have minded a brief rest.

“To find Dalamar.”

“But we’ve looked and looked—”

“No, we haven’t,” Palin said. He was angry now, and he intended to act before his anger cooled. “Dalamar has no right to do this! He has no right to imprison these wretched souls.”

Sweeping through the Tower door, Palin began to climb the spiral staircase that led into the upper levels of the building. He kept close to the wall that was on his right, for the stairs had no railing on his left. A misstep would send him plummeting down into darkness.

“Are we going to free them?” Tas asked, clambering up the staircase behind Palin. “Even after they tried to kill you?”

“They didn’t mean to,” Palin said. “They can’t help themselves. They are being driven to seek out the magic. I know now who is behind it, and I intend to stop him.”

“How will we do that?” Tas asked eagerly. Palin hadn’t exactly included him in this adventure, but that was probably an oversight. “Stop him, I mean? We don’t even know where he is.”

“I’ll stop him if I have to tear this Tower down stone by stone,” was all Palin would say.

A long and perilous climb up the spiral staircase through the near darkness brought them to a door.

“I already tried this,” Tas announced. Examining it, he gave it an experimental shove. “It won’t budge.”

“Oh, yes, it will,” said Palin.

He raised his hands and spoke a word. Blue light began to glow, flames crackled from his fingers. He drew a breath and reached out toward the door. The flames burned brighter.

Suddenly, silently, the door swung open.

“Stop, Tas!” Palin ordered, as the kender was about to bound inside.

“But you opened it,” Tas protested.

“No,” said Palin, and his voice was harsh. The blue flames had died away. “No, I didn’t.”

He took a step forward, staring intently into the room. The few rays of sunlight that managed to struggle through the heavy, overhanging boughs of the cypress trees had to work to penetrate the years of silt and mud that covered the windows outside and the layer of dust that caked the inside. No sound came from within.

“You stay out in the hall, Tas.”

“Do you want me to be rear guard again?” Tas asked.

“Yes, Tas,” said Palin quietly. He took another step forward. His head cocked, he was listening for the slightest sound. He moved slowly into the room. “You be the rear guard. Let me know if you see anything coming.”

“Like a wraith or a ghoul? Sure, Palin.”

Tas stood in the hall, hopping from one foot to the other, trying to see what was happening in the room.

“Rear guard is a really important assignment,” Tasslehoff reminded himself, fidgeting, unable to hear or see anything. “Sturm was always rear guard. Or Caramon. I never got to be rear guard because Tanis said kender don’t make good rear guards, mainly because they never stay in the rear—

“Don’t worry! I’m coming, Palin!” Tas called, giving up. He dashed into the room. “Nothing’s sneaking up behind us. Our rears are safe. Oh!”

Tas came to a halt. He didn’t have much choice in the matter. Palin’s hand had a good, strong hold on his shoulder.

The room’s interior was gray and chill, and even on the warmest, brightest summer day would always be gray and chill. The wintry light illuminated shelves containing innumerable books. Next to these were the scroll repositories, like honeycombs, a few filled, but most empty. Wooden chests stood on the floor, their ornate carvings almost obliterated by dust. The heavy curtains that covered the windows, the once-beautiful rugs on the floors, were dust-covered, the fabric rotting and frayed.

At the far end of the room was a desk. Someone was sitting behind the desk. Tas squinted, tried to see in the dim, gray light. The someone was an elf, with long, lank hair that had once been black but now had a gray, jagged streak that ran from the forehead back.

“Who’s that?” he asked in a loud whisper.

The elf sat perfectly still. Tas, thinking he was asleep, didn’t want to wake him.

“Dalamar,” said Palin.

“Dalamar!” Tas repeated, stunned. He twisted his head to look up at Palin, thinking this might be a joke. If it was, Palin wasn’t laughing. “But that can’t be right! He’s not here. I know because I banged on the door and shouted ‘Dalamar’ real loud, like that, and no one answered.”

“Dalamar!” Tas raised his voice. “Hullo! Where have you been?”

“He can’t hear, Tas,” Palin said. “He can’t see you or hear you.”

Dalamar sat behind his desk, his thin hands folded before him, his eyes staring straight ahead. He had not moved as they entered. His eyes did not shift, as they surely must have, at the sound of the kender’s shrill voice. His hands did not stir, his fingers did not twitch.

“Maybe he’s dead,” Tas said, a funny feeling squirming in his stomach. “He certainly looks dead, doesn’t he, Palin?”

The elf sat unmoving in the chair.

“No,” said Palin. “He is not dead.”

“It’s a funny way to take a nap, then,” Tas remarked. “Sitting straight up. Maybe if I pinched him—”

“Don’t touch him!” Palin warned sharply. “He is in stasis.”

“I know where that is,” Tas stated. “It’s north of Flotsam, about fifty miles. But he’s not in Stasis, Palin. He’s right here.”

The elf’s eyes, which had been open and unseeing, suddenly closed. They remained closed for a long, long time. He was coming back from the stasis, back from the enchantment that had taken his spirit out into the world, leaving his body behind. He drew air in through his nose, keeping his lips pressed tightly shut. His fingers curled, and he winced, as if in pain. He curled them and uncurled them and began to rub them.

“The circulation stops,” Dalamar said, opening his eyes and looking at Palin. “It is quite painful.”

“My heart bleeds for you,” said Palin.

Dalamar’s gaze went to Palin’s own broken, twisted fingers. He said nothing, continued to rub his hands.

“Hullo, Dalamar!” Tas said cheerfully, glad for a chance to be included in the conversation. “It’s nice to see you again. Did I tell you how much you have changed from the time I saw you at Caramon’s first funeral? Do you want to hear about it? I made a really good speech, and then it began to rain and everyone was already sad, and that made it sadder, but then you cast a magic spell, a wonderful spell that made the raindrops sparkle and the sky was filled with rainbows—”

“No!” Dalamar said, making a sharp, cutting motion with his hand.

Tas was about to go on to the other parts of the funeral, since Dalamar didn’t want to talk about the rainbows, but the elf gave him a peculiar look, raised his hand, and pointed.

Perhaps I’m going to Stasis, Tas thought, and that was the last conscious thought he had for a good, long while.