This was their darkest hour since leaving Krynn. One of their own was dead, buried in the cold moon soil, and a poor, insane king spiraled ever upward, a weightless corpse with no place to land. It would be a long, unhappy night.
And yet, when the sun next shone over Rapaldo's garden, a giant mushroom grew out of the grave of Bellcrank.
Unlike the scarlet fungi around it, this one was pure and shining white.
Sturm had another vision. It came to him while he walked, yet his step never faltered.
A horse neighed. Sturm saw four bony beasts tied' to a charred post. It was day, but heavy shadows lay over every thing. Sturm looked up and recognized the ruined battle ments of his father's castle. Across the courtyard he saw a broken wagon lying with one wheel off. A man was lashed to the remaining wheel, his wrists cruelly bound to its rim.
Sturm closed on this desperate figure. He prayed to Pala dine that it was not his father.
The man lifted his eyes. Through the wild growth of beard and the bruises of a brutal beating Sturm recognized
Bren, his father's companion in exile. As in Sturm's last vision, Bren looked right through Sturm. The younger
Brightblade was a phantom, a thing of no substance.
Four men shuffled out of the shadows on Sturm's right.
They were lean, rough-looking men of a type Sturm had often seen on the road. Vagabonds. Brigands. Killers.
"When is we moving on, Touk?" said one of the men.
"This here castle is haunted, I tell you."
"You afraid of ghosts'" said the dirty-faced fellow with the brass earring.
"I'm afraid of anything I can't stick my billhook through."
"When are we leavin'?" asked the last brigand in line.
Dirty-Face laughed, showing yellow teeth. "When I'm sure there ain't no more swag here'bout, that's when." Touk spat in the dirt. "Let's have a word wi' our honored guest."
The bandit and two of his men stood over the prisoner.
Touk grabbed Bren by his matted hair and lifted his head.
Sturm ached to help him, but he could do nothing.
"Where's the treasure, old man?" asked Touk, flashing a wicked knife under the old soldier's chin.
"There's no treasure," Bren gasped. "The castle was sacked years ago."
"Come on! Do you take us for fools? There's always a few coins tucked away somewhere, eh? So where are they?" He pressed the tip of the blade into Bren's throat.
"I-I'll tell," he said weakly. "Below the great hall – a secret room. I can show you."
Touk removed the knife. "This better be a straight story."
"No tricks. I'll take you right to it."
They cut him loose and dragged him along. Sturm fol lowed on their heels, close enough to smell the mingled stench of sweat, grime, fear, and greed.
Bren guided them to the cellar beneath the great hall.
There, in a long corridor, he counted the torch sconces on the right side. At number eight, he said, "That's it, that's the one." One of the brigands lit the stump in the sconce with the brand he carried.
"The bracket turns," said Bren.
Touk seized the stout iron holder and shook it. It swung to the left and stayed there. A section of the tiled floor lifted with a loud grinding sound. Touk tossed his torch into the widening gap. It bounced down a steep stone staircase and came to rest, still burning, at the bottom. Something shiny gleamed in the torch light.
"Good work," Touk said, grinning. Without another word, he shoved his knife between Bren's ribs. Angriff
Brightblade's loyal man groaned and slid down the wall. His head sagged as the dark stain spread over his chest.
"C'mon, lads, let's collect our reward!" Touk led his two cronies down the steps.
Sturm bent to see Bren's face. Though his skin had gone waxen, Bren's eyes still glittered with life. "Young master," he said. Blood flecked his lips.
Sturm recoiled. Bren could see him!
Slowly, with terrible effort, the old soldier gripped the rough stone wall and dragged himself to his feet. "Master
Sturm – you've come back. I always knew you would."
Bren reached out to Sturm, hand swaying. Sturm tried to clasp his hand, but of course he had no substance. Bren's fin gers passed through him and closed on the sconce. As death claimed him, Bren fell, and his weight bore the bracket back to its original position.
The trap door lowered noisily. One robber gave a yell and dashed to safety. At the top of the steps, he stopped, riveted, staring at Sturm.
"Ahh." he screamed. "Ghost!" He stumbled back, bowl ing over Touk and the other brigand. The slab of stone descended, cutting off their screams for help.
The world went red. Sturm shook his head, where the screams of Touk and the other robbers still rang. He was plodding across the plains of Lunitari as before.
"Back with us?" asked Kitiara. Sturm made inarticulate sounds. This had been his longest vision yet, and somehow near the end, the men on Krynn had been able to see him.
He told his companions his tale.
"Hmm, it's said that dying men have second sight," Kiti ara mused. "Bren and the thief were both facing death; may be that's why they could see you."
"But I couldn't help them," Sturm complained. "I had to watch them die. Bren was a good man. He served my father well."
"Did you see or hear of your father at all?" asked Sighter.
Sturm shook his head. That very omission preyed on his mind. What had separated Bren from Lord Brightblade?
Was his father well? Where was he?
Wingover let out a yell. "I see the tracks!" he cried. Where the slabs of wine-colored sandstone broke into fingers of rock, crimson sand had drifted in between. And there were the circular prints, as regular as clockwork. Kitiara's notion had been right – the Micones had come this way.
Chapter 18
'The Valley of the Voice
At last Wingover spied the great obelisk. The band had come to a place where the rocky ledges reared up as low, jagged peaks. Kitiara and Wingover climbed this saw toothed barrier and reported that beyond lay a magnificent bowl-shaped valley that stretched far beyond the limits of the horizon. Kitiara could not see the obelisk, but Wingover assured them that a single, tall spire stood forty miles away, in the exact center of the valley.
The gnomes took heart from the news. They had been uncommonly subdued on the trek from the village.
"Bellcrank's death has them hanging their heads," Kitiara said privately to Sturm. "I guess the little fellows have never faced death before."
Sturm agreed. What the gnomes needed was a problem, to stimulate their imaginations. He called them together.
"Here's the situation," Sturm began. "Wingover estimates the obelisk is forty miles away. Forty miles is a ten-hour march, if we don't stop for food or rest. Fifteen hours is a more reasonable estimate, but by then the sun will be up and the Lunitarians can be on the move, too."
"If only we had some way to get down in a hurry," said
Kitiara. "Horses, oxen, anything."
"Or carts, for that matter," Sturm mused.
Kitiara shot him a knowing glance. "Yes, the slope down from the saw-toothed ridge is steep but fairly smooth. We could roll quite a ways."
The spirit of technical challenge was infectious, and ideas – wild, gnomish ideas – began flashing about the little group. The gnomes dumped their packs into one big heap and went into a close huddle. Their rapid patter made no sense to Sturm or Kitiara, but the humans saw it as a good sign.
As suddenly as the gnomes had put their heads together, they broke apart. Tools appeared, and the gnomes pro ceeded to knock their wooden backpacks to pieces.
"What are you making this time?" Sturm asked Cutwood.
"Sleds," was the simple reply.
"Did he say 'sleds'?" asked Kitiara.
Within half an hour, each gnome had constructed, according to his lights, a sled – that is, a Single-Gnome Iner tia Transport Device. "By these we expect to descend the cliff slope at prodigious speed," announced Sighter.
"And break your reckless little necks," said Kitiara under her breath.
"These are for you and Master Sturm," said Roperig. He and Fitter pushed two flimsy sleds to the human's feet. Hav ing only short slats of wood to work with, the gnomes held their inventions together with nails, screws, glue, string, wire, and, in Rainspot's case, his suspenders. Wingover had designed his sled to let him ride on his belly; Sighter's allowed the rider to gracefully recline. Because of their rela tive size, Sturm's and Kitiara's sleds allowed them only a wide bit of plank for a seat.