Outside the camp something quite singular occurred. The phantoms went away. Their staring eyes closed, the red and orange reflections winking out two by two. The dark silhouettes remained a moment then, without fanfare or fury, submerged into the surrounding shadows. The elves were alone once more.
“How do you do it?” Kerian whispered to Gilthas.
He sighed and shook his head. “If I knew, I’d do it more often.”
Chapter 6
Dawn brought good news. No elves had vanished during the night. Gilthas accepted that news with quiet satisfaction. Perhaps the valley was learning to accept them, he said. Kerian’s view was less rosy.
“Whatever lurks here is not stupid, Gil. It learns from its mistakes. We puzzled it last night, probably because there were so many of us. It will adapt, and people will disappear again. That’s what happened to us the first time we came here.”
He frowned. “It? Who or what is ‘it’? The ghosts? I always heard spirits were moved by an unresolved need for revenge or justice. Are the ghosts here of a different order?”
“How should I know? I’m no mage. But whatever it is, it will learn.”
They’d been climbing slowly all morning and were crossing a forested plain. Unlike the majestic trees of their homeland, these were spindly evergreens, pines and cedars mostly, and widely spaced. Gilthas traveled in his palanquin and Kerian walked at his side. A few hundred yards ahead rode a squadron of cavalry led by Taranath. The mounted elves combed through the sparse woodland, keeping an eye out for trouble. All they found were more megaliths, each as inexplicable as the last. These here on the plain had a somewhat different character than the ones left behind in the lowlands near Lioness Creek. The lowland monoliths were square-cut, cyclopean blocks. The upland stones had rounded contours. Vertical stones tapered to blunt points, looking for all the world like enormous teeth growing out of the ground. Riders found cylinders, and even perfect spheres twenty feet in diameter. One feature they shared with the lowland monoliths was their seemingly random arrangement. It was as if they’d fallen from the sky with no more plan than raindrops.
A warbling cry caused Gilthas to look up. The two griffons, Eagle Eye and Kanan, wheeled overhead. Eagle Eye was a mature adult and the younger griffon’s attempts to match his flying prowess afforded Gilthas a welcome distraction from the lifeless terrain. When Eagle Eye executed a particularly deft turn and roll, placing himself above and behind Kanan, the latter flared his wings and screeched. In flight against the cloudless blue sky, the creatures were a beautiful sight and offered a measure of reassurance. If danger lurked nearby, the griffons would spot it before the elves did.
Pulling his attention earthward once more, Gilthas said to Kerian, “You’re no wizard, that’s true. So look at Inath-Wakenti with your warrior’s eye and tell me what you see.”
“I see a valley where no one lives, No cities, no crops, no herds. It’s completely empty, yet defended against all corners. Who is defending it?”
“The ghosts of its long-ago inhabitants.”
“I don’t think so.” She eyed a towering, hourglass-shaped block of white quartz ahead. “There are at least two stories here. First are the ghosts, the tunnels, and the giant stones. They’re connected to each other somehow.”
Her expedition had found the tunnels after accidentally upending a monolith. Beneath it was an entrance to the underground passageways. And the ghosts seemed to enter and leave the tunnels at will.
“But I believe the will-o’-the-wisps are different,” she added.
When similar lights had claimed Kerian on the battlefield outside Khuri-Khan, she thought she was destined for oblivion, like the warriors who’d vanished during her initial trip to the valley, instead, she found herself dumped into the loathsome Nalis Aren, the Lake of Death, in Qualinesti, her adventures with Porthios, Alhana, and the griffons followed. Why the lights had transported her away from Khur remained a mystery but she’d decided they were different from the lights here. Inath-Wakenti’s will-o’-the-wisps flew meandering, irregular courses, drifting and dawdling until their target was lulled into a false sense of safety. The lights that had kidnapped her were larger, faster, seemingly more direct of purpose. Their source, she felt, was different from whatever drove the valley lights.
“They are attracted to living creatures,” she reasoned. “Over the centuries, they’ve eliminated every living animal from this valley, right down to the flies and fleas.”
“What does that suggest?”
“They’re guarding the valley—not only to keep people out, but to keep the residents in.”
Gilthas nodded slowly. “The inhabitants of the valley were not intended to have contact with outsiders. I imagine they never did. One by one they died, as we all die, and their spirits haunt the land. They don’t present a threat like the lights. If we could find a way to persuade the will-o’-the-wisp to leave us alone, we’d be a long way toward making this place home.”
“Maybe you can talk to them,” Kerian said dryly.
Whatever he intended to say was swallowed up by a furious bout of coughing. So wracked was he by the spasm, Kerian ordered his chair lowered and the healer summoned. Truthanar brought more of his palliative drink, but Gilthas could swallow very little.
“Great Speaker, you must rest!” Truthanar declared. “If you continue on like this, I will not be responsible for the consequences.”
Gilthas’s answer was some time coming, but at last the coughing subsided and he wheezed, “I’m in a chair already. How more rested must I be?”
Blood oozed from his nose. Kerian, kneeling at his side, carefully wiped it away with her fingers.
“Sire, you must lie in a warm bed and sleep,” Truthanar insisted.
“Soon, noble healer. Soon.”
Kerian followed Truthanar as he returned to his place in the milling throng. “Tell me plainly,” she said in a low voice. “What is his condition?”
The aged Silvanesti was blunt. “He is burning his candle at both ends, lady. Even if he took to a bed right now and kept warm and quiet, his life still would be measured in months.”
She had known her husband’s health was bad, but hearing the prognosis aloud was still a shock. Returning to the palanquin, she found Gilthas had succumbed to the medicine and was slumped in the chair, sleeping, chin on his chest. The cup had fallen from his slack fingers. Kerian picked it up and handed it to one of the Speaker’s aides.
“Follow the scouts,” she told the bearers, gesturing at Taranath and the cavalry. The bearers lifted the chair and resumed walking. They were not the same four who had carried the palanquin at the beginning of the journey. Every hour or so, a new quartet replaced those carrying the chair. It had required Kerian’s intervention to put such a rotation in place. The bearers were volunteers, and none wanted to give up his or her place. If Kerian hadn’t insisted, they would have carried on until exhaustion dropped them in their tracks.
When the palanquin resumed its progress, the crowd of elves behind it picked themselves up too and continued their steady tramp toward the center of the valley. None knew what, if anything, might be there, but it was the Speaker’s will they go, and for him, they would walk into the Abyss.
While Gilthas slept, Kerian decided to reconnoiter ahead. She whistled loudly and Eagle Eye, circling above her, landed a few yards away. She swung into the flat saddle and urged the griffon aloft Kanan followed them but a sharp scream from Eagle Eye sent the younger beast back.