Paul Thompson - Destiny

The colored lights darted past, missing Kerian’s head by a few feet and flying straight at the retreating spirits. An amber light caught one slow-moving ghost, and both vanished in a silent flash.

“They hunt the spirits as well as living creatures!” Gilthas whispered.

Kerian, consumed by the need to remain still when every muscle screamed to run, clenched her teeth. Three will-o’-the-wisps passed within arm’s length. Their slow, meandering flight was deceptive. They could move as swiftly as an arrow when the situation required it.

Two more ghosts were taken by the lights before the rest vanished into the silent forest. More will-o’-the-wisps appeared drifting fl from north and south. As she and Gilthas stood elbow to elbow in the deepening twilight, Kerian could see elves standing on the stones ringing their camp. All watched helplessly as half a hundred dancing lights filled the ground between the camp and the two trapped outside its safety. The Lioness was furious. She wasn’t angry at her husband for venturing outside the camp, but at herself for allowing it. He had always led by example, it was his nature. The responsibility for his safety was hers and hers alone. Even if it meant offending the dignity of the Speaker, she should not have permitted him to leave the camp.

“Does it hurt when they take you?” Gilthas asked, interrupting her self-recriminations.

Gruffly, she said it did not.

“Keep close, then,” he said. “If we are to be lost, we will be lost together.”

Their resolve to remain motionless met an abrupt end when his illness rose up to choke him. He tried to stifle the cough, but the spasm was too strong. As it bent him double, only Kerian’s strong arms kept him on his feet. The orbiting will-o’-the-wisps drifted closer.

The spasm passed, and Gilthas straightened, striving to catch his breath.

“Here they come,” she said.

“I love you.”

She swallowed hard. “And I love you, dreamer.”

“That’s good. Perhaps you’ll forgive me as well.”

Before she could ask what he meant, the lights closed in and he reneged on his pledge. Gilthas summoned his strength and shoved his wife away. Two will-o’-the-wisps met at his chest and exploded in a blaze of light.

Kerian hurled herself at Gilthas as the corona of light engulfed him, and they both went down. She tried to twist and fall beneath him, to cushion his landing, but she was only partially successful. For a moment she lay unmoving, not breathing, eyes closed. Who knew where the will-o’-the-wisps might have sent them.

Nowhere, it seemed. She and Gilthas had done nothing more than strike the ground. They were still in Inath-Wakenti. The night sky still arched over them. And Gilthas was held fast in her arms.

“So,” he grunted, opening his eyes. “Apparently I am not worth taking.”

“Be still,” she hissed, listening intently. “I don’t think that’s what happened.”

A troop of cavalry galloped up, forestalling further discussion.

Leading them was Hamaramis, pale with shock.

“Great Speaker! Lady Kerianseray! Are you all right?”

Kerian helped her husband stand, and they reassured the old general. The spectral monsters were gone. Will-o’-the-wisps were maneuvering in the mist, rising along the tree line a dozen yards away, and the elves did not hang about. Hamaramis offered his horse, but Gilthas climbed up behind him instead. The Speaker was swaying on his feet and even Hamaramis’s well-behaved bay might prove too vigorous for his unsteady hand. Never one to worry about protocol or appearances, Kerian simply vaulted up behind the closest soldier, a young Qualinesti much astonished to find himself sharing a horse with his queen.

Shouts greeted the Speaker and the Lioness on their return. Everyone marveled at the Speaker’s miraculous survival. Elves crowded his horse, eager to confirm Gilthas was truly unharmed.

After reassuring his people, Gilthas headed for his tent, ordering a council be convened immediately. Soon enough, Hamaramis, Taranath, and the chosen leaders of the people—members of the Thalas-Enthia, the Qualinesti senate—had joined the Lioness in the Speaker’s tent. Gilthas was seated in his camp chair, legs covered by Kerian’s crimson mantle. Despite Truthanar’s worry for his health, the healer had to be content with serving his king a draft of soothing elixir then retiring into the background.

Gilthas and Kerian related their experiences. Unlike his wife, at no time had Gilthas been paralyzed, but he had felt very strongly the specters’ opposition to the elves’ presence. The sensation emanating from the ghostly assemblage was hatred, pure unvarnished loathing, he told the council. Gilthas’s reassurances had had no effect.

“You did stop their attack on me,” Kerian pointed out.

A puzzling development, but true, Gilthas admitted. When he commanded them to release his wife, the angry ghosts surprisingly obeyed, but their hatred had grown stronger. They had retreated only when the will-o’-the-wisps appeared, demonstrating the two presences were at odds.

Much as he regretted causing distress to so many unhappy souls, Gilthas was adamant. “They must give way. They will give way. We are here, and I intend we shall stay.”

“Could we lay the ghosts to rest somehow?” asked a Silvanesti, a minor member of House Cleric.

Gilthas was doubtful. No one among the elves had the knowledge and skill. And an ordinary cleric might banish one or two ghosts in his entire career. What could be done against hundreds of malevolent specters?

A pall descended on the group. Nothing was to be heard but the crackle of torches and the scratching of Varanas’s quill. The scribe was seated on the Speaker’s right, slightly behind the makeshift throne, dutifully taking notes on all that was said. In the shadows behind Varanas, the healer fidgeted, shifting from one foot to the other, obviously impatient for the council to end so his patient could be put to bed.

The discussion resumed, in an unfocused, halfhearted fashion. No one had any useful suggestions to offer. Gilthas listened, chin in hand, a frown of concentration on his face. Kerian wasn’t fooled. She knew he was nearing the end of his endurance. Exhaustion had sharpened the lines on his face even as it blurred his gaze. She was about to insist they adjourn for the evening when a thought struck her with blinding suddenness.

“I know someone wise enough to tell us if it is possible to put the ghosts to rest,” she exclaimed. “Lady Sa’ida!”

Sa’ida was the high priestess of the Khurish goddess Elir-Sana. During the elves’ exile in Khuri-Khan, the priestess had proven herself a valuable ally, albeit a covert one given her desire not to offend her people’s sensitivity to all things foreign. She had loaned the Speaker the temple documents that mentioned the valley. Gilthas had them carefully copied and continued to study them alongside the wise works of his own race.

“She might as well be on one of the moons,” observed Hamaramis.

No party of elves could hope to make it to the capital city and back. If the desert and the nomads didn’t kill them, Sahim-Khan might. Once, the khan had tolerated the elves because of their contribution to his coffers. But they no longer had enough money in their treasury to tempt him, especially given the troubles he faced from those who despised the elves, including the followers of the god Torghan.

“Eagle Eye can take me there,” said Kerian.

She could fly to Khuri-Khan and fetch Lady Sa’ida, she explained. It was an intriguing idea. Gilthas disliked the notion of sending her alone, but no one could ride Hytanthas’s Kanan. A griffon would accept only his or her bonded rider. The formation of such a bond usually required many months of patient attention. Alhana had been able to break wild Golden griffons to the saddle by means of a special ritual, but there was no one in the valley who knew how to do what she had done.