Paul Thompson - Destiny

The fire was subsiding. By the time the slow-moving Gilthas passed through the door, it was almost out. A neighboring tent, belonging to the high-born Silvanesti clan of Kindrobel, had been reduced to ashes. On each side of the destroyed tent, the lane was full of pallid apparitions. Slowly, their attention shifted to Gilthas, standing in the open doorway of his tent.

He stepped outside. Embers drifted down. Sa’ida brushed stinging coals away from his face. He drew a deep breath.

“Specters of Inath-Wakenti, listen to me! You have no business with us. Begone! Leave us in peace!”

The ghosts started shuffling forward, converging on him.

“I don’t think they’re listening,” Sa’ida murmured.

“They hear me very well.” He raised his voice. “The force that held you captive is gone. Can’t you sense it? You can go to your long-denied rest!”

A dry, sighing sound filled the air, as though hundreds of I voices all whispered at once.

“I can’t understand you,” Gilthas told them patiently.

Despite his calm demeanor, Sa’ida, holding his arm, felt his pulse racing. The Pathfinder was good at dissembling, but he was frightened. So was she. She had never been among so many spirits before. The longing, the desperate greed for life emanating from the bleak assembly took her breath away. Waves of cold broke over her like showers of ice. Her magical training caused her to feel it more strongly than the elves but also equipped her to deal with it. Still, she knew a fierce, primal urge to flee.

“You’re hurting my arm,” Gilthas whispered. Embarrassed, she eased her grip.

Behind them, Hamaramis begged the Speaker to return inside. The advancing spirits were only yards away.

“I’ll not be shut in by them. Either they must go or we must.” A flash of his old strength, the strength of his illustrious ancestors, straightened Gilthas’s back and he shouted, “And we aren’t going!” He turned and thrust a finger at the nearest ghosts. “You are dead! Your time in this world is long over. Go now! Return to the realm of peace and eternal rest!”

To the surprise of all, including Gilthas himself, the advancing apparitions faltered. Their whispering subsided. Gilthas turned to the spirits on his left and repeated his command. The creeping advance halted.

Sa’ida no longer watched the ghosts; her attention was on her patient. Such power she felt from his starved, diseased frame! It burned in him like a beacon, unquenched despite his many ills.

“I am the Speaker of the Sun and Stars. I know great wrongs were done to you. You were imprisoned here by my ancestor long ago. I don’t know what crimes you committed, and I do not care. I absolve you of any guilt. You have walked the mortal world too long. It’s time for you to go.”

From the assembled spirits flowed a wave of melancholy so strong Sa’ida felt tears prick her eyes. They did not weep or wail, but their grief was manifest to the sensitive priestess.

“Your chains are broken. The door has been opened. Nothing holds you here but ancient pain and rage. Let them go. Cease your struggles. The inexorable tide of time will bear you away. You have only to cast away your hate, and go.”

The night darkened as the last embers of the burned tent winked out. Even so, it was clear to the high priestess and the elves crowded in the door of the Speaker’s tent that the ranks of ghosts were thinning. Several spirits had vanished completely. Others were so attenuated as to be barely visible. Gilthas sighed deeply. The arm Sa’ida held trembled. “I am tired,” he declared, still addressing the spirits. “But I cannot rest until I know my people are safe. What you had is gone, but no one can hurt you now, and you must not hurt in return. Farewell to you all. Gilthas, son of Tanis and Lauralanthalasa, bids you good-bye. Rest well.”

They went. One by one, the doleful spirits faded away until only darkness remained. When every single one was gone, Gilthas gave up his own struggle. Hamaramis arrived in time to help Sa’ida catch him when his knees buckled. Two warriors lifted him.

“Wait,” he commanded, voice hoarse from his oration. “General, inspect the camp for damage and casualties.”

Hamaramis watched him carried back inside the tent. The old general tried to comprehend what he had just witnessed. He had seen many things in his long life-terrible things such as the destruction of Qualinost and wondrous things such as the Speaker leading his people down a desert mountain and away from murderous nomads in the dead of night. The Speaker’s stand outside Inath-Wakenti against raging nomads had left Hamaramis amazed and awed. But it paled in comparison with the night’s events. He led a company of warriors through the camp. They found not one ghost remaining, and still he could not grasp what his sovereign had accomplished. With only the power of his words, the Speaker had exorcised hundreds of malign spirits from the land they had haunted for centuries.

None of them could know with certainty whether the spirits would return, but in his heart Hamaramis believed Gilthas Pathfinder had banished the ghosts forever.

Favaronas also witnessed the departure of the will-o’-the-wisps. Lying on his side, still paralyzed from the chest down, he was trying to find release from constant terror in sleep when a flash brought his eyes open. The great fountain of light swirling up and away from the elves’ camp reminded him of gnomish fireworks he’d seen once in Zaradene. He stared in amazement until Faeterus strode before him, blocking his line of sight.

“There is another here. The Watchers have been dispersed,” the sorcerer said.

Favaronas felt hope flicker in his heart. The Speaker had magical assistance! Perhaps all was not lost. If the new mage was powerful enough to send away the lights in the valley, he might be potent enough to forestall Faeterus.

The sorcerer had been staring out toward the now-dark valley. He chuckled, an unpleasant sound, and said, “When I am done, that spectacle will seem like a child’s game.”

Although Favaronas watched the sky, nothing further happened. Trying to hold on to the ember of hope, he allowed exhaustion to claim him.

Hope did not last long. When he awoke again, the sky was pale gray with the coming dawn, and disappointment chilled him more surely than the cold rock beneath him. Whoever had banished the lights, he hadn’t come to defeat Faeterus. The sorcerer was still there, Favaronas was still paralyzed, and this was very probably the last day of his life. If Faeterus had his way, it would be the last day his entire race would ever see.

Flinging his hands skyward, Faeterus exclaimed in the same abbreviated ancient tongue used on the stone scrolls.

Favaronas struggled to decipher the abbreviations and archaic declensions and translate the words into modern Elvish. But understanding the words did not mean he could fathom their intended purpose.

“Awaken land, awaken sky, awaken sun! Ancient shadows long buried, awake! Come forth and blind the sun!” the sorcerer cried then called for the shadows and “forgotten eyes” to do his bidding.

The sky had brightened to shell pink. Thus far the sorcerer’s commands seemed unavailing. His booming oratory went on a long time, until the sun cleared the peaks behind them. When light touched the outer edge of the Stair, Faeterus turned to face the new sun. As always, he was swathed in many layers of moldering cloth and Favaronas wondered how he could bear it. The hood must be stifling.

His exhortations in the old tongue gave way to a chant. Only eight words repeated over and over, but Favaronas could not decipher them. The words were not Elvish of any era, nor the abbreviations of the stone scrolls. They sounded coarser than any elf tongue. In the oldest chronicles there were references to Kevim, the language of the gods, and Favaronas wondered if that was what he was hearing.