Jeff Crook - The Rose and the Skull

Jessica brushed back her tears and tried to compose herself. "I am sorry, Lady Crysania. It was selfish of me to weep for myself. My tears were better shed for Lord Gunthar."

"But why? When we weep for the dead, truly we weep for ourselves, for our loss, not theirs, and for our own fear of the grave, not theirs. The tears you shed do you no dishonor, lady Knight," Crysania said. "We all weep in darkness."

Suddenly, Jessica clasped Crysania's hands and bowed to one knee. "My Lady, please allow me to serve you," she cried.

"You have duties and responsibilities here," Crysania said.

"I am to be reassigned," Jessica said excitedly. "They are giving my post to the Knights of Takhisis. I have no other duties as yet. If you were to request…"

"Patience, patience, dear girl," Crysania said softly but firmly. "There is much yet for you to do here."

"What do you mean?" Jessica asked.

"Come, take my arm and walk with me," Crysania said.

Together, they strolled from the chapel, passing along a hall lined with windows that looked onto the courtyard. The rain came down like a gray curtain, almost obscuring the outer wall from view. A few hazy shadows walked their posts atop the battlements.

As they passed throughout the castle, Jessica waited for Crysania to say something more, to finish her thought begun in the chapel, but instead the former high priestess of Paladine made small talk, asking about Jessica's name and her family, and about the castle where she lived. Jessica told Crysania how much she loved the crumbling old place. Lonely as she was, she enjoyed the solitude and peace she found there.

Finally, they reached the guest quarters of the castle. Crysania stopped beside one of the doors and felt unfamiliarly for the latch. Until that moment, Jessica had almost forgotten the Lady Crysania was blind. Gently, she guided her hero's fingers to the knob. Crysania smiled.

"Thank you. It was very good to meet you, Jessica Vestianstone," she said. "I hope we will talk again before I leave."

"As do I, milady," Jessica answered with a bow.

Crysania smiled and opened the door. As she passed within, Jessica caught a glimpse inside the room. Directly across from the door there stood a large bed, where a profusion of blankets spilled onto the floor. As the door swung shut, the head of a huge white tiger lifted from behind the blankets and blinked sleepily at Jessica. Her breath caught at the suddenness of his appearance, and she almost cried out before she noticed that he was not a tiger after all, but a man. He rose as Crysania entered, but then the door closed, cutting off Jessica's view.

Jessica's head dropped. Dejected, she shuffled away, finding her way eventually to her own quarters just as the call to mess was being sounded. But she had no appetite. Instead, she entered her small room and sat on the bed in the dark, while in the passage outside her door Knights rushed to the dining hall. They talked, laughed, joked, and bickered, just as they had always done. Already, the life of the castle was returning to normal, even before the echoes of the crypt had faded away.

Giles Gorstead stumbled sleepily to the front door of his small cottage. His nightshirt was still twisted and wrinkled from bed, and his disheveled brown hair looked like a bird had been nesting in it. Without even thinking, only angry at the disturbance of his sleep, he yanked open the door and stared out into the night. What confronted him brought him sharply awake. Quickly, he swung the door almost shut and peered out through the crack.

"What do you want?" he asked sharply. "This ain't no inn, if that's what you're looking for. Inn's up the road."

"I am sssssearching for gully dwarvessss," answered the heavily robed figure standing on his porch. Black robes covered every inch of the stranger's body, and his face was lost in the shadow of an enormous cowl.

Giles shuddered, but he said angrily, albeit with a slightly higher pitch to his voice, "We've got no gully dwarves here. Good night." He slammed the door and shot home the bolt.

"There are three of them," the voice hissed from behind the door. "I tracked them to this place, but I've lost their footprints in the fresh snow."

"Well, they're not here!" Giles shouted. "Good night."

"They sssstole ssssomething from me, an item of great value," the stranger continued. "I would pay dearly to have it, and the thievessss, returned to me."

"Well, if I see any, I'll be sure and let you know. Good night!" he shouted as he dashed across the room and snatched the poker from the fireplace.

He returned to the door and listened but heard no other sound. Slowly, he eased to the window and peered from behind the curtain. Krynn's new white moon shed a ghastly pallor over the new-fallen snow, illuminating the night as though it were day. The front yard and the porch were empty. No footprints marred the snow. Giles shuddered and made a sign to ward away evil.

He spent the remainder of the night beside the window, watching for any sign of the stranger, but the porch, the yard, and the road beyond remained empty, as desolate as a ghost town. He dragged a quilt from the bed and huddled by the window, awaiting the sun, while he grasped the iron poker so tightly his knuckles turned white.

When the late autumn sun finally arose behind a thick blanket of snowy clouds, the light found him asleep, his cheek pressed against the sill. He blinked, then winced as he withdrew his face from the hard, cold wooden frame of the window. A deep red indentation creased his face. He found his fingers so stiff from gripping the poker, he almost couldn't open them.

The fire on the hearth had burned low during the night, so by the time he woke, the room was freezing. He tossed a few chips on the fire and stirred the coals to get the fire going, then took a kettle from the mantle, and breaking the crust of ice on the bucket beside the door, filled it with water. He then hung it from a rack over the fire.

While he waited for the water to boil, he pulled on a pair of heavy boots and slung a thick woolen cloak over his shoulders. From a barrel in the corner he filled a basket with corn, then stepped outside into the snow. Looking up, he noticed the sky was darkening, and he guessed that before the day was done, the snow would change to rain. Elsewhere on the island, in the courtyard of Castle uth Wistan, the citizens of Sancrist and all Krynn were paying their respects to Gunthar.

Shivering with the cold, Giles Gorstead hurried across the porch and down the steps. He made his way around the cottage to the back, noticing as he passed that the snow on the windward side of the building had drifted almost to the lower windows, but the snow in the back was not as deep because of the protection afforded by a number of tall oak trees. Their spreading branches shaded and sheltered almost the entire ground between the cottage and the barn. His boots crunched in the snow as he walked, sounding unusually loud in the silence of the forest.

As he neared the chicken coop, Giles began to cluck his tongue and toss handfuls of corn on the snow-covered ground. He spread the corn evenly, with a practiced swing of his arm, all the time calling, "Here chick-chick-chickchick." Usually, the hens came rushing out at the first sound of his voice, but this morning they seemed slow. Perhaps it was the cold which made them sluggish, for he heard only a few rustling noises from the henhouse.

Then, something fell from the sky, grazing his forehead. It landed like a brick in the snow. Giles crouched warily, staring all about, ready to dodge the next missile. "Come out, you coward!" he shouted, sure that his assailant was the mysterious visitor from the night before.

When no one answered, and no other missiles followed, he glanced down at the thing that had nearly brained him. It was a very dead, very frozen chicken-one of his own. He picked it up and examined it for a moment before another thump caught his attention. About a stone's throw away, another frozen chicken lay in the snow.