Jean Rabe - The Silver Stair

"Perhaps I shall try soon," Gair breathed.

The elf moved deeper into the community, slipping from tent to tent. He wasn't entirely sure why he was staying hidden. Goldmoon's tent was near the cliff, as the healer enjoyed looking out at the Straits of Schallsea toward Abanasinia. His tent was several dozen yards away to the north.

Gair thrust his hands in the pockets of his coat and hurried toward her tent. A light was burning inside. She was still up.

"Goldmoon?" He paused outside her tent, waited patiently for her to draw back the flap. No answer. He risked poking his head inside and discovered no one there. "Where are you?" Determined to find her, he started pacing away from her tent, nearly bumping into Camilla Weoledge when he turned the corner around a large lean-to.

"Good evening, Mr. Graymist," the knight said.

"Gair," he corrected her. "Only Jasper is so formal to use my last name."

"Gair, then."

"Weren't you able to sleep either?"

She shook her head, her breath clouding around her face in the cold air. "I was just going to turn in, after one last stroll around your settlement."

He extended his arm. "Then allow me accompany you, lady, and let me thank you again for comforting me when I was so grievously wounded on the trail by the"-he stopped himself, swallowing the words that might give away his trip to the burial ground- "by the bandits."

As the elf escorted Camilla toward the cliff, it began to snow once more. The full moon, though partially hidden by wispy clouds, illuminated the start of a dock far below them. The pilings were in place, the planks on the shore covered by a snow-dusted tarp. Stakes wedged into the cliff face suggested the path a set of stairs would take.

"Like stars falling to the earth," Camilla stated.

"What?"

She was watching the lacy snowflakes spinning slowing down, disappearing into the darkness of the water below. "That's what my father called snow."

"The snow is lovely," Gair returned, "but not so lovely as you."

She blushed and looked away, studying the distant dark water and removing her arm from his.

"You truly are lovely, Camilla."

The elf's keen eyes noticed her face redden. He knew she was not elegant and graceful like the elven women of the Silvanesti woods that he used to dream about. She was as tall as he and muscular, not the dainty woman on his arm he'd always pictured. She wasn't someone he had expected to be drawn to, but he was drawn to her nevertheless.

"Don't turn away," he said softly.

"I… I hardly know you."

"Then you must get to know me better." He took Camilla's hand, and she did not protest. He led her around the perimeter of the settlement.

"Where I come from, Gair, relationships aren't rushed."

"Where I come from," the elf countered, "people follow their hearts, and I think you've captured mine."

They indulged themselves with idle conversation about the port town and the Solamnic order, and when the conversation turned to his Silvanesti homeland and his family, he deftly changed the subject-to her mysterious eyes, her curly hair, her milky complexion.

"You remind me of Goldmoon," he said and failed to notice that she bristled at the remark. "Daring, strong, admirable…" He added to himself, and I believe that is why I am so taken with you.

She turned her gaze from his. However, she did not shy away when he moved closer, released her hand, and draped his arm around her shoulders.

"I am a Knight of the Sword," she told him. "My heart belongs to my order, and this-" she stared at the ground and brushed at the snow with her boot heel- "this is too fast. We've known each other only for a few days. This is-"

"Don't say it's wrong," he interrupted. "Please, give me a chance."

She looked toward a tent where Willum, wrapped in blankets, stood at the flap. Her pace increased as they walked past him and headed toward another tent, which the knight occupied.

"Gair, I do not believe in this settlement. I think what Goldmoon is doing is wrong, and therefore I think you're wrong in following her."

"Then why are you here?"

"I am here only because of my orders. I am a knight, and my heart-"

"Let just a little of your heart belong to me." He stepped back and stared at her eyes. Impulsively he darted forward and kissed her on the cheek. "Just a little," he repeated as she slipped out of his arms and ducked into her tent.

Gair returned to Goldmoon's tent. This time he found the healer at home. She poked her head out between the flaps to talk to him when he called softly.

"It's late," she said simply, but she was not dressed for bed. She was still wearing the deerskin tunic and breeches she'd put on after the incident that morning with the creature and the boars. And she had her cloak on, still wet from melting snow.

"Goldmoon, I…" The elf closed his eyes and sighed. "You know how much I want to talk to spirits. I-"

She shook her head firmly. "Gair, I will not teach you dark mysticism. I told you that this morning."

"I've thought about it all day." The elf was clearly exasperated, but he tried not to show it. "Goldmoon, I know I push you sometimes, but I've never misused what you've taught me, and I wouldn't misuse this. You talk to Riverwind. That's where you were earlier, isn't it? Talking to Riverwind?"

She didn't answer.

"There's someone I want very much to speak to." He lowered his gaze to the ground, studied the tips of his boots for several moments. "If you don't teach me this, I'll have to stumble along on my own, trying to contact the dead. Maybe I can't learn it on my own, but I won't stop trying. I have to know that my family still… exists, that there is something beyond this life. Maybe once that knowledge is within my reach, I'll be satisfied and can move on, and then this won't consume me."

She stared at him, his silver-white hair shimmering in the moonlight, lips set in a determined line. Suddenly her eyes showed that she had made a decision. "All right, Gair. Against my better judgment." She ran her fingers through her hair and shook her head. "Maybe if I wasn't so tired and you weren't so persistent…"

"When?" he pressed.

"It had better be now," she answered softly, "before I change my mind."

She beckoned him inside her tent. He felt his heart racing, his palms sweating. Her tent was sparsely furnished, with a bed raised above the ground atop some sturdy-looking crates. A small chest near the bed held the possessions that she'd brought with her from Abanasinia. An oil lamp rested atop the chest, bathing the interior of the tent in a soft glow. A large crate stood in the center of the small tent and served as a table. Two chairs abutted it, the only real furniture in Goldmoon's tent-given to her by a farmer as thanks for healing his sick wife and son. Goldmoon told the elf there would be time for furniture after the citadel was built.

It was much warmer inside the healer's tent than Gair expected. She'd hung thick blankets up against each wall to help keep out the cold. Taking off his coat, he carefully laid it across the back of a chair and sat, steepling his fingers on the table.

She sat opposite him, looking pale in the soft light. "The first thing you must do is clear your mind," she said slowly. "I hope this gives you some measure of peace, and that I am not doing the wrong thing." She studied the elf's face; his brow was knitted in concentration.

"This process is not unlike reaching the minds of animals," she began, "but this is sensing a different type of… life. You must look elsewhere for it."

For the next hour, she showed Gair what were mostly rather familiar mystical concepts, but with some peculiar twists. The elf realized he had been close in his attempts to communicate with the dead at the burial ground tonight, frighteningly close. There were just a few differences in approach.