Jean Rabe - The Silver Stair

"No. I believe we are lost."

"Gair, I think you just like to complain."

The pair presented a sharp contrast. The dwarf was thickset and ruddy complected, looking a bit like a tree stump bedecked in an age-worn ginger-colored shirt with sleeves pushed up past his elbows and bright green pants that were stuffed into the tops of faded leather boots. He had brawny limbs and stubby fingers that flitted playfully across the array of ferns that spread alongside the overgrown path. His hair was uncharacteristically short for one of his race, and his blue eyes, from which the hint of a few smile lines sprouted, sparkled mischievously. His face was broad and careworn, his nose slightly bulbous and a little offcenter. His wide teeth were even, practically perfect, and as he grinned they glimmered like polished pearls in the light of the full moon that cut through gaps in the canopy.

"I don't complain, my dwarven friend, not at all. As a matter of…" The elf frowned and mumbled a string of foreign-sounding curse words as a thorny branch snagged his voluminous sleeve. "I was only making conversation," he added more softly.

"An' you don't argue, either, do you, Gair?" The dwarf sniggered, half under his breath. "An' I bet you really don't like the woods. All you like are books and magic."

Gair was tall for an elf at nearly six feet. He had to duck frequently to keep from getting smacked by lowhanging tree branches that the dwarf easily passed under. His eyes looked black-shiny-like wet stones- nearly matching the shade of his impeccably pressed and recently purchased trousers and shirt. Were the light better, however, his eyes would show themselves to be a rich shade of purple flecked with bits of gold. There were muscles rippling in his lithe frame, a hidden strength, and he carried himself gracefully, like a dancer, despite the large pack on his back. His skin was pale, a scholar's complexion, and his face was slightly gaunt, yet handsome, his expression serious. His hair was shiny silver-white like the moon, and as he walked, it fluttered back from his firmly set jaw and teased his narrow shoulders.

"Jasper, to be honest, I've just never enjoyed the Raging Fire all that much, or all these insects that come with it. It's just too hot to do much of anything. Too hot to think. Too hot to… it's just too hot."

Raging Fire was a plainsman term for the warmest month of the summer. The elf and the dwarf found themselves in the heart of an especially sweltering evening.

"I've never minded the Raging Fire-the Dry Heat." The latter was the dwarven term for the same month.

"You don't mind anything."

"Ah, Gair, the key is not to mind it but to appreciate it." The dwarf watched the elf nimbly avoid an exposed sweet bay root while he struggled to tug his own boot free of it. "Just look for somethin' enjoyable-the sounds of the crickets, the song of the owls, the feel of the new leaves beneath your fingertips. Mmm… the heat of the summer against your skin. All the things you don't care for just run right off your shoulder like rainwater, forgotten."

The elf sighed again. "At least it quit raining."

The pair lapsed into silence and continued down the twisting path, allowing their keen vision to separate the shadows so they could find their way through the dark woods. An owl hooted, long and soft, its call muted by distance. Closer, a hawk cried shrilly to its mate. A startled whippoorwill took flight, its wings beating against the leaves as it climbed and sending a cloud of finches rising and chittering in its wake. Around the elf and the dwarf, a symphony of crickets and frogs swelled, stopping for only an instant when Jasper stepped on a fallen branch, snapping it loudly beneath his heavy foot.

It had rained briefly earlier in the day. The moisture had long since burned off the foliage in the late afternoon sun, leaving the ground smelling rich and sweet. There were few spots where something wasn't growing on the forest floor-mushrooms, moss, creeper vines, a variety of grasses, wildflowers that gave off a faint, fragrant scent, and trees and more trees. The rising moon revealed an amazing diversity of the latter-junipers, willows, flowering pears, shaggybarks, hardwoods, nut trees, ginkgoes, poplars, wild cherries that had given up their fruit months ago, cedars, and some broad-leafed trees that were somehow hardy enough to handle the island's winters. When Krynn was much younger and colder, floes of ice pushed seeds from the far north and the far south to this place, resulting in the present remarkable mix of trees and plants. The Cataclysm further altered the land, crushing the spiraling mountains that once formed a jagged spine down the middle of the island, leaving instead gently sloping hills-and inadvertently giving the foliage more places to grow.

"Are you sure this is the right path?"

The dwarf nodded.

"Are you sure we didn't miss a fork somewhere?"

The dwarf nodded again and noted sadly that the crickets had stopped their serenade.

"Then we must be close. We should have caught up to her by now."

Jasper made a huffing sound. "She's got better'n two hours' start on us, Gair. Wanted a little time alone. Remember?"

"I never should have let her go." The elf waited for the dwarf to agree. Getting no response, he continued. "She's far from a young woman, Jasper Fireforge, and unless she turned off on another path to rest somewhere, we should have caught up to her by now."

Again no response.

"Maybe something happened to her. She could be lost, hurt. We should have talked her into searching in the morning."

"Can't find what she's lookin' for in the daylight."

"We should have-"

"Wouldn't've done any good."

"We could go back and retrace our steps, see if she-"

"Goldmoon can take care of herself, Gair. She's all right." The dwarf's voice was confident. Inwardly he worried a little.

Gair stopped on the path and ran a sweaty hand through his hair. The leaves of a willow teased the top of his head. "We should have followed right away, not waited. She's taking far too many chances for someone her age."

"And you take far too few," the dwarf whispered too softly for the elf to hear.

"She could have gone some other time. She's human. She can't see in the dark like we can. She…"

The dwarf made a clucking sound as he stepped in something squishy. He kept his eyes straight ahead, not wanting to discover what it was. "We're the students, Gair. She's the teacher. 'Sides, I've known her a little longer'n you, an' I know she can manage. She'll be all right, you'll see, an' we'll catch up soon enough." He huffed. "An' then I can get some sleep."

"I hope you're right, my friend, but I am not happy about this." His voice dropped to a whisper. "And I have the oddest sensation prickling at the back of my neck."

"Like we're bein' watched?" the dwarf asked in a hushed tone.

"Yes."

"I think someone's been watchin' us for quite some time."

Goldmoon picked her way through the woods, using a small lantern to guide her. The oil was burning low, so she tried to increase her pace, not wanting to be caught alone in complete darkness. The aging healer was tired, long decades and the heat of the Raging Fire had taken their toll. Her aching legs suggested she rest awhile, but her will was much stronger than her body, and she refused to give in. She'd come too far to stop now.

She inhaled, slowly and deeply, and ran her sleeve across her forehead to wipe away the sweat. "Beloved Riverwind, I remember when we shared many Raging Fires together. I miss those years desperately. The heat was tolerable with you at my side. Everything was somehow… better."

She continued along the overgrown path, seemingly talking to herself and musing about what brought her to Schallsea Island in the middle of the New Sea-a need to find a purpose for however many years she had left on the face of Krynn. Goldmoon wasn't convinced she would find the answer here, though something in her heart urged her to search here. If she didn't find what she was seeking, she would travel somewhere else, maybe back across the New Sea to Abanasinia and the Que-Shu tribes, her people, or perhaps far to the south, in the Plains of Dust. There were many mystical sites dotting that arid land, places where the magic of the gods was still rich and pulsing, where the Raging Fire would be even more intense. She was looking for just such a mystical site now.