Jean Rabe - The Silver Stair

He walks with the dead, Goldmoon. He's sent men to your worldly realm, slaying for no reason. He takes spirits from this realm, willing and unwilling ones who serve him, or who at least pretend to. Giving them half-life, denying them rest. The spirits slew me. Such pain. The image of Roeland paused. They slew the Solamnic knights, too, and he's drawing their… Roeland's face contorted, wavered.

"Roeland?" Goldmoon reached a hand out, but she was in her world, not his, and her fingers brushed Camilla's arm.

…spirits. Not letting them rest. The knights-

"What?"

Taking them.

"Roeland?"

Taking me. No! Goldmoon, no! By the will of Solinari and all the vanished gods, don't let this-

"Roeland!"

The image of the former miller seemed to fold in upon itself, and the images of men and women around him recoiled and disappeared in the mist, which writhed angrily, like a storm-worried sea.

They're taking me!

"Roeland!"

"Roeland Stark." Gair stood and brushed the snow off his pants.

A sheet of blackness hung before the elf. It shimmered in the light of the moon and began to shape itself. A head with a wild mane of spiderweb hair sprouted; eyes glowed palely white, then red. Arms thrust out of the blackness, and hands and claws grew from these. Legs emerged, with feet that hovered above the ground.

Master, the specter of Roeland Stark said in its whispery voice.

More powerful in death, its brothers chanted. They had returned from rending the bodies.

"Now," Gair began, "you will tell me about Goldmoon."

The specter laughed hauntingly. I do not know her plans regarding you. In life or in death, the answer is the same. I do not know. Its laugh was long and eerie, sending owls shooting from the branches of trees. Her plans are her own. Nothing shared. Perhaps she has none. The wraith laughed deeper, whispery-coarse, no longer musical.

"Is it possible Goldmoon has no plans regarding me? Was I that inconsequential to her? Impossible." Perhaps he would concentrate solely on this mysterious link between himself and Goldmoon, probe her mind and get all of his questions answered that way. "When does she use the Silver Stair?"

If there's a pattern to it, the newly birthed wraith said, I don't know it. But someone climbs the stair almost every night the moon is out, searching for visions.

"Only in the moonlight does the stair reveal itself," Gair admitted.

So someone will climb the stair tonight, the wraith of Roeland continued. Shall we go there, Master? Slay the one who seeks insight from the Celestial Ladder? Let me take the climber's sweet life.

Powerful in death, the wraiths chanted.

"It is a long way to the Silver Stair," the elf mused aloud. "Too far to travel tonight when I must be inside this castle come the morning."

Not far to us. Darkhunter was at Gair's side again. Master, may we show you?

The small part of the elf not yet corrupted was apprehensive, but the chill touch of Darkhunter seemed to bolster him. He nodded. The wraith of the Que-Nal took his left hand and the wraith of Roeland took his right. Together the undead lifted Gair from the ground and flew him toward the southeast.

Much more powerful in death, Darkhunter whispered.

Goldmoon buried her face in her hands and wept. All of the men she and Camilla had sent looking for Gair were dead, and all by his hands. The once-gentle elf whom she considered her most promising student, so gifted and intelligent, so filled with curiosity, so obsessed, so…

"Corrupt," she said aloud. "Gair's dark magic has thoroughly seduced him, and ultimately I am to blame. I showed him the door."

Orvago poked his head inside the tent, stooping low this time to enter. He carefully regarded the women.

Camilla was silent for several minutes as the aging healer composed herself and busied herself finding glasses and a jug of bitter cherry wine. She poured a glass for each of them and revealed what she'd experienced. The healer drank her wine slowly, worrying her thumbs around the edge of the glass, staring into its dark surface at the reflection that stared back in the lantern light.

"He must be stopped," Camilla said finally. She forced herself to appear stoic, thrust to the back of her mind all the happy thoughts of Gair she once indulged in. It was silly anyway, she told herself, to entertain a notion that a knight might find room in her heart for romance. She took a deep swallow of the wine. Then another.

"Roeland said weapons couldn't harm the whisperers," Goldmoon said. Her voice was weak. She dabbed at her eyes and returned to worrying about the lip of the glass. "My magic, perhaps, might. I want nothing to do with this… sort… of mysticism. It's dark magic, but maybe it's the only way to stop Gair."

The gnoll drained his mug and wiped his snout on the sleeve of his tunic. He tugged the sword free from his belt, laid it on the table, and reached for the jug of cherry wine. "Whisperers, dead by this sword."

Goldmoon ran her fingers over the edge of the blade.

"This is a magic weapon, Orvago."

He nodded.

The healer looked into his big eyes. "Why did you wait so long to talk to us, my friend?"

The gnoll gave a shrug. "Did not have anything important to say." He stared at his reflection in the sword, then met the gaze of the women.

Camilla drained her mug, and the gnoll courteously refilled it, spilling only part of the jug's contents on the table. "I've a magic sword in the Sentinel. It belonged to my brother. I've never used it. Maybe I was saving it in case he ever came back for it." She took a long pull, felt the warmth of the bitter wine flow down her throat. It felt like it was starting a fire in her belly. She barely felt the ache from the wound in her side that Goldmoon finished healing a few days ago. Her broken arm had been mended magically, too. "I'll leave to get the sword in the morning. It will give me a chance to check on the Sentinel and the town and to bring more soldiers here."

Orvago filled himself a third mug and handed the empty jug back to Goldmoon. She stoppered it and set it under the table. He wiped his hairy arm across the table to clean up what he'd spilled. His elbow smacked the lantern and it teetered precariously.

"I have a staff," Goldmoon said. It was wrapped in blankets at the side of her bed. "One I used a long time ago." During the War of the Lance, she added to herself.

"Maybe you won't have to use this dark mysticism of yours after all," Camilla said. "Maybe we can deal with Gair and his whisperers a more direct way." "Gair is my responsibility," Goldmoon said to herself.

"He was." Camilla finished her second glass and stood, balancing herself by holding the table. The knight was not used to drinking. "This island, and everyone on it, is mine to watch over. He's my responsibility, too."

The gnoll looked back and forth between the women and tucked the short sword protectively into his belt.

"They said Vinas Solamnus had visions." Camilla stared at the translucent silver steps that spiraled up and out of sight. Like gossamer, they didn't seem at all real, shimmering strips of fabric that she would slip right through to the ground if she tried to stand on them. She bent to touch the bottom step. "Solid," she pronounced, holding on to it for support. She felt slightly lightheaded. "I guess it'll hold me." She slowly stood and let out a long breath that fanned like a puff of smoke away from her face. "It'll hold me better than I can hold wine."

Camilla glanced upward and felt a wash of dizziness as she tried to spy the top step. "Of course, without the wine I probably wouldn't be standing here. False courage. Or foolishness. I wonder if the people who make it to the top really do have visions?" The knight found herself on the first step and then the second. She wasn't thoroughly aware she was climbing the stair until she glanced down and discovered that she was higher than the tallest tents. "Oh my." She felt instantly dizzy again. She closed her eyes and steadied herself.