“I know,” said Tas excitedly. “I’m still the rear guard. Where is it we’re going, exactly?”
Palin looked out the door. Years ago, there had been stone stairs, a courtyard. Now his first step out of the Tower of High Sorcery would fall onto a bed of brown, dead cypress needles that surrounded the Tower like a dry moat. The cypress trees formed a wall around the brown moat, their branches serving as a canopy under which they would walk. Standing in the shadows of the trees, watching, were the souls of the dead.
“We’re going to find a path, a trail. Anything to lead us out of this forest,” Palin said.
Thrusting his hands in the sleeves of his robes, to emphasize the fact that he was not going to use them, he strode out the door and headed straight for the tree line. Tas followed after, discharging his role as rear guard by attempting to look backward while walking forward, a feat of agility that apparently took some practice, for Tas was having a difficult time of it.
“Stop that!” said Palin through clenched teeth the second time Tasslehoff bumbled into him. They were nearing the tree line. Palin removed his hand from his sleeve long enough to grasp Tas by the shoulder and forcibly turn him around. “Face forward.”
“But I’m the rear—” Tas protested. He interrupted himself. “Oh, I see. It’s what’s in front of us you’re worried about.”
The dead had no bodies. These they had left behind, abandoning the shells of cold flesh as butterflies leave the cocoon. Once, like butterflies, these spirits might have flown free to whatever new destination awaited them. Now they were trapped as in an enormous jar, constrained to wander aimlessly, searching for the way out.
So many souls. A river of souls, swirling about the boles of the cypress trees, each one a drop of water in a mighty torrent. Palin could barely distinguish one from another. Faces flitted past, hands or arms or hair trailing like diaphanous silken scarves. The faces were the most terrible, for they all looked at him with a hunger that caused him to hesitate, his steps to slow. Whispered breath that he had mistaken for the wind touched his cheek. He heard words in the whispers and shivered.
The magic, they said. Give us the magic. They looked at him. They paid no attention to the kender. Tasslehoff was saying something. Palin could see his mouth moving and almost hear the words, but he couldn’t hear. It was as if his ears were stuffed with the whispers of the dead.
“I have nothing to give you,” he told the souls. His own voice sounded muffled and faraway. “I have no magical artifacts. Let us pass.”
He came to the tree line. The whispering souls were a white, frothing pool among the shadows of the trees. He had hoped that the souls would part before him, like the early morning fog lifting from the valleys, but they remained, blocking his way. He could see dimly through them, see more trees with the eerie white mist of souls wavering beneath. He was reminded of the hordes of mendicants that crowded the streets of Palanthas, grimy hands outstretched, shrill voices begging. He halted, cast a glance back at the Tower of High Sorcery, saw a broken, crumbling ruin. He faced forward.
They did not harm you in the past, he reminded himself. You know their touch. It is unpleasant but no worse than walking into a cobweb. If you go back there, you will never leave. Not until you are one of them. He walked into the river of souls.
Chill, pale hands touched his hands, his arms. Chill, pale eyes stared at him. Chill, pale lips pressed against his lips, sucked the breath from him. He could not move for the swirling souls that had hold of him and were dragging him under. He could hear nothing except the whispered roar of their terrible voices. He turned, trying to find the way back, but all he saw were eyes, mouths, and hands. He turned and turned again, and now he was disoriented and confused, and there were more of them and still more. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t speak, he couldn’t cry out. He fell to the ground, gasping for air. They rose and ebbed around him, touching, pulling, yanking. He was shredded, torn asunder. They searched through the fibers of his being.
He slipped beneath the awful surface and ceased to struggle. Tasslehoff saw Palin walk into the shadows of the trees, but the kender did not immediately follow after him. Instead he attempted to gain the attention of several dead kender, who were standing beneath the trees, watching Palin.
“I say,” said Tas very loudly, over the sound of buzzing in his ears, a sound that was starting to be annoying, “have you seen my friend, Caramon? He’s one of you.”
Tas had been about to tell them that Caramon was dead, like them, but he refrained, thinking that it might make them sad to be reminded of the fact.
“He’s a really big human, and the last time I saw him alive he was very old, but now that he’s dead—no offense—he looks young again. He has curly hair and a very friendly smile.”
No use. The kender refused to pay the least bit of attention to him.
“I hate to tell you this, but you are extremely rude,” Tas told the kender as he walked past. He might as well follow Palin, since no one was going to talk to him. “One would think you’d been raised by humans. You must not be from Kendermore. No Kendermore kender would act that— Now that’s odd. Where did he go?”
Tas searched the forest ahead of him as well as he could, considering the poor ghosts, who were whirling about in a frenetic manner, enough to make a fellow dizzy.
“Palin! Where are you? I’m supposed to be the rear guard, and I can’t be the rear guard if you’re not in front.”
He waited a bit to see if Palin answered his call, but if the sorcerer did, Tas probably wouldn’t be able to hear it over the buzzing that was starting to give him a pain in the head. Putting his fingers in his ears to try to shut out the sound, Tas turned to look behind him, thinking that perhaps Palin had forgotten something and gone back to the Tower to fetch it. Tas could see the Tower, looking small beneath the cypress trees, but no sign of Palin.
“Drat it!” Tas took his fingers out of his ears to wave his hands, trying to disperse the dead who were really making a most frightful nuisance of themselves. “Get out of here. I can’t see a thing. Palin!”
It was like walking through a thick fog, only worse, because fog didn’t look at you with pleading eyes or try to grab hold of you with wispy hands. Tasslehoff groped his way forward. Tripping over something, probably a tree root, he fell headlong on the forest floor. Whatever he had fallen over jerked beneath his legs. It’s not a tree root, he thought, or if it is, the root belongs to one of the more lively varieties of tree. Tas recognized Palin’s robes, and after a moment more, he recognized Palin. He hovered over his friend in consternation.
Palin’s face was exceedingly white, more white than the spirits surrounding him. His eyes were closed. He gasped for air. One hand clutched at this throat, the other clawed at the dirt.
“Get away, you! Go! Leave him alone,” Tas cried, endeavoring to drive away the dead souls, who seemed to be wrapping themselves around Palin like some evil web. “Stop it!” the kender shouted, jumping up and stamping his foot. He was starting to grow desperate. “You’re killing him!”
The buzzing sound grew louder, as if hornets were flying into his ears and using his head for a hive. The sound was so awful that Tasslehoff couldn’t think, but he realized he didn’t have to think. He only had to rescue Palin before the dead turned him into one of themselves. Tas glanced behind him again to get his bearings. He could see the Tower or catch glimpses of it, at any rate, through the ever-shifting mist of the souls. Running around to Palin’s head, Tas took hold of the man by the shoulders. The kender dug his heels into the ground and gave a grunt and a heave. Palin was not large as humans went—Tas envisioned himself trying to drag Caramon—but he was a full-grown man and deadweight, at this point more dead than alive. Tas was a kender and an older kender at that. He dragged Palin over the rough, needle-strewn ground and managed to move him a couple of feet before he had to drop him and stop to catch his breath.