Tonight he had another destination. The elf stole away from the construction site, where work was progressing on the third story. He headed straight northeast, not following any trail this time. He had planned to visit the burial ground before now, but Goldmoon had been instructing her students in the various nuances of mysticism in the evenings-after work ceased on the citadel. By the time her classes ended, he was tired, his muscles sore from sanding and cutting, and turned in, but there were no classes this night. The aged healer was spending the evening chatting with the dwarves, and though his muscles were still sore, his curiosity was at fever pitch.
"What do the spirits think of Goldmoon and her Citadel of Light?" The elf scowled. His father's spirit would not answer. Neither had he answered Gair's most pressing and oft-repeated questions: Where do spirits dwell? Is your existence like life as dwellers of Krynn know it? Or is it better or worse? Do all spirits drift in the same realm?
Gair tried another tack as the campfire lights from the settlement grew smaller. "Do you know Riverwind? Goldmoon talks to him often." To this, his father finally answered no.
It had started to snow again. The flakes were large, and without the wind to drive them, they drifted down lazily, settling on the backs of Gair's hands and melting instantly. His breath feathered away from his face, which he turned up to glance at the clouds overhead. It was a beautiful night, and not as cold as the past few had been. He allowed himself to enjoy his surroundings as he moved farther away from the settlement.
"Do you miss the feel of the snow, Father? The feel of the breeze? Can you smell the earth? What is your misty realm like? Are all of the spirits who in life walked on Krynn in your same misty dimension, Father? Are the spirits of dragons there, too? The gods-do you sense any trace of them?"
As before, he received no answer to any of those questions, and so he continued toward the Que-Nal burial ground, chattering, unanswered, to his father about his current activities as a carpenter, his captivation with Camilla, and the advanced healing magic he was studying. As he drew near the circle, he stopped talking, not wanting to alert any living Que-Nal who might be nearby.
Again I am being too cautious, he told himself. This was his fourth late-night visit to the grounds, and he'd never encountered any living souls there. "Perhaps the barbarians believe the place haunted at night, foolishly thinking spirits roam only when the sun goes down."
Only some spirits are more powerful then, his father said.
The elf paused. "What do you mean?"
No answer.
Gair crouched at the edge of the clearing, watching the snow come down, a little harder now. "What do you mean, Father?"
Again nothing.
"So you only talk to me when it suits you? Just like when you were alive, dear father." Sighing, Gair unbuckled his sword belt and laid his weapon against a tree, removed his new heavy coat, and draped it over a branch. He wanted to move with less encumbrance, and it wasn't quite as cold tonight. Indeed, the snowflakes melting against his skin invigorated him. He slipped into the circle and crept from mound to mound, noting that there had been no new additions since his last visit. The Que-Nal were very unlike the Abanasinian barbarians from which they sprang, the elf had learned by questioning some of Goldmoon's older followers. The tribes on the mainland built walled burial chambers to house their dead. The Que-Nal kept the bodies of their people closer to the land they cherished. They saved the buildings for the living.
The elf knelt by the old stone-covered mound, brushing away the snow and tracing the mosaic patterns. "Who were you?" he whispered to the mound's occupant. "Why is your grave more impressive than any others here? Father, can you sense this spirit? Was he a king? A queen? A chieftain?"
The elder Graymist offered no reply.
"Well, perhaps now I can sense who rests beneath."
Gair placed his hands where he suspected the body's heart rested. It was an unnecessary gesture, he knew, but he did it nonetheless. "Who were you?" he repeated as his senses slipped from his mind down his arms and into his fingers, into the etched stones, and then into the cold, cold earth. Deeper they went, past the husks of insects and past the pebbles that covered a shrouded form. Only bones were beneath the cloth. His mind sensed brittle, yellowed bones that were cracked in several places. Was the individual a warrior who died in battle? Were the bones splintered in a fight? His mind probed further, examining the tattered cloth that clung to the bones, ornate for a barbarian, embroidered with symbols. Was the individual old? Had the cruel years broken his body?
"Who were you? What were you? What were your dreams, your hopes? Did you die after fulfilling your plans? Did you die too soon? Were you old? Sick?"
He sensed no presence, no energy as he had when he first contacted his father and his sisters. Nothing.
"I am coming to believe this 'dark mysticism,' as Goldmoon calls it, works only on those you knew in life," he whispered.
Frustrated, he decided to at least do a little exploring while he was here. He directed his senses to drift beyond the bones beneath him to nearby mounds, seeking to learn if these corpses were also ornately garbed. Through the cold, heavy earth his mind wandered, briefly touching bodies in various states of decay. All were wrapped in cloth, some of which was thick and brocaded, as if it belonged to a merchant or an entertainer from the port town, likely meaning it was something the person in life had traded for or purchased. None were so embroidered with symbols as the cloth around the form that lay beneath the elaborate mound.
"Who were you?"
His mind stretched to other mounds, and he touched bits of simple jewelry here and there and focused on them. Primitive, he decided, but some were beautiful despite their primitiveness-hammered silver bracelets etched with leaves and stick-figure animals. A deer. A flock of birds in flight. He was amazed at the details he could absorb through his spell. Of course, he'd continually made adjustments to the magic since Goldmoon had taught him how to contact spirits, as he was interested in their realm, not just in the spirits themselves. He had not counted on the magic revealing so much. It was as if he could see through walls, through years, through worlds. He just could not contact strangers.
Gair looked closer, spotting what amounted to a jeweler's mark. It was on the inside of a bracelet worn by what had been a tall young woman. All of the Que-Nal were on the tall side, lean and muscular, according to the descriptions of them he'd gotten from the folks in port. That would fit with their Que-Shu counterparts. However, this woman had been especially tall. Around her neck was what appeared to be a silver necklace so thick it looked like a collar. There were tiny holes along the bottom of the necklace, and from them dangled rotting strings of leather, and in turn from them dangled moldy feathers. He imagined what her face had looked like: high cheekbones, a proud expression. Somehow he knew she was a chieftain's daughter.
"Beautiful," he hushed. "Did any of your dreams come true when you walked this land? What had you hoped to accomplish in this world? Was yours a good life? Were you loved? Happy?"
No answer.
Again his mind drifted, this time to the most recent mound, the one that on his previous visit he determined held the form of a child. Perhaps this time he could tell what she died of. His senses floated over her body, over her skin, which he knew had once been tan and unblemished, over her face, down her neck. There! He detected a swollenness that had nothing to do with a corpse bloating or decomposing. A sign of illness, one that should have been curable, a childhood malady.