Camilla pursed her lips, her brow furrowing. She followed Goldmoon back inside the tent. Orvago was quick on her heels, failing to duck in time and rattling the tent pole when his head hit a support. He scowled and offered an apologetic grin. He tried to right the pole, and in the process, he knocked down one of the blankets that was hung to keep the tent warm. He bent to pick up the blanket, butting heads with Camilla. Goldmoon stepped out of the way and patiently waited for the pair to repair the damage.
"Camilla, Gair came to Schallsea Island because of me. It is because of me that he consorts with the dead." The healer's shoulders sagged noticeably. "I am to blame for what happened to Gair. I taught him how to speak to spirits. I thought it would give him peace. The deaths of his father and sisters troubled him greatly."
"According to Orvago, he seems to have gone beyond speaking to them," Camilla returned, a slight edge to her voice.
"Gair somehow misused what I taught him. I'll teach no one else how to open the door to the spirit realm. Camilla, I should not have taught him this dark side of mysticism. It was a door best left closed to him… and to everyone."
The commander paced in the small confines, careful not to bump into the gnoll, who was standing, crouched, by the table. "If my knights and your followers find him, can you-"
"Heal him?"
Camilla's gaze was fixed on the design of a blanket that hung against the interior of the tent wall.
"I hope so. That is my intention, anyway."
Silence held sway for several moments. Even the gnoll breathed softly, careful not to make a sound.
"Three search parties we've sent," Camilla finally said. "One of them should find him. My knights, your followers… good people who know what they are up against."
"No." The word was a growl. "Men do not know at all. Men will not come back." Orvago shuffled to the tent flap and looked outside. "Whisperers will kill men."
Goldmoon watched the gnoll leave, certain by the shuffling outside that he was walking around her tent on a self-imposed patrol. Her face looked pale in the glow from the lone lantern on the table.
"Do you think the gnoll is right?" The knight showed concern on her young face.
"I will pray to Mishakal that he is wrong," the healer said softly, "but… I can see if the men we sent out are safe."
The healer sat, shoulders rounded, fingers steepled against the coarse wood. She closed her eyes and decided for the first time in her life to contact a spirit other than Riverwind's. Inside her mind, her husband urged her to try another tack, but Goldmoon paid his warning little heed.
"It will be all right," she told him. "I'll be careful."
Camilla looked curiously at her.
"I will try to contact the spirit of a man with a good heart. If I cannot reach his spirit, dear Riverwind, I will be grateful that he is not dead. And I will go myself to search for my people-and Gair-come morning."
She laid her hands flat on the table now, her thumbs drawing imaginary circles. The flickering lantern made her hair gleam like thin chains of silver and gold and made the shadows dance behind her.
"Roeland Stark," Goldmoon said almost inaudibly. "Are you in the realm of the dead, my friend?"
The moonlight edged from beneath a cloud and revealed that four men were still standing, two of them Solamnic knights. An equal number were lying facedown in the clearing, the blood from dozens of deep scratches on their bodies tinting the snow a dark red. Gair lurked at the edge of the clearing and watched, virtually mesmerized, as five wraiths danced around the men. Behind them loomed the ruins of Castle Vila.
The wraiths were the spirits of the Solamnic knights and soldiers who had made up the first search party to find Gair Graymist, their natures corrupted through the magical process the elf had used to raise them. Once kind and generous and honorbound, they were now sinister and hateful of life. They toyed with the four remaining men, darting in and slashing at the woolen clothes that covered those from Goldmoon's ranks. Icy-black claws cleaved through the thick material as if it were paper and sliced into the skin beneath. Insubstantial claws reached through the silver mail of the knights, raking deeply into the knights' chests.
Blood dripped onto the snow and brought peals of hideous laughter from the unseen mouths of the wraiths.
More powerful in death, the five chanted.
One of the men screamed as claws raked at his face. Another had come up from beneath his feet and clawed at his legs, shredding his pants and ripping through skin and muscle. He fell to his knees, and a wraith rose up through him, poking its black head out his chest, the feel of the icy dead creature sending numbing pain through the man's broken body. The wraiths left him, for the briefest of moments, retreating as if to offer him the slightest measure of hope, then darted in again, one sinking its claws into the man's shoulder, the other scratching at his eyes.
The man's screams were so shrill they hurt Gair's ears. The elf gritted his teeth and watched as the two wraiths slowly finished the man. Gair tried to place him. The elf had seen him around Goldmoon's camp before, but he couldn't remember the man's name. It wasn't important, Gair decided. He could learn his name later when he brought his spirit back from death.
The other three wraiths, now joined by Gair's father, cavorted around the two knights.
The tall one with no armor, the elder Graymist directed. He is last. My son wishes it.
"What are you?" the tall man howled at the inky figures. He brandished a club, which passed harmlessly through the bodies of the undead.
Gair smiled at Roeland Stark. Had the man been facing living foes, he likely would have dropped three or four of them by now. The two knights were also armed, one with a long sword, the other with twin daggers, his long sword lost somewhere in the woods. None of the blades gave the undead pause. They were no threat.
The men could do nothing to stop the wraiths, though one of the black creatures cried mournfully each time a weapon passed through it, pretending that it was being hurt. Gair sensed that the wraith savored offering false hope. Finally the wraith fell to the ground, a pool of unnatural icy blackness. It flowed like spilled ale under the boots of the knight with the long sword, then ran up the man's legs and clawed brutally at his stomach through the plate.
"What manner of creature are you?" Roeland howled again as he watched the knight writhe. Clenching his right hand tighter about his club, he swung it in an effort to keep the creatures away. With his free hand, he tried to peel the creature off the knight. The wraith laughed at the futile gesture and sent a bone-chilling wave of cold into Roeland.
Gair stepped forward just as the knight with the long sword succumbed under the assault of the elder Graymist.
Roeland's eyes locked onto the elf. "You! We came out here looking for you!"
"A pity that you found me." The elf displayed a suitably smug impression, cringing noticeably when the knight with the daggers cried out. "Camilla will not cry when she faces my minions," the elf whispered.
Gair's father dragged his claws along the length of the last knight's right leg, shredding the flesh beneath the armor. He fell, twitching in the snow.
Roeland glanced between the dying knight and Gair, then swung his club futilely. The wind whistled from each inconsequential blow. He hadn't been hurt much-just some claw marks on his arms and face, nothing deep, but he was frightened. His lip quivered, and his hands shook in terror.
"These c-c-creatures," Roeland stammered. "Gair, what are they? Do they hold you? Are you their-"
"Prisoner?"
Roeland nervously nodded. Tears flowed from the big man's eyes as he watched the knight twitch and moan and imagined the horrible pain he was feeling.