"That's what you'd like to believe, Roeland, that they hold me spellbound." The elf took a step closer; the wraith of Darkhunter moved at his shoulder. "Dear, gentle Roeland, I am not their prisoner. I am their master."
Master. Master, the wraiths chanted in unison. More powerful in death. The master made us more powerful in death.
"They are people you knew, Roeland. Knights stationed at the settlement. Gregory, Leland, Markus…" The three creatures darted in at the introduction, swiping at the downed knight as they went and scattering his daggers far from his grasp. "Bernard and… let's see… yes, Bolivar. You remember Bolivar? He got along so well with Jasper."
The shortest of the wraiths came near to Roeland, the intense cold of its body making the big man shiver uncontrollably. Roeland's eyes were wide with dread and disbelief.
"You killed them, Gair?"
"Well, not precisely. I had them killed. I didn't really have a choice, Roeland. I didn't want to be found."
"Goldmoon will find you."
Roeland stepped back, bumping into a crumbling wall of what used to surround Castle Vila as the spirit of Bolivar reached forward to touch his stomach. The mere contact with the undead felt like a hammer blow. Roeland's knees shook, and he did his best to steady himself.
"Goldmoon will find me when I want her to."
"She'll stop you."
Gair shook his head.
Nothing can stop the master. It was the elder Graymist, the wraith crouched over the downed knight, poking a jagged black claw into his ear.
"Call off your creature!" Roeland barked. "Take me, Gair. We were friends. Take me and let the knight go. He's not dead yet, but they'll kill him if you don't stop them."
More powerful in death, the wraiths chanted in unison.
"He is in such pain," Gair said, forcing his voice to sound compassionate. "They will kill him, Roeland. It's just a matter of how soon. I can have them end his misery now."
"Do it!"
"Ah, that requires a little cooperation on your part. Tell me about Goldmoon. What is she doing now? You said she'd find me. How? How hard will she look?"
Roeland vigorously shook his head. "I'll tell you nothing!"
The elder Graymist had his claw all the way into the downed knight's ear. The wraith was saying something, but its whispery words were drowned out by the man's screams.
"Look at the pain he is in, Roeland! Look what you are allowing him to endure. Squirming so. Very unbecoming for a knight. Camilla will not squirm."
Gair's father chose that moment to thrust his thumbs into the knight's eyes.
Roeland fell to his knees, sobbing, pulling his gaze away from the knight and the malicious wraith. "Gair, please…"
"Tell me about Goldmoon."
The big man's shoulders shook. "No."
The knight was whimpering now, no longer having the energy to scream. He lay still, only his hands and feet twitching.
"Tell me."
"No!"
Gair nodded, and his father and the other wraiths fell on the knight, insubstantial claws reaching through the armor to tear at the flesh the way a rabid animal might tear apart its prey. The knight was dead long before they stopped their rending.
The elf moved closer, being careful not to step in the blood and soil the soles of his boots. "Your turn, Roeland," he pronounced. "Tell me what I want to know, and your death will be swift. I'll even let your spirit rest. I'll not turn you into one of my minions."
Roeland's voice froze. Whatever words he was trying to say came out as a string of unintelligible gibberish.
"Come now, my friend." Gair knelt in front of him, took the club from his quivering hands. "I admired you. I venture to say I even considered you a friend once. I'll give you the grace of staying dead."
More powerful in death, the wraiths chanted.
"I'll let your spirit wander about the misty realm beyond the doorway. Maybe you'll even meet Riverwind, Goldmoon's dead husband."
Sweet death.
Roeland numbly shook his head.
"Just a little information. That's all."
His lips moved, but no sound came out.
"I can get it from you after you're dead, you know, but the words will not sound so pretty, your voice not so deep. Maybe the knights know, but you are one of Goldmoon's students. Were, that is. You would have more information than they. Cooperate, Roeland."
"Go to hell." The former miller drew on the last of his courage and found his voice. "Go to hell!"
"Father…"
The elder Graymist was a shadow on the ground, moving slowly and inexorably toward the elf and Roeland.
"Roeland… one last chance."
"Roeland…" Goldmoon pictured a doorway in her mind, the one she had seen when she first became aware of Riverwind's spirit. There was darkness beyond the doorway, a black sky cut through here and there by wisps of fog.
Riverwind floated beyond the doorway in the fog, looking tall and handsome and young, as she remembered him from their first meeting. She probed further, seeing other people, some she vaguely recalled from her youth-great-grandparents, nameless aunts, her parents' friends. Goldmoon inhaled sharply. They looked so real, yet when she glanced away, out of the corner of her mind's eye, they looked as insubstantial as ghosts, as if they were part of the mist. They are ghosts, she reminded herself. It was the first time she had tried to contact someone other than Riverwind.
Her mind stretched out, picturing Roeland Stark. Of the men she'd sent with Camilla's knights looking for Gair, she was closest to him. She prayed to the spirit of Mishakal that she would not find him here.
"Roeland…"
Roeland screamed as the elder Graymist drew a claw from his sternum to his waist. Roeland's coat and tunic fell from him like a peel of a fruit. A second slash cut the skin beneath. A line of red formed, and blood started dripping on the snow.
Gair moved back a bit, not wanting his garments soiled.
"Roeland. It's only a little information I'm looking for. I want to know what Goldmoon's intentions are toward me. Will she leave me be? Does she intend to send more searchers? Will she come for me herself? Does she talk about me? The Silver Stair… does she climb it often? Does she pull power from it as I do? Or… perhaps she does not know that she can."
Roeland spat at the elf. "She'll stop you! She'll-" His words ended in a high-pitched scream as the elder Graymist reached into his chest and squeezed his heart. The man slumped forward, dead.
"Father, I was not finished. I wanted to talk to him a little more."
More powerful in death. His father's whispery voice was sonorous.
More powerful in death, the other wraiths joined in.
Speak to him in death, Darkhunter suggested.
Gair made a tsk-tsk sound and stared down at the broken form of Roeland Stark. "I've no choice but to talk to him in death now," he replied.
The man's voice would not be so interesting to listen to. Roeland had possessed a rich voice, and in life his laughter sounded like a pleasant song. In death, it would be raspy and sound only like a harsh whisper. All the wraiths sounded the same to Gair. The elf circled the body, finding a spot to stand next to it where the blood hadn't seeped out to tint the snow.
Nearby, the wraiths tugged the other bodies away from the ruins of Castle Vila. The elf knew they would play with the flesh a little while before Gair raised the dead men's spirits.
"Roeland." Gair knelt, almost reverently. He closed his eyes and imagined the doorway. The door was never closed anymore. He'd shattered it with a thought. The elf's mind moved easily now between the world of the living and the dead. He fancied himself a part of both realms, and soon he would be master of both.