He saw other spirits hovering in the wispy realm, some of their visages repulsed by him, some horrified, some pleading, wanting to be given some semblance of life again.
"Roeland," he repeated. He glanced at the body, used the man's club to turn it over so he could gaze at the face. The man's eyes were open, the mouth open as well in a final scream. Gair pictured them closed and serene. Handsome. "Roeland."
Mist always pervaded the realm of the dead. Roeland formed out of part of that mist, transparent at first, then gaining substance and color. He looked like a miller again, wearing the trappings of a merchant, as he had the day Gair met him.
The elf stretched out a hand as if to shake Roeland's in a simple greeting, but the image of the miller tried to retreat. Gair shook his head and stoked the heat in his chest, sent the warmth from his heart into his arms and fingers, pictured his fingers glowing red like Darkhunter's bright eyes. A magnet, his fingers began pulling Roeland to him, closer to the shattered doorway. The elf began uttering a string of words, fragments of part of an ancient spell that Darkhunter taught him, old magic he had corrupted and coupled with Goldmoon's enchantment that required no words. Que-Nal and elven words mixed, powerful words that would not permit the spirit of the miller to flee.
"Roeland…" Gair beckoned.
"Roeland…" Please do not be here, Goldmoon pleaded silently. Please be alive and whole, be on your way back to the settlement with Gair in tow.
"Roeland… gods!"
He was there, in the misty other-realm, looking as he had the day he first strolled into her camp. On the young side of middle age, jaw firmly set, eyes filled with curiosity. He'd come to meet her, as he'd been brought up on stories about her and the other Heroes of the Lance. She was a hero on a pedestal to him, and he wanted to see her in person, to shake the hand of a legend.
Goldmoon had been cordial to him, had welcomed him as she had the others who'd journeyed that day from the port town of Schallsea. She shook his hand and said she was pleased to meet him. She had meant it, and his heart skipped a beat. A hero in the flesh.
She showed him around the settlement, told him about the plans for the citadel, about giving Krynn hope. She made it clear that this was all about helping people and restoring a sense of purpose in a dragon-devastated world. Roeland wanted to be part of that. He wanted to be something more than a miller, and he badly wanted to make a difference in the world.
Goldmoon. His eyes took on a sadness, and a lone tear fell shimmering from his eye, disappearing into the mist. Where am I?
She was instantly puzzled. Where was he? Didn't he understand?
He does not know, Riverwind told her. His spirit just arrived.
Her face grew ashen. Just died? She watched the mist swirl around him, heard dozens of voices in many languages, all of them speaking words of welcome and explanation, flooding her senses.
She watched his handsome face grow stern, as if he were instantly filled with a purpose and understanding. I am dead, aren't I, he said. It was a statement, not a question.
She nodded, a tear edging down her cheek. "Gair?"
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.