“I see a valley where no one lives, No cities, no crops, no herds. It’s completely empty, yet defended against all corners. Who is defending it?”
“The ghosts of its long-ago inhabitants.”
“I don’t think so.” She eyed a towering, hourglass-shaped block of white quartz ahead. “There are at least two stories here. First are the ghosts, the tunnels, and the giant stones. They’re connected to each other somehow.”
Her expedition had found the tunnels after accidentally upending a monolith. Beneath it was an entrance to the underground passageways. And the ghosts seemed to enter and leave the tunnels at will.
“But I believe the will-o’-the-wisps are different,” she added.
When similar lights had claimed Kerian on the battlefield outside Khuri-Khan, she thought she was destined for oblivion, like the warriors who’d vanished during her initial trip to the valley, instead, she found herself dumped into the loathsome Nalis Aren, the Lake of Death, in Qualinesti. her adventures with Porthios, Alhana, and the griffons followed. Why the lights had transported her away from Khur remained a mystery but she’d decided they were different from the lights here. InatbWakenti’s will.oth wisps flew meandering, irregular courses, drifting and dawdling until their target was lulled into a false sense of safety. The lights that had kidnapped her were larger, faster, seemingly more direct of purpose. Their source, she felt, was different from whatever drove the valley lights.
“They are attracted to living creatures,” she reasoned. “Over the centuries, they’ve eliminated every living animal from this valley, right down to the flies and fleas.”
“What does that suggest?”
“They’re guarding the valley-not only to keep people out, but to keep the residents in.”
Gilthas nodded slowly. “The inhabitants of the valley were not intended to have contact with outsiders. I imagine they never did. One by one they died, as we all die, and their spirits haunt the land. They don’t present a threat like the lights. If we could find a way to persuade the will-o’-the-wisp to leave us alone, we’d be a long way toward making this place home.”
“Maybe you can talk to them,” Kerian said dryly.
Whatever he intended to say was swallowed up by a furious bout of coughing. So wracked was he by the spasm, Kerian ordered his chair lowered and the healer summoned. Truthanar brought more of his palliative drink, but Gilthas could swallow very little.
“Great Speaker, you must rest!” Truthanar declared. “If you continue on like this, I will not be responsible for the consequences.
Gilthas’s answer was some time coming, but at last the coughing subsided and he wheezed, “I’m in a chair already. How more rested must The?”
Blood oozed from his nose. Kerian, kneeling at his side, carefully wiped it away with her fingers.
“Sire, you must lie in a warm bed and sleep,” Truthanar insisted.
“Soon, noble healer. Soon.”
Kerian followed Truthanar as he returned to his place in the milling throng. “Tell me plainly,” she said in a low voice. “What is his condition?”
The aged Silvanesti was blunt. “He is burning his candle at both ends, lady. Even if he took to a bed right now and kept warm and quiet, his life still would be measured in months.”
She had known her husband’s health was bad, but hearing the prognosis aloud was still a shock. Returning to the palanquin, she found Gilthas had succumbed to the medicine and was slumped in the chair, sleeping, chin on his chest. The cup had fallen from his slack fingers. Kerian picked it up and handed it to one of the Speaker’s aides.
“Follow the scouts,” she told the bearers, gesturing at Taranath and the cavalry. The bearers lifted the chair and resumed walking. They were not the same four who had carried the palanquin at the beginning of the journey. Every hour or so, a new quartet replaced those carrying the chair. It had required Kerian’s intervention to put such a rotation in place. The bearers were volunteers, and none wanted to give up his or her place. If Kerian hadn’t insisted, they would have carried on until exhaustion dropped them in their tracks.
When the palanquin resumed its progress, the crowd of elves behind it picked themselves up too and continued their steady tramp toward the center of the valley. None knew what, if anything, might be there, but it was the Speaker’s will they go, and for him, they would walk into the Abyss.
While Gilthas slept, Kerian decided to reconnoiter ahead. She whistled loudly and Eagle Eye, circling above her, landed a few yards away. She swung into the flat saddle and urged the griffon aloft Kanan followed them but a sharp scream from Eagle Eye sent the younger beast back.
They flew northeast, just above the low trees. The late- morning sun was in their eyes, and their combined shadows chased behind. The cavalry waved as griffon and rider flashed over them. Kerian easily picked out their leader, although he wore nothing to set him apart. Taranath was out in front, as usual.
The mountains ringing Inath-Wakenti were high and very rugged. Shreds of cloud drifted over their peaks, pushed by an east wind. The air was warmer aloft than on the ground. One of Inath-Wakenti many oddities was the chill of its soil. The elves quickly learned the ground drew off the heat of their bodies, so they slept on padding made of whatever was at hand-blankets, spare clothing, pine boughs. Fires died quickly too, and the embers went cold faster than normal. Cruising five hundred feet over Inath-Wakenti, Kerian was warm for the first time in days.
White monoliths crouched among the low trees or towered impudently above them. There still seemed no rhyme or reason to their placement. Favaronas had told her the stones were not native to the valley, so they must have had been hauled in for a purpose. What weird, useless purpose she could not imagine.
The farther she flew, the more numerous the monoliths became. At last night’s campsite, the sarsens had been ten to twenty yards apart. Now, only a handful of yards separated them. The stunted trees thinned, then ended. Abruptly the ground below Eagle Eye’s driving wings was solid white, like a plain of snow. The griffon reared back, hovering, startled by the blinding reflection of sunlight from the enormous field of dressed white stone.
Kerian turned the griffon’s head and they flew along the edge of the pavement. It was perfectly circular, at least a mile in diameter, and from this height, featureless. Grass and weeds grew up to its edge, but as with all the other stone structures, nothing encroached on the pristine surface. The assemblage of monoliths stopped thirty yards or so from its edge, leaving clear ground in between. Judging by the position of the mountains and the distance the elves had come, Kerian realized she must be looking at the center point of Inath-Wakenti.
Her circumnavigation of the enormous disk complete, she steered Eagle Eye toward the center. He balked, tossing his head and fighting the reins. She couldn’t blame him. A wave of cold air rose from the pavement and hit the soles of her shoes. When she let the griffon have his head, he flapped hard to get back outside the perimeter of the stone pavement. She had him land a few yards from its edge. He lay down facing away from the circular slab, and she proceeded on foot.
The pavement was knee high, its edge cut square, but worn by the elements. Although white like the monoliths, it wasn’t made of snowy quartz, but a denser rock. A series of tremendous pie-shaped wedges had been neatly joined to form the mile-wide disk. Gingerly she climbed onto the platform. The flow of cold air she’d felt aloft was discernible at ground level too. Air temperature atop the platform was noticeably colder than the usual chilly feel of the valley.
On closer inspection, the stone wasn’t unmarked after all. The surface was covered with carved lines. Weathering had softened them, but their intricate patterns of curlicues and flowing curves was still visible.
Her journey to the center of the platform took a while, and the farther she went, the more isolated she felt. The mass of featureless, flat stone seemed to steal her sense of direction and distance. When she checked her position relative to her sleeping griffon, she realized she’d been walking in a circle. She sought one of the radial joints between the wedge-shaped slabs and used it as a guide to the center.
Sounds of whispering came to her ears, and she stopped immediately. In a silent land infested with ghosts, every noise was significant. Unfortunately, the sounds were too faint for her to understand, so she resumed her trek.
The center of the great disk was marked by nothing more than the simple confluence of all the joints, but as she drew near it, the voices became louder and more distinct. She kept going but slowly, turning her head left and right, alert for she knew not what. When her foot touched the center point, the voices instantly became comprehensible. They were nothing more than mundane conversations-about fresh water, clean clothing, the health
