an open hole on a dark night. It was not only a cloak of secrecy, there was a genuine void around him I could not fathom. All I could discover was that he is very old, he came to Khur from Silvanesti, and he has no loyalty to anyone but himself.”
She pushed her teacup aside. The meal had restored some healthy color to her face. “I believe he was a prisoner I in Silvanesti. His ship arrived from Kurinost, on the north coast, the location of a large prison. Many of the refugees on the ship were convicts. In the confusion caused by the minotaur conquest, I believe a contingent of prisoners escaped from the Speaker’s prison, seized a boat, and made it far as Khur.”
“With a viper in their midst.”
“Exactly.”
Gilthas knew the fortress at Kurinost. It was a large keep, erected on a solid granite pinnacle four hundred feet high. On three sides were sheer cliffs down to the sea. The fortress was connected to the mainland by a single causeway easily controlled by a standing patrol of griffon riders. There was virtually no petty crime in Silvanesti and those banished were not ordinary criminals, but dissidents, subversives, and it appeared, one rogue sorcerer. They were held without trial, often for decades.
“I pray to my goddess your hunting party finds him,” she said. “There is power here no mortal should possess. If Faeterus achieves it, we may all be lost-humans,
With that, the repast was done. Both of them were too exhausted to maintain polite conversation. Sa’ida asked permission to retire, and Gilthas granted it.
The remains of the dinner were cleared away. Every scrap and crumb was carefully conserved for another meal.
Varanas arrived, he and his fellow scribes ready to take the Speaker’s dictation, but Gilthas waved them away, declaring himself too weary. When Hamaramis came to report that the enchanted water had been distributed around the camp, he found the Speaker in bed, but the news he brought was welcome. Although many will-o’-the- wisps drifted outside the invisible barrier, none had penetrated.
“And our friends, the ghosts?” Gilthas asked.
“They are there, Great Speaker, as always. They watch but they do not advance.”
“Good.” The word came out on an exhale as the Speaker’s eyelids closed.
Hamaramis departed with a noticeably lighter step. Dining with the human cleric, the Speaker had eaten his first meal of any size in two weeks.
Twenty mounted elves galloped through the night. They were patrolling several miles south of camp, keeping watch for threats as well as any possible provender. As midnight approached, they spotted glimmers of light in a particularly thick stand of monoliths. A host of will-o’-the-wisps emerged in a long line, flying with unusual swiftness toward the warriors.
The elves were carrying two small pots of water blessed by Sa’ida. The warriors formed a circle, facing outward. The two riders carrying the water pots positioned themselves on opposite sides of the circle. One was the commander of the patrol. He balanced the rough clay vessel on the pommel of his saddle. The lights swept in, and he held his warriors steady, counting the will-o’-the-wisps as they came: twenty. Exactly twenty lights and twenty elves. No two globes were the same color. Many were in some shade of white or gold, but greens, blues, and reds were sprinkled through the pack.
The lights formed a ring around the warriors. Horses and riders shifted nervously as the silent sentinels flashed by.
“Stand ready,” the commander said.
He dipped a makeshift brush in the water. His first attempt missed, but on the second try, he doused a brilliant green orb as it passed his horse’s nose. The effect was instantaneous. The ball of light emitted a shower of sparks. Its color changed to dark red, like a campfire ember about to go out. Falling slowly, the will-o’-the-wisp hit the ground, rolled a short way, and vanished.
The patrol cheered. At the commander’s back, his second- in-command showered their tormentors with Sa’ida’s special libation. A golden globe fell out of formation, sputtering and sparking, and disappeared.
Three more were dispatched, and their loss seemed to confuse the rest. They darted higher in the air and collided with each other in sudden flares of colored light. Commander and second stood in their stirrups and flourished their brushes at the wayward lights. Four more died, and the others gave up. They darted away like minnows fleeing a pebble dropped in their pool, retreating behind a line of standing stones where they remained, pulsating rapidly.
The elves were elated. For the first time, they had defeated the will-o’-the-wisps. Many of them had known elves who served in the Lioness’s first expedition and who died silent, lonely deaths in the tunnels because of the bobbing lights. They were finally getting their own back.
Their commander wasn’t satisfied with leaving the lights cowering behind monoliths. He wanted to destroy them. He and his second each had half a pot of water remaining, and he intended to continue the fight. Ordering the rest of the patrol to remain at a safe distance, the two rode slowly toward the monoliths. Strange business, two veteran fighters stalking their enemy with nothing more lethal than a few cups of water and a pair of straw brushes. But there was no arguing with the efficacy of the human priestess’s preparation.
The elves veered apart, one passing on each side of a slender standing stone. The will-o’-the-wisps were clustered together, flying in tight circles. They were as far from the elves as they could get within the cluster of stones-only six feet away, the easiest of targets. The commander smiled grimly. What was the kender phrase? “Pickings easy as a one-eyed shopkeeper.”
He stood in his stirrups and flung drops at the mass of lights. Five or six immediately flashed out of existence. The rest reacted strangely. Instead of a last, blind charge at their tormentors, they swarmed even more tightly together and dived at the ground. With a loud crash like the fall of heavy stones, the lights bored into the soil. An aura shone briefly from the hole they’d made, then all was dark once more.
Commander and second exchanged an astonished look. They rode forward and the second dismounted to inspect the hole. Four feet wide, it bored straight down through the layers of blue-green soil. The sides were hot to the touch and smooth, but cool, stale air wafted from the hole. Evidently the lights had breached one of the many tunnels.
The warrior lying on the ground by the hole called a whimsical greeting. “Anybody there?”
“Yes! Keep calling! I am coming!”
The elf recoiled sharply and jumped to his feet. His commander set him to shouting into the hole then summoned the rest of the patrol. They all crowded into the grove of white stones, weapons bared. The unknown person in the tunnel drew near the opening and shouted his relief at being found. The commander demanded his identity.
“My name is Robien. I’m a Kagonesti bounty hunter. I met your General Taranath some days ago. He can vouch for me.”
They hauled him out, and he offered heartfelt thanks. The tale he told was a strange one-picked up bodily by the valley’s ghosts and tossed, weapons and all, down below..Just before he heard the warrior calling, the fleeing orbs had flown straight down the tunnel at him.
“I thought I was doomed! But they passed right through me, harmless as sunlight,” Robien finished.
The commander described his patrol’s defeat of the guardian lights and the lights’ desperate method of escape.
Robien accepted a skin of water from the riders but not their offer of a ride. His deadly encounters hadn’t dissuaded him from his original mission, the capture of the sorcerer Faeterus. He settled a pair of yellow-tinted spectacles on his nose.
“Give my regards to General Taranath,” he said and jogged away.
The warriors sat staring at each other for several seconds. If not for the hole in the ground, the entire affair would have seemed a collective illusion. One of the warriors, a soldier from western Qualinesti, had heard of Robien the Tireless. Kagonesti by birth, the bounty hunter had lived nearly his whole life among humans, which accounted for his foreign accent and odd appearance. It was said that in all his career, he had never failed to get his quarry. Some he did not return alive, but none ever escaped.
