purpose.
Chaladar yelled, 'Teldin! Look!'
He wavered on unsteady legs.
The room slowly filled with a green mist, emanating from the jagged hole under the door. Where the mist touched the undead rats, they began jerking spasmodically, violently. Their angry eyes, glowing with unnatural white light, slowly changed, burned with green fire, and their mouths were flecked with bloody spittle. They squealed as the mist entered them and burned its way through their rotted bodies, until their eyeballs sank inside their heads and the mist curled from their empty eye sockets.
In minutes, the floor was littered with the bodies of truly dead rats, layered over with a carpet of swirling green mist.
CassaRoc and Chaladar jumped off the bar. Rat corpses crunched under their weight. They helped Teldin up to the bar, where he could sit away from the vermin. 'You need attention,' CassaRoc said. 'You are bleeding like mad.'
'The Guild tower,' Chaladar said. 'Leoster can take care of you there.'
Teldin looked beyond them and said simply, 'Wait.'
The green light from the corridor brightened, then the doorway seemed to glow, filled with emerald light, and inside the light was the dim shape of a woman.
'Do you see that?' CassaRoc said.
Chaladar nodded.
'Good,' CassaRoc said.
She passed through the door and stopped. The green energies that had destroyed the undead rats faded away, and her form was enveloped in a soft, golden glow that radiated a feeling of peace.
Teldin said, 'It- it's Gaye.'
Gaeadrelle Goldring floated directly to Teldin and smiled. His expression was one of shock- gape-mouthed, wide-eyed shock. She could tell he had never expected this.
'Gaye? Are you real?'
He reached out, and her energies fluttered with warmth on his fingertips. 'It was you,' he understood then. 'It wasn't a dream I had. But how? How are you doing this?'
Gaeadrelle Goldring's lips moved. Although her words were inaudible, her voice echoed within all their minds.
The Fool wants you dead, Teldin. I have stopped him for now, but it is only temporary. The undead will do his bidding. Follow the woven heart. Do not hesitate any longer.
Gaye seemed to sigh, flickering like a dying torch. Teldin reached out for her, but his hand passed harmlessly through the gold mist.
'How did you come here?' he said.
Teldin, I do this for you. Listen to me. I must go now. I am weary and must rest. Her voice became loud in his head. Follow the woven heart. Your'destiny must be fulfilled, and the Fool must be destroyed.
She started to fade, then her eyes widened, as though she had seen something invisible to all others. Teldin, you must beware. Others seek your… She faltered, then her form faded from view. Her last words were a whisper inside his mind. You are a target… of the bushi..
Then she was gone.
Blood seeped through Teldin's torn clothes, over his skin. The cloak was pure and untouched. The blood seemed to bead off it, as though magically repelled.
CassaRoc cleared a path through the rats bodies, kicking them away. Blood was smeared thickly over his boots. He jerked aside the door and shouted into the corridor. 'Come on, now! We've got to get this place cleaned up!' Then he looked around and shook his head. To the Cloakmaster he said, 'This is bad business, Teldin. Bad business.'
Teldin nodded. His cloak hung heavy across his shoulders. He felt perhaps more tired, more exhausted, than he had ever felt before.
CassaRoc's men stopped in the doorway and craned their necks to look in. No one really wanted to come in and wade ankle-deep in rat carcasses, but after CassaRoc explained to them the attack on Teldin, they were more than willing to haul HarKenn to his quarters. A healer was called for the guard and for Teldin, and other warriors went to get shovels and barrels from the basement, in order to dispose of the rat carcasses. Emil even came up and inspected the room on his own. 'I'll get the mops,' he said happily.
After most of the warriors had charged off, Chaladar excused himself. 'I must check on the Chalice tower,' the grand knight said to CassaRoc. 'His wounds are more numerous than I thought. I'll send Leoster over again, in case he is needed. In the meantime, I suggest you double your guards on duty.'
CassaRoc agreed, and, as the paladin left, he shouted up the tower for his healer. In a few moments, a priestess known as J'Kai stepped carefully into the room and examined Teldin. She took him behind the bar and bathed his wounds with fresh water.
First she dried his wounds, then took a jar of white lotion from a pouch at her waist and lathered the medicine into the bites. 'I count almost a hundred wounds,' she said, then she told him not to move very much. 'Leoster will be here soon. This will take care of superficial infections, but this is the work of the undead. Leoster will be better able to heal you than I.'
Teldin thanked her and drew his cloak around him. His wounds felt hot and stinging-purified, in a way, he thought- but he felt as though more than blood had been drained from him from today's events.
CassaRoc's warriors filed in then, bearing implements to clear the room of the dead vermin. Another of his guards ran in, spied CassaRoc helping with the clean-up, and spoke with him for a few minutes.
CassaRoc came over to Teldin as the guard hurriedly left. 'It doesn't seem like it's going to stop,' he said.
Teldin was too tired to talk. CassaRoc said simply, 'Our allies are itching to get into battle with the neogi. With the attacks organized by the beholders and their allies, our alliance thinks the time is right, when the neogi forces are weakened.' He paused. 'If they don't hear from us soon, they'll start without us.'
Teldin almost wanted to laugh. 'The beholders. Our allies realize, don't they, that we'll have the beholders to battle after we defeat the neogi.'
CassaRoc shrugged. 'Not everyone is known for using their brains in the heat of battle.'
CassaRoc and Teldin started when they heard shouts echoing from the level above. 'What now?' CassaRoc said.
CassaRoc stepped into the corridor and started for the stairs, when a guard almost rushed into him in his flight down the stairs. The guard gasped for breath. 'CassaRoc, we don't know how it happened.'
'How what happened?'
The warrior shook his head in regret. 'Somehow, they overpowered Hath. They have the lady Cwelanas.'
CassaRoc turned in the doorway, but Teldin had overheard and had already jumped from his seat at the bar. The three of them ran up the stairs, three steps at a time. Teldin felt as though he were surging with energy, and all he could imagine was Cwelanas's sleeping face.
The inside of Cwelanas's room was dark and smelled strangely of the secret potions of the mage Leoster. In Cwelanas's place, the guard, Hath, lay quietly on the bed, staring at the ceiling with blank eyes.
Teldin scanned the room, then stood above the guard for a moment before speaking.
'Hath, what happened here?'
The man neither heard nor saw him. His eyes stayed at some invisible vista, seen only by him. His face was blank and gaunt, and his white eyes seemed as though they would burst from his head.
Teldin bent down and gripped the man's shoulders. He was filled with anger, with worry over the fate of Cwelanas. He placed his face in plain sight before Hath's eyes. 'Hath, we have to know. What happened here?'
Teldin's shape eclipsed the light from the corridor. The guard's eyes blinked once, then slowly swiveled to look Teldin in the eyes. 'C–Cloakmaster?'
Teldin nodded. 'Yes, yes, it's- '
Then the guard's eyes rolled up to expose only the whites.
