by Jean Rabe
The creatures hurriedly gathered clothes and weapons—belaying pins, swords, daggers, and anything else that might prove useful—as they lumbered toward the longboats. Eight occupied the first longboat, which was quickly lowered into the water and was propelled away from the ship by a swelling wave. R'vagho scampered into the crowded second boat just as the brute joined him and sliced through the ropes that held it to the cog.
Wave after wave threatened to overturn the tiny longboat. There was no food left in R'vagho's stomach, but the nausea persisted and burgeoned. His head pounded in time with his heart, and he tried to occupy himself by levering a dagger into the fastenings of his manacles. Others copied him, with varying degrees of success, as the brute continued to howl in victory.
The storm broke shortly before dawn. In an impossibly short time, the sea was like blue glass, mirroring the sky and hiding the evidence of its recent fury. There was no sign of the other longboat or the crippled cog. There was no sign of anything but sky and water.
For days the creatures drifted, seeing no other ship and no other life other than an occasional seagull. Their bellies grumbling loudly for food, their skin blistering and cracking from the pitiless sun, they drank what little rain fell into the bottom of the boat and hungrily eyed the smallest among them who could put up little fight against the brute's claws. After several days of incredible suffering, they spotted land to the south. They awkwardly headed toward it, not knowing how to use the oars in concert, but they lost sight of the shore as darkness fell. In the morning, they spotted land again—closer, but still miles away, and the current seemed to be sweeping them beyond it. The brute stood on the narrow longboat seat and stared longingly at the land. He growled softly, then dived over the side and started swimming toward the distant land. One by one, the other creatures followed.
Swimming such a distance was a daunting task at best, but it was made worse by the chill fall air and the cold water. It took them the better part of a day—those who survived—to reach land. The sun was starting to set by the time they pulled themselves up onto the beach. The sand was coarse, and the air that coursed over their tired, aching bodies nipped cruelly at them. Trees beckoned several yards away, green pines and maples that sported a riot of color made more intense by the last of the sun's rays.
The brute crawled toward the pines, nose quivering in search of food, legs moving sluggishly and begging for rest. The others trailed behind him, their limbs like lead from the cold water and the long swim. They plodded slowly but relentlessly, deeper into the forested grove. As they traveled, the woods darkened around them with the gathering shadows of twilight. The mature trees cut the brunt of the wind and hid all trace of the accursed sea. The brute leaned against a thick trunk and grunted as he caught his breath. His nose continued to quiver, bringing a myriad of scents to him—the headiness of the loam, a trace of game. He took another deep breath and gestured with a shaggy arm, staggering forward, the rest of the creatures shuffling after him.
The stars were out by the time they neared a clearing, and he motioned for them to stop. A small herd of deer was grazing beyond the thinning line of trees. The brute crouched as the others moved closer, their jaws slavering with the prospect of food. They crept around the bushes and toward the edge of the clearing and the oblivious deer, crept silently… and froze. The wind rustled the branches, revealing something near the deer, a thin, glowing construction that twisted upward from the ground, climbed into the wispy clouds far overhead, and disappeared from view. Nothing supported it, and it reeked of magic. Unnerved, the hairs raising on the backs of the creatures' necks, they plunged headlong away from the clearing and deeper into another section of the woods, not stopping until they were far out of sight of the unnatural thing.
2
The Celestial Ladder
"These insects! For each one I swat, a hundred arrive to take revenge!"
The dwarf chuckled at his companion as he tromped clumsily through a tangle of tall grass. "So what d'ya expect, Gair? It's summer, an' we're in the woods, miles and miles from any city or village or anythin' else for that matter. Out in the middle of nowhere. "Sides, I'd think you'd like it."
"Like insects?"
"The woods. Elves're supposed to like the woods, ain't they?" The dwarf's voice was deep and craggy, but not unpleasant. He paused and pretended to tug thoughtfully at his short russet beard before he repeated a little louder, "Well, ain't they?"
"And dwarves are supposed to like the mountains, or so I've heard. There's not a single mountain on this island." Despite his gruffness, the elf's words sounded silky and musical and soft, like the faint rustling of the leaves.
"Ah, by Reorx's beard, I do like the mountains, but the woods are just fine."
The elf sighed and batted futilely at a swarm of gnats wreathing his head. "I like the woods 'just fine,' too, Jasper, when there is enough of a breeze to keep the insects—and this appalling heat—at bay, that is. It's hours after sunset, and it's still insufferably hot. My clothes are drenched with sweat."
The dwarf chuckled again and resumed his tromping. "We could stop for the night. Tired?"
"No." The elf grimaced as he flicked a large shiny beetle off his shirt. "We might be close, if we're not lost."
"Close? Do you really think so?" There was hope in the craggy voice.
"No. I believe we are lost."
"Gair, I think you just like to complain."
The pair presented a sharp contrast. The dwarf was thickset and ruddy complected, looking a bit like a tree stump bedecked in an age-worn ginger-colored shirt with sleeves pushed up past his elbows and bright green pants that were stuffed into the tops of faded leather boots. He had brawny limbs and stubby fingers that flitted playfully across the array of ferns that spread alongside the overgrown path. His hair was uncharacteristically short for one of his race, and his blue eyes, from which the hint of a few smile lines sprouted, sparkled mischievously. His face was broad and careworn, his nose slightly bulbous and a little offcenter. His wide teeth were even, practically perfect, and as he grinned they glimmered like polished pearls in the light of the full moon that cut through gaps in the canopy.
"I don't complain, my dwarven friend, not at all. As a matter of…" The elf frowned and mumbled a string of foreign-sounding curse words as a thorny branch snagged his voluminous sleeve. "I was only making conversation," he added more softly.
"An' you don't argue, either, do you, Gair?" The dwarf sniggered, half under his breath. "An' I bet you really don't like the woods. All you like are books and magic."
Gair was tall for an elf at nearly six feet. He had to duck frequently to keep from getting smacked by lowhanging tree branches that the dwarf easily passed under. His eyes looked black-shiny—like wet stones— nearly matching the shade of his impeccably pressed and recently purchased trousers and shirt. Were the light better, however, his eyes would show themselves to be a rich shade of purple flecked with bits of gold. There were muscles rippling in his lithe frame, a hidden strength, and he carried himself gracefully, like a dancer, despite the large pack on his back. His skin was pale, a scholar's complexion, and his face was slightly gaunt, yet handsome, his expression serious. His hair was shiny silver-white like the moon, and as he walked, it fluttered back from his firmly set jaw and teased his narrow shoulders.
"Jasper, to be honest, I've just never enjoyed the Raging Fire all that much, or all these insects that come with it. It's just too hot to do much of anything. Too hot to think. Too hot to… it's just too hot."
Raging Fire was a plainsman term for the warmest month of the summer. The elf and the dwarf found themselves in the heart of an especially sweltering evening.
"I've never minded the Raging Fire—the Dry Heat." The latter was the dwarven term for the same month.
"You don't mind anything."
"Ah, Gair, the key is not to mind it but to appreciate it." The dwarf watched the elf nimbly avoid an exposed sweet bay root while he struggled to tug his own b
oot free of it. "Just look for somethin' enjoyable—the sounds of the crickets, the song of the owls, the feel of the new leaves beneath your fingertips. Mmm… the heat of the summer against your skin. All the things you don't care for just run right off your shoulder like rainwater, forgotten."
The elf sighed again. "At least it quit raining."
The pair lapsed into silence and continued down the twisting path, allowing their keen vision to separate the shadows so they could find their way through the dark woods. An owl hooted, long and soft, its call muted by distance. Closer, a hawk cried shrilly to its mate. A startled whippoorwill took flight, its wings beating against the leaves as it climbed and sending a cloud of finches rising and chittering in its wake. Around the elf and the dwarf, a symphony of crickets and frogs swelled, stopping for only an instant when Jasper stepped on a fallen branch, snapping it loudly beneath his heavy foot.
It had rained briefly earlier in the day. The moisture had long since burned off the foliage in the late afternoon sun, leaving the ground smelling rich and sweet. There were few spots where something wasn't growing on the forest floor—mushrooms, moss, creeper vines, a variety of grasses, wildflowers that gave off a faint, fragrant scent, and trees and more trees. The rising moon revealed an amazing diversity of the latter—junipers, willows, flowering pears, shaggybarks, hardwoods, nut trees, ginkgoes, poplars, wild cherries that had given up their fruit months ago, cedars, and some broad-leafed trees that were somehow hardy enough to handle the island's winters. When Krynn was much younger and colder, floes of ice pushed seeds from the far north and the far south to this place, resulting in the present remarkable mix of trees and plants. The Cataclysm further altered the land, crushing the spiraling mountains that once formed a jagged spine down the middle of the island, leaving instead gently sloping hills—and inadvertently giving the foliage more places to grow.
"Are you sure this is the right path?"
The dwarf nodded.
"Are you sure we didn't miss a fork somewhere?"
The dwarf nodded again and noted sadly that the crickets had stopped their serenade.
"Then we must be close. We should have caught up to her by now."
Jasper made a huffing sound. "She's got better'n two hours' start on us, Gair. Wanted a little time alone. Remember?"
"I never should have let her go." The elf waited for the dwarf to agree. Getting no response, he continued. "She's far from a young woman, Jasper Fireforge, and unless she turned off on another path to rest somewhere, we should have caught up to her by now."
Again no response.
"Maybe something happened to her. She could be lost, hurt. We should have talked her into searching in the morning."
"Can't find what she's lookin' for in the daylight."
"We should have—"
"Wouldn't've done any good."
"We could go back and retrace our steps, see if she—"
"Goldmoon can take care of herself, Gair. She's all right." The dwarf's voice was confident. Inwardly he worried a little.
Gair stopped on the path and ran a sweaty hand through his hair. The leaves of a willow teased the top of his head. "We should have followed right away, not waited. She's taking far too many chances for someone her age."
"And you take far too few," the dwarf whispered too softly for the elf to hear.
"She could have gone some other time. She's human. She can't see in the dark like we can. She…"
The dwarf made a clucking sound as he stepped in something squishy. He kept his eyes straight ahead, not wanting to discover what it was. "We're the students, Gair. She's the teacher. 'Sides, I've known her a little longer'n you, an' I know she can manage. She'll be all right, you'll see, an' we'll catch up soon enough." He huffed. "An' then I can get some sleep."
"I hope you're right, my friend, but I am not happy about this." His voice dropped to a whisper. "And I have the oddest sensation prickling at the back of my neck."
"Like we're bein' watched?" the dwarf asked in a hushed tone.
"Yes."
"I think someone's been watchin' us for quite some time."
Goldmoon picked her way through the woods, using a small lantern to guide her. The oil was burning low, so she tried to increase her pace, not wanting to be caught alone in complete darkness. The aging healer was tired, long decades and the heat of the Raging Fire had taken their toll. Her aching legs suggested she rest awhile, but her will was much stronger than her body, and she refused to give in. She'd come too far to stop now.
She inhaled, slowly and deeply, and ran her sleeve across her forehead to wipe away the sweat. "Beloved Riverwind, I remember when we shared many Raging Fires together. I miss those years desperately. The heat was tolerable with you at my side. Everything was somehow… better."
She continued along the overgrown path, seemingly talking to herself and musing about what brought her to Schallsea Island in the middle of the New Sea—a need to find a purpose for however many years she had left on the face of Krynn. Goldmoon wasn't convinced she would find the answer here, though something in her heart urged her to search here. If she didn't find what she was seeking, she would travel somewhere else, maybe back across the New Sea to Abanasinia and the Que-Shu tribes, her people, or perhaps far to the south, in the Plains of Dust. There were many mystical sites dotting that arid land, places where the magic of the gods was still rich and pulsing, where the Raging Fire would be even more intense. She was looking for just such a mystical site now.
"Where is it, my beloved?" Goldmoon had consulted a cartographer a few days ago in the island's small port town. She was on the correct path, she was certain of it, and she could sense that many others had traveled this way through past decades. Indeed, the cartographer had told her people from town still wandered out occasionally to take a look at the site, though almost always when the weather was more pleasant and always in respectable numbers to insure their safety. There were wild animals on the island, he said.
"Where? It can't be much farther."
Through gaps in the shaggybark branches, she saw the stars winking into view in a purple-black sky. Their light was mimicked by the fireflies that danced around her lantern. The constellations were far different now than they had been when her husband Riverwind was alive and at her side. That was a time when the gods still maintained a presence on Krynn and when magic came easily. After the gods left Krynn following the Chaos War, the stars changed, and the three familiar moons vanished. Now only one cold, pale moon hung in the sky, competing with the stars for her attention.
"I wish you were here to search with me, my beloved. I wish…" Her thoughts trailed off. The trees before her were thinning out, giving way to a clearing. The grass was tall and brittle-looking from the summer's heat, and the ferns that grew haphazardly amidst the grass were stunted. But something rose in the center, stretching taller than the oldest of trees. Goldmoon gasped, and the lantern slipped from her fingers.
"By the memory of Mishakal," she breathed. The healer stared wide-eyed, not daring to blink, her feet rooted to the spot. She was called a Hero of the Lance, had fought dragons in her youth, brought healing magic to Krynn, witnessed unbelievable wonders— things that common folk didn't even know to dream about, but all of those things paled beside this.
"It's… it's beautiful," she whispered after several moments. She could find no other word to describe it, yet beautiful seemed woefully inadequate.
Like a curling strand of hair, the stairway spun down from a faint, wispy cloud, glimmering like diamonds and shaming the stars. She stared in disbelief for several long minutes until her legs tingled from lack of movement. She held her breath, closed her eyes, and slowly opened them again. The stairs were still there.
Goldmoon risked a step forward, then another. She let her pack fall from her shoulders, followed by her cloak, not hearing either drop to the ground. Scarcely breathing, tentatively edging closer, she kept her eyes on the spiral. The steps shimmered faintly, inviting and hauntin
g and looking as insubstantial as strips of gossamer glimmering with some undefinable inner radiance. They twisted up until their light looked as pale as a slender moonbeam, disappearing into the wispy clouds far overhead.
"The Silver Stair," she whispered. "By the sacred memory of Mishakal, why did I wait so long to travel here?"
Her words were the only sound in the clearing. No insects chittered, and the faint breeze through her sweat-soaked graying hair scarcely rustled a blade of grass. She could hear her heart, the breath coming in and out of her lungs, the sounds as oppressive as the heat. Her chest felt tight, whether from fear or from awe or perhaps from both. Her fingers trembled as she moved closer to the construction, and she bit down on her lower lip until she tasted blood. She had not fallen asleep on the trail. She was not dreaming.
The light intensified as she came closer still, filling her vision as she moved to stand in front of the spiral. It glimmered like sun specks caught on the surface of a still sea, winked and sparkled and made her breath catch in her throat as she stared at the bottom step. The steps looked fragile, like the wings of a butterfly, and she could see through them to the ground beneath.
She bent over to touch the bottom step, half worried that it might burn her with its magic, half afraid that it would pop like a soap bubble. Her fingers tingled as they traced a pattern of shimmering lights, felt the magical energy that suffused the step and likely the entire staircase. Goldmoon couldn't discern what the stairway was made of—not enchanted wood or steel, certainly not glass. This was truly a mystery, a creation of the vanished gods. She laid her palm flat against it, reveling in the pulsing sensation, then pressed hard against it to be certain it would hold her weight.
The cartographer had told her that people came out here to look at the stairs, yet none within his memory had dared to climb it, though he admitted they might not have told him about it. She edged out of her sandals, feeling the coarse grass against the soles of her feet. She put one foot and then the other on the lowest step, steeling herself as the tingling energy pulsed against her skin and crept up her legs. She didn't want to miss even one sensation, and she feared that even the thin leather of her sandals might mute this experience.
