Dragons of a Lost Star

by Margaret Weis

  He would watch until he could stand it no more, then he would turn away, his own soul riven with pity and horror, only to be drawn back again.

  The dead could not enter the Tower seemingly. Palin did not sense them near him as he had felt them in the citadel. He did not feel that strange tickling sensation when he used his magic to cast spells, a sensation he had set down as gnats or bits of cobweb or a straggling strand of hair or any of a hundred other ordinary occurrences. Now he knew that what he had felt had been the hands of the dead, stealing the magic from him.

  Locked up in the Tower alone with Tasslehoff, Palin guessed that it was Dalamar who had been giving the dead their orders. Dalamar had been usurping the magic. Why? What was he doing with it? Certainly, Palin thought sardonically, Dalamar was not using the magic to redecorate.

  Palin might have asked him, but he could not find Dalamar. Nor could Tasslehoff, who had been recruited to help in the search. Admittedly, there were many doors in the Tower that were magically locked to both Palin and the kender—especially the kender.

  Tasslehoff put his ear to these doors, but not even the kender with his sharp hearing had been able to detect any sounds coming from behind any of them, including one that led to what Palin remembered were Dalamar’s private chambers.

  Palin had knocked at this door, knocked and shouted, but he had received no answer. Either Dalamar was deliberately ignoring him, or he was not there. Palin had first thought the former and was angry. Now he was starting to think the latter, and he was uneasy. The notion came to his mind that he and Tas had been brought here, then abandoned, to live out their days as prisoners in this Tower, surrounded and guarded by the dead.

  “No,” Palin amended, talking softly to himself as he stared out the window on the lower floor, “the dead are not guards. They, too, are prisoners.”

  The souls clogged the shadows beneath the trees, unable to find rest, unable to find peace, wandering in aimless, constant motion. Palin could not comprehend the numbers—thousands, thousands of thousands, and thousands more beyond that. He saw no one he recognized. At first, he had hoped to find his father again, hoped that Caramon could give him some answers to the myriad questions teeming in his son’s fevered mind. Palin soon came to realize that his search for one soul among the countless many was as hopeless as searching for a single grain of sand on a beach. If Caramon had been free to come to Palin, his father would surely have done so.

  Palin recalled vividly now the vision he had seen of his father in the Citadel of Light. In that vision, Caramon had fought his way to his son through a mass of dead pressing around Palin. Caramon had been trying to tell his son something, but before he could make himself understood, he had been seized by some unseen force and dragged away.

  “I think it’s awfully sad,” said Tasslehoff. He stood with his forehead pressed against the window, peering out the glass. “Look, there’s a kender. And another. And another. Hullo!” Tasslehoff tapped with his hands on the window. “Hullo, there! What have you got in your pouches?”

  The spirits of the dead kender ignored this customary kender greeting—a question no living kender could have resisted—and were soon lost in the crowd, disappearing among the other souls: elves, dwarves, humans, minotaurs, centaurs, goblins, hobgoblins, draconians, gully dwarves, gnomes, and other races—races Palin had never before seen but had only read about. He saw what he thought were the souls of the Theiwar, the dark dwarves, a cursed race. He saw the souls of the Dimernesti, elves who live beneath the sea and whose very existence had long been disputed. He saw souls of the Thanoi, the strange and fearsome creatures of Ice Wall.

  Friend and foe were here. Goblin souls passed shoulder to shoulder with human souls. Draconian souls drifted near elven souls. Minotaur and dwarf roamed side by side. No one soul paid attention to another. One was not aware of the other or seemed to know the other existed. Each ghostly soul went on his or her way, intent upon some quest—some hopeless quest by the looks of it, for on the face of every spirit Palin saw searching and longing, dejection and despair.

  “I wonder what it is they’re all looking for,” Tasslehoff said.

  “A way out,” replied Palin.

  He slung over his shoulder a pack containing several loaves of the magicked bread and a waterskin. Making up his mind, not taking time to think for fear he would argue himself out of his decision, he walked to the Tower’s main door.

  “Where are you going?” asked Tas.

  “Out,” said Palin.

  “Are you taking me with you?”

  “Of course.”

  Tas looked longingly at the door, but he held back, hovering near the stairs. “We’re not going back to the citadel to look for the Device of Time Journeying, are we?”

  “What’s left of it?” Palin returned bitterly. “If any of it remained undamaged, which I doubt, the bits and pieces were probably picked up by Beryl’s draconians and are now in her possession.”

  “That’s good,” Tas said, heaving a relieved sigh. Absorbed in arranging his pouches for the journey, he missed Palin’s withering glare. “Very well, I’ll go along. The Tower was an extremely interesting place to visit, and I’m glad we came here, but it does get boring after awhile. Where do you suppose Dalamar is? Why did he bring us here and then disappear?”

  “To flaunt his power over me,” said Palin, coming to stand in front of the door. “He imagines that I am finished. He wants to break my spirit, force me to grovel to him, beg him to release me. He will find that he has caught a shark in his net, not a minnow. I had once thought he might be of some help to us, but no more. I will not be a pawn in his khas game.”

  Palin looked very hard at the kender. “You don’t have any magical objects on you? Nothing you’ve discovered here in the Tower?”

  “No, Palin,” said Tas with round-eyed innocence. “I haven’t discovered anything. Like I said, it’s been pretty boring.”

  Palin persisted. “Nothing you’ve found that you are intending to return to Dalamar, for example? Nothing that fell into your pouches when you weren’t looking? Nothing that you picked up so that someone wouldn’t trip over it?”

  “Well …” Tas scratched his head. “Maybe …”

  “This is very important, Tas,” Palin said, his tone serious. He cast a glance out the window. “You see the dead out there? If we have anything magic, they will try to take it from us. Look, I have removed all my rings and my earring that Jenna gave me. I have left behind my pouches of spell components. Just to be safe, why don’t you leave your pouches here, as well? Dalamar will take good care of them,” he added in reassuring tones, for Tas was clutching his pouches next to his body and staring at him in horror.

  “Leave my pouches?” Tas protested in agony. Palin might as well have asked the kender to leave his head or his topknot. “Will we come back for them?”

  “Yes,” said Palin. Lies told to a kender are not really lies, more akin to self-defense.

  “I guess … in that case … since it is important …” Tas removed his pouches, gave each of them a fond, parting pat, then stowed them safely in a dark corner beneath the stair. “I hope no one steals them.”

  “I don’t think that’s likely. Stand over there by the stairs, Tas, where you will be out of the way, and do not interrupt me. I’m going to cast a spell. Alert me if you see anyone coming.”

  “I’m the rear guard? You’re posting me as rear guard?” Tas was captivated and immediately forgot about the pouches. “No one ever posted me as rear guard before! Not even Tanis.”

  “Yes, you’re the … er … rear guard. You must keep careful watch, and not bother me, no matter what you hear or see me doing.”

  “Yes, Palin. I will,” Tasslehoff promised solemnly, and took up his position. He came bouncing back again. “Excuse me, Palin, but since we’re alone here, who is it I’m supposed to be rear-guarding against?”

  Palin counseled patience to himself, then said, “If, for example, the wizard-lock includes magi
cal guards, casting a counterspell on the lock might cause these guardians to appear.”

  Tas sucked in a breath. “Do you mean like skeletons and wraiths and liches? Oh, I hope so—that is, no I don’t,” he amended quickly, catching sight of Palin’s baleful expression. “I’ll keep watch. I promise.”

  Tas retreated back to his post, but just as Palin was calling the words to the spell to his mind, he felt a tug on his sleeve.

  “Yes, Tas?” Palin fought the temptation to toss the kender out the window. “What is it now?”

  “Is it because you’re afraid of the wraiths and liches that you haven’t tried to escape before this?”

  “No, Tas,” said Palin quietly. “It was because I was afraid of myself.”

  Tas considered this. “I don’t think I can rear guard you against yourself, Palin.”

  “You can’t, Tas,” Palin said. “Now return to your post.”

  Palin figured that he had about fifteen seconds of peace before the novelty of being rear guard wore off and Tasslehoff would again be pestering him. Approaching the door, he closed his eyes and extended his hands.

  He did not touch the door. He touched the magic that enchanted the door. His broken fingers … He remembered a time they had been long and delicate and supple. He felt for the magic, groped for it like a blind man. Sensing a tingling in his fingertips, his soul thrilled. He had found a thread of magic. He smoothed the thread and found another thread and another until the spell rippled beneath his touch. The fabric of the magic was smooth and sheer, a piece of cloth cut from a bolt and hung over the door.

  The spell was not simple, but it was certainly not that complex. One of his better students could have undone this spell. Palin’s anger increased. Now his pride was hurt.

  “You always did underestimate me,” Palin muttered to the absent Dalamar. He plucked a thread, and the fabric of magic came apart in his hands.

  The door swung open.

  Cool air, crisp with the sharp smell of the cypress, breathed into the Tower, as one might try to breathe life through the lips of a drowned man. The souls in the shadows of the trees ceased their aimless roaming, and hundreds turned as one to stare with their shadowed eyes at the Tower. None moved toward it. None made any attempt to approach it. They hung, wavering, in the whispering air.

  “I will use no magic,” Palin told them. “I have only food in my pack, food and water. You will leave me alone.” He motioned to Tas, an unnecessary gesture, since the kender was now dancing at his side. “Keep near me, Tas. This is no time to go off exploring. We must not get separated.”

  “I know,” said Tas excitedly. “I’m still the rear guard. Where is it we’re going, exactly?”

  Palin looked out the door. Years ago, there had been stone stairs, a courtyard. Now his first step out of the Tower of High Sorcery would fall onto a bed of brown, dead cypress needles that surrounded the Tower like a dry moat. The cypress trees formed a wall around the brown moat, their branches serving as a canopy under which they would walk. Standing in the shadows of the trees, watching, were the souls of the dead.

  “We’re going to find a path, a trail. Anything to lead us out of this forest,” Palin said.

  Thrusting his hands in the sleeves of his robes, to emphasize the fact that he was not going to use them, he strode out the door and headed straight for the tree line. Tas followed after, discharging his role as rear guard by attempting to look backward while walking forward, a feat of agility that apparently took some practice, for Tas was having a difficult time of it.

  “Stop that!” said Palin through clenched teeth the second time Tasslehoff bumbled into him. They were nearing the tree line. Palin removed his hand from his sleeve long enough to grasp Tas by the shoulder and forcibly turn him around. “Face forward.”

  “But I’m the rear—” Tas protested. He interrupted himself. “Oh, I see. It’s what’s in front of us you’re worried about.”

  The dead had no bodies. These they had left behind, abandoning the shells of cold flesh as butterflies leave the cocoon. Once, like butterflies, these spirits might have flown free to whatever new destination awaited them. Now they were trapped as in an enormous jar, constrained to wander aimlessly, searching for the way out.

  So many souls. A river of souls, swirling about the boles of the cypress trees, each one a drop of water in a mighty torrent. Palin could barely distinguish one from another. Faces flitted past, hands or arms or hair trailing like diaphanous silken scarves. The faces were the most terrible, for they all looked at him with a hunger that caused him to hesitate, his steps to slow. Whispered breath that he had mistaken for the wind touched his cheek. He heard words in the whispers and shivered.

  The magic, they said. Give us the magic. They looked at him. They paid no attention to the kender. Tasslehoff was saying something. Palin could see his mouth moving and almost hear the words, but he couldn’t hear. It was as if his ears were stuffed with the whispers of the dead.

  “I have nothing to give you,” he told the souls. His own voice sounded muffled and faraway. “I have no magical artifacts. Let us pass.”

  He came to the tree line. The whispering souls were a white, frothing pool among the shadows of the trees. He had hoped that the souls would part before him, like the early morning fog lifting from the valleys, but they remained, blocking his way. He could see dimly through them, see more trees with the eerie white mist of souls wavering beneath. He was reminded of the hordes of mendicants that crowded the streets of Palanthas, grimy hands outstretched, shrill voices begging.

  He halted, cast a glance back at the Tower of High Sorcery, saw a broken, crumbling ruin. He faced forward.

  They did not harm you in the past, he reminded himself. You know their touch. It is unpleasant but no worse than walking into a cobweb. If you go back there, you will never leave. Not until you are one of them.

  He walked into the river of souls.

  Chill, pale hands touched his hands, his arms. Chill, pale eyes stared at him. Chill, pale lips pressed against his lips, sucked the breath from him. He could not move for the swirling souls that had hold of him and were dragging him under. He could hear nothing except the whispered roar of their terrible voices. He turned, trying to find the way back, but all he saw were eyes, mouths, and hands. He turned and turned again, and now he was disoriented and confused, and there were more of them and still more.

  He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t speak, he couldn’t cry out. He fell to the ground, gasping for air. They rose and ebbed around him, touching, pulling, yanking. He was shredded, torn asunder. They searched through the fibers of his being.

  Magic … magic … give us the magic.…

  He slipped beneath the awful surface and ceased to struggle.

  Tasslehoff saw Palin walk into the shadows of the trees, but the kender did not immediately follow after him. Instead he attempted to gain the attention of several dead kender, who were standing beneath the trees, watching Palin.

  “I say,” said Tas very loudly, over the sound of buzzing in his ears, a sound that was starting to be annoying, “have you seen my friend, Caramon? He’s one of you.”

  Tas had been about to tell them that Caramon was dead, like them, but he refrained, thinking that it might make them sad to be reminded of the fact.

  “He’s a really big human, and the last time I saw him alive he was very old, but now that he’s dead—no offense—he looks young again. He has curly hair and a very friendly smile.”

  No use. The kender refused to pay the least bit of attention to him.

  “I hate to tell you this, but you are extremely rude,” Tas told the kender as he walked past. He might as well follow Palin, since no one was going to talk to him. “One would think you’d been raised by humans. You must not be from Kendermore. No Kendermore kender would act that—Now that’s odd. Where did he go?”

  Tas searched the forest ahead of him as well as he could, considering the poor ghosts, who were whirling about in a frenetic manne
r, enough to make a fellow dizzy.

  “Palin! Where are you? I’m supposed to be the rear guard, and I can’t be the rear guard if you’re not in front.”

  He waited a bit to see if Palin answered his call, but if the sorcerer did, Tas probably wouldn’t be able to hear it over the buzzing that was starting to give him a pain in the head. Putting his fingers in his ears to try to shut out the sound, Tas turned to look behind him, thinking that perhaps Palin had forgotten something and gone back to the Tower to fetch it. Tas could see the Tower, looking small beneath the cypress trees, but no sign of Palin.

  “Drat it!” Tas took his fingers out of his ears to wave his hands, trying to disperse the dead who were really making a most frightful nuisance of themselves. “Get out of here. I can’t see a thing. Palin!”

  It was like walking through a thick fog, only worse, because fog didn’t look at you with pleading eyes or try to grab hold of you with wispy hands. Tasslehoff groped his way forward. Tripping over something, probably a tree root, he fell headlong on the forest floor. Whatever he had fallen over jerked beneath his legs. It’s not a tree root, he thought, or if it is, the root belongs to one of the more lively varieties of tree.

  Tas recognized Palin’s robes, and after a moment more, he recognized Palin. He hovered over his friend in consternation.

  Palin’s face was exceedingly white, more white than the spirits surrounding him. His eyes were closed. He gasped for air. One hand clutched at this throat, the other clawed at the dirt.

  “Get away, you! Go! Leave him alone,” Tas cried, endeavoring to drive away the dead souls, who seemed to be wrapping themselves around Palin like some evil web. “Stop it!” the kender shouted, jumping up and stamping his foot. He was starting to grow desperate. “You’re killing him!”

  The buzzing sound grew louder, as if hornets were flying into his ears and using his head for a hive. The sound was so awful that Tasslehoff couldn’t think, but he realized he didn’t have to think. He only had to rescue Palin before the dead turned him into one of themselves.