Darkness and Light p-1

by Paul B. Thompson

He shuddered. "Visions of what? The past? The future?

  Or am I seeing the present in far-away places? How can I tell, Kit? How can I know?"

  "I don't know." She combed through her black curls with her fingers. "It hurts, doesn't it? Not knowing."

  "I think I shall go mad!"

  "No, you won't. You're too strong for that." She rose and came around the dying fire to sit by him. Sturm refolded his blanket and lay down. These visions which had been thrust upon him were maddening. They smacked of magic and tor mented him without warning. However, Sturm found him self trying to fix every detail in his mind, going over and over the terrible scene; there could be a clue to his father's fate hidden in these specters. Kitiara laid a hand on his chest and felt the rapid beating of his heart.

  Chapter 12

  Some of Our Gnomes

  Are Missing

  The gnomes recovered from their post-prandial lethargy and bounced around the camp, shouting and toss ing tools to each other. Bellcrank found a long dowel and scratched a mark on the side of a hill. "There's where we dig," he announced.

  "Why there?" asked Cutwood.

  "Why not?"

  "Wouldn't it be better to go to the top and drive a shaft straight down?" suggested Wingover.

  "If we wanted to dig a well, maybe, but not when we're prospecting for iron," Bellcrank said. After lengthy discus sion about such esoteric matters as geological strata, sedi mentation, and the proper diet of miners, the gnomes discovered that all they had to dig with was two short handled wooden scoops.

  "Whose are these?" asked Sighter.

  "Mine," Fitter spoke up. "One for beans, one for raisins."

  "Isn't there a proper shovel or spade in the cart?"

  "No," said Roperig. "Of course, if we had some iron, we could make our own shovels — " Cutwood and Wingover pelted him with dirty socks for his suggestion.

  "If scoops are what we have, scoops it'll have to be," said

  Bellcrank. He offered them to Cutwood and Wingover.

  "Why us?" said Cutwood.

  "Why not?"

  "I wish he'd stop saying that," Wingover said. He shoved his sleeves above his elbows and knelt by the circle that Bell crank had scratched in the turf. "Oh, rocks," he sighed.

  "You'd better hope to Reorx we strike rocks," said Cut wood, "else we'll be digging all day."

  The gnomes gathered around as their two colleagues fell to. The upper layers of flaky red fluff were easily scraped away. The diggers flung scoopfuls over their shoulders, hit ting Sighter and Rainspot in the face. The gnomes withdrew to a cleaner observation point.

  Bellcrank bent down and grabbed a handful of the soil that Wingover had tossed back. No longer dry and spongy, this dirt was hard, grainy, and damp. "Hello," he said. "Look at this. Sand."

  Sturm and Kitiara examined the ball of damp sand that

  Bellcrank had squeezed in his small fist. It was quite ordi nary sand, tinged pale red.

  "Ugh! Ow, here's something," Cutwood grunted. He kicked a large chunk of something out of the tunnel. The thing wobbled down the slope a little way and stopped. Fit ter picked it up.

  "Feels like glass," he said. Sighter took it from him.

  "It is glass. Crude glass," Sighter said.

  More bits of glass came out of the hole, along with sand, sand, and more sand. Wingover and Cutwood had tunneled headfirst into the hillside and now only their feet showed in the opening. Sturm told them to stop digging.

  "It's no use," he said. "There's no ore here."

  "I must agree with Master Brightblade," said Bellcrank.

  "The whole hill is likely one big pile of sand."

  "Where does the glass come from?" Kitiara asked.

  "Any source of heat can melt sand into glass. Lightning, forest fire, volcano."

  "That's not important," Sturm said. "We dug for iron and found glass. The question is, what do we do now?"

  "Go on looking?" said Fitter timidly.

  "What about Stutts and the others?" Kitiara asked.

  "Strip my gears, I forgot about our colleagues," said

  Roperig. "What shall we do?"

  Sturm said, "We'll go back. It'll be daylight again before we reach the flying ship, and we can harvest some spear plants for Stutts, Birdcall, and Flash to eat. Once we're all together, we can repair the engine — " He regarded Kit grave ly. "- 'with the iron that Kitiara and I wear on us. You gnomes can forge our arms and armor into the parts you need." Murmurs of approval rippled through the gnomes.

  "Do you think I'd allow my sword, my mail, to be ham mered into machine parts? With what will we defend our selves? Scoops and beans?" Kitiara said furiously.

  "All we've used our weapons for so far is chopping weeds," Sturm countered. "This could be our only way home."

  Kitiara crossed her arms. "I don't like it."

  "Nor do I, but what choice do we have? We can be well armed and marooned, or unarmed and on our way home."

  "Not a handsome choice," she had to admit.

  "You needn't make up your mind right now. Whatever you decide, we should return to the ship first," said Sturm.

  No one disputed his decision. The gnomes prepared to break camp. Like their unpacking, this was a brisk proce dure. Each gnome tossed an item into the righted cart.

  Sometimes they wrestled over the same item, and Rainspot and Cutwood even got carried away and threw Fitter in.

  Sturm pulled the littlest gnome out before he was buried.

  With a clear sky and plenty of stars, the explorers were able to plot their way back to the plain of stones. Once they left the chain of hills, they beheld a lovely sight. On the southwestern horizon, a blue-white glow lit the sky. Within a few hundred yards' walk, the source of the glow was revealed to be the world of Krynn, rising into sight for the first.time since their arrival on the red moon.

  The party stopped to admire the great azure orb. "What are the fuzzy white parts?" asked Kitiara.

  "Clouds," said Rainspot.

  "And the blue is ocean, the brown, land?"

  "Exactly right, lady."

  Sturm stood apart from the rest, contemplating his home world. Kitiara peered through the gnome's spyglass, squint ing one eye closed and bending far down to Sighter's level.

  When she was done, she went to where Sturm stood.

  "Don't you want to take a look?" she asked.

  Sturm rubbed his newly bearded chin. "I can see it fine."

  The bright white light of Krynn caught on his ring and glim mered. The emblem of the Knights of Solamnia's Order of the Rose caught his eye.

  He inhaled smoke and coughed.

  Not again! The vision was upon him without any warn ing." Sturm fought to stay calm. Something always hap pened to trigger the experience — first the moon's chill air, then the feel of his wolf fur cloak, and now the light reflect ing off his ring, the only real relic of his Solamnic heritage. It wasn't his father's ring, but his mother's; Sturm wore it on his little finger.

  A high, dark wall loomed over his back. Sturm was standing in the shadow of the wall, and it was night. Twenty yards away, a fire burned. He seemed to be in the courtyard of a castle. Two men in ragged cloaks stood hunched over the fire. A third lay on the ground, unmoving.

  Sturm came nearer, and saw that the tallest man was his father. Sturm's heart raced. He held out his hands to Angriff

  Brightblade for the first time in thirteen years. The old war rior lifted his head and stared right past Sturm. They can't see me, Sturm thought. Was there a way he could make him self known?

  "We should not have come here, my lord," said the other standing man. "It's dangerous!"

  "The last place our enemies would look for us is in my own sacked castle," replied Lord Brightblade. "Besides, we had to get Marbred out of the wind. The fever has settled in his chest."

  Father! Sturm tried to shout. He could not even hear him self.

  Lord Brightblade squatted by the man on the ground. His breath had frozen on his beard, making i
t as white as

  Marbred's. "How do you feel, old friend?" Sturm's father asked.

  Marbred wheezed, "Fit for any command of my lord."

  Angriff squeezed his old retainer's arm, stood, and turned his back on the sick man.

  "He may not last the night," he said. "Tomorrow there may be only you and I, Bren."

  "What shall we do, my lord?"

  Lord Brightblade reached under the tattered layers of cloak and blankets that hung from his broad shoulders. He unbuckled his belt and brought out his sword and scabbard.

  "I will not allow this blade, forged by the first of my ances tors and borne with honor all these years, to fall into the hands of the enemy."

  Bren grabbed Lord Brightblade's wrist. "My lord — you don't intend — you can't mean to destroy it!"

  Angriff pulled six inches of the sword from its covering.

  The fitful firelight caught on the burnished steel and made it glitter. "No," he said. "As long as my son lives, the Bright blade line will continue. My sword and armor will be his."

  Sturm felt as if his heart would burst. Then, suddenly, the pain caused by the scene was replaced by an odd lightness.

  It stole into Sturm's limbs and, though he tried to hold him self in the vision, to keep everything in sharp focus, the image faded. The fire, the men, his father, and the sword of the Brightblades wavered and dissolved. Sturm's fingers clenched into tight fists as he tried literally to grasp the scene. Sturm found himself clenching the nap of Kitiara's fur coat.

  "I'm all right," Sturm said. His heart slowly resumed its normal rhythm.

  "You were very quiet this time," she reported. "You stared into space as if you were watching a stage play in Solace."

  "In a way, I was." He described his father's vigil. "It must be the present or the recent past," he reasoned. "The castle was in ruins, but my father did not look so old — perhaps fif ty years. His beard had not grayed. He must be alive!"

  Sturm became aware that he was lying on his back and moving. He sat up hastily and almost fell off the gnomes' cart. "How'd I get up here?" he asked.

  "I put you there. You didn't look as if you could make it on your own," said Kitiara.

  "You picked me up?"

  "With one hand," said Wingover. Sturm looked down.

  All the gnomes but Sighter were on the poles pushing the cart along. He suddenly felt embarrassed' to be such a bur den to his companions, and jumped off the cart. Kitiara slid down, too.

  "How long was I out?" Sturm asked.

  "Better part of an hour," said Sighter, referring to the stars. "The visions are getting longer, aren't they?"

  "Yes, but I think they're triggered when I'm reminded of something from the past," Sturm said. "If I concentrate on the present, perhaps I can avoid episodes like this."

  "Sturm doesn't approve of the supernatural," Kitiara explained to the gnomes. "It's part of his knightly code."

  Krynn was now high overhead, and the terrain around them was as bright as day. No plants grew in the brilliant light, however; all was cold and lifeless under the planet's clear glow. Sighter led his colleagues in another long discus sion. Kitiara and Sturm were trailing behind the cart," so no one saw the ditch until the front wheels spilled into it. The gnomes on the front pole — Cutwood, Fitter, and

  Wingover — fell on their faces. Roperig, Rainspot, and Bell crank struggled to keep the heavily laden wagon from turn ing over. Kitiara and Sturm rushed in and steadied the sides.

  "Let it roll down," Kitiara said. "Let go."

  Rainspot and Bellcrank stepped back, but Roperig did not. The cart bounded down the side of the ditch with the humans running alongside and Roperig bouncing painfully against the push-pole.

  "What's the matter with you?" Bellcrank said, when the cart halted. "Why didn't you let go?"

  "I–I can't," Roperig complained. "My hands are stuck!" He wallowed to his feet. Dust poured from his pockets and cuffs. His stubby fingers were firmly attached to the push pole. Rainspot tried prying his colleague's fingers free. "Ow, ow!" Roperig yelled. "You're tearing my fingers off!"

  "Don't be such a crybaby," said Sighter.

  "Cutwood, did you put glue on this end of the pole?" asked Rainspot.

  "Absolutely not! By gears, I would never do that without telling him first." Cutwood's invocation of the sacred word

  'gears' proved that he was telling the truth.

  "Hmm." Kitiara drummed her fingers on the cart wheel.

  "Maybe it's more of this crazy Lunitari magic."

  "You mean I'll be stuck to this cart forever?"

  "Don't be distressed, master. I can saw this pole off," Fitter said. He patted his boss on the back consolingly.

  "Rot," said Bellcrank. "If Master Brightblade will lend me his knife, I'll scrape your fingers off in no time."

  Roperig blanched. "You will not!"

  "Then we can saw very carefully around your fingers."

  "No one's going to cut or saw anything," Kitiara said. "If this stickiness is related to my strength or Sturm's visions, then you ought to give some thought to how it works before you start hacking away on a fellow's fingers."

  "Quite so," said Sighter. "Now, could it be more than coincidence that we acquire abilities connected to our life's work I Rainspot makes rain, Lady Kitiara grows mightier as a warrior — and Roperig, master of cords and knots finds himself bound by his own hands. It's as though some subtle, yet powerful, force were enhancing our natural attributes."

  "Roperig can probably free himself if he wishes to," said

  Kitiara. "Just as Rainspot can wish for his rain."

  "All I wanted to do was keep my grip when we slipped in the ditch," Roperig said glumly.

  He screwed his eyes tightly shut and wished hard.

  "Harder! Concentrate!" urged Sighter. Cutwood whipped out his magnifying glass and peered intently at Roperig's stuck hands. Slowly, with faint sucking sounds, his hands peeled off the cart pole.

  "Ow, ow!" Roperig whimpered, waving his hands about.

  "That stings!"

  The cart was shoved to the top of the gully rim. The gnomes passed a water bottle around. Fitter handed it to

  Kitiara, who had a short swig before offering it to Sturm.

  He held it a long time, staring at the ground and not drink ing.

  "Now what?" she said, taking the bottle back.

  "This magic worries me. Couldn't we refuse it somehow, give it back?"

  She pushed the plug back into the bottle. "Why should we? We ought to get used to it, learn to control the effect."

  Kitiara flexed a hand into a fist. She could feel the strength within her, like the warmth of sweet wine in her veins. It was intoxicating, that taste of power. She looked Sturm in the eye. "If we return to Krynn penniless, weaponless, and armorless, I hope our powers remain."

  "It isn't right," he said stubbornly.

  "Right? This is the only right that matters!" The water bottle exploded when she crushed it in her fingers.

  Little Fitter stooped to get the glazed shards. "You broke the bottle, lady," he said. "Did you cut yourself?"

  She showed him her undamaged hand. "A lot of things may get broken around here before I'm through," she said angrily.

  By the hour Krynn had set on the northeast horizon, the explorers were more than halfway back to the Cloudmaster.

  There was nothing ahead but flat ground, rocks, and red dust. They trod on, the humans apart and silent, the gnomes once more chattering.

  The pilot of the flying ship walked slower and slower, until finally he stopped.

  "Move along, lad," said Sighter, pushing Wingover in the back. "Don't want to get left behind, do you?"

  "It's gone," announced Wingover.

  "What's gone?"

  "The ship. The Cloudmaster."

  "You're plain daft. We're a good eight miles away, how could you see from here?"

  "I don't know, but I can see the spot clearly," said

  Wingover. He squinted
into the distance. "There's a big rut, some skid marks, and a few broken crates lying around, but the ship is gone."

  Sturm and Kitiara converged on the far-seeing gnome.

  "Are you sure, Wingover?" said Sturm.

  "It's gone," the gnome insisted.

  Sighter and the other gnomes were loudly skeptical, but

  Sturm ordered them to quicken their pace. The miles rolled aside, and still Wingover said the flying ship was missing from its landing place. He described in precise detail the jet sam left at the scene, and his certainty infected the party with apprehension. With barely a mile left to go, Kitiara could stand it no longer. She broke into a run and quickly left the rest behind.

  Sturm and the gnomes plodded on. Kitiara came jogging back. "Wingover's right," she said. "The Cloudmaster is gone." The gnomes immediately surrounded Wingover and started poking his face and pulling at his eyelids. The gnome pilot slapped at the intruding fingers, while his colleagues, completely forgetting the news Kitiara had brought, tried to discover the cause of his remarkable eyesight.

  "It's the Lunitari magic," Wingover said. "Leave me alone!"

  "Could Stutts and company have repaired the ship them selves and flown away?" Sturm asked.

  Kitiara loosened her fur collar to let the cool air in. "There are tracks all over — little circular imprints — I think the ship was carried off."

  "Carried off?" said Fitter in awe.

  "Do you know how much that ship weighs?" said Sighter.

  She put out her chin and replied, "I don't care if it's heavi er than Mt. Nevermind. Somebody or something picked it up and carried it away."

  Sturm said, "Then 'they' are very strong, or very numer ous."

  "Or both," said Kitiara grimly.

  Chapter 13

  The Walking Trees

  The sun shone over the fiels of stones where the Cloudmaster had first met Lunitari. The exploration party ringed the site, gazing helplessly at the empty furrow in the ground. As Wingover had seen from eight miles away, the flying ship and the three gnomes who remained on it were gone. The landing wheels that had broken off when they struck the moon were the only part of the ship left behind. Aside from the wheels, there were two empty crates, some bean sacks, and the remnants of a campfire.