Robe soaked (one of the water pots had spilled) and looking more harassed than heroic, Sa’ida was as amazed as anyone by the departure of the lights.
“Are they
She nodded. By her special sense of such things, the priestess knew that not a single will-o’-the-wisp remained in Inath-Wakenti.
A group of elves raised a clamor at the foot of the overturned monolith. They were kin of the three who had disappeared while trying to reach the spring, and they wanted the tunnels searched immediately for their lost loved ones. The frame still stood above the hole at the base of the monolith, and despite a guard’s efforts to pull him back, the brother of one of the newly vanished elves clung to the frame and shouted frantically down into the hole.
Hamaramis was trying to address the elves’ demands when the sentinels guarding the camp’s perimeter raised a warning.
The ghosts were coming.
Sa’ida had seated herself on the other end of the monolith. She jumped up with creditable agility and hurried to Hamaramis’s end of the slab. Looking west, she could see ranks of pale, translucent specters appearing from the cover of trees and other monoliths. The spirits were no more numerous than usual, but they moved with slow determination directly toward the camp.
“I feared this,” Sa’ida murmured. She held her hands down to the warriors standing by the monolith. Two soldiers helped her descend. “General, without the guardians, the spirits are free to roam at will. They’re drawn to the living. They’ll move among us, bring panic, melancholy, even madness, if we allow it.”
Hamaramis paled. “Allow it? What can we do? More water—?”
“The dead are beyond the goddess’s blessings.”
“Then what?” he demanded.
The beloved of Elir-Sana responded to his frightened anger briefly and with formidable calm. When she’d finished explaining what must be done, the old general dispatched warriors to ride through camp and spread the word. Everyone was to retire inside their tents, close the flaps, and admit no one. The dead couldn’t enter a home closed to them unless they were invited. That was the prevailing theory, anyway. Sa’ida couldn’t be certain it would hold true for flimsy tents and the spirits inhabiting the “Refuge of the Damned,” as Inath-Wakenti was known in the texts of her goddess.
“How long?” the general asked.
“Until sunrise. I pray the new light of day will banish the spirits, at least until night falls again.”
Hamaramis insisted she must pass the night with the Speaker’s household. Her lone tent was too exposed. She accepted the invitation and urged haste. Leading elements of the ghostly horde were halfway to the camp.
The sides of the Speaker’s tent had been drawn down. Only the main door flap remained open, and the last members of Gilthas’s household were hurrying inside. Hamaramis delayed to watch as elves hurried into shelter. Warriors led their horses into corrals. Parents scooped up straggling children. In moments the camp’s many paths were deserted.
The old general held back the heavy tapestry that served as the door flap to the Speaker’s tent and gestured for Sa’ida to precede him.
“What exactly will they do?” he asked.
“What ghosts always do. Haunt us.”
The eastern half of the valley had fewer monoliths, and thick foliage filled the void. It wasn’t lush, healthy verdure, but a mass of thorny creeper, trumpet vine, and barberry bushes. The ground covers were a tangle guaranteed to trip the unwary. The bushes were head high, with branches thick as an elf’s wrist and covered by i half-inch spines. Kerian and her comrades were forced to cut their way through. Arms and faces were soon covered by scratches.
Sometime after midnight Kerian halted to catch her breath. Her thoughts turned to her husband. His malady made sleep heavy but unsettled, tormenting him with fever, drenching sweats, and nightmares. As she looked back over her shoulder toward the distant camp, even more than usual she wished him pleasant dreams.
One by one her companions ceased their labors and followed her example, gazing across the starlit landscape in the direction of those they’d left behind. During their eastward trek, the land had risen slowly and they had a clear line of sight to the camp, below them. The bonfires were faint at this distance.
As the three elves watched, a great column of light suddenly blazed upward from the camp. The column resolved into a multitude of will-o’-the-wisps, streaking into the night sky, corkscrewing, crashing into each other, and washing the monoliths in frantic rainbow glory. High in the sky, the lights abruptly winked out, leaving the valley cloaked in darkness once more.
The three elves regarded each other in silent consternation.
“What was that?” Hytanthas demanded.
“The lights must have attacked the camp.”
Taranath regarded Kerian in horror. Fearing the worst, he whispered, “The Speaker?”
