Dragonlance 15 - Dragons Of A Fallen Sun (71 page)

The hospital, located in one of the crystal domes that were the

central structures of the Citadel of Light, consisted of a large room

filled with beds that stood in straight rows up one side and down

the other. Sweet herbs perfumed the air and sweet music added

its own healing properties. The healers worked among the sick

and injured, using the power of the heart to heal them, a power

Goldmoon had discovered and first used to heal the dying dwarf,

Jasper Fireforge.

She had performed many miracles since that time, or so

people claimed. She had healed those thought to be past hope.

She had mended broken bodies with the touch of her hands. She

had restored life to paralyzed limbs, brought sight to the blind.

Her miracles of healing were as wonderful as those she had

performed as a cleric of Mishakal. She was glad and grateful to be

able to ease the suffering of others. But the healing had not

brought her the same joy she had experienced when the blessing

of the healing art came to her as a gift from the god, when she and

Mishakal worked in partnership.

A year or so ago, her healing powers had begun to wane. At

first, she blamed the loss on her advancing age. But she was not

the only one of her healers to experience the diminution of heal-

ing power.

"It is as if someone has hung a gauze curtain between me and

my patient," one young healer had said in frustration. "I try to

draw the curtain aside to reach the patient, but there is another and

another. I don't feel as if I can come close to my patients anymore."

Reports had begun coming in from Citadel masters through-

out Ansalon, all bearing witness to the same dread phenomenon.

Some had blamed it on the dragons. Some had blamed it on the

Knights of Neraka. Then they had heard rumors that the Knights'

dark mystics were losing their powers, as well.

Goldmoon asked her counselor, Mirror, the silver dragon

who was the Citadel's guardian, if he thought that Malys was

responsible.

"No, First Master, I do not," Mirror replied. He was in his

human form then, a handsome youth with silver hair. She saw

sorrow and trouble in his eyes, eyes that held the wisdom of cen-

turies in them. "1 have felt my own magical powers start to wane.

It is rumored among dragonkind that our enemies are also feeling

their powers weaken."

"Then there is some good in this," Goldmoon said.

Mirror remained grave. "1 fear not, First Master. The tyrant who

feels power slipping away does not let loose. He tightens his grasp."

Goldmoon paused on the threshold of the hospital. The beds

were filled with patients, some sleeping, some talking quietly,

some reading. The atmosphere was restful, peaceful. Bereft of

much of their mystical power, the healers had gone back to the

herbal remedies once practiced by healers in the days following

the Cataclysm. The smells of sage and rosemary, chamomille and

mint spiced the air. Soft music played. Goldmoon felt the sooth-

ing influence of the restful solitude, and her heart was eased.

Here, perhaps, the healer would herself be healed.

Catching sight of Goldmoon, one of the master healers came

forward immediately to welcome her. The welcome was, of

necessity, low-key, lest the patients be disturbed by undue com-

motion or excitement. The healer said how pleased she was that

the First Master was returned to them and stared with all her

might at Goldmoon's altered face.

Goldmoon said something pleasant and innocuous and

turned her face from the amazed scrutiny to look around. She

asked after the patients.

"The hospital is quiet this night, First Master," said the healer,

leading the way into the ward. "We have many patients, but, for-

tunately, few who are really worrisome. We have a baby suffering

from the croup, a Knight who received a broken leg during a

joust, and a young fisherman who was rescued from drowning.

The rest of our patients are convalescing."

"How is Sir Wilfer?" Lady Camilla asked.

"The leg is mended, my lady," the healer replied, "but it is still

weak. He insists he is ready to be released, and I cannot convince

him that he would do better to remain another few days to fully

recover. I know that he finds it very dull here, but perhaps if you

were to-"

"I will speak to him," said Lady Camilla.

She moved among the rows of beds. Most of the patients

came from outside the Citadel, from villages and towns on

Schallsea. They knew the elderly Goldmoon, for she often visited

their homes. But they did not recognize this youthful Goldmoon.

Most thought her a stranger and paid little attention to her, for

which she was grateful. At the far end was the cradle with the

baby, his watchful mother at his side. He coughed still and

whimpered. His face was flushed with fever. The healers were

preparing a bowl of herbs to which they would add boiling

water. The steam would moisten the lungs and ease the child's

cough. Goldmoon drew near, intending to say a few words of

comfort to the mother.

As Goldmoon approached the cradle, she saw that another

figure hovered over the fretful baby. At first, Goldmoon thought

this to be one of the healers. She did not recognize the face, but

then she had been absent from them for weeks. Probably this was

a new student. . .

Goldmoon's steps slowed. She halted about three beds away

from that of the sick child, put out a hand to steady herself upon

the wooden bedpost.

The figure was not a healer. The figure was not a student. The

figure was not alive. A ghost hovered over the child, the ghost of

a young woman.

"If you will excuse me, First Master," said the healer, "1 will go

see what I can do for this sick child."

The healer walked over to the child. The healer laid her hands

upon the baby, but at the same instant, the fleshless hands of the

ghost intervened. The ghost grasped the healer's hands.

"Give me the blessed power," the ghost whispered. "1 must

have it, or I will be cast into oblivion!"

The baby's coughing grew worse. The mother hung over him

worriedly. The healer, shaking her head, removed her hands. Her

healing touch had failed the baby. The ghost had stolen the

energy for herself.

"He should breathe in this steam," the healer said, sounding

tired and defeated. "The steam will help keep his lungs clear."

The ghost of the woman drifted away. More insubstantial fig-

ures took her place, crowding around the sick baby, their burning

eyes staring avidly at the healer. When the healer moved to an-

other bed, they followed her, clinging to her like trailing cobweb.

When she put out her hands to try to heal another patient, the

dead grasped hold of her, crying and moaning.

"Mine! Mine! Give the power to me!"

Goldmoon staggered. If she had not been holding onto the

bedpost, she would have fallen. She closed her eyes tightly shut,

hoping the fearful apparitions would disappear. She opened her

eyes to see more ghosts. Legions of the dead crowded and jostled

each other as each sought to steal for his own the blessed life-

giving power that flowed from the healers. Restless, the dead

were in constant motion. They passed by Goldmoon like a vast

and turbulent river, all flowing in the same direction-north.

Those who gathered around the healers were not permitted to

linger long. Some unheard voice ordered them away, some

unseen hand pulled them back into the water.

The river of dead shifted course, swept around Goldmoon.

The dead reached out to touch her, begged her to bless them in

their hollow whisperings.

"No! Leave me alone!" she cried, cringing away. "I cannot

help you!"

Some of the dead flowed past her, wailing in disappointment.

Other ghosts pressed near her. Their breath was cold, their eyes

burned. Their words were smoke, their touch like ashes falling on

her skin.

Startled faces surrounded her. Faces of the living.

"Healer!" someone was calling. "Come quickly! The First

Master!"

The healer was in a flutter. Had she done something to offend

the First Master? She had not meant to.

Goldmoon recoiled from the healer in horror. The dead were

all around her, pulling on her arm, tugging at her robes. Ghosts

surged forward, rushing at her, trying to seize hold of her hands.

"Give us . . . " they pleaded in their terrible whisperings.

"Give us what we crave. . . what we must have. . ."

"First Master!" Lady Camilla's voice boomed through the

sibiliant hissings of the dead. She sounded panicked. "Please let

us help you! Tell us what is wrong!"

"Can't you see them?" Goldmoon cried. "The dead!" She

pointed. "There, with the baby! There, with the healer. Here, in

front of me! The dead are draining us, stealing our power. Can't

you see them?"

Voices clamored around Goldmoon, voices of the living. She

could not understand them, they made no sense. Her own voice

failed her. She felt herself falling and could do nothing to halt her

fall.

She was lying in a bed in the hospital. The voices still clam-

ored. Opening her eyes, she saw the faces of the dead surround-

ing her.

CHAPTER TWENTYEIGHT

THE DRAGON EDICT

General Medan rarely visited his own headquarters in

Qualinost. Constructed by humans, the fortress was ugly,

purposefully ugly. Squat, square, made of gray sandstone,

with barred windows and heavy, iron-bound doors, the fortress

was intended to be ugly, intended as an insult to the elves, to im-

press upon them who was master. No elf would come near it of

his own free will, though many had seen the inside of it, partic-

ularly the room located far below ground, the room to which

they were taken when the order was given to "put them to the

question."

Marshal Medan had developed an extreme dislike for this

building, a dislike almost as great as that of the elves. He pre-

ferred to conduct most of his business from his home where his

work area was a shady bower dappled with sunlight. He pre-

ferred listening to the song of the lark rather than to the sounds

of screams of the tortured, preferred the scent of his roses to that

of blood.

The infamous room was not much in use these days. Elves

thought to be rebels or in league with the rebels vanished like

shadows when the sun hides beneath a cloud before the Neraka

Knights could arrest them. Medan knew very well that the elves

were being spirited away somehow, probably through under-

grO:!:lnd tunnels. In the old days, when he had first taken on the

governing of an occupied land, he would have turned Qualinost

upside down and inside out, excavated, probed, brought in

Thorn Knights to look for magic, tortured hundreds. He did none

of these things. He was just as glad that his Knights arrested so

few. He had come to loathe the torturing, the death, as he had

come to love Qualinesti.

Medan loved the land. He loved the beauty of the land, loved

the peaceful serenity that meandered through Qualinesti as the

stream wound its sparkling way through his garden. Alexis

Medan did not love the elven people. Elves were beyond his ken,

his understanding. He might as well have said that he loved the

sun or the stars or the moon. He admired them, as he admired the

beauty of an orchid, but he could not love them. He sometimes

envied them their long life span and sometimes pitied them for it.

Medan did not love Laurana as a woman, Gerard had come to

realize. He loved her as the embodiment of all that was beautiful

in his adopted homeland.

Gerard was amazed, entranced, and astounded upon his first

entrance into Marshal Medan's dwelling. His amazement in-

creased when the marshal told him, proudly, that he had super-

vised the design of the house and had laid out the garden entirely

to his own liking.

Elves would not have lived happily in the marshal's house,

which was too ordered and structured for their tastes. He disliked

the elven practice of using living trees as walls and trailing vines

for curtains, nor did he want green grasses for his roof. Elves

enjoy the murmur and whispers of living walls around them in

the night. Medan preferred his walls to allow him to sleep. His

house was built of rough-hewn stone. He took care not to cut

living trees, an act the elves considered a grievous crime.

Ivy and morning glories clung to the surfaces of the rock walls.

The house itself was practically hidden by a profusion of flowers.

Gerard could not believe that such beauty could live in the soul of

this man, an avowed follower of the precepts of darkness.

Gerard had moved into the house yesterday afternoon. Acting

on Medan's orders, the healers of the Nereka Knights had pooled

their dwindling energies to restore the 50lamnic to almost com-

plete health. His wounds had knit with astonishing rapidity.