The Last Garrison (Dungeons & Dragons Novel) (29 page)

Sten woke first, and Spundwand soon after. The youths followed, but with difficulty. All felt as if they had been roused from a deep, deep sleep, their minds as clouded as their vision. It took time for the disorientation to abate. When it did, they stared around and wondered where they were.

“What is this place?” asked Luzhon. “How did we get here?”

They were atop a stone tower on the side of a mountain—a battlement. Nergei and Luzhon knew it to be their mountain—the mountain that was home to Haven—but also, not their mountain. The flora was not the same—not as lush. Not as thick. The trees were thin and dark as if in autumn’s grip. The sky was overcast, the sun falling over the horizon. No stars. A pale sliver of moon. The world wrapped in fog.

And about the tower was not Haven. It was another complex of buildings, all stone and metal and darkly stained wood. The complex was the size of Haven, but at the edges, thick stone walls rose, a crown of sharp pikes at the edges. Torches—their flames unnatural, subdued—guttered along the walls every few feet. It was not Haven. It was a fortress.

“The wall,” said Luzhon, pointing to the center of the fortress, to a great central structure. “The wall where you were sitting.”

“Yes,” said Spundwand. “Indeed it is. Or what it was, long ago. This is Haven’s past. This is where you live.”

“I don’t understand,” said Nergei. “Haven is a small village—not a stronghold. It has never been anything else.”

“No, child,” said Spundwand. “It was this once.”

“Is this an illusion?” asked Luzhon. “A vision? One cannot travel to the past. How are we seeing this? How are we here?” She directed the questions not to Spundwand, who seemed to understand, but to Nergei. “What has your master done to us?”

“I’m not sure,” said Nergei. “But I don’t think we have been given a vision of the past.” He reached out to the wall of the parapet, struck the stone with the palm of his hand, and ran his hand across it. “This is too solid, too real to be a vision.”

“No,” said Spundwand. “Not a vision. This is how Haven appeared in its past, but this is not a vision of its past. We have not moved in time, child, and not away from where we were. We have stepped through from one world to another.”

“I don’t understand,” said Luzhon, panic setting in. “What does that mean? How can we be in Haven and not in Haven, in the now but not in the now?”

“The light,” said Sten. “The atmosphere. Do you feel it?”

Nergei nodded. He had, on occasion, stolen an hour or two in his master’s library, read from the books he kept on the top shelves when he had been sent to dust and to tidy. He knew a little, enough about the other worlds. The fey world from which the natural races came—the creatures of the trees and the soil, the ones who found strength in the untamed riot of vegetation and rivers of raw, arcane energy. He had read of the planes of fire, where great and terrible monsters of pure malice and ambition conspired to find bridges to the other worlds, empire-building, the conquering of all other races their greatest ambition. He knew of the worlds of near complete emptiness, where ships floated not on water, but on the aether, where the decaying bodies of giants were the continents and between the shoulder blades of a titan, a compound held a retinue of contemplative masters of the power of inner discipline. And he believed he knew this place, as well.

“The gloom,” Nergei said. “Luzhon, we are in the land of the mistress of the dead.”

“The Shadowfell,” said Sten.

“We have died?” asked Luzhon, her voice breaking. “We were approaching your master, Nergei. Did the Old Stargazer—”

“No, child,” said Spundwand. “I think not. Your cheeks are as pink and flush as they were.” Luzhon
stared at the dwarf, unsure what he meant. Nergei noted her confusion.

“The denizens of the Shadowfell have a—gray cast to their skin. They lose their color.”

“They quickly begin to resemble the murk of their home, child. You live still, my dear. Do not be frightened.”

“You live,” said a voice from deep within the shadows, “but this does not mean you should not be frightened.”

Sten pulled his blade from his belt, as did Spundwand. They spun to the sound of the voice, pushed Nergei and Luzhon behind them, and stood side by side, prepared to engage who or whatever had discovered them.

“No,” said the voice. “You do not need to be afraid of me. Not anymore, anyway.” From within the shadows stepped the speaker. Tall, gray-skinned, armored in black leather, a blade still in its sheath at his side—he stepped not out from the corner where he had concealed himself in shadows, but from the shadows themselves. When he had fully emerged, he reached into a pocket inside his cloak, pulled out a small amount of dark green root, and he rubbed it on his neck.

“Who are you?” asked Sten.

“It is of no consequence, Captain,” said the gray figure. “None at all. There are much more important
things to discuss.” He saw the slight surprise on Sten’s face. “Yes, I have been made privy to your history, your former rank. Your failures years back. Many of your soldiers live here now. If there was time, I could take you to see them,” he said, stepping forward.

“Shadow creature,” said Spundwand, “if you move closer to us, I will call on Moradin’s blessing to turn you to ash.”

The man—the revenant—sighed. “You are in the land of my mistress, now, little dwarf. The queen of the dead reigns here in Gloomhaven. The gods tend not to grant such boons in the territories of their equals, unless they are making open war on one another. So I will stay here.” A stunned fury descended over Spundwand’s face, but a hand on his shoulder from Sten kept him from acting rashly. “Perhaps I will take a seat, yes?” The revenant lowered himself to the ground and bundled himself in his cloak. “Now. You have murdered my champion, Captain, before he was able to carry out his task. Because of this, you have unwittingly put yourself in much greater danger. Put Haven in much greater danger. Put the world in much greater danger. And you must put this to right.”

Nergei and Luzhon looked at each other, unsure what was happening. But in the depth of her fear, Luzhon discovered a small cinder of bravery, and she
reached out to hold Nergei’s hand. When her palm met his, he began to feel it, as well. Around them, the world was still and silent, inhabited only by the words of the gray man and the warriors. The connection added a warmth and a life to the situation.

“What champion?” asked Sten. “What must be put to right?”

“Temley,” he answered. “My mistress’s killer. The one you stopped before he could make it to the observatory and carry out the duties of the oath he had taken to the queen of death.”

“The old man?” asked Spundwand.

“The Old Stargazer is a great danger to the world,” said the shadow man. “Not just to Haven.”

“My master protected Haven!” shouted Nergei. “He was no threat to it.”

The revenant smiled and shifted. “You are out of your depth, child. But you more than anyone else here must be aware of the changes to your master.”

Nergei opened his mouth to speak, but did not. “You saw it,” said the revenant. “You know he was beginning to falter.”

“He was,” Nergei admitted, “seeming to go inside himself.”

“Not inside, young man. He was being pulled in two directions. One part of him was being siphoned out into the stars, to the
things
that granted him his
connection to the forces of the arcane.” The shadow creature gestured skyward with his right hand. “The greater part of him, though, the part still aware enough of the danger, was stashing away bits and pieces of his power and his
soul
here,” and he gestured with his left hand to the world around him, “in the Shadowfell. He was hiding himself here.

“Because in Gloomhaven, the last great garrison of Nerath remains a powerful, difficult to penetrate fortress. In the Shadowfell, your master felt he would be safe.”

“Nerath?” asked Luzhon.

“The last human empire to control the continent from eastern to western sea,” said Spundwand. “When I was but a child, Nerath was gone. The garrison here, this village now called Haven, was but a story.”

“Quite a story though,” said the revenant. “Here three mighty heroes held the principles of the empire close; even as the empire itself was nothing more than a memory, a collection of books, a few songs still sung, and an ever smaller number of refugee encampments being overrun by the dark creatures of the east—the gnolls and goblin races. A warrior who had dedicated his life and his axe to Ioun. An archer with a skill not since seen—even by the elf woman you travel with. And a spellcaster who had traded his essence to entities in the stars for great power.

“The other two eventually succumbed to age. They were only human. They were fragile. When the last of the two passed away—the warrior with his axe beside him, the archer with his bow nearby—the spellcaster began trading away more and more of himself to stay alive. He pulled down the walls of the garrison, smashed the towers. The few young soldiers of the garrison had their memories altered or wiped clean. He made them farmers, hunters. He cloaked the village in fog and illusion. Generations passed, and for the love of his companions, he kept the village hidden and safe as a testament to them. Haven was their gravestone.”

The light on the parapet changed. Still, the murk settled over everything, but there was a flash and a noise from the center of the fortress. “He grows impatient,” said the revenant.

“My master? What have we to fear of him?” asked Nergei. “You yourself said he was the protector of Haven. He escaped from the corruption here with his power.”

“The outer corruption, yes. He was to be the harbinger of the powers from the stars. Their foothold. My queen desired him dead so he would be within her sway. The things beyond—they are scheming. They have designs on the world. They have designs on the living and the dead of the world. But the dead
belong to her. And as all of the world dies eventually, the world belongs to her. So she would have the Old Stargazer dead before he becomes the focus of something cataclysmic.

“The outer corruption is partially held at bay for now. But there is an inner corruption. Age has led to a
franticness
in the old man’s mind. A dementia. The ones who granted him his power will find him, and take him over completely. Coming here was the last act of his rational mind. And now, in the Shadowfell, he is all the more dangerous to my mistress.”

“She sent the kenku to Haven?” asked Sten.

“A distraction. The raven men were meant only to split the old man’s gaze in another direction so we could send the assassin to kill that part of him still standing in the mortal world. We were not aware that the people of Haven would be resourceful enough to find you. I believe you two,” said the revenant, gesturing to Nergei and Luzhon, “have impressed the queen. She seems it, in her way. When the old man brought himself here, she made sure the four of you were brought along.”

A cracking of thunder occurred in the sky overhead. “My master,” said Nergei.

“He is lost to you, child,” said the revenant. “Utterly lost. He must die.”

“I cannot kill him,” said Nergei.

“Of course not!” said the revenant with a laugh. “Who are you? You, though,” he turned and stared at Sten, “and your partner. You were engaged to protect Haven. Killing the old man will do so. Go to it.”

“Why should we believe you, shadow creature?” asked Spundwand. “Who are you to tell us any of this? Perhaps we should seek out the old man and join with him to kill you.”

The revenant laughed again. “You will find the old man quite beyond the reach of reason, dwarf. You may attempt to ally with him, but it is unlikely he will accept any overture. Even from his ward, here. But, by all means. Speak to the man yourself. I will help you find him.” The revenant clapped his hands together and rubbed them. The shadows on the ground grew and filled the floor, and then crept up the bodies of the five of them. Darkness surrounded them utterly, and the world around them again winked out. But this time, there was no vertigo, no loss of consciousness, no feeling of stretching and pulling in their bodies. Instead, they were simply covered in a cold darkness that rose around them, and then shrank back to the floor.

When the shadows dissipated and crawled away across the floor, they found they were again moved, no longer in the tower above the fortress version of Haven. Gloomhaven, the revenant had called it. Instead, they
were in a large structure, an open hall. It was twice the size of the gathering hall in the town of Haven, but shared its shape. No table in the center, though. Instead, a dark, robed figure stood, a stream of words pouring from his
mouth
. And to his sides, kneeling and doubled over, pale-armored and shivering, two figures with black hair and, where it peeked out from the plates of armor on one and the heavy sections of leather of the other, rot-gray skin. The figure in the center had his back turned, but seemed to sense an intrusion. He stopped his muttering. He cocked his head and turned slowly. His skin was a throbbing blue pulse. His beard had gone from white to an eggshell blue ribboned with dark blue streaks. His eyes had gone entirely black. White breath poured from his nose. He appeared decades younger but still an old man, still the Old Stargazer. Nergei knew him immediately, as did the others. “I am safe here,” he said. “I do not allow you in my sanctuary.”

“Master,” said Nergei, shouting to be heard over a powerful rumbling in the wooden floor below them. “We have come to help you.”

“I need no help,” he replied. “I need nothing from you, child. I have my champions. I have my power. All must leave! All must flee!” At his sides, the figures extended their arms, ancient joints cracking. They flexed muscles and turned necks back and forth in
unison, mirroring each other. And slowly they rose to their feet, faces drawn, eyes closed. “Kolber, the Axe of Ioun. Galsey, the Swiftest Arrow. The only two I can trust. Not the stars. Not the voices. You are not to be trusted.”

“Master, it is Nergei. It is your servant. You have always trusted me—to feed you, to clean for you, to gather the components for your rituals. You brought me here to be beside you, as well.”