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Chapter 9

Alair was in the plain of mind spirit dowsing, which to say is being in a state of daydreaming so to speak. The power of her thoughts went in the ratio of a few hundred miles, and it was clear that the most dead soul signals were coming from the North.

Her mind bent to the task of reaching further to the North to try and find the source, but something in the back of her mind that had been there since the first time she mind dowsed was irritating her, as if it was trying to either block her power or trying to tell her something. She didn't notice it really the first time because it was right after the she had bound her companions to herself, so she was strained just enough to just barely notice the feeling before.

Once again she tried to see what was just ahead of them that could be pulling all of the souls out of their flow toward the Gate of the Dead. On this plain of her mind, she could see souls and energy in shape and form, but things were like smoke and mist, twisting, turning, distorting the images she was trying to see. She saw a couple of images far away in the form of humanoids, but the forms were made of the wisps of smoke, all dark grey, eminating both soft and harsh emotions. All of them were dark, the sining desires of mortals, selfishness, hatered, revenge, and most of all, the hunger for power.

There was another image that seemed to eminate all of these emotions with even more power and desire, but the image was surrounded by swirling blood red mist, different from the others. This image suddenly turned toward her, as if it seemed to see her too. It's burning red eyes the only thing visible to her, and they seemed to peirce her very being. Her will began to fight the hold of this unknown being that looked on her with such interest.

"Alair! Alair!?" Caylan said as he shook her. He looked down at her with his emerald eyes intense with concern.

She had been sitting in a chair by her bed while doing her mind dowsing. The room suddenly came back into focus around her, even though her eyes had been open the whole time.

"Caylan!? What's Wrong with you?" she scolded him, standing up as she did so.

"What do you mean, me? I was talking to you, but you didn't answer, nor did you even move or blink! What am I supossed to think?" He replied still looking down at her since she was shorter than he.

"Uhg! Well...I was trying to see if we were still going the right way." she sighed and sat back down. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to snap at you. I was just a little busy when you pulled me away."

Caylan was a bit irritated because how was he to know that she was doing something important? This was not normal human behavoir, but then again, she was not human. However, even in all the time he had spent among the Amar, he had never seem any of them do something like that before.

'Whatever, what do I know!?' he thought.

"Alright, I'm sorry. I didn't know." He said and started to walk out the door.

"Wait, what was it you wanted to tell or ask me?" Alair asked as she jumped out of her chair and walked after him.

He stopped and turned back around toward her. "Oh, yes, I was coming to tell you that we're coming into a port very soon now, but we weren't going to go in until we had talked with you."

They both walked out on deck. Land could be seen not far away, but it was a dark day, the clouds were dark and threatening rain, the air was biting cold even though the wind was calm, and even the sea looked dark and lifeless.

Cold weather was something Alair had never encountered before, and she started to shiver a little. Caylan saw this, but had no coat to give her, so he just made a mental note instead to get her a coat while they were in a town.

"The men on the Knights ship told us that the shores and ports here were not too friendly, and so we'll go around them if that's your wish." Caylan said.

"I do not know what to tell you, but that we must continue this way. If you think it's best to avoid potential danger that may be here, then do so, but as you know, I have no experience in these matters." She answered in voice without very much expression at all as she looked out over the sea and over at the land not too far away.

'Well, I guess we could easily by pass this port since this ship can travel on any terrain as well as the sea, but on the other hand, what have we got to lose? We're already dead I mean, so danger what kind of danger could we get into?' he thought.

Caylan then remembered something else that Lornel had mentioned to him.

"I heard that around those shores there was some rumors about the undead. Perhaps we should go there and check to see if the rumors are valid, and then we may get another lead towards the source of the problem we're looking for." He said, also thinking how he and his men would like to see part of their old kingdom again, even if it was ruined, returning home one last time would at least stop the questions in their heads.

Alair looked over to him, "That's a good idea, let's go then! But, Caylan, who do we ask about the rumors?" she said.

"We don't ask anyone in paticular, well, never mind, we'll look around about it, and we'll get some rooms at an inn or something and you can stay there while we see to the other matters." He said not wanting to explain the proceedures of finding information.

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The port they pulled in to was about half full of ships, but that was a lot amount compared to what there ports usually had. There was no one even on the docks even though there were ships, not even anyone to come and collect their fee for tying their ship up at the dock.

Janod and Zalel went to go find a suitible Inn while the rest of them tied the ship to the dock and waited for the two to come back. Alair's attention was busy taking in all the sights before her, even though it was not a glorious or even nice site to see. She was still facinated though.

It took them a while to come back, and they looked a bit on the merrier side too.

"We..*hic*...found a very suitible Inn for us Captain." Zalel said, but when Caylan gave them a stern look, he continued, "Don't worry it's not that kind of suitible! It's also very suitble for Alair as well."

"I sure..." Caylan said with a tad of sarcasm as he rolled his eyes.

They all walked toward the Inn that Zalel and Janod had found. The streets were fairly empty, which was also a strange thing. Was it because of the Dark armies Lornel had spoken of?

They walked inside the Inn, and even more odd, it was full! This was very odd for this time of day. The bar inside the Inn was also open, which was strange also, because the bars never opened until at least sundown.

Alair looked at all of the people inside the Inn. She had never seen so many people that were alive! She stared at a couple of the people doing drinking contests.

Caylan then noticed that several people were looking at Alair with curiosity. It was no wonder why. She had beautiful long silver hair, Black eyes with the night sky's stars in them, and her robes also stood out a little since they were made of a white material that shined, but was silky to the eye and touch.

Janod wispered to Caylan, "Maybe we should escort little miss non-human to her room so's that no one gets any funny ideas." He said while glancing over at a few men who were staring at her.

"Yeah, you're right. Tell her that she should call it a night and get some rest while we go and see what we can find. We'll take turns checking on her tonight to make sure she doesn't wander off." He replied.

Caylan told her they were going to take her to her room to sleep now, and she protested because the sun had not gone down yet, so why did she have to go to sleep? He sent her anyways. She stuck out like a flower in the middle of the desert here. He hadn't thought about it since they had been surrounded by the Amar for the last couple of decades.

Conan and Dranon led her to her room while the others headed out, and they followed after a few minutes. They looked around and talked to a few other people in different Inns and bars, but didn't get any information of interest.

The sun had been down for a while already when they decided to head back fo the night and try again tomorrow.

"Janod, go and check on Alair, would you?" Caylan said as he walked into his room.

He began to unbuckle most of his weapons, for he always kept a couple on him for the unexpected. He was taking off his boots when Janod flung open the door ran into the room.

"Alair is gone!! She didn't wander off though, there was this note." Janod said holding out a paper to Caylan.

The paper was folded like a letter, and had a red seal on it to keep it closed. The seal was not wax however, and on close inspection, one could clearly see that it was thick dried blood. The blood of who, they could not tell.


End of Chapter 9