Wayward Lights

Overview

Wayward Lights are among the Drifters of the Veil. They usually appear in the Veil itself, but where the Veil runs thin they can appear on Caeldon too. They glow ahead of travellers in thin fog, always a little way off, and whoever follows one forgets where they were going. In the Veil that is drift, which can lose a traveller forever. At the thin places of Caeldon, where Humans meet them, they are called corpse-candles.

Appearance

A Wayward Light is a soft, pale glow the size of a candle flame or a lantern, white with a tinge of green or blue, that hangs at about the height of a carried light. It flickers and sways as a lantern does in a walking hand. No one has seen anything inside it. It keeps its distance: walk towards it and it is always a little farther, stop and it stops. It makes no sound, and its light throws no shadows and gives no warmth.

Habitat and Range

Most of them drift in the thin fog of the Veil, where travellers can see a little way and are most tempted to follow what they see. On the Material Plane they can appear only where the Veil runs thin: at old shrines, along boundary roads, over moors and fens where the mist lies at night. They are seen there seldom, and mostly by Humans, who travel those roads most.

Behaviour and Temperament

A light appears ahead of a traveller, usually one alone or at the back of a group, and waits. It seems to know which way the traveller means to go, and stands a little to one side of it. It does not call or lure. It is simply there, a light in the fog where someone with a lantern might be, and the eye follows it.

Abilities

Following a Wayward Light loosens intent, and in the Veil intent is the only thing that keeps a traveller on course. A traveller who follows one forgets, step by step, where they were going and why, and drifts: to a random Resonant Zone, another Anchor, or nowhere. At a thin place on Caeldon, those who follow one are led off the road into the bog or the moor, and some, it is said, through the thin place into the fog and out of the world.

Life Cycle

No one knows whether they are born or made. Some lights are said to be seen in the same place for generations.

Uses and Dangers

They give nothing and take whoever follows them. Veil travellers' oldest rule is never to follow a light they did not bring. On the boundary roads Humans carry a light of their own, walk in company, and look at the road, not at the dark.

Lore and Belief

Humans of the old boundary roads believe the corpse-candles are the dead looking for their way and not finding it, or the dead come to fetch the living, and that one seen near a house means a death there within the year. Many say they are lit by Ennor the Grave-Watcher to guide Echoes to the threshold, and that a living man who follows one goes with them. As far as anything is known, the lights are of the Veil and not of the dead. Most lights seen on the moors are lanterns, marsh-gas, or fear (see Knowledge of the Cosmos).

Bandits of the moors are said to hang lanterns to pass for the lights and lure travellers off the road, and some of the corpse-candles of the tales were surely theirs.

Where It Appears

• The Veil