The Second Generation

by Margaret Weis

  “The power of the gem,” Dougan said. “You felt it, young mage! And now you know why it must be captured and returned to the gods for safekeeping. It escaped man’s care before; it will escape again. The gods only know,” the dwarf added sorrowfully, “what mischief it has wreaked upon the inhabitants of this wretched island.”

  Wagging his black beard, Dougan held out a trembling hand to Tanin. “You’ll help me, lads, won’t you?” he asked in heartfelt, pleading tones, so different from his usual braggadocio that Tanin was caught off guard, his anger punctured. “If you say no,” continued Dougan, hanging his head, “I’ll understand. Though I did win the wager, I guess it was wrong of me to get you drunk and take you prisoner when you were weak and helpless.”

  Tanin chewed his lip, obviously not welcoming this reminder.

  “And I swear by my beard,” said the dwarf solemnly, stroking it, “that if you say the word, I’ll have the gnomes take you back to Ansalon. As soon as they get the ship repaired, that is.”

  “If they get the ship repaired!” Tanin growled at last. (This appeared unlikely. The gnomes were paying no attention whatsoever to the ship, but were arguing among themselves about who was supposed to have been on watch, who was supposed to be reading the gnomes’ own map, and the committee that had drawn up the map in the first place. It was later decided that, since the cliff hadn’t been marked on the map, it wasn’t there. Having reached this conclusion, the gnomes were able to get to work.)

  “Well, what do you two say?” Tanin turned to his brothers.

  “I say that since we’re here, we ought to at least take a look around,” Sturm said in low tones. “If the dwarf is right and we could retrieve the Graygem, our admittance into the knighthood would be assured! As he said, we’d be heroes!”

  “To say nothing of the wealth we might obtain,” Tanin muttered. “Palin?”

  The young mage’s heart beat fast. Who knows what magical powers the Graygem possesses? he thought suddenly. It could enhance my power, and I wouldn’t need any great archmage to teach me! I might become a great archmage myself, just by touching it or … Palin shook his head. Raising his eyes, he saw his brothers’ faces. Tanin’s was ugly with greed, Sturm’s twisted with ambition. My own face—Palin put his hand on it—what must it look like to them? He glanced down at his robes, and saw their white color faded to dirty gray. It might just be from the salt water, but it might be from something else.…

  “My brothers,” he said urgently, “listen to us! Think what you just said! Tanin, since when did you ever go in search of wealth and not adventure!”

  Tanin blinked, as if waking from a dream. “You’re right! Wealth! What am I talking about? I never cared that much for money—”

  “The power of the Graygem is speaking,” Dougan cried. “It’s beginning to corrupt you, as it corrupted others.” His gaze went to the gnomes. The shoving and pushing had escalated into punching and tossing one another overboard.

  “I say we should at least investigate this island,” Palin said in a low voice so that the dwarf would not overhear. He drew his brothers closer. “If for no other reason than to find out if Dougan’s telling the truth. If he is, and if the Graygem is here, and if we could be the ones to bring it back …”

  “Oh, it’s here!” Dougan said, eagerly poking his black-bearded face into their midst. “And when you bring it back, lads, why, the stories they tell of your famous father will be nothing compared to the legends they’ll sing of you! And you’ll be rescuing the poor people of this island from their sad fate,” continued the dwarf in solemn tones.

  “People?” Tanin said, startled. “You mean this place is inhabited?”

  “Yes, there are people here,” the dwarf said with a gusty sigh, though he was eyeing the brothers shrewdly.

  “He’s right,” said Sturm, staring intently at the beach. “There are people on Gargath. And it doesn’t look to me, Dougan Redhammer, like they want to be rescued!”

  Tanin, Palin, Sturm, and the dwarf were ferried across the water from the Miracle by a party of gnomes in a dinghy. Bringing along the dinghy on board the Miracle had been the dwarf’s idea, and the gnomes were enchanted with something so practical and simple. The gnomes had themselves designed a lifeboat to be attached to the Miracle. Roughly the same weight and dimensions as the ship itself, the lifeboat had been left behind, to be studied by a committee.

  As the boat drew nearer to shore, surging forward with the waves and the incoming tide, the brothers could see the welcoming party. The rising sun glinted off spears and shields carried by a crowd of men who were awaiting their arrival on the beach. Tall and muscular, the men wore little clothing in the balmy clime of the island. Their skin was a rich, glistening brown, their bodies adorned with bright beads and feathers, their faces stern and resolute. The shields they carried were made of wood and painted with garish designs, the spears handmade as well—wooden with stone tips.

  “Honed nice and sharp, you can believe me,” said Sturm gloomily. “They’ll go through flesh like a knife through butter.”

  “We’re outnumbered at least twenty to one,” Tanin pointed out to Dougan, who was sitting in the prow of the boat, fingering a battle-axe that was nearly the size of the dwarf.

  “Bah! Primitives!” said Dougan contemptuously, though Palin noted the dwarf’s face was a bit pale. “First sight of steel, they’ll bow down and worship us as gods.”

  The “gods’ ” arrival on the beach was something less than majestic. Tanin and Sturm did look quite magnificent in their bright steel armor of elven make and design—a gift from Porthios and Alhana of the United Elven Kingdoms. The breastplates glittered in the morning sun; their helms gleamed brightly. Climbing out of the boat, they sank to their shins in the sand and, within minutes, were both firmly mired.

  Dougan, dressed in his suit of red velvet, demanded that the gnomes take him in to shore, so he would not ruin his clothes. The dwarf had added to his costume a wide-brimmed hat decorated with a white plume that fluttered in the ocean breeze, and he was truly a wonderful sight, standing proudly in the prow of the boat with his axe at his side, glaring sternly at the warriors drawn up in battle formation on the beach. The gnomes obeyed his injunction to the letter, running the boat aground on the beach with such force that Dougan tumbled out headfirst, narrowly missing slicing himself in two with his great battle-axe.

  Palin had often imagined his first battle—fighting at the side of his brothers, combining steel and magic. He had spent the journey to shore committing the few spells he knew to memory. As they drew toward land, his pulse raced with what he told himself was excitement, not fear. He was prepared for almost any eventuality … with the exception of helping a cursing, sputtering, irate dwarf to his feet; trying to dislodge his brothers from the wet sand; and facing an army of silent, grim, half-naked men.

  “Why don’t they attack us?” Sturm muttered, floundering about in the water, trying to keep his balance. “They could cut us to ribbons!”

  “Maybe they have a law that prohibits them from harming idiots!” snapped Tanin irritably.

  Dougan had managed, with Palin’s help, to stagger to his feet. Shaking his fist, he sent the gnomes on their way back to the ship with a parting curse, then turned and, with as much dignity as he could bluster, stomped across the beach toward the warriors. Tanin and Sturm followed more slowly, hands on the hilts of their swords. Palin came after his brothers more slowly still, his white robes wet and bedraggled, the hem caked with sand.

  The warriors waited for them in silence, unmoving, their faces expressionless as they watched the strangers approach. But Palin noticed, as he drew near, that occasionally one of the men would glance uneasily back into the nearby jungle. Observing this happening more than once, Palin turned his attention to the trees. After watching and listening intently for a moment, he drew nearer Tanin.

  “There’s something in those trees,” he said in an undertone.

  “I wouldn’t doubt it,” Tanin gr
owled. “Probably another fifty or so warriors.”

  “I don’t know,” Palin said thoughtfully, shaking his head. “The warriors appear to be nervous about it, maybe even—”

  “Shush!” Tanin ordered sharply. “This is no time to talk, Palin! Now keep behind Sturm and me, like you’re supposed to!”

  “But—” Palin began.

  Tanin flashed him a look of anger meant to remind the young man who was in charge. With a sigh, Palin took up his position behind his brothers. But his eyes went to the jungle and he again noticed that more than one of the warriors allowed his gaze to stray in that direction as well.

  “Hail!” cried Dougan, stumping through the sand to stand in front of the warrior who, by standing out slightly in front of his fellows, appeared to be the chief. “Us gods!” proclaimed the dwarf, thumping himself on the chest. “Come from Land of Rising Sun to give greeting to our subjects on Isle of Gargath.”

  “You’re a dwarf,” said the warrior glumly, speaking excellent Common. “You’ve come from Ansalon, and you’re probably after the Graygem.”

  “Well … uh … now …” Dougan appeared flustered. “That’s … uh … a good guess, lad. We are, as it happens, mildly interested in … uh … the Graygem. If you’d be so good as to tell us where we might find it—”

  “You can’t have it,” said the warrior, sounding depressed. He raised his spear. “We’re here to stop you.”

  The warriors behind him nodded unenthusiastically, fumbling with their spears and clumsily falling into some sort of ragged battle formation. Again, Palin noticed many of them looking into the jungle with that same nervous, preoccupied expression.

  “Well, we’re going to take it!” Tanin shouted fiercely, apparently trying to drum up some enthusiasm for the conflict. “You’ll have to fight us to stop us.”

  “I guess we will,” mumbled the chief, hefting his spear in halfhearted fashion.

  Somewhat confused, Tanin and Sturm nevertheless drew their swords, as Dougan, his face grim, lifted his axe. The words to a spell chant were on Palin’s lips, and the Staff of Magius seemed to tremble with eagerness in his hand. But Palin hesitated. From all he’d heard, battles weren’t supposed to be like this! Where was the hot blood? The ferocious hatred? The bitter determination to die where one stood rather than give an inch of ground?

  The warriors shuffled forward, prodding each other along. Tanin closed on them, his sword flashing in the sun, Sturm at his back. Suddenly, a cry came from the jungle. There was movement and a rustling sound, more cries, and then a yelp of pain. A small figure dashed out of the trees, running headlong across the sand.

  “Wait!” Palin yelled. “It’s a child!”

  The warriors turned at the sound. “Damn!” muttered the chief, tossing his shield and spear into the sand in disgust. The child—a little girl of about five—ran to the warrior and threw her arms around his legs. At that moment, another child, older than the first, came running out of the woods in pursuit.

  “I thought I told you to keep her with you!” the chief said to the older child, a boy, who came dashing up.

  “She bit me!” said the boy accusingly, exhibiting bloody marks on his arm.

  “You’re not going to hurt my daddy, are you?” the little girl asked Tanin, glaring at him with dark eyes.

  “N-no,” stuttered Tanin, taken aback. He lowered his sword. “We’re just”—he shrugged, flushing scarlet—“talking. You know, man talk.”

  “Bless my beard!” exclaimed the dwarf in awe. More children were running from the jungle—children of all ages, from toddlers who could barely make their way across the sand to older boys and girls of about ten or eleven. The air was filled with their shrill voices.

  “I’m bored. Can we go home?”

  “Lemme hold the spear!”

  “No, it’s my turn! Dad said—”

  “Apu said a bad word!”

  “Did not!”

  “Did so!”

  “Look, Daddy! That short, fat man with the hair on his face! Isn’t he ugly?”

  Glancing at the strangers in deep embarrassment, the warriors turned from their battle formation to argue with their children.

  “Listen, Blossom, Daddy’s just going to be a little longer. You go back and play—”

  “Apu, take your brothers back with you and don’t let me hear you using language like that or I’ll—”

  “No, dear, Daddy needs the spear right now. You can carry it on the way home—”

  “Halt!” roared the dwarf. Dougan’s thunderous shout cut through the confusion, silencing warrior and child alike.

  “Look,” said Tanin, sheathing his sword, his own face flushed with embarrassment, “we don’t want to fight you, especially in front of your kids.”

  “I know,” the chief said, chagrined. “It’s always like that We haven’t had a good battle in two years! Have you ever”—he gave Tanin a pained look—“tried to fight with a toddler underfoot?”

  Profoundly perplexed, Tanin shook his head.

  “Takes all the fun out of it,” added another warrior as one child swarmed up his back and another bashed him in the shins with his shield.

  “Leave them at home with their mothers, then, where they belong,” said Dougan gruffly.

  The warriors’ expression grew grimmer still. At the mention of their mothers, several of the children began to cry.

  “We can’t,” stated a warrior.

  “Why not?” demanded Dougan.

  “Because their mothers are gone!”

  “It all started two years ago,” said the chief, walking with Dougan and the brothers back to the village. “Lord Gargath sent a messenger to us, demanding ten maidens be paid him in tribute or he’d unleash the power of the Graygem.” The warrior’s gaze went to the volcano in the distance, its lagged top barely visible amid the shifting gray clouds that surrounded it. Forked lightning streaked from the cloud, and thunder rumbled. The chief shivered and shook his head. “What could we do? We paid him his tribute. But it didn’t stop there. The next month, here came the messenger again. Ten more maidens, and more the month following. Soon, we ran out of maidens, and then the lord demanded our wives. Then he sent for our mothers! Now”—the chief sighed—“there isn’t a woman left in the village!”

  “All of them!” Sturm gaped. “He’s taken all of them!”

  The chief nodded in despair, and the child in his arms wailed in grief. “And not only us. It happened to every tribe on the island. We used to be a fierce, proud people,” the chief added, his dark eyes flashing. “Our tribes were constantly at war. To win honor and glory in battle was what we lived for. To die fighting was the noblest death a man could find! Now, we lead lives of drudgery—”

  “Our hands in dishwater instead of blood,” said another, “mending clothes instead of cracking skulls.”

  “To say nothing of what else we’re missing, without the women,” added a third with a meaningful look.

  “Well, why don’t you go get them back!” Tanin demanded.

  The warriors, to a man, looked at him with undisguised horror, many glancing over their shoulders at the smoking volcano, expressions of terror on their faces, as if fearing they might be overheard.

  “Attack the powerful Lord Gargath?” asked the chief in what was practically a whisper. “Face the wrath of the Graygem’s master? No!” He shuddered, holding his child close. “At least now our children have one parent.”

  “But if all the tribes fought together,” Sturm argued, “that would be … how many men? Hundreds? Thousands?”

  “If there were millions, we would not go up against the Master of the Graygem,” said the chief.

  “Well, then,” said Dougan sharply, “why did you try to stop us back there on the beach? Seems to me you would be only too glad to rid yourselves of the thing!”

  “Lord Gargath ordered us to fight any who tried to take it,” said the chief simply.

  Reaching their village—a scattering of thatched hut
s that had seen better days—the warriors dispersed, some taking children to bed, others hurrying to look into steaming pots, still others heading for a stream with baskets loaded with clothes.

  “Dougan,” said Tanin, watching all this in astonishment almost too great for words, “this doesn’t make any sense! What’s going on?”

  “The power of the Graygem, lad,” said the dwarf solemnly. “They’re deep under its spell and can no longer see anything rationally. I’ll lay ten to one that it’s the Graygem keeping them from attacking Lord Gargath. But us, now”—the dwarf looked at the brothers cunningly—“we’re not under its spell.”

  “Not yet,” mentioned Palin.

  “And therefore we stand a chance of defeating him! After all, how powerful can he be?”

  “Oh, he could have an army of a couple thousand men or so,” said Sturm.

  “No, no,” said Dougan hastily. “If he did, he would have just sent the army to attack the villages, kill the men, and carry off the women. Lord Gargath is using the power of the Graygem because that’s all he’s got! We must act quickly, though, lads, because its power will grow on us the longer we stay near its influence.”

  Tanin frowned, considering. “How do we get the Graygem, then?” he asked abruptly. “And what do we do with it after we’ve got it? It seems to me, we’ll be in worse danger than ever!”

  “Ah, leave that to me!” said Dougan, rubbing his hands. “Just help me to get it, lads.”

  Tanin kept on frowning.

  “And think of the women—poor things,” the dwarf continued sadly, “held in thrall by this wicked lord, forced to submit to his evil will. They’ll undoubtedly be grateful to the brave men who rescue them.…”

  “He’s right,” said Sturm in sudden resolve. “It is our duty, Tanin, as future Knights of Solamnia, to rescue the women.”

  “What do you say, Little Brother?” asked Tanin.

  “It is my duty as a mage of the White Robes to help these people,” Palin said, feeling extremely self-righteous. “All these people,” he added.