[Meetings 01] - Kindred Spirits

by Mark Anthony

  "Peculiar names," Flint said with a grunt.

  Miral nodded. "They are very old. They were given to the rivers in the days after Kith-Kanan and his people journeyed to the forests of Qualinesti. The names represent the tears wept during the Kinslayer Wars, and the hope for the future when the wars finally ended."

  The dwarf's companion fell silent, and Flint was content to stay in this peaceful place for a while, gazing out over the city. Finally, however, it was time to go.

  Miral escorted Flint to the Speaker's palace, just west of the Tower of the Sun, and Flint found himself shown to his temporary chambers, a suite of high-ceilinged, marble-floored rooms three times the size of his own house back in Solace. He was free to rest and refresh himself as he wished, the mage informed him, showing him the door that opened onto a small room with a wash basin filled with cinnamon-scented water. Then he was left alone, with promises of food and ale—but no elvenblossom wine—to come soon.

  "A dwarf in Qualinost!" Flint said with a soft snort to himself one last time. Reflecting that elven taste in scents and wine scarcely matched his own, he shed his tunic and leggings and dipped into the spicy bath to wash away the grime and dust of the road.

  When an elven servant arrived not long after, he found the dwarf ensconced in a russet robe and sprawled on the sheets of the bed, snoring raucously. Quietly, the servant set down the tray of red ale, sliced venison and diced potatoes, then blew out the few candles that lit the room, leaving the dwarf to sleep in the darkness, and dream.

  Chapter 2

  Beware of the Dark

  When the adult dreamed he dreamed as a child.

  He dreamed he was a toddler stood poised in the opening of a tunnel. Around the opening, quartz and marble and tile, once burnished, were now dirty with age and disuse. A small tree—no aspen, no oak, nothing the youngster had seen in his short life—grew out of the stone at the side of the cave mouth. The child's nostrils twitched with the smell of damp rock and—blue eyes widened—the scent of cinnamon! Cinnamon and rock sugar on quith-pa—the child's favorite afternoon treat. And he was hungry, tired of this day's outing.

  The mother's voice called from a nearby thicket in the Grove, the sacred forested area near the center of Qualinost. The child stood, irresolute, at the tunnel's opening, clutching a stuffed animal, a kodragon, in one fat hand. The cave had not been there the day before, the child thought, but it was there now. Anything is possible in a child's world, and this child had never known fear.

  A Presence beckoned from within. Perhaps the Presence would play with the toddler; his own big brothers were far too busy with big brother things. The mother called again, a note of fear creeping into her voice.

  The toddler debated. Was it The Game, where baby hid and mother found him? What better place to hide than a pretty tunnel? Its quartz and marble and tile now shone as though some magical Presence had polished them between one moment and the next.

  The mother demanded that the little boy come out of hiding. At once, young elf. Or else, she warned.

  That decided the issue. The child darted into the cave. And in that instant, in that first uncertain pause in the darkening tunnel, the opening grew over. Vines shot up from the dank earth. Rocks tumbled and blocked the afternoon light. In seconds, the opening had disappeared.

  The child stood, uncertain, at the pile of rubble that had been the cave's door. He wanted out, but there was no Out anymore. There was no light, no scent of cinnamon.

  There was only the tunnel.

  The man awakened, whimpering.

  Chapter 3

  Flint Settles In

  A.C. 288, Late Summer

  The weeks following his journey to Qualinost were busy ones for Flint. This day, as on almost every other, the smith headed for the Tower of the Sun, waiting only a few moments with the guard in the chilly corridor outside the Speaker's chamber before the elven lord bade him enter.

  Even now, after months in Qualinesti, the spare grandeur of the Speaker's chambers spoke directly to Flint's soul. Hill dwarves, like elves, felt deeply their link with the natural world. Light flooded through the great clear walls—extravagant glass walls—that made the tree-dotted land outside the private chambers seem like an extension of the room. In recent weeks, pears and peaches had hung ever heavier on the branches; apples blushed red. Solostaran's quarters were nearly bare of decoration. White marble walls with veins of gray showed stark against window ledges of pinkish purple quartz. Torches, rendered unnecessary in the light that flooded the room during the day, lay cold and black in iron wall sconces. A marble-topped desk stood along one side of the room; behind it, in a heavy oaken chair placed to give the occupant a clear view of door and outdoors, waited the Speaker. Solostaran's forest-green cloak formed the brightest spot of color in the chamber, and his innate sense of authority commanded the viewer's attention.

  "Master Fireforge!" the Speaker greeted, rising to his feet, green eyes twinkling over hawklike features. "Come in. As usual, you are a welcome diversion from affairs of state." He gestured toward a silver bowl filled with candied nuts, dried apricots, apple slices, cherries, and other fruit, no doubt grown on the very trees outside the chamber. "Help yourself, my friend." Flint declined the treat and fumbled with sheaves of parchment, trying to avoid sending any tumbling to the white and black marble-tiled floor. Finally, he scrunched them together, disregarding the wrinkles in the paper, and tipped them onto the Speaker's desk. As usual, Solostaran exclaimed over the charcoal drawings, selecting a few designs from the many that pleased him.

  The Speaker seemed distracted today, although his conversation was as sociable as ever. "As I have said often, you are a gifted artisan, Master Fireforge," he commented.

  The two spent minutes discussing the design of new wall sconces for the Speaker's quarters, and whether Solostaran would prefer them with a standard black finish or polished to a metallic shine. The Speaker selected a combination of both. Suddenly, a knock resounded from the door to the chambers. It was Tanis. He moved to the table with little of the grace that elves were known for.

  "You wished to see me, sir?" the half-elf asked Solostaran. Tanis's features had the look, his limbs the awkwardness, of a youth just shy of manhood. He appeared doubly poised between two worlds—elf and human, child and adult. He'll be shaving soon, the dwarf thought. Yet more evidence of Tanis's human blood. The dwarf winced at the hazing the half-elf could expect from some of the smooth-faced elves. Tanis stood before the Speaker's desk, sparing a nod for Flint, who, despite his earlier refusal of refreshments, was nibbling a slice of dried apple and did not speak.

  "It's time for you to begin advanced training in the longbow, Tanis," Solostaran said. "I have selected a teacher." Tanis looked in pleased surprise at Flint. "Master Fireforge?" the half-elf asked tentatively.

  Flint swallowed the fruit and shook his head. "Not me, lad. The longbow's not my weapon, although I'd be glad to demonstrate the fine points of the battle-axe." And an excellent job the half-elf would make of it, too, with those growing human muscles, Flint said to himself.

  "The battle-axe is not an elven weapon," Solostaran gently corrected Flint. "No, Tanis, Lord Tyresian has agreed to take up your training."

  "But Tyresian . . ." The half-elf's voice trailed off, and the dissatisfied cast clamped down over his countenance again.

  ". . .is one of the most experienced bowmen in court," the Speaker concluded. "He's Porthios's closest friend and heir to one of the highest families in Qualinost. He could be a valuable ally for you, Tanthalas, if you impress him as a student."

  Apparently forgotten in the exchange, Flint squinted at Tanis and plucked a sugared pear from the silver bowl. Tanis and Tyresian would never be allies, the dwarf thought, recalling the elf lord from Flint's first day at court. A member of the cadre of four or five well-born elves who stuck to Porthios, the Speaker's heir, like flies to honey, Tyresian had a knack for charming the aristocracy. But rare was the common elf who could meet Tyresian's high
social standards. Considered handsome by courtiers, Tyresian had sharp blue eyes and—odd among elves— hair no more than an inch long, cut with precision. Not surprisingly, a hill dwarf, however skilled, did not quite measure up in Tyresian's eyes, and Flint guessed that a half-elf would fall even lower. The dwarf wondered how much of Porthios's ill-concealed condescension toward his father's ward was born of Tyresian's opinions.

  Tanis dared one last protest. "But, Speaker, my studies with Master Miral take most of the day—"

  An irritated Solostaran cut him off. "That's enough, Tanthalas. Miral has taught you much of science and mathematics and history, but he is a mage. He cannot demonstrate the arts of weaponry. Tyresian expects you to meet him in the courtyard north of the palace at midafternoon. If you wish to speak with him before then, you can find him in Porthios's quarters."

  Tanis opened his mouth, then seemed to think better of it. With a curt "Yes, sir," he walked with stiff back across the marble tiles and out the door.

  Solostaran continued gazing at the door a few seconds after it banged shut. It wasn't until Flint began rolling up the drawings that the Speaker's attention returned to his audience with the dwarf. "Can I offer you anything?" Solostaran said again, with a vague wave toward the now half-empty silver bowl. "Some wine? Dried fruit?"

  Flint declined, commenting that he'd eaten before he arrived at the Speaker's chambers. Solostaran suddenly grinned—why, Flint couldn't see—but the smile soon faded. Flint tucked the rolled parchments under his burly arm and was preparing to leave when the Speaker's voice halted him.

  "Do you ever have cause to wish you could rewrite history, Master Fireforge?" The words were wistful.

  Flint paused, staring with alert blue-gray eyes into the Speaker's green ones, and thought, He has no elves he can call friends. Since taking up the Speaker's mantle in the tumultuous years after the Cataclysm had changed the face of Krynn, Solostaran had been the focus of one rumor of deposition after another. He held his post through the force of his personality, through the truth that few elves could trace their bloodlines back several millennia to Kith-Kanan, and through the innate elven horror of drawing the blood of their elven kin. Still, Solostaran had to be aware of the occasional murmurs of unhappiness among courtiers, Flint thought. Some believed Qualinesti should be opened to wider trade with the rest of Ansalon. Others felt that all but pure elves should be deported over the border into Abanasinia.

  The hill dwarf cast about for an answer to the Speaker's query. He drew in a breath of air tinged with the scent of fruit, and said, "Certainly I would change history if I could. My grandfather's family lost many numbers because of the Cataclysm."

  Three centuries before, the Cataclysm occurred because the old gods retaliated against the pride of the era's most influential religious leader, the Kingpriest of Istar. When the Cataclysm rained destruction upon Krynn, the mountain dwarves retreated into Thorbardin, the great underground kingdom, and sealed the gates; as a result, their hill dwarf cousins, trapped outside, suffered the brunt of the gods' punishment.

  The Speaker's eyebrows rose, and, confoundedly, in the face of Solostaran's sympathy, Flint found himself unable to go on. "They died because the mountain dwarves locked the gates . . . 7" the Speaker asked, and Flint nodded, unwilling to say more.

  Solostaran stood and walked slowly to the clear wall. The gold circlet on his forehead glittered. The room was silent except for the breathing of the two figures. "I would give almost anything," Solostaran said, "to have Tanis be my true nephew, to have my brother Kethrenan back among us with his wife, Elansa. To see my brother Arelas one more time."

  Miral, the Speaker's mage, had told Flint the story of Kethrenan Kanan and Elansa and the birth of Tanis. But he had not mentioned the existence of another brother. The Speaker seemed to wish to speak, and Flint knew no one but himself that he would trust with the Speaker's secrets. Taking a handful of glazed almonds, the dwarf chewed one and prompted, "Arelas . . . ?"

  The Speaker turned. "My youngest brother." At the rising of Flint's furry brows, he went on, "I barely knew him. He left Qualinost as a little boy. And he died before he could return."

  "Why did he leave?" Flint asked.

  "He was. . .ill. We could not cure him here."

  The ensuing silence stretched into minutes, and Flint cast about for a response. "It is a sad thing when a child dies," he said.

  Solostaran looked up suddenly, a look of surprise creasing his features. "Arelas was a man when he died. He was returning to Qualinost, but he never got here." The Speaker stepped back toward Flint, seemingly trying to control his emotions. "Had he lived another week, he would have found safety here. But the roads were dangerous, even more so than today." The Speaker sat heavily.

  Flint found himself unsure what to say. After a short time, the Speaker asked the dwarf to leave him.

  * * * * *

  Almost mindless of the parchment drawings, Flint walked somberly back to the small shop the Speaker had given him, a squat building southeast of the Tower. Here, in the last few months, he had wrought many things: necklaces of jade woven with near-fluid chains of silver, rings of braided gold as fine as strands of hair, bracelets of burnished copper and emerald.

  The workshop stood at the end of a small lane in a grove of pear trees. Climbing roses entwined about its wooden doorway. Flint, remembering his mother's fondness for morning glories, had planted the flower at the feet of the roses, and the pink, blue, and white blossoms now intertwined with the white, pink, and yellow roses.

  The dwelling had been awarded to Flint for as long as he wished it, but how long that might be, the dwarf was unsure. Certainly he would stay until the end of spring, he had told himself at first; after all, what was the use of journeying so far if he only went dashing back home right off? Still, thoughts of his warm house far away in Solace—and of a foamy tankard of ale—often ran through his mind. Elven ale had proved to be a pathetic imitation of the real thing, as far as the dwarf was concerned, although it was head and foam above elvenblossom wine.

  Busy as he was, what with near-daily appointments with the Speaker and more commissions for his work than he could shake his hammer at, it was hardly surprising that the last day of spring had slipped by quite unnoticed and the warm, golden days of summer stretched out before the dwarf.

  Often the window of his shop could be seen glowing as red as Lunitari, late into the night, and it was not uncommon that the first elf to wake in Qualinost the next day did so to the ringing of hammer on anvil. Many marveled at the dwarf's diligence, and just as many hoped the Speaker would make them the lucky recipients of a gift of one of Master Fireforge's creations.

  On this afternoon, he stomped back to the heat of the forge, hefted his iron hammer, and once again used blazing fire and the blows of his hammer to transform a lifeless lump of metal into a thing of beauty. He spent several hours at his task, losing all sense of time in his absorption with the metal Work.

  At last Flint sighed, wiped the soot from his hands and brow with a handkerchief, and ladled a drink of water from the oaken barrel that stood by the door to his shop. As he stepped outside into the afternoon sunshine, a smile touched his face, easing the lines that crisscrossed his forehead. The path leading to his front door passed through a stand of aspen trees. Their pale, slender trunks swayed gently in the breeze, as if they were faintly bowing toward the dwarf, and their leaves rustled, flickering green and silver and then green again. His hand moved slowly to his chest, as if it might ease a heart aching with the beauty all around. And part of him still hurt with the Speaker's sadness.

  But then Flint noticed a few traces of gold high in the trees, and he felt, deep inside, that same restlessness that had plagued him all his life. There was a coolness to the mornings now, sharper than the gentle coolness of the summer nights, and there was a heaviness to the gold of the late afternoon sun. And now the trees.

  All of it spoke of autumn and carried his thoughts to Solace and the houses tucked
high among the vallenwood trees. The leaves of the giant trees would just be showing the first touches of variegated colors about their fluted edges, he supposed, and he sighed again. Autumn was a time for traveling. He should be going home, where he belonged.

  With a start, Flint found himself wondering if Solace really were where he belonged. He had settled there years ago more out of weariness at wandering than anything else, in those days after he had left his impoverished village to find his fortune in the world. And how was living among elves any different for a simple dwarf from Hillhome than living among humans? In either case, he was the odd one; he couldn't see that it made much difference. Besides, he thought, breathing the cool air deeply, there was a peace here he'd never felt anywhere else.

  Flint shrugged and stepped back inside his shop, and soon the ring of his hammer drifted on the air.

  * * * * *

  Flint looked up from his work several hours later and saw that the clock—the one he'd made from oak, with counterweights fashioned from two pieces of granite—showed the time nearing the supper hour. His thoughts, however, were not on food or on the silver rose he was fashioning at the request of Lady Selena, a member of Porthios's crowd who'd overcome her distaste of dwarves shortly after she'd realized that "fashions by Flint" were the new style among courtiers.

  "It's time!" he exclaimed, put his hammer down, and banked the coals on the forge's furnace. Every few weeks he followed the same ritual. He splashed his face and arms in a basin, washing away the sweat and smoke of the forge. He grabbed a sack and, opening a hutch built into the stone walls, began filling the bag with curious objects. Each was made of wood, and Flint lovingly smoothed an edge here, polished a curve there. Suddenly, a figure, a shadow in the window, crossed his peripheral vision, and he straightened and waited. Another commission? His heart sank. He knew the elven children had been watching for him for days, watching for the dwarf who appeared on the streets every other week or so, presenting hand-whittled toys to every youngster in sight. He hoped no one would delay him now.