Dark Heart

by Tina Daniell

  “What truth?” he scoffed.

  “That you betrayed my father.”

  His eyes widened. Ursa opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of it. He turned, walked back to the wall, scuffed at something, and returned to the bars. His face had hardened, become wary.

  “You believe that, I suppose,” he tried.

  “Shouldn’t I?”

  He shook the bars desperately, to no avail, and a craven note crept into his voice. “You’ve got to get me out of here, Kit,” he pleaded. “You’ve got to help me. You can find a way.”

  “I want to know this. Why did you do it? Why?”

  His eyes rolled. “Don’t be naive, Kit,” he said dismissively. “It was business. Business! It was money. It had nothing to do with your father. I happen to have liked your father.”

  “You were his friend!”

  He shrugged and put on a smile. “Not much of one.”

  She glared at him. “You led him to his death.”

  “But he didn’t die!” Ursa protested. “He was condemned to die, yes, a month and a day after he was seized, but I put aside some money for the jailer. I’m certain he got away.”

  “Another one of your lies.”

  “I didn’t wait around to find out,” he said stubbornly. “I can tell you that, not only had I turned on him, but some of his men had to be put to the sword. But Gregor didn’t die, I’m sure of that. Not Gregor. He always had the luck of a kender.”

  “You expect me to believe that, after you admit you betrayed him?”

  “I didn’t betray you,” he argued. “I didn’t betray you. I was beaten, starved, but I didn’t tell her your name. I didn’t tell her that you were in on it.”

  “Pah!” she spat. “You didn’t tell her because you wanted to save your own skin. If she knew who I was, she wouldn’t have had any further use for you. She would have killed you instantly. You would betray anyone.”

  “Not you,” he said, his voice cracking.

  In the circular room of the high tower, Luz Mantilla sat in her chair and gazed upon the painting of herself in a faraway place and time. She held the sword of Beck Gwathmey, whom she had loved, and lifted its blade high in the air, turning it and examining it in the cone of pale light. She had forgotten all about Kitiara and El-Navar and Ursa and all the rest—about everybody and everything. She only thought about Beck, dead, gone these many years, waiting for her. Somewhere.

  She clasped the hilt and turned the blade around until it was slanted down. Then, with a joy that she had not felt for a long time, Luz Mantilla drove the point into her heart.

  Kit was staring at Ursa with hate-filled eyes when a low rumble shook the stone corridor. The first row of bars to his cell vanished before her eyes, and the innermost door clicked open.

  Kit blinked. Ursa, too, was slow to react.

  Kit’s eyes went to the sword that Colo had left for him, but Ursa was closer than she and had already bent to grab it. Now he stepped through the door and over the line where the bars had been.

  Kit took a step back.

  “Get in,” he said, waving the sword toward the cell.

  She didn’t move. “How will you lock it?” Kitiara asked scornfully.

  That gave Ursa pause. He scratched his head. “I guess I’ll have to kill you,” he said matter-of-factly.

  He rushed her, but Kit was a better fighter than when they had first met, when she was but a girl. She grabbed his wrist and kicked upward, cracking his arm. As weak as he was, he slammed her backward, each of them struggling for control of the sword. His face was up against hers, but it was the face of Gregor Uth Matar that swam before Kit’s eyes. She felt a surge of adrenalin.

  “Just like before!” Ursa tried to joke as Kit jerked the sword away from him and slammed him across the face with her elbow. He fell on his back, off-balance, and looked up at her in amazement—just in time to see Kit lodge the sword in his chest.

  He tried to stand, but collapsed onto his side. With his free arm, Ursa reached up to Kit, fell back, and died.

  For long seconds, Kitiara looked at him, feeling revulsion yet also some pity. She could not bring herself to yank out the sword. Weaponless, she ran back down the tunnel.

  Later—it could have been hours, days or years, for she had lost all sense of time—Kitiara stumbled out of Castle Mantilla.

  The mist was slowly lifting.

  A body lay near the entryway in a pool of blood. It was the dotty old jailer, trampled and clawed. He had not gotten away fast enough. Looking down in the dirt, Kitiara saw the tracks of the old man’s murderer, the prints of a huge panther.

  El-Navar was free.

  She could barely lift her legs. She moved as if she were slogging through quicksand. Her head was on fire. Her muscles felt dead. One arm hung at her side, limp. Luckily, her horse was still alive, waiting for her.

  El-Navar had left a clear trail. For a moment Kitiara considered following him, but the tracks led south. She struggled to climb up on the horse and, barely conscious of what she was doing, turned the animal north. North was where she was headed, to find news of her father.

  EPILOGUE

  ———

  Nobody in Whitsett could tell Kit for sure what had happened to Gregor.

  The journey there took nine weeks—across the Eastwall Mountains to Newsea, a stopover at the Island of Schallsea, then onward to the middle reaches of Solamnia, the region of Throt.

  Across uninhabited mountains and inhospitable waters, frigid wetlands and snowy steppes, woods whipped with wind and eerie cries, high grasslands encroached upon by sheet ice.

  She arrived in the middle of the winter. She came alone.

  Kitiara found that Whitsett was very much changed. Whitsett was the name of a community, one not much bigger than the village terrorized by the slig, but also the name of the loose federation of homes and farms located throughout the surrounding basin of land nourished by the tributaries of a wild river. The two estates that had been at the center of the feuding almost four years before had dissipated. Now they were melded into the federation, which was honorably ruled by a high official agreed upon by all families, who made decisions of commerce and justice.

  The two local lords who had started and escalated a war between their followers had died in the intervening time, one of natural causes, one by violent means. Their lieutenants had scattered. Once the leaders were dead, the two opposing sides saw no reason to continue old animosities, and the peace that was made had lasted.

  The jailkeeper from those years had been hung for corruption; the jail had long since burned down, and a new one had been built. There had been three changes of officialdom since. No one in authority could name anyone connected with the long-ago sentencing to death of a mercenary named Gregor Uth Matar.

  Although few could claim to have known Gregor, they mouthed various contradictory legends about his fate in Whitsett.

  The nephew of the jailkeeper of that time told Kitiara, “My uncle was hung not for corruption but for complicity in letting a certain man go. This was a charge made against him by his enemies. Actually, he had doublecrossed the prisoner and pocketed the money. The real reason he was hung is that he cheated his superior officer out of his share of the crooked money. As for the prisoner himself, this Gregor, feh, I believe he died on the gallows.”

  A village elder told Kit, “There was to be a mass hanging that day. Not just your Gregor—ten, twelve men. But they say that one was discovered missing, too late, and that this one had been shown a secret underground tunnel.…” But the man was unable to prove the existence of such an underground escape.

  A third man who claimed he had watched the climactic battle from a hillside said, “I heard they arrested the wrong man. This Gregor, he was a canny one. He suspected the plot against him and put another man in his clothes. The false Gregor was seized and beheaded, while the true Gregor evaded discovery and vanished from these parts.”

  Nobody could back up their vers
ion of the hearsay. Worst of all, Kitiara could find no one to blame, no one to hate, no one to kill for the sake of her father.

  After three weeks in the vicinity, a bitterly disappointed Kitiara left Whitsett, not a jot wiser than when she had arrived.

  For more than seven years Kitiara Uth Matar wandered the North, as much in quest of adventure and riches as for any word of her father. She learned nothing more about Gregor. If he was somewhere, she deduced, it was no longer North. But she gained much in the way of wealth and experience.

  Little that is certain is known of her wanderings.

  It is said that Kitiara sought out some paternal relatives, in the heart of Solamnia, hoping for some news of her father. They knew less than Kit; Gregor had not been heard from for many years, and they did not welcome her inquiries. Consequently, Kit’s stay in those parts was both short and unpleasant.

  It is said that, for a long time, Kitiara journeyed in the company of two men, both humans and expert swordsmen. They roamed the wilderness, preying on solitary travelers. Both of her companions were in love with her, and one of them killed the other after a drunken argument, only to wake up the next morning to find Kitiara gone.

  It is said that Kitiara lost a wager in a roadside inn and was forced to serve the whim of a bounty hunter seeking fugitive minotaur slaves. He took advantage of her debt to him and enjoyed making her perform lowly tasks, such as wiping and polishing his boots. But he had some attractive qualities, and she did relish tracking minotaurs and improving her wilderness skills in the bargain. In any case Kitiara was merely biding her time, and after six weeks won the wager back. For an equal period the bounty hunter came under obligation to her.

  For a time Kitiara rode as a scout and defender of trading caravans that had to pass through hobgoblin country on their way to the far frontier. She distinguished herself, according to eyewitnesses, in numerous skirmishes and ambushes.

  For at least two months, it is said, Kit adopted a pseudonym and joined with Macaire’s Raiders in the northwest—the outlaw band under the leadership of Macaire, the wily half-human known for swooping down on small settlements and isolated farms, always eluding capture. The female who rode at Macaire’s side during this time, rivaling him in her fearlessness, fit Kit’s description. Her sobriquet was “Dark Heart.”

  How much of this is true, how much of it folklore, is uncertain.

  However you add it up, months and entire years of this period are entirely blank as to where Kitiara was and what she was doing. Perhaps she was operating under an alias. Perhaps she was laying low somewhere.

  During the first three years of her travels she returned home at least twice, keeping her visits very brief, giving her family some money from her adventures. But without making a conscious decision in that regard, she had let four more years go by without passing through Solace or hearing word of her kin.

  About seven years after the time she had killed Ursa, Kit was stopping over in a mill town, west of Palanthas in the region of Coastlund, staying in an inn, when she was approached by a kender.

  This kender was the same Asa who made regular stops in Solace while on the road throughout Krynn, harvesting and vending herbs and roots. He augmented his income with, among other specialties, the sideline of courier.

  How he happened upon Kitiara is quite unknown. But kender do have their ways.

  The kender handed Kit a sealed paper from Caramon, earning, for his troubles, not the tip he fully expected, but a scowl and a stare until he went away. The letter said:

  Dear Kitiara,

  This kender says that if anyone can find you, he can, and so I have given him six coins to do so. Kender are sneaky but honest, so I hope he does, and soon.

  I am writing this letter by hand, but Raistlin is telling me what to say. He would write it himself but he is fatigued from exertions in the course of trying to make our dear Mother feel better as she lies dying.

  Firstly, let me say that we have been overwhelmed by tragedy lately. Our poor, beloved father, Gilon, is dead.

  It was a dreadful circumstance, and I do not think it could have been avoided.

  It seems he was chopping down a tree as a storm was threatening, and he ought to have stopped. For the wind came up strong in an unexpected direction and blew the tree down on his leg, mashing it and pinning him. He could not move out from under it.

  Perhaps because of the storm I did not immediately hear Amber barking outside the door. I was surprised that Gilon was not with her. Raistlin was at mage school, and I was watching over Rosamun. I hurried to follow Amber, but it took me at least an hour to get to the place where Gilon was trapped.

  Not knowing what was wrong, I did not have the proper supplies, and it took me another hour to get Gregor loose and to rig a crude sled to bring him back (for, needless to say, he could not walk).

  By now several hours had passed since the accident. His leg was black with blood and infection. He was quite delirious.

  The cleric said his leg would have had to be cut off anyway, if he hadn’t died of pneumonia, because of all the time he was in the cold wind and rain. He died coming back. I didn’t even know that he was dead until after we stopped.

  We are very sad. The house is not the same.

  Raistlin said I did the best I could.

  The news had a shattering effect on Mother. Oh, Kit, it was terrible to tell her. Raistlin said he would.

  It has now been some weeks. Mother is pale as death itself, barely clinging to life. Raistlin has become very adept at potions and is easing her pain.

  (I have become very good at my sword work, and I wish you were here so that I could try some moves on you.)

  But she will not live much longer, and I wish you were here to help us. If the kender finds you with this letter, I apologize for its length. But if you are able, I wish that you would come.

  Your brothers,

  Caramon and Raistlin

  Kit put down the letter. Her legs were up on the table. Her tankard of ale went untouched as she sat there, frowning in thought.

  Truth to tell, now and then Kitiara wondered about Solace—about home, her old friends and enemies there, Gilon, her brothers, Rosamun.

  The letter was an excuse to go back. Within an hour she had paid up her bill and saddled her horse, loading it down with presents and riches.

  The plump woman crossing the road was so surprised by the horse that suddenly galloped past, splashing mud on her clean white uniform, that she only had a moment to look up at its rider.

  A lean, muscular young woman, dressed in fine leggings and a shiny breastplate, rode in the saddle, her unruly, black hair whipping in the air and a deep scarlet cloak flapping behind her.

  Minna shook a fist at the arrogant rider, then patted the hair on the top of her head. She did not recognize Kitiara Uth Matar, and Kit did not notice the old midwife.

  At the Majere cottage, the scene was a mixture of joy and sorrow. The boys greeted Kit warmly. Boys! At sixteen, they were already young men. Raistlin was tall and weak-bodied with a wretched cough—but he regarded his half-sister warmly. Caramon was robust and squeezed Kit in a bear hug until she sternly told him to put her down.

  Both of them were agape at her armor and finery, at the sturdy roan she rode, and at the parcels that weighted it down. She had brought money to pay all outstanding debt and several gifts for each of them.

  The happy homecoming was tempered by the tragedy unfolding in the interior of the cottage, where Rosamun was dying. She looked like a pale wraith. Her small room was lit with candles, and her faithful sister, Quivera, was at her bedside. Quivera gave Kit a nervous nod when she at last entered.

  Rosamun had little or no comprehension that Kit had come home.

  Kit took to sleeping in Gilon’s bed to be close-at-hand in the final days. Yet the days stretched on, and Rosamun did not die. She did not open her eyes, she never got out of bed, and her breath came in weak spurts. Still she did not die.

  Kit saw Aureleen do
wn at the market one morning. Her old friend glowed with health, but she was married now and had two little children in tow. A handsome, stocky peasant carried her purchases, giving Kit the eye while tugging at Aureleen. They moved on quickly. The old friends had little to say to each other.

  Kit spent an afternoon out horse-riding with Caramon. The oldest twin was much changed—not only bigger and stronger, but more sensible. Gilon’s death had matured him. Now, when Kit looked in her half-brother’s eyes, she thought of her stepfather, how much his son looked like Gilon, and how Caramon had Gilon’s stolid good nature.

  In other ways, too, Caramon was different. Kit noticed, with amusement, how he snuck away some late evenings to keep an appointment with one of the local girls down by Crystalmir Lake.

  Kit stayed up part of most nights with Raistlin, who had taken on the responsibility of caring for Rosamun during the darkest hours. The visions Rosamun once suffered had faded, but she was still wont to toss and turn, moaning. In this pitiable fashion Kit’s mother expended the only energy she had.

  Unlike Caramon, Raistlin was not talkative—the opposite, in fact. But in his case, Kitiara had learned to listen for the silences, and the time they spent together at Rosamun’s bedside, even under the difficult circumstances, renewed their kinship.

  Rosamun’s sister stayed with them most of the time, helping out during the day and, at night, sleeping in the big room curled up on a pallet by the fire. A nondescript woman, Quivera gave them a wide berth, and for Kit it was as if she did not exist.

  Solace seemed smaller and duller than ever. The house was caught in a limbo as tedious as it was terrible. Before she came, Kit had some idea in her head about making peace with Rosamun at last, but her mother was so far gone that she couldn’t respond to words. And Kitiara wondered what it was that she ought to have said to her mother, anyway.

  With a passion Kit wished it were all over. She didn’t feel in the least guilty about her desire.

  Five weeks to the day after Kitiara arrived back in Solace, Rosamun died. Raistlin was alone with her, and he woke the others with the news. That morning, Kitiara said she wouldn’t be staying for the funeral which, by Solace tradition, would be three days hence.