One day they were nearing the Nightlund border, camping in a farm field, when Frendal assigned Dhamon a sparring partner. Dhamon performed poorly the first few sessions but quickly mastered swings and defensive poses and began to develop maneuvers of his own. Before the week was out he had won a match against a seasoned Knight. His real training started then, more intense than he could have imagined. His hands bled worse than ever, and his evenings were filled with studies by candlelight. He was tasked with committing to memory the precepts of the Order, the chain of command, and the storied history of the Dark Knights.
When they finally joined up with a second unit—across a Vingaard tributary and well into Nightlund now—he was tested first by Frendal, then the field commander, and finally put through an examination by a gaunt-looking Knight who wore robes rather than plate armor and whose facial features could have placed him anywhere between the age of forty and sixty.
“So young,” the gaunt Knight commented, “to want to follow our ways.”
Dhamon respectfully nodded, unsure if he was supposed to address the man directly.
“Frendal tells me you are exceptional with a sword and that you can recite the names and dates as well as any Knight here.”
Another nod.
“When were the Dark Knights born?”
“In the year 352,” Dhamon began, “when Ariakan, son of the Dragon Highlord Ariakas and the sea goddess Zeboim, was captured by the Knights of Solamnia.”
“And in the Summer of Chaos…?”
“The year 383. Ariakan directed his Knights to invade Ansalon. They took more territory in one month than all the dragonarmies had managed to conquer during the War of the Lance.”
The stranger smiled and cupped his hands in front of Dhamon, mumbled words in a long-lost tongue. Magic! The stranger’s palms took on a pale blue glow that quickly darkened and rose to form a sphere that hovered between their heads.
“You know the dates and the names and the conquests, young man. Yet to you I sense they are merely words. There is no real feeling behind them.”
Dhamon opened his mouth to protest, but the stranger’s curious expression cut him off.
“I will change that, young man. I will add feeling and understanding to your history lessons.” With a gesture the sphere sparkled and became translucent. Then it moved forward, enveloped Dhamon’s head and seemed to disappear.
* * *
Dhamon was no longer in the farm field. He was in Neraka, in the midst of an impressive force of draconians and on his way to the Dark Queen’s temple. Solamnic Knights came upon them, and the fighting began. He could smell the blood in the air, the wails of the dying filled his ears, and the carnage was everywhere. Dhamon was able to cut down five of the Solamnics before he was subdued… as Ariakan had slain five before he was captured.
Dhamon was in Ariakan’s place!
Wounded and defeated, Dhamon was dragged to the High Clerist’s Tower and imprisoned, just as Ariakan had been. It wasn’t long before the Solamnics became impressed by his courage and intelligence and considered him a valuable captive indeed.
Through the magic-induced vision Dhamon watched himself as Ariakan scrutinize the Solamnics and pretend to be “rehabilitated.” He claimed to be their friend and asked to study with them, but when the time was right, he would leave, armed with the knowledge to start his own Order.
Dhamon suddenly felt cold. Chilled to the bone, he wrapped his arms around his chest in a futile effort to warm himself. His legs stung from the biting wintery wind and from trudging so high into the mountains that ringed the Dark Queen’s glorious city. Hungry and frostbitten, Dhamon saw himself as Ariakan wandering lost, praying to his mother Zeboim for help. That help was granted in the form of a trail of sea shells. The shells led him to a deep cavern where he rested and recovered and witnessed a manifestation of Takhisis—who gave him her blessing for the Knighthood.
* * *
He wanted to see more—much more! But there was a soft, popping sound, and Dhamon reluctantly shook off the magic-induced dream and awoke. He was still chilled, despite it being summer, and his legs were still sore.
“Now, young man, you begin to have some feeling for our history,” the gaunt Knight said.
Dhamon clenched his hands and said yes, and saying yes he felt something sharp bite into his palm. It was a sea shell—one he kept for many years as a remembrance of his first evening at the side of the Dark Knight priest.
There were many more nights when he experienced other magical dream-visions of himself as Ariakan. Through these visions the priest allowed him to relive the history of the Knighthood and the establishment of the Blood Oath and the Code.
“I want nothing more than to be a Dark Knight,” Dhamon told the priest one evening. “Not a squire, not a camp worker. More than anything I want to be a Dark Knight.”
That evening the priest—who had never in all this time given Dhamon his name—offered a smile that was both warm and unsettling. “Young man, you are a Dark Knight.”
Dhamon was given a sword that very evening, a fine one with a crosspiece that looked like dragon talons. He was fitted for armor, given a night-black tabard and cloak, and sworn into the Order.
“Dhamon Grimwulf, you are the edge of a blade,” Frendal intoned. “Wielded by our field commander, the blade will sweep into the heart of Nightlund and slay our enemies.”
“The edge of a formidable blade,” Dhamon said with great pride.
“You embrace our Knighthood and leave behind your common past,” Frendal continued.
“Yes, I leave it all behind,” Dhamon agreed.
Frendal reached to Dhamon’s neck, to the chain and ancient coin that hung there. He ground his boot heel into the soft Nightlund soil and dug a hole. “Behind forever,” Frendal said as he dropped the family relic into the earth and covered it up.
Dhamon stomped the covering earth flat. “Behind forever,” he said.
When they marched the next day into battle against a tribe of ogres, Dhamon thought only fleetingly about the valuable family heirloom and experienced only the slightest regret that it would never be passed to another Grimwulf.
* * *
“Your memories are rich, Dhamon Grimwulf.”
Dhamon wiped at his eyes. He was inside the abandoned fortune teller’s shop again, and the Chaos wight was inches away, its eyes burning brighter than ever.
“That was a most wondrous memory” the creature said. The undead thing loomed in its lizardlike form, its thorny antlers bigger and more intricate than before. “Your mind is far more complex than the draconian’s, much healthier than the woman’s.”
“Fiona! If you’ve done anything—”
“I told you I did not physically harm her. I took only a few scattered memories from the woman, confusing and nonsensical, none so delicious and sustaining as yours.”
The creature hovered inches above the floor, looking much darker and forbidding now. Dhamon sensed it had gained power from whatever it claimed to have taken from him.
“So delicious, I must have another memory from you. Only one more.” The wight glided toward Dhamon, long fingers growing longer, like vipers readying themselves to strike.
“Our agreement!” Dhamon recalled. “Our agreement was one memory, and you said you would let us leave this town.”
“Perhaps, but can you prove I have taken anything from you yet? I’ve taken nothing. You owe me a memory.”
“I very much doubt that, demon!”
“Delicious memories,” the wight repeated in Rig’s voice, then the voice became Feril’s, Riki’s, and finally it was Fiona’s. “I must have one more memory. One more, and you may go.”
Ghostlike, the viper fingers came at him, thrusting themselves inside his head. Dhamon tried to shift away, but the wight followed him, eyes glowing and maw opening. Its tongue snaked out and wrapped itself around Dhamon’s neck to hold him.
“One more memory, I said. Then you may leave.”
&nbs
p; Dhamon fought the wight with all of his willpower. “I shouldn’t’ve let you inside my mind the first time,” he cursed. “I shouldn’t’ve believed you.”
“Believe me,” the wight cooed. “Just one more memory.”
“No!” Dhamon threw all his effort into one thought which might keep the Chaos creature at bay. He’d done something before to stall it, he knew. He felt an odd sensation, and a ripple passed down his back, as if he’d been chilled by a blast of wintry air. “No!” What he felt was the Chaos wight invading his mind.
A myriad of memories coursed through Dhamon, childhoods of the people who used to live in this town, flashes of happiness from young lovers, losses of dear friends, strange incidents, too—memories of dogs and parrots and other creatures once kept as pets by the citizens here. The wight had killed them all, drained all their memories. For an instant, he sensed Fiona, perhaps touching a memory the wight had stolen from her. The Fiona-memory was eerie and disturbing. “Madness,” Dhamon whispered. He’d encountered a part of Fiona’s madness.
His eyes flew open! Her madness—that was the key. Her madness had weakened the creature, warped its mind.
“I am not weak,” the Chaos wight argued. “Nothing has weakened me.”
But Dhamon knew otherwise, wrapping his thoughts around Fiona and the hint of her madness, concentrating on that idea.
“Stop!” the creature keened.
Dhamon didn’t stop. He only increased his efforts.
Suddenly the Chaos wight’s hands withdrew from him, and the undead creature floated to the ceiling, pinprick eyes glaring down at Dhamon. “You think you have won!” it taunted.
“Aye, beast, I have won. You’ll take no more memories from us, and you’ll not threaten my companions again.”
“Pass this way again and…”
“And I’ll win again,” Dhamon said as he backed out of the shop. It was dusk, and when he looked down the street he saw Ragh and Fiona walking toward him. The Solamnic Knight had a pitcher in her hand, and Ragh was carrying two large mugs. They’d finally managed to obtain water from the well, and under the draconian’s arm was a rolled up sheet of parchment.
“Let’s get out of here!” Ragh called when he spotted Dhamon.
“Immediately,” Dhamon replied.
“You’ve not won.” He heard those words as a whisper carried on a chill gust of wind. “You’ve lost something very precious, Dhamon Grimwulf: your family and a piece of your history.”
Dhamon shook his head. He’d lost nothing that he could discern. He’d never had a family.
Chapter Six
Bev’s Oar
“They call this dismal patch of dirt Nostar. A big island, as far as islands go, but a pretty big nothing as far as I’m concerned.” Ragh walked between Dhamon and Fiona, a battered map held between his clawed hands. The scroll he’d retrieved from the inn had yellowed edges that flaked off when his scaly fingers brushed against them. “I’ve been just about everywhere on Krynn—and I visited here at least on three occasions. The last time was… oh, I guess forty or fifty years ago. Not long enough, if you ask me.”
When neither of his companions commented, he continued, “I didn’t recognize it at first. Nostar wasn’t like this then. Not that this island was ever anything special, but it didn’t try to make you a permanent part of the landscape by pulling you down into a sinkhole. There was grass most places, a lot more trees, and some hills here and there.” The last he said wistfully, gazing out over the relatively flat ground scarred by sinkholes and piles of rocks. He shook his head. “I certainly remember a lot more green.”
Using a craggy gray rock formation dubbed the Three Brothers, to the west, and the sea to the east, they had decided to follow what the map showed as a road running toward a sizeable mining settlement. The map suggested the road was substantial, but what remained of the road was almost completely overgrown by the scabrous brown grass, and there were a few places where sinkholes had destroyed entire sections of it. They could see wagon ruts where some wagons had gone around the sinkholes.
“That’s a good sign,” Ragh said. “Means there’s somebody other than us still alive on this gods-forsaken rock.”
The map showed that Nostar stretched roughly sixty miles from east to west and forty north to south. There were only a dozen town names indicated on the map, and these were clustered around the northern and eastern part of the island—all but two of them set back a couple of miles from the coast. Of the two towns perched directly on the shore, they decided to head to the closest one, a place called Bev’s Oar, a mile or so north of the eerily deserted mining settlement.
Studying the map, Dhamon saw that the interior of the island was practically devoid of notation, save for one egg-shaped lake and two scrawled words that had been added in a different hand than the map maker’s—Hobgoblin Village. He raised an eyebrow.
“That’s why there were never many towns on Nostar and why the ones that are here are small,” Ragh said. “Most of the population is goblins and hobgoblins, bugbears, and their kin. Or it used to be anyway, last time I happened by. Not many humans and elves, and they always stayed near the coasts, fishing and mining. From what I remember, the goblins left the humans pretty much alone.” Ragh rubbed at his chin. “Of course, things could’ve changed.”
“Things have changed,” Dhamon said flatly. “Consider that nameless place we just came from.”
“It’s got a name. Slad’s,” Ragh said. “According to the map it’s called Slad’s Corners.”
“It’s called empty now. Let’s hope Bev’s Oar has a decent population and at least a few ships in port. I want to book passage to Southern Ergoth as quickly as possible.” Dhamon had noticed more scales sprouting since they’d left the vacant town, a scattering on his left leg—which Ragh and Fiona also noticed—and a dozen more on his stomach. He feared he had little time left to atone for the mistakes in his life. He intended to take Fiona to the Solamnic stronghold, find Maldred, make sure Riki and his child were safe. Thinking about it all quickened his pulse. “My guess is we have another seven or eight miles to cover before we reach Bev’s Oar and…”
Ragh was quick to point out their map predated the war in the Abyss, when new land masses rose from the earth. “The island might be bigger now, so it might be twice as many miles to this Bev’s Oar. Maybe more. That’s assuming Bev’s Oar didn’t break off into the sea. And it’s a long way after that to Southern Ergoth,” the draconian mused. “Of course, there’s no telling, really, the size of this damn place and just how far we have to go.”
Dhamon groaned. “It doesn’t matter how big it is, let’s get going.”
Nostar was south of Southern Ergoth by more than eighty miles according to Ragh’s map. It was about half that distance to Enstar, an island twice this one’s size. They might stop over in Enstar, but “too far to swim,” Fiona said absently.
Dhamon gave her a sideways glance. Sometimes he couldn’t tell whether she was listening or not. There was always a fixed, dazed expression on her face. Her words now were tinged with anger. “I’m not going to swim forty miles or eighty miles, Dhamon, and I don’t know why you keep harping on Southern Ergoth. You do need to find us a ship, Dhamon, so you can take me to the New Sea. Rig and I are to be married soon on the coast across from Schallsea Island.”
She made an exasperated sound, but for an instant her eyes had sparkled with life, before her face resumed its disturbing blank expression. Though tired and hungry, she resumed their trek toward Bev’s Oar, while Dhamon and Ragh purposefully fell back.
“You’ll not be allowed at the wedding ceremony, Dhamon,” she called over her shoulder, “causing all this bother.”
Dhamon ached inside for what Fiona had become, a mockery of her old self, and he wondered why the Chaos wight couldn’t have stolen the memories of Rig away from her. It might have made her a little easier to deal with. How much of Fiona’s madness has found its way inside me? he thought. And what did the wight rob me of?
He shook off his unanswerable thoughts, pointing to Ragh’s map.
“Somehow we must find passage on a ship at Bev’s Oar. But we’ll need to get some warm clothes, first. At least Fiona and I need warmer clothes.”
“I can feel the bite of winter, too,” Ragh said.
Dhamon’s finger drifted a little to the west on the map. “That river’s not too far off our course, maybe fifteen, twenty minutes at the most. We can store up on water. And I could do with a bath.” He hated the thought of delaying the journey to Bev’s Oar, but Dhamon was worried about how he looked. The scales were bad enough—the scales and the filth made him look truly monstrous, he thought. He needed to clean up.
The river turned out to be a narrow creek no more than half a foot deep, but the water was clear and cold. Dhamon scrubbed himself raw, while Fiona stoically went downstream for privacy.
“You’ve got even more scales now, I see,” Ragh said, nodding at Dhamon’s legs. His right leg was solid scales, shining slickly from the water. The left was spattered with them.
Dhamon didn’t reply. He didn’t try to cover them anymore—there wasn’t enough material left in his tattered clothes. He avoided the draconian’s accusing gaze and stared instead at the water. The man staring back had a hard look to him, dark eyes hiding all manner of mysteries. He had a handsome face, with high cheekbones and a firm jaw, but he was gaunt from lack of food, and his uneven beard and tangled mass of hair made him look like a brigand.
“Fiona!” Dhamon heard her sloshing along the creek. “May I have one of those knives?”
The Solamnic Knight looked up without recognition. She had cleaned up nicely, though her face looked raw with scars, and the cut on her forehead was still swollen and ugly.
“A knife, please?”
In a move so fast it surprised him, Fiona drew one of the knives from her belt and thrust it forward, its tip hovering in front of Dhamon’s stomach. “Will this knife do?” Her eyes were vacant, her voice ice. She inched the blade forward until its tip pressed into his flesh. Her free hand drifted down to the second knife. “Or do you want to borrow two?”
[Dhamon 03] - Redemption Page 9