On the ledge, Kith-Kanan gathered up his rope. The room just above his, Sithas had said. Very well then. His first cast fell short, and the hook came scraping down the stone right at his face. Kith-Kanan flinched aside, successfully dodging the hook, but he almost lost his balance on the narrow ledge. The falling hook clattered against the wall below. Kith-Kanan cursed soundlessly and hauled the rope back up.
The Tower of Quinari, like most elven spires, grew steadily narrower as it grew taller. The ledges at each level were thus correspondingly shallower. It took Kith-Kanan four tries to catch his hook on the seventh floor ledge. When he did, he swung out into the cool night air, wobbling under the burden of his sack and spear. Doggedly he climbed. The window of the room above his was dark. He carefully set the bundle against the outside wall and went to work on the window latch with his dagger.
The soft lead of the window frame yielded quickly to his blade. He pushed the crystal panes in.
Already he knew she was in the room. The spicy scent she always wore filled the room with a subtle perfume. He listened and heard short sighs of breathing. Hermathya was asleep.
He went unerringly to her bedside. Kith-Kanan put out a hand and felt the soft fire of her hair. He spoke her name once, quietly. “It is I, my love.”
“Kith! Please, don’t hurt me!”
He was taken aback. He rose off his knees. “I would never, ever hurt you, Thya.”
“But I thought-you were so angry-I thought you came here to kill me!”
“No,” he said gently. “I’ve come to take you with me.”
She sat up. Solinari peeked in the window just enough to throw a silver beam on her face and neck. From his place in the shadows, Kith-Kanan felt again the deep wound he’d suffered on her account.
“Go with you?” Hermathya said in genuine confusion. “Go where?”
“Does it matter?”
She pushed her long hair away from her face. “And what of Sithas?”
“He doesn’t love you,” Kith-Kanan said.
“Nor do I love him, but he is my betrothed now.”
Kith-Kanan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You mean, you want to marry him?”
“Yes, I do.”
Kith-Kanan blundered backward to the window. He sat down hard on the sill. It seemed as though his legs would not work right. The cool night air washed over him, and he breathed deeply.
“You cannot mean it. What about us? I thought you loved me!”
Hermathya walked into the edge of the shaft of moonlight. “I do, Kith. But the gods have decided that I shall be the wife of the next Speaker of the Stars.” A note of pride crept into her voice.
“This is madness!” Kith-Kanan burst out. “It was my father who decided this marriage, not the gods!”
“We are all only instruments of the gods,” she said coolly. “I love you, Kith, but the time has come to lay aside pranks and secret garden passions. I have spoken with my father, with your father. You and I had an exciting time together, we dreamed beautiful dreams. But that’s all they were-dreams. It’s time to wake up now and think of the future. Of the future of all Silvanesti.”
All Kith-Kanan could think of at this moment was his own future. “I can’t live without you, Thya,” he said weakly.
“Yes, you can. You may not know it yet, but you can.” She came toward him, and the moonlight made her nightdress no more than a cobweb. Kith-Kanan squeezed his eyes shut and balled his hands into tight fists.
“Please,” Hermathya said. “Accept what will happen. We can still be close.” Her warm hand touched his cold, dry cheek.
Kith-Kanan seized her wrist and shoved her away. “I cannot accept it,” he said tersely, stepping up on the windowsill. “Farewell, Lady Hermathya. May your life be green and golden.”
The irony of his words was not lost on her. ‘May your life be green and golden’ was what elven commoners said when taking leave of their lords.
Kith-Kanan shouldered his sack and slipped over the stone ledge. Hermathya stood for several seconds, gazing at the empty window. When the tears came she did not fight them.
*
Faithful Arcuballis was his only companion now. Kith-Kanan tied the sack to the saddle pillion and stuck the boar spear into the lance cup by his right stirrup. He mounted Arcuballis, strapped himself to the saddle, and turned the beast’s head into the wind.
“Fly!” he cried, touching his heels into the griffon’s brawny breast. “Fly!”
Arcuballis unfolded its wings and sprang into the air. Kith-Kanan whistled, and the griffon uttered its shrill cry. The least he could do, Kith-Kanan decided, was to let them know he was going. He whistled again and once more the griffon’s trilling growl echoed between the white towers.
Kith-Kanan put the waxing red moon on his right hand and flew southwest, across the Thon-Thalas. The royal road stood out misty gray in the night, angling away north from the city and south to the seacoast. Kith-Kanan urged the griffon higher and faster. The road, the river, and the city that had been his home vanished behind them. Ahead lay only darkness and an endless sea of trees, green-black in the depths of night.
3
THE NEXT DAY
KITH-KANAN HAD NO PLANS EXCEPT TO GET AWAY FROM SILVANOST. More than anything, he craved solitude right now. He pointed Arcuballis’s beak southwest, and gave the griffon its head.
Kith-Kanan dozed in the saddle, slumped forward over the griffon’s feathered neck. The loyal beast flew on all night, never straying from the course its master had set. Dawn came, and Kith-Kanan awoke, stiff and groggy. He sat up in the saddle and surveyed the land below. There was nothing but treetops as far as the eye could see. He saw no clearings, streams, or meadows, much less signs of habitation.
How far they had flown during the night Kith-Kanan could not guess. He knew from hunting trips down the Thon-Thalas that south of Silvanost lay the Courrain Ocean, the boundaries of which no elf knew. But he was in the East; the rising sun was almost directly ahead of him. He must be in the great forest that lay between the Thon-Thalas on the east and the plains of Kharolis to the west.
He’d never ventured this far before.
Looking at the impenetrable canopy of trees, Kith-Kanan licked his dry lips and said aloud, “Well, boy, if things don’t change, we can always walk across the trees.”
They flew for hours more, crisscrossing the leafy barrier and finding no openings whatsoever. Poor Arcuballis was laboring, panting in deep, dry grunts. The griffon had been flying all night and half the day. When Kith-Kanan lifted his head to scan the horizon, he spied a thin column of smoke rising from the forest, far off to his left. The prince turned Arcuballis toward the smoke. The gap closed with agonizing slowness.
Finally, he could see that a ragged hole had been torn in the tapestry of the forest. In the center of the hole, the gnarled trunk of a great tree stood, blackened and burning. Lightning had struck it. The burned opening was only ten yards wide, but around the base of the burning tree the ground was clear and level. Arcuballis’s feet touched down, its wings trembled, and the beast shuddered. Immediately the exhausted griffon closed its eyes to sleep.
Kith-Kanan untied his sack from the pillion. He crossed the narrow clearing with the sack over one shoulder. Dropping to his feet, he squatted down and started to unpack. The caw of a crow caught his ear. Looking up at the splintered, smoldering trunk of the shattered tree, he spied a single black bird perched on a charred limb. The crow cocked its head and cawed again. Kith-Kanan went back to his unpacking as the crow lifted off the limb, circled the clearing, and flew off.
He took out his bow and quiver, and braced a new bowstring. Though only three feet long when strung, the powerful recursive bow could put an iron-tipped arrow through a thick tree trunk. Kith-Kanan tied the quiver to his belt. Taking the stout boar spear in both hands, he jammed it as high as he could into the burned tree. He stuffed his belongings back in the sack and hung the sack from the spear shaft. That ought to keep his thi
ngs safe from prowling animals.
Kith-Kanan squinted into the late afternoon sun. Using it as a guide, he decided to strike out to the north a short distance to see if he could flush any game. Arcuballis was safe enough, he figured; few predators would dare tangle with a griffon. He put his back to the shattered tree and dove into the deeply shadowed forest.
Though the elf prince was used to the woods, at least the woods around Silvanost, he found this forest strangely different. The trees were widely spaced, but their thick foliage made it nearly as dim as twilight down below. So dense was the roof of leaves, the forest floor was nearly barren. Some ferns and bracken grew between the great trees, but no heavy undergrowth. The soil was thickly carpeted with dead leaves and velvety moss. And even though the high branches stirred in the wind, it was very still where Kith-Kanan walked. Very still indeed. Rings of red-gilled mushrooms, a favorite food of deer and wild boar, grew undisturbed around the bases of the trees. The silence soon grew oppressive.
Kith-Kanan paused a hundred paces from the clearing and drew his sword. He cut a hunter’s sign, a “blaze,” into the gray-brown bark of a hundred-foot-high oak tree. Beneath the bark, the white flesh of the tree was hard and tough. The elven blade chipped away at it, and the sound of iron on wood echoed through the forest. His marker made, Kith-Kanan sheathed his sword and continued on, bow in hand.
The forest seemed devoid of animals. Except for the crow he’d seen, no other creature, furred or winged, showed itself. Every thirty yards or so he made another blaze so as not to lose his way, for the darkness was increasing. It was at least four hours until sunset, yet the shadowed recesses of the forest were dimming to twilight. Kith-Kanan mopped the sweat from his brow and knelt in the fallen leaves. He brushed them aside, looking for signs of grazing by deer or wild pigs. The moss was unbroken.
By the time Kith-Kanan had made his tenth blaze, it was dark as night. He leaned against an ash tree and tried to see through the closely growing branches overhead. At this point he’d just as soon have squirrel for dinner as venison. That was growing more likely, too.
Tiny points of sunlight filtered through the leaves, dancing as the wind stirred the branches. It was almost like seeing the stars, only these points of light moved. The effect was quite hypnotic, which only made Kith-Kanan more tired than he already was. He’d dozed only fitfully in the saddle and had eaten nearly nothing since the day before. Perhaps he’d stop for a moment. Take a bit of rest. Overhead the points of light danced and swayed.
Kith-Kanan’s sword, resting in the crook of his arm, slipped from his grasp and fell to the ground, sticking point first in the soft soil.
Points of light. Dancing. How very tired he was! His knees folded, and he slid slowly down the trunk until he was sitting on his haunches, back against the tree. His gaze remained on the canopy of leaves overhead. What an odd forest this was. Not like home. Not like the woods of SilvanostD
As in a dream, the prince saw the airy corridors of the Palace of Quinari. The servants bowed to him, as they always did. He was on his way to a feast in the Hall of Balif. There would be simmered roasts, legs of lamb, fruits dripping with juice, fragrant sauces, and delicious drafts of sweet nectar.
Kith-Kanan came to a door. It was just a door, like any other in the palace. He pushed the door open, and there, in loving embrace, were Sithas and Hermathya. She turned to face him, a smile on her face. A smile for Sithas.
“No!”
He leaped forward, landing on his hands and knees. His legs were completely numb. It was pitch dark around him, and for a few seconds Kith-Kanan didn’t know where he was. He breathed deeply. Night must have fallen, he realized. But the dream had seemed so real! The elf’s senses told him he’d broken some spell, one that had come over him as he looked at the patterns of light and shadow up in the trees. He must have been dreaming for hours.
After a long minute waiting for the feeling to return to his legs, Kith-Kanan cast about for his sword. He found it sticking in the moss. He freed the weapon and shoved it into its scabbard. A vague sense of urgency turned him back to the blasted clearing. His last blaze was visible in the night, but the second to last was almost gone. New bark was covering the cut he’d made. The next mark was a mere slit, and the one after that he found only because he remembered the oddly forked trunk of the ash tree he’d hacked it into. There were no more to find after that. The cuts had healed.
For a moment the elf prince knew fear. He was lost in the silent forest at night, hungry, thirsty, and alone. Had enough time passed for the cuts to heal naturally, or was the grove enchanted? Even the darkness that surrounded him seemed, well, darker than usual. Not even his elven eyesight could penetrate very far.
Then the training and education of a prince reasserted itself, banishing much of the fear. Kith-Kanan, grandson of the great Silvanos, was not about to be bested on his first night in the wilderness.
He found a dry branch and set about making a torch to light his way back to the clearing. After gathering a pile of dead leaves for tinder, Kith-Kanan pulled out his flint and striker. To his surprise, no sparks flew off the iron bar when he grated the flint against it. He tried and tried, but all the fire seemed to have gone out of the flint.
There was a flutter of black wings overhead. Kith-Kanan leaped to his feet in time to see a flock of crows take up perches on a limb just out of reach. The dozen birds watched him with unnerving intelligence.
“Shoo!” he yelled, flinging a useless branch at them. The crows flapped up and, when the branch had passed, settled again in the same place and posture.
He pocketed his flint and striker. The crows followed his movements with unblinking eyes. Tired and bewildered, he addressed the birds directly. “I don’t suppose you can help me find my way back, can you?”
One by one, the birds took wing and disappeared into the night. Kith-Kanan sighed. I must be getting desperate if I’m talking to birds, he concluded. After drawing his sword, he set off again, cutting new blazes as he hunted for the clearing where he had left Arcuballis. That way, at least he could avoid walking in circles.
He smote the nearest elm twice, chipping out palm-sized bits of bark. He was about to strike a third time when he noticed the shadow of his sword arm against the gray tree trunk. Shadow? In this well of ink? Kith-Kanan turned quickly, sword ready. Floating six feet off the ground, more than a dozen feet away, was a glowing mass the size of a wine barrel. He watched, half anxious, half curious, as the glowing light came toward him. It halted two feet from his face, and Kith-Kanan could clearly see what it was.
The cool yellow mass of light was a swarm of fireflies. The insects flew in circles around each other, creating a moving lamp for the lost prince. Kith-Kanan stared at them in shock. The glowing mass moved forward a few yards and halted. Kith-Kanan took a step toward them, and they moved on a bit farther.
“Are you leading me back to the clearing?” the prince asked in wonder. In response, the fireflies moved another yard forward. Kith-Kanan followed warily, but grateful for the soft sphere of light the fireflies cast around him.
In minutes, they had led him back to the clearing. The blasted tree was just as he remembered – but Arcuballis was gone. Kith-Kanan ran to the spot where the griffon had lain to rest. The leaves and moss still carried the impression of the heavy beast, but that was all. Kith-Kanan was astonished.
He couldn’t believe Arcuballis had flown off without him. Royal griffons were bonded to their riders, and no more loyal creatures existed on Krynn. There were tales of riders dying, and their griffons following them into death out of sheer grief. Someone or something must have taken Arcuballis. But who? Or what? How could such a powerful creature be subdued without sign of a struggle?
Sick in his heart, Kith-Kanan wandered to the lightningseared tree. More bad news! His boar spear remained stuck in the trunk, but the sack containing his possessions was~gone. Angrily, he reached up and wrenched the spear free. He stood in the clearing, gazing at the dark circle
of trees. Now he was truly alone. He and Arcuballis had been companions for many years. More than a means of transport, the griffon was a trusted friend.
He sagged to the ground, feeling utterly wretched. What could he do? He couldn’t even find his way around the forest in broad daylight. Kith-Kanan’s eyes brimmed, but he steadfastly refused to weep like some abandoned child.
The fireflies remained by his head. They darted forward, then back, as if reminding him they were there.
“Get away!” he snarled as they swooped scant inches from his nose. The swarm instantly dispersed. The fireflies flew off in all directions, their tiny lights flitting here and there, and then were gone.
*
“Won’t you come in? You’ll catch a chill.”
Sithel drew a woolen mantle up over his shoulders. “I am warmly dressed,” he said. His wife pulled a blanket off their bed, wrapped it around her own shoulders, and stepped out on the balcony with him.
Sithel’s long white hair lifted off his neck as a chill wind passed over the palace tower. The private rooms of the speaker and his consort took up the penultimate floor of the palace’s tower. Only the Tower of the Stars provided a higher vantage point in Silvanost.
“I felt a faint cry not long ago,” Sithel said. “Kith-Kanan?” The speaker nodded. “Do you think he is in danger?” asked Nirakina, drawing her blanket more closely about herself.
“I think he is unhappy. He must be very far away. The feeling was faint.”
Nirakina looked up at her husband. “Call him, Sithel. Call him home.”
“I will not. He offended me, and he offended the noble assembly. He broke one of our most sacred laws by drawing a weapon inside the Tower of the Stars.”
“These things can be forgiven,” she said quietly. “What else is it that makes it so hard for you to forgive him?”
Sithel stroked his wife’s soft hair. “I might have done what he did, had my father given the woman I loved to another. But I don’t approve of his deed, and I will not call him home. If I did, he wouldn’t learn the discipline he must have. Let him stay away a while. His life here has been too easy, and the outside world will teach him to be strong and patient.”
Firstborn Page 4