The Puppet King

by Doug Niles

  “Talk to me now,” the human said brusquely. “Surely you can see we’re in a hurry.”

  “Yes, well … about my agent, Guilderhand. I have yet to hear his report, but if he’s successful, then we may have more enemies than just this ‘Storm of Chaos’ to deal with. If that’s the case—”

  “I’ve spoken to Guilderhand, just tonight,” Salladac said breezily.

  Despite the man’s light tone, Gilthas felt his heart sink to his knees. He knows—and I’m doomed! Again he thought of the sword, weighed his chances, and knew he would be dead before he pulled the weapon halfway out of its scabbard. Vaguely, as though from a long distance away, he heard the lord continue to talk.

  “Don’t look so surprised,” chided Salladac, speaking to Rashas. “And you certainly shouldn’t be hurt by the fact that he didn’t come directly to you. You see, there was a feature inherent to that ring of teleportation that he thought he stole from me. In reality, as I told you, I provided the thing to him, though I kept that feature a secret. No matter where he wanted to go, the magic would bring him directly into my presence.”

  “And he used the ring.… He found … that is, he made a report,” pressed Rashas.

  “And the ring took him to you?” added Gilthas, appalled at the implication and wondering why the lord hadn’t already ordered him arrested or worse.

  “Oh, yes,” Salladac said smugly. He cast a meaningful look at the young Speaker, then shifted his attention back to Rashas. “He told me many things.”

  “Where is he now?” demanded the senator. “I have to see him, to talk to him myself!”

  “I’m afraid that’s quite impossible,” the human replied.

  “Why? Why?”

  “Well, you see, I decided that the little weasel was giving me nothing but a pack of lies. You’ll understand, of course, that I had no choice in what to do.”

  “What did you do?” gasped Rashas, the color draining from his face.

  “The same thing I’d do to anyone who told me lies,” Lord Salladac replied, rising from his stool and stretching again. “I had him hanged.”

  Rashas, too stunned for words, had departed with his Kagonesti guards. The senator would return to his house and begin making plans for keeping order in a city menaced by a hitherto unknown threat. Gilthas had started for his own house, but had been delayed by the subtle gesture of one of the human knights escorting Lord Salladac.

  After Rashas had vanished down the street, he was led back into the tower, where the lord met him with a stern glare.

  “Guilderhand’s report was interesting, as I’m sure you can well imagine,” Salladac said without preamble. “Aren’t you going to thank me?”

  “For what?” blurted the elf, whose head was still spinning.

  “For killing him and saving your life. What do you think senators like Rashas would have done if they’d had the chance to talk to him?”

  Gilthas didn’t need to exercise his imagination too hard. Hadn’t he been prepared to commit murder, just to prevent those conversations from occurring?

  “Th-thank you,” he said, realizing that he was indeed grateful to the man, even as he was powerfully mystified. “But why did you do it?”

  “Frankly, I wondered a little bit about that myself,” Salladac admitted. “And it comes down to a couple of reasons.

  “One, it goes back to what I said before. I like your mettle. You haven’t had a chance to show it much, and with that vulture staring over your shoulder, the queen knows you don’t get much of a chance to do so. But I think you’ve got some good stuff in you, and what Guilderhand said didn’t do anything to change my mind. At the same time, just between you and me, every time I talk to Rashas I come away with a bad taste in my mouth. Between giving you over to him or tightening a noose around his pet spy, it was a pretty easy decision.”

  “Then I thank you again sincerely,” the elven Speaker said. He decided to be blunt and forthright. “But surely you know that I was seeking to undermine your rule, even to find a way to resist the Dark Knights’ conquest.”

  “Certainly. But I think that mission has been overtaken by events. Another thing I meant: Lord Ariakan sounded damn worried, and he’s not a man given over to worry. These Storms of Chaos are a real threat, and if they come here, it’s not going to be Rashas and—I admit—not you, either, who’ll put up a real fight.”

  “But Porthios …?” Gilthas said. Finally he saw the reasoning, some reasoning, behind the knight’s actions.

  “Aye, lad. We will need fighters like Porthios on our side—on both our sides.”

  “You fear it will be that bad?”

  “I fear it will be worse … a fight for our very lives, a battle for the survival and the future of the world.”

  Gilthas found it odd that he felt a greater respect for this human warlord, conqueror of his people, than he did for the elves like Rashas who had led Qualinesti into the place where it could so easily be overrun. His own pride made it difficult for him to acknowledge these truths, but he declared that he would do whatever he could to prepare his city for defense.

  “And as to Porthios, I will try to reach him, to let him know of the danger … and to bring him into common cause,” he pledged.

  “That’s all we can hope for,” Salladac replied. “Good luck to you.”

  “Thank you, lord.” Gilthas hesitated, then knew what he really felt. “And good luck to you as well.”

  Turning to go, the elf sensed a strange hesitancy, looked back to see that Salladac had something more he wanted to say.

  “What is it?”

  “There is more news from the Tower of the High Clerist … news of a personal nature. Grim news, I’m afraid.”

  Instantly Gilthas knew—he had sensed it, from the moment he learned about the Dark Knights’ invasion. He knew that there were people, many people, who would resist that onslaught and that many people would pay with their lives.

  “My father …?” he said, his voice a dry rasp, hoping that he was wrong, yet knowing he was right.

  “Tanis Half-Elven fought bravely. He almost won the struggle to hold the main gate,” Salladac said, his voice devoid of emotion. “In the end, he died a warrior’s death … a death that should make a son proud.”

  “I never did get to Ergoth,” Aeren said softly, his thoughts returning to the present.

  “You were caught up in the war?” Silvanoshei pressed.

  “Yes, but it was not the war that I expected.…”

  Storms of Chaos

  Chapter Eighteen

  The two green dragons passed a week in sublime relaxation. Toxyria’s next season for mating was still several years away, which spared them the frantic, even savage passion of an immediate draconic rut. Instead, they hunted, feeding each other the plumpest seals, catching dolphins to share, and lolling on their bluff with leather-lidded eyes peeled, constantly studying the northwestern horizon in search of a promising sail. Aeren remained alert for danger from the forests, too, but his earlier observation seemed accurate: The blue dragons had apparently abandoned Qualinesti.

  If not for the oppressive heat, it would have been an interval of splendid peace and rest. Yet the unnatural weather was too extreme to ignore, and the relentless presence of the baking sun, the utter lack of moisture in the air, caused the two dragons to share a lingering sense of unease. The sky remained devoid of clouds, but it never reached the depths of blue that normally would have characterized fine summer weather. Instead, the sun blazed relentlessly, trees wilted, and the world seemed to wait … for something.

  And the green dragons watched.

  The first sign of significance, noticed by both of them at the same time, was not the indication of a passing ship that Aeren had been hoping for. Instead, it was a glowing redness that, with startling rapidity, suffused the sky to the north and west.

  “It looks like the reflection from a great fire,” Aeren said worriedly.

  “But there’s nothing except ocean out there
. It’s almost a hundred miles to Ergoth!” Toxy, who had spent more time familiarizing herself with the area, explained.

  “Then maybe Ergoth is burning,” the male surmised. From his secluded ledge, he lifted his neck and head high, peering over the top of the bluff behind them, scanning the skies for signs of danger. But there was nothing else unusual, aside from the—by then—normal state of heat for that summer. Still, both dragons agreed that the bizarre redness was a strange and unsettling phenomenon.

  “I’m going to fly over there and have a look,” he announced, feeling very brave.

  “We’ll both go,” Toxy said, fanning her wings beside him.

  And so the pair of emerald dragons launched themselves from the cliff, gliding upward in the face of the stiff offshore breeze. Soon the coastline was a verdant fringe to the rear, and the waters of the wide strait expanded before them and to both sides below.

  The sun was shining, but the surface of the sea had a curious, leaden quality; it was not the shimmering swath of diamond speckles that they had both become accustomed to. And the air had a strange taste—not like smoke, exactly, but as if an acrid scent somehow permeated everywhere. It reminded Aeren of the ozone aftermath of a lightning strike, though there were neither thunderclouds nor blue dragons in evidence.

  The shore thinned farther behind them, and the strange swath of radiation grew more pronounced. Aerensianic was grateful for the female’s company, and he couldn’t deny that he was growing more and more afraid. Yet because of Toxyria, he was determined to put on a show of bravery. He flew with his neck and head fully extended, his tail trailing straight behind as he boldly glared at the distant sky.

  “Look there!” gasped Toxy, banking and angling her head downward to point.

  Aeren, who had been looking upward, ducked to see specks of brightness bubbling through the water, as if fires were somehow burning in the midst of the brine. They grew more intense, and he counted three patches of orange flame, churning and roiling toward the air with explosive force.

  One broke from the surface in a hiss of steam and immediately angled upward. Squawking in astonishment and fear, Aeren saw that this was a fiery flier—a creature of flames, in the shape of a dragon! Moments later the other two burst from the sea, and there was no mistaking the nature and the threat. These were three dragons of pure fire, and they were rising rapidly, blazing wings stroking as they flew straight toward the pair of greens.

  “Flee!” cried Toxy, obviously appalled at the horrific apparitions. She banked tightly and, wings driving powerfully, bore toward the Qualinesti coast.

  Aeren was right behind. He cast a horror-stricken glance beneath his belly, confirming that the fiery monsters were indeed chasing them. They had altered their climb as the greens had turned and now were swerving after them in crackling, spark-trailing pursuit. Even worse, they were closing the distance!

  “Faster!” he gasped, winging powerfully, wishing he could push Toxy through the skies. The larger of the pair, he was also the faster flier, and though he was nearly mad with fear, some deep and unsuspected reserve of courage wouldn’t let him pull ahead of his companion. Instead, the two greens flew side by side, streaking through the air, riding the crest of the wind, instinctively racing toward the safety of their oceanside lair.

  Once more Aeren looked back and saw that the fire dragons were even closer. Black, lightless eyes gaped like death from their orange faces. Everywhere a normal dragon would have been scaled, these monstrosities had surfaces of seething, boiling fire. Their wings were like flaming tendrils, somehow smooth and solid enough to bear the beast’s weight. The green dragon couldn’t imagine what it would be like to touch that flame. He pictured it searing his talons away, consuming his flesh with hungry fingers of pure heat. He saw that the leading fire dragon was only five or six lengths behind them, with its two mates a similar distance beyond.

  “No good!” he gasped. “They’re … too fast!”

  His heart swelled, and in an instant of pure, furious decision, he did something more selfless than he had ever done before. “Keep going!” he cried to Toxy.

  Then he curled through an upward loop and flew straight at the fire dragon, his emerald jaws spread wide in a cry of challenge and pure, unadulterated fear.

  With the revelation that they’d had a spy in their midst, Porthios realized the elven outlaws would have to move camp again. Privately he placed little hope in Gilthas’s attempt to prevent Guilderhand from reaching Rashas. At best, he hoped the young Speaker might be able to talk his way out of a dungeon, or to avoid an even grimmer fate.

  But to the prince, that was a minor problem compared to the threat of blue dragons once again winging downward into the trees. At Splintered Rock, they lacked even the minimal defensive benefits of the ravine, so the elves’ only hope of survival was to keep their location a secret. Despite the many comforts of the site at the base of the craggy bluff, the Qualinesti outlaws and their Kagonesti allies decided they once again had to pack their belongings and begin a trek through the forest.

  The outlaw prince was becoming increasingly aware of the difficulties inherent in his status as an outlaw. Qualinesti was a vast forest, surely, but there were only a limited number of places where a large group of elves could find comfortable camp. They needed not only plenty of food, but also a steady supply of clean water—especially now, when summer’s unnatural heat so oppressed them. Also, they had to have a tall canopy of leaves that was thick enough to screen them from aerial searchers, and ideally enough flat and open space between the trees for five hundred elves to camp in some semblance of comfort.

  At the same time, he realized how perfect the Splintered Rock site was. A wide stream flowed into the lake, bringing a steady supply of fresh water. There was plenty of space, and ample types of wild game in the area. Both the lake and the stream were well stocked with fish, and since the tribe had arrived here, they had managed to eat very well.

  Still, a day after his nephew’s visit, Porthios was agitated and restless. He paced back and forth through the camp, looked around, saw the perfection of the locale … and knew that it was no good to stay there, not since the location was known by the spy called Guilderhand.

  Late that afternoon he called a council of his most trusted lieutenants. Alhana, Samar, Dallatar, and Tarqualan all joined him in the snug grove where he had first met with Gilthas. They dispensed with the normal ritual of a fire, since the air was already superheated and the utter lack of wind would have insured that any smoke would merely have formed a haze around their heads.

  “I’m thinking that we have to leave,” said the prince. “I don’t want to, but with our position discovered by the spy, it’s too dangerous to stay here.”

  “I agree,” Dallatar said. “Though in many ways our camp here is ideal, we have no real protection against an attack.”

  Samar and Tarqualan nodded, too, while Alhana, cradling a sleeping Silvanoshei, seemed too weary to make any kind of signal. Instead, she slumped against a tree trunk and watched the proceedings without expression. Porthios couldn’t help but notice the dark circles under her eyes, the outline of her strong bones through the pale skin of her increasingly gaunt face.

  The prince forced himself to concentrate on the matter at hand. He addressed Dallatar. “You know these forests better than any of us. Is there another place that might fulfill our needs?”

  Alhana lifted herself to speak. “A place not terribly far away,” she said. “The people are tired and many are wounded. They need rest and food, a chance to get their strength back.”

  The wild elf chieftain thought for a little while. Finally he gestured to the stream that flowed past the encampment. “We can follow that creek toward its headwaters in the southern highlands. Perhaps three days’ march will take us into the hill country. There are many valleys there, still thickly forested, with plenty of game. However, the trail will climb steeply toward the end. It will not be an easy march.”

  “That’s too fa
r!” Samar interjected. “You heard the queen. Many of us cannot make a trek like that!”

  The others looked at him, startled by his vehemence, while Alhana reached a restraining hand to his arm.

  “It’s all right,” she said quietly. “I know we can do it. The strong will help those who are weaker, and the tribe can make it.”

  Porthios felt that increasingly familiar twinge of jealousy. He shook his head, angry at himself. Why did he let it bother him? He knew that his wife loved him, that she had given birth to his baby! Wasn’t that enough?

  Tarqualan was speaking. “I suggest we use the griffons to move those who are too weak to walk. It’s even possible that we could get more of them to join us, though it would take a few days.”

  “I know there were many griffons in Qualinesti years ago,” Porthios said. “Do you know where they’ve gone?”

  “Most are dwelling in the valleys of the High Kharolis,” said the scout, speaking of the lofty mountain range that sprawled over the dwarven kingdom of Thorbardin, miles to the south and east of Qualinesti.

  “Do you think they would agree to help us?” wondered the prince.

  Tarqualan nodded, but it was Alhana who spoke. “They abandoned the Qualinesti just a year ago, after Rashas ordered me imprisoned. It may be the knowledge that the prince has returned and I am now free could bring them to our assistance.”

  Porthios was somewhat heartened by this news. “For this move, I don’t think we can count on more help than the griffons we have with us right now. But if we can make this march and reach a new camp, then we can send an emissary to the mountains to see if we can bring more griffons into our camp.”

  “That emissary would have to be you,” Alhana said, addressing her husband.

  “Why?”

  “You are the symbol of Qualinesti, of the heritage that the griffons have served for so many centuries. If you were to go to them, to speak to them and show them our need, I think they’d follow you back here.”