The Qualinesti

by Paul B. Thompson

  The water clock in the chamber of the Thalas-Enthia showed it was midnight, yet the senators of Qualinesti were all present. Seated in his place of honor on the north side of the circular room, Kith-Kanan listened to the representatives of the people debate the series of marvels they had experienced, including the current dangerous manifestation. Many of the senators bore the signs of lack of slumber; not only were their duties pressing in this time of crisis, but the lack of night made it difficult for many in Qualinost to sleep.

  “Clearly we have offended the gods,” Senator Xixis said, “though I have no knowledge of what the offense could have been. I propose that offerings be made at once, and that they be continued until these plagues cease.”

  “Hear! Hear!” murmured a group of senators sitting on the western side of the chamber. These were known as the Loyalists, because they were loyal to the old traditions of Silvanesti, especially in matters of religion and royalty. Most of the full-blooded elven senators were members of this extremely conservative faction.

  Clovanos, senior senator of the Loyalists, descended from his seat to the floor. The Thalas-Enthia met in a squat, round tower, larger in diameter than even the Tower of the Sun, though far less tall. The floor of the meeting chamber was covered with a mosaic map of the country, exactly like the more famous and larger map in the Hall of the Sky. High on the wall, near the ceiling, more mosaics ringed the chamber. These were the crests of all the great clans of Qualinesti.

  Clovanos held out his hand to his friend Xixis, and the latter handed him the speaking baton. A rod twenty inches long made of ivory and gold, the baton was passed to whomever was addressing the Thalas-Enthia.

  Resting the baton in the crook of his left arm, a signal that he intended to speak at length, Senator Clovanos scanned the assembly. The so-called New Landers sat on the east side of the chamber. They were a loose association of humans, half-humans, Kagonesti, and dwarves who favored new traditions, ones that reflected their mixed society. On the south wall was the middle-of-the-road group that had come to be known as the Speaker’s Friends, people like Senator Irthenie, who preferred to follow the personal leadership of Kith-Kanan.

  “My friends,” Clovanos finally began, “I must agree with the learned Xixis. From the strange and terrifying wonders that have been visited upon our helpless world, it is quite obvious that a grave offense has been committed, an offense against the natural order of life, against the gods themselves. Now they seek to punish us. Our priests have divined and meditated; our people have prayed; we ourselves have debated continuously. All to no avail. No one can determine why this should be so. However, very recently I received some information – information that enabled me to ascertain what the dreadful sacrilege was.”

  A buzz of speculation swept the chamber in the wake of Clovanos’s words. The senator allowed it to continue for a moment, then said, “The knowledge came to me from a strange place – a place close to the hearts of the Speaker’s Friends.”

  “Speak up. I can’t hear you,” Irthenie droned mockingly. A scattering of laughter among the New Landers and Friends made Clovanos’s heat-reddened face grow even more florid.

  “My information came from Pax Tharkas,” he said loudly, facing the calm Kagonesti woman, “that folly of a fortress the Speaker puts so much faith in.”

  “Get on with it! Tell us what you know!” chorused several impatient senators.

  Clovanos brandished the baton. The cries declined. “I received a letter from a friend and fellow Loyalist,” he said with heavy emphasis, “who happens to be at the site of the fortress. He wrote, ‘Imagine my surprise when I saw the Speaker’s son, Prince Ulvian, working as a common laborer in the crudest and most dangerous of jobs’.”

  Having thus spoken, Clovanos turned quickly to face Kith-Kanan. The chamber erupted. New Landers and Loyalists stood and shouted at each other. Denunciations flew in the thick, hot air.

  Only the Speaker’s Friends sat quietly, waiting for Kith-Kanan to deny the report.

  Slowly, with great deliberation, the Speaker rose and crossed the floor to where Clovanos had turned to hurl retorts at the ranks of New Landers seated above him. He tapped on the senator’s shoulder and asked for the baton. Clovanos had no choice but to surrender the speaking symbol to Kith-Kanan. Stiffly, his face sheened with sweat, the Silvanesti senator climbed the marble steps to his place among the Loyalists.

  Kith-Kanan held the baton over his head until the room grew still. Bare to the waist in the dreadful heat, his tanned chest bore pale scars from wounds he’d received in the great Kinslayer War. A simple white kilt, a wide golden belt, and leather sandals were all he wore, save for the circlet of Qualinost atop his head. Though past midlife, his face growing more lined, the white blond of his hair now more than half silver, the Speaker of the Sun was still as vibrant and handsome as he had been centuries earlier when he led his people out of Silvanesti.

  “My lords,” Kith-Kanan said in a firm voice, “what Senator Clovanos tells you is true.”

  The chamber grew so quiet that a falling feather would have rung out like a gong. After Clovanos’s longwinded oration, the Speaker’s simple statement seemed blunt and harsh. “My son is indeed working as a slave at Pax Tharkas.”

  Xixis leapt to his feet. “Why?” he shouted.

  Kith-Kanan turned slowly to face the senator. “Because he was taken during the campaign to stamp out slave-trading and found guilty of helping such traders cross Qualinesti territory.”

  Malvic Pathfinder, a human and a New Lander, called out, “I thought the penalty for slave-trading was death.”

  A dozen Loyalists booed him.

  “No father wishes to sentence his own son to the block,” Kith-Kanan replied frankly. “Ulvian’s guilt was plain, but instead of a useless death, I decided to teach him a lesson in compassion. I believed, and still believe, that once he had experienced the wretched life of a slave, he would never again be able to look upon people as cattle that can be bought and sold.”

  Kith-Kanan’s well-muscled frame might have been carved from wood or marble. His proud and noble countenance was so overpowering that no one spoke for some time.

  Finally Irthenie broke the silence. “Great Speaker, how long will Prince Ulvian be held at Pax Tharkas?” she asked. Her words, spoken with quiet force, carried to every bench in the chamber.

  “He remains at my discretion,” Kith-Kanan replied, facing her.

  “It is wrong!” Clovanos countered. “A prince of the blood should not be forced to work as a slave by his own father! This is the offense the gods are punishing us for!” The other Loyalists took up his refrain. The chamber echoed with their outraged cries.

  “Your Majesty, will you recall the prince?” asked Xixis.

  “I will not. He has been there only a few weeks,” Kith-Kanan answered. “If I freed him now, the only lesson he would have learned is that influence is stronger than virtue.”

  “But he is your heir!” insisted Clovanos.

  Kith-Kanan gripped the speaking baton tightly, his other hand clenched into a fist. “It is my decision!” he replied, his voice ringing through the chamber. “Not yours!”

  All the arguments and accusations ceased abruptly. Kith-Kanan’s blazing gaze was fastened on the unfortunate Clovanos. The senator, his body quivering with anger, stared balefully down at his sovereign. Breaking the tense silence, Xixis said unctuously, “We are naturally concerned for the safety and future of the royal house. Your Majesty has no other heir.”

  “Your time, my lords, would be better spent finding ways to soothe the troubles of the common folk, and not interfering with the manner in which I discipline my son!” Kith-Kanan turned on his heel, strode to the door, and departed.

  Since the Speaker had taken the baton with him, that meant the Thalas-Enthia session was over. The senators filled the aisles, clustering in small groups to discuss Kith-Kanan’s stand.

  There was no debate between Clovanos and Xixis. The two elves were in complet
e agreement.

  “The Speaker will ruin the country,” breathed Xixis anxiously. “His stubbornness has already offended the gods. Does he think he can stand against their will? It will mean the end of us all!”

  “He has already cost me plenty,” Clovanos agreed. He couldn’t forget the loss of his towers during the siege of lightning. “If only we could come up with some alternate plan.”

  The din in the chamber was considerable. Xixis leaned closer to his ally. “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “I can’t speak in certainties,” Clovanos replied, his words barely audible, “but suppose the fortress is finished before the Speaker decides the prince has been re-habilitated? Kith-Kanan has sworn to retire once Pax Tharkas is done; if Prince Ulvian is still under a cloud, another candidate must be found.”

  Xixis’s mouse-colored hair was limp with perspiration, and his flowing robe clung to his clammy skin. Blotting his face with one sleeve, his eyes darted around. No one was listening to them.

  “Who, then?” he hissed. “Not that dragon of a daughter!”

  Clovanos sneered. “Even the open-minded people of Qualinesti would balk at having a half-human female as Speaker of the Sun! No, listen. You are familiar with the name Lord Kemian Ambrodel?” Xixis nodded. Lord Ambrodel was a prominent figure. “He is pure Silvanesti in heritage and a notable warrior.”

  “But he is not of House Silvanos!” Xixis cried, and Clovanos shushed him.

  “That’s the beauty of my plan, my friend. If we begin a campaign to have Lord Ambrodel named as the Speaker’s heir, then His Majesty will feel compelled to recall Prince Ulvian from Pax Tharkas.”

  Xixis regarded his companion blankly.

  “Don’t you see?” Clovanos went on. “Publicly the Speaker may denounce his son as a failure, a weak and cruel rogue who deals in slaves. However, Kith-Kanan won’t deny his own family. He cannot, any more than he could have had Ulvian executed. No, the Speaker, for all his harsh words, wants only his own son, the direct descendant of the great Silvanos, to ascend the throne of

  Qualinesti. If we agitate for another heir, it will force the Speaker’s hand. He must recall the prince!”

  Xixis didn’t seem convinced. “I have known the Speaker for two hundred years,” he said. “I fought with him in the great war. Kith-Kanan will do what he thinks is right, not what’s best for his family.”

  Clovanos rose to go, smoothing his pale hair back from his face. Xixis stood also. Linking his arm in the arm of Xixis, Clovanos murmured sagely, “We’ll see, my friend. We’ll see.”

  *

  “This air is like dragon’s breath!” complained Rufus, sagging on the seat of the cart. Beside him rode Verhanna on her coal-black horse, and behind the kender creaked the other cart containing the freed slaves. Two days had passed, and the sun had burned continuously for a day and a half now.

  “Have some water,” Verhanna suggested, licking her dry lips. She passed her waterskin to the kender. He put the spout to his lips and drank deeply. “How far do you think we’ve ridden?” she asked. Without the moons or stars to go by, or even the passage of the sun across the sky, they’d lost track of what hour or day it was.

  Rufus pondered her question. His scouting skills had grown fuzzy in the constant daylight and mounting heat. “A horse can walk forty miles a day,” he said slowly. His freckled face screwed itself into a fearsome frown. “But how long is a day when the sun doesn’t shift and the stars don’t shine?” He shook his small head, lashing his damp topknot from side to side. “I don’t know! Is there anything more to drink?” The waterskin was drained.

  Verhanna sighed and admitted there was no more water. She’d shed her armor and cloak and was down to wearing a thin white shirt and divided kilt. Her elven heritage was ever more apparent in her long limbs and pale skin. The subtle influence of her human blood showed in her figure, more muscular than any elven woman.

  “Any problems back there?” she called over her shoulder. The boy, Kivinellis, and the elf woman, Deramani, sprawled atop a mound of loose baggage in the second cart, waved listlessly from their perch. Selenara, driving the cart, was too weary even to acknowledge Verhanna’s call. Diviros himself was propped up in the first cart, driven by Rufus, and his hands and feet were still tied, a gag in his mouth.

  No trace of the Kagonesti slavers had turned up during their drive west. Verhanna had resigned herself to the fact that they had lost the slavers. Nevertheless, she felt a strong sense of responsibility for the former slaves in her care. Rufus, however, insisted he might still recover their trail. Ahead lay the Astradine River, and the Kagonesti would have to cross it. There was no bridge, the kender recalled, just privately owned ferries. Someone would have seen the Kagonesti.

  Someone would remember them.

  They rode on, their heads nodding as they drifted in and out of heat-fogged sleep. The forest around them was unnaturally quiet. Even the birds and beasts were oppressed by the heat.

  As he bobbed along, the kender dreamed he was back in the snow-capped peaks of the Magnet Mountains, where the captain had first found him. In his mind, he climbed the highest slopes and threw himself down into the drifted snow. How good it felt! How sweet the wind was, how fresh the clear, cold air! The gods themselves knew no kinder home than the peaks of the Magnets.

  No one had any business screaming in such a peaceful place.

  A drop of sweat slid down Rufus’s nose. He batted it away. Ah, to shiver as the chill air brought gooseflesh to his bare arms! The brilliance of the valley below... Screaming?

  He forced his eyes open as the sound came again. Verhanna was also drowsing, and it took several tugs on her arm before Rufus could get her to open her eyes.

  “What – what is it?” she asked languidly.

  “Trouble,” was his matter-of-fact reply. As if on cue, the scream rang out a third time. Verhanna sat up and pulled in her reins.

  “By Astra!” she exclaimed, “I thought I’d dreamed that!”

  Kivinellis ran up beside Verhanna’s horse. Damp with sweat, his blond hair gleamed in the brilliant sunlight. “It sounds like a lady in distress!” he announced.

  “So it does. Can you tell which direction, Wart?” Verhanna nervously drew her sword.

  Rufus stood on the cart seat and slowly craned his head in a circle, trying to catch the source of the sound. His pointed, elflike ears were infallible. “Ha!” he crowed at last and bounced on his toes.

  Verhanna listened hard. Sure enough, she heard a faint crashing sound, the sort of noise a person might make if he were running pell-mell through the woods. She thrust her dagger and shield at Kivinellis.

  “Defend the carts!” she cried. The shrill scream split the air once more. “Grab your horse, Wart. We’re off!” Rufus was off the cart and on his chestnut mount before the words had scarcely left his captain’s mouth. They turned their horses south, off the narrow track they’d been following, and plunged into the forest proper. Saplings and tree limbs raked at their faces. Verhanna had her sword, but the kender was poorly armed for a fight. Aside from a sheath knife, his only weapon was a kender sling. It was a light, handy missile thrower, which he’d used to good effect in the fight at the slavers’ camp, but it would be hard to use in the close-growing trees.

  Indistinct shouts came from ahead, off to their left. Verhanna halted her horse and waited. Someone was running.

  A black-haired human woman, clutching a baby to her breast, came stumbling through the undergrowth. Tears streaked her face. Now and again, she looked back over her shoulder and screeched in terror. Verhanna dug in her spurs and rode hard toward her. The woman saw the warrior maid on horseback, sword drawn, and screamed again – this time for pure joy. She threw herself at the horse’s feet.

  “Noble lady, save us!” she whimpered. The baby in her arms was bawling loudly, nearly drowning out her words.

  Rufus rode up beside his mistress. “Who’s after you?” he asked the frightened woman.

  “Terrible
creatures – monsters. They want to eat my child!”

  Hardly had she finished this declaration when a trio of hideous, gnarled creatures appeared in the undergrowth, obviously following the woman’s trail. Verhanna’s lip curled in disgust.

  “Goblins,” she said with distaste. “I’ll settle with them.”

  They were indeed goblins, but of the most backward and gruesome sort. All wore necklaces of human or elven teeth and bones, and one wore a sort of helmet made from a human skull. Their long fangs protruded over their bottom lips. Even from ten yards away, it was impossible not to smell their rank odor. The goblins were armed with crude maces made from lumps of rounded stone tied to thick ironwood handles. The sight of Verhanna, sword in hand, did not seem to upset the angry creatures. They must be desperately hungry, the captain decided, or driven mad by the suffocating heat.

  Verhanna rode straight at them while the kender fitted a pellet into his sling. Clutching her baby tightly, the human woman crawled through the dead leaves until Rufus’s broad horse was between her and the goblins.

  Leaning forward, Verhanna smote the nearest creature with her keen Qualinesti blade. The goblin gave an inarticulate gurgle and dropped his club, his chest split open from shoulder to breastbone. The captain planted a foot on his chest and withdrew her blade. The goblin was dead before he hit the ground.

  The other two monsters separated, one on each side of the warrior woman’s horse. They swept their maces back and forth, warding off her sword. The goblin on Verhanna’s left tried to get by to reach the woman cowering in the leaves. Before the captain could turn to cut him off, Rufus had put a pellet in the center of the goblin’s forehead. Stunned, the cannibal creature fell facedown.

  “Nice shot!” Verhanna cried.

  “Look out!” yelled the kender at the same time.