The Qualinesti

by Paul B. Thompson

  “No, wait. Don’t you feel it?”

  Her voice was a whisper, and Verhanna sat stiff and still in the saddle.

  “Feel what?” the kender asked impatiently.

  “Like a storm is about to break....”

  Rufus replied tartly that he felt nothing, and Verhanna touched her heels to the horse’s flanks. They went on. Around a turn, the sharp spire that was Black Stone Peak jutted into view, blotting out an area of stars.

  “I feel cold,” said Rufus, wiggling closer to Verhanna’s back.

  “I hear voices!” she hissed, and urged the horse to a brisker pace. Up the final stretch of trail, kender and warrior maiden rode hard. They burst onto a scene of frantic activity. A score of white faces turned to her, and she recognized them as fellow Guards of the Sun.

  Kemian Ambrodel appeared out of the night. “Lady Verhanna!” he exclaimed. “This is amazing! How come you to be here?” He offered a gauntleted hand to her.

  She shook his hand and said frankly, “My lord, I’m no less shocked to see you. My scout and I were led here by an extraordinary fellow, a tall, flaxen-haired elf we call Greenhands. He must’ve passed you only moments ago.”

  “He is here. I put him aside, as we are too busy to deal with newcomers at present.” Kemian lifted his chin to indicate a boulder a few paces away. On it was seated the green-fingered elf. His attention was not directed at the warriors or Verhanna, but at Black Stone Peak.

  Verhanna dismounted, and Rufus hopped to the ground behind her. “What’s going on here?” piped the kender.

  The warriors were tying hank after hank of rope together. Most of it was in short lengths, used to tether horses on a picket line at night.

  “Your father is in there,” Kemian said gravely, sweeping a hand toward the black spire of rock behind them. Quickly the young general sketched the situation.

  “Will two extra pairs of hands help, my lord?” she asked.

  Kemian grasped her shoulder. “More than help, lady.”

  Verhanna and Rufus began tying what line they had to the end of the warriors’ supply. While thus engaged, they didn’t notice Greenhands slide off the boulder and walk straight up the ramp toward the caves in the spire. Rufus glimpsed him and shouted, “Hey!”

  “Stop!” Kemian commanded. Greenhands was almost at the mouth of one of the cave openings. At any second, the awful wind would rise and sweep him back. It might also scatter their hard-won loops of rope. “Stop at once, I say!” bellowed Lord Ambrodel.

  Greenhands spared a brief look at the elves and kender, then stepped into the opening. Kemian Ambrodel clenched his jaw, his body tensing in anticipation.

  No wind boiled forth. The night was quiet and cold, and not a breath of breeze stirred.

  Kemian gaped. “Who is this elf? A sorcerer?”

  “A very strange fellow,” Rufus said. He struggled with the rope he was tying. It was thick and stiff. “He’s got all kinds of power, but he never works a spell.”

  Lord Ambrodel looked to Verhanna. “Wart’s right,” she agreed. “If anybody can reach my father, this Greenhands can.”

  “We can’t risk the Speaker’s life on some vagabond’s tricks. Get the rope ready!” barked Kemian.

  The warriors gathered up the rope and hastened to the main tunnel mouth. Rufus had wrapped the tough rope around his small hands, the better to wrestle with a last knot, and he was dragged all the way to the base of the peak.

  *

  Kith-Kanan tapped the flat of his sword blade against the palm of his hand. Dru had made no sound or appearance in an hour or more, and the torches around the great circular room were burning out one by one. Half were gone when he heard the distant ring of shouting outside. He called up the tunnel in reply, but all was silence once more. The Speaker didn’t want to make too much noise for fear of encouraging Dru to think he despaired of his situation.

  Ulvian lay completely immobile at Kith-Kanan’s feet. Father regarded son with mixed feelings. It was Ulvian’s willfulness and pride that had brought them here. He had not only dealt in slaves, but also had fled the Speaker’s justice and helped an evil sorcerer to escape. Yet Kith-Kanan’s expression softened as he watched him sleep, curled up on the floor like a harmless child. This was his son, the baby boy he and Suzine had rejoiced in. He might be fully grown, but his heart was as a child’s – a boy who adored his mother and seldom saw his father.

  Tiredly Kith-Kanan rubbed his temples and tried not to dwell on what might have been.

  “You are not alone.”

  Kith-Kanan whirled. A quarter of the way around the room, a solitary elf stood. It wasn’t Dru. This elf was tall, fair-haired, young. He wore a rough horsehair poncho and leather trews. His gaze on

  Kith-Kanan was intense.

  “Who are you?” demanded the Speaker, stepping over Ulvian. “Is this another of your guises, Drulethen?”

  The stranger didn’t respond. Instead, he continued to regard Kith-Kanan with an unsettling stare.

  His face bore such a look of rapt joy that the Speaker was momentarily distracted from his own worry. With a shake, as if coming to himself suddenly, Kith-Kanan lifted his sword point a bit higher and demanded, “Answer me!”

  “Who are you?”

  “I am Greenhands. At least, that’s what my captain calls me.”

  “Green —” Kith-Kanan’s eyes traveled downward, noticing the colored fingers for the first time. The room was growing dimmer as more of the torches flickered and died, but the grassy hue of the elf’s hands was plainly visible.

  “How did you get in here? Why didn’t the wind blow you out?” asked the Speaker sharply.

  “I simply walked in. I have been looking for you for a long time.” The stranger moved a few paces closer, and a smile lightened his face. “You are my father.”

  Kith-Kanan was taken aback. His first reaction to this astonishing statement was puzzlement. If this was some trick of the sorcerer’s, what was its purpose? Perhaps this elf was some feeble-minded innocent, a dupe of Drulethen’s.

  Again Greenhands moved nearer to the one for whom he had searched. Kith-Kanan’s shifting thoughts were stilled as he looked into the strange elf’s eyes. They were brilliantly, shiningly green, brighter than the clearest emeralds. His face seemed familiar somehow – the full-lipped mouth, the high forehead, the shape of his nose. It reminded the Speaker of – Kith-Kanan rocked back on his heels, stunned by the thought that had exploded across his mind. Anaya! The tall elf reminded him of Anaya. The features, the eyes, were identical, even his green-tinged skin. Anaya’s skin had changed just so when she had begun her transformation into a mighty oak. Lowering his sword, he moved forward to meet Greenhands halfway, near the now cold firepit. Their height was identical.

  “Hello, Father,” Greenhands said happily.

  Kith-Kanan couldn’t believe what he saw. It seemed impossible, yet he only had to look at this young elf to see his amazing resemblance to Anaya, to know that he spoke the truth. Somehow, by some miracle, his and Anaya’s son had come here, to Black Stone Peak.

  The Speaker’s voice was uncertain, so strong were the emotions that gripped him. “Your coming was foretold to me centuries ago,” he whispered. “Only I did not understand then....” He lifted a shaking hand to touch Greenhands’ face. The elf smiled broadly, and Kith-Kanan enveloped him in a warm embrace. “My son!”

  The happy moment was brief. Danger remained all around them. Kith-Kanan wiped away the tears that dampened his cheek and held Greenhands out at arm’s length.

  There was a rush of air overhead, a beating of unseen wings. Alarmed, Kith-Kanan stood back and raised his sword. Only a quarter of the torches in the room still burned, and in the half-light he saw a winged thing circle and dip in and out of the fitful light.

  “Son, do you carry a weapon?” he asked, swiftly donning his helmet.

  Greenhands held out empty arms. “No, Father.”

  The Speaker kicked among the debris on the floor. The winged creat
ure swooped near him, and he slashed hard at it, missing. The beast soared away, and Kith-Kanan squatted long enough to pick up a stout piece of wood, a leg broken from a dining table.

  “Take this,” he said, tossing it to Greenhands. “If anything comes at you, hit it!”

  An eerie laugh floated through the chamber. Kith-Kanan glanced at Ulvian. The prince was still unconscious. Overhead, the laugh sounded again.

  “A fine weapon for a fine-looking warrior,” said Drulethen. His voice caromed off the stone walls, making it difficult to determine where he was. “A worthy addition to the House of Silvanos!”

  “Indeed he is,” Kith-Kanan retorted. “He got in past your spells, didn’t he?”

  “How do you know I didn’t let him in intentionally? I’m collecting royal Qualinesti!” he snarled nastily.

  With hand gestures, Kith-Kanan indicated that Greenhands should go around the other side of the chamber, away from him. The elf complied with commendable stealth. Kith-Kanan edged away from the unconscious Ulvian and talked to distract Drulethen.

  “Well, great sorcerer, what do you intend to do with us?” he called out.

  “My amulet. One of you is going to give me the other half of my amulet if I have to torture each of you in turn to convince you to do so.” The sorcerer’s voice had fixed in one place. Kith-Kanan peered at an upright, though broken, chair. A tall shadow had appeared there. He lowered his sword so the blade wouldn’t gleam in the remaining torchlight.

  “You cannot win, Drulethen. Ulvian might have helped you, but I will see to it you never have the amulet,” he vowed. He stepped gingerly over some smashed crates, moving as silently as possible.

  “Ulvian! That idle, untrustworthy wretch? He’ll be the first to go, mark my words. I shall enjoy his torment.”

  Kith-Kanan’s left shoulder bumped the wall. He was under one of the burned-out torches, and he slipped it from its bracket and sidled over to the next one, which still barely burned. He lit the stump and rushed toward the broken chair. As he did, the light from his brand fell upon Dru.

  The Speaker froze in midstride, horrified. The thing perched on the chair was not an elf, nor was it a bird. It had golden-brown wings with red-tipped feathers, but instead of falcon’s claws, two white elven hands gripped the back of the chair. Instead of a falcon’s noble head, the thing was topped by a horrid mix, part elven, part bird. Dru’s face and head bore feathers where hair had been. His eyes were large and black, like a falcon’s, but set in elven eye sockets surmounted by feathery brows. Most hideous of all, instead of a nose, a large horny beak protruded from Dru’s face.

  “You see,” hissed the sorcerer, “how much I need the rest of my amulet. The ring is the more powerful half, but it lacks refinement and control.” He shuddered and hunched his head down between his shoulders. The awful face seemed to reflect a spasm of pain. “I find I can’t control my transformations without the cylinder.” The bizarre white fingers flexed over the broken chair’s thick arm. “This is the last time I shall ask – give it to me!”

  In reply, Kith-Kanan hurled the torch at the monster and lunged with his sword. Dru launched himself into the air, overturning the chair. He avoided Kith-Kanan’s attack, but he didn’t see Greenhands standing close by in the shadows, motionless. As he passed by, Greenhands swung his crude club. His strength was considerable, but his skill was not, and the blow was only a glancing one.

  Nevertheless, Dru was sent spinning, to land in a flurry of loose feathers on the other side of the chamber, near Ulvian. “Get him! Don’t let him get up!” the Speaker cried.

  He outran Greenhands to the fallen sorcerer, and he prodded the strange creature with his sword tip, ordering him to stand and surrender. The pile of feathers writhed and shifted, and a piercing shriek rose up from them. Greenhands arrived, and before their astonished eyes, the sorcerer changed shape once more.

  The body of the bird lengthened, and the wings shriveled into feather-covered arms. Dru pushed himself onto his back and cried out again in agony. The beak on his white face and his black falcon’s eyes remained the same. Feathers covered the rest of his body.

  “Stand up!” Kith-Kanan ordered again.

  “I – I cannot,” the sorcerer wheezed. Sweat ran down his grotesque face in rivulets, and his body shook as if palsied. “I am – undone.”

  Just then Ulvian groaned and shifted on the stone floor. He moved to push himself up, inadvertently distracting Kith-Kanan. In a flash, the supposedly exhausted sorcerer had tripped Kith-Kanan. The Speaker went down hard. Before anyone could draw another breath, Drulethen’s fingers locked around the Speaker’s throat.

  The sorcerer stood, dragging Kith-Kanan to his feet.

  Blood roared in the Speaker’s ears. The fantastic figure of the sorcerer was lost as Kith-Kanan’s vision was suffused with a red haze. He tore at the hands that were throttling him, but Dru’s grip was like iron.

  “I know you have it!” he shrieked, shaking the Speaker violently. “Give me my amulet!”

  Just as Kith-Kanan was losing consciousness, there was a crash and a scream. He felt himself falling, falling, until the hard floor met his back. He rolled aside, gasping, and let his vision clear. When he tried to grab for his sword, just out of easy reach, a wave of dizziness brought him down.

  Greenhands was grappling with Dru. The sorcerer wasn’t as strong as the Speaker’s son, but he was infinitely more cunning. Twisting his body and breaking Greenhands’ grip, Drulethen managed to wrest the table leg club from him. The thick pine flashed down and snapped across Greenhands’ shoulders. He went reeling. Shouting with triumph, Dru picked up the Speaker’s sword, put its tip to Kith-Kanan’s throat, and felt in his clothing until he located the other half of the amulet. Kith-Kanan had secreted it beneath the breastplate of his armor.

  “Ah!” Dru said, taking the black cylinder in his hand. “At last!”

  “What’s happening?” Ulvian asked, pulling himself up to a sitting position. His short sleep had left him confused.

  Dru had moved away. Kith-Kanan crept on hands and knees to his son. “Drulethen,” he managed to gasp.

  “Father,” said Greenhands, moving stiffly to join them, “the evil one is changing again.”

  Kith-Kanan staggered to his feet, retrieved his sword, and turned to face Drulethen. The sorcerer was across the room. He’d fitted the cylinder into the onyx ring he wore around his neck, and now the complete amulet dangled against his chest. His face was slowly swelling and turning purple; his feather-covered limbs were growing longer and more muscular. A slow laugh escaped his twisted lips.

  “What a bargain,” he rumbled from deep in his throat. “A thousand years of power for a thousand years of servitude. That’s the deal I made with Hiddukel.” A loud snapping and cracking sounded. Dru clapped his hands to his head and howled with pain. “Now that I have my amulet whole again, the world shall tremble at my name!”

  Hard, pointed plates erupted through the skin of Dru’s back. The feathers on his body dropped away as a thick tail, covered with scales, grew visibly before the elves’ astonished eyes. The sorcerer’s elven form grew and grew, hardening and thickening, until a winged, scaly monster filled the cavern deep inside Black Stone Peak.

  Ulvian dragged himself close to his father. “By the gods,” he gasped, “he’s become a dragon!”

  “No... a wyvern,” Kith-Kanan said. “Just like the one he rode before, terrorizing the countryside.”

  The wyvern reared up twenty feet tall, green-black and glistening. Its catlike eyes were a poisonous yellow, and from its fanged jaws flicked a blood-red tongue. Horns sprouted from its head. For a moment, it looked wonderingly at its own ivory-clawed forepaws, then its wicked gaze returned to the three grouped beyond the center firepit.

  “We must get out of here,” Ulvian wheezed.

  “If we can. The wind spell may not let us,” answered his father. Kith-Kanan flexed both hands around the handle of his sword. He had little hope of getting close enoug
h to kill the wyvern before it mauled him to death. He glanced at his newest son. “Greenhands can get out, though,” he said.

  Ulvian looked at the unknown, white-haired elf before him. There was no time for questions or answers, as the wyvern opened its hooked, leathery beak and hissed a challenge.

  “Spread out and try the tunnels!” Kith-Kanan ordered.

  The prince started for the nearest passage. His limbs felt strangely leaden. To his surprise, no blast of air came out of the passage to bar his way. He ducked his head and disappeared into the tunnel.

  “Go!” Kith-Kanan urged Greenhands. “Save yourself!”

  “I will stay and help you, “he resolved. “I am strong.”

  The wyvern rushed the Speaker. Kith-Kanan backpedaled, slashing his sword back and forth to ward off the monster. From the side, Greenhands pried loose a paving stone in the floor and hurled it with all his might. The monster roared and hissed like a hundred boiling kettles as its left wing went limp. Its tail lashed out and swept Greenhands off his feet. The spearlike tail tip thrust at him, but the elf caught it in his hands and flung it back.

  Kith-Kanan’s sword scored a bloody line down the monster’s torso. The wyvern returned its attention to the Speaker of the Sun. An iron-hard claw caught him in the chest driving all the wind from him. Had he not been wearing armor, every bone in his chest would have been crushed. Kith-Kanan hurtled back. The wyvern’s claw came down, but the Speaker drove his sword straight through the monster’s paw, pushing and pushing until black blood flooded down the blade. The wyvern bellowed in pain and snatched its claw back, taking the Speaker’s sword with it.

  Kith-Kanan shouted at Greenhands that now was the time to flee. Then he himself backed into one of the tunnels. The monster was shaking its injured claw, finally dislodging the sword from it. As the Speaker disappeared into the tunnel, the wyvern snaked its neck down and thrust it into the opening. Kith-Kanan retreated out of reach.

  The wyvern turned on Greenhands, the only remaining target. The green-fingered elf was markedly unafraid, and he dodged nimbly about the chamber, throwing enormous pieces of stone at the monster. From the tunnel, Kith-Kanan shouted over and over for him to abandon the room, to make his escape.