by Dragon Lance
Following her fall from the cave, Nianki had sunk into a strange, withdrawn state. She wandered through the valley, laughing or weeping for no obvious reason. Her hands, feet, and face grew dirty, her hair was tangled with bits of straw and leaves from sleeping in the open. She remained fierce, however, and thoroughly thrashed a pair of young bucks from the village who cornered her in the orchard one day and taunted her about her wild appearance. Amero had a terrible time keeping the boys’ families from retaliating.
The only time Nianki ever seemed to regain clarity was in the presence of Duranix. The dragon, his broken wing rendering him temporarily unable to fly to his high cavern home, remained on the shore of the lake. The village healer, a young sage named Raho, designed a massive leather harness for the dragon to wear which supported his folded, broken wing as it healed. Village delegates brought Duranix offerings of meat, but none of them, nor any of the nomads, would remain near the crippled creature for very long.
Only Nianki and Amero would spend much time with Duranix, and they rarely appeared together. Her brother’s presence seemed to provoke wild extremes of emotion. When Amero complained of this to Duranix, the dragon flicked his forked tongue several times and said cryptically, “The hardest stone in this valley is your skull, human.”
Now, facing Konza across a flaming hearth and hearing the tanner’s comment about Nianki’s state of mind, Amero tried to reason out the cause of all the trouble between the nomads and their settled brethren.
“We’ve had a lot of bad luck lately,” he mused. “The tunnels collapsed, Duranix got hurt, my sister’s ill, the nomads are restless, and I haven’t had any time to work on my copper experiments.”
Konza shrugged. “The answer to our bad luck is simple. It started with the arrival of the nomads, and it will end when we rid ourselves of them.”
Amero flinched at his blunt words, which stung like a lash. “They’re valiant and useful people,” he said. “They can add to our strength.”
Konza snorted. “They’re violent and dangerous,” he insisted. With a sidelong look at the younger man, he added, “I’m not the only villager who thinks so.”
Shouts and a loud crash outside forestalled Amero’s reply and underscored the tanner’s claim. Wearily, Amero rose from the hearth and went to the door. Konza got up to follow, but Amero waved him back.
“Take your ease,” he said. “I’ll see what’s up.”
Two houses over he found a boy lying in the dirt, his head bleeding. The travois he’d been dragging was wrecked, and broken pots lay scattered about. A thick, sweet smell filled the cool night air. Honey.
Amero helped the boy sit up. His name was Udi, second son of Tepa, the beekeeper. Tepa had a cache of beehives in the apple orchard, and he traded his honey in the village at considerable advantage. Udi groaned a bit when he felt the bump on his head, but groaned much louder when he saw the damage done to his father’s supply of honey.
“Who did this?” demanded Amero.
“I never saw them,” said the teenager, a hand to his head. “I heard footsteps behind me, but. I thought it was just a neighbor. There was a yell, and when I turned to see who it was, something hit me on the back of the head.”
“Can you tell what’s missing?”
The boy counted jars. Eight were intact, four broken, and only one was missing.
“Someone attacked you to take just one jar of honey?” asked Amero, incredulous.
“It’s the riders,” Udi muttered. “They steal for the rough jest of it.”
“You don’t know that,” Amero replied, with more conviction than he felt. He helped reload the travois and sent Udi on his way. A cursory examination showed three pairs of footprints in the dust around the site of the robbery. Two pairs headed toward the lake. The third went north, toward the cattle pens.
He tracked the solo marauder straight to the walled corral. Sure enough, a single figure sat atop the stone wall, looking over the herd of brown and white spotted oxen.
“You there! Stay where you are!”
The fellow didn’t even turn around. Amero climbed onto the wall and was surprised to see that the lone figure was Pa’alu.
Pa’alu had been acting oddly ever since the night of the feast. He disappeared for days at a time and had not been seen now for over a week. Amero wondered at the epidemic of strange behavior.
“I thought perhaps you were gone from the valley,” he said, sitting beside the warrior.
“I’ve been away,” Pa’alu replied. “I’ve been hunting in the nearby valleys by myself, on foot. Haven’t done that in eight seasons.”
“There was a robbery back there.” Amero pointed to the row of dome-shaped houses.
“Robbery? What was stolen?”
“A jar of honey.”
“Ha, a robber with a sweet tooth.”
“He came this way. See anybody run by?”
“I wasn’t looking.”
The cattle stirred sleepily, crowding around piles of fodder that had been left for them. Amero watched the long-horned animals silently for several minutes, searching for the words he wanted.
“Pa’alu?” he said at last.
“Hmm?”
“What happened, the night of the feast? Why did you try to stab yourself? We’ve never talked about it.”
The other man turned his head, and for the first time Amero saw how hollow-eyed he’d become. “Too much wine,” Pa’alu said calmly. “I should thank the dragon for stopping me.”
Amero flashed a smile. “Duranix says living with humans means stopping a hundred stupid things a day.”
Both men laughed briefly. Amero threw his legs back over the wall and slid down to the ground outside the pen.
“I must keep looking for the thieves,” he said. “Good night, Pa’alu.”
“Peace be with you, Arkuden.”
Amero departed and was soon swallowed by the darkness around the village houses. Pa’alu waited to a slow count of thirty, then took a squat jar from under his cloak and broke the beeswax seal. Making clucking sounds in his throat to attract the hungry cattle, he poured a stream of golden honey on the dirt. Before long the oxen were lapping at it with their fleshy red tongues. Pa’alu wiped the rim of the empty jar with his fingers, then stuck them in his mouth.
*
Back in the camp, Nacris and Tarkwa were panting from their run. They ducked into a large tent, with triumphant grins. Hatu, inside the tent, was waiting with a small lamp burning.
“Well?” demanded Hatu.
“He wouldn’t strike a blow, but he took a jar,” Nacris reported.
“Good. Pa’alu will soon be one of us. Next time, we must make sure he strikes the first blow but not the last.”
Hatu bent forward and blew out the lamp.
*
Nianki was not sleeping in the orchard.
Though she lay in the soft grass at the base of an apple tree, she could not rest. She stared up through the tree’s twisted branches at the patches of night sky visible through its remaining leaves.
It was a tree that saved me.
Amero’s voice drifted through her mind. He’d climbed a tree to escape the yevi all those years ago.
Thoughts of Amero kept Nianki from sleeping. Each time she closed her eyes, her brother’s face seemed to rise up before her like a spectre that wouldn’t be banished.
“Go away,” she muttered. “Leave me be. Go away.”
Her brother’s face smiled at her.
“Leave me in peace!” she screamed and sprang to her feet, drawing her flint knife as though she could fight off the strange, unnatural feelings assailing her.
With a shock, she found herself facing a stranger. A tall, thin figure with a high forehead stood only a few steps away from her blade. He recoiled so sharply that the long robes he wore whipped around his ankles.
“Stop!” he commanded.
Nianki kept her knife between them and demanded to know who he was.
He recovered hims
elf quickly and adopted a calm, superior air. “Savages have short memories,” he said. “Don’t you know me, Karada?”
She still didn’t relax her posture, but it was obvious that her mind was working to place him. With a small smile, he lifted his hands and pushed back the hood he wore. The moon’s light limned his features with silver, including a wispy beard and tall, sharply pointed ears.
Surprised, Nianki backed away a step. “Elf!” she spat. “You were with Balif the day we fought on the plain. He called you...” Her troubled mind wouldn’t obey her. The name escaped her utterly.
“Vedvedsica,” he said coolly. “My name is Vedvedsica.”
Nianki wasn’t listening. Her head darted violently left and right. “Where are your troops?” she demanded. “Does Balif think to attack us as we sleep?”
“There are no troops,” he said. “There is no one but me.”
After a few more moments peering into the dark, she had to accept his words. “What do you want?”
“You.”
Her expression was so outraged the priest gave a dry laugh. “Calm yourself, savage,” he said. “I merely wish to take you on a journey.”
She backed away. “I’ll go nowhere with you.”
Vedvedsica shrugged. “You would cast aside an opportunity to know your enemy better? You aren’t much of a leader, are you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I offer you the chance to learn more about the Silvanesti. It will cost you nothing, not even time.”
She obviously didn’t understand, and he sighed. Slowly, as though speaking to a particularly dim-witted child, Vedved-sica said, “I will not harm you. I merely wish to show you the city of your enemy.” Stroking his wispy beard he added, “A true leader would not miss such an opportunity. Unless she were afraid to see the truth.”
His taunt penetrated her clouded thoughts. It was true her mind was a whirl of conflicting impressions and impulses, and she often found herself in places with no memory of how she got there. For all of that, she understood the elf’s slight to her courage, and it angered her.
Stiffening her spine, Nianki shoved her knife back into its sheath, pushed her tangled hair from her face, and said, “Show me, then.”
“Take my hand.”
She nearly balked again, but his expression – so condescending! – caused her to clench her jaw and obey. She wrapped her hand around his wrist. The cool dryness of his skin made her flinch, but a sudden blast of icy wind in her face was much more shocking. She squeezed her eyes shut to keep the dust out. It felt as though she were falling.
“Home.”
At his spoken word, Nianki opened her eyes and gasped. She was suspended in midair, hundreds of paces above the ground. The elf was by her side, and she still held his wrist. She was immensely grateful for the touch now. It seemed the only thing between her and a horrible death.
“Amazing, is it not?” Vedvedsica said calmly, looking around.
Nianki squinted in bright sunshine, though only seconds before it had been night in the orchard. Once her eyes had adjusted, she gathered her courage and turned her gaze slightly downward. It was enough to set her heart to pounding, and she closed her eyes.
“You won’t fall, savage.” His sarcastic comment forced her to open her eyes again.
“Where —?” It came out as a croak, so Nianki swallowed and tried again. “Where are we?”
“Silvanost. The city of my master, Balif, and his master, the great Silvanos. You may be the first human ever to see it. Don’t squander the opportunity.”
Taking a deep breath, Nianki vowed to do as he said. She looked down. She was standing on stone so white it nearly blinded her to look at it. The marble was cool beneath her bare feet and just ahead of her it curved downward. Behind her the white stone stretched for a good distance, probably twenty paces at least.
“What is this?” With her free hand she gestured at the glossy marble platform.
“The Tower of the Stars.”
“Tower?” Nianki carefully edged her feet forward, toward the downward curving edge of the marble. Peering beyond the edge, she gasped.
She and the elf were standing atop a structure that must surely reach halfway to the sky. Its white marble sides stretched for a dizzying length to the ground far, far below.
Nianki slowly and carefully straightened herself again, fighting against the urge to clutch the elf’s arm with her free hand. When she was upright once more, she turned her gaze outward to take in her surroundings.
Now that she’d grown accustomed to the great height, her first impression was one of light. It glinted and sparkled and flashed from a thousand surfaces. All around this tower were other, smaller structures. They appeared to be made from white or milky stone and the sun’s light scintillated off them as though from a thousand polished blades. Quite a few of the structures looked complete – Nianki stopped counting after thirty – but nearly twice that number seemed to be still under construction.
It was astonishing. Amero’s village of Yala-tene represented the largest gathering of people Nianki had ever seen, yet this place, this Silvanost, was easily ten or more times the size of the humans’ village.
Looking past the ring of spires, Nianki saw the city was built on an island. Beyond the surrounding water lay a forest. It stretched away, green and dense, as far as the eye could see.
Strange – too strange. Not only had it been dark before and now was bright day, but the season had changed as well. It had been cold in the valley of the falls. She remembered the chill night air in the orchard. Had not the apple trees’ leaves turned brown already and fallen around her? Here the trees were clothed in their mid-summer foliage, not the bright colors of autumn.
Vedvedsica seemed to sense her growing confusion. With his free hand he squeezed her arm, saying sharply, “You tax my concentration! Be calm! There is great disorder in your thoughts.”
“You have no idea,” she muttered. His words acted as a tonic though, and her surroundings sharpened into focus.
Nianki saw the streets below fill with movement. The figures were made impossibly small by distance.
“Shall we move among them?”
She had no chance to reply to his question before they were dropping like stones. Though her fingers tightened convulsively on his wrist, Nianki stifled an urge to cry out. Vedvedsica, she was sure, would not let them be hurt.
Their plunge suddenly halted a few steps above the ground. Her heart pounded in her throat, and she threw the elf a furious glare. He paid her no heed whatsoever.
Three male elves nearly walked into Nianki. She stepped back out of their way, but they gave no sign they’d seen her.
As a pair of females approached, Vedvedsica planted himself directly in their path. Nianki was astonished to see the females pass through him as though he was made of smoke.
“How —?” she began, then gave a violent shake of her head. Why question what was so obviously the work of great spirit-power?
They were graceful-looking people, she had to give them that. No taller than she, and many of them shorter, they somehow gave an impression of height. Their movements were easy and fluid. Their skin was paler than hers, their hair was mostly light-colored, ranging from sandy blond through pure snowy white. They wore flowing robes in a rainbow of bright colors.
Though she saw their lips moving, she could not hear what the elves were saying. In fact, she realized, she could hear nothing at all from her surroundings. The elves walking or riding on horseback made no noise, and there was no sound of birds or insects.
“Why don’t I hear them?” she asked.
Vedvedsica looked a bit strained. “It isn’t necessary,” he told her, and that was all he would say on the subject.
Nianki went back to watching the Silvanesti. There were so many! The streets teemed with life, young and old, male and female. She caught sight of two children – a boy and girl – jogging toward her. The girl, taller of the two, was obviously teasing
the boy, and even Nianki could see the family resemblance between them. When the girl turned her back, the boy reached out and yanked a long golden plait of her hair. He then turned, laughing, to flee as she gave chase.
“At least children are children everywhere,” she said.
“Really? That girl will likely outlive your great-great-grandchildren.”
Looking at him as though he were the one whose wits were addled, she snorted. “I’m not that far gone in my head, shaman.”
Vedvedsica’s eyes glittered with a strange inner light as he turned to look her full in the face.
“Do you suppose all the races have the same pitifully short lifespan as humans?” he said in that same calm, certain tone. “We elves live for hundreds of years. My Lord Balif has seen ninety-eight springs come and go, and he will still be a strong, valiant warrior when your grandchildren are nothing more than dust.”
Nianki opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
“How can you hope to best an enemy,” Vedvedsica continued, “who will still be vigorous when you are twisted with age, who will still be hale and hardy when your grandchildren are bowed down with the weight of years? Don’t you see how foolish your resistance is?”
Movement above her head caused Nianki to look up quickly. The white stone structures on each side of the street loomed above her, their tops seeming to draw closer and closer together, blocking out the sky, blocking out the light.
She felt a painful tightness in her chest. As yet another elf moved through her, unseeing, unknowing, leaving not even a whisper of air in his wake, she swayed on her feet.
“What have you done to me, shaman?” she gasped. “Can’t breathe —”
Faster than thought, Nianki found herself back atop the Tower of the Stars. The strange breathlessness faded, and she inhaled and exhaled deeply, relief coursing through her.
“You’re hexing me,” she accused.
He regarded her thoughtfully. “In truth, I am not. You’re unaccustomed to the presence of so many beings, so many structures. For one raised under the open sky, it would be a shock.”