“Deserters?” the baron asked Master Vardash.
“What, sir? Oh, that.” Vardash cast the bodies an amused glance. “No, sir. Three of them thought they could get away with keeping some of the loot we took from the farmers for themselves. The fourth, there, the one who’s still dancing, got caught with a young girl hidden in his tent. He said he felt sorry for her and was going to help her escape.” Vardash smiled. “A likely story, wouldn’t you agree, your lordship?”
His lordship had nothing to say.
“She is a pretty thing, I’ll say that for him. She’ll fetch a good price in San—That is”—Vardash appeared to recollect himself—“she will be handed over to the proper authorities in Vantal.”
Commander Morgon cleared his throat loudly. The baron glanced at him, scratched at his beard, muttered beneath his breath, and marched on.
The command tent, marked by a large flag bearing the royal emblem of Good King Wilhelm, was flanked by a small section of six soldiers, obviously handpicked for the duty. Commander Morgon was a good six feet tall and these men towered over him. They dwarfed the short-statured baron. The guards wore armor that had obviously been specially designed, probably because no regulation armor would have fit over those hulking shoulders and bulging biceps.
These bodyguards did not wear the royal crest, the baron noted. They wore another crest, that of a coiled dragon, he thought, although he couldn’t get a close look. Noting his gaze upon them, the guards very properly stiffened to attention, bringing their massive shields forward and thudding the butt end of the enormous spears they carried into the ground.
Dragons, the baron thought. A good symbol for a soldier, if rather quaint and old-fashioned.
Master Vardash announced the baron. A surly voice from within the command tent wanted to know what the devil this baron meant, interrupting him during supper. Master Vardash was apologetic, but reminded the commander that the meeting had been set for sunset. The commander gave ungracious permission for the baron to enter.
“Your sword, sir,” said Master Vardash, barring the way.
“Yes, that’s my sword.” The baron put his hand on the hilt. “What about it?”
“I must ask you to entrust your sword to me, sir,” said Vardash. “No one is allowed to enter the commander’s presence carrying a weapon.”
The baron was so outraged that for a minute he thought he was going to punch Master Vardash. Master Vardash apparently thought so as well, for he fell back a step, and put his hand to the hilt of his own sword.
“Our allies, my lord,” said Commander Morgon softly.
The baron mastered his anger. Taking off his sword belt, he threw it in the direction of Master Vardash, who deftly caught it. “That’s a valuable weapon,” the baron growled. “It belonged to my father and his father before him. Take care of it.”
“Thank you, sir. Your sword will be under my personal protection,” the master said. “Perhaps your staff officers would be interested in seeing the rest of the camp.”
“We’ve seen enough,” said Commander Morgon dryly. “We will wait for you out here, my lord. Shout if you need us.”
Grunting, the baron thrust aside the tent flap and stalked in.
He entered what he had supposed would be the usual command tent, furnished with a cot and a couple of campstools, a collapsible table covered with maps marked with the positions of the enemy. Instead, he thought for a moment he’d walked into Good King Wilhelm’s front parlor. A fine rug, handwoven and embroidered, covered the ground. Elegant chairs, made of rare wood, surrounded an ornate table decorated with carved fruit and garlands. The table was loaded with food, not maps. Commander Kholos looked up from tearing apart a chicken.
“Well, you’re here,” Kholos said truculently by way of greeting. “Admire my furniture, do you? Perhaps you saw that manor house we burned down yesterday. If a house doesn’t have walls, it doesn’t need a table, does it?”
The commander chuckled and, thrusting his dirk—the handle crusted with dried blood—into half the chicken, he lifted it from his plate and popped it into his mouth, devoured it at one gulp, bones and all.
The baron mumbled an incoherent reply. He had been hungry when he’d entered, but at the sight of the commander, he lost his appetite. In some not too distant past, goblin and human had come together—one didn’t want to speculate how—the result being Commander Kholos. The goblin part of his heritage was visible in his sallow, slightly green-tinged complexion, his underslung protruding lower jaw, his squinty eyes, overhung brow, and in his ruthless, brutal toughness. The human part could be seen in the cunning intelligence that burned in the squinty eyes with a pale and unnatural light, such as is given off by the decay of a loathsome swamp.
The baron could guess that the commander inspired as much fear in his own troops as he did in the enemy—perhaps more because the enemy had the good fortune of not being personally acquainted. The baron wondered why in the name of Kiri-Jolith any man would volunteer to fight under such a commander. Seeing the loot in the commander’s tent and recalling Vardash’s words—quickly cut off—about some captive girl “fetching a price” somewhere, the baron guessed that so long as Kholos’s troops could look forward to the spoils of war, they would endure his abuse.
The baron knew King Wilhelm. He couldn’t imagine what had possessed the man to hire a commander like this. Yet he’d done so, apparently, and he was king and these were their allies, damn it all to the Abyss and back. The baron sorely regretted ever putting his signature to the contract.
“How many men have you brought?” the commander demanded. “Are they any good in a fight?”
Kholos did not invite the baron to be seated, he did not offer the baron food or drink. Grabbing a mug, the commander gulped noisily, slammed it down, splashing ale over the fine table, and wiped his mouth with the back of a hairy hand. Looking at the baron, the commander belched loudly.
“Well?” he demanded.
The baron drew himself to his full height. “My soldiers are the best in Ansalon. I assume that you knew that or you wouldn’t have hired us.”
The commander waved a chicken leg, used it to brush aside the baron’s reputation. “I didn’t hire you. I never heard of you. Now I’m stuck with you. We’ll see what you can do tomorrow. I need to know what sort of a fight your rabble will put up. You and your men will attack the west wall at dawn.”
“Very good,” the baron said stiffly. “And where will you and your men be attacking, Commander?”
“We won’t,” Kholos returned, grinning. He chewed and talked at the same time, dribbling bits of the chicken mixed with saliva down his chin. “I’ll be watching to see how your men perform under fire. My men have been well trained. I can’t afford to have them ruined by a bunch of yelping curs who will roll over and piss themselves when the arrows start to fly.”
The baron stood staring at the commander. His silence was an ominous cloud roiling black with astonishment and incredulity, lightning-charged with fury. Commander Morgon, waiting outside, would later say that he had never in his life heard anything—not even a thunderclap—louder than the baron’s silence. Commander Morgon would also later report that he had his sword ready, for he assumed that the baron would kill the commander on the spot.
Kholos, seeing that the baron had nothing to say, forked another chicken.
The baron managed to throttle his desire to fork Kholos and said, speaking in a voice so unlike his own that Morgon would later swear he had no idea who was talking, “If we attack the city without support, you’ll see nothing except my men dying, sir.”
“Bah! The attack’s just a feint. Testing the city’s defenses, that’s all. You can retreat if things get too hot for you.” The commander took another swig of ale, belched again. “Report to me tomorrow at noon after the battle. We’ll go over any improvements your men need to make then.”
Kholos jerked a greasy thumb in dismissal and turned his complete attention to his meal. The meeting betw
een allies was at an end.
The baron could not see the tent flap opening for the fiery red mist obscuring his vision. Fumbling his way out, nearly bringing down the tent in the process, he almost knocked over Vardash, who had stepped forward to assist him. The baron snatched his sword from the master, didn’t take time to buckle it back on, but began walking.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said through gritted teeth. His officers fell into step behind, moving so rapidly that Vardash, who was supposed to escort them, had to jump to catch up.
The baron and his officers retraced their route, returned to their mounts and the bodyguard. It was now night. Despite the darkness, a company of soldiers was beginning a sword drill. Sergeants with bullwhips stood behind the ranks, waiting to correct any mistakes. The baron glanced at the punishment detail, counted eighteen men still standing. Two lay on the ground. No one paid any attention to them. One soldier, off on some errand of his own, actually stepped over the unmoving bodies. The baron quickened his pace.
The bodyguard was still mounted, ready to ride. Within minutes, the baron was out of the camp and heading back toward his own lines. He made the journey in silence, had nothing to say about the shining armor or noteworthy discipline of their gallant allies.
6
LIGHT THERE WAS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SILVER DOOR, FEEBLE and dim, but light enough for Kitiara to find her way. She advanced cautiously down the tunnel, fear walking with her. She kept expecting the spirit’s bony fingers to clutch at her tunic, touch her shoulder, scrape across the back of her neck.
Kitiara was not imaginative. Even as a child, she’d laughed at stories that sent other children crying to their mamas. Assured by a playmate that monsters lived under her bed, Kitiara went after them with the fireplace poker. She was wont to say with a laugh that the only spirits she had ever encountered had been at the bottom of a wineskin. So much for that notion. The Knight wasn’t the only ghost in the temple, unfortunately.
Figures in white robes walked alongside her, hastening on urgent errands or strolling slowly in meditative thought, figures that disappeared when she turned to confront them directly. Worse were the conversations, whispered echoes of long-silenced voices wisping through the corridor like smoke. At times she could almost make out distinct words, could almost catch what they were saying, but never quite. She had the impression they were talking about her, that they were saying something important. If they would only quit whispering, she could understand.
“What? What is it? What do you want?” Kitiara shouted out loud, deeply regretting the loss of her sword. “Who are you? Where are you?”
The voices whispered and murmured.
“If you’ve got something to say to me, come out and say it,” Kitiara demanded grimly.
Apparently, the voices didn’t, for they continued to whisper.
“Then shut the hell up!” Kitiara yelled and marched down the corridor.
The smooth marble floor gave way abruptly to stone. The man-made walls to the natural walls of a cavern. She walked a trail that was narrow and crooked, skirting large outcroppings of rocks that thrust up from the floor. Though rough, the path was not difficult to walk. In some places, it had been repaired or shored up to make walking easier.
She should have walked in darkness as dark as all the past ages of Krynn layered one on top of the other, for the only light to have ever penetrated this far beneath the mountain must have been the light of the sparks of Reorx’s hammer. Yet down here the darkness had been banished. Light glistened on the wet stone, glinted when it touched veins of silver or of gold, illuminated columns of water-hewn rock that spiraled up to support a vast dome of sparkling crystalline formations.
The light was bright, dazzling, and try as she might, Kitiara could not locate the source. The light could not be coming from outside, for outside night had fallen.
“Stop fretting over it,” Kit admonished herself. “Be grateful for the light. Otherwise it would take all night to traverse this path. There’s an explanation for it. There has to be. Maybe molten lava, as in Sanction. Yes, that has to be the reason.”
Never mind that this light wasn’t red and garish as the flames that lit Sanction’s smoke-filled skies. Never mind that this light was silver gray and cool and soft as moonlight. Never mind that there was no heat and no sign of a lava flow. Kitiara accepted her own explanation, and when that explanation became untenable—when she did not pass by any lava flows, nor did she come across any bubbling pools of magma, when the light continued to grow stronger and brighter the farther she traveled under the mountain—Kitiara ordered herself not to think about it anymore.
It seemed almost as if the white-robed figures had known she was coming and had gone out of their way to take her where she needed to go in the swiftest manner possible.
“Fools!” she said in her throat with a small, albeit nervous, chuckle and continued on.
The path wound about among the glittering stalagmites, carried her from one cavern room into another and always down, down deep into the mountain. The light never failed her, but led her on. When she was starting to feel thirsty and wished she’d thought to bring a waterskin, she came upon a clear, cold, rushing stream that looked as if it had been placed there for her convenience. But no sign of eggs, no sign of any cavern big enough to contain eggs or a dragon. The cavern ceiling was low. She could barely walk upright. A dragon could not have squeezed his little toe into this part of the cave.
She judged she had been walking about an hour and wondered how many leagues she had traveled. The path took her around a particularly large rock formation and brought her suddenly up against what appeared to be a sheer and impenetrable rock wall.
“This is more like it,” Kit said, gratified and even relieved to find her way blocked. “I knew this was just too damn easy.”
She searched for a way through the wall and eventually found a small archway that had been carved into the rock. A gate made of silver and gold blocked her way. In the center of the gate was wrought a rose, a sword, and a kingfisher. Looking through the gate, Kitiara saw a shadowed room, a room where the light dimmed as if in respect.
The room was a mausoleum.
A single sarcophagus stood in the center of the room. Kitiara could see the white marble of the tomb glimmer ghostly in the eerie light.
“Well, Kit, you’ve reached a dead end,” she said, and laughed to herself at her little joke.
Not particularly wanting to disturb the rest of the dead, Kit set about looking for some other way around the wall. A half-hour’s search left her hot and frustrated. It seemed impossible that there should be no more openings, no cracks through which she could squeeze. She muttered and swore and poked and kicked, now furious to find her way blocked. She would have to retrace her steps, look for some branching pathway that she must have missed.
Yet, she knew very well she had not missed anything. She had come to no crossroads. She had not once had to stop to decide which way she should take. The path led straight to this. A tomb.
She would have to examine it. If she couldn’t find a way past it, she would be able to say to herself and to General Ariakas that she had done her duty. Immolatus probably wouldn’t believe her, but if he doubted her word, he could jolly well come down here himself.
Kitiara entered the archway, came to stand before the gold and silver gates. No sign of a lock. The gate was fastened by a small bar, which could easily be lifted. She had only to reach out her hand.
Kitiara reached out her hand but did not touch the gate. She wanted to turn and run. Or, worse, she wanted to fall to the rock floor, curl up in a ball, and cry like a child.
“This is nonsense!” she said sternly, giving herself a mental shaking. “What’s the matter with me? Am I afraid to walk past a graveyard in the night? Open that gate this instant, Kitiara uth Matar.”
Cringing, as if she expected the metal to be white hot to the touch, she lifted the latch. The gate swung aside silently on well-oiled hinge
s. Not giving herself time to think, Kitiara walked boldly and defiantly into the mausoleum.
Nothing happened.
And when it didn’t, she grinned in relief, laughed at her fears, and took a quick investigative look around.
The mausoleum was circular, small, domed. The sarcophagus stood in the center, the only object in the room. A frieze carved around the wall portrayed scenes of battle: knights carrying lances riding on the backs of dragons fighting other knights, dragons fighting each other. Kit paid little attention to the carvings. She had no interest in the past or in tales of past glory. She had yet to win her own glory and that was all that mattered.
Her search was rewarded. Directly opposite the gate stood another wrought-iron gate, a way out. She strode past the sarcophagus, glanced at the tomb out of curiosity.
Kitiara stopped, startled.
The corpse of Sir Nigel, the ghost she had encountered in the temple, was stretched out upon the top of the tomb.
Kit had trouble breathing, her fear squeezed the air from her lungs. She forced herself to stare at the tomb until her fear dissipated. She was not looking at a body dead these two hundred years. The Knight was carved of stone.
Her breathing coming easier, Kit walked boldly over to the tomb. Her mistake was a reasonable one. The helm was the same: old-fashioned, made of one piece just like the helm worn by the Knight. The armor was the same down to the last detail.
The tomb was open. The marble lid had been shoved aside.
“So that’s how it got out,” she muttered. “I wonder what happened to the body?”
Kit peered inside the tomb, searched the shadows. Solamnic Knights often buried weapons with their dead. She thought it possible that she might find a sword or at the very least a ceremonial dagger. Possible, but not probable. The tomb was stripped bare. Not so much as a leg bone, not so much as a finger left behind. Probably the body had crumbled to dust.
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