“I will wait for you, Half-Elven,” Dalamar said, adding pointedly, “but not for long.”
Tanis and Sir Thomas strode outside, onto a small balcony off the Knights’ Council room. It was not yet sundown, but the shadows of the mountains brought a premature night to the tower. In a courtyard below stood an immense and magnificent golden dragon, Firegold, the dragon who served Revered Daughter Crysania. Other dragons, mostly silvers, circled the tower, keeping watch.
Sir Thomas leaned on the balustrade, gazed out into the gathering darkness.
“I will be blunt with you, Tanis,” the knight said quietly. “I can use your help. Not just your sword-arm. I need you in command. The knights left to defend the tower are mostly young men, new to the knighthood. Their fathers and elder brothers—those whom I would normally put in command—are home defending their own manors and towns.”
“Which is where I should be,” Tanis said.
“I grant you that,” Sir Thomas agreed readily. “And if you leave, I will be the first to bid you godspeed.” The knight turned, looked at Tanis directly. “You know the situation as well as I do. We face overwhelming odds. The High Clerist’s Tower must stand, or all of Solamnia will fall. Ariakan will control the north of Ansalon. He will establish this as his base of operations. From here he can attack the south at his leisure. It will be long months before we would be able to regroup and take the tower back—if then.”
Tanis knew this, knew it perfectly well. He knew, too, that if the people of Ansalon had only listened to him and Laurana and Lady Crysania and, yes, even Dalamar, five years ago, this would have never happened. If the elves and dwarves and humans had only put aside their petty quarrels and concerns and come together to form the alliance they had proposed, then the tower would have defenders, more than it needed.
Tanis could see it in his mind: elven archers lining the battlements, doughty dwarven warriors manning the gates, all fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with their human comrades.
It was a fine picture, but one that would never be painted.
If I return home, he thought, it will be to an empty house.
Laurana would not be there. She and Tanis had said their farewells. Both had known at the time that this parting might be their last. He remembered.
Stopping by his house on his way from Solace to the High Clerist’s Tower, Tanis had expected his usual warm welcome.
He didn’t get it.
No one came running from the stables to tend to the needs of the griffin on which he’d flown. No servant greeted him at the door; those bustling past on errands gave him hurried curtseys and disappeared into other parts of the large mansion. His wife, Laurana, was nowhere to be found. A large traveling chest sat squarely in the center of the entryway; he had to squeeze his way past it. He could hear voices and footsteps, all of them in the upper levels. He climbed the stairs in search of an answer to all this upset and confusion.
He found Laurana in their bedroom. Clothes were spread out on the bed and over all other available surfaces, draped over chairs, flung over the hand-painted standing screens. Another traveling chest, this one smaller than one downstairs, was in the center of the room. Laurana and three maidservants were sorting, folding, packing. They never noticed Tanis standing in the doorway.
Tanis remained silent, taking this brief moment to watch his wife unobserved, to watch the sunlight shine through her golden hair, to admire the grace of her movements, to hear the music of her voice. He captured an image of her, to hold in his mind, as he kept her painted portrait in miniature near his heart.
She was elven, and the elves do not age as rapidly as do humans. Laurana, at first glimpse, would seem to any human onlooker to be in the early years of womanhood. If she had remained in her elven homeland, she might have maintained that appearance of eternal youthfulness. But she had not. She had chosen to marry a half-breed; she had cut herself off from her family and friends, had taken up her residence in human lands. And she had spent these intervening years working ceaselessly and tirelessly for an end to the conflict that divided the two races.
The work, the burden, the flashes of hope, followed by the destruction of dreams, had dimmed the bright elven serenity and purity. No lines or wrinkles marred her skin, but sorrow cast its shadow over her eyes. No gray was tangled with the gold of her hair, but the luster was dimmed. Any elf, looking at Laurana, would say that she had prematurely aged.
Tanis, looking at her, loved her more now than he had ever loved her in his life. And he knew, at this moment, that this might very well be the last time they ever met in this life.
“Ahem!” He cleared his throat loudly.
The maidservants started, gasped. One dropped the dress she had been folding.
Laurana, looking up from bending over the trunk, straightened and smiled to see him.
“What’s all this?” Tanis demanded.
“Finish packing,” Laurana instructed the servants, “and put the rest of these clothes in storage.” She wended her way among the cloaks and hats, finally reached her husband.
She kissed him affectionately. He held her in his embrace. They took a moment to let their hearts speak to each other in companionable silence. Then Laurana led Tanis to their study, shut the door. She turned to him, her eyes alight.
“Guess what?” she said and answered before he could begin to guess, “I’ve had a message from Gilthas! He has invited me to come to Qualinesti!”
“What?” Tanis was astonished.
Laurana had been working unceasingly to force the Qualinesti elves to admit her into their land, to be near their son. Time and again, her request had been refused. She was told that if she or her husband ventured anywhere near the border of the elven homeland, they would be in dire peril of their lives.
“Why the sudden change?” Tanis was grim.
Laurana did not answer. She unrolled the scroll, which had been sealed with the mark of the sun, the mark of the Speaker of the Sun, now Gil’s title.
Tanis studied the broken seal, unrolled the scroll, read it through.
“Gil’s handwriting,” he said, “but not our son’s words. Someone dictated, and he wrote down what they told him to write.”
“True enough,” Laurana said, unperturbed. “But it is an invitation nonetheless.”
“An invitation to disaster,” Tanis said bluntly. “They held Alhana Starbreeze prisoner. They threatened her life, and it is my belief they would have killed her if Gil had refused to go along with the senators’ schemes. This is some sort of trap.”
“Well, of course, it is, silly,” she said to him, amusement glinting her eyes. She gave him a swift kiss on his cheek, ruffled her hand through his beard, a beard in which he had lost count of the strands of gray. “But as dear Flint used to say, ‘A trap is only a trap if you step in it before you see it.’ I can see this one a mile off. Why”—she laughed, teased him—“even you spotted it without benefit of your spectacles.”
“I only wear those for reading,” Tanis said, pretending to be irritated. His aging was the subject of a long-standing joke between them. He held out his arms to her; she nestled in his embrace. “I don’t suppose I received a similar invitation?”
“No, dear one,” she said gently. “I’m sorry.” She pulled back from him, looked into his eyes. “I will try, when I get there …”
He shook his head. “You won’t succeed. But I am glad that you, at least, will be there. Porthios and Alhana—”
“Alhana! The baby! I never asked! How—”
“Fine. Fine. Mother and son. And I must say this. If you had seen Porthios holding that baby, you wouldn’t have recognized him.”
“I would have,” Laurana said. “He is my elder brother, after all. He was always kind and loving to me. Yes, he was,” she added, seeing Tanis’s look of doubt. “Even when he was being his most pigheaded and prejudiced, I knew he was only trying to spare me pain and sorrow.”
“He didn’t succeed,” Tanis said remorsefully. “You
married me anyway, and look where I led you.”
“You led me home, dearest husband,” Laurana said quietly. “You led me home.”
They sat and talked a long, long while, spoke of the past, of friends distant, of friends gone from this world. They talked of Gil, shared their memories, their love, their hopes, their fears. They spoke of the world, of its troubles, old and new. They sat and talked and held each other by the hand, knowing, without saying, that this moment was precious, that it must soon end.
They said their good-byes. He was to fly north that night, to reach the High Clerist’s Tower by the next day. She was to start her journey to Qualinesti that morning.
She accompanied him to the door at midnight. The servants had gone to bed. The house was silent; soon it would be empty. Laurana and Tanis had agreed to dismiss the servants. They knew they would both be gone a long, long time. Already the house had an empty feel to it. Their footfalls echoed in the stillness.
Maybe they would always echo like that when they were both gone. Maybe their spirits would walk this house, blessed spirits of love and laughter.
They held each other tightly, whispered broken words of love and farewell, and they parted.
Tanis, looking back, saw Laurana standing in the open doorway in the moonlight. No tears. She smiled at him and waved.
He smiled, waved back.
You led me home, the words echoed. You led me home.
Memory receded. Tanis considered his decision. He could return to their dwelling, but he would be alone in the empty—so very empty—echoing house. He saw himself pacing the floor, wondering what was happening at the tower, wondering if Laurana was safe, wondering if Gil was well, wondering if Palanthas was under attack, fuming with impatience at not knowing anything, running to the door every time hoofbeats were heard, blaming himself …
Ask the gods for guidance.
In the courtyard below, Revered Daughter Crysania was seated on Firegold’s back. The tiger with the human eyes crouched protectively at her side. Tanis, gazing down at her, heard her words.
If any are listening …
The tiger lifted its head, looked up, directly at Tanis. And then, as if her guide had imparted some information to her, Crysania turned the unseeing eyes, which seemed to see so much, on the half-elf. She raised her hand in blessing … or was it farewell?
The pain of choosing eased. Tanis knew then that he’d already made his decision. He’d made it long ago, the very moment in the Inn of the Last Home when the blue crystal staff, Goldmoon, and Riverwind had entered his life. Tanis recalled that moment and his memorable words on that occasion, words that had changed his life forever.
“I beg your pardon! Did you say something?” Sir Thomas eyed the half-elf in perplexity and some worry.
He’s probably thinking the strain is too much for the old man. Tanis grinned, shook his head.
“Never mind, my lord. Just reliving old memories.”
His gaze shifted from Lady Crysania to a place on the battlements, a place marked by a splotch of crimson, a place held in reverence by the knights, who never walked over it, but avoided treading on the bloodstained stones, circled them in respectful silence. Tanis could almost see Sturm standing there, and the half-elf knew he’d chosen rightly.
Tanis repeated the words now, as he had said them then. No wonder Sir Thomas looked puzzled. The words were not inspiring, not words that would echo through the vaults of history. Yet, they said something about that strange, disparate, unlikely group of friends, who had gone forth to change the world.
“We’ll go out through the kitchen.”
Turning, laughing, Tanis walked back inside the tower.
2
The return. The trial.
Sentence is passed.
t was nighttime in the Plains of Solamnia, though few of those inside the encampment of the Knights of Takhisis could have told it. The armies of darkness had banished the darkness. Campfires were prohibited; Lord Ariakan had no desire to start a fire, the grass of the plains was tinder-dry from the drought. But the Knights of the Thorn, the gray-robed wizards, had provided enormous globes made of crystal, which gleamed with an incandescent gray light. Suspended from tree branches, the globes turned night to eerie day.
Steel saw the light while still some distance away. Lord Ariakan scorned to hide his numbers in shadows. Let the enemy see the full might of his army and lose heart. Circling the encampment on the back of his blue dragon, Steel himself was impressed. Flare landed on a plowed field, its crops withered by the heat. Dragon handlers ran to assist the knight from his saddle, point him in the direction of the main camp, and take care of the dragon’s needs.
Flare’s only desire was to rejoin her comrades. She had heard them calling her before she could see them and, having ascertained that Steel had no need of her until morning, she flew to where the blues were gathered.
The blue dragons were the favored mounts of the Knights of Takhisis. Dragons are extremely independent and, generally, have a low opinion of humanity. Most dragons find it difficult to obey orders given them by those whom they consider inferior beings, and for certain species of dragon this proves impossible.
Black dragons are devious and selfish and cannot be trusted, not even by those whom they purportedly serve. Black dragons see no need to “sacrifice” themselves for any cause other than their own, and, though they can be enticed to fight, they might well leave the battle in the midpoint to pursue their own aims.
During the War of the Lance, red dragons had been the favored mounts of many commanders, including the infamous Dragon Highlord Verminaard. Enormous, fire-breathing, and vicious, the red dragons had no patience for the subtleties of Ariakan’s type of warfare. The red’s idea of attacking a city was to burn it, loot it, destroy it, kill everything inside it. The notion that the intact city, its inhabitants alive and well, is of more practical use to the Dark Queen than a pile of rubble and rotting corpses, was anathema to the reds. Let the smoke of burning, the stench of death, proclaim Her Majesty’s glory, not forgetting the glitter of gold stashed in the red dragons’ lairs.
Green dragons proved useless in battle during the last Dragon War. Greens will fight when cornered, but not until then. They prefer to use their powerful magical spells to ensnare an opponent. Thus greens have little respect for military commanders, though they would obey the Knights of the Thorn—the gray-robed wizards—if the greens thought they might gain something for themselves.
White dragons, accustomed to living in cold climes, had all but disappeared in the summer’s unusual and devastating heat, which had turned ice floes to rivers, melted their ice caverns.
Lord Ariakan chose blue dragons on which to mount his knights, and he had been well rewarded. The blue dragons actually liked mortals and were incredibly loyal to their riders and to each other. They obeyed orders, fought well as a cohesive unit, and—most important—could clearly understand the Vision and their part in it.
Steel left Flare to the companionship of her fellows, who greeted her with glad cries in their own language. A few blue dragons circled in the air, keeping watch, but most were on the ground, resting for the great battle. Ariakan had no fear of assault. His back was secure. His huge army had swept across northern Ansalon like a raging fire, consuming everything in its path.
Steel entered the encampment on foot, searching for the standard that would mark the location of his talon. This soon proved almost impossible, given the size of the force assembled on the plain. Seeing that he might search for his unit all night and never find it, he stopped to ask an officer, who directed him to the proper location.
Trevalin was in a meeting with his officers. On Steel’s arrival, Trevalin broke off, motioned the knight to join them.
“Knight Warrior Brightblade, reporting for duty, sir,” said Steel, saluting.
“Brightblade.” Trevalin smiled. “I am glad to see you. Truly glad. Some seemed to think you might not return.”
Steel frowned.
This was an affront to his honor. He had the right to confront his vilifier. “Who might that be, Subcommander?”
“The Nightlord who was responsible for sending you on that fool mission in the first place.” Trevalin grimaced, as if he had a bad taste in his mouth. “She said nothing outright, mind you. She knows better than to publicly insult the honor of one my knights. But she’s been skulking about all day, making insinuating remarks. Relax, man. Forget about it. You have more urgent worries.”
Trevalin’s smile had hardened into a straight, grim line. Steel guessed what was about to come next.
“Lord Ariakan was here, in person, looking for you. He left orders. You are to report to him immediately.” Trevalin’s expression softened as he placed a supportive hand on Steel’s arm. “I think he means to bring you to trial tonight, Brightblade. He’s done so with others. ‘Discipline must be swift to be maintained,’ he says.” Trevalin gestured. “That’s his tent over there, in the center. I’m to take you there myself. We’d best go now. Lord Ariakan said to report at once.”
Steel’s jaw set. He was to be tried tonight, most certainly convicted. His execution would follow. Tears burned beneath his eyelids, not tears of fear, but of bitter disappointment. Tomorrow, the knights would attack the High Clerist’s Tower in what was bound to be the decisive battle of this campaign, and he would miss it.
Slowly, half-blinded, all things blurring in his vision, he drew his father’s sword from its sheath, held it out to Trevalin. “I surrender myself to you, Subcommander.”
The sword of the Brightblades was reputed to have belonged to one of the ancient heroes of the knighthood, Bertel Brightblade. It had been passed down through the centuries from father to son, and would, according to legend, break only if the man wielding it broke first. The sword had been lain to rest with the dead, only to pass, once more, into the hands of another Brightblade when he came of age. Its antique steel blade, which Steel kept lovingly polished, gleamed, though not with the cold gray light of Takhisis’s wizards. The sword shone with its own bright silver light.
Dragons of Summer Flame Page 35