Gakhan had been in Kitiara’s service a long time. When word of the discovery of the blue crystal staff had reached the Queen of Darkness and her minions, few of the Dragon Highlords attached much importance to its disappearance. Deeply involved in the war that was slowly stamping the life out of the northern lands of Ansalon, something as trivial as a staff with healing powers did not merit their attention. It would take a great deal of healing to heal the world, Ariakas had stated, laughing, at a Council of War.
But two Highlords did take the disappearance of the staff seriously: one who ruled that part of Ansalon where the staff had been discovered, and one who had been born and raised in the area. One was a dark cleric, the other a skilled swordswoman. Both knew how dangerous proof of the return of the ancient gods could be to their cause.
They reacted differently, perhaps because of location. Lord Verminaard sent out swarms of draconians, goblins, and hobgoblins with full descriptions of the blue crystal staff and its powers. Kitiara sent Gakhan.
It was Gakhan who traced Riverwind and the blue crystal staff to the village of Que-shu, and it was Gakhan who ordered the raid on the village, systematically murdering most of the inhabitants in a search for the staff.
But he left Que-shu suddenly, having heard reports of the staff in Solace. The draconian traveled to that town, only to find that he had missed it by a matter of weeks. But there he discovered that the barbarians who carried the staff had been joined by a group of adventurers, purportedly from Solace, according to the locals he “interviewed.”
Gakhan was faced with a decision at this point. He could try and pick up their trail, which had undoubtedly grown cold during the intervening weeks, or he could return to Kitiara with descriptions of these adventurers to see if she knew them. If so, she might be able to provide him with information that would allow him to plot their movements in advance.
He decided to return to Kitiara, who was fighting in the north. Lord Verminaard’s thousands were much more likely to find the staff than Gakhan. He brought complete descriptions of the adventurers to Kitiara, who was startled to learn that they were her two half-brothers, her old comrades-in-arms, and her former lover. Immediately Kitiara saw the workings of a great power here, for she knew that this group of mismatched wanderers could be forged into a dynamic force for either good or evil. She immediately took her misgivings to the Queen of Darkness, who was already disturbed by the portent of the missing constellation of the Valiant Warrior. At once the Queen knew she had been correct, Paladine had returned to fight her. But by the time she realized the danger, the damage had been done.
Kitiara set Gakhan back on the trail. Step by step, the clever draconian traced the companions from Pax Tharkas to the dwarven kingdom. It was he who followed them in Tarsis, and there he and the Dark Lady would have captured them had it not been for Alhana Starbreeze and her griffons.
Patiently Gakhan kept on their trail. He knew of the group’s separation, hearing reports of them from Silvanesti, where they drove off the great green dragon, Cyan Bloodbane, and then from Ice Wall, where Laurana killed the dark elven magic-user, Feal-Thas. He knew of the discovery of the dragon orbs—the destruction of one, the frail mage’s acquisition of the other.
It was Gakhan who followed Tanis in Flotsam, and who was able to direct the Dark Lady to them aboard the Perechon. But here again, as before, Gakhan moved his game piece only to find an opponent’s piece blocking a final move. The draconian did not despair. Gakhan knew his opponent, he knew the great power opposing him. He was playing for high stakes, very high stakes indeed.
Thinking of all this as he left the Dark Majesty’s Temple, where even now the Dragon Highlords were gathering for High Conclave, Gakhan entered the streets of Neraka. It was light now, just at the end of day. As the sun slid down from the sky, its last rays were freed from the shadow of the citadels. It burned now above the mountains, gilding the still snowcapped peaks blood red.
Gakhan’s reptilian gaze did not linger on the sunset. Instead it flicked among the streets of the tent town, now almost completely empty since most of the draconians were required to be in attendance upon their lords this evening. The Highlords had a notable lack of trust in each other and in their Queen. Murder had been done before in her chambers, and would, most likely, be done again.
That did not concern Gakhan, however. In fact, it made his job easier. Quickly he led the other draconians through the foul-smelling, refuse-littered streets. He could have sent them on this mission without him, but Gakhan had come to know his great opponent very well and he had a distinct feeling of urgency. The wind of momentous events was starting to swirl into a huge vortex. He stood in the eye now, but he knew it would soon sweep him up. Gakhan wanted to be able to ride those winds, not be hurled upon the rocks.
“This is the place,” he said, standing outside of a beer tent. A sign tacked to a post read in Common—The Dragon’s Eye, while a placard propped in front stated in crudely lettered Common: “Dracos and goblins not allowed.” Peering through the filthy tent flap, Gakhan saw his quarry. Motioning to his escorts, he thrust aside the flap and stepped inside.
An uproar greeted his entrance as the humans in the bar turned their bleary eyes on the newcomers and—seeing three draconians—immediately began to shout and jeer. The shouts and jeers died almost instantly, however, when Gakhan removed the hood that covered his reptilian face. Everyone recognized Lord Kitiara’s henchman. A pall settled over the crowd thicker than the rank smoke and foul odors that filled the bar. Casting fearful glances at the draconians, the humans hunched their shoulders over their drinks and huddled down, trying to become inconspicuous.
Gakhan’s glittering black gaze swept over the crowd.
“There,” he said in draconian, motioning to a human slouched over the bar. His escorts acted instantly, seizing the one-eyed human soldier, who stared at them in drunken terror.
“Take him outside, in back,” Gakhan ordered.
Ignoring the bewildered captain’s protests and pleadings, as well as the baleful looks and muttered threats from the crowd, the draconians dragged their captive out into the back. Gakhan followed more slowly.
It took only a few moments for the skilled draconians to sober their prisoner up enough to talk—the man’s hoarse screams caused many of the bar’s patrons to lose their taste for their liquor—but eventually he was able to respond to Gakhan’s questioning.
“Do you remember arresting a dragonarmy officer this afternoon on charges of desertion?”
The captain remembered questioning many officers today … he was a busy man … they all looked alike. Gakhan gestured to the draconians, who responded promptly and efficiently.
The captain screamed in agony. Yes, yes! He remembered! But it wasn’t just one officer. There had been two of them.
“Two?” Gakhan’s eyes glittered. “Describe the other officer.”
“A big human, really big. Bulging out of his uniform. And there had been prisoners.…”
“Prisoners!” Gakhan’s reptilian tongue flicked in and out of his mouth. “Describe them!”
The captain was only too happy to describe. “A human woman, red curls, breasts the size of …”
“Get on with it,” Gakhan snarled. His clawed hands trembled. He glanced at his escorts and the draconians tightened their grip.
Sobbing, the captain gave hurried descriptions of the other two prisoners, his words falling over themselves.
“A kender,” Gakhan repeated, growing more and more excited. “Go on! An old man, white beard—” He paused, puzzled. The old magic-user? Surely they would not have allowed that decrepit old fool to accompany them on a mission so important and fraught with peril. If not, then who? Someone else they had picked up?
“Tell me more about the old man,” Gakhan ordered.
The captain cast desperately about in his liquor-soaked and pain-stupefied brain. The old man … white beard …
“Stooped?”
No … tall, broad
shoulders … blue eyes. Queer eyes—The captain was on the verge of passing out. Gakhan clutched the man in his clawed hand, squeezing his neck.
“What about the eyes?”
Fearfully the captain stared at the draconian who was slowly choking the life from him. He babbled something.
“Young … too young!” Gakhan repeated in exultation. Now he knew! “Where are they?”
The captain gasped out a word, then Gakhan hurled him to the floor with a crash.
The whirlwind was rising. Gakhan felt himself being swept upward. One thought beat in his brain like the wings of a dragon as he and his escorts left the tent, racing for the dungeons below the palace.
The Everman … the Everman … the Everman!
7
The Temple of the Queen of Darkness.
T as!”
“Hurt … lemme ’lone …”
“I know, Tas. I’m sorry, but you’ve got to wake up. Please, Tas!”
An edge of fear and urgency in the voice pierced the pain-laden mists in the kender’s mind. Part of him was jumping up and down, yelling at him to wake up. But another part was all for drifting back into the darkness that, while unpleasant, was better than facing the pain he knew was lying in wait for him, ready to spring—
“Tas … Tas …” A hand patted his cheek. The whispered voice was tense, tight with terror kept under control. The kender knew suddenly that he had no choice. He had to wake up. Besides, the jumping-up-and-down part of his brain shouted, you might be missing something!
“Thank the gods!” Tika breathed as Tasslehoff’s eyes opened wide and stared up at her. “How do you feel?”
“Awful,” Tas said thickly, struggling to sit up. As he had foreseen, pain leaped out of a corner and pounced on him. Groaning, he clutched his head.
“I know … I’m sorry,” Tika said again, stroking back his hair with a gentle hand.
“I’m sure you mean well, Tika,” Tas said miserably, “but would you mind not doing that? It feels like dwarf hammers pounding on me.”
Tika drew back her hand hurriedly. The kender peered around as best he could through one good eye. The other had nearly swollen shut. “Where are we?”
“In the dungeons below the Temple,” Tika said softly. Tas, sitting next to her, could feel her shiver with fear and cold. Looking around, he could see why. The sight made him shudder, too. Wistfully he remembered the good old days when he hadn’t known the meaning of the word of fear. He should have felt a thrill of excitement. He was, after all, someplace he’d never been before and there were probably lots of fascinating things to investigate.
But there was death here, Tas knew; death and suffering. He’d seen too many die, too many suffer. His thoughts went to Flint, to Sturm, to Laurana.… Something had changed inside Tas. He would never again be like other kender. Through grief, he had come to know fear; fear not for himself but for others. He decided right now that he would rather die himself than lose anyone else he loved.
You have chosen the dark path, but you have the courage to walk it, Fizban had said.
Did he? Tas wondered. Sighing, he hid his face in his hands.
“No, Tas!” Tika said, shaking him. “Don’t do this to us! We need you!”
Painfully Tas raised his head. “I’m all right,” he said dully. “Where’s Caramon and Berem?”
“Over there,” Tika gestured toward the far end of the cell. “The guards are holding all of us together until they can find someone to decide what to do with us. Caramon’s being splendid,” she added with a proud smile and a fond glance at the big man, who was slouched, apparently sulking, in a far corner, as far from his ‘prisoners’ as he could get. Then Tika’s face grew fearful. She drew Tas nearer. “But I’m worried about Berem! I think he’s going crazy!”
Tasslehoff looked up quickly at Berem. The man was sitting on the cold, filthy stone floor of the cell, his gaze abstracted, his head cocked as though listening. The fake white beard Tika had made out of goat hair was torn and bedraggled. It wouldn’t take much for it to fall off completely, Tas realized in alarm, glancing quickly out the cell door.
The dungeons were a maze of corridors tunneled out of the solid rock beneath the Temple. They appeared to branch off in all directions from a central guardroom, a small, round, open-ended room at the bottom of a narrow winding staircase that bored straight down from the ground floor of the Temple. In the guardroom, a large hobgoblin sat at a battered table beneath a torch, calmly munching on bread and swilling it down with a jug of something. A ring of keys hanging on a nail above his head proclaimed him the head jailor. He ignored the companions; he probably couldn’t see them clearly in the dim light anyway, Tas realized, since the cell they were in was about a hundred paces away, down a dark and dismal corridor.
Creeping over to the cell door, Tas peered down the corridor in the opposite direction. Wetting a finger, he held it up in the air. That way was north, he determined. Smoking, foul-smelling torches flickered in the dank air. A large cell farther down was filled with draconians and goblins sleeping off drunken revels. At the far end of the corridor beyond their cell stood a massive iron door, slightly ajar. Listening carefully, Tas thought he could hear sounds from beyond the door: voices, low moaning. That’s another section of the dungeon, Tas decided, basing his decision on past experience. The jailor probably left the door ajar so he could make his rounds and listen for disturbances.
“You’re right, Tika,” Tas whispered. “We’re locked in some kind of holding cell, probably awaiting orders.” Tika nodded. Caramon’s act, if not completely fooling the guards, was at least forcing them to think twice before doing anything rash.
“I’m going over to talk to Berem,” Tas said.
“No, Tas”—Tika glanced at the man uneasily—“I don’t think—”
But Tas didn’t listen. Taking one last look at the jailor, Tas ignored Tika’s soft remonstrations and crawled toward Berem with the idea of sticking the man’s false beard back on his face. He had just neared him and was reaching out his small hand when suddenly the Everman roared and leaped straight at the kender.
Startled, Tas fell backward with a shriek. But Berem didn’t even see him. Yelling incoherently, he sprang over Tasslehoff and flung himself bodily against the cell door.
Caramon was on his feet now—as was the hobgoblin.
Trying to appear irritated at having his rest disturbed, Caramon darted a stern glance at Tasslehoff on the floor.
“What did you do to him?” the big man growled out of the side of his mouth.
“N-nothing, Caramon, honest!” Tas gasped. “He—he’s crazy!”
Berem did indeed seem to have gone mad. Oblivious to pain, he flung himself at the iron bars, trying to break them open. When this didn’t work, he grasped the bars in his hands and started to wrench them apart.
“I’m coming, Jasla!” he screamed. “Don’t leave! Forgive—”
The jailor, his pig eyes wide in alarm, ran over to the stairs and began shouting up them.
“He’s calling the guards!” Caramon grunted. “We’ve got to get Berem calmed down. Tika—”
But the girl was already by Berem’s side. Holding onto his shoulder, she pleaded with him to stop. At first the berserk man paid no attention to her, roughly shaking her off him. But Tika petted and stroked and soothed until eventually it seemed Berem might listen. He quit attempting to force the cell door open and stood still, his hands clenching the bars. The beard had fallen to the floor, his face was covered with sweat, and he was bleeding from a cut where he had rammed the bars with his head.
There was a rattling sound near the front of the dungeon as two draconians came dashing down the stairs at the jailor’s call. Their curved swords drawn and ready, they advanced down the narrow corridor, the jailor at their heels. Swiftly Tas grabbed the beard and stuffed it into one of his pouches, hoping they wouldn’t remember that Berem had come in with whiskers.
Tika, still stroking Berem soothingly, babbled abou
t anything that came into her head. Berem did not appear to be listening, but at least he appeared quiet once more. Breathing heavily, he stared with glazed eyes into the empty cell across from them. Tas could see muscles in the man’s arm twitch spasmodically.
“What is the meaning of this?” Caramon shouted as the draconians came up to the cell door. “You’ve locked me in here with a raving beast! He tried to kill me! I demand you get me out of here!”
Tasslehoff, watching Caramon closely, saw the big warrior’s right hand make a small quick gesture toward the guard. Recognizing the signal, Tas tensed, ready for action. He saw Tika tense, too. One hobgoblin and two guards.… They’d faced worse odds.
The draconians looked at the jailor, who hesitated. Tas could guess what was going through the creature’s thick mind. If this big officer was a personal friend of the Dark Lady, she would certainly not look kindly on a jailor who allowed one of her close friends to be murdered in his prison cell.
“I’ll get the keys,” the jailor muttered, waddling back down the corridor.
The draconians began to talk together in their own language, apparently exchanging rude comments about the hobgoblin. Caramon flashed a look at Tika and Tas, making a quick gesture of heads banging together. Tas, fumbling in one of his pouches, closed his hand over his little knife. (They had searched his pouches, but—in an effort to be helpful—Tas kept switching his pouches around until the confused guards, after their fourth search of the same pouch, gave up. Caramon had insisted the kender be allowed to keep his pouches, since there were items the Dark Lady wanted to examine. Unless, of course, the guards wanted to be responsible …) Tika kept patting Berem, her hypnotic voice bringing a measure of peace back to his fevered, staring blue eyes.
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