Dragons of Autumn Twilight

by Margaret Weis

  Goldmoon ignored him. Placing her hand upon Theros’s forehead, she closed her eyes.

  “Mishakal,” she prayed, “beloved goddess of healing, grace this man with your blessing. If his destiny be not fulfilled, heal him, that he may live and serve the cause of truth.”

  Gilthanas began to remonstrate once more, reaching out to pull Goldmoon away. Then he stopped and stared in amazement. Blood ceased to drain from the smith’s wound and, even as the elf watched, the flesh began to close over it. Warmth returned to the smith’s dusky black skin, his breathing grew peaceful and easy, and he appeared to drift into a healthful, relaxed sleep. There were gasps and murmurs of astonishment from the other prisoners in the nearby cages. Tanis glanced around fearfully to see if any of the goblins or draconians had noticed, but apparently they were all preoccupied with hitching the recalcitrant elk to the wagons. Gilthanas subsided back into his corner, his eyes on Goldmoon, his expression thoughtful.

  “Tasslehoff, pile up some of that straw,” Tanis instructed. “Caramon, you and Sturm help me move him to a corner.”

  “Here.” Riverwind offered his cloak. “Take this to cover him from the chill.”

  Goldmoon made certain Theros was comfortable, then returned to her place beside Riverwind. Her face radiated a peace and calm serenity that made it seem as if the reptilian creatures on the outside of the cage were the true prisoners.

  It was nearly noon before the caravan got under way. Goblins came by and threw some food into the cages, hunks of meat and bread. No one, not even Caramon, could eat the rancid, stinking meat and they threw it back out. But they devoured the bread hungrily, having eaten nothing since last nightfall. Soon Toede had everything in order and, riding by on his shaggy pony, gave the orders to move out. The gully dwarf, Sestun, trotted after Toede. Seeing the hunk of meat lying in the mud and filth outside the cage, the gully dwarf stopped, grabbed it eagerly, and crammed it into his mouth.

  Each wheeled cage was pulled by four elk. Two hobgoblins sat high on crude wooden platforms, one holding the reins of the elk, the other a whip and a sword. Toede took his place at the front of the line, followed by about fifty draconians dressed in armor and heavily armed. Another troop of about twice as many hobgoblins fell into line behind the cages.

  After a great deal of confusion and swearing, the caravan finally lurched forward. Some of the remaining residents of Solace stared at them as they drove off. If they knew anyone among the prisoners, they made no sound or gesture of farewell. The faces, both inside and outside the cages, were the faces of those who no longer can feel pain. Like Tika, they had vowed never to cry again.

  The caravan traveled south from Solace, down the old road through Gateway Pass. The hobgoblins and draconians grumbled about traveling in the heat of the day, but they cheered up and moved faster once they marched into the shade of the Pass’s high canyon walls. Although the prisoners were chilled in the canyon, they had their own reasons for being grateful—they no longer had to look upon their ravaged homeland.

  It was evening by the time they left the canyon’s winding roads and reached Gateway. The prisoners strained against the bars for some glimpse of the thriving market town. But now only two low stone walls, melted and blackened, marked where the town might have once stood. No living creature stirred. The prisoners sank back in misery.

  Once more out in the open country, the draconians announced their preference for traveling by night, out of the sun’s light. Consequently, the caravan made only brief stops until dawn. Sleep was impossible in the filthy cages jolting and jouncing over every rut in the road. The prisoners suffered from thirst and hunger. Those who managed to gag down the food the draconians tossed them soon vomited it back up. They were given only small cups of water two or three times a day.

  Goldmoon remained near the injured smithy. Although Theros Ironfeld was no longer at the point of death, he was still very ill. He developed a high fever and, in his delirium, he raved about the sacking of Solace. Theros spoke of draconians whose bodies, when dead, turned into pools of acid, burning the flesh of their victims; and of draconians whose bones exploded after death, destroying everything within a wide radius. Tanis listened to the smith relive horror after horror until he felt sick. For the first time, Tanis realized the enormity of the situation. How could they hope to fight dragons whose breath could kill, whose magic exceeded that of all but the most powerful magic-users who had ever lived? How could they defeat vast armies of these draconians when even the corpses of the creatures had the power to kill?

  All we have, Tanis thought bitterly, are the Disks of Mishakal—and what good are they? He had examined the Disks during their journey from Xak Tsaroth to Solace. He had been able to read little of what was written, however. Although Goldmoon had been able to understand those words that pertained to the healing arts, she could decipher little more.

  “All will be made clear to the leader of the people,” she said with steadfast faith. “My calling now is to find him.”

  Tanis wished he could share her faith, but as they traveled through the ravaged countryside, he began to doubt that any leader could defeat the might of this Lord Verminaard.

  These doubts merely compounded the half-elf’s other problems. Raistlin, bereft of his medicine, coughed until he was nearly in as bad a state as Theros, and Goldmoon had two patients on her hands. Fortunately, Tika helped the Plainswoman tend the mage. Tika, whose father had been a magician of sorts, held anyone who could work magic in awe.

  In fact, it had been Tika’s father who inadvertently introduced Raistlin to his calling. Raistlin’s father took the twin boys and his stepdaughter, Kitiara, to the local Summer’s End festival where the children watched the Wonderful Waylan perform his illusions. Eight-year-old Caramon was soon bored and readily agreed to accompany his teenage half-sister to the event that attracted her—the swordplay. Raistlin, thin and frail even then, had no use for such active sports. He spent the entire day watching Waylan the Illusionist. When the family returned home that evening, Raistlin astounded them by being able to duplicate flawlessly every trick. The next day, his father took the boy to study with one of the great masters of the magic arts.

  Tika had always admired Raistlin and she had been impressed by the stories she heard about his mysterious journey to the fabled Towers of High Sorcery. Now she helped care for the mage out of respect and her own innate need to help those weaker than herself. She also tended him (she admitted privately to herself) because her deeds won a smile of gratitude and approval from Raistlin’s handsome twin brother.

  Tanis wasn’t certain which to worry about most, the worsening condition of the mage or the growing romance between the older, experienced soldier and the young and—Tanis believed, despite gossip to the contrary—inexperienced, vulnerable barmaid.

  He had another problem as well. Sturm, humiliated at being taken prisoner and hauled through the countryside like an animal to slaughter, lapsed into a deep depression from which Tanis thought he might never escape. Sturm either sat all day, staring out between the bars, or—perhaps worse—he lapsed into periods of deep sleep from which he could not be wakened.

  Finally Tanis had to cope with his own inner turmoil, physically manifested by the elf sitting in the corner of the cage. Every time he looked at Gilthanas, Tanis’s memories of his home in Qualinesti haunted him. As they neared his homeland, the memories he had thought long buried and forgotten crept into his mind, their touch every bit as chilling as the touch of the undead in Darken Wood.

  Gilthanas, childhood friend—more than friend, brother. Raised in the same household and close to the same age, the two had played and fought and laughed together. When Gilthanas’s little sister grew old enough, the boys allowed the captivating blonde child to join them. One of the threesome’s greatest delights was teasing the older brother, Porthios, a strong and serious youth who took on the responsibilities and sorrows of his people at an early age. Gilthanas, Laurana, and Porthios were the children of the Speake
r of the Suns, the ruler of the elves of Qualinesti, a position Porthios would inherit at his father’s death.

  Some in the elven kingdom thought it odd that the Speaker would take into his house the bastard son of his dead brother’s wife after she had been raped by a human warrior. She had died of grief only months after the birth of her half-breed child. But the Speaker, who had strong views on responsibility, took in the child without hesitation. It was only in later years, as he watched with growing unease the developing relationship between his beloved daughter and the bastard half-elf, that he began to regret his decision. The situation confused Tanis as well. Being half-human, the young man acquired a maturity the slower developing elfmaid could not understand. Tanis saw the unhappiness their union must bring down upon the family he loved. He also was beset by the inner turmoil that would torment him in later life: the constant battle between the elvish and the human within him. At the age of eighty—about twenty in human years—Tanis left Qualinost. The Speaker was not sorry to see Tanis leave. He tried to hide his feelings from the young half-elf, but both of them knew it.

  Gilthanas had not been so tactful. He and Tanis had exchanged bitter words over Laurana. It was years before the sting of those words faded, and Tanis wondered if he had ever truly forgotten or forgiven. Clearly, Gilthanas had done neither.

  The journey for these two was very long. Tanis made a few attempts at desultory conversation and became immediately aware that Gilthanas had changed. The young elflord had always been open and honest, fun-loving and light-hearted. He did not envy his older brother the responsibilities inherent in his role as heir to the throne. Gilthanas was a scholar, a dabbler in the magic arts, though he never took them as seriously as Raistlin. He was an excellent warrior, though he disliked fighting, as do all elves. He was deeply devoted to his family, especially his sister. But now he sat silent and moody, an unusual characteristic in elves. The only time he showed any interest in anything was when Caramon had begun plotting an escape. Gilthanas told him sharply to forget it, he would ruin everything. When pressed to elaborate, the elf fell silent, muttering only something about “overwhelming odds.”

  By sunrise of the third day, the draconian army was flagging from the night’s long march and looking forward to a rest. The companions had spent another sleepless night and looked forward to nothing but another chill and dismal day. But the cages suddenly rolled to a stop. Tanis glanced up, puzzled at the change in routine. The other prisoners roused themselves and looked out the cage bars. They saw an old man, dressed in long robes that once might have been white and a battered, pointed hat. He appeared to be talking to a tree.

  “I say, did you hear me?” The old man shook a worn walking stick at the oak. “I said move and I meant it! I was sitting on that rock”—he pointed to a boulder—“enjoying the rising sun on my old bones when you had the nerve to cast a shadow over it and chill me! Move this instant, I say!”

  The tree did not respond. It also did not move.

  “I won’t take any more of your insolence!” The old man began to beat on the tree with his stick. “Move or I’ll, I’ll—”

  “Someone shut that loony in a cage!” Fewmaster Toede shouted, galloping back from the front of the caravan.

  “Get your hands off me!” the old man shrieked at the draconians who ran up and accosted him. He beat on them feebly with his staff until they took it away from him. “Arrest the tree!” he insisted. “Obstructing sunlight! That’s the charge!”

  The draconians threw the old man roughly into the companions’ cage. Tripping over his robes, he fell to the floor.

  “Are you all right, Old One?” Riverwind asked as he assisted the old man to a seat.

  Goldmoon left Theros’s side. “Yes, Old One,” she said softly. “Are you hurt? I am a cleric of—”

  “Mishakal!” he said, peering at the amulet around her neck. “How very interesting. My, my.” He stared at her in astonishment. “You don’t look three hundred years old!”

  Goldmoon blinked, uncertain how to react. “How did you know? Did you recognize—? I’m not three hundred—” She was growing confused.

  “Of course, you’re not. I’m sorry, my dear.” The old man patted her hand. “Never bring up a lady’s age in public. Forgive me. It won’t happen again. Our little secret,” he said in a piercing whisper. Tas and Tika started to giggle. The old man looked around. “Kind of you to stop and offer me a lift. The road to Qualinost is long.”

  “We’re not going to Qualinost,” Gilthanas said sharply. “We’re prisoners, going to the slave mines of Pax Tharkas.”

  “Oh?” the old man glanced around vaguely. “Is there another group due by here soon, then? I could have sworn this was the one.”

  “What is your name, Old One?” Tika asked.

  “My name?” The old man hesitated, frowning. “Fizban? Yes, that’s it. Fizban.”

  “Fizban!” Tasslehoff repeated as the cage lurched to a start again. “That’s not a name!”

  “Isn’t it?” the old man asked wistfully. “That’s too bad. I was rather fond of it.”

  “I think it’s a splendid name,” Tika said, glaring at Tas. The kender subsided into a corner, his eyes on the pouches slung over the old man’s shoulder.

  Suddenly Raistlin began to cough and they all turned their attention to him. His coughing spasms had been growing worse and worse. He was exhausted and in obvious pain; his skin burned to the touch. Goldmoon was unable to help him. Whatever was burning the mage up inside, the cleric could not heal. Caramon knelt beside him, wiping away the bloody saliva that flecked his brother’s lips.

  “He’s got to have that stuff he drinks!” Caramon looked up in anguish. “I’ve never seen him this bad. If they won’t listen to reason”—the big man scowled—“I’ll break their heads! I don’t care how many there are!”

  “We’ll talk to them when we stop for the night,” Tanis promised, though he could guess the Fewmaster’s answer.

  “Excuse me,” the old man said. “May I?” Fizban sat down beside Raistlin. He laid his hand on the mage’s head and sternly spoke a few words.

  Caramon, listening closely, heard “Fistandan …” and “not the time …” Certainly it wasn’t a healing prayer, such as Goldmoon had tried, but the big man saw that his brother responded! The response was astonishing, however. Raistlin’s eyes fluttered and opened. He looked up at the old man with a wild expression of terror and grasped Fizban’s wrist in his thin, frail hand. For an instant it seemed Raistlin knew the old man, then Fizban passed his hand over the mage’s eyes. The look of terror subsided, replaced by confusion.

  “Hullo,” Fizban beamed at him. “Name’s—uh—Fizban.” He shot a stern glance at Tasslehoff, daring the kender to laugh.

  “You are … magi!” Raistlin whispered. His cough was gone.

  “Why, yes, I suppose I am.”

  “I am magi!” Raistlin said, struggling to sit up.

  “No kidding!” Fizban seemed immensely tickled. “Small world, Krynn. I’ll have to teach you a few of my spells. I have one … a fireball … let’s see, how did that go?”

  The old man rambled on long past the time the caravan stopped at the rising of the sun.

  4

  Rescued! Fizban’s magic.

  Raistlin suffered in body, Sturm suffered in mind, but perhaps the one who experienced the keenest suffering during the companions’ four-day imprisonment was Tasslehoff.

  The cruelest form of torture one can inflict on a kender is to lock him up. Of course, it is also widely believed that the cruelest form of torture one can inflict on any other species is to lock them up with a kender. After three days of Tasslehoff’s incessant chatter, pranks, and practical jokes, the companions would have willingly traded the kender for a peaceful hour of being stretched on the rack—at least that’s what Flint said. Finally, after even Goldmoon lost her temper and nearly slapped him, Tanis sent Tasslehoff to the back of the cart. His legs hanging over the edge, the kender pressed hi
s face against the iron bars and thought he would die of misery. He had never been so bored in his entire life.

  Things got interesting with the discovery of Fizban, but the old man’s amusement value wore thin when Tanis made Tas return the old magician’s pouches. And so, driven to the point of desperation, Tasslehoff latched onto a new diversion.

  Sestun, the gully dwarf.

  The companions generally regarded Sestun with amused pity. The gully dwarf was the object of Toede’s ridicule and mistreatment. He ran the Fewmaster’s errands all night long, carrying messages from Toede at the front of the caravan to the hobgoblin captain at the rear, lugging food up to the Fewmaster from the supply cart, feeding and watering the Fewmaster’s pony, and any other nasty jobs the Fewmaster could devise. Toede knocked him flat at least three times a day, the draconians tormented him, and the hobgoblins stole his food. Even the elk kicked at him whenever he trotted past. The gully dwarf bore it all with such a grimly defiant spirit that it won him the sympathy of the companions.

  Sestun began to stay near the companions when not busy. Tanis, eager for information about Pax Tharkas, asked him about his homeland and how he came to work for the Fewmaster. The story took over a day for Sestun to relate and another day for the companions to piece together, since he started in the middle and plunged headlong into the beginning.

  What it amounted to, eventually, wasn’t much help. Sestun was among a large group of gully dwarves living in the hills around Pax Tharkas when Lord Verminaard and his draconians captured the iron mines which he needed to make steel weapons for his troops.

  “Big fire—all day, all night. Bad smell.” Sestun wrinkled his nose. “Pound rock. All day, all night. I get good job in kitchen”—his face brightened a moment—“fix hot soup. Very hot.” His face fell. “Spill soup. Hot soup heat up armor real fast. Lord Verminaard sleep on back for week.” He sighed. “I go with Fewmaster. Me volunteer.”