"You are a prisoner of the Knights of Solamnia. Yield yourself," said a harsh voice, speaking in the crude trade tongue.
"You lie!" Nikol cried, answering in Solamnic. "Since when do true knights move in the shadows and ambush people in the darkness?"
"We move in the dark because these are days of darkness" Another man approached, emerging from the gate leading into the High Clerist's Tower. More men followed after him.
Torchlight flared, half blinding Michael. Its light shone on polished armor, steel helms, and, beneath the helms, the long, flowing moustaches that were the knights' hallmark. One man, the one who'd answered Nikol, wore on his shoulder a ribbon. Once bright, it was now somewhat frayed and discolored. Michael had lived among knights long enough to recognize by this insignia a lord knight, one who commands in time of war.
"What have we here?"
"Spies, I believe, my lord," answered one of Michael's captors.
"Bring the torches closer. Let me take a look."
Michael's guard escorted him to the front. The knights were efficient, but not rough, according him a measure of respect even as they let him know who was in charge.
Nikol looked somewhat daunted at the sight of the lord knight, but she flushed angrily at the charge.
"We are not spies!" she said through clenched teeth. Remaining on guard, she used the flat of her blade to strike out at any who came near her.
The knights outnumbered her, could have taken her, but that would have meant unnecessary bloodshed. They glanced at the lord knight for orders.
He walked over to her, held the light to shine upon her. "Why, it is but a beardless youth, yet one who wields a sword with a man's skill, it seems," he added, looking at a companion who was wiping blood from a cut cheek. Frowning, he studied the sword in Nikol's hand. The lord knight's face hardened. "How did you come by such a weapon and this armor that belongs to a Knight of the Crown? Stolen from the body of a gallant knight, no doubt. If you thought to sell it to us for your own gain, you have made a mistake that will prove costly. You will end up paying — with your life!"
"I did not steal it! I carry it by — " Nikol paused. She had started to say she carried it by right, but the thought occurred to her that she did not have the right to bear the arms of a true knight. Flushing, she amended her words. "My father is Sir David of Whitsund, now deceased. My twin brother, Nicholas, who is also dead, was a Knight of the Crown. This sword is his, as is the armor. I took them from his body — "
"And she put them on and cut her hair and bravely defended the castle and those of us within it," struck in Michael.
"And who are you?" The lord knight glowered at Michael.
"Perhaps that false cleric from Palanthas, my lord," said a knight. "See, he wears the holy symbol of Mishakal."
The lord knight barely spared Michael a glance, turned to stare at Nikol.
"She?" the lord knight repeated. He stepped forward, scrutinized Nikol's features, then fell back, his gaze traveling swiftly over her body. "By Paladine, the false cleric speaks the truth. This is a woman!"
"Michael is not a false cleric," Nikol began angrily.
"We will deal with him later," said the lord knight. "You have yourself to explain first."
Biting her lip, her face stained crimson, Nikol looked irresolute. Michael guessed at the struggle within her breast. She had lived the Oath and the Measure, fought evil, defended the innocent. She had come to think of herself as a knight. Yet, by the Measure, she knew she was in the wrong. Kneeling on one knee before the lord knight, she presented her sword hilt-first, over her arm, as was correct for a knight, when yielding to one superior in rank or to a victor in a tournament.
"I have broken the law. Forgive me, my lord."
Nikol was pale and grave, but she held her head proudly. She did not kneel from shame, but out of respect.
The lord knight's face remained stern and cold. Reaching out, he took hold of the sword she offered him and tried to remove it from her grasp. She let it go reluctantly. Not since her brother's death had anyone other than herself handled his blade.
"You did indeed break the Measure, Daughter, which prohibits the hand of a woman from wielding the blade of a true knight. We will take into consideration the fact that you came to us of your own free will, to surrender yourself — "
"Surrender? No, I have not, my lord!" Nikol stated. Rising to her feet, she shifted her gaze, which had been fixed wistfully on the sword, to the lord knight's granite face. "I have come to warn you. That false cleric, of whom you speak, is rousing the citizens to violence against the great library! Tomorrow they threaten to burn it, and all the knowledge it holds, to the ground."
Nikol looked from one to the other, expecting shock, action, expressions of outrage. No one moved, no one said a word. The knights didn't even seem surprised. Their faces grew more grim and rigid, and dark lines deepened.
"Am I correct in understanding that you did not come here to ask forgiveness for your crime, Daughter?" the lord knight said.
Nikol stared at him.
"You… What… My crime? Didn't you hear what I just said, my lord? The great library is in danger! Not only that, but the city of Palanthas itself could fall into the hands of this evil man and his henchmen!"
"What happens in Palanthas is none of our concern, Daughter," said the lord knight.
"None of your concern? How can you say that?"
"Many of these men came from Palanthas, as did I myself. The people drove us out. They attacked our homes, threatened our families. My own lady died at the hands of the mob."
"Yet," said Michael quietly, "by the Measure, Sir Knight, you are bound in Paladine's name to protect the innocent — "
"Innocent!" The lord knight's eyes flashed. "If the city of Palanthas burns to the ground, it will be no more than the rabble deserve! Paladine, in his righteous wrath, has turned his face from them. Let the Dark Queen take them and be damned!"
"The wrath of the gods has fallen upon all of us," said Michael. "How can any of us say we didn't deserve it?"
"Blasphemy!" thundered the lord knight, and he struck Michael across the face.
He staggered beneath the blow. Putting his hand to his cut lip, he saw his fingers stained with blood.
The lord knight turned to Nikol. "The blasphemer will not be allowed within our walls. You, Daughter, since you are the child of a knight, may stay here in the fortress, safe from harm. You will remove your armor, turn it over to us, then you will spend night and day on your knees in the chapel, begging forgiveness of the father and the brother whose memories you disgrace."
Nikol went livid, as if she'd been run through by her own sword, then hot blood flooded her cheeks.
"I'm not the one who has disgraced the knighthood. You! You're the disgrace!" Her gaze flashed around at the knights. "You hide away from the world, whining to Paladine about the injustice of it all. He doesn't answer you, does he? You've lost your powers and you're scared!"
Moving swiftly, she reached out, grabbed hold of her sword, wrested it from the lord knight before he knew what was happening. Lifting her weapon, she fell back, on guard.
"Seize her!" the lord knight ordered.
The knights drew their swords, began to close in.
"Hold," came a deep voice.
A blast of bitterly cold wind blew out the torches, chilled flesh and blood. Swords fell from numb hands, clattered to the ground with a hollow sound that was like a death knell. The knights' faces went stark white beneath their helms. Their eyes widened in horror at the sight of the terrible apparition riding down upon them.
"The Knight of the Black Rose!" cried one, in panic.
"Paladine forfend!" shouted the lord knight, raising his hand in a warding gesture.
Lord Soth laughed, a sound like the grinding of rocks in a mountain slide. He reined in his nightmare steed, regarded the knights cowering before him with scorn.
"This woman is far more worthy than any of you to wield the sword an
d wear the armor of a knight. She stood up to me. She faced me, unafraid. What will you do, noble knights all? Will you fight me?"
The knights hesitated, cast terrified, questioning glances at their leader. The lord's face was yellow, like old bone.
They are all in league with the Queen of Darkness!" he shouted. "Retreat, for the sake of your souls!"
The knights picked up their swords. Massing around their leader, they fell back until they had reached the massive wooden doors, which opened wide to let them in. Once inside, the doors slammed and the portcullis rang down.
The High Clerist's Tower stood dark and silent, as if it were empty.
Part VII
Nikol and Michael spent the night in a cave they found in the mountains. Huddled together for warmth, they slept only fitfully. Again they had the feeling they were being watched. Both were up with the dawn, made haste to return to Palanthas, though what they would do when they arrived was open to question.
"If we can only find the holy disks, then all will be put right," Michael said more than once.
"We can warn Astinus about the library's danger," said Nikol. "And we can take the Disks of Mishakal to safety"
Take them to Lord Soth, don't you mean?" Michael asked her quietly.
"He saved us at the tower. We are in his debt. If I can end his torment, I will. HE is a true knight," she added, casting a sad and wistful look back up into the mountains. "I know it in my heart."
Michael said nothing. Soth had saved them, but for their drsake or his own? Had he been cursed unjustly or had his dread fate been forged by his own evil passions? Michael could only repeat what had become a litany: the blessed disks would make everything dear, everything right again.
Neither wayfarer was overly concerned at the thought of reentering the city. Having seen the confusion at the main gate, they doubted if the guards would even remember they were supposed to be searching for a beardless knight and blue-robed cleric. They timed their arrival for midday, when the traffic should be at its peak.
But, when they reached Palanthas, they found the road before the city empty, its gates standing wide open.
Alarmed at the sudden and inexplicable change, they ducked into the same grove of stunted trees, waited, and watched.
"Something's definitely wrong," said Nikol, eyeing the city walls. "I haven't seen one guard go past on his rounds. Come on." She buckled on her sword, wrapped her cloak around her. "We're going inside."
No beggars accosted them. No guard hailed them. No one challenged them or demanded to know their business within the city. The walls were deserted, the streets empty. The only living being they saw was a mongrel dog, trotting past with a dead hen in its mouth, having taking advantage of the situation to raid an unguarded chicken coop.
They hurried through the merchandising district of New City, the streets of which should have been filled with people at this time of day. Stalls were closed. Shop windows were barred and shuttered.
"It looks like a city preparing for a holiday," said Michael.
"Or a war," Nikol said grimly. She walked with her hand on the hilt of her sword. "Look. Look at that."
One of the shops was not closed. It had been destroyed, its windows smashed. The shop's goods — gaily colored silks from the elven lands of Qualinesti — lay strewn about the streets. Ugly epitaphs had been scrawled across the walls, written in blood. Lying in front of the shop was the body of an elven woman. Her throat had been cut. A dead child lay beside her.
"May the gods forgive them," murmured Michael.
"I trust your disks can explain this," Nikol said bitterly.
They continued on, passing other sites of senseless destruction, other wanton acts of violence. Palanthas itself may have escaped the ravages of the Cataclysm, but the souls of its people had been cracked and shattered.
It was at the Old City wall that they first heard the sound of the mob, the sound of a thousand people gone mad, a thousand people finding anonymity in their numbers, driven to commit crimes one alone would have been ashamed to consider. The noise was frightful, inhuman. It prickled the hair on Michael's neck, sent a shiver down his spine.
Smoke boiled up from beyond the walls of Old City. Under its cover, Michael and Nikol slipped through the gates without attracting anyone's attention. Reaching the other side, they came to a halt, stared in disbelief. Nothing, not the sight of the destruction, not the tumult that raged around them, prepared them for what they saw.
Several large and beautiful houses had been set ablaze and were burning furiously. Large crowds danced drunkenly in front of the fires, cheering and waving bottles and other, more gruesome, trophies. But the largest concentration of the mob was farther on, gathered around the great library.
Here the crowd was more or less hushed, heads craning to see and hear. A voice rose, exhorting them to further acts of terror. Nikol climbed a drainpipe that ran up the side of a house, and stood on the roof to gain a better view.
"The Revered Son is on the library stairs," she reported on her return. "His men are there with him. They're armed with clubs and axes and carrying torches. He's — " Her words were drowned out by a roar that set the windows rattling.
"We must get inside the library!" Michael was forced to shout to be heard over the clamor. He was starting to feel panicked. The idea that the holy disks might fall victim to this unholy chaos appalled him.
"I have an idea!" Nikol shouted in return, then motioned him to follow her. They slipped past on the fringes of the crowd, ducked down an alleyway, ran its length. Reaching the end, they stopped, peered out cautiously. They stood directly opposite one of the library's semidetached wings. The mob, intent upon hearing the speaker, blocked the front, but not the sides, of the building.
"We can climb in through the windows," said Nikol.
They headed for the ornamental grove of trees, the same grove that had provided them shelter the last time they were here. Keeping to the shadows, they trampled on dead, unkempt flower beds and shoved through hedges, once clipped, now left to grow wild. A narrow strip of open lawn stood between them and the library. Breaking free of their cover, they ran across the wellkept grass, came to a window on the ground level. They flattened themselves against the building, trying to keep out of sight of the mob.
"The window's probably guarded," said Michael.
Nikol risked peeping over the ledge. "I don't see anyone, not even the Book Readers," she added, using a common slang term that referred to the Order of Aesthetics, followers of the god Gilean who devoted their lives to the gathering and preserving of knowledge.
Nevertheless, she drew her sword from its sheath. "Quickly!" whispered Nikol.
A blow from Michael's staff broke the window, knocked down fragments of glass. Nikol clambered through, kept her sword raised. She stared about intently. Seeing no one, she reached back to help Michael.
He climbed inside, came to a halt. He had heard all his life about the great library, but he'd never seen it, and this was beyond anything he could have imagined. A vast room held row after row of bookshelves, each shelf filled with neatly arranged, lovingly dusted, leather-bound volumes. His heart yearned, suddenly, for the wisdom stored within these walls, ached to think that all this irreplaceable knowledge was in such dire danger.
"Michael!" Nikol called a warning.
A robed monk, wielding a sword, had crept out from the shadows of one of the bookcases, stood blocking their path.
"Hold… hold right th-there," stammered the Aesthetic. "Don't… don't m-m-move."
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