Riverwind the Plainsman

by Paul B. Thompson

  Karn drew aside a drape. Vvelz, Riverwind, Catchflea, and Di An entered. The elf girl immediately threw herself on the polished floor, face pressed against the cold mosaic. Riverwind looked straight at the figure before them, but it took him a few seconds to realize what he was seeing.

  Seated on a sculpted stone couch was a beautiful elven woman. Her milk-white face was framed by a golden hood that fell to her shoulders, covering her hair. The hood was cut out to reveal her ears, which were high and tapering. Gold beads of decreasing size studded the shell of each ear. Her lips were painted deep red. The rest of her figure was lost in the elaborate folds of her golden garment, a loose clerical robe woven of hair-thin gold wire.

  Karn dropped to one knee. “Gracious Highness,” he said with verve, “I have brought you these prisoners, whom I captured deep in the southern caves.”

  “Lost foreigners,” Vvelz said smoothly. “Innocent travelers, who perchance fell into your realm, Li El.”

  Absolutely emotionless eyes passed over the Que-Shu men. “Which is it, then? Intruders or victims?” Karn opened his mouth to give an opinion, but Li El transfixed him with a single upraised finger. Her eyes fastened on Riverwind. “Speak, giant. You alone.”

  Riverwind swallowed and found it unexpectedly difficult to make a sound. Was it fear, or was it the beauty of that unwavering gaze?

  “Your Highness,” he began, “I am Riverwind, son of Wanderer, and this is my friend, Catchflea. It is entirely a trick of fate that we are here now.”

  Li El leaned back on her couch. The smell of a sunlit morning intensified. She said, “Who tricked you then?”

  “We were camping in the mountains when we were robbed in the night. Hearing a thief, we gave chase, then fell down a deep shaft. Some unseen hand supported us, and we arrived in your domain, unharmed by the fall.”

  Li El slowly clenched a hand into a fist. “Karn, did you locate this shaft?” she said with icy precision.

  “No, my lady—”

  “Why not?”

  The warrior’s face paled inside his helmet. “I—we—caught this thief—” He indicated the cringing Di An with his foot. “—and shortly thereafter captured these outland giants. I thought it best to return to you at once.”

  The queen of Hest stood abruptly. All the pleasant sensations in the dome were gone: the chimes and splashing water were silent. “The shaft, foolish Karn, is more important than a digger girl or a pair of giant barbarians. All the old slow passages were supposed to have been closed a half-century ago. How is it this one escaped our notice?” She never raised her voice above a conversational level, but Karn winced under Li El’s questioning like a slave under a lash.

  “I will return at once, Highness! With twenty warriors, I will find this cursed shaft, and—”

  “You will do nothing until I give you leave,” Li El declared. The short hairs on the back of Riverwind’s neck prickled, and a new aroma reached his nose—incense, sharp and spicy. The sounds and smells, he deduced, must be controlled by Li El’s magic.

  To Vvelz, the queen said, “What do you know of this affair, brother?”

  Vvelz waved a hand carelessly. “Not very much. I was waiting for the return of Karn’s troops, as you ordered, when I snagged this digger running out of the tunnel. She babbled some wild tale about giants. When Karn entered the upper cavern, I met him and put the amulets on the outlanders so they could converse and understand us.”

  “Very convenient, that,” Karn muttered.

  “As for the shaft, as you said, dear sister, all of them were closed by your edict fifty years ago.”

  Li El sat down in a crush of crinkling gold cloth. “Were they? I wonder.”

  “No one could create a new one,” Vvelz remarked. “No one but you.”

  Karn couldn’t stand it any longer. “Your Highness, what is to be done with the outlanders?”

  “Done? Why should anything be done? This barren child did not act of her own will; someone commands her. Exactly who, we will discover.” Di An’s breath caught in an audible gasp. “She led these humans here. Do you propose I execute them for trying to recover their property, or for stumbling in the dark?”

  “No, Highness; that is, yes—”

  “Hold your tongue. Karn, you are a brave and steadfast captain, but a poor leader. For not seeing your task clearly, I consign you to the High Spires for three days, where you may meditate on your lack of clarity.”

  “That isn’t fair! Your Highness knows how hard I strive for her—”

  Li El’s glare stopped him cold. “Are you disputing my order?”

  Karn got very red in the face, but he replied stiffly, “Your Highness’s will shall be done.” He turned on one heel and marched away. The soldier shoved his way through the golden curtains, muttering. His footsteps faded rapidly.

  Li El rose from her seat. The pleasant, soothing sounds returned to the chamber. Water splashed softly and chimes tinkled. The smell of bitter incense was replaced by the clean tang of rain-washed air. “Come closer, strangers,” Li El said. “I would know more about you.”

  Without really meaning to comply, both plainsmen took a step forward. When they did, they revealed Di An, still crumpled on the floor. She huddled behind Riverwind’s leg, trying to avoid the queen’s eye. She didn’t succeed.

  Li El swept a hand through the empty air. A distinct bell-like sound rang out, and two soldiers appeared. “Remove the digger,” she said.

  The guards closed in. Riverwind stood in their way. “She is no danger to anyone,” he said.

  Li El regarded the match of the tall plainsman and two Hestite warriors with evident interest. “She must tell what she knows,” she said. “Give no more thought to the digger, giant. After all, she is a thief.”

  The guards moved hesitantly to seize Di An. Riverwind tensed. Catchflea tugged on the back of the tall man’s shirt, warning him to be calm.

  “Sister, if it will prevent bloodshed, I will take the girl myself and question her,” Vvelz said placidly. Riverwind and the Hestite soldiers looked to the queen for her answer.

  “You are too soft-hearted,” Li El said after a long pause. “Are you sure you can get at the truth?”

  “If I fail, I will send for your experts,” Vvelz promised. Li El relented, and her silver-haired brother gathered the girl up from the floor. He hustled Di An from the room, and the guards stood back, awaiting new orders.

  Riverwind’s large hands were closed into fists as he watched Vvelz take Di An away. Gently, Catchflea said, “She will be all right. I know it.”

  Riverwind cast a skeptical look at the old man. “Do your acorns tell you so?”

  “No,” Catchflea said, entirely serious. “But I believe that Vvelz will not harm her.”

  “Come, come,” the queen said. Bells chimed. “I would know more about your world and ways. Tell me, old giant, of your country and its people.”

  Catchflea launched into a discourse on Que-Shu, its people and its customs. While he was engaged, Riverwind found he could not take his eyes off Li El—though she never once returned his gaze. Sweat broke out on his brow as he tried to divert his eyes to the golden curtains, the ceiling, anything. He succeeded only in lowering his gaze to her hands. Li El’s right hand was at rest, but the fingers of her left moved in slow, intricate patterns against the armrest of her couch. The movement ceased abruptly.

  “And that, Highness, is how we came to be here,” Catchflea finished with a flourish. “May I ask how it is that your people come to be living so deep underground?”

  Li El’s arched brows flexed over her jet-colored eyes.

  “What? Has the Empty World so soon forgotten the Great Hest and his people?”

  “We are a different race,” Catchflea said diplomatically. “Not well schooled in history.”

  Li El swept down from the couch. Once she was off the platform, it was easier to see how small she was. The top of her head scarcely reached Riverwind’s chest. But neither man could take his eyes of
f her, so compelling was her presence.

  “Two thousand, five hundred years ago, the inhabitants of Silvanesti and the humans of Ergoth fell into war. For fifty years and two they fought and ambushed and massacred, until the plains and forest fringes of Silvan were desolate, lifeless regions. The warlord Kith-Kanan kept the hordes of Ergoth at bay by skillful strategy, but dissension in the capital prevented him from taking the war to the humans and gaining the final victory. So the Kinslayer War sputtered on without resolution.

  “Our great ancestor, Hest, or in the old tongue, Hestantafalas, was a general in the Host of Silvanesti. He wanted to carry the fighting to the human city of Caergoth itself, to extinguish the barbarian masses of humankind from the western plains—” Here she paused, aware once more to whom she was speaking. “The passions of the ancient past live with us still. Do not be offended.”

  “We understand,” said Riverwind. The wall of gold drapery suddenly seemed more threatening than before. He couldn’t see any exits from the domed room, or even where the door they entered by was located. There were no guards, and that made him nervous as well.

  “—a serious clash at court,” Li El was saying. “Great Hest refused to endorse the truce. King Sithas’s guards seized him and threw him in prison.

  “When the king’s brother, Kith-Kanan, heard what had happened to his lieutenant, he returned to Silvanost to win freedom for Hest. King Sithas refused. Hest was too dangerous, he said. His actions were treason, and he had to perish for his insolence.

  “A scaffold was built, but Hest’s head never rolled into Sithas’s basket. Nine soldiers broke into the dungeon and freed the hero. Together they fought their way out of the city. What a struggle it was!” Li El raised a phantom sword. The room filled with shouts and the clang of blade on blade. Her voice echoed through the domed room. “The ten of them slew sixty-three of the king’s bodyguards. Sixty-three! Hest went to his fortress town of Bordon-Hest and prepared for a siege. Sure enough, Sithas sent his most loyal general, the dreaded Kencathedrus, to capture and destroy Hest and all his people.”

  Li El lowered her arm. The sounds of combat faded slowly. Catchflea trembled, and Riverwind looked uneasily over each shoulder. He could smell blood freshly shed. The room was as clean and empty as it ever had been.

  Li El hugged herself as if she were chilled, and returned to her couch. Eyes averted, she sank onto the seat.

  “The situation grew desperate. Hest was not equipped for a long siege by trained warriors. There were hundreds of women and children in Bordon-Hest, and only four hundred fighters. A terrible slaughter seemed only days away.”

  She lifted her head. A thin, wide smile shone from Li El’s face. Her eyes were fierce with triumph. “In his most critical hour, Hest approached his chief sorcerer, the great Vedvedsica. There is a way to escape, my lord,’ he told Hest. The great lord asked how, since neither he nor his people had wings with which to fly away from the host of Kencathedrus. ‘It is not wings that are needed, great master, but lamps.’ Why lamps? Hest wanted to know. ‘Because it is very dark in the world below,’ Vedvedsica replied.

  “The wizard explained his plan, and Hest approved. All the people in Bordon-Hest were cautioned, and Vedvedsica made his preparations. On the twenty-fourth day of the siege, in the year two thousand, one hundred and forty, a mighty earthquake struck Silvanesti. The disturbance centered at Bordon-Hest, and the town’s ruination was complete. The walls and buildings fell in upon themselves, burying everyone in the rubble. Or so it seemed. What Vedvedsica had done was open a crack in the ground through which all the people of Hest, from the highest born to lowest, escaped. Then Vedvedsica’s magic brought the city down, filling the hole and preventing anyone from discovering what became of the great lord and his followers.” Li El rested her sharp chin on the back of her right hand. “Until now.”

  The vast rotunda was silent for several heartbeats. Riverwind tried to gauge how best to answer Li El. The tale of the impudent lord who wanted so badly to exterminate humans won little sympathy in his heart. He could not say as much to the Hestites’ queen.

  Hesitantly, he said, “Much has happened since your ancestors went underground. Krynn is not as it was twenty-five hundred years ago.”

  “Do the green halls of Silvanost still stand?”

  “It is said they do.”

  “And do the sons of Sithas still reign there?”

  “I don’t know—”

  “We are all under sentence of death for treason, every generation born since Hest brought us here. When the great lord himself died a thousand years ago, his last words were: ‘Beware the Empty World above.’ Hest’s dying command has become our most sacred law,” said Li El.

  “Others have gone to the surface, yes? Like the girl we followed?” asked Catchflea.

  The proud serenity on Li El’s face vanished. Anger replaced it, anger so tangible it struck the men like a blow.

  “There are fools who try! I have been lenient with them too long. Now I see that I shall have to root them out, once and for all. When I catch them, they will die.” Again she gestured, and a gong they could not see was sounded. More soldiers appeared. “Muster a full cohort of the Host,” Li El said. “Have Karn’s escort show them where the digger girl and the giants were found. I want the location of the slow passage, and all contraband brought down from the surface.”

  “What of us?” Riverwind asked.

  “You? You shall remain in the High Spires until I decide what is to be done with you,” she declared. Half a dozen Hestite warriors closed in on the two men. Riverwind turned suddenly to them, and they stopped, awed by his commanding height. Catchflea instinctively drew closer to the plainsman.

  Instead of admonishing Riverwind to go quietly, Li El simply reclined on her couch and said nothing. A small smile quirked her lips.

  The guards mustered their resolve and moved in. “You’ve no right to keep us prisoners!” Riverwind shouted. An elf slammed his shield against Riverwind’s back. The plainsman’s outrage, so long held in check, boiled over. He seized the edges of the warrior’s shield and thrust him away. The lightweight Hestite sprawled on the gem-filled mosaic floor.

  “What are you waiting for?” Li El asked mildly. “Take them away.”

  “We are peaceful men,” Catchflea pleaded. “Innocent, yes!” He got bashed in the head with a bronze shield for his words. Riverwind grabbed the two nearest elves each by the neck and dashed their heads together. The guards menacing Catchflea turned away from him and drew their swords. Riverwind yanked a sword from the belt of one of the unconscious Hestites.

  “Get behind me, old man!” Riverwind cried.

  Two elves attacked. Riverwind parried their short blades and forced them back with quick jabs at their unprotected faces. How he wished he had his saber! These Hestite weapons were too small for him. It was like fighting with a boy’s practice sword.

  His long reach enabled Riverwind to meet both elves even when they spread apart. One’s sword jarred hard against the crossguard of Riverwind’s stolen blade. The thick brass held, so he turned his wrist out, driving the elf’s point away and his own point in. The blunt sword skidded off the warrior’s shield. Riverwind slashed hard to his left to ward off the other soldier. The elf backed into one of his fallen comrades and tripped.

  Catchflea scrambled out of the way of the fight. Li El swept her arm and sounded her magic bell once more. Soldiers flooded the throne room.

  “Twenty more at your back!” Catchflea warned.

  “Well?” Riverwind said hastily. “Are you only a herald of bad tidings? Do something!”

  The old soothsayer was no fighter. With a sword in his hand, he was more likely to cut himself than any foe he faced. The only other thing he possessed was his gourd and three dried acorns.

  Acorns!

  He dug the gourd and nuts out of his ragged clothing and brandished them over his head. “Stop where you are!” he shouted. “In these small seeds I have confined the power of
a thunderbolt! Stay back, yes, and hinder us not, or I shall hurl them at you!”

  The soldiers froze. Riverwind’s opponent paused to listen to Catchflea’s tirade, and the plainsman whacked him smartly on the head with the flat of his blade. Down he went. Riverwind whirled to the old man.

  “This is inspired,” he whispered.

  “I am gifted with terrible powers,” Catchflea intoned. “One toss, and you will all be reduced to ashes!”

  Li El alone was not impressed. Leaning back on one elbow, she said, “What are you waiting for? Subdue them.” The guards showed a distinct lack of enthusiasm for the task.

  “You cannot escape,” Li El said, reasonably. “Not the palace, much less Vartoom.”

  Riverwind believed her, but he wouldn’t admit it. “We’ll go back the way we came,” he said, putting on a bold front. “No one had better interfere.”

  Li El sighed. A trilling note sounded. The ranks of sword-armed elves parted. Four soldiers, dressed in light mail, came forward whirling strange-looking devices over their heads—three metal balls joined by a length of chain. Catchflea menaced them with his harmless gourd, but the elves were not bluffed. They flung the bolos at the old man. Two wrapped up his arms and legs. The gourd hit the mosaic floor. The guards flinched. When nothing else happened, they gave a concerted cry of anger and swarmed over the plainsmen. The sword was snatched from Riverwind, and both men were carried bodily from the room.

  Li El stepped lightly down from her throne. She picked up Catchflea’s gourd. The acorns rattled within. She turned the gourd over, and one by one shook the acorns out into her hand. No emotion at all showed on her beautiful, still face.

  Chapter 6

  The High Spires

  Shouting all he while, the soldiers bore Riverwind and Catchflea roughly along a winding passage that ascended through the solid stone of the cave wall. Up and up they went, banging against projecting rocks and the low ceiling. The yelling elves ran faster as the path constricted into a tighter and tighter spiral. Ten elves carried Riverwind and six had Catchflea. A swarm of others followed, all shouting ferociously.