After hours of flight, the ice fell behind, breaking into a fringe of alabaster chips bobbing in the storm-tossed waters of the northernmost oceans. The vista below evolved from the unending, still, and lifeless white of the icecap to the constantly pitching and heaving surface of gray water, flecked with foaming whitecaps. For long hours, the monster passed no island, no settlement, human or otherwise, in its great southward flight.
The seascape below held no fear for the dracolich. Indeed, Gotha felt as though he could fly forever. But he also knew that he would not have to.
The first spots of rock showed as little more than bald crowns thrusting up between the waves like desperate swimmers struggling for air. When the gray water rose, it often buried these tiny bits of land, too small, really, to be called islands. Nevertheless, these rocks were important, for they confirmed to Gotha that he followed the right course.
Indeed, shortly afterward, the dracolich saw larger rocks, some with patches of green showing on narrow shelves perched high on steep shoulders, out of reach of the grasping brine.
The Korinn Archipelago.
The name entered the creature's mind unbidden, and again he felt the hateful presence of Talos. But Gotha couldn't resist the compulsion in his master's instructions. His vow, made in good faith to the god more than two centuries ago, bound him to obey until he had performed the task commanded by Talos.
On some of these islets, Gotha saw houses, with chimneys that puffed smoke into the air and fields speckled with white dots-sheep! Every fiber of the great monster's being urged him to swoop down to ravage these settlements, destroying the houses, slaying the humans, and devouring the sheep.
But such was not the will of Talos, and reluctantly the flying creature veered away. It suited his master's will that Gotha remain undiscovered by the island's inhabitants. Now the dracolich swerved to the west, once again over gray open water.
Something disturbed the water's surface, arrogantly carving a course through the tossing waves, leaving a foaming wake in its path. A single tall mast stood in the center of the sleek, narrow vessel, and from that mast a proud sail billowed. A long, slender hull trailed from an elegantly curved figurehead of a blond-haired goddess. The sleek craft flew over the sea, running before the full power of the wind.
Here Gotha could fulfill his master's command and also slake his expanded thirst for blood, for he knew there would be no survivors to report his presence.
Diving, the dracolich swooped toward the ship. He saw humans scurrying about in the shallow hull, heard their screams and even saw them raise bows and swords and axes, mere stinging annoyances to the monstrous apparition that settled toward the stern of the vessel.
Gotha's wings expanded, and the dracolich settled his rear legs on the transom, feeling the ship rock and groan under the massive weight. Two brawny warriors wearing horned helms sprang at the creature's momentarily exposed belly.
The beast slashed out with a single forepaw, pitching the shredded remains of the two northmen over the side as bait for sharks … or worse. Massive jaws gaped, and Gotha belched a searing cloud of fire straight into the bulging pocket of the longship's sail.
The canvas flared briefly and then collapsed, still flaming, onto the sailors crowded amidships. But these men of the north now rushed at the horrific thing that pressed the stern of their vessel into the brine. Gray water roared over the gunwales, each wave carrying the craft a little lower in the heaving swells.
Gotha met the attackers with his foreclaws, ripping their heads away or tearing open great wounds in their chests and bellies. The hull filled with blood and water as more and more corpses joined their fellows among the planks along the keel. Flames, meanwhile, coursed down the mast and spread through the forequarters of the vessel, hissing upward and greedily consuming the seasoned timbers that held the ship together.
More of the fierce northmen hacked at the monster that threatened their ship. One veteran succeeded in reaching the beast, driving a gleaming battle-axe against the decaying chest, but the axe bit against one of the exposed ribs, and the keen blade shattered into a thousand shards. Gaping jaws closed about the head and torso of the axeman, lifting him from the hull. His exposed legs kicked madly for a second, until the monster bit down. The severed limbs toppled into the sea.
Gotha knew a fierce joy that he had all but forgotten. The smoke wafting past his nostrils, the taste of warm blood, the sounds of shrieks and screams of terror-all of these combined to vitalize his undead heart, to feed his evil soul.
Finally he sprang back into the air, the force of his upward leap shoving the flaming vessel's stern beneath the waves for the final time. The bow, with its elegant female figurehead, loomed in the air for a moment, and then, with a sizzling hiss, the once-sleek ship disappeared beneath the waves.
Gotha flew onward, fiercely exultant. His hatred for Talos remained, but now it was easier for the beast to hold the emotion in the background of his awareness. Indeed, he had already begun to serve his new master, and that service had given the monster pleasure.
Ahead, another block of land rose from the water, a larger island than those the beast had first encountered in the archipelago. This rocky shore was bleak, all but uninhabited, and here Gotha settled to earth.
He dove toward the breakers erupting against the shore, knowing that he had arrived at the place where he had been sent. Here finally his work could truly begin.
Musings of the Harpist
Today I embark for Callidyrr. I knew when I awakened this morning that the time had come, for I saw the evidence of mighty portent before my very eyes.
Is it the power of the goddess, somehow miraculously resurgent? Or the presence of evil, once again threatening these shores? I cannot say for certain. Even a bard must sometimes stick to the unadulterated facts!
Yet the significance is great-as great as anything in the past twenty years. For as I look to the west this dawn, along the mist-shrouded shore of the firth, I see that Caer Allisynn is gone. The proud castle has silently vanished into the mist, sinking back beneath the sea. Its absence casts an unsettling pall over the town of Corwell.
Now I must take word to the king.
4
Storms Over Callidyrr
Rain swept across the town, forming rivulets down the few cobbled streets, turning the bulk of the avenues into morasses gummy with thick mud. Most of the inns and houses and shops huddled against these lanes and alleys, and here dwelt the populace of the city.
Paved roads ran through the grand center of Callidyrr, however. Here, in the heart of the largest city on the isles, a quadrangle of large stone merchant houses stood like gray blocks, solemn and aloof, as the humans scuttled about in their shadows. Vendors of gems and gold, of wools and iron and coal-each had his mercantile castle, with the stone avenue leading past its door.
Beyond these imposing edifices, the lowest portions of the city huddled against the shore of Whitefish Bay. A network of docks and breakwaters extended into the water, meshing the land with the sea. Long buildings of wood stretched beside the quay, stinking of fish. Narrow alleys twisted between shoddy buildings, where sailors visited and whores, alchemists, and smugglers plied their trades.
The harbor vanished into haze as the downpour drummed on the hulls of the sturdy curraghs and square-sterned cargo haulers at rest in the placid water. Against the wharf stood a ship that dwarfed all the others: a tall Calishite galleon, hired into the service of the High King.
Disdaining the royal coach, King Kendrick rode to the waterfront on horseback, accompanied by his wife and daughters, as well as their tutor Keane, and trailed by a score of his royal guard. The latter wore blue capes and feathered helms, and each was a master of the crossbow and longsword. Vigilant even in these times of peace, they rode behind their king while their eyes searched the buildings and alleys around him, seeking any hint of a threat.
No dangers appeared today-only the relative disinterest of a populace who had grown used to watchin
g their monarch sail to the Sword Coast, bartering the gold and iron of the isles for the food that they must acquire in order to survive.
A collection of merchants gathered at the waterfront, awaiting the king's arrival beneath dripping awnings. They raised a listless cheer as the royal procession passed them at a slow trot. A dreary lethargy seemed to linger about them, gray Ffolk before gray buildings in a gray city.
Alicia felt a sense of dismal loneliness that had grown heavy during the long downhill ride from the castle. It was a mood uncharacteristic for her, and though she tried to blame it on the weather, combined with her father's imminent departure, she suspected that its true roots lay at a deeper, more unconscious level.
She looked at her mother, riding next to the king, the two of them leading the small procession. Think how she must feel! Though Tristan had journeyed abroad many times during the last few years, Alicia doubted that the absences had become any easier for her mother to bear.
Finally the king reined in, dismounting on the dock beside the looming galleon. The queen joined him, while Alicia and Deirdre stood to the side. The older princess cast a sidelong look at her sister and saw that Deirdre's face was blank. Her mind might have been a thousand miles away.
Tristan turned to address the Ffolk who had ridden with him and those who now gathered to see him off. Perhaps two hundred citizens stood around the fringes of the long wharf, watching and waiting quietly.
They stood, ever patient, and Alicia thought that they reflected the faces of the Ffolk across all the isles. The men were bearded, muscular and strong, but not tall. They wore boots of leather and tunics of wool, with leggings of either dark woolen cloth or tanned animal skin. Some of the women wore leggings as well, though many were clad in colorful skirts. Their hair grew long, and those who had married kept it bound at the back of the head or the neck.
All of them were people of peace and hope. Perhaps that explained their interminable patience, Alicia reflected. Unlike the volatile northmen, the Ffolk were generally content to make do with what they had and to exert themselves as necessary to gradually improve the lot of their children.
Startled by a voice, the princess looked up to see that the king had begun to speak.
"My journey may extend up to a pair of months," he announced. Later his words upon departure, witnessed by all those present, would become the public record of the decrees made in his name to govern during the king's absence.
"Until such time as I return, the High Queen shall rule in my stead. She is in all respects mistress of the realm."
He paused, his listeners remaining silent.
"In my name, she will journey henceforth to Blackstone, attending to the business of the crown. For the duration of that travel, I hereby appoint Keane of Callidyrr acting seneschal for all matters of local importance until the return of the queen to Callidyrr."
The tutor looked at the king, nearly dropping his jaw in shock. Alicia blinked, surprised and-even more surprising-a trifle jealous.
"Good-bye, Alicia," said Tristan, clasping his daughter in his arms and kissing her forehead. She returned his hug, but at the same time, she felt hurt and rejected. Why had he appointed Keane to oversee the castle's daily affairs? Surely she was capable of that!
Her father embraced Deirdre and then Robyn while these thoughts chased through Alicia's mind. She said nothing as he climbed the gangplank, turned once to wave, and then stepped out of sight onto the galleon's high deck.
Thunderheads loomed into the heavens, columns of darkness that seemed to erupt from the ground, expanding upward into the limitless expanse of sky. Sunlight faded, and the darkness of the clouds intensified a hundredfold. Swirling into a deadly vortex, they centered themselves over a certain place.
Callidyrr.
The god who lay at the heart of the storm, Talos, knew that the white castle below him represented the greatest obstacle to his object: the reign of chaos upon these isles.
Throughout the Moonshaes, in secret shrines and dark temples, clerics of the Raging One worked their charms, pleading for his violence to continue. These clerics responded to the will of their dark-robed master, called the Priest With No Name. This priest gave to his minions gold and encouraged them to pray and pray some more.
Nevertheless, Talos the Destroyer sent his storms against the Moonshaes not because of prayers but because it pleased him to do so. He furthered the cause of chaos, driving a wedge into the peace that threatened to pacify the isles for all time. He would use his agents, the dracolich and the sahuagin and the clerics, to maintain the pressure of the assault.
Now Talos pored over the walls, swirled about the towers, and sifted through closed shutters, even into the deepest sanctums of the castle. He looked, and he listened, and he learned.
He would be patient, for he knew that he would not have to wait for long.
Supper that night in the palace dining hall was a quiet affair, especially compared to the gala dinners that had marked the spring court. Earlier this year, as during every spring, the noble lords and earls of the kingdom had attended Tristan's hall in Callidyrr. The High King presided over contests, feasts, and bouts, and often several hundred people would laugh and chatter in the Great Hall over a dinner that would last for many hours.
Now only the queen, her daughters, and Keane supped here at one end of the lone table that still remained. A fire blazed in the huge hearth, attempting with limited success to combat the unusual chill.
The venerable servingwoman, Gretta, who had left the Kendrick family estate on Corwell twenty years before when Tristan and Robyn had moved to the castle of the High King, served them their meal, producing from the kitchen a roast haunch of lamb, with a pudding of corn and a beverage mixed from the rare beans just now entering the markets of the Sword Coast. They were called "cocoa" and originated in the land known as Maztica, discovered at the western shore of the Trackless Sea.
"You know, my Queen," Gretta said as she moved around the table, pouring steaming cups of the delicacy, "the cook tells me we're completely out of salt and fruit, and low on bacon as well. . "
"Perhaps, with Lord Keane's permission, we can shop the markets tomorrow?" asked Deirdre with a raised eyebrow. Her mouth twisted in a wry smile directed at Alicia.
As quickly as that, her father's slight came back to Alicia-Keane appointed as seneschal of the realm! Her face flushed, but then she felt Deirdre's eyes on her. The intensity of her sister's gaze made Alicia squirm in her seat. She glared back at her sister, but Deirdre had already turned back to her meal.
"Yes, of-of course," stammered Keane finally, nonplussed by the young princess's sarcasm.
They had begun to drain the last of the hot, spicy drink when the palace sergeant-at-arms, after knocking respectfully on the great wooden door, entered. They all knew the bowlegged, gray-mustached old war-horse who-to Alicia's amusement-was called Young Arlen. He had been one of Tristan's youthful recruits during the Darkwalker War.
"A visitor, Your Majesty," announced the bearded veteran. "She has just arrived at the castle and begs leave to enter."
"Of course," replied Robyn. "Her name?"
"It is the Lady Tavish, Bard of the Isles, Majesty."
"Auntie Tavish!" Alicia sprang to her feet and ran toward the door as the guard bade the visitor to enter. She called the harpist by the name she had always known her, though no blood ties existed between them.
The merry bard swept the princess into a hug, beaming her broad smile across the room. Though Tavish neared sixty years of age, she had all the energy of a young tomboy.
"Greetings, my Queen!" she boomed. "And a thousand thanks for the warmth of your hearth and the protection of your roof!"
"Oh, stop it!" chided Robyn. "You know that you're always welcome here!"
"Nevertheless, I welcome the shelter-especially in these times, when traveling is such a chill, soggy affair. I saw no banner of the wolf above the gatehouse. Does the king travel away from the castle now?"
&n
bsp; "To Amn," Robyn explained. "He left but this morning."
"Rot my timing, then, though it is indeed a pleasure to end a trip with the company of the Kendrick ladies!"
"Have you journeyed far?" inquired Alicia. She always enjoyed the bard's tales of the far islands of the Moonshaes and even the Sword Coast.
"Always, lass-always! But not so far as sometimes, if the truth be told. I last hail from Corwell."
"Corwell!" Robyn's face lit, and then her joy faded into a wistful remembrance. "Tell me, how is life on that fair island?"
"I have news," said Tavish. All the listeners detected a slight cautionary note to her voice. "But perhaps it can wait until I've had a bite … or two."
It was more like three or four, but none of them begrudged the woman the time to fill her ample stomach. As the premier Greater Bard of the Moonshae Islands, Tavish enjoyed certain privileges akin to nobility-the shelter of anyone's roof should she but ask, and the hospitality of their table. These boons were never resented, for a visit from the bard was always an entertaining and informative affair.
Indeed, only recently had the knowledge of printed history come to the Ffolk. Always before their bards had maintained a pure oral tradition of lore, and thus the story of that people's history was told and preserved. And via the hearts of the harpists, from one generation to the next, those tales continued to flourish and grow.
In Tavish's case, however, her bonds to the Kendrick family extended beyond these conventional courtesies. As the author of the ballad telling the tale of Tristan's wars, she had spent years in Callidyrr during Alicia's childhood, asking questions and beguiling them with her own interesting stories.
As she had aged, the harpist had grown more, not less, active. She could ride a horse like a warrior and throw a punch that would deck most brawlers. Her ribald songs and the boastful tales of her own presumably exaggerated amorous exploits had been known to make the queen blush and the princesses stare in wide-eyed wonder.
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