Dragonlance 03 - Dragons of Spring Dawning (42 page)

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 about 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.

The jailor had just grabbed the keys from the wall and was starting to walk back down the corridor again when a voice from the bottom of the stairs stopped him.

“What do you want?” the jailor snarled, irritated and startled at the sight of the cloaked figure appearing suddenly, without warning.

“I am Gakhan,” said the voice.

Hushing immediately at the sight of the newcomer, the draconians drew themselves up in respect, while the hobgoblin
turned a sickly green color, the keys clinking together in his flabby hand. Two more guards clattered down the stairs. At a gesture from the cloaked figure, they came to stand beside him.

Walking past the quaking hobgoblin, the figure drew closer to the cell door. Now Tas could see the figure clearly. It was another draconian, dressed in armor with a dark cape thrown over its face. The kender bit his lip in frustration. Well, the odds still weren’t
that
bad—not for Caramon.

The hooded draconian, ignoring the stammering jailor who was trotting along behind him like a fat dog, grabbed a torch from the wall and came over to stand directly in front of the companions’ jail cell.

“Get me out of this place!” Caramon shouted, elbowing Berem to one side.

But the draconian, ignoring Caramon, reached through the bars of the cell and laid a clawed hand on Berem’s shirt front. Tas darted a frantic look at Caramon. The big man’s face was deathly pale. He made a desperate lunge at the draconian, but it was too late.

With a twist of its clawed hand, the draconian ripped Berem’s shirt to shreds. Green light flared into the jail cell as the torchlight illuminated the gemstone embedded in Berem’s flesh.

“It is he,” Gakhan said quietly. “Unlock the cell.”

The jailor put the key in the cell door with hands that shook visibly. Snatching it away from the hobgoblin, one of the draconian guards opened the cell door, then they surged inside. One guard struck Caramon a vicious blow on the side of the head with the hilt of its sword, felling the warrior like an ox, while another grabbed Tika.

Gakhan entered the cell.

“Kill him”—the draconian motioned at Caramon—“and the girl and the kender.” Gakhan laid his clawed hand on Berem’s shoulder. “I will take this one to Her Dark Majesty.” The draconian flashed a triumphant glance around at the others.

“This night, victory is ours,” he said softly.

Sweating in the dragon-scale armor, Tanis stood beside Kitiara in one of the vast antechambers leading into the Great Hall of Audience. Surrounding the half-elf were Kitiara’s troops, including the hideous skeletal warriors under the
command of the death knight, Lord Soth. These stood in the shadows just behind Kitiara. Though the antechamber was crowded—Kitiara’s draconian troops were packed in spear to spear—there was, nevertheless, a vast empty space around the undead warriors. None came near them, none spoke to them, they spoke to no one. And though the room was stifling hot with the crushing press of many bodies, a chill flowed from these that nearly stopped the heart if one ventured too near.

Feeling Lord Soth’s flickering eyes upon him, Tanis could not repress a shudder. Kitiara glanced up at him and smiled, the crooked smile he had once found so irresistible. She stood close to him, their bodies touching.

“You’ll get used to them,” she said coolly. Then her gaze returned to the proceedings in the vast Hall. The dark line appeared between her brows, her hand tapped irritably upon her sword hilt. “Get moving, Ariakas,” she muttered.

Tanis looked over her head, staring through the ornate doorway they would enter when it was their turn, watching in an awe he could not hide as the spectacle unfolded before his eyes.

The Hall of Audience of Takhisis, Queen of Darkness, first impressed the viewer with a sense of his own inferiority. This was the black heart which kept the dark blood flowing and—as such—its appearance was fitting. The antechamber in which they stood opened onto a huge circular room with a floor of polished black granite. The floor continued up to form the walls, rising in tortured curves like dark waves frozen in time. Any moment, it seemed, they could crash down and engulf all those within the Hall in blackness. It was only Her Dark Majesty’s power that held them in check. And so the black waves swept upward to a high domed ceiling, now hidden from view by a wispy wall of shifting, eddying smoke—the breath of dragons.

The floor of the vast Hall was empty now, but it would soon be filling rapidly as the troops marched in to take up their positions beneath the thrones of their Highlords. These thrones—four of them—stood about ten feet above the gleaming granite floor. Squat gates opened from the concave walls onto black tongues of rock that licked outward from the walls. Upon these four huge platforms—two to each side—sat the Highlords—and only the Highlords. No one else—not even bodyguards—was allowed beyond the top step of the sacred
platforms. Bodyguards and high-ranking officers stood upon stairs that extended up to the thrones from the floor like the ribs of some giant prehistoric beast.

From the center of the Hall rose another, slightly larger platform, curling upward from the floor like a giant, hooded snake—which is exactly what it had been carved to represent. One slender bridge of rock ran from the snake’s ‘head’ to another gate in the side of the Hall. The head faced Ariakas—and the darkness-shrouded alcove above Ariakas.

The “Emperor,” as Ariakas styled himself, sat upon a slightly larger platform at the front of the great Hall, about ten feet above those around it.

Tanis felt his gaze drawn irresistibly to an alcove carved into the rock above Ariakas’s throne. It was larger than the rest of the alcoves and—within it—lurked a darkness that was almost alive. It breathed and pulsed and was so intense that Tanis looked quickly away. Although he could see nothing, he guessed who would soon sit within those shadows.

Shuddering, Tanis turned back to the darkness within the Hall. There was not much left to see. All around the domed ceiling, in alcoves similar though smaller than the Highlords’ alcoves, perched the dragons. Almost invisible, obscured by their own smoking breath, these creatures sat opposite their respective Highlords’ alcoves, keeping vigilant watch—so the Highlords supposed—upon their “masters.” Actually only one dragon in the assemblage was truly concerned over his master’s welfare. This was Skie, Kitiara’s dragon, who—even now—sat in his place, his fiery red eyes staring at the throne of Ariakas with much the same intensity and far more visible hatred than Tanis had seen in the eyes of Skie’s master.

A gong rang. Masses of troops poured into the Hall, all of them wearing the red dragon colors of Ariakas’s troops. Hundreds of clawed and booted feet scraped the floor as the draconians and human guard of honor entered and took their places beneath Ariakas’s throne. No officers ascended the stairs, no bodyguards took their places in front of their lord.

Then the man himself entered through the gate behind his throne. He walked alone, his purple robes of state sweeping majestically from his shoulders, dark armor gleaming in the torchlight. Upon his head glistened a crown, studded with jewels the hue of blood.

“The Crown of Power,” Kitiara murmured, and now Tanis saw emotion in her eyes—longing, such longing as he had rarely seen in human eyes before.

“ ‘Whoever wears the Crown, rules,’ ” came a voice behind her. “So it is written.”

Lord Soth. Tanis stiffened to keep from trembling, feeling the man’s presence like a cold skeletal hand upon the back of his neck.

Ariakas’s troops cheered him long and loudly, thumping their spears upon the floor, clashing their swords against their shields. Kitiara snarled in impatience. Finally Ariakas extended his hands for silence. Turning, he knelt in reverence before the shadowy alcove above him, then, with a wave of his gloved hand, the head of the Dragon Highlords made a patronizing gesture to Kitiara.

Glancing at her, Tanis saw such hatred and contempt on her face that he barely recognized her. “Yes, lord,” whispered Kitiara, her eyes now dark and gleaming. “ ‘Whoever wears the Crown, rules. So it is written … written in blood!’ ” Half turning her head, she beckoned to Lord Soth. “Fetch the elfwoman.”

Lord Soth bowed and flowed from the antechamber like a malevolent fog, his skeletal warriors drifting after him. Draconians stumbled over themselves in frantic efforts to get out of his deadly path.

Tanis gripped Kitiara’s arm. “You promised!” he said in a strangled voice.

Staring at him coldly, Kitiara snatched her arm free, easily breaking the half-elf’s strong grasp. But her brown eyes held him, drained him, sucking the life from him until he felt like nothing more than a dried shell.

“Listen to me, Half-Elven,” Kitiara said, her voice cold and thin and sharp. “I am after one thing and one thing only—the Crown of Power Ariakas wears. That is the reason I captured Laurana, that is all she means to me. I will present the elfwoman to Her Majesty, as I have promised. The Queen will reward me—with the Crown, of course—then she will order the elf taken to the Death Chambers far below the Temple. I care nothing for what happens to the elf after that, and so I give her to you. At my gesture, step forward. I will present you to the Queen. Beg of her a favor. Ask that you be allowed to escort the elfwoman to her death. If she approves of you,
she will grant it. You may then take the elfwoman to the city gates or wherever you choose, and there you may set her free. But I want your word of honor, Tanis Half-Elven, that you will return to me.”