Dragonlance 16 - Dragons Of A Lost Star (35 page)

“Then came the great red Malys and my cousins, and again I demanded my right to assert my authority. I could have stopped them, then. I could have cowed them, made them bow before me. Again, I was told, it is not the time. Now Beryl and Malystryx have grown in power that they gained by killing dragons of my own kin—”

“Not your kin,” Mina corrected gently.

“My kin!” Skie thundered, his anger swelling to rage. Still, in the amber eyes, he remained small. “For over two hundred years I lived among blue dragons and fought alongside them. They are more my kin than those great bloated wyrms. Now the wyrms divide up the choicest parts between them. They extend their control. Be damned to the pact that was made. I—I am shunted off to the Gray on some wild kender chase.

“I say I was tricked!” the blue snarled. “I say I was deluded. Kitiara is not in the Gray. She was never in the Gray. I was sent there so that another could rule in my stead. Who is that other? You, girl? Or will it be Malys? Has another pact been made? A secret pact? That is why I came back—long before I was expected, seemingly, for I hear you are to now march upon Solanthus.”

Mina was silent, considering.

Skie shifted his great bulk, lashed his tail so that it thumped against the walls of his lair, sending tremors through the mountain. Though the ground quaked beneath her feet, the human remained complacent. She gazed steadily at the dragon.

“The One God owes you nothing.”

Skie drew in a seething breath. Lightning crackled between his teeth, sparked, and smoldered. The air was charged. Mina’s cropped red hair rippled like that of a stalking panther. Ignoring his display of anger, she continued speaking, her voice calm.

“You abrogated your right to rule when you forgot your duties and forsook your oath of allegiance to the One to whom you owed everything, choosing instead to bestow your love and loyalty on a mortal. You rule the world!” Mina regarded the dragon with scorn and cool contempt. “You are not fit to rule a dung heap! Your services are no longer needed. Another has been chosen to rule. Your followers will serve me as they once served you. As to your precious Kitiara, you will never find her. She has passed far beyond your reach. But then, you knew that, didn’t you, Skie?”

Mina’s eyes fixed on him, unblinking. He found himself caught in them. He tried to look away, to break free, but he was held fast, the amber hardening around him.

“You refused to admit it,” she went on, relentless, her voice digging deep beneath his scales. “Go back to the Gray, Skie. Go there to seek Kitiara. You can return anytime you want. You know that, don’t you? The Gray is in your mind, Skie. You were deluded, but not by the One God. You deluded yourself.”

Skie would send his answer to the One God—a charred lump.

He unleashed his lethal breath, spat a gout of lightning at the girl. The bolt struck Mina on her black breastplate, over her heart. The fragile body crumpled to the cavern floor, frail limbs curled, contorted as those of a dead spider. She did not move.

Skie watched, cautious, wary. He did not trust her or the one she served. It had been too easy.

Mina lifted her head. A bolt of light flashed from her amber eyes and struck Skie in the center of his forehead.

The lightning burned his scales, jolted through his body. His heart clamored painfully in his chest, its rhythm knocked wildly askew. He could not breathe. Mist, gray mist, swirled before his eyes. His head sank to the stone floor of his lair. His eyes closed upon the gray mist that he knew so well. The gray mist where he heard Kitiara’s voice calling to him. The gray mist that was empty . . .

Mina stood up. She had taken no hurt, seemingly, for her body was whole, her armor unblemished. She remained in the cave for several moments, watching the dragon, imprisoning his image behind her long lashes. Then she turned on her heel and walked from his lair.

The blind beggar remained crouched in the darkness of his hiding place while he tried to understand what had happened. He had arrived in Skie’s lair at about the same time as Mina, only Mirror had come in by one of the back entrances, not by the front. His astonishment on hearing and recognizing Mina’s voice had been immense. The last time he had seen her, he had met her on the road leading to Silvanost. Though he could not see her with his eyes, he had been able to see her through her voice. He had heard stories about her all along his road, and he had marveled that the orphan child he had known at the Citadel of Light, the child who had disappeared so mysteriously, had returned even more mysteriously. She had recognized him, known him for the silver dragon who had once guarded the citadel.

His astonishment at seeing her here, speaking to Skie, was not so great as his astonishment at their conversation. He was starting to understand, starting to find answers to his questions, but those answers were too astounding for him yet to comprehend them fully.

The silver dragon felt the Blue’s fury building. Mirror trembled for Mina, not so much for her sake as for the sake of the orphan child she had been. Mirror would have to be the one to return to tell Goldmoon the horrible fate of the child she had once so loved. He heard the cracking of the lightning, bent beneath the shock wave of the thunder.

But it was not Mina who cried out in agony. The voice of pain was Skie’s. Now the great blue dragon was quiet, except for a low, piteous moan.

Footsteps—booted, human footsteps—echoed in the lair and faded away.

Mirror felt more than heard the irregular thumping of Skie’s heart, felt it pulse through the cavern so that it jarred his body. The giant heart was slowing. Mirror heard the soft moan of anger and despair.

Even a blind dragon was more at home in these twisting corridors than a human—sighted or not. A dragon could find his way through them faster. Mirror had once, long ago, been larger than the Blue. That had changed. Skie had grown enormous, and now Mirror knew the reason why. Skie was not of Krynn.

Transforming himself into his true dragon form, Mirror was able to move without hindrance through the corridors of Skie’s lair. The silver dragon glided along the passage, his wings folded tightly at his side, reaching out with his senses as a sightless human gropes with his hands. Sound and smell and a knowledge of how dragons build their lairs guided him, leading him in the direction of that last tortured cry of shock and pain.

Mirror advanced cautiously. There were other blue dragons in the vicinity of the lair. Mirror could hear their voices, though they were faint, and he could not understand what they said. He could smell their scent, a mixture of dragon and thunder, and he feared one or more of them might return to see what had befallen their leader. If the blues discovered Mirror, the blind silver would not stand a chance in battle against them.

The voices of the blue dragons died away. He heard the flapping of their wings. The lair stank of blue dragon, but instinct told Mirror the others were gone. They had left Skie to die. The other blues had deserted him to follow Mina.

Mirror was not surprised, nor did he blame them. He recalled vividly his own meeting with her. She had offered to heal him, and he had been tempted, sorely tempted, to let her. He had wished not so much that she would restore his sight but that she would restore to him something he had lost with the departure of the gods. He had found it, to his dismay. He had refused to allow her near him. The darkness that surrounded her was far deeper than the darkness that enveloped him.

Mirror reached the lair where Skie lay, gasping and choking. The Blue’s immense tail twitched, back and forth, thumping the walls spasmodically. His body jerked, scraping against the floor, his wings flapped, his head thrashed. His claws scrabbled against the rock.

Mirror might be able to heal the body of the Blue, but that would avail Mirror little if he could not heal Skie’s mind. Loyalty to Kitiara had turned to love, a hopeless love that had darkened to an obsession that had been fed and fostered so long as it served a useful purpose. When the purpose was complete, the obsession became a handy weapon.

It would be an act of mercy to let the tormented Skie die. Mirror could not afford to be merciful. He needed answers. He needed to know if what he feared was true.

Crouching in the cavern beside the body of his dying enemy, Mirror lifted his silver wings, spread them over Skie, and began to speak in the ancient language of the dragons.

27

The City Slumbers

Sitting in the dark on the wooden plank that was his bed in the cell, listening to his fourth Uncle Trapspringer tale in an hour, Gerard wondered if strangling a kender was punishable by death or if it would be considered a meritorious act, worthy of commendation.

“. . . Uncle Trapspringer traveled to Flotsam in company with five other kender, a gnome, and a gully dwarf, whose name I can’t remember. I think it was Phudge. No, that was a gully dwarf I met once. Rolf? Well, maybe. Anyway, let’s say it was Rolf. Not that it matters because Uncle Trapspringer never saw the gully dwarf again. To go on with the story, Uncle Trapspringer had come across this pouch of steel coins. He couldn’t remember where, he thought maybe someone had dropped it. If so, no one had come to claim it from him, so he decided that since possession is nine-tenths of a cat’s lives he would spend some of the steel on magic artifacts, rings, charms, and a potion or two. Uncle Trapspringer was exceedingly fond of magic. He used to have a saying that vou never knew when a good potion would come in handy, you just had to remember to hold your nose when you drank it. He went to this mage-ware shop, but the moment he walked in the door the most marvelous thing happened. The owner of the mage-ware shop happened to be a wizard, and the wizard told Uncle Trapspringer that not far from Flotsam was a cave where a black dragon lived, and the dragon had the most amazing collection of magical objects anywhere on Krynn, and the wizard just couldn’t take Uncle Trapspringer’s money when, with a little effort, Uncle Trapspringer could kill the black dragon and have all the magical objects he wanted. Now, Uncle Trapspringer thought this was an excellent idea. He asked directions to the cave, which the wizard most obligingly gave him, and he—”

“Shut up!” said Gerard through clenched teeth.

“I beg your pardon?” said Tasslehoff. “Did you say something?”

“I said ‘shut up.’ I’m trying to sleep.”

“But I’m just coming to the good part. Where Uncle Trapspringer and the five other kender go to the cave and—”

“If you don’t be quiet, I will come over there and quiet you,” said Gerard in a tone that meant it. He rolled over on his side.

“Sleep is really a waste of time, if you ask me—”

“No one did. Be quiet.”

“Quiet.”

He heard the sound of a small kender body squirming about on a hard wooden plank—the bed opposite where Gerard lay. In order to torture him, they had locked him in the same cell as the kender and had put the gnome in the next cell over.

“ ‘Thieves will fall out,’ “ the warden had remarked.

Gerard had never hated anyone in his life so much as he hated this warden.

The gnome, Conundrum, had spent a good twenty minutes yammering about writs and warrants and Kleinhoffel vs. Menck-lewink and a good deal about someone named Miranda, until he had eventually talked himself into a stupor. At least Gerard supposed that was what had happened. There had been a gargle and a thump from the direction of the gnome’s cell and then blessed silence.

Gerard had just been drifting off himself when Tasslehoff— who had fallen asleep the moment the gnome had opened his mouth —awakened the moment the gnome was quiet and launched into Uncle Trapspringer.

Gerard had put up with it for a long time, mostly due to the fact that the kender’s stories had a numbing effect on him, rather like repeatedly hitting his head against a stone wall. Frustrated, angry—angry at the Knights, angry at himself, angry at fate that had forced him into this untenable position—he lay on the hard plank, unable to go back to sleep, and worried about what was happening in Qualinesti. He wondered what Medan and Laurana must think of him. He should have returned by now, and he feared they must have decided he was a coward who, when faced with battle, had run away.

As to his predicament here, the Lord Knight had said he would send a messenger to Lord Warren, but the gods knew how long that would take. Could they even find Lord Warren? He might have pulled out of Solace. Or he might be fighting for his life against Beryl. The Lord Knights said they would inquire around Solanthus to find someone who knew his family, but Gerard gave that long odds. First someone would actually have to inquire and in his cynical and pessimistic mood, he doubted if the Knights would trouble themselves. Second, if someone did know his father, that person might not know Gerard. In the past ten years, Gerard had done what he could to avoid going back home.

Gerard tossed and turned and, as one is prone to do during a restless, sleepless night, he let his fears and his worries grow completely out of proportion. The kender’s voice had been a welcome distraction from his dark thoughts, but now it had turned into the constant and annoying drip of rain through a hole in the roof. Having fretted himself into exhaustion, Gerard turned his face to the wall. He ignored the kender’s pathetic wrigglings and squirmings, intended, no doubt, to make him—Gerard—feel guilty and ask for another story.

He was floating on sleep’s surface when he heard, or imagined he heard, someone singing a lullaby.

Sleep, love; forever sleep.

Your soul the night will keep.

Embrace the darkness deep.

Sleep, love; forever sleep.

The song was restful, soothing. Relaxing beneath the song’s influence, Gerard was sinking beneath peaceful waves when a voice came out of the darkness, a woman’s voice.

“Sir Knight?” the woman called.

Gerard woke, his heart pounding. He lay still. His first thought was that it was Lady Odila, come to torment him some more. He knew better almost at once, however. The voice had a different note, a more musical quality, and the accent was not Solamnic. Furthermore Lady Odila would have never referred to him as “Sir Knight.”

Warm, yellow light chased away the darkness. He rolled over on his side so that he could see who it was who came to him in the middle of the night in prison.

He couldn’t find her at first. The woman had paused at the bottom of the stairs to hear a reply, and the wall of the stairwell shielded her from his sight. The light she held wavered a moment, then began to move. The woman rounded the corner and he could see her clearly. White robes shimmered yellow-white in the candlelight. Her hair was spun silver and gold.

“Sir Knight?” she called again, looking searchingly about.

“Goldmoon!” cried out Tasslehoff. He waved his hand. “Over here!”

“Is that you, Tas? Keep your voice down. I’m looking for the Knight, Sir Gerard—”

“I am here, First Master,” Gerard said.

Sliding off the plank, bewildered, he crossed the cell to stand near the iron bars, so that she could see him. The kender reached the bars in a single convulsive leap, thrust both arms out between the bars and most of his face. The gnome was awake, too, picking himself up off the floor. Conundrum looked groggy, bleary-eyed, and extremely suspicious.

Goldmoon held in her hand a long, white taper. Lifting the light close to Gerard’s face, she studied him long and searchingly.

“Tasslehoff,” she said, turning to the kender, “is this the Knight of Solamnia you told me about, the same Knight who took you to see Palin in Qualinesti?”

“Oh, yes, this is the same Knight, Goldmoon,” said Tasslehoff-

Gerard flushed. “I know that you find this impossible to credit, First Master. But in this instance, the kender is telling the truth. The fact that I was found wearing the emblem of a Dark Knight—”

“Please say nothing more, Sir Knight,” Goldmoon interrupted abruptly. “I do believe Tas. I know him. I have known him for many years. He told me that you were gallant and brave and that you were a good friend to him.”

Gerard’s flush deepened. Tas’s “good friend” had been wondering, only moments earlier, how he might dispose of the kender’s body.

“The best friend,” Tasslehoff was saying. “The best friend I have in all the world. That’s why I came looking for him. Now we’ve found each other, and we’re locked up together, just like old times. I was telling Gerard all about Uncle Trapspringer—”

“Where am I?” the gnome asked suddenly. “Who are all of you?”

“First Master, I must explain—” Gerard began.

Goldmoon raised her hand, a commanding gesture that silenced all of them, including Tasslehoff. “I do not need explanations.” Her eyes were again intent upon Gerard. “You flew here on a blue dragon.”

“Yes, First Master. As I was about to tell you, I had no choice—”

“Yes, yes. It makes no difference. Haste is what counts. The Lady Knight said the dragon was still in the area, that they had searched for it but could not find it, yet they knew it was near. Is that true?”

“I . . . I have no way of knowing, First Master.” Gerard was mystified. At first he thought she had come to accuse him, then maybe to pray for him or whatever Mystics did. Now he did know what she wanted. “I suppose it might be. The blue dragon promised to wait for me to return. I had planned to deliver my message to the Knights’ Council, then fly back to Qualinesti, to do what I could to assist the elves in their battle.”

“Take me there, Sir Knight.”

Gerard stared at her blankly.

“I must go there,” she continued, and her voice sounded frantic. “Don’t you understand? I must find a way to go there, and you and your dragon will carry me. Tas, you remember how to get back, don’t you?”

“To Qualinesti?” Tas said, excited. “Sure, I know the way! I have all these maps—”

“Not Qualinesti,” Goldmoon said. “The Tower of High Sorcery. Dalamar’s Tower in Nightlund. You said you were there, Tas. You will show me the way.”

“First Master,” Gerard faltered, “I am a prisoner. You heard the charges against me. I cannot go anywhere.”

Goldmoon wrapped her hand around one of the bars of the cell. She tightened her grip until the knuckles on that hand grew as white as bare bone. “The warden sleeps under the enchantment I cast upon him. He will not stop me. No one will stop me. I must go to the Tower. I must speak with Dalamar and Palin. I could walk, and I will walk, if I have to, but the dragon is faster. You will take me, won’t you, Sir Gerard?”

Goldmoon had been the ruler of her people. All her life, she had been a leader. She was accustomed to command and to being obeyed. Her beauty moved him. Her sorrow touched him. Beyond that, she offered him his freedom. Freedom to return to Qualinesti, to join the battle there, to live or die with those he had come to care for.

“The key to the cell is on the ring the warden carries—” he began.

“I have no need of it,” Goldmoon said.

She closed her hand over the iron bars. The iron began to dissolve, melting like the wax of her candle. A hole formed in the center as the iron bars drooped, curled over.

Gerard stared. “How . . .” His voice was a hoarse croak.

“Hurry,” Goldmoon said.

He did not move but continued to stare at her.

“I don’t know how,” she said and a note of desperation made her voice tremble. “I don’t know how I have the power to do what I do. I don’t know where I heard the words to the song of enchantment I sang. I know only that whatever I want I am given.”

“Ah, now I remember who this woman is!” Conundrum heaved a sigh. “Dead people.”

Gerard didn’t understand, but then this was nothing new. He had not understood much of anything that had happened to him in the past month.

“Why start now?” Gerard muttered, as he stepped through the bars. He wondered where they had stashed his sword.

“Come along, Tas,” Goldmoon said sternly. “This is no time to play games.”

Instead of leaping joyously to freedom, the kender had suddenly and inexplicably retreated to the very farthest corner of the cell.

“Thank you for thinking of me, Goldmoon,” Tasslehoff said, settling himself in the corner, “and thank you for melting the bars of the cell. That was wonderful and something you don’t see everyday. Ordinarily I’d be glad to go with you, but it would be rude to leave my good friend Conundrum here. He’s the best friend I have in all the world—”

Making a sound expressive of exasperation, Goldmoon touched the bars of the gnome’s cell. The bars dissolved, as had the others. Conundrum climbed out the hole. Brow furrowed, he squatted with his hands on his knees, and began scraping up the iron meltings, muttering to himself something about smelting.

“I’ll bring the gnome, Tas,” Goldmoon said impatiently. “Now come out of there at once.”

“We had better hurry, First Master,” Gerard warned. He would have been quite happy to leave both gnome and kender behind. “The jailer’s relief arrives two hours past midnight—”

“He will not come this night,” Goldmoon said. “He will sleep past his time. But you are right. We must make haste, for I am called. Tas, come out of that cell this minute.”

“Don’t make me, Goldmoon!” Tasslehoff begged in pitiful tones. “Don’t make me go back to the Tower. You don’t know what they want to do to me. Dalamar and Palin mean to murder me.”

“Don’t be silly. Palin would never—” Goldmoon paused. Her severe expression softened. “Ah, I understand. I had forgotten. The Device of Time Journeying.”

Tasslehoff nodded.

“I thought it was broken,” he said. “Palin threw parts of it at the draconians, and it exploded, and I figured that’s one thing I don’t have to worry about anymore.”

He gave a mournful sigh. “Then I reached into my pocket, and there it was. Still in pieces, but all the pieces were back in my pocket. I’ve thrown them away, time and again. I even tried giving them away, but they keep coming back to me. Even broken, they keep coming back.” Tas looked at Goldmoon pleadingly. “If I go back to the Tower, they’ll find it, and they’ll fix it, and I’ll have to be stepped on by a giant, and I’ll die. I don’t want to die, Goldmoon! I don’t want to! Please don’t make me.”

Gerard almost suggested to Goldmoon that he hit the kender ‘ on the jaw and haul him out bodily, but on second thought, he kept silent. The kender looked so completely and utterly miserable that Gerard found himself feeling sorry for him. Goldmoon entered the cell and sat next to the kender.

“Tas,” Goldmoon said gently, reaching out her hand and stroking back a lock of hair that had escaped his topknot and was straggling over his face, “I can’t promise you that this will have a good and happy ending. Right now, to me it seems that it must end very badly. I have been following a river of souls, Tas. They gather at Nightlund. They do not go there of their own free will. They are prisoners, Tas. They are under some sort of terrible constraint. Caramon is with them, and Tika, Riverwind, and my daughter; perhaps all those we love. I want to find out why. I want to find out what is happening. You tell me that Dalamar is in Nightlund. I must see him, Tas. I must speak to him. Perhaps he is the cause. . . .”

Tasslehoff shook his head. “I don’t think so. Dalamar’s a prisoner, too, at least that’s what he told Palin.” The kender hung his head and plucked nervously at his shirt front. “There’s something else, Goldmoon. Something I haven’t told anyone. Something that happened to me in Nightlund.”

“What is it, Tas?” Goldmoon looked concerned.

The kender had lost his jaunty gaiety. He was drooping and wan and shivering—shivering with fright. Gerard was amazed. He had often felt that a really good scare would be beneficial for a kender, would teach the rattle-brained little imps that life was not picnics by the tomb and taunting sheriffs and swiping gewgaws. Life was earnest and hard, and it was meant to be taken seriously. Now, seeing Tas dejected and fearful, Gerard looked away. He didn’t know why, but he had the feeling that he had lost something, that he and the world had both lost something.

“Goldmoon,” said Tas in an awful whisper, “I saw myself in that wood.”

“What do you mean, Tas?” she asked gently.

“I saw my own ghost!” Tas said, and he shuddered. “It wasn’t at all exciting. Not like I thought seeing one’s own ghost would be. I was lost and alone, and I was searching for someone or something. It may sound funny, I know, but I always thought that after I died, I’d meet up with Flint somewhere. Maybe we’d go off adventuring together, or maybe we’d just rest, and I’d tell him stories. But I wasn’t adventuring. I was just alone . . . and lost. . . and unhappy.”

He looked up at her, and Gerard was startled to see the track of a single tear trickle down through the grime on the kender’s cheek.

“I don’t want to be dead like that, Goldmoon. That’s why I can’t go back.”

“Don’t you see, Tas?” Goldmoon said. “That’s why you have to go back. I can’t explain it, but I am certain that what you and I have both seen is wrong. Life on this world is meant to be a way-stop on a longer journey. Our souls are supposed to move on to the next plane, to continue learning and growing. Perhaps we may linger, wait to join loved ones, as my dear Riverwind waits for me and somewhere, perhaps, Flint waits for you. But none of us can leave, apparently. You and I together must try to free these prisoner souls who are locked in the cell of the world as surely as you were locked in this cell. The only way we can do that is to go back to Nightlund. The heart of the mystery lies there.”

She held out her hand to Tasslehoff. “Will you come?”

“You won’t let them send me back?” he bargained, hesitating.

“I promise that the decision to go back or not will be yours,” she said. “I won’t let them send you back against your will.”

“Very well,” Tas said, standing up and dusting himself off and glancing about to see that he had all his pouches. “I’ll take you to the Tower, Goldmoon. It just so happens that I have an extremely reliable body compass. . . .”

At this juncture, Conundrum, who had finished scraping up the melted iron, began to discourse on such things as compasses and binnacles and lodestones and his great-great-uncle’s theory on why north could be found in the north and not in the south, a theory that had proved to be quite controversial and was still being argued to this day.

Goldmoon paid no attention to the gnome’s expostulations or Tasslehoff’s desultory replies. She was imbued with a fixed purpose, and she went forward to achieve it. Unafraid, calm, and composed, she led them up the stairs, past the slumbering warden slumped over his desk, and out of the prison.

They hastened through Solanthus, a city of sleep and silence and half-light, for the sky was pearl gray with the coming of dawn. The gnome wound down like a spent spring. Tasslehoff was uncharacteristically quiet. Their footfalls made no sound. They might have been ghosts themselves as they roamed the empty streets. They saw no one, and no one saw them. They encountered no patrols. They met no farmer coming to market, no carousers stumbling home from the taverns. No dog barked, no baby cried.