Dragons of a Fallen Sun, page 27
“I guess he figures we’re safe now that we’re inside the borders of Qualinesti.” Tasslehoff spoke to himself, for he was still wearing the gag. “I wonder why we stopped though? Maybe he doesn’t know how close we are.”
The Knight fried some salt pork. The aroma spread throughout the forest. He removed Tasslehoff’s gag so that the kender could eat and was instantly sorry he’d done so.
“How did I steal the artifact?” Tas asked eagerly. “That’s so exciting. I’ve never stolen anything before, you know. Stealing is extremely wrong. But I guess in this case it would be all right, since the Dark Knights are bad people. What inn was it? There are quite a few on the road to Palanthas. Was it the Dirty Duck? That’s a great place. Everyone stops there. Or maybe the Fox and the Unicorn? They don’t much like kender, so probably not.”
Tasslehoff talked on, but he couldn’t induce the Knight to tell him anything. That didn’t really matter much to Tas, who was perfectly capable of making up the entire incident himself. By the time they had finished eating and Gerard had gone to wash the pan and the wooden bowls in a nearby stream, the bold kender had stolen not one but a host of wondrous magical artifacts, snatching them out from under the very noses of six Thorn Knights, who had threatened him with six powerful magicks, but who had, all six, been dispatched by a skilled blow from the kender’s hoopak.
“And that must have been how I came down with magnesia!” Tas concluded. “One of the Thorn Knights struck me severely on the headbone! I was unconscious for several days. But, no,” he added in disappointment. “That couldn’t be true for otherwise I wouldn’t have escaped.” He pondered on this for a considerable time. “I have it,” he said at last, looking with triumph at Gerard.
“You hit me on the head when you arrested me!”
“Don’t tempt me,” Gerard said. “Now shut up and get some sleep.” He spread out his blanket near the fire, which had been reduced to a pile of glowing embers. Pulling the blanket over himself, he turned his back to the kender.
Tasslehoff relaxed on his blanket, gazed up at the stars. Sleep wasn’t going to catch him tonight. He was much too busy reliving his life as the Scourge of Ansalon, the Menace of Morgash, the Thug of Thorbardin. He was quite a wicked fellow. Women would faint and strong men would blanch at the mere sound of his name. He wasn’t certain exactly what blanching entailed, but he had heard that strong men were subject to it when faced with a terrible foe, so it seemed suitable in this instance. He was just picturing his arrival in a town to find all the woman passed out in their laundry tubs and the strong men blanching left and right when he heard a noise. A small noise, a twig snapping, nothing more. Tas would not have noticed it except that he was used to not hearing any noises at all from the forest. He reached out his hand and tugged on the sleeve of Gerard’s shirt.
“Gerard!” Tas said in a loud whisper. “I think someone’s out there!”
Gerard snuffled and snorted, but didn’t wake up. He hunched down deeper in his blanket.
Tasslehoff lay quite still, his ears stretched. He couldn’t hear anything for a moment, then he heard another sound, a sound that might have been made by a boot slipping on a loose rock.
“Gerard!” said Tasslehoff. “I don’t think it’s the moon this time.” He wished he had his hoopak. Gerard rolled over at that moment and faced Tasslehoff, who was quite amazed to see by the dying fire that the Knight was not asleep. He was only playing possum.
“Keep quiet!” Gerard said in a hissing whisper. “Pretend you’re asleep!” He shut his eyes.
Tasslehoff obediently shut his eyes, though he opened them again the next instant so as to be sure not to miss anything. Which was good, otherwise he would have never seen the elves creeping up on them from the darkness.
“Gerard, look out!” Tas started to shout, but a hand clapped down over his mouth and cold steel poked him in the neck before he could stammer out more than “Ger—”
“What?” Gerard mumbled sleepily. “What’s—”
He was wide awake the next moment, trying to grab the sword that lay nearby.
One elf stomped down hard on Gerard’s hand— Tas could hear bones crunch and he winced in sympathy. A second elf picked up the sword and moved it out of the Knight’s reach. Gerard tried to stand up, but the elf who had stomped on his hand now kicked him viciously in the head. Gerard groaned and rolled over on his back, unconscious.
“We have them both, Master,” said one of the elves, speaking to the shadows. “What are your orders?”
“Don’t kill the kender, Kalindas,” said a voice from the darkness, a human’s voice, a man’s voice, muffled, as if he were speaking from the depths of a hood. “I need him alive. He must tell us what he knows.” The human was not very woods-crafty apparently. Although Tas couldn’t see him— the human had remained in the shadows— Tas could hear his booted feet mashing dry leaves and breaking sticks. The elves, by contrast, were as quiet as the night air.
“What about the Dark Knight?” the elf asked.
“Slay him,” said the human indifferently.
The elf placed a knife at the Knight’s throat.
“No!” Tas squeaked and wriggled. “You can’t! He’s not really a Darkulp!”
“Keep silent kender,” said the elf, who held onto Tas. He shifted the point of his knife from the kender’s throat to his head.
“Make another sound and I will cut off your ears. That will not affect your usefulness to us.”
“I wish you wouldn’t cut off my ears,” said Tas, talking desperately, despite feeling the knife blade nick his skin. “They keep my hair from falling off my head. But if you have to, you have to, I guess. It’s just that you’re about to make a terrible mistake. We’ve come from Solace, Gerard’s not a Dark Knight you see. He’s a Solamnic—”
“Gerard?” said the human suddenly from the darkness.
“Hold your hand, Kellevandros! Don’t kill him yet. I know a Solamnic named Gerard from Solace. Let me take a look.”
The strange moon had risen again. Its light was intermittent coming and going as dark clouds glided across its empty, vacuous face. Tas tried to catch a glimpse of the human, who was apparently in charge of this operation, for the elves deferred to him in all that was done. The kender was curious to see him, because he had a feeling he’d heard that voice before, although he couldn’t quite place it.
Tas was doomed to disappointment. The human was heavily cloaked and hooded. He knelt beside Gerard. The Knight’s head lolled to one side. Blood covered his face. His breathing was raspy. The human studied his face.
“Bring him along,” he ordered.
“But, Master—” The elf called Kellevandros started to protest.
“You can always kill him later,” said the human. Rising, he turned on his heel and walked back into the forest.
One of the elves doused the fire. Another elf went to calm the horses, particularly the black, who had reared in alarm at the sight of the intruders. A third elf put a gag in Tas’s mouth, pricking Tas’s right ear with the tip of the knife the moment the kender even looked as if he might protest.
The elves handled the Knight with efficiency and dispatch. They tied his hands and feet with leather cord, thrust a gag into his mouth, and fixed a blindfold around his eyes. Lifting the comatose Knight from the ground, they carried him to his horse and threw him over the saddle. Blackie had been alarmed by the sudden invasion of the camp, but he now stood quite calm and placid under an elf’s soothing hand, his head over the elf’s shoulder, nuzzling his ear. The elves tied Gerard’s hands to his feet, passing the rope underneath the horse’s belly, securing the Knight firmly to the saddle.
The human looked at the kender, but Tas couldn’t get a glimpse of his face because at that moment an elf popped a gunny sack over his head and he couldn’t see anything except gunny sack. The elves bound his feet together. Strong hands lifted him, tossed him headfirst over the saddle, and the Scourge of Ansalon, his head in a sack, was carried off into the night.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE MASQUERADE
As the Scourge of Ansalon was being hauled off in ignominy and a sack, only a few miles away in Qualinost the Speaker of the Sun, ruler of the Qualinesti people, was hosting a masquerade ball. The masquerade was something relatively new to the elves— a human custom, brought to them by their Speaker, who had some share of human blood in turn, a curse passed on by his father, Tanis Half-Elven. The elves generally disdained human customs as they disdained humans, but they had taken to the masquerade, which had been introduced by Gilthas in the year 21 to celebrate his ascension to the throne twenty years previously. Each year on this date he had given a masquerade, and it was now the social highlight of the season.
Invitations to this important event were coveted. The members of House Royal, the Heads of Household, the Thalas-Enthia— the elven Senate— were invited, as well as the top ranking leaders of the Dark Knights, Qualinesti’s true rulers. In addition, twenty elf maidens were chosen to attend, handpicked by Prefect Palthainon, a former member of the elven Senate and now the chief magistrate newly appointed by the Knights of Neraka to oversee Qualinesti. Palthainon was nominally Gilthas’s advisor and counselor. Around the capital he was jocularly referred to as the “Puppeteer.”
The young ruler Gilthas was not yet married. There was no heir to the throne nor any prospect of one. Gilthas had no particular aversion to being married, but he simply could not quite make up his mind to go through with it. Marriage was an immense decision, he told his courtiers, and should not be entered into without due consideration. What if he made a mistake and chose the wrong person? His entire life could be ruined, as well as the life of the unfortunate woman. Nothing was ever said of love. It was not expected that the king should be in love with his wife. His marriage would be for political purposes only; this had been determined by Prefect Palthainon, who had chosen several eligible candidates from among the most prominent (and the most wealthy) elven families in Qualinesti.
Every year for the past five years, Palthainon had gathered together twenty of these hand-chosen elven women and presented them to the Speaker of the Sun for his approbation. Gilthas danced with them all, professed to like them all, saw good qualities in them all, but could not make up his mind. The prefect controlled much of the life of the Speaker— disparagingly named “the puppet king” by his subjects— but Palthainon could not force his majesty to take a wife.
Now the time was an hour past midnight. The Speaker of the Sun had danced with each of the twenty in deference to the prefect, but Gilthas had not danced with anyone of the elven maidens more than once— for a second dance would be seen as making a choice. After the close of every dance, the king retired to his chair and sat looking upon the festivities with a brooding air, as if the decision over which of the lovely women to dance with next was a weight upon him that was completely destroying his pleasure in the party.
The twenty maidens glanced at him out of the corners of their eyes, each hoping for some sign that he favored her above all the others. Gilthas was handsome to look upon. The human blood was not much apparent in his features, except, as he had matured, to give him a squareness of jaw and chin not usually seen in the male elf. His hair, of which he was said to be vain, was shoulder-length and honey-colored. His eyes were large and almond-shaped. His face was pale; it was known that he was in ill health much of the time. He rarely smiled and no one could fault him for that for everyone knew that the life he led was that of a caged bird. He was taught words to speak, was told when to speak them. His cage was covered up with a cloth when the bird was to be silent.
Small wonder then that Gilthas was known to be indecisive, vacillating, fond of solitude and of reading and writing poetry, an art he had taken up about three years previous and in which he showed undeniable talent. Seated on his throne, a chair of ancient make and design, the back of which was carved into the image of a sun and gilded with gold, Gilthas watched the dancers with a restive air and looked as if he could not wait to escape back to the privacy of his quarters and the happiness of his rhymes.
“His Majesty seems in unusually high spirits tonight,” observed Prefect Palthainon. “Did you notice the way he favored the eldest daughter of the guildmaster of the Silversmiths?”
“Not particularly,” returned Marshal Medan, leader of the occupation forces of the Knights of Neraka.
“Yes, I assure you, it is so,” Palthainon argued testily. “See how he follows her with his eyes.”
“His Majesty appears to me to me to be staring either at the floor or his shoes,” Medan remarked. “If you are going to ever see an heir to the throne, Palthainon, you will have to make the marriage yourself.”
“I would,” Palthainon said, grumbling, “but elven law dictates that only the family may arrange a marriage, and his mother adamantly refuses to become involved unless and until the king makes up his mind.”
“Then you had better hope His Majesty lives a long, long time,” said Medan. “I should think he would, since you watch over him so closely and attend to his needs so assiduously. You can’t really fault the king, Palthainon,” the marshal added, “His Majesty is, after all, exactly what you and the late Senator Rashas have made him— a young man who dares not even take a piss without looking to you for permission.”
“His Majesty’s health is fragile,” Palthainon returned stiffly.
“It is my duty to remove from him from the burden of the cares and responsibilities of the ruler of the elven nation. Poor young man. He can’t help dithering. The human blood, you know, Marshal. Notoriously weak. And now, if you will excuse me, I will go pay my respects to His Majesty.”
The marshal, who was human, bowed wordlessly as the prefect, whose mask was, most appropriately, that of a stylized bird of prey, went over to peck at the young king. Politically, Medan found Prefect Palthainon extremely useful. Personally, Medan thought Palthainon utterly detestable.
Marshal Alexius Medan was fifty-five years old. He had joined the Knights of Takhisis under the leadership of Lord Ariakan prior to the Chaos War that had ended the Fourth Age of Krynn and brought in the Fifth. Medan had been the commander responsible for attacking Qualinesti over thirty years ago. He had been the one to accept the surrender of the Qualinesti people and had remained in charge ever since. Medan’s rule was strict, harsh where it needed to be harsh, but he was not wantonly cruel. True, the elves had few personal freedoms anymore, but Medan did not view this lack as a hardship. To his mind, freedom was a dangerous notion, one that led to chaos, anarchy, the disruption of society.
Discipline, order, and honor— these were Medan’s gods, now that Takhisis, with a complete lack of discipline and of honor, had tumt;d traitor and run away, leaving her loyal Knights looking like utter fools. Medan imposed discipline and order on the Qualinesti. He imposed discipline and order on his Knights. Above all, he imposed these qualities on himself. Medan watched with disgust as Palthainon bowed before the king. Well knowing that Palthainon’s humility was all for show, Medan turned away. He could almost pity the young man Gilthas.
The dancers swirled about the marshal, elves dressed as swans and bears and every other variety of bird or woodland creature. Jesters and clowns clad in gay motley were in abundance. Medan attended the masquerade because protocol required it, but he refused to wear a mask or a costume. Years ago, the marshal had adopted the elven dress of loose flowing robes draped gracefully over the body as being most comfortable and practicable in the warm and temperate climate of Qualinesti. Since he was the only person in elven dress attending the masquerade, the human had the odd distinction of looking more like an elf than any other elf in the room. The marshal left the hot and noisy dance floor and escaped, with relief, into the garden. He brought no body guards with him. Medan disliked being trailed about by Knights in clanking armor. He was not overly fearful for his safety. The Qualinesti had no love for him, but he had outlived a score of assassination attempts. He could take care of himself, probably better care than any of his Knights. Medan had no use for the men being taken into the Knighthood these days, considering them to be an undisciplined and surly lot of thieves, killers, and thugs. In truth, Medan trusted elves at his back far more than his own men.
The night air was soft and perfumed with the scents of roses and gardenias and orange blossoms. Nightingales sang in the trees, their melodies blending with the music of harp and lute. He recognized the music. Behind him, in the Hall of the Sky, lovely elf maidens were performing a traditional dance. He paused and half-turned, tempted to go back by the beauty of the music. The maidens were performing the Quanisho, the Awakening Promenade, a dance said to drive elf men wild with passion. He wondered if it would have any effect on the king. Perhaps he might be moved to a write a poem.
“Marshal Medan,” said a voice at his elbow.
Medan turned. “Honored Mother of our Speaker,” he said and bowed.
Laurana extended her hand, a hand that was white and soft and fragrant as the flower of the camellia. Medan took her hand, . brought the hand to his lips.
“Come now,” she said to him, “we are by ourselves. Such formal titles need not be observed between those of us who arehow should I describe us? ‘Old enemies’?”
“Respected opponents,” said Medan, smiling. He relinquished her hand, not without some reluctance.
Marshal Medan was not married, except to his duty. He did not believe in love, considered love a flaw in a man’s armor, a flaw that left him vulnerable, open to attack. Medan admired Laurana and respected her. He thought her beautiful, as he thought his garden beautiful. He found her useful in assisting him to find his way through the sticky mass of fine-spun cobweb that was the elven version of government. He used her and he was well aware that in return she used him. A satisfactory and natural arrangement.
“Believe me, madam,” he said quietly, “I find your dislike of me much preferable to other people’s friendship.”
