Enid. I would have blushed in embarrassed delight had I been conscious to do so. But Enid dropped me all of a sudden, with a little cry of dismay that was the first thing I heard when the fall awakened me. Sir Ramiro was thrashing Alfric within an inch of his life, there in the peaceful foothills of Estwilde. Though they had agreed upon Bayard’s heroism in the taking of the Scorpion’s Nest, their argument as to who might receive second laurels had passed apparently from merely ill-spirited to downright aggressive.
Both were puffing from exhaustion and rage, and they were red from embarrassment, when Enid herself pulled them apart.
There followed a long round of revivals, of reconciliations. And soon, Alfric and Sir Robert were to their feet. Or so I am told. I still wobbled and fell to the ground, babbling about centaurs and the customs of drowning, and asking for my dice.
We were out of the mountains before I recalled leaving the little red prophets somewhere in the rough country around me. No doubt they are buried to this day amid rubble and rock, somewhere in the foothills of Estwilde.
I asked Bayard to pause and help me look for the Calantina dice, but he would have nothing to do with “such foolishness,” saying I had outgrown playthings and false prophecy.
I was inclined to agree. I have no particular need of the future, though my hands still itch for the red dice and the wooden verses that, even if they did not explain the things that came to pass, provided an explanation into which you could fit those things and feel better.
I have put prophecy aside and, for the moment, scheming.
The sparks that we all expected would fly between Bayard and Enid finally began on the long road back to Castle di Caela. Sparks were also flying between Sir Ramiro and Alfric. My brother’s bluster and boasting had not worn well on the old Knight after so many miles. Indeed, Sir Robert’s diplomacy was called upon at the very gates of Castle di Caela, when Sir Ramiro pushed Alfric from his horse and into the moat for the sole reason that my eldest brother had “a face that deserved pushing into a moat.”
He went on to maintain that Alfric’s face would look better perched on a pike atop the battlements.
Alfric scarcely survived being fished from the water, and as soon as his armor had dried, he was on his way back to Coastlund, dreaming, I am sure, of the view from a pike. He whimpered a bit at the prospect of returning to Father bearing the now-battered armor and weaponry he had filched from the moat house, no doubt having caused the old man to comb the countryside and drag the swamp in his eldest son’s absence, fearing that abduction, drowning, or just plain foolishness had lost him an heir.
The reception would not be warm.
My relief at Alfric’s going was mixed with sadness, for Brithelm went with him, and I lost the companionship of my favored brother as well. Brithelm was to ride with Alfric as far as the Coastlund Swamp, where he intended to stop and set up the hermitage he had longed for during the dangerous times in which we hunted down the Scorpion.
But when my brothers had crossed the mountains and descended onto the plains of my home country, they found out—to nobody’s real surprise, actually—that the Coastlund Swamp had vanished.
Centaurs and peasants agreed on the account: that gradually, tree by tree and vine by tendril, the swamp had shrunk and shrunk until all that was left was a curious house on stilts, miles from anywhere and still stinking of goat and decay and something, the centaurs claimed, a little more unsettling than even those disagreeable smells. So Brithelm escorted his elder brother all the way back to the moat house, where he spent a few days smoothing the path with Father, who, as I had suspected, was none too pleased with Alfric.
That mission done, Brithelm headed east once more, where he settled amid the huge stone structures in the Vingaard Mountains where Bayard, Agion, and I had passed the night and I had first heard of the prophecy in the Book of Vinos Solamnus.
Though, for the life of me, I have never been able to find my way to the spot where Brithelm has set up his hermitage, and though Bayard has sworn never to give directions to that spot, I am confident that my brother is safe and in good hands—a little abstract and foolish, perhaps, but safe and reliable should times of trouble come again.
Times of trouble, I understand, have come and gone at the moat house. After imprisoning Alfric for a brief and miserable sentence, Father once more has released him, and is riding him daily in the performance of squirely duties. Alfric has no time, I hear, to torture the servants or to sneak wine into his room, and I have it on good authority that Gileandos has burst into flames only once since my brother’s return, and that because he had caught the sleeve of his robe in the fire of his homemade laboratory distillery. Alfric was not blamed for the accident.
I, for once, had the perfect alibi. I was miles away in Solamnia.
Who knows, Alfric may change his ways and become a reasonably presentable squire. A few years from now, when I am a Knight and in need of someone to curry my horse and polish my sword and armor, I may ride up to Coastlund and talk to Father about taking on his eldest son and heir for the job. I have no objections to a squire who’s pushing thirty—I can forgive many things, even a certain slowness in learning.
What’s more, being my squire would be especially galling to Brother dear.
It may surprise you that I have set my cap toward Knighthood, with all the terrible things I’ve said and thought about the Order. Well, I’m doing so because I have no real choice if I’m to inherit the considerable property I’ll receive as a reward.
Castle di Caela and all its holdings.
For you see, after the banquet tonight, and the ceremonies, I shall be Galen Pathwarden Brightblade, adopted son and heir of Sir Bayard Brightblade.
At the turn of the month, after another banquet and other ceremonies even longer and more boring than these, I shall be Galen Pathwarden di Caela Brightblade, when Stepfather and Stepmother are wed at last.
The courtship was shy, almost ridiculous at first, since both Bayard and Enid had been accustomed to letting prophecy and family history govern their lives and hadn’t the first idea about how to woo each other.
Bayard even tried to enlist my help in writing a courtship song to Enid. That lasted until I explained to him how effective my poetry had been on the night Alfric pursued his romantic fortunes. Bayard decided I was bad luck, and consulted me no more on matters of the heart.
Nonetheless, awkward though it may have been, the two fell in love. Scarcely a week had passed back at Castle di Caela, when “the troth was plighted,” as the saying goes, and Sir Robert and Bayard began to make plans for the wedding. I caught Dannelle looking foolishly in my direction, so I moved my quarters into what I called Lady Mariel’s Cat Tower, as far away from the marital line of fire as possible.
Yet I didn’t see where it would hurt to escort Dannelle to the marital banquet, to let the poor girl see the apple of her eye decked out in Solamnic finery. Especially since I had almost sold her up the river when I dangled her name in front of the Scorpion to confuse his rather dramatic intentions.
After all, in the weeks to come, we would be in-laws, Dannelle and I, and it would not do for in-laws to hide from each other as they have been doing these last few weeks in the castle.
What’s more, she is an ivory, bright-eyed thing. If it is nothing bridal, I expect I can shoulder the burden.
Two hours remain before I put on that robe of red and yellow, the colors of my new family, and march, like I saw so many Knights marching that night so long ago, through the great dining hall of Castle di Caela.
Downstairs they are preparing for it. You can hear out my open door the ringing of cutlery and the clatter of plates being set on the great hall’s oaken tables. It is a night of ceremony, of celebration that approaches. It is a night of banquets.
I look forward to it devoutly.
But if anyone comes to my quarters beforehand, bearing proposals or bribes or promises or threats or offers of any kind, I shall say, “No, thank you, I am try
ing to quit that business.”
I have stretched my luck and my story as far as I can.
MICHAEL WILLIAMS was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to where he keeps returning despite various adventures in northern geography. After publishing poetry in American Review, Poetry Miscellany, and other national and regional magazines, he wrote the songs that appear in the six DRAGONLANCE® novels. His humor has appeared in AMAZING® Stories under the pen name of Hollis “Bubba” Fletcher; his most recent stories appear (this time, under his own name) in the best-selling DRAGONLANCE anthologies The Magic of Krynn; Kender, Gully Dwarves, and Gnomes; and Love and War. Back in town once more and apparently to stay, he and his wife Teri, an artist and weaver, live “in an old and eccentric part of the city” and teach at the University of Louisville. This is his first published novel.
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