Silence greeted her harsh words. The dryad lowered her head, wishing that she could weep, for her tears were never salty and they might help her tree live longer. Clearly she had failed, and the Dark Knight had chosen to ignore her until he passed out again-if he hadn’t already passed out.
“You may think whatever you like, dryad, but I have my own beliefs and my own honorable goals to achieve,” he said, finally. “When I became a Dark Knight, I had a Vision of what my Dark Queen wished for me. This Vision spoke of battles won for her sake. Never did it say that I should give my last hope of survival to a nature spirit who sits next to a dead tree. I cannot fail my Queen by surrendering to you this water. Once my fellow Knights come and rescue me out from under my Bolt, I can heal and once again ride to victory for Takhisis.”
The dryad raised her head and gazed at his expression. It spoke of pain and duty. “So, your hopes for the future differ from mine, human,” she whispered and sighed. “I always find you humans to be so full of determination to get your way. You don’t take the time to look around and realize that others also walk through life. Never do you think that the trees do their job by providing shade for you or that the birds should be thanked for chattering overhead. If there were no trees or birds, you wouldn’t be able to achieve these goals that your mistress has set for you.”
The Knight settled onto his back again, biting back a gasp of pain. He looks so very pale under the redness caused by exposure to sun, the dryad thought. He must be losing blood. “Are those the birds you speak of?” he asked once he got comfortable.
She looked up and noticed several vultures flying overhead. “Even carrion eaters serve a purpose, Knight.”
“Yes, they eat the flesh of the fallen. My talon usually shoots them down. They are foul beasts, always hovering over the battlefield,” he declared in an annoyed tone. “I suppose they’ve come for Bolt. I wish my crossbow was at hand.”
She sighed and shook her head. “If something didn’t eat the dead, we would be surrounded by carcasses.”
“So, you don’t mind?” the Knight asked, clearly trying to get a rise out of her. “You don’t care if they tear away pieces of flesh, fight over your body. It doesn’t bother you?” He laughed without humor. “Vultures are disgusting creatures who prey on those whose passing should be honored in a more fit manner. I know of one fellow Knight who wore a family ring that he wished to pass on to his daughter. The ring had been handed down from one generation to the next ever since before the First Cataclysm. It bore the symbol of a wild boar, which signified an event that gave honor to his family. Evidently, a great boar had almost gored a member of the Ergothian nobility, and the man’s forebear saved the noble’s life by killing the boar, thus gaining the gratitude of the noble’s family. The man’s ancestor received the ring from the noble’s family. Ever after that it was passed down from firstborn to firstborn. Because of a few vultures, though, I was unable to retrieve the ring from the Knight’s body and deliver it to his daughter. The vultures must have eaten it before I could get to him.”
The dryad pondered the story for a few moments, then answered. “First of all, you place too much emphasis on the trappings of honor.” An expression of annoyance flickered across his face. “Secondly, if I die outside my tree, then it is fitting that my body becomes part of the circle of life,” she said calmly. “However, I intend to crawl back inside my tree before I die.”
“And if your tree dies with you inside? What then?”
The dryad watched the vultures land on the ground several yards away. “My body ceases to exist when I’m part of my tree,” she said absently. She looked at him sharply. “Are you offended by my honesty?”
The Knight shook his head weakly. “Telling the truth is an admirable trait. I do not get offended if I ask a question and you give a truthful response. By asking the question, I open myself up to both falsehoods and truths. While a falsehood may make me feel more comfortable, I prefer to hear the truth. That way, I know where I stand.”
The dryad looked over at the gathering vultures. “I prefer to tell the truth whenever possible. Often, humans follow the exact opposite behavior, I’ve discovered. At least, that is true of the ones I’ve talked to.”
The Knight frowned. “You haven’t spoken to many Knights, have you? Though we serve an Evil mistress, our honor requires truth.”
The dryad smiled wryly. “Then the truth couldn’t offend you.” The heat of the sun must be getting to me, she thought. She looked down at her skin. It seemed as dead and dry as the surrounding land. I won’t survive much longer, she realized. Neither will my tree.
“No, it couldn’t,” he agreed. He was no longer sweating, but he should be, she thought.
The vultures hopped nearer. Slowly they were moving closer, the dryad noted. If nothing challenged them, they would continue to edge closer until they could tear at the blue dragon’s flesh. The silver had raked its side, slicing open a great wound, making things easier for the carrion birds. “If you die here because your talon doesn’t show up like you insist it will, won’t you have stained your honor by lying to yourself?” she asked wearily.
He remained silent for a bit before answering. To the dryad, time seemed to slow down and then stretch out interminably. I’m slowly dying, she thought.
“My talon moved on ahead of me just as I was ambushed by the silver and its rider,” the Knight revealed. “We fought a fierce battle in the skies, then Bolt took a bad hit from the rider’s lance. After that, the silver dragon grazed my Bolt and then we both fell from the sky,” he said. His voice too was not much more than a whisper now, she thought.
“So the rest of your talon flew somewhere and they expect you to catch up? How do you think they’ll know where to come back and find you?”
The Knight sighed. “They know what path we took. They can guess where I fell behind. They should be coming along soon, as a matter of fact.”
“Are you sure that you aren’t lying to yourself?” the dryad queried in a weak voice. “And don’t you stain your honor if you tell a falsehood, even to yourself?”
“I hadn’t thought of that before,” he admitted. “I would have to say yes.” He slowly raised himself to a position where he could get a drink of water from the waterskin. When he was done, he almost dropped to the ground, wincing with pain. “And you? Are you lying to yourself when you say that this waterskin will help your tree and this forest to live?”
“Maybe not the forest. But the tree,” she said, “the tree has remarkable powers. It had enough magic in it to birth me. I have no doubt that your sacrifice of water would help revive the tree. And with the tree alive and growing, perhaps others would follow-even in the face of your great dragons and their destructive magic.”
The two of them remained silent, watching the vultures creep toward their feast. Just when they were about to slip out of sight and attack the dragon’s gaping wound, the dryad made an effort, calling on her last reserves, and got up on her knees to yell as loudly as she could, “Heeeeyaaaah!”
The startled birds flapped their wings and scattered to a spot farther away. The Knight too was jolted and turned around to look at her. The dryad sank down and stretched out, exhausted. “Why did you do that?” the Knight asked softly.
The dryad shrugged. Even though her link to her tree had been slightly strengthened by the small doses of water, she was too weak even to speak.
“Here, have some water.” The Knight held out another capful. His hand trembled worse, causing some of the water to spill onto the ground. The dryad reached out slowly and took the cap. She immediately dashed the water over her tree’s roots and handed the cap back. Immediately she felt a little better. Gradually she sat up again. The Knight was looking at her, puzzled.
“Why did you scare away the vultures?” he asked again.
She shrugged. “You dislike them so.”
“After your little speech on how they serve as part of a natural cycle, you decided to scare them away?” he
asked. “You must have a reason.” He sounded wary. “You did it just to get some water, didn’t you?”
Her head hurt. The sun was high in the sky now, so the heat was at its worst. “Since you prefer the truth, I must answer ‘yes’ to your question.”
The Knight’s face expressed doubt, so she looked beyond him and noticed the vultures starting their approach again. “Watch the vultures,” she told him. “My energy is almost gone, then you will be on your own.” He looked at her in concern. “Did you expect that I would outlive you, Knight? I would need a lot more water to do that,” she pointed out, her voice not much more than a rasp.
“You are in better condition than me,” he argued halfheartedly. “Come now, sit up and talk. It is like you say: If I go to sleep, I might not wake up, after all.”
The dryad smiled slightly. “I fear that I can’t talk any longer. I’m the one who must fall asleep and never wake now.”
They sat in silence for a while as the Knight pondered that. The sun still beat down upon their heads. The Knight seemed to be struggling with some quandary, the dryad noted. She wilted into a position that brought her face down next to the ground. If she twisted her face and kept her eyes open, she could still watch him, though.
Finally, he turned to her. “Dryad,” he called out as loud as he was able. Her eyes were shut. “Dryad? I will give you some more water!” he called out.
Too late, she thought before lapsing into unconsciousness.
Then, a little time later, she felt an infusion of strength. She lifted her head. The sky was darkening into twilight.
“Knight? How much time has passed?” she called out. She received no answer. She looked to where the Knight rested. His head was down, his arm was outstretched. His hand gripped an empty waterskin. Strangely enough, the vultures were no longer around.
She looked over to her tree and saw that it was struggling to revive, and succeeding somewhat. “This man died with honor,” she whispered as she rose to her feet. Her tree’s empathic response mixed sorrow with hope.
Songsaycr
Giles Custer,Tod Fahnestock
Dayn Songsayer reined in his horse at the side of the road and took a deep breath. The road was busy, and the villagers looked at him warily as they passed. Not many friendly faces on the road these days, he thought. Dayn was determined to lend them a smile before long. Everyone was headed up the hill for the festival. Dayn had never been around these parts before, but he had heard rumors of a harvest celebration at a small temple to Paladine. The crowd appeared poor, but not as bad off as some he had seen. The people carried buckets of water or baskets of foodstuffs and blankets. They were not the type to have many spare coppers, but Dayn hoped he could make enough to spend the next few nights in an inn and possibly get some oats for the mare.
Dayn leaned over and patted his horse’s neck as he stretched his own back. A groan escaped him. His horse snorted, as if to agree. She stamped her hoof and nodded her head in the direction of a shady copse of trees. It was hot. The sun was merciless. It had been so ever since the Chaos War. Would things ever go back to normal? Dayn squinted at the sky. Would it always be so hot? Were the rumors true, that the gods had forsaken Krynn yet again?
Dayn didn’t want to believe the ugly tale, though many did. He’d grown up with the tales his father told of similar times long ago. The world had suffered so much when the gods were absent. No healers. Charlatans in robes walked the land, taking money from those unwise enough to believe in their gibberish about new gods. The voice of Paladine was seldom heard.
All of Krynn had almost fallen to the Dark Queen Takhisis. But whenever his father’s tales were at their blackest, a shining star would always appear. Someone would always rise up with the courage and conviction to make things right again. But nowadays. .
By the Abyss, if the heat didn’t let up soon, Dayn might prefer to serve the Dark Queen. Dayn frowned and made the sign of Paladine, murmured an apology.
Anyway, the gods certainly were fickle, Dayn thought, as he jumped down from the mare and looped the reins over her head. Then again so were people.
Dayn waited for the next villager. A sandy-haired woman made her way up the dry and dusty road. Three young boys buzzed around her like hornets. They all carried empty buckets and seemed to be intent on beating each other to death with them. The woman was oblivious to it all, the calm in the middle of a storm. She was not old yet, but the years of hard work had made her tough and lean. Unlike most of the others, this woman didn’t glance away. She looked him directly in the eye and nodded. Dayn would bet anything she had a sharp tongue hidden behind her cynical grin.
“Excuse me, good lady,” Dayn accosted her. “I was wondering if you could tell me what all the empty buckets are for.” Dayn’s deep, rich voice often put people immediately at ease. He was told it had a soothing quality. It was an asset in his line of work. This woman was no different than most. She looked at the lute strapped across Dayn’s back, and her expression softened a bit.
“G’day, stranger,” she said. “You must be wanting something if yer callin’ me a lady.”
Dayn smiled. He was right about her sharp tongue. “I’m not looking for anything more than a kind word from a friendly face. I’m not from these parts. I have heard there is a festival going on, but I don’t know what for.”
“Aye, stranger. ‘Tis in honor of Paladine.” She said the word as if it left a sour taste in her mouth. “Every year after spring planting we gather at the temple for the god’s blessing.”
“We get to stay up all night,” the oldest boy piped in.
“And build a big fire,” the middle one added.
The youngest hid behind his mother’s skirts. Dayn noticed the boy had his hand wrapped in a dirty bandage. The dark stains from old blood were still showing through it.
“The temple grounds are filled with berry bushes,” the woman continued. “Everyone stays up the night, and at dawn we get to pick as many berries as we can eat.”
“And the buckets?”
“Some fools expect to bring a bucket home, but most berries never get past their mouths.”
“Indeed,” Dayn said, then turned on his most charming smile. “I don’t suppose you know where an honest man might sing for his supper?”
“A storyteller, are ya?” She eyed the lute. “I figured as much. No one’s got much to give away around here, lad, but I imagine someone would put up a fine bowl o’ stew if yer singing were as good as yer speaking.”
“That’s all I ask. Food for my belly and a song in my heart.”
“Yer young yet, you’ll soon find you need more than that to get by in this world. Come with me. I’ll show you the way.”
“Indeed.” Dayn said, and followed his new friend up the hill.
The woman, Jayna by name, led Dayn into the temple grounds. The temple was small but beautiful. The white stone was flawlessly smooth and looked very old. It was built on the top of a hill with a wonderful view of the pastures and farmlands below. The temple had a small monastery for the clerics in the back. Their freshly plowed gardens were slowly being overwhelmed by the hordes of berry bushes all around.
The people had gathered around a fountain in front of the temple. There were perhaps forty families, more women than men. The Chaos War had seen to that. Everyone was chatting softly among themselves, and even the children were playing quietly. The mood was rather dark for a festival. Perhaps Dayn could do something about that.
Dayn headed for a berry bush. A little fruit seemed just the thing to cut this beastly heat. The bushes seemed to thrive in this oven. They were brimming with dark green berries. He grabbed a berry and was about to eat it, when he heard a lovely voice.
“You’re not going to eat that?”
Dayn turned around and was smitten immediately. The voice came from a girl of eighteen or nineteen. She had long, raven black hair bound up in a beautiful bun, fixed with a wooden comb. A few long strands had come free, mischievously hanging in front
of her deep, dark eyes. She brushed one strand away and hooked it behind her ear. She was pushing a steaming cart. Dayn could smell the soup simmering inside.
“We can’t eat the berries until dawn. It’s Paladine’s way of reminding us that good things will come to those who wait.”
“Really?” Dayn said with a smile. He carefully balanced the berry back on the leaves of the bush.
“Actually,” the girl said, “it’s mostly a way the clerics can keep the people from earing all the berries before they get enough for themselves.”
“I understand perfectly. Is there any way you could spare a bowl of soup for a starving artist?” Dayn asked.
The young woman leaned back on her heels and crossed her arms. Her expression told Dayn that this was a small community. She knew him for a stranger; she probably knew each of the people around the temple by name. Her delicate black eyebrows raised, and her warm smile became a bit more distant.
“I give a free bowl of soup to everyone who gives me two free coppers,” she said.
Dayn smiled. “I could sing for you,” he offered.
The girl leaned forward and put her hands on the edge of the cart. One of those errant strands of black hair came loose and sloped along the side of her smooth chin. Dayn felt he could write a ballad on those provocative, rebellious hairs alone.
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