by Jeff Crook
“Hungry,” Cael said. “I feel thin as a wight.”
“I can fix that!” Claret said, grinning. She turned to the door at the sound of a small, joyous gasp. Cael followed her gaze.
Alynthia stood in the doorway, one hand covering her lips. She wore trousers of brown homespun, a simple blouse, and her feet were bare. She had cut her hair, shorn off all her tight ringlets, leaving her with an unruly mass of short black curls.
Her hand shook as she lowered it. “It’s about time you woke, you old lazybones,” she said with feigned anger. The sparkle in her dark eyes revealed her happiness.
“Elves never sleep,” he answered. “I was merely faint from hunger and torture.”
“Well, then you fainted for a month and a day,” Alynthia laughed.
“How long?” Cael cried in surprise as he rose up in bed-and found he couldn’t. He fell back heavily, gasping.
“You should rest,” Claret said to him as she glared at Alynthia. The captain of thieves approached the bed and laid a hand on Cael’s forehead.
“Your fever only broke yesterday,” she softly said to the elf. “Claret is right. I’m sorry.”
“A month and a day!” Cael sighed as he let them rearrange his coverings. “What happened?”
“What do you remember?” Alynthia asked.
“Not now!” Claret barked. “Let him rest. He needs food, then more sleep.”
“No, I want to know,” Cael protested. “Tell me.”
“Where do I begin?” Alynthia asked as she slumped wearily into the chair beside the bed.
“I’m going to heat some broth,” Claret said. She left the room, her long black dress swishing over the wooden floor.
“I remember waking in the sewer. Was Gimzig there?” Cael asked.
“Yes,” Alynthia answered without looking at him.
“What happened?” Cael demanded. He had the dimmest recollection.
“He was taken…” she began, then shook her head as though fighting to control her emotions. “Protecting us,” she finished with cracking voice.
“Taken? Taken how?”
“A sewer monster, dammit! Must I relive all the horrible details?” Alynthia cried.
“No,” he said. “Gods! Poor Gimzig.”
“After… that, I brought you here. You had a fever,” Alynthia continued. “You raved for a while, then you grew still as death, your eyes open, staring at nothing, lips moving. You stayed that way for weeks. I thought… I feared… but yesterday your fever broke, and you seemed to slip into a restful sleep. The healer said you would either recover or would never wake.”
“Where is this place?” Cael asked, looking around.
“It’s my own,” she said proudly. “It isn’t a palace, but no one, not even the Guild, knows of its existence. It’s near the university.”
“Are you hiding me from the Guild?” Cael asked.
“No, I am hiding us,” Alynthia said.
“Us?”
“Oros has announced that I have been kidnapped.”
“Why?”
“I rescued you, against the strict prohibition of Mulciber. She had ordered that you be allowed to die in the dungeons of Palanthas, that there was not sufficient danger of your betrayal of the Guild under torture, as you knew little of the Guild’s workings.”
“So why did you rescue me?” Cael asked.
Alynthia looked away and said nothing for a long while. Cael watched her, looking for any outward clue to her emotions, but her face remained rigid, her eyes staring blankly at the wall.
Finally, she spoke. “You saved my life three times that night,” she said, almost choking on the words. “Risked your life to save mine. On the other hand, my dear husband has announced that your accomplices kidnapped me in order to secure their escape from the city. There have even been ransom notes. He, of course, refused to negotiate. Mulciber has, no doubt, ordered my death as well as yours. So now the Guild as well as the Knights of Neraka search for both of us.”
“You shouldn’t have sacrificed yourself for me,” Cael said.
“There is more,” Alynthia continued, ignoring his statement. Her face was grim. “You should hear it all. They killed your friend, Kharzog Hammerfell.”
“Oh, gods no!” Cael groaned. He remembered what happened at the Dwarven Spring. Had Kharzog tried something foolish on his behalf?
Cael’s hands wrenched at the bedsheets. “How did he die?” he asked.
“I wasn’t there. They say that Arach Jannon cut him down in public, made an example out of him. There was nearly a riot over it. The dwarf was well loved.”
“Aye,” Cael sighed. “Aye, that he was. He was my only friend in this world. Now there is no one.”
Alynthia looked away, unable to bear the sight of the elf’s grief over the loss of his friend. She did not tell him of the dwarf’s funeral, where fate, it seemed, had introduced her to the gnome, Gimzig and where she heard his plan for rescuing Cael. Nor did she tell him of the extraordinary turnout by the local dwarven community. Few citizens of Palanthas had ever suspected that so many dwarves lived in their fair city. Even a few gully dwarves had made an appearance, much to the dismay of everyone.
Claret opened the door and eased into the room, balancing a tray in one hand. Atop it, fragrant steam rose from a wooden bowl.
“What about her? How is she involved in this,” Cael said suddenly, almost fiercely.
“Her father was imprisoned and died of fever. Her mother is in one of the labor camps, under suspicion of aiding you. Her brother is in an orphanage. They never caught dear Claret. She is too clever for them. She is too clever even for me. She found us here, and now she helps us by going in disguise to the market to purchase our supplies and gather news.”
Claret smiled at these compliments while handing Alynthia the tray. She helped Cael sit up in the bed, propping him up with pillows fetched from the dresser. “I’m sorry, Claret,” Cael whispered during her gentle ministrations.
“Don’t be,” she answered with a trembling smile. Without warning, huge tears welled out from her gray eyes. She turned and rushed through the door, pressing the hem of her dress to her face. They heard her in the other room, sobbing.
“She has not cried until now,” Alynthia said.
She eased the tray with the bowl of broth onto the bed beside Cael and took up the wooden spoon. She stirred the broth.
“Are you hungry?” she asked, trying to sound cheerful.
He nodded, his eyes closed.
“Claret has made this broth for you,” she said. “It smells good.”
Cael turned and looked at it, then at the door. He nodded again and reached for the spoon. Alynthia held it out of his reach. “Just relax,” she said. “Let me.”
He lowered his hand with obvious reluctance. She held the spoon to his lips, and he noisily gulped the warm broth. “I feel like a fool,” he muttered between sips.
Eventually, the sobs in the other room stilled, and Claret once more appeared at the door, stripped of her covering of heavy black wool and wearing a homespun shift She dabbed at her red eyes with a cloth but smiled at Cael when she saw him eating.
“Is it good?” she asked.
He nodded, taking another sip. The warm broth seemed to ease the turmoil in his heart, and after a few sips he remembered how hungry he was. The simple pleasure of eating, the sating of hunger, lightened his spirit.
He finished the bowl, feeling the warm and hearty nourishment already making him feel stronger. Smiling, Alynthia started to wipe his lips with a napkin, but he took it from her.
“You can at least let me do this myself!” he said. He pressed it to his lips and chin, and as he did a strange look passed across his face.
Alynthia smiled, and Claret snickered, hiding her mouth behind her hand. Cael felt gingerly along the lower half of his face, fingering the strange nest of curling red hair that had sprouted and grown full and luxuriant from his chin and cheeks.
He looked at Alynt
hia with such an expression of bafflement that she laughed out loud.
“Yes,” she said with a smile. “You grew a beard. Claret wanted to shave it off, but I wouldn’t let her.”
“I don’t like it,” Claret said poutingly. “It makes him look too human.”
“This is impossible,” Cael gasped. “Elves cannot grow beards.”
“I think it makes you more handsome, not so boyish,” Alynthia said, ignoring his protest. “Once you are better and have filled out those ghastly hollow cheeks, you’ll have a rugged, manly look about you.”
“Well, I just don’t like it!” Claret protested. “He was much prettier without it.”
Cael stared in horror from the girl to the woman, all the while touching the alien growth of hair on his face. “Neither of you understand, do you?”
“Understand what?” they asked in unison, gazing upon him with merry eyes.
“Oh, just leave me!” he snarled. “Leave me alone.”
Slowly, laughing together, they walked to the door, Alynthia carrying the tray. “Men are so sensitive about their looks,” Claret whispered loud enough for Cael to hear.
“I’ll say,” Alynthia agreed as she shut the door.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
A month later, Cael stood at the foot of the bed, one gauntleted fist on his hip, the other thoughtfully tugging at the groomed red beard on his chin. Claret had trimmed it for him, since he hadn’t the slightest idea how to do it himself, and he didn’t dare visit a barber. He and Alynthia never left the room except after dark, and even then they avoided places like shops and taverns, instead preferring to stroll along out-of-the-way streets, alleys, and parks. Their nightly constitutionals had helped to restore Cael’s health. He felt new life and a new purpose for living flowing like hot wine through his veins.
The window over the bed was thrown wide, allowing the cool breeze off the bay to waft through, rustling his hair and stirring in him the Wanderlust he always felt at the first scent of autumn. A whole summer had passed during his imprisonment, illness, and recovery, and he felt its loss acutely. To his right, the window overlooking the bay was propped open, and the plaintive cries of gulls reached his ears. Toward the open sea, beyond the Bay of Branchala, the sky was the color of iron, while over Palanthas some sunlight shone through the clouds.
Behind him, the bedroom door was closed. He heard Alynthia and Claret in the next room arguing over the cut of some cloth Claret was sewing. Before him, hanging from the wall was an old polished silver mirror. He stared into it as through probing the depths of a well for some glimmer of water. He rubbed his beard, tugging his chin first to the left, then to the right, examining his profile. He pushed back his long red hair to reveal his pointed elven ears, as though checking to make sure everything was still there.
At last, he shook his head and let his hand fall to his side. It came to rest on the pommel of a long, slim rapier. Claret had managed to get the weapon for him from somewhere. He didn’t know where, as unlicensed bladed weapons were illegal in Palanthas. She was indeed a neverending marvel of resourcefulness. Without her, he and Alynthia would have barely gotten by. Cael caressed the pommel of the blade. In the dungeons of Palanthas, he had been helpless to defend himself against his torturers and guards. That lingering fear left him feeling empty and afraid, even after his recovery, but the presence of the weapon, the blade at his side, gave him the confidence to face the world again.
He drew it from its sheath and, in imitation of the Knights he’d faced in the alley, saluted himself in the mirror. Lunging suddenly forward with a loud stamp of his foot, he thrust the blade ahead, parried an imaginary blade, and continued the thrust to its fullest length, hammering the tip into a spot in the wall. The blade sank into a patch of wood that looked as if it had been peeked by a hundred woodpeckers. Chips and flecks of sawdust flew as he leaped back, on guard for the next attack, his green eyes blazing.
He met his own gaze in the mirror again. He slammed the rapier home in its sheath, then resumed contemplation of his own profile, tugging his bearded chin this way and that.
“Don’t even think about it. You can’t shave it off,” Alynthia said as she entered the room.
“Why not?” Cael asked distractedly, continuing to examine himself in the mirror.
“It’s the perfect disguise,” she said. “They’ll never look for you, an elf, wearing a beard. Here, try this on.”
Cael turned and found Alynthia holding a hooded tunic of close-woven black wool. Claret stood at the door, a sewing basket over one arm and a needle held between her lips as she gazed at the elf.
Cael stooped so Alynthia could slip the garment over his head. He worked his arms through the sleeves while she pulled it snug to his waist. She stepped back to examine him.
“Oh, here,” she said, stepping towards him again. She pulled the tight-fitting hood over his head and adjusted the set of the tunic on his shoulders, pausing to briefly touch his muscles beneath the cloth. “You’ve filled out nicely,” she commented. “Better than before.”
Cael turned to Claret. “How do I look?”
“Like a thief,” she said with a laugh.
“You look like a lamplighter,” Alynthia disagreed. “That’s how I designed it. I have another I’ve cut down to fit me.”
Cael turned back to the mirror. His red beard spilled from the hood like a blaze. The tunic did loosely resemble the unofficial uniform of the Palanthian Lamplighters’ Guild, but he did not have the perpetual squint of a lamplighter. He practiced one, evoking a guffaw from Alynthia. Claret shook her head and exited the room.
“Tell me again why we’re pretending to be lamplighters tonight,” Cael asked as he adjusted the fit some more.
“So we can get into the Old City,” Alynthia said. “At night, lamplighters are a common enough sight. The Thieves’ Guild has a secret pact with the Lamplighters’ Guild. At our request, they will allow the lamps to burn out in areas we designate, to better aid our business.”
“A collaboration that’s not very secret, I might add,” Claret noted with a scowl as she reentered the room. “Everyone knows the lamplighters and the thieves are in cahoots.”
“Fine. That much I understand,” Cael said. “What is our reason for entering the Old City at all and taking the risk of passing the Gates?”
“We’ve already discussed this,” Alynthia said with an exasperated sigh. “We are going to the Great Library to research the Night of Black Hammers. If we can find some information about the distribution of Guild treasures, we might find a clue as to the location of the Reliquary.”
“Why do we want this Reliquary again?
“With it, we can win our way back into the Guild’s graces,” she said.
“Why? The Guild has betrayed you. Your husband…” his voice trailed off at Alynthia’s dark look.
“The Guild will gladly accept the Reliquary as the price of our good standing. Alone in this city, with both the Guild and the Knights hunting us, we are bound to be captured sooner or later. Don’t you want to rejoin the Guild? Or do you wish to return to the dungeons of Palanthas?”
“I’ll never return to the dungeons of Palanthas,” Cael said gravely while fingering the sword at his side. “That’s why I must recover my staff. I can defend myself with this,” he said, indicating the rapier, “but I need my staff. It was given me by my shalifi.”
“Your what?” Alynthia asked.
“My master. Master Verrocchio. He was the finest swordsman on all Krynn. He gave me that staff in solemn ceremony, and it was given to him by the sea elves before I ever met him, to be given to the one whom the staff would serve. It is bound together with my destiny. I’ve told you all this before. I must get it back!” he shouted for emphasis, as he slapped a gauntleted hand against a gauntleted fist.
“Do try not to be so damned selfish for once, will you?” Alynthia snarled. “Think of all those who have suffered for you. Will you throw all away on a fool’s errand? You can’t get it b
ack from Arach Jannon without risking your life—and after we have worked so hard to save it.”
“I can get it back, with your help,” Cael said.
Alynthia opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again. She blinked at the elf, who solemnly returned her gaze.
“All right,” she said at last, her voice breaking. “I’ll make you a deal. We go first to the Great Library. If we cannot find evidence of the Reliquary, then I will show what a soft-hearted fool I am and help you steal back your staff. But if we do find evidence, then we steal the Reliquary first.”
Cael paused a moment, then said, “Agreed.”
He extended one gauntleted hand. She took it, and they shook hands firmly.
Suddenly, she pulled herself to him and threw her arms around his neck. “Thank you,” she said, blinking up at him with her dark sparkling eyes. “I wouldn’t want to go on my next job without you.”
“I wouldn’t let you go alone,” he said, a shadow of a smile parting his red beard.
“You’ve grown taller,” she commented.
“No, you have shrunk. I reached my full height before you were born.”
“Yes, and elves can’t grow beards,” she said.
“Don’t let’s talk about it.”
“Now who’s speaking like a romantic poet?”
Chapter Thirty
The Great Library of Palanthas was one of the city’s most famous buildings, one of the most well known buildings in all of Krynn. Here for uncounted centuries the Aesthetics of the Library had watched over and maintained the greatest repository of knowledge ever gathered, and for most of those centuries they had also attended the master of the library, the historian Astinus, who recorded the history of Krynn as it occurred. When the old master disappeared in the wake of the Chaos War, taking the contents of the library with him, the library’s monks continued their duties as best they could, painfully rebuilding their vast collection of books, scrolls, documents, and artifacts. Though Krynn had lost its chronicler and they mourned the absence of their undying leader, they struggled on.
