by Mark Anthony
"I just don't want him to spoil the surprise."
The expression on Miral's drawn face asked the unspoken question.
Flint grinned and rubbed his hands together. "It's a gift," he said, gesturing to the half-finished sword, which lay cooling by the forge.
Miral stepped closer to examine the weapon, the orange light of the coals glowing in his pale hair and reflecting off the black leather trim of his long-sleeved, blood-red robe. He reached out a gloved hand and touched the warm metal gently, almost reverently.
"And a wondrous gift it will be," he said, turning to regard Flint. His thoughts appeared far away for a moment. "It's beautiful."
"Bah, it's not even finished yet," Flint said gruffly, but his chest puffed out just the same. He pulled out a grubby length of cloth and tossed it over the weapon. Eld Ailea stood by the door, making preparations to leave. "I made some arrowheads for him, as well, last winter in Solace," Flint added. "I thought I would present Tanis with one grand gift."
"Hmm?" Miral said. Suddenly he shook his head, as if coming back to himself after being lost in reverie. "I'm sorry, Master Fireforge. I fear I slept little last night. The Speaker plans to make an important announcement tomorrow afternoon—though what it is, only he and Lord Xenoth seem to know—and preparations have kept everyone busy. Even a minor mage has duties. And so does Tanis, if ever I find him."
Saying that he would look for the half-elf in the Grand Market, Miral took his leave of Flint and Eld Ailea, pausing to pat the toddler on the head. The youngster took a swing at the mage with a wooden horse; Miral deftly sidestepped the blow and headed out the door.
"Minor mage," Eld Ailea whispered, her brows knit. She appeared deep in thought. Even after the mage was out of earshot, Eld Ailea continued to hover in the doorway. Twice, she appeared to be on the verge of saying something, then she stopped herself. Meanwhile, the child busied himself with denuding the climbing rose of its lower leaves and strewing them over the doorstep. "I have a confession, Master Fireforge," the alto voice finally confided. "I too came here hoping to find Tanthalas. I. . . I am not welcomed by some at the Palace anymore. Thus I hoped to find him here."
"Oh?" Flint questioned, still watching the receding mage's red robe. "Why?"
"I knew his mother."
She refused to say more, then left immediately.
Chapter 12
The Sword
Qualinost was silent. The night lay over the city like a dark mantle. Although it was closer to dawn than midnight, an orange light still flickered behind the windows of Flint's small shop. Inside, the dwarf sank wearily to a wooden chair, regarding his handiwork before him. The sword was done.
It glimmered flawlessly in the ruddy glow of the forge, the light dancing on its razor-sharp edge and playing along the grooves of the dwarven runes of power that Flint had carved into the flat of the blade. The handguard was fashioned of smooth curves and graceful arcs of steel, so fluid it seemed as if it had grown about the hilt of the sword like the tendrils of some entwining vine. Even Flint—modest as the dwarf was wont to be—sensed there was something special about this sword. He could only hope Tanis would like it.
He enjoyed pleasing the half-elf. Perhaps someday he could show Tanis around Solace and let him see that elves weren't the only folk on Krynn. That would please Tanis even more than the sword would, he thought.
Flint sighed and then stood. He banked the coals beneath the ashes in the furnace and blew out the one tallow candle shining in the dimness. By silver moonlight, he found his way to his bed in the small room behind the shop and, kicking off his boots, he tumbled down into exhausted slumber. Soon the dwarf's snores rumbled upon the air, as rhythmic as the plying of his hammer only moments before.
* * * * *
It was the darkest part of the night. The door to the shop swung slowly open, smoothly, so that the chimes made no noise. A figure stepped through, carefully shutting the door behind itself. It paused, cocking its head, and then, as if satisfied, drifted soundlessly toward the workbench.
The sword shone faintly in the cool light of Solinari, spilling in through the window. The dark, cloaked figure lifted a gloved hand and ran a finger down the length of the blade, as if testing its edge, and then it held both hands above the weapon. Murmured words spilled forth on the air, spoken in an ancient tongue of a people turned to dust age upon age ago, the name of their people long forgotten. Few spoke the tongue now, save sorcerers and mages, for it was the language of magic.
The mumbling ended, the last syllables drifting on the air like motes of dust. The sword began to glow, not with moonlight, but with a light from within. It was a crimson brightness, growing hotter and hotter, until the sword gave off an angry illumination, the color of fire. Nearby, a small mound of iron arrowheads also took on the glow. Suddenly a shadow seemed to separate from the darkness beyond the ring of illumination and drifted toward the sword, as if beckoned by the stranger's hand. The shadow defied the crimson light until suddenly it flowed down, coursing into the blade as if it had been sucked in. The weapon gave a small jerk, then the illumination faded.
The door to the shop swung in the gentle night breeze. The snores continued, uninterrupted. The stranger was gone.
Chapter 13
The Announcement
Flint encountered Tanis the next morning in the Grand Market; the half-elf stood before a tent with a sign that read, "Lady Kyanna: Seeress of All Planes." Underneath, a smaller sign read, "Special Rates Available." The midnight-blue tent was decorated with silver silhouettes of moons and constellations. Several young elves, only a few years out of childhood, and giggling as they fingered their coins, slipped around Tanis and Flint and entered the tent. The scent of incense drifted from the tent as they moved the flap back, and a low voice intoned, "Welcome to a view of your futures, fair elves."
"Seers," Flint snorted. "Crooks and charlatans, all of them. Why, did I ever tell you the time I was at the Autumn Festival in Solace? Let's see, . . ." the dwarf mused. "It must have been not long after that day I bested those ten highwaymen in the Inn of the Last Home."
Tanis resisted Flint's efforts to draw him away from the seer's tent. "I wouldn't mind a look into my future," he said. The dwarf snorted and dragged him down the tiled pathway left open between the tents and stalls. The half-elf seemed suddenly to come to himself. With one last longing gaze at Lady Kyanna's tent, he looked at Flint with a quirk of his features and prompted, "You were saying?"
"A Solace street
wizard tried to sell me an elixir he claimed would make me invisible," Flint said, allowing the half-elf to draw to a stop before the stall of an elf who sold, of all things, swords. "It looked suspiciously like clear water to my eye, but he said to me, 'Of course it's clear. Otherwise, it wouldn't make you invisible, now would it?' Well, when I got home with the elixir—"
Tanis turned from stroking the hilt of a sword. "You mean you bought it?" he asked in disbelief.
"Not because I believed a word of the street wizard's sly talk, mind you," Flint said testily, his eyes flashing, trying once again to hustle the half-elf away from the sword display. "I knew all along it was a hoax. I just wanted to have some evidence so I could turn him in to the authorities for the charlatan he was."
"So what happened when you used the elixir?" Tanis asked smoothly, his attention still engaged by the weaponry display. "Those are beautiful swords. I could use—"
"Shoddy workmanship," Flint interjected, hauling on the half-elf's arm, ignoring the furious glance of the weapon seller. "You don't need a sword. Who is there to fight in Qualinost? Anyway, I drank the potion down and thought I could get away with pinching a tankard or two off this snub-nosed innkeeper who had cheated me a few days back, giving me a mug of watered-down ale instead of the good stuff," Flint said, a wickedly gleeful grin on his face. But then he frowned. "Except that somehow the bouncer—who was sure to be half hobgoblin if he was anything at all— managed to see me and . . . Hey!" Flint said indign
antly, realizing he had told a bit more of the tale than he'd meant to.
He glared at Tanis, but the half-elf only regarded him with a serious expression.
"And . . .?" Tanis asked.
"And keep your nose in your own business!" Flint griped. "Don't you have other things to be worrying about?"
Slowly, deftly, Flint lured Tanis past the entrancing displays in the Grand Market and back to the dwarf's shop. They entered silently, Flint trying out various small speeches in his head, but ultimately, wordless, not knowing what to say, Flint stalked over to the table, where something long and slender lay concealed beneath a dark cloth.
"What is it?" Tanis asked, stepping nearer.
"Just something I finished last night," Flint said, and then he whisked the cloth away.
The sword lay beneath, bright as a bolt of lightning frozen still and solid. Several dozen arrowheads, dull black and wickedly sharp, lay next to the sword.
Tanis's eyes, of course, went straight to the sword. "Flint, it's a wonder," Tanis said softly, reaching out a hand to brush the cool metal.
"Do you like it?" Flint asked, raising his bushy eyebrows. "It's a gift, you know."
"For . . ." The half-elf trailed off, and his face went stony. For a shocked half-moment, the dwarf feared that Tanis didn't like the sword; then he saw Tanis's hands clench, and he realized his friend was fighting back some strong emotion. "Oh, I couldn't take it," the half-elf said softly at last, gazing at the weapon with covetous eyes.
"Sure you can," Flint said testily. "You'd better, lad."
Tanis hesitated a few heartbeats longer, then reached for the sword with a tentative hand. Finally, he grasped the hilt. It was cool and smooth, and somehow it felt right. A shiver ran up his spine. The sword was more than a weapon. It was a thing of cool beauty.
"Thank you, Flint," he said softly.
The dwarf waved away the half-elf's words. "Just find a use for the thing, and I'll be happy," he said.
"Oh," said Tanis fervently, "I will."
* * * * *
Even after all his years amid the elves, Flint still felt awed every time he set foot within the Tower of the Sun, and he never failed to pause for a moment just outside the central chamber's gilded doors and shut his eyes, paying silent respect to the dwarven craftsmen who had built it so long ago.
The great doors swung open before him this afternoon, their bas-relief cherubs grinning wickedly for a second as they angled away, looking at the dwarf out of the corners of their eyes. Flint shook the notion from his head and stepped inside, being careful not to look all the way up at the six-hundred-foot ceiling.
It's not that it makes my stomach a bit flopsy to gaze all the way up there, mind you, Flint told himself. I just don't want to spoil it all by going and looking at it every single time I walk into the room.
Most of the courtiers had arrived, Flint saw, but the Speaker himself was absent, as was Tanis. "Sure as a hammer is heavy, he'll be late," Flint grumbled, shaking his head so that his beard wagged back and forth. Figuring he was on his own for a while, he moved away from the gathered elves, leaned against one of the pillars that lined the chamber, and waited for court to begin.
Courtiers, opulently attired in long tunics of green, brown, and russet silk embroidered with silver and gold thread, stood in groups around the hall, their quiet voices echoing in the upper reaches of the Tower. Much of the conversation, Flint realized as he stood by the pillar, centered on the Tower guards' inability to catch the tylor.
"How difficult can it be to locate one twenty- or thirty-foot monster?" one old elf complained. "In my day, the beast would have been slain days ago."
The elf's companion sought to mitigate the elder one's ire. "The forest is large and magical. The Speaker should form a special troop, with a wizard and the best-trained men, to track, corner, and slay the beast." The old elf nodded his agreement.
"Everyone's an expert," Flint muttered.
Porthios's friends Ulthen and Selena, the woman's slender arm entwined around the elven lord's waist, glided by and took up a position on the other side of the pillar. Selena's eyes, the dwarf saw, were constantly on, not her companion Ulthen, but Litanas, Lord Xenoth's new assistant, who stood with the adviser at the foot of the rostrum. Flint moved over a foot or so, hoping they wouldn't see him. He knew Selena, Litanas, and Ulthen were part of the group of elves that didn't want outsiders in court, even though the blond Selena rarely failed to gush over Flint's "wonderful dwarven artistry" when she saw him.
Selena's cutting voice came clearly to his ears.
"Well, Litanas told me that Tyresian threatened Xenoth if the adviser didn't stop throwing impediments in his way. But Litanas didn't know exactly what the argument was about. I think Xenoth hides things from Litanas, which just isn't fair because Lord Litanas is one of the most intelli—"
Ulthen tried to quiet her. "Selena, your voice. . ." he said.
"Oh, Ulthen, leave me be. Anyway, Litanas said . . ."
Ulthen grimaced, and Flint realized that the young lord probably heard "Litanas said" a lot.
"Well, I heard that the Speaker is going to cancel the Kentommen until the tylor is captured."
Ulthen's voice was growing impatient. "Oh, Selena, don't be ridiculous."
Her voice rocketed to a screech. "Ridiculous! How safe do you think it is, to have people coming in from all over, on the same trails that the tylor has made so dangerous?"
Ulthen—and Flint, on the other side of the pillar—had to admit that Selena had a point. Perhaps that's what this announcement was all about. It would almost certainly be the first time a Kentommen was canceled; tradition dictated that the ceremony be held on the lord's ninety-ninth birthday, and quite a crisis would be required to delay one.
Just then the gilded doors swung open, and the Speaker stepped through, followed by Laurana. The reflected sunlight that filled the Tower shimmered off his green-gold robes, and Solostaran walked with regal grace into the chamber. Flint made his way toward his friend.
The Speaker was greeting various courtiers, exchanging pleasantries, but Flint noticed immediately that there was something odd about the Speaker today. If the Speaker of the Sun had changed at all in the twenty years that Flint had known him, then the dwarf was unaware of the differences; the Speaker stood as straight as the Tower itself, his face still as timeless as the marble of the Tower's inner walls. But today, though his eyes were normally as clear and warm as a midsummer's day, there was a troubled look in them.
"Master Fireforge," the Speaker said as he turned to see the dwarf standing patiently beside him, not wishing to interrupt the Speaker's conversation with the courtiers. "I am glad you could be here."
"I'll always come, should you ask it," Flint said. For the first time, he noticed a faint wrinkle in the Speaker's smooth brow, beneath his gold circlet of state.
The Speaker smiled at the dwarf, but the expression seemed wan. "Thank you, Flint," he said, and Flint was slightly surprised. It was the first time he could remember the Speaker calling him by his first name in a formal setting. "I fear I'm going to need a friend such as you today."
"I don't understand," Flint said.
"The bonds of friendship are strong, Flint, but sometimes they can bind too tightly." The Speaker's gaze flicked over the crowd, came to rest on Lord Xenoth and Litanas, then moved away.
"Oh, I see," Flint said gruffly. "I'll just leave you alone, then."
"No, Master Fireforge," the Speaker said then, placing his hands on Flint's shoulders before the dwarf could walk away. A hint of a smile played across his lips before drifting away again. "I am speaking of a different sort of friendship, that between two houses. While such ties have helped me— and my father before me—in the past, I regret the price I must pay for that friendship now."
"But what is it?" Flint asked. What could one do for a friend that would be so distasteful?
The Speaker softly shook his head. "I'm afraid you will hear soon enough. But tell me
, Flint, that later you'll have the time to drink a cup of wine with an old elf."
The Speaker smiled once more as Flint assented, then walked toward the rostrum in the center of the chamber. The Speaker ascended the podium, and the courtiers ended their conversations to turn their attention toward him. Where was Tanis? Flint wondered.
Porthios stood to his father's left, near Lord Xenoth and Litanas, seemingly trying to appear as regal as the Speaker, but looking to Flint more like a puffed-up young rooster. Porthios's younger brother, Gilthanas, stood to the right of the rostrum with the rest of the ceremonial guards. The guards wore black leather jerkins, glinting with silver filigree entwined in the symbol of the Sun and the Tree. It was the same symbol that had adorned the flag that Kith-Kanan had borne with him when he had first set foot within the forest of Qualinesti.
Gilthanas had joined the guard not half a year ago. He was still little more than a boy, only slightly older than Laurana, but Flint knew that Porthios had argued long and hard with the captain of the guard to gain the position for Gilthanas. Although Gilthanas did his best to imitate the rigid stance of the other guards, holding his sword before him in the traditional salute, the weapon seemed too heavy for his slight frame. Flint shook his head. He had to give the boy credit for trying so hard to be strong, but Flint wasn't exactly sure what Gilthanas seemed to be trying to prove.
Just as the Speaker raised his hands in greeting to the entire court, signaling the beginning of the proceedings, Flint was jostled from behind. He spun around, eyes flashing, to give a piece of his mind to the clumsy idiot who hadn't the sense to watch where he was going.
