by Mark Anthony
“With all respect, Speaker, I would posit that our guest will not desire a refill,” the elf rasped, helping Flint to his feet. “Elvenblossom wine is an acquired taste.” The dwarf swayed, and the half-elf leaped forward to support him. Flint nodded his thanks.
“Perhaps Master Fireforge would prefer to conclude this interview at another time, Speaker,” the robed one said smoothly.
Solostaran raised his brows and looked at the dwarf. “Perhaps you are right, Miral,” the Speaker replied.
“Ark,” Flint hacked. “I’m fine.” He coughed and felt his face grow pale. The magic-user snapped his fingers, and thinly sliced quith-pa appeared in his outstretched hand. Flint chewed a slice of the bread while the Speaker, more casual now that court was over, waved his daughter forward.
The elf girl, pointed ear tips barely showing through her spun-gold hair, drew a slender chain from her neck. At one end dangled a single, perfect aspen leaf, glimmering green and silver in the golden light. Although it looked natural, as if it had just been plucked from a living tree, this leaf was fashioned of silver and emerald, so skillfully wrought it could not be discerned from a real leaf save for the sparkles of light it sent dancing across the little girl’s rapt face.
The dwarf gasped in surprise; the movement brought up a peachy belch, prompting another chuckle from Lauralanthalasa. “I made that leaf six months ago,” Flint exclaimed, swallowing the last morsel of quith-pa. “Sold it to an elf passing through Solace.”
“My envoy,” the Speaker said. Flint started to speak, but the Speaker held up one hand. “The leaf is perfect in every way. No tree is closer to the heart of an elf than the aspen. I determined to find the artist who could translate such feeling into his work. And I discovered that this artisan is no elf, but a dwarf.”
The Speaker turned away for a heartbeat, then paused. “You must be weary from your long journey,” he said. “Miral will show you to your chambers.”
Solostaran watched as the dwarf and the magic-user walked from the chamber. It had been a long time since a sight such as that had been seen in Qualinost. Too long. Times had been dark of late. It still seemed only a moment—instead of thirty years—since his brother Kethrenan had been slain, and such raids had not yet ended.
“Friendship …,” Solostaran echoed his earlier words. The world could do with a bit more friendship.
The streets of the elven city spread out beneath Flint’s feet. Before being shown to his chambers, Flint had asked Miral to take him someplace where he might see more of the city. The elf had led him along the tiled avenues, past buildings fashioned of marble and rose quartz, the crystals splintering the light only to spin it again in dazzling new colors.
Aspen, oak, and spruce surrounded the buildings so that the houses of Qualinost seemed living things themselves, their roots sunk deep into the earth. Fountains bubbled in courtyards where elven folk, the women in dresses of cobweb silver, the men in jerkins of moss green, spoke softly or listened to the music of dulcimer and flute. The air was warm and clear, its touch as gentle as midsummer, although Flint knew that winter had barely loosened its grip on the land.
As he watched, the sun drew low in the west, the crimson sunset combining with the rosy hues of the living stone to bathe the town in pink light. The azure and white tiles of the streets deepened to purple. The scent of baking quith-pa and roasting venison filled the air, and few elves were too busy to come to the portals of their homes and businesses to enjoy the closing of the day.
The odor of blossoms still discomfited the dwarf, but he resolved to ignore it.
Miral led him to a lane that wound in arcs up a rise in the center of the city. The lane ended in a great square, the Hall of the Sky, walled only by the pale trunks of aspens and roofed only by the blue dome of the heavens. “This is a hall?” Flint asked after the magic-user identified its name. “There’s no roof.”
Miral grinned. “The sky is its ceiling, we say, although some believe that at one time there was a hall here, guarding something beyond value. Myth has it that Kith-Kanan caused the structure to rise into the sky to protect that which was within.” He looked wistful and drew in a great breath of pear-blossom-scented air. “Its said that whoever finds the structure will enjoy great success.”
“That’s nothing to sneeze at,” Flint agreed.
Miral darted a look at him and, after a pause, laughed shortly. The two looked over Qualinost, details beginning to vanish in the deepening twilight. Pinpoints of lamplight appeared in the uncommon glass windows of elven dwellings.
From the Hall of the Sky, in the center of Qualinost, Flint could gaze upon much of the ancient city. Four towers rose above the treetops at each point of the compass, and between each stretched a single delicate span of metal, a bridge connecting each of the towers in a single archway high above the ground. The four arches seemed like gossamer, shimmering even in the absence of the sun, but Flint knew that each was strong enough to bear the weight of an army, and an ache touched his heart as he marveled at the skill of the ancient dwarves who had built them. He wondered if Krynn would ever know such greatness again. Directly north, on a hill higher than the knoll he stood on now, rose the Tower of the Sun, so tall Flint could not help but imagine that if one stood upon it, he had only to reach up to brush the surface of the sky. So high was the Tower that its gold surface continued to reflect the westering sun even after that orb had left lower buildings wreathed in shadow.
“Do you see the two rivers?” Miral asked him, gesturing to the deep ravines to the east and west of the city. Flint grunted. Did he see them? Reorx above, he had had to cross one of them on a swaying bridge that seemed hardly strong enough to hold a rock dove, let alone a stocky dwarf. The thought of that deep, rocky ravine yawning beneath him still made his skin shiver.
“The one to the east is called Ithal-enatha, the River of Tears,” Miral continued in a soft voice. “And the other is Ithal-inen, the River of Hope. They join at the confluence beyond the Tower to flow northward, to the White-Rage River and then to the sea beyond.”
“Peculiar names,” Flint said with a grunt.
Miral nodded. “They are very old. They were given to the rivers in the days after Kith-Kanan and his people journeyed to the forests of Qualinesti. The names represent the tears wept during the Kinslayer Wars, and the hope for the future when the wars finally ended.”
The dwarf’s companion fell silent, and Flint was content to stay in this peaceful place for a while, gazing out over the city. Finally, however, it was time to go.
Miral escorted Flint to the Speaker’s palace, just west of the Tower of the Sun, and Flint found himself shown to his temporary chambers, a suite of high-ceilinged, marble-floored rooms three times the size of his own house back in Solace. He was free to rest and refresh himself as he wished, the mage informed him, showing him the door that opened onto a small room with a wash basin filled with cinnamon-scented water. Then he was left alone, with promises of food and ale—but no elvenblossom wine—to come soon.
“A dwarf in Qualinost!” Flint said with a soft snort to himself one last time. Reflecting that elven taste in scents and wine scarcely matched his own, he shed his tunic and leggings and dipped into the spicy bath to wash away the grime and dust of the road.
When an elven servant arrived not long after, he found the dwarf ensconced in a russet robe and sprawled on the sheets of the bed, snoring raucously. Quietly, the servant set down the tray of red ale, sliced venison and diced potatoes, then blew out the few candles that lit the room, leaving the dwarf to sleep in the darkness, and dream.
Chapter 2
Beware of the Dark
When the adult dreamed, he dreamed as a child.
He dreamed he was a toddler stood poised in the opening of a tunnel. Around the opening, quartz and marble and tile, once burnished, were now dirty with age and disuse. A small tree—no aspen, no oak, nothing the youngster had seen in his short life—grew out of the stone at the side of the cave mouth. The
child’s nostrils twitched with the smell of damp rock and—blue eyes widened—the scent of cinnamon! Cinnamon and rock sugar on quith-pa—the child’s favorite afternoon treat. And he was hungry, tired of this day’s outing.
The mother’s voice called from a nearby thicket in the Grove, the sacred forested area near the center of Qualinost. The child stood, irresolute, at the tunnel’s opening, clutching a stuffed animal, a kodragon, in one fat hand. The cave had not been there the day before, the child thought, but it was there now. Anything is possible in a child’s world, and this child had never known fear.
A Presence beckoned from within. Perhaps the Presence would play with the toddler; his own big brothers were far too busy with big brother things. The mother called again, a note of fear creeping into her voice.
The toddler debated. Was it The Game, where baby hid and mother found him? What better place to hide than a pretty tunnel? Its quartz and marble and tile now shone as though some magical Presence had polished them between one moment and the next.
The mother demanded that the little boy come out of hiding. At once, young elf. Or else, she warned.
That decided the issue. The child darted into the cave. And in that instant, in that first uncertain pause in the darkening tunnel, the opening grew over. Vines shot up from the dank earth. Rocks tumbled and blocked the afternoon light. In seconds, the opening had disappeared.
The child stood, uncertain, at the pile of rubble that had been the cave’s door. He wanted out, but there was no Out anymore. There was no light, no scent of cinnamon.
There was only the tunnel.
The man awakened, whimpering.
Chapter 3
Flint Settles In
A.C. 288, Late Summer
The weeks following his journey to Qualinost were busy ones for Flint. This day, as on almost every other, the smith headed for the Tower of the Sun, waiting only a few moments with the guard in the chilly corridor outside the Speaker’s chamber before the elven lord bade him enter.
Even now, after months in Qualinesti, the spare grandeur of the Speaker’s chambers spoke directly to Flint’s soul. Hill dwarves, like elves, felt deeply their link with the natural world. Light flooded through the great clear walls—extravagant glass walls—that made the tree-dotted land outside the private chambers seem like an extension of the room. In recent weeks, pears and peaches had hung ever heavier on the branches; apples blushed red. Solostaran’s quarters were nearly bare of decoration. White marble walls with veins of gray showed stark against window ledges of pinkish purple quartz. Torches, rendered unnecessary in the light that flooded the room during the day, lay cold and black in iron wall sconces. A marble-topped desk stood along one side of the room; behind it, in a heavy oaken chair placed to give the occupant a clear view of door and outdoors, waited the Speaker. Solostaran’s forest-green cloak formed the brightest spot of color in the chamber, and his innate sense of authority commanded the viewer’s attention.
“Master Fireforge!” the Speaker greeted, rising to his feet, green eyes twinkling over hawklike features. “Come in. As usual, you are a welcome diversion from affairs of state.” He gestured toward a silver bowl filled with candied nuts, dried apricots, apple slices, cherries, and other fruit, no doubt grown on the very trees outside the chamber. “Help yourself, my friend.” Flint declined the treat and fumbled with sheaves of parchment, trying to avoid sending any tumbling to the white and black marble-tiled floor. Finally, he scrunched them together, disregarding the wrinkles in the paper, and tipped them onto the Speaker’s desk. As usual, Solostaran exclaimed over the charcoal drawings, selecting a few designs from the many that pleased him.
The Speaker seemed distracted today, although his conversation was as sociable as ever. “As I have said often, you are a gifted artisan, Master Fireforge,” he commented.
The two spent minutes discussing the design of new wall sconces for the Speaker’s quarters, and whether Solostaran would prefer them with a standard black finish or polished to a metallic shine. The Speaker selected a combination of both. Suddenly, a knock resounded from the door to the chambers. It was Tanis. He moved to the table with little of the grace that elves were known for.
“You wished to see me, sir?” the half-elf asked Solostaran. Tanis’s features had the look, his limbs the awkwardness, of a youth just shy of manhood. He appeared doubly poised between two worlds—elf and human, child and adult. He’ll be shaving soon, the dwarf thought. Yet more evidence of Tanis’s human blood. The dwarf winced at the hazing the half-elf could expect from some of the smooth-faced elves. Tanis stood before the Speaker’s desk, sparing a nod for Flint, who, despite his earlier refusal of refreshments, was nibbling a slice of dried apple and did not speak.
“It’s time for you to begin advanced training in the longbow, Tanis,” Solostaran said. “I have selected a teacher.” Tanis looked in pleased surprise at Flint. “Master Fireforge?” the half-elf asked tentatively.
Flint swallowed the fruit and shook his head. “Not me, lad. The longbow’s not my weapon, although I’d be glad to demonstrate the fine points of the battle-axe.” And an excellent job the half-elf would make of it, too, with those growing human muscles, Flint said to himself.
“The battle-axe is not an elven weapon,” Solostaran gently corrected Flint. “No, Tanis, Lord Tyresian has agreed to take up your training.”
“But Tyresian …” The half-elf’s voice trailed off, and the dissatisfied cast clamped down over his countenance again.
“… is one of the most experienced bowmen in court,” the Speaker concluded. “He’s Porthios’s closest friend and heir to one of the highest families in Qualinost. He could be a valuable ally for you, Tanthalas, if you impress him as a student.”
Apparently forgotten in the exchange, Flint squinted at Tanis and plucked a sugared pear from the silver bowl. Tanis and Tyresian would never be allies, the dwarf thought, recalling the elf lord from Flint’s first day at court. A member of the cadre of four or five well-born elves who stuck to Porthios, the Speaker’s heir, like flies to honey, Tyresian had a knack for charming the aristocracy. But rare was the common elf who could meet Tyresian’s high social standards. Considered handsome by courtiers, Tyresian had sharp blue eyes and—odd among elves—hair no more than an inch long, cut with precision. Not surprisingly, a hill dwarf, however skilled, did not quite measure up in Tyresian’s eyes, and Flint guessed that a half-elf would fall even lower. The dwarf wondered how much of Porthios’s ill-concealed condescension toward his father’s ward was born of Tyresian’s opinions.
Tanis dared one last protest. “But, Speaker, my studies with Master Miral take most of the day—”
An irritated Solostaran cut him off. “That’s enough, Tanthalas. Miral has taught you much of science and mathematics and history, but he is a mage. He cannot demonstrate the arts of weaponry. Tyresian expects you to meet him in the courtyard north of the palace at midafternoon. If you wish to speak with him before then, you can find him in Porthios’s quarters.”
Tanis opened his mouth, then seemed to think better of it. With a curt “Yes, sir,” he walked with stiff back across the marble tiles and out the door.
Solostaran continued gazing at the door a few seconds after it banged shut. It wasn’t until Flint began rolling up the drawings that the Speaker’s attention returned to his audience with the dwarf. “Can I offer you anything?” Solostaran said again, with a vague wave toward the now half-empty silver bowl. “Some wine? Dried fruit?”
Flint declined, commenting that he’d eaten before he arrived at the Speaker’s chambers. Solostaran suddenly grinned—why, Flint couldn’t see—but the smile soon faded. Flint tucked the rolled parchments under his burly arm and was preparing to leave when the Speaker’s voice halted him.
“Do you ever have cause to wish you could rewrite history, Master Fireforge?” The words were wistful.
Flint paused, staring with alert blue-gray eyes into the Speaker’s green ones, and thought, He has no
elves he can call friends. Since taking up the Speaker’s mantle in the tumultuous years after the Cataclysm had changed the face of Krynn, Solostaran had been the focus of one rumor of deposition after another. He held his post through the force of his personality, through the truth that few elves could trace their bloodlines back several millennia to Kith-Kanan, and through the innate elven horror of drawing the blood of their elven kin. Still, Solostaran had to be aware of the occasional murmurs of unhappiness among courtiers, Flint thought. Some believed Qualinesti should be opened to wider trade with the rest of Ansalon. Others felt that all but pure elves should be deported over the border into Abanasinia.
The hill dwarf cast about for an answer to the Speaker’s query. He drew in a breath of air tinged with the scent of fruit, and said, “Certainly I would change history if I could. My grandfather’s family lost many numbers because of the Cataclysm.”
Three centuries before, the Cataclysm occurred because the old gods retaliated against the pride of the era’s most influential religious leader, the Kingpriest of Istar. When the Cataclysm rained destruction upon Krynn, the mountain dwarves retreated into Thorbardin, the great underground kingdom, and sealed the gates; as a result, their hill dwarf cousins, trapped outside, suffered the brunt of the gods’ punishment.
The Speaker’s eyebrows rose, and, confoundedly, in the face of Solostaran’s sympathy, Flint found himself unable to go on. “They died because the mountain dwarves locked the gates …?” the Speaker asked, and Flint nodded, unwilling to say more.
Solostaran stood and walked slowly to the clear wall. The gold circlet on his forehead glittered. The room was silent except for the breathing of the two figures. “I would give almost anything,” Solostaran said, “to have Tanis be my true nephew, to have my brother Kethrenan back among us with his wife, Elansa. To see my brother Arelas one more time.”
