by Mark Anthony
“He lives?” the mage demanded.
Even though the sword appeared useless against Arelas, Tanis kept it poised before him. “Gilthanas is above you in ascendancy, Arelas,” the half-elf shouted. “You will not be Speaker no matter what you do here today.”
Arelas quivered, as if he teetered at the edge of the Abyss. Then one arm shot forward, and lightning hurtled toward the half-elf.
Acting purely on instinct, Tanis raised his sword. The mage’s bolt struck Elansa’s pendant, melting it into drops of steel; a new burst of lightning arced from the sword back to the mage, who screamed with the blow and hurtled from the balcony.
His body burst into flame before it struck the floor of the Tower.
Epilogue
A.C 308, Late Summer
“But where did he get the power?” Tanis asked again.
Flint shook his head. There were rumors, of course, legends of a source of great chaotic power hidden in caverns deep below Qualinost, but the dwarf was not of a mood to recite legends.
He ordered ale for the both of them. The innkeeper at the Inn of the Last Home brought the beverage to their table in overflowing mugs, and Flint sighed. “Ah, lad, I have longed for this. A comfortable table in the corner of a cozy inn. Real ale, with a kick like Fleetfoot’s.”
But Tanis wouldn’t abandon the subject. They’d been over it ad nauseam during the past three weeks, and they had yet to come to a proper understanding of what had happened.
“Miral—Arelas—killed so many people because he’d been sent from Qualinesti as a child? Flint, that’s not reason enough.” The half-elf toyed with his mug, twirling it in a wet circle on the wooden table.
The dwarf nodded. “I know, lad. There’s some power behind all this, something we don’t know about. But there are tales that would explain it.”
“The Graystone? That’s a myth, Flint.” The half-elf’s tone was flat. There would be no convincing him.
Flint shook his head and hoisted his tankard, then he smacked his lips. Five days in Solace, and still the taste of a mug of good ale was a fresh treat.
“Flint.”
“Now what?” the dwarf grumbled.
Tanis’s tone was urgent. “The amulet saved my life. Why didn’t it save my mother’s? It belonged to her.”
They’d been over this, too, during the weeks they’d spent on the trail, Flint rocking along on Fleetfoot and Tanis posting smoothly on Belthar. “I don’t believe it was enchanted when Elansa had it, Tanis. I think Ailea had something to do with that.”
The mention of Ailea cast a shadow over the friends.
“But I thought she could perform only magical illusions, tricks to amuse children,” Tanis disagreed. “And minor magic to use in childbirth. Nothing major.”
“We thought Miral was a minor mage, too.”
Tanis nodded and was still for a bit. Then a new thought occurred to him. “The mage killed all of them—Kethrenan, Elansa, Xenoth, Ailea. Even Tyresian, when he saved Laurana from the falling marble. And why? So Arelas could eliminate all the heirs between himself and the Speakership. Did he think he could walk out of the rubble of the Tower and announce that he was really Arelas and that they should make him Speaker?”
Flint glowered at Tanis. “I expect he would have found a way.” Or perhaps the Graystone would have, he added to himself.
“But …”
Flint nudged the half-elf’s ale a bit closer to him. “Give it up, lad. Some things you have to take on faith. It made sense to Arelas.” When Tanis opened his mouth, Flint held up a hand. “Enough.”
They sat silently for a time. Then Flint lifted his mug again. “A toast,” he said.
To turn down a toast was an insult. Tanis curled his hand around the handle of the tankard. “A toast,” he echoed.
“To Ailea.” They exchanged glances and clinked their mugs. “And to future fellowship,” Flint added.
Tanis smiled.
“To fellowship,” the half-elf agreed.
About The Authors
Mark Anthony is the author of the L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future Contest award-winning story, “A Walk by Moonlight,” which appears in Volume Five of that anthology series. Kindred Spirits is his first published novel, and also his first work for TSR.
Currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Paleontology at Duke University, he spends a good deal of his time prowling the badlands of Wyoming and Montana searching for sixty-million-year-old fossil mammals. While he currently resides in North Carolina, Colorado is his home, and he never strays from the mountains for too long.
Ellen Porath teaches agricultural journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has worked as a freelance editor on topics ranging from fantasy fiction to horse science. She also enjoys reading and writing murder mysteries. A member of Mensa, Ellen considers the pun the highest form of humor. She lives in Elkhorn, Wisconsin, with her husband and daughter.
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