The Puppet King

by Doug Niles

  “Now, the rest of you … you need to go to your homes, arm yourselves and your families!” Gilthas ordered, even as he wondered what good weapons might be against the horror he had observed on the hilltop. “Gather everyone who can fight—sons, daughters, servants—everyone! And make haste!”

  Some elves started to disperse to follow his bidding, but many members of the Thalas-Enthia milled around in the chamber, shouting at each other, demanding information and protection. Even when Rashas shouted his agreement with the Speaker’s orders, these panicked elders could only wring their hands and cry.

  Through the chamber’s golden doors burst a panicked herald. “It’s coming!” he cried, gesticulating wildly. “The demon approaches, and it brings in its wake serpents of pure fire!”

  Immediate pandemonium rocked the chamber as the senators scrambled for the main door. Shrieks arose from outside, and through the open portal, Gilthas caught a glimpse of the crowd streaming away. Some of the cries rose to expressions of pure horror, and the air glowed red, as if a fire was showering from the skies themselves.

  At the door, the herald disappeared, and in his place was the fiery monster Gilthas remembered from the Hall of Audience. Now it was in the guise of a Dark Knight—resembling the bold Sergeant Major Fennalt, in fact—though the fiery eyes dispelled any appearance of normalcy. Throwing back its head, the creature emitted a laugh of rock-shaking power and strode into the chamber.

  The flood of fleeing senators broke back upon itself, but now the chaotic warrior was among them, picking up esteemed members of the Thalas-Enthia and tossing them into the air like rag dolls. The monster pulled some of the elves apart, crushed others with blows from hammerlike fists. All the while it uttered that ghastly laugh, crowing like a fiend from the Abyss, exulting as it spread horror, panic, pain, and death.

  Other senators turned toward the two small side entrances to the tower, pulling open the doors and spilling out as fast as they could force their way through the narrow openings. Fear filled the room with an acrid stench as the formerly dignified elves clawed over each other in desperate attempts to escape. Shouts and screams echoed from everywhere, and the esteemed members of the Thalas-Enthia punched and tackled each other, tore mindlessly at robes and hair.

  But now fires rose from beyond these doors, and the screams of dying elves, accompanied by the horrific stench of charred flesh, roiled into the chamber amid clouds of black, churning smoke. Heat blasted inward with the smoke, and beyond each door, orange flames glowed even brighter than daylight, radiating into the chamber in waves of searing heat.

  “Dragons! Dragons of fire!” cried one senator, his face blackened and peeling from a blast of supernatural heat. “The city is burning—Qualinost dies!” he groaned, toppling to the floor and quivering in the throes of convulsion.

  Gilthas watched, horrified, as death surrounded the chamber, wading through in the person of the fire-eyed warrior of Chaos, pouring into the side doors as beings of living, boiling flame. A dragon stuck its head through one of these smaller apertures, and the elves recoiled from a visage of gaping jaws and pure, roiling flame. A cloud of fire burst from those jaws, roaring through the chamber, crackling in greedy hunger, killing all the elves across a wide swath of the floor.

  “What can we do?” Rashas demanded, staring wildly around, reaching forward to clutch Gilthas by the arms.

  “This way!” the Speaker said, breaking away and racing toward the stairs that curled upward to the tower’s higher reaches.

  With Rashas at his side, Gilthas darted onto the steps, pounding upward, dashing away from the carnage in the main hall. He left the screams and cries below him, climbing until he was gasping for breath, until his lungs rasped desperately for air. Trying to think, he sought to make some sort of rational plan, but in the end, all he could do was run. Rashas, screaming for him to wait, was left far below.

  On an upper level, he burst through a door to find himself on one of the side balconies, perhaps halfway up the thousand-foot spire of the Tower of the Sun. He gaped in horror at the scene of Qualinost spread below him. Immediately he saw that events had advanced rapidly, even in the relatively short time since he had entered the council chamber.

  The rainbow bridges flanking the city had collapsed and now smoldered as twisted ruins to the west and south. The sun was still high, red and stark and unforgiving as it blasted downward from a sky of pure, roiling white. It seemed to the elf that it hadn’t moved from its spot at the zenith of the heavens.

  Flames broiled upward from many parts of the city as groves, gardens, and splendid buildings were consumed by fire. He noticed, with odd detachment, that even structures of marble and crystal were engulfed, tongues of orange licking along surfaces of solid stone, charring and melting the rock. One lofty spire, the mansion of a great and ancient noble family, shriveled and bent before his eyes. With a groan of helplessness, he watched the structure topple, crashing into the street to crush dozens of panic-stricken elves who fled this way and that.

  Here and there he saw more of the fire dragons, at least a dozen creatures of pure, living flame. They seemed to frolic and cavort with monstrous cruelty, trailing sparks, bellowing hate, belching flame. Everything they touched was incinerated, and they howled in unworldly exultation when their fiery tails lashed around to consume the people of the city.

  At the base of the Tower of the Sun were two of these creatures, eagerly pouncing on the few elves who had escaped the council chamber below. These wyrms paused only to raise their heads to the skies, roaring in triumph, blasting gouts of fire and sparks from their widespread jaws. Then they dropped to the ground again and resumed their murderous game.

  White wings flashed before him, and Gilthas saw a griffon approaching, incongruous in this sky of fire and death. The creature’s feathers were seared by fire, its flesh torn and bleeding, as the valiant animal crashed into the balcony.

  Only then did Gilthas see that the creature had a passenger, an elf woman who had been clinging desperately to the saddle. She had long, golden hair, though some of it had been charred away. The skin of her arms was reddened by fire, and she moaned in pain as the Speaker helped her to slump down from the saddle. Only then did he get the shock of recognition.

  “Mother!” he cried, taking her in his arms, easing her from the saddle.

  Like the griffon, Laurana had been burned. Her skin was blistered, and some of her tunic had been singed away—clearly the griffon had barely evaded one of the fiery wyrms. She was weeping, and he laid her, as gently as possible, on the floor of the balcony. A low wall blocked their view of the tortured city, though Gilthas was keenly aware of the fires that had burned through marble and of the monsters still cavorting at the base of the Tower of the Sun.

  The balcony’s tower door burst open, and Rashas tumbled through, gasping for breath, his face streaked with lines of age and horror. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he dropped to one knee and drew deep, ragged breaths. He didn’t seem to notice Gilthas or Laurana as he cowered against the wall, his eyes fixed upon the door that he had slammed behind him.

  From within the tower came a sound that chilled the young Speaker’s blood. It was the fire-eyed monster, climbing the stairs, and he could clearly picture it tossing back that grotesque head, mouth gaping as it once again gave voice to that cruel mockery of a laugh.

  At that sound, Laurana groaned and opened her eyes. They fixed upon Gilthas, but then widened as the horrible laughter was repeated. Wincing in pain, she struggled to raise herself to a sitting position.

  “Mother, what’s happening?” asked Gilthas.

  “The Storms of Chaos, my son. They have broken upon us, upon all of Krynn! I was on my way to you when I saw the first signs of war—fires everywhere, dark shadows writhing across the land. And these daemon warriors, such as that thing that we hear now, everywhere leading the forces of Chaos across the world.”

  Now the thudding crashes of the daemon warrior’s footsteps boomed beyond the door a
nd halted.

  “You—you have a sword!” cried Rashas, suddenly pointing at Gilthas. “You must stand against that thing—fight it, slay it, or we’re doomed.”

  Gilthas shook his head, denying the truth. He looked at the griffon, then at his mother. “Get back in the saddle. Fly away from here to safety!”

  “Osprey will do no more flying,” the elf woman said gently as the griffon struggled unsuccessfully to raise its proud head. “And in any event, there is no safety, no refuge save what we make for ourselves.”

  The door splintered outward, crushed by the impact of a mighty fist, and Gilthas scrambled to his feet, clumsily drawing his sword. This situation was absurd, he knew, remembering the way Fennalt’s sword had bounced off this same creature’s breast. He moaned, fighting back tears, afraid not so much for himself as at the thought of his mother similarly ripped by this unstoppable beast. She had come to him in answer to his summons, when he had called her here for her protection! Now she would die horribly in the hour of her arrival.

  Yet somehow he found his feet carrying him forward, his hands—in the maneuvers that Fennalt had taught him only in the last few days—clutching the hilt of the long sword, raising the blade to slash warningly before the daemon warrior’s laughing face.

  And even now that face resembled the visage of the warrior the monster had slain, the curved mustache and blocky chin that had once represented such competence to Gilthas. The beast crowed with a cruel caricature of the arrogance that Fennalt had displayed toward the untrained elves he had sought to prepare. Yet now that hauteur had a sneer of real viciousness, and the look of contempt caused Gilthas’s stomach to lurch and his knees to quiver.

  But when the monster reached forward, enough of the young elf’s instincts remained that he slashed the sword through a frantic, wheeling arc, driving the keen edge against the daemon warrior’s arm even as he prepared for the aftershock when the blow bounced away. Closing his eyes, gritting his teeth, Gilthas put all of his strength into the attack, praying to every god. With fear and hate, he drove the weapon through the monster’s flesh, lopping off one hand, continuing on to slash deeply into the second wrist. The daemon warrior howled, falling backward for a step as the stunned elf opened his eyes and looked at his bloodied blade, gagging in horror at the sight of the dismembered hand twitching on the floor at his feet.

  A flush of energy overtook him, and Gilthas raised the blade, lunging toward the hissing daemon warrior. He saw the fiery light flare brightly in the wicked pools of the creature’s eyes—and then he hesitated as the visage before him changed, shifted, sprouting a beard, the human’s features lengthening into an image that was at least partially elven. The creature closed its eyes, and immediately that horrible presence was gone.

  “Father …” whispered Gilthas, recognizing Tanis Half-Elven in that once-ghastly face. He looked down at the hand, shocked and grieving. “Forgive me.…”

  The wounded image of Tanis bent double, moaning in pain.

  “Kill it!” cried Laurana, pushing herself up to her knees and shouting. “It’s not your father! It’s a trick!”

  Gilthas stared dumbly at the person he knew so well. He brought up the sword, but he couldn’t drive it forward, couldn’t force himself to attack. “It’s Tanis, don’t you see? Look!”

  The half-elf was hunched over, his wounded hand clutching the stump of his bleeding wrist. “Help me!” he gasped, his voice taut with pain. It was the voice Gilthas knew so well, the sound of the man who had given him life, who had raised him from infancy until his destiny had brought him here.

  “I’m … I’m sorry,” he said, lowering the blade and stepping forward.

  The bearded face came up a little more, but there was a flash of something there, and suddenly Gilthas saw the hateful fire burning in those eyes.

  And all the force of his rage, of his frustration and betrayal, went into his arms and hands as he thrust the sword forward, driving the keen steel through the monster’s breast, tearing away at the foul stuff of its innards.

  The daemon warrior screamed, an unworldly howl, and stumbled backward, writhing on the steel blade, finally breaking free to tumble to the floor. Tanis’s features disappeared. Instead, Gilthas was staring at a beast of unspeakable horror, a gaping maw bristling with sharp teeth, skin black as oily coal except for the hellish fires of its eyes.

  Slowly those flames faded to dull embers, and then went dark.

  “So that’s how Chaos came to the city,” said the dragon quietly as Samar, white-faced and sweating, stopped to catch his breath.

  “And as it came to everywhere, all over Krynn,” continued the elf grimly. “Like the Great Rift that opened in the Turbidus Ocean, the fires that burned across the crest of the Vingaard Mountains …”

  Aeren nodded somberly. “And the horror that lived in my own skies.…”

  Nightmare Woods

  Chapter Twenty

  Porthios tumbled back into the clearing, shouting an alarm, waving his sword, frantically stabbing … at what? Despite the aura of menace, the bone-chilling horror he felt, there was no substance, no mass of flesh to these attackers.

  For the writhing shapes seemed to be nothing more than pure shadow, insubstantial patches of darkness that closed menacingly around him yet had no bodies, no physical form. But when he recalled the empty helm and cuirass, he knew that somehow these bizarre nothings had destroyed the life and the soul of at least one brave elven warrior. And they were relentlessly determined to close in, to kill again and again.

  The steel long sword in his hand, hallowed weapon of his family and cherished artifact of elvenkind, tore through one of the shadows with a sound like water sucking down a drain. Porthios felt the resistance, knew that he had gouged one of these shadows. But there were more, dozens more, oozing out of the darkness. They came at him from all sides, clearly attacking, though he could distinguish no details of face or body on any of them. At the same time, he knew they were real, and he sensed the deadly menace in the chilly and silent advance. They reached with tendrils of horrific darkness, lashing limbs that changed in shape or size as he dodged and retreated.

  He shouted as loud as he could, desperately trying to raise an alarm in the camp. Then he stabbed and slashed again with his sword, lunging forward, dodging to the side, striking like a snake as he made sure than none of the tentacles of inky black could reach far enough to come into contact with his skin. Each time his sword cut through the tenuous shape of a shadow, he heard that awful gurgling death and saw the darkness wisp away.

  But there were so many of them! They began to close a circle around him, and in seconds, his retreat was nearly cut off. Spinning frantically, slashing in every direction, he cut at the things, dissolving more of them, opening a gap in their ranks that allowed him to tumble past. Porthios rolled across the ground until he slammed against the trunk of a tree. Instinctively he knew that to be touched was to die. He was on his feet in a half a heartbeat, slashing and parrying, holding the eerie things back as once more he raised his voice in alarm.

  “To arms, elves of Qualinesti! We’re attacked!”

  In the camp, the elves were already aroused, griffons growling and screeching, warriors raising their weapons, other elves streaming into the woods, fleeing the mysterious attackers that were now emerging from between the trees. Most of the outlaws abandoned what few possessions they had brought with them, splashing through the stream, racing through the woods around the base of the Splintered Rock bluff. Porthios saw that Alhana had already snatched up Silvanoshei and fallen back, joining the flight that threatened to become a panic. Only then did the elven prince turn back to the fight, brandishing his blade, striking at any of the shadows that came within range of his steel.

  He saw a dozen brave elves charge, instinctively forming a battle line, but their blades sliced harmlessly through the looming shadows. A moment later the tendrils of darkness reached forth, and the elves were simply gone. In their places, weapons dropped to the
ground, shirts and belts and boots still tumbling from the momentum of the charge, but of the flesh and the lives that had been there, Porthios saw nothing. It was as though the courageous warriors had never been there.

  More shadows swirled toward him, and his blade cut through them, killing some and driving the others back. Already he was realizing an important truth: His weapon, blessed by ancient powers, was potent against these things, but the blades of nearly all of his warriors were utterly useless against these beings of foul magic. The elves as a whole had no means of fighting this unnatural enemy.

  Another rank attacked before Porthios could call them back, and these, too, perished, vanished utterly except for the tools and clothing that they had carried into the fight. His elves did not lack in courage, but they had no effective tools for battling this foe. More of them were turning to run, overcome by fear and lacking any means of stopping the horrific assault. Griffons, too, were winging away after too many of them had flown at the shadows, only to vanish in utter, complete dissolution.

  “Fall back!” the prince shouted, still wielding his own blade against a press of attackers. “Get out of here! We’ll regroup on the far side of the bluff!”

  Many of the warriors heeded his command, fleeing with the elders and children. But others stayed behind to wage the fruitless fight. Porthios recognized a brave warrior, silver sword flashing like lightning in his hand as he raced to defend his prince.

  “Tarqualan!” cried Porthios, watching as that elven warrior came up against the rank of seething, squirming shadows.

  And then the valiant fighter, veteran of so many of his prince’s battles, was gone, vanished in body and sight … and even, Porthios realized with a chill, in his very memory. He couldn’t recall the name of the bold commander who had stood so staunchly in the face of a nightmarish attack, who had ridden at his side through twenty years of campaigns in Silvanesti.