“I suggest that we raise our glasses in a toast to the Master of the Tower of Wayreth.”
Medan lifted a glass of elven wine from one of his last bottles. He was damned if he was going to leave any to be gulped by goblins. All shared in the toast, taking comfort in the fact that, for a change, a powerful force was on their side, mysterious and vagarious as it might be.
“I hear the sounds of laughter. I come upon you at a good time, it seems,” said Laurana.
Medan had posted guards at the entrance, but he had given orders that if the Queen Mother arrived, she was to be admitted. He rose to do her honor, as did all of those present. The Lioness greeted her mother by marriage with an affectionate kiss. Gilthas kissed his mother, but he cast a rebuking glance at Medan.
“I took it upon myself to invite your honored mother,” said the Marshal, bowing to the king. “I know that I went against Your Majesty’s express wishes, but considering the extreme gravity of the situation, I deemed it best to exert my authority as military leader. As you yourself said, Your Majesty, the Queen Mother is knowledgeable in such matters.”
“Please, be seated,” said Laurana, taking a chair beside the Marshal, a chair he had made certain was left vacant. “I am sorry to be late, but an idea came to me, and I wanted time to think it through before I mentioned it. Tell me what I have missed.”
He related the details of the meeting up to now, not knowing what he was saying, repeating by rote. Like his garden, Laurana was hauntingly beautiful that night. The moonlight stole away all color, so that the golden hair was silver, her skin white, her eyes luminous, her gown gray. She might have been a spirit, a spirit of his garden, for the scent of jasmine clung to her. He etched this image of her in his mind, planned to carry this image of her into death’s realm, where, he hoped, it would serve to light the unending darkness.
The meeting continued. He asked for reports from the elven commanders. They reported that all was ready or nearly so. They needed more rope, but more rope was forthcoming, for those making it had not ceased their work, nor would they until the very final moments. The barricades were in place, trenches dug, traps set. The archers had been given their unusual assignment, and although they had found their work strange and difficult at first, they had soon accustomed themselves to the requirements and needed nothing but the signal to attack.
“It is imperative … imperative”—Medan repeated that firmly—“that no elf be seen by the dragon walking the streets. Beryl must think that the city has been cleared, that all the elves have either fled or are being held captive. The Knights will patrol the streets openly, accompanied by those elves disguised as Knights to fill out our ranks. Tomorrow night, once I have been assured the royal family is safely on their way”—he looked at the king as he spoke and received Gilthas’s reluctant nod—“I will send a messenger to Beryl and tell her that the city of Qualinost surrenders to her might and that we have met all her demands. I will take my position at the top of the Tower of the Sun, and it is then that—”
“I beg your pardon, Marshal Medan,” Laurana interrupted, “but you have not met the dragon’s demands.”
Medan had guessed this was coming. He knew by Gilthas’s stiff rigidity and his sudden pallor that he had guessed it, as well.
“I beg your pardon, Madam,” said Medan politely, “but I can think of nothing I have left undone.”
“The dragon demanded that the members of the royal family be handed over to her. I believe that I was among those she specifically named.”
“To my deep regret,” said the Marshal with a wry smile, “the members of the royal family managed to escape. They are at this moment being pursued, and I am certain that they will be captured—”
Laurana was shaking her head. “That will not do, Marshal Medan. Beryl is no fool. She will be suspicious. All our carefully laid plans would be for naught.”
“I will stay,” said Gilthas firmly. “It is what I want to do anyhow. With myself as the Marshal’s prisoner, standing with him on the tower, the dragon will have no suspicions. She will be eager to take me captive. You, Mother, will lead the people in exile. You will deal with the Silvanesti. You are the diplomat. The people trust you.”
“The people trust their king,” said Laurana quietly.
“Mother …” Gilthas’s voice was agonized, pleading. “Mother, you cannot do this!”
“My son, you are king of the Qualinesti. You do not belong to me anymore. You do not belong to yourself. You belong to them.”
Reaching across the table, Laurana took hold of her son’s hand. “I understand how hard it is to accept the responsibility for thousands of lives. I know what you face. You will have to tell those who come to you for answers that all you have are questions. You will have to tell the despairing that you have hope, when despair is heavy in your own heart. You will bid the terrified to have courage when inside you are shivering with fear. It would take great courage to face the dragon, my son, and I admire and honor you for showing that courage, but such courage is paltry compared to the courage that will be required of you to lead your people into the future, a future of uncertainty and danger.”
“What if I can’t, Mother?” Gilthas had forgotten anyone else was there. These two spoke only to each other. “What if I fail them?”
“You will fail, my son. You will fail time and again. I failed those who followed me when I put my own wants over their needs. Your father failed his friends when he abandoned them while he pursued his love for the Dragon Highlord Kitiara.”
Laurana smiled tremulously. Her eyes shimmered with tears. “You are the child of imperfect parents, my son. You will stumble and fall to your knees and lie bruised in the dust, as we did. You will only truly fail if you remain lying in the dust. If you regain your feet and continue, you will make of that failure a success.”
Gilthas said nothing for long moments. He held fast to his mother’s hand. Laurana held his hand, knowing that when she let go, she would let go of her son forever.
“I will not fail you, Mother,” Gilthas said softly. He raised her hand to his lips, kissed it reverently. “I will not fail the memory of my father.” Releasing her hand, he rose to his feet. “I will see you in the morning, Mother. Before I depart.” He spoke the words without faltering.
“Yes, Gilthas,” she said. “I will be waiting.”
He nodded. The farewell they spoke then would last for all eternity. Blessed, heart-wrenching, those words were words to be spoken in private.
“If that is all, Marshal Medan,” Gilthas said, keeping his eyes averted, “I have a great deal to do yet this night.”
“I understand, Your Majesty,” said the Marshal. “We have only small matters of no importance to clear up now. I thank you for coming.”
“Small matters of no importance,” Gilthas murmured. He looked back at his mother. He knew very well what they would be discussing. He drew in a deep breath. “Then I bid you good night, Marshal, and good luck to you and to all of you.”
Medan rose to his feet. Lifting his glass of elven wine, he raised it. “I give you His Majesty, the King.”
The elves raised their voices in unison. Bellowsgranite shouted out the toast in a hearty bellow that made the Marshal cringe and glance swiftly into the sky, hoping that none of Beryl’s spies were in earshot.
Laurana raised her glass and pledged her son, her voice soft with love and pride.
Gilthas, overcome, gave a brief nod. He could not trust himself to speak. His wife put her arm around him. Planchet walked behind him. The king had no other guard. He had taken only a few steps when he looked back over his shoulder. His eyes sought out the Marshal.
Medan read the silent message and, excusing himself, accompanied the king through the darkened house. Gilthas said no word until he reached the door. Halting, he turned to face the Marshal.
“You know what my mother plans, Marshal Medan.”
“I think I do, Your Majesty.”
“Do you agree with her
that such a sacrifice on her part is necessary?” Gilthas demanded, almost angrily. “Will you permit her to go through with this?”
“Your Majesty,” the Marshal replied gravely, “you know your mother. Do you think there is any possible way to stop her?”
Gilthas stared at him, then he began to laugh. When the laughter came perilously close to tears, he fell silent until he could regain mastery over himself.
He drew in a deep breath, looked at the Marshal. “There is a chance that we will defeat Beryl, perhaps even destroy her. A chance that her armies will be stopped, forced to retreat. There is that chance, isn’t there, Marshal?”
Medan hesitated, not wanting to offer hope where, in his opinion, there was none. Yet, which of them knew what the future would hold?
“There is an old Solamnic adage, Your Majesty, which I could quote just now, an adage that says there is about as much chance of that happening as of the moons falling out of the sky.” Medan smiled. “As Your Majesty knows, the moons did fall out of the sky, so I will only tell you that, yes, there is a chance. There is always a chance.”
“Believe it or not, Marshal Medan, you cheer me,” Gilthas said. He held out his hand. “I regret that we have been enemies.”
Medan took the king’s hand, rested his other hand over it. He knew the fear that was in Gilthas’s heart, and the Marshal honored him for not speaking it aloud, for not demeaning Laurana’s sacrifice.
“Please rest assured, Your Majesty, that the Queen Mother will be a sacred trust for me,” said Medan. “The most sacred of my life. I vow to you on my admiration and regard for her that I will be true to that trust to my last breath.”
“Thank you, Marshal,” Gilthas said softly. “Thank you.”
Their handshake was brief, and the king departed. Medan stood a moment in the doorway, watching Gilthas walk down the path that gleamed silver-gray in the moonlight. The future the Marshal faced was grim and bleak. He could count the remaining days of his life upon the fingers of one hand. Yet, he thought, he would not trade it for the future faced by that young man.
Yes, Gilthas would live, but his life would never be his own. If he had no care for his people, it would be different. But he did care, and the caring would kill him.
25
Along Together
fter a few more questions and some desultory discussion, the commanders departed. Medan and Laurana said nothing to each other, but between them words were no longer needed. She remained when the others had gone, and the two of them were alone together.
Alone together. Medan pondered that phrase. It was all two people could ever be to each other, he supposed. Alone. Together. For the dreams and secrets of our heart may be spoken, but words are poor handmaidens. Words can never fully say what we want them to say, for they fumble, stammer, and break the best porcelain. The best one can hope for is to find along the way someone to share the path, content to walk in silence, for the heart communes best when it does not try to speak.
The two sat in the garden beneath the moon that was strange and pale, as if it were the ghost of a moon.
“Beryl will come to Qualinost now,” said the Marshal with satisfaction. “She will not pass up the opportunity to see you—the Golden General who defeated Queen Takhisis—shrink in terror before her bloated majesty. We will give Beryl what she wants. We will put on an excellent show.”
“Indeed we will,” said Laurana. “I have some ideas on that score, Marshal Medan. I spoke to you of them earlier in the evening.” She cast a regretful look around the garden. “As beautiful as this place is, it seems a shame to leave it, yet what I have to show you should best be viewed under the cover of darkness. Will you accompany me back to Qualinost, Marshal?”
“I am yours to command, Madam,” he replied. “The road is long and might be dangerous. Who knows if Beryl has assassins lurking about? We should ride, if that will be suitable to you.”
They rode through the moonlit night. Their talk was of dragons.
“It is said of the Golden General that she was never daunted by dragonfear,” Medan said, regarding Laurana admiringly. She sat a horse superbly, although she claimed it had been years since she last rode one.
Laurana laughed ruefully, shook her head. “Those who claimed that never knew me. The dragonfear was horrible. It never went away.”
“Then how did you function?” he asked. “For certainly you fought dragons, and you fought them well.”
“I was so afraid that the fear became a living part of me,” Laurana replied, speaking softly, looking not at him, but into the night. “I could feel its pulse and beat inside me as if I had grown a terrible kind of heart, a heart that did not quite fit in my chest, for it always seemed to cut off my breathing.”
She was silent a moment, communing with voices from the past. He no longer heard the voices from his past, but he remembered how they haunted a man or a woman, and he remained silent.
“I thought at first I could not continue on. I was too frightened, but then a wise man—his name was Elistan—taught me that I should not fear death. Death is inevitable, a part of life. It comes to all of us—humans, elves, even dragons. We defeat death by living, by doing something with our lives that will last beyond the grave. What I fear is fear, Marshal. I have never rid myself of that. I fight it constantly.”
They rode in silence, alone together. Then she said, “I want to thank you, Marshal, for paying me the compliment of not trying to dissuade me from this course of action.”
He bowed his head in acknowledgment but remained silent. She had more to say. She was thinking how to say it.
“I will use this opportunity to make reparation,” she continued, speaking now not to him alone but to those voices in the past. “I was their general, their leader. I left them. Abandoned them. The War of the Lance was at a critical stage. The soldiers looked to me for guidance, and I let them down.”
“You were faced with a choice between love and duty, and you chose love. A choice I, too, have made,” he said with a glance at the aspen trees through which they rode.
“No, Marshal,” she returned, “you choose duty. Duty to that which you love. There is a difference.”
“At the beginning, perhaps,” he said. “Not at the end.”
She looked over at him and smiled.
They were nearing Qualinost. The city was empty, appeared abandoned. Medan drew up his horse. “Where are we bound, Madam? We should not ride openly through the streets. We might be seen.”
“We are going to the Tower of the Sun,” she said. “The implements of my plan are to be found inside. You look dubious, Marshal. Trust me.” She regarded him with a mischievous smile, as he assisted her to dismount. “I cannot promise to make the moon fall from the sky. But I can give you the gift of a star.”
The streets of Qualinost were empty, deserted. The two kept to the deep shadows, for they could feel the presence of watchers in the skies though they could not see them. Dragons would be difficult to see in the moonlight through the predawn mists that rose from the river, wound lovingly among the boles of the aspen trees.
The early morning was silent, eerily silent. The animals had gone to ground, the birds huddled hushed in the trees. The smell of burning, the smell of the dragon, the smell of death was in the air, and all creatures fled its coming.
“All those with sense,” Medan said to himself. “Then there are the rest of us.”
So deep was the silence that he thought if he listened closely he could hear the heartbeats of those hiding within the houses. Hearts that beat steadily, hearts that beat fast, hearts that trembled with fear. He could imagine lovers and friends sitting in the darkness in the silence, hands clasped, their touch conveying the words they could not speak and must be inadequate anyway.
They reached the Tower of the Sun just as the moon was dropping down from the sky. Located on the far eastern border of Qualinost, the tower graced the tallest hill. It provided a spectacular view of the city. The tower was made of
burnished gold that shone as brilliantly as another sun when morning’s first rays struck it, setting it aflame with warmth and life and the joy of a new day. So bright was the light that it dazzled the eyes. Approaching the tower in the daytime, Medan had often been forced to look away, lest it blind him.
At night, the tower reflected the stars, so that it was difficult to distinguish the tower—a myriad stars floating on its surface—from the night sky that was its backdrop.
They entered the tower through an entry hall whose doors were never locked and walked from there into the main chamber. Laurana had brought with her a small lantern to light their way. Torchlight would be too bright, too noticeable to anyone outside.
Medan had been inside the tower before for various ceremonies. Its beauty never failed to impress him. The tower rose hundreds of feet into the air with one central spire and two smaller ones jutting out to the sides. A person standing on the floor could see straight up to the top, to a wondrous mosaic. Windows placed in a spiral pattern in the tower’s walls were positioned to capture the sunlight and reflect it downward upon the rostrum that stood in the center of the main chamber.
It was too dark for him to see the mosaic that portrayed the sky by day and the sky by night. Thus symbolically had the Qualinesti portrayed their relationship with their cousins, the Silvanesti. The creator of the mosaic had been optimistic, separating the two by a rainbow. He would have done better to separate them by jagged lightning.
Dragons of a Lost Star Page 34
