Dragons of a Lost Star

by Margaret Weis

  “No, I thank you, Marshal,” Laurana answered calmly, looking up at him. “Kelevandros must wrestle with his own demons, as I have wrestled with mine. I am resolved in this. I will do my part. You need me, I think, sir,” she added with a hint of mischief, “unless you plan to dress up in one of my gowns and wear a blonde wig.”

  “I have no doubt that even Beryl, dense as she is, would see through that disguise,” said Medan dryly. He was pleased to see Laurana smile. Another memory for him to keep. He handed her the white rose. “I brought this for you, Madam. From my garden. The roses will be lovely in Qualinost this fall.”

  “Yes,” said Laurana, accepting the rose. Her hand trembled slightly. “They will be lovely.”

  “You will see them. If I die this day, you will tend my garden for me. Do you promise?”

  “It is bad luck to speak of death before the battle, Marshal,” Laurana warned, partly in jest, wholly in earnest. “Our plan will work. The dragon will be defeated and her army demoralized.”

  “I am a soldier. Death is in my contract. But you—”

  “Marshal,” Laurana interrupted with a smile, “every contract ever written ends in death.”

  “Not yours,” he said softly. “Not so long as I am alive to prevent it.”

  They stood a moment in silence. He watched her, watched the moonlight gently touch her hair as he longed to touch it. She kept her gaze fixed upon the rose.

  “The parting with your son Gilthas was difficult?” he asked at last.

  She replied with a soft sigh. “Not in the way you imagine. Gilthas did not try to dissuade me from my chosen path. Nor did he try to free himself from walking his. We did not spend our last hours in fruitless argument, as I had feared. We remembered the past and talked of what he will do in the future. He has many hopes and dreams. They will serve to ease his journey over the dark, perilous road he must travel to reach that future. Even if we win this day, as Kelevandros said, the lives of the elves will never be the same. We can never go back to what we were.” She was pensive, introspective.

  In his heart Medan applauded Gilthas. The Marshal guessed how difficult it must have been for the young man to leave his mother to face the dragon while he departed safely out of harm’s way. Gilthas had been wise enough to realize that attempting to dissuade her from her chosen course would have accomplished nothing and left him with only bitter recriminations. Gilthas would need all the wisdom he possessed to face what lay ahead of him. Medan knew the peril better than Laurana, for he had received reports of what was happening in Silvanesti. He said nothing to her, not wanting to worry her. Time enough to face that crisis when they had disposed of this one.

  “If you are ready, Madam, we should leave now,” he told her. “We’ll steal through the city while night’s shadows yet linger and enter the tower with the dawn.”

  “I am ready,” Laurana said. She did not look behind her. As they walked down the path that led through the late-blooming lilacs, she said to him, “I want to thank you, Marshal, on behalf of the elven people, for what you do for us this day. Your courage will be long remembered and long honored among us.”

  Medan was embarrassed. “Perhaps it is not so much what I do this day, Madam,” he said quietly, “as what I try to undo. Rest assured I will not fail you or your people.”

  “Our people, Marshal Medan,” said Laurana. “Our people.”

  Her words were meant kindly, but they pierced his heart. He deserved the punishment, and he bore it in silence, unflinching, as a soldier. Thus he bore unflinching the sting of the rose’s thorns against his breast.

  Muffled sounds could be heard coming from the houses of the elves as Medan and Laurana passed swiftly through the streets on their way to the tower. Although no elf showed his face, the time for skulking in silence was gone. There were sounds of heavy objects being hauled up stairs, the rustlings of tree branches as the archers took their places. They heard orders given in calm voices both in Common and Elvish. Near the tower, they actually caught a glimpse of Dumat adding the finishing touches to a web of tree branches he had constructed over the roof of his house. Chosen to watch for Kelevandros’s signal, Dumat would give the signal to the elves for the attack. He saluted the Marshal and bowed to the Queen Mother, then continued on about his work.

  The morning sun rose, and by the time they reached the tower, the sun shone bright. Shading his eyes, Medan blessed the day for its clear visibility, although he caught himself thinking that his garden would have welcomed rain. He put the thought aside with a smile and concentrated on the task ahead.

  The bright light streamed in through the myriad windows, sent rainbows dancing in dazzling array around the tower’s interior, and lit the mosaic on the ceiling: the day and the night, separated by hope.

  Laurana had locked away the sword and the dragonlance in one of the tower’s many rooms. While she retrieved them, Medan looked out one of the windows, watching the preparations as Qualinost made ready for war. Like its Queen Mother, the city was transforming itself from lovely and demure maid into doughty warrior.

  Laurana handed Medan the sword, Lost Star. He gravely saluted her with the sword, then buckled it around his waist. She helped him arrange the folds of the cloak to conceal it. Stepping back, she eyed him critically and pronounced his disguise successful. No gleam of metal could be seen.

  “We climb this staircase.” Laurana indicated a circular stair. “It leads to the balcony at the top of the tower. The climb is a long one, I fear, but there will be time to rest—”

  Sudden night, strange and awful as that of an eclipse, quenched the sunlight. Medan hastened to look out the window, well knowing, yet dreading what he would see.

  The sky was dark with dragons.

  “Very little time, I fear,” Medan said calmly, taking the dragonlance from her hand and shaking his head when she started to try to retrieve it. “The great green bitch has launched her attack early. No surprise there. We must make haste.”

  Opening the door, they began to climb the stairs that wound around and around a hollow shaft, a vortex of stone. A railing made of gold and of silver, twined together, spiraled upward. Formed in an imitation of a vine of ivy, the railing did not appear to have been built into the stone but seemed to have grown around it.

  “Our people are ready,” Laurana said. “When Kelevandros gives the signal, they will strike.”

  “I hope we can count on him to carry out his part,” the Marshal said. “He has, as you say, been acting strange of late.”

  “I trust him,” Laurana replied. “Look.” She pointed at narrow booted footprints in the thick dust on the stairs. “He is here already, waiting for us.”

  They climbed as rapidly as possible, yet they dared not move too swiftly, lest they lose their strength before they had reached the top. “I am thankful … I did not wear full plate armor,” the Marshal stated with what breath he had left. As it was, he had only reached what Laurana told him was the halfway mark and he was gasping for breath, his legs burned.

  “I used to race … my brothers and Tanis up these stairs … when I was a girl,” Laurana said, pressing her hand over her side to ease a jabbing pain. “We had better rest … a moment, or we’re not going to make it.”

  She sank down on the staircase, wincing at the pain. Medan remained standing, staring out the window. He drew in deep breaths, flexed his legs to ease the cramped muscles.

  “What can you see?” Laurana asked tensely. “What is happening?”

  “Nothing yet,” he reported. “Those are Beryl’s minions in the skies. Probably scouting the city, making certain it is deserted. Beryl is a coward at heart. Without her magic, she feels naked, vulnerable. She won’t come near Qualinost until she is assured nothing will harm her.”

  “When will her soldiers enter the city?”

  Medan turned from the window to look down at her. “Afterward. The commanders won’t send in the men until the dragons are gone. The dragonfear unsettles the troops, makes them di
fficult to manage. When the dragons are finished leveling the place, the soldiers will arrive. To ‘mop up.’ ”

  Laurana laughed shakily. “I hope they will not find much to ‘mop.’ ”

  “If all goes as planned,” said Medan, returning her smile, “the floor will be wiped clean.”

  “Ready?” she asked.

  “Ready,” he replied and gallantly extended his hand to help her to her feet.

  The stairs brought them to the top of the tower, to an entrance to a small alcove with an arched ceiling. Those passing through the alcove walked out onto a balcony that overlooked all of the city of Qualinost. The Speaker of the Suns and the clerics of Paladine had been accustomed to come to the top of the tower on holidays and feast days, to thank Paladine—or Eli, as the elves knew him—for his many blessings, the most glorious of which was the sun that gave life and light to all. That custom had ended after the Chaos War, and now no one came up here. What was the use?

  Paladine was gone. The sun was a strange sun, and though it gave light and life, it seemed to do so grudgingly, not gloriously. The elves might have kept up the old tradition simply because it was tradition. Their Speaker, Solostaran, had kept up the custom during the years after the Cataclysm, when Paladine had not heeded their prayers. The young king, Gilthas, had not been able to make the arduous climb, however. He had pleaded ill health, and so the elves had abandoned tradition. The real reason Gilthas did not want to climb to the top of the Tower of the Sun was that he did not want to look out over a city that was captive, a city in chains.

  “When Qualinost is no longer held in thrall,” Gilthas had promised his mother during their last night together, “I will come back, and no matter if I am so old that my bones creak and I have lost every tooth in my head, I will run up those stairs like a child at play, for at the top I will look out over a country and a people who are free.”

  Laurana thought of him as she set her foot gratefully upon the last stair. She could see her son, young and strong—for he would be young and strong, not old and decrepit—bounding up the stairs joylessly to look out upon a land bathed in blessed sunlight.

  She looked out the open archway leading to the balcony and saw only darkness. The wings of Beryl’s subject dragons cut off the sunlight. The first tremors of dragonfear caused her throat to constrict, her palms to sweat, her hand involuntarily to tighten its grip around the slender railing. She had felt such fear before, and as had told Marshal Medan, she knew how to combat it. She walked across the landing, faced her enemy squarely, stared at the dragons long and hard until she had mentally conquered them. The fear did not leave her. It would always be there, but she was the master. The fear was under her control.

  This settled, she looked around to find Kelevandros. She had expected to find him waiting for them on the landing, and she felt a twinge of worry that she did not see him. She had forgotten the effects of dragonfear, however. Perhaps he had been overcome by it and run away.

  No, that could not have happened. There was only one way down. He would have passed them on the stairs.

  Perhaps he had gone out on the balcony.

  She was about to go in search of him when she heard the Marshal’s footsteps behind her, heard him heave a great sigh of relief at finally reaching the top of the stairs. She turned to face him, to tell him that she could not find Kelevandros, when she saw Kelevandros emerging from the shadows of the arched entryway.

  I must have walked right past him, she realized. Caught by the dragonfear, she had never noticed him. He stood crouched in the shadows, paralyzed, seeming unable to move.

  “Kelevandros,” Laurana said to the young elf in concern, “what you are feeling is the dragonfear—”

  Marshal Medan rested the dragonlance against the wall. “And to think,” he said, sucking in air, “we still have to make the climb down.”

  Kelevandros gave a convulsive leap. Steel flashed in his hand.

  Laurana shouted a warning and lunged to stop him, but she was too late.

  Kelevandros stabbed through the cloak the Marshal wore, aiming to strike beneath his upraised arm that had been holding the dragonlance, strike a part of the body the armor could not protect. The elf buried his knife to the hilt in Medan’s ribcage, then jerked the knife free. His hand and the blade were stained with blood.

  Medan gave a pain-filled cry. His body stiffened. He pressed his hand to his side and stumbled forward, fell to the floor on one knee.

  “Ah!” He gasped for breath and found none. The blade had punctured his lung. “Ah!”

  “Kelevandros …” Laurana whispered, overcome by shock. “What have you done?”

  He had been staring at the Marshal, but now he turned his gaze to her. His eyes were wild and fevered, his face livid. He held up his hand to ward her off, raised the knife.

  “Don’t come near me, Madam!” he cried.

  “Kelevandros,” Laurana asked helplessly, “why? He was going to help us—”

  “He killed my brother,” Kelevandros gasped, his pallid lips quivering. “Killed him years ago with his filthy money and his foul promises. He used him, and all the while he despised him. Not dead yet, are you, you bastard?”

  Kelevandros lunged to stab the Marshal again.

  Swiftly, Laurana interposed her body between the elf and the human. For a moment she thought Kelevandros, in his rage, was going to stab her.

  Laurana faced him, unafraid. Her death didn’t matter. She would die now or later. Their plan lay in ruins.

  “What have you done, Kelevandros?” she repeated sadly. “You have doomed us.”

  He glared at her. Froth bubbled on his lips. He raised the knife, but not to stab. With a wrenching sob, he threw the knife at the wall. She heard it hit with a clang.

  “We were already doomed, Madam,” he said, choking.

  He fled the chamber, running blindly. Either he could not see where he was going or he did not care, for he crashed headlong into the railing of silver- and gold-twined ivy. The ancient railing shuddered, then gave way under the young elf’s weight. Kelevandros plunged over the edge of the staircase. He made no attempt to catch himself. He fell to the floor below without a cry.

  Laurana pressed her hands over her mouth and closed her eyes, aghast at the horror of the young elf’s death. She stood shivering, trying desperately to banish the sickening feeling of numbness that paralyzed her.

  “I won’t give up,” she said to herself. “I won’t … Too much depends …”

  “Madam …” Medan’s voice was weak.

  He lay on the floor, his hand still pressed against his side, as if he could halt the flow of blood that was draining away his life. His face was ashen, his lips gray.

  Tears dimming her eyes, Laurana sank down on her knees beside him and began frantically to thrust aside the folds of the bloody cloak to find the wound, to see if there was anything she could do to stop the bleeding.

  Medan caught her hand, held it fast, and shook his head.

  “You weep for me,” he said softly, astonished.

  Laurana could not reply. Her tears fell on his face.

  He smiled and made a move as if he would kiss her hand, but he lacked the strength. His grip on her hand tightened. He struggled to speak through the tremors of pain that shook his body.

  “You must go now,” he told her, using his remaining strength to force out each word. “Take the sword … and the lance. You are in command, Laurana.”

  Laurana shivered. You are in command, Laurana. The words had a familiar sound, harkened back to another time of darkness and death. She could not think why that should be so or where she had heard them before. She shook her head.

  “No,” she said brokenly. “I can’t.…”

  “The Golden General,” Medan whispered. “I would have liked to have seen her.…”

  He gave a sigh. The bloodstained hand loosed its grip, dropped limply to the floor. His eyes continued to look fixedly at her, and although no life was in them, she saw his faith
in her, steadfast, unwavering.

  He meant what he had said. She was in command. Except it was not his voice speaking those words. Another voice … far away.

  You can command, Laurana. Farewell, elfmaid. Your light will shine in this world … It is time for mine to darken.

  “No, Sturm, I can’t do this,” she cried wretchedly. “I am alone!”

  As Sturm had been alone, standing by himself at the top of another tower in the bright sunshine of a new day. He had faced certain death, and he had not faltered.

  Laurana wept for him. She wept for Medan and for Kelevandros. She wept for the hatred that had destroyed them both and would keep on destroying until someone somewhere had the courage to love. She wept for herself, for her weakness. When she had no more tears left, she lifted her head. She was calm now, in command of herself.

  “Sturm Brightblade.” Laurana clasped her hands together, praying to him, since there was no one else to hear her prayer. “True friend. I need your strength. I need your courage. Be with me, that I may save my people.”

  Laurana wiped away her tears. With hands that were firm and did not tremble, she closed the Marshal’s eyes and kissed his cold forehead.

  “You had the courage to love,” she said to him softly. “That will be your salvation and my own.”

  Sunlight lit the alcove, gleamed on the dragonlance that stood against the wall, glistened in the splatters of blood on the floor. Laurana glanced out through the arched entrance to the blue sky, the empty blue sky. The minion dragons had departed. She did not rejoice. Their departure meant that Beryl was coming.

  She thought despairingly of the plan she and the Marshal had made, then resolutely thrust aside both the thought and the despair. Kelevandros’s bow and the pitch-covered signal arrow, his flint and tinderbox lay abandoned in the alcove where he had dropped them. She had no one to fire the signal arrow. She could not do it herself, not do that and face the dragon. She had no way now to send word to Dumat, who would be watching for the flare to give his order.