Caramon paused at the doors, just for a moment, and glanced at the name carved on the lintel. No one could prove that Tasslehoff Burrfoot was indeed dead, for there was no body to be found, but Palin and Usha both had sworn they’d seen him crushed beneath Chaos’s heel. That was enough for Caramon, whose heart ached whenever he saw the kender’s name, and the hoopak graven beneath it.
There were, thankfully, no kender here tonight. They had been turning up in greater and greater numbers lately, making pilgrimages to the tomb from every part of Ansalon. The kender were the only people who could be counted on the travel in these dread times; unfortunately, much to the townsfolk’s horror, they could also be counted on to continue being kender. The Inn of the Last Home was missing several dozen mugs, half its silverware, and-Caramon had never been able to explain it-a couch. Similar losses had been reported all around Solace, and all fingers pointed at the light-fingered kender. The captain of the town guard was prone these days to uncontrollable facial tics.
Caramon stepped into the tomb, and for a moment was blinded by darkness. When his eyes adjusted, he descended the stairs that led down into its depths, following the ever-brightening light and the soft, familiar voice. He hastened along a long tunnel, passing vaults containing the bodies of knights slain in battle with Chaos, until finally he reached the innermost sepulcher. Swallowing, he ducked through the doorway and beheld the biers.
On his left stood a slab of black marble, graven with skulls and thorns and other fearsome things. Despite the gruesome carvings, though, there was an aura of peace about the bier. The sigils were those of the Knights of Takhisis, but they held a certain beauty, just as the lily the knights venerated smelled sweet when it bloomed.
Upon it, undisturbed by the passage of time, lay the body of Steel Brightblade. He wore black armor, grimly etched, and in his hands he clasped an ancient sword. The blade had been handed down through the Brightblade family from ancient times and had been buried with Steel’s father, Sturm, in the Tower of the High Clerist. Caramon had been in Sturm’s tomb when the dead knight’s ghost had risen and passed the sword on to his son. Steel had fought with the blade in the battle that had killed him.
All around Steel’s body, the bier was strewn with black lilies. Caramon raised his eyebrows at this. No one but the Dark Knights would leave such tokens for their slain hero, but there had been no word of members of that brotherhood around Solace for months. Yet the lilies were fresh, as though they had bloomed this very morning.
Shivering, Caramon let his gaze drift from the black bier, over to the white one on the room’s other side. The second bier bore no carvings. It was a simple block of white marble, veined with blue. It was heaped with white roses, just as Steel’s was covered with lilies. In the midst of the roses lay the body of Tanis Half-Elven.
Caramon looked upon his friend’s face, at the odd smile that twisted his gray beard. After a moment, though, he bowed his head, grimacing. The pain of seeing Tanis, quiet and still upon the slab, had not lessened with the passage of years. It still made him feel terribly alone.
He wasn’t alone this time, though. At the bier’s foot knelt a tall man clad in buckskins and furs. A many-feathered headdress-doffed out of respect for the dead-rested on the floor by his side. Long hair, once black but now mostly white, spilled loose over his shoulders. The firelight came from a torch in the man’s left hand. He chanted softly, then stopped suddenly, raising his head.
“My friend,” the man said. “I am glad you’ve come.”
“Riverwind?” Caramon asked.
The man nodded, but still he did not turn. He raised a muscular arm, deeply tanned from years spent in the wilderness. “Please, Caramon,” he beckoned. “Come see what we have brought, my daughters and I.”
Caramon stepped forward. As he did, he glimpsed something on the bier, beside Tanis’s body. It was a long, slender staff with a plain shaft and an ornately carved head. The torchlight caught it, and it flashed with bright blue light.
Slowly, stiffly, Riverwind rose. He turned to look at Caramon. His face was as it had always been-more weathered and wrinkled, perhaps, but the strength and kindness were still there. His dark eyes shone.
“Goldmoon felt it would be fitting,” he said.
Caramon gazed upon the staff that lay beside his friend’s body, and words would not come. It had been more than thirty years since he had seen it, but it was just as he remembered: hewn of blue crystal, a single sapphire shaped with craftsmanship beyond the ken of man. So much had begun with that staff.
“Is it real?” he asked, his voice faint with wonder.
Riverwind nodded. “When the war with Chaos ended, Goldmoon and I went east again, on a pilgrimage to Xak Tsaroth. I had found proof of the old gods there before. We hoped to find it again.” He was silent a moment, frowning, then cleared his throat awkwardly. “We did not. When we reached the temple, the statue of Mishakal there had fallen and shattered upon the floor. We found the staff amid the rubble and took it with us. It is not a holy relic any more, Caramon. It has no magic. But when we learned of this tomb, we knew it belonged here. Tanis would understand.”
Caramon blinked back tears. “I’m sure he does.”
Neither man said anything for a long while. The torch crackled and popped.
“Where are the girls?” Caramon asked.
“I asked them to leave me here,” Riverwind replied. “They went, I think, to visit Usha.”
“Tika told me they’ve been to the graves.”
The Plainsman nodded solemnly. “They wanted dearly to see them and begged to come with me. I am sorry we couldn’t visit sooner, my friend. Things have been difficult for our people, these past two years.”
“So I’ve heard,” Caramon said. “Are you still having trouble keeping the alliance between the tribes?”
“From time to time,” Riverwind answered. “But that is no great worry. When the Dark Knights left these lands, though, they left their Brutes behind. Several clans have settled in the Eastwall Mountains. My son is seldom home these days, there is so much fighting.”
Caramon nodded. “But Wanderer is well?”
“As well as one might expect,” Riverwind said grimly.
Caramon hesitated. “And Goldmoon?”
“She fares well,” Riverwind assured him. “The loss of the goddess weighs on her, of course, but she has always been strong. She wanted to come, but with Wanderer away she couldn’t afford to leave Que-Shu.”
“That’s a shame,” Caramon said earnestly. “I’m sure she’d want to see-” He stopped abruptly, his hand waving feebly at the green-cloaked body upon the bier. Together they stared down at Tanis’s remains.
“Do you know,” Riverwind said sadly, “the last time I saw him was ten years ago? He and Laurana came to visit us on the plains. I wanted to return the favor, to go to Solanthus, but-” He spread his hands. “I always thought there would be time for such things later. I was sure he’d outlive us all.”
“Well,” Caramon said, “he was part elf.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Riverwind pressed his hands together, raising them to his lips. “Tanis always knew what to do. Even when we didn’t think he did-even when he didn’t think he did-in his heart he knew.”
“I know,” Caramon answered. “And that’s what killed him. Just like Sturm-he knew the right thing to do, and he did it, damn the cost.” He bowed his head. “Sometimes, I wish he hadn’t. I know it’s selfish, but even so. Sometimes I wonder if any of us will ever die peacefully in bed, with the people we love all around us.”
Riverwind flinched, then looked away. For a moment, the Plainsman said nothing. When he spoke again, his voice was tight and strained. “Be careful what you wish for, Caramon.”
Caramon stared at him, his forehead creased with confusion. “What do you mean?”
The Plainsman turned to face him, his eyes shining in the torchlight. “My friend,” he said, “I am dying.”
Chapter 3
Caramon said nothing. He stood silently, staring at Riverwind. He fell back a pace and leaned against Steel’s skull-carved bier. The attar of lilies surrounded him, a cloying scent that made him want to retch.
“How?” he asked.
The Plainsman nodded thoughtfully. “A fair question.” He bent down, lifting up his headdress, and gestured toward the door. “I will answer it, but not here. I have already broken a taboo of my people, speaking of death in such a place. Go on ahead, Caramon. I will finish saying my farewells, and then I will join you outside.”
Thankful to be out of the dark, close crypt, Caramon turned and hurried out of the Last Heroes’ Tomb. He didn’t stop until he was outside the gold and silver doors. The air outside was cold, heralding the coming autumn, and he drank it down deeply. His breath misted in the air before him.
There was movement off to his left. He glanced at it sharply, but it was just a pair of kender-come, no doubt, to pay honor to Tas. One of them, a male, held what looked like a burnt shoe. The other one was female; her hands were empty. They looked up at him, their eyes wide.
Not wanting to deal with kender just now, Caramon shook his head and marched across the meadow away from the tomb. After a few dozen paces he stopped, looking up at the single, pale moon. He continued to stare at it, even when he heard the scuff of soft boots in the grass.
“It still seems strange to me, as well,” said Riverwind, drawing to a halt beside Caramon. He looked up at the ivory disk. “I often dream of the red moon, you know. Sometimes, when we could steal away without anyone noticing, Goldmoon and I would climb the hills east of Que-Shu and watch it rise. We would hold hands, and one thing would lead to another He smiled an old man’s smile, remembering. After a moment, it became a sly grin. “That’s how the girls came about, if you take my meaning.”
Caramon chuckled. “I certainly do. With Tika and me, it was sunsets.”
“ ‘Was?’ ” Riverwind asked, his eyes sparkling.
“Well-ll,” Caramon said.
They laughed together, then Riverwind grew solemn. “Be thankful, Caramon. You still have the sun. In my heart, this pale moon will never take the red one’s place.”
The wind gusted, icy fingers clawing up Caramon’s spine. He hunched his shoulders.
“So,” he murmured.
“So,” Riverwind agreed. “You asked me how, a moment ago. I’m glad you did-I owe you answers, after setting this burden upon your shoulders. Let us walk.”
They set out across the meadow toward the distant lights of Solace. The vallenwoods muttered as the wind played among their boughs.
“This isn’t the first time I’ve been ill, my friend,” Riverwind said. “Five years ago, I woke one morning with a terrible pain inside me. It felt as though someone had set a hot stone in my belly. At first I thought it was nothing but food that disagreed with me-my stomach’s not as hardy as it once was-so I ignored it, waited for it to go away.
“It got worse, though, and I began to fear I had been poisoned. There were some, then, who might have done so. There still are. A man makes enemies doing what I have done-not everyone believes it is best that the tribes should unite as one. It was then that I first began to fear for my life, though for the wrong reasons.
“I hadn’t told Goldmoon about it yet. You may have noticed,” he added, with a wry smile, “I can be a bit stubborn at times. By the time I finally confided in her, the pain was such that I could no longer eat-not even plain corn porridge. When I told Goldmoon how sick I was, she was so angry she didn’t speak to me for a week.
“She tended me, though, and prayed to Mishakal. There was a foulness inside me, and it had grown so large I could feel it when I touched my belly. It was hard and sore, but the worst part was knowing it didn’t belong. I wanted to cut myself open, to pull it out and cast it into the fire. I might even have tried it, too, in my fever madness, but I lacked the strength.
“I lay in bed for nearly a month. Goldmoon acted as chieftain in my absence, keeping the Que-Teh and Que-Kiri tribes from slitting each other’s throats. My daughters fed me broth-the only thing I could keep down-and Goldmoon gave me medicine and chanted by my bedside. In time, the goddess blessed me. The pain subsided, and the corruption that had been growing inside me went away. I had never known such relief, my friend. My father died of such an illness when I was a child. It is a bad end.”
They reached the edge of the meadow, where the grasses gave way to the vallenwoods. Riverwind took a deep breath, then bent down and picked up a brown vallenwood leaf. He twirled it between his fingers, lost in thought. “A month ago, I woke with the pain again,” he said quietly. “Only now, Mishakal is not around to hear Goldmoon’s prayers. The foulness is growing within me again, and there is no stopping it. Before long, it will kill me.”
He released the leaf, and the wind sent it spinning away into the shadows. Caramon watched it go, then looked up at his friend. They regarded each other silently. Then Caramon gripped Riverwind’s muscular arm with his own massive hand. The Plainsman regarded him silently.
“Thank you for coming,” Caramon said. “It must have been a hard thing, convincing Goldmoon to let you travel.”
Riverwind shook his head, the feathers of his headdress rustling. “She does not know.”
“What?” Caramon’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I haven’t told her I’m sick again,” Riverwind answered. “And I’m not going to. Neither do I mean to tell my daughters. I have told Wanderer, Tika, and now you, but no one else must hear of it… least of all Goldmoon.”
“But,” Caramon sputtered, “she’s your wife, Riverwind.”
The Plainsman nodded sternly. “I know, my friend. She is my wife, and I love her more than anything in this world. I would spare her this pain. You didn’t see her face five years ago, when she learned I was ill. It… crumpled. She has lived through this before. When I was gone on my Courting Quest, Arrowthorn, her father, was stricken. When I left Que-Shu, he was a strong man, a hunter and a warrior. By the time I returned, he was wasted and old, babbling and drooling. Goldmoon had to feed him, wash him, see to his every need. She watched him wither like grain after a frost, and there was nothing she could do about it.”
“And you don’t want to put her through that again,” Caramon said.
“I do not.” Riverwind sighed wearily. “How could I tell her, Caramon? At least before, she had her faith to draw upon. Mishakal gave her strength. Even if I had died, she would have known it was the goddess’s will. Whose will is it now, when the gods have gone?”
Caramon bowed his head, blinking back tears. When the Chaos War ended, the loss of the gods had struck everyone hard, but none had suffered more than those who had devoted their lives to their faith. All across Ansalon, priests had succumbed to madness or taken their lives in despair. In Tarsis, it was said, a monk of Majere had gone to the marketplace one day and killed six people before the guards could stop him. In Neraka, priests of Takhisis had doused themselves in oil and set themselves ablaze.
Goldmoon had always been strong-willed, however, even for a cleric. Caramon had taken comfort in the knowledge that her strength would not falter. It would take something truly awful to break her. Something like her husband slowly dying, of a sickness she no longer had the power to cure.
“Won’t she find out?” Caramon asked. “You said yourself-the first illness left you bedridden, unable to eat. How can you hide that from her?”
“I cannot.” Riverwind stared fiercely at Caramon. “This time, I will not let it come to that.”
Caramon blew a long, slow breath through his lips. “Are you sure it’s what you want?” he asked.
Riverwind nodded. “It will be better, for both of us. Goldmoon will not have to bear watching me waste away, like she did Arrowthorn. And as for me-” He broke off, then shook his head, chuckling grimly. “You know I am no coward, Caramon. But I know what lies ahead for me, and I am afraid. I am sixty-five years old. I have led
a life I am proud of. I do not want to end it like that, in pain, waiting for the final hour to come.”
They stood together in silence, beneath the pale moon, listening as the cold wind ruffled the leaves. Then Caramon clasped his friend’s arms, letting the gesture convey what words could not.
“Come on,” he said, clapping the Plainsman on the back. “I’ll get you some spiced potatoes.”
Riverwind smiled. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
The tavern at the Inn was almost empty. The elves had gone, presumably upstairs to their room. The tinker was lost to the world, his head on the table beside the empty bottle of dwarf spirits. He mumbled incoherently in his sleep. Caramon shook his head in pity, knowing well enough the signs of a lifelong drunk.
Of course Clemen, Borlos, and Osler were where he’d left them, playing cards by the kitchen. The game had switched to Bounty Hunter, and from the looks of things-the heap of steel coins in front of him, and Borlos and Osler’s glum faces-Clemen was laying waste to the other two. They were just ending a hand as Caramon and Riverwind came in, and Clemen grinned as he turned up his last card: the Dragon of Waves. Evidently Waves were trump, because Borlos cursed under his breath as Clemen raked the pot-which included two silver rings and a small opal-over to his side of the table.
“Evenin’, big guy,” Clemen said jovially as Caramon crossed the tavern. His eyes flicked to Riverwind. “And bigger guy, too. We can deal the two o’ ye in next hand if ye’re feeling game.”
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