Dragons of Autumn Twilight

by Margaret Weis

  Tanis sheathed his sword, grimacing in disgust at the stinking bodies; the smell reminded him of rotting fish. Flint wiped black goblin blood from his axe blade. Tas stared mournfully at the body of the goblin he killed. It had fallen facedown, his dagger buried underneath.

  “I’ll get it for you,” Tanis offered, preparing to roll the body over.

  “No.” Tas made a face. “I don’t want it back. You can never get rid of the smell, you know.”

  Tanis nodded. Flint fastened his axe in its carrier again, and the three continued on down the path.

  The lights of Solace grew brighter as darkness deepened. The smell of the wood smoke on the chill night air brought thoughts of food and warmth—and safety. The companions hurried their steps. They did not speak for a long time, each hearing Flint’s words echo in his mind: Goblins. In Solace.

  Finally, however, the irrepressible kender giggled.

  “Besides,” he said, “that dagger was Flint’s!”

  2

  Return to the Inn.

  A shock. The oath is broken.

  Nearly everyone in Solace managed to drop into the Inn of the Last Home sometime during the evening hours these days. People felt safer in crowds.

  Solace had long been a crossroads for travelers. They came northeast from Haven, the Seeker capital. They came from the elven kingdom of Qualinesti to the south. Sometimes they came from the east, across the barren Plains of Abanasinia. Throughout the civilized world, the Inn of the Last Home was known as a traveler’s refuge and center for news. It was to the Inn that the three friends turned their steps.

  The huge, convoluted trunk rose through the surrounding trees. Against the shadow of the vallenwood, the colored panes of the Inn’s stained-glass windows glittered brightly, and sounds of life drifted down from the windows. Lanterns, hanging from the tree limbs, lit the winding stairway. Though the autumn night was settling chill amid the vallenwoods of Solace, the travelers felt the companionship and memories warm the soul and wash away the aches and sorrows of the road.

  The Inn was so crowded on this night that the three were continually forced to stand aside on the stairs to let men, women, and children pass them. Tanis noticed that people glanced at him and his companions with suspicion—not with the welcoming looks they would have given five years ago.

  Tanis’s face grew grim. This was not the homecoming he had dreamed about. Never in the fifty years he had lived in Solace had he felt such tension. The rumors he had heard about the malignant corruption of the Seekers must be true.

  Five years ago, the men calling themselves “seekers” (“we seek the new gods”) had been a loose-knit organization of clerics practicing their new religion in the towns of Haven, Solace, and Gateway. These clerics had been misguided, Tanis believed, but at least they had been honest and sincere. In the intervening years, however, the clerics had gained more and more status as their religion flourished. Soon they became concerned not so much with glory in the afterlife as with power on Krynn. They took over the governing of the towns with the people’s blessing.

  A touch on Tanis’s arm interrupted his thoughts. He turned and saw Flint silently pointing below. Looking down, Tanis saw guards marching past, walking in parties of four. Armed to the teeth, they strutted with an air of self-importance.

  “At least they’re human—not goblin,” Tas said.

  “That goblin sneered when I mentioned the High Theocrat,” Tanis mused. “As if they were working for someone else. I wonder what’s going on.”

  “Maybe our friends will know,” Flint said.

  “If they’re here,” Tasslehoff added. “A lot could have happened in five years.”

  “They’ll be here—if they’re alive,” Flint added in an undertone. “It was a sacred oath we took—to meet again after five years had passed and report what we had found out about the evil spreading in the world. To think we should come home and find evil on our very doorsteps!”

  “Hush! Shhh!” Several passersby looked so alarmed at the dwarf’s words that Tanis shook his head.

  “Better not talk about it here,” the half-elf advised.

  Reaching the top of the stairs, Tas flung the door open wide. A wave of light, noise, heat, and the familiar smell of Otik’s spicy potatoes hit them full in the face. It engulfed them and washed over them soothingly. Otik, standing behind the bar as they always remembered him, hadn’t changed, except maybe to grow stouter. The Inn didn’t appear to have changed either, except to grow more comfortable.

  Tasslehoff, his quick kender eyes sweeping the crowd, gave a yell and pointed across the room. Something else hadn’t changed either—the firelight gleaming on a brightly polished, winged dragon helm.

  “Who is it?” asked Flint, straining to see.

  “Caramon,” Tanis replied.

  “Then Raistlin’ll be here, too,” Flint said without a great deal of warmth in his voice.

  Tasslehoff was already sliding through the muttering knots of people, his small, lithe body barely noticed by those he passed. Tanis hoped fervently the kender wasn’t “acquiring” any objects from the Inn’s customers. Not that he stole things—Tasslehoff would have been deeply hurt if anyone had accused him of theft. But the kender had an insatiable curiosity, and various interesting items belonging to other people had a way of falling into Tas’s possession. The last thing Tanis wanted tonight was trouble. He made a mental note to have a private word with the kender.

  The half-elf and the dwarf made their way through the crowd with less ease than their little friend. Nearly every chair was taken, every table filled. Those who could not find room to sit down were standing, talking in low voices. People looked at Tanis and Flint darkly, suspiciously, or curiously. No one greeted Flint, although there were several who had been long-standing customers of the dwarven metalsmith. The people of Solace had their own problems, and it was apparent that Tanis and Flint were now considered outsiders.

  A roar sounded from across the room, from the table where the dragon helm lay reflecting light from the firepit. Tanis’s grim face relaxed into a smile as he saw the giant Caramon lift little Tas off the floor in a bear hug.

  Flint, wading through a sea of belt buckles, could only imagine the sight as he listened to Caramon’s booming voice answering Tasslehoff’s piping greeting. “Caramon better look to his purse,” Flint grumbled. “Or count his teeth.”

  The dwarf and the half-elf finally broke through the press of people in front of the long bar. The table where Caramon sat was shoved back against the tree trunk. In fact, it was sitting in an odd position. Tanis wondered why Otik had moved it when everything else remained exactly the same. But the thought was crushed out of him, for it was his turn to receive the big warrior’s affectionate greeting. Tanis hastily removed the longbow and quiver of arrows from his back before Caramon hugged them into kindling.

  “My friend!” Caramon’s eyes were wet. He seemed about to say more but was overcome by emotion. Tanis was also momentarily unable to talk, but this was because he’d had his breath squeezed out of him by Caramon’s muscular arms.

  “Where’s Raistlin?” he asked when he could talk. The twins were never far apart.

  “There.” Caramon nodded toward the end of the table. Then he frowned. “He’s changed,” the warrior warned Tanis.

  The half-elf looked into a corner formed by an irregularity of the vallenwood tree. The corner was shrouded in shadow, and for a moment he couldn’t see anything after the glare of the firelight. Then he saw a slight figure sitting huddled in red robes, even in the heat of the nearby fire. The figure had a hood cast over its face.

  Tanis felt a sudden reluctance to speak to the young mage alone, but Tasslehoff had flitted away to find the barmaid and Flint was being lifted off his feet by Caramon. Tanis moved to the end of the table.

  “Raistlin?” he said, feeling a strange sense of foreboding.

  The robed figure looked up. “Tanis?” the man whispered as he slowly pulled the hood off his
head.

  The half-elf sucked in his breath and fell back a pace. He stared in horror.

  The face that turned toward him from the shadows was a face out of a nightmare. Changed, Caramon had said! Tanis shuddered. “Changed” wasn’t the word! The mage’s white skin had turned a golden color. It glistened in the firelight with a faintly metallic quality, looking like a gruesome mask. The flesh had melted from the face, leaving the cheekbones outlined in dreadful shadows. The lips were pulled tight in a dark straight line. But it was the man’s eyes that arrested Tanis and held him pinned in their terrible gaze. For the eyes were no longer the eyes of any living human Tanis had ever seen. The black pupils were now the shape of hourglasses! The pale blue irises Tanis remembered now glittered gold!

  “I see my appearance startles you,” Raistlin whispered. There was a faint suggestion of a smile on his thin lips.

  Sitting down across from the young man, Tanis swallowed. “In the name of the true gods, Raistlin—”

  Flint plopped into a seat next to Tanis. “I’ve been hoisted into the air more times today than—Reorx!” Flint’s eyes widened. “What evil’s at work here? Are you cursed?” The dwarf gasped, staring at Raistlin.

  Caramon took a seat next to his brother. He picked up his mug of ale and glanced at Raistlin. “Will you tell them, Raist?” he said in a low voice.

  “Yes,” Raistlin said, drawing the word out into a hiss that made Tanis shiver. The young man spoke in a soft, wheezing voice, barely above a whisper, as if it were all he could do to force the words out of his body. His long, nervous hands, which were the same golden color as his face, toyed absently with uneaten food on a plate before him.

  “Do you remember when we parted five years ago?” Raistlin began. “My brother and I planned a journey so secret I could not even tell you, my dear friends, where we were going.”

  There was a faint note of sarcasm in the gentle voice. Tanis bit his lip. Raistlin had never, in his entire life, had any “dear friends.”

  “I had been selected by Par-Salian, the head of my order, to take the Test,” Raistlin continued.

  “The Test!” Tanis repeated, stunned. “But you were too young. What, twenty? The Test is given only to mages who have studied years and years—”

  “You can imagine my pride,” Raistlin said coldly, irritated at the interruption—“My brother and I traveled to the secret place, the fabled Towers of High Sorcery. And there I passed the Test.” The mage’s voice sank. “And there I nearly died!”

  Caramon choked, obviously in the grip of some strong emotion. “It was awful,” the big man began, his voice shaking. “I found him in that horrible place, blood flowing from his mouth, dying! I picked him up and—”

  “Enough, brother!” Raistlin’s soft voice flicked like a whip. Caramon flinched. Tanis saw the young mage’s golden eyes narrow, the thin hands clench. Caramon fell silent and gulped down his ale, glancing nervously at his brother. There was clearly a new strain, a tension between the twins.

  Raistlin drew a deep breath and continued. “When I awoke,” the mage said, “my skin had turned this color—a mark of my suffering. My body and my health are irretrievably shattered. And my eyes! I see through hourglass pupils and therefore I see time, as it affects all things. Even as I look at you now, Tanis,” the mage whispered, “I see you dying, slowly, by inches. And so I see every living thing.”

  Raistlin’s thin, clawlike hand gripped Tanis’s arm. The half-elf shivered at the cold touch and started to pull away, but the golden eyes and the cold hand held him fast.

  The mage leaned forward, his eyes glowing feverishly. “But I have power now!” he whispered. “Par-Salian told me the day would come when my strength would shape the world! I have power and”—he gestured—“the Staff of Magius.”

  Tanis looked to see a staff leaning against the vallenwood trunk within easy reach of Raistlin’s hand. It was a plain wooden staff. A ball of bright crystal, clutched in a disembodied golden claw carved to resemble the talon of a dragon, gleamed at the top.

  “Was it worth it?” Tanis asked quietly.

  Raistlin stared at him, then his lips parted in a caricature of a grin. He withdrew his hand from Tanis’s arm and folded his arms in the sleeves of his robe. “Of course!” the mage hissed. “Power is what I have long sought—and still seek.” He leaned back and his thin figure melted into the dark shadow until all Tanis could see were the golden eyes, glittering in the firelight.

  “Ale,” said Flint, clearing his throat and licking his lips as if he would wash a bad taste out of his mouth. “Where is that kender? I suppose he stole the barmaid—”

  “Here we are,” cried Tas’s cheerful voice. A tall, young, red-haired girl loomed behind him, carrying a tray of mugs.

  Caramon grinned. “Now, Tanis,” he boomed, “guess who this is. You, too, Flint. If you win, I’ll buy this round.”

  Glad to take his mind off Raistlin’s dark tale, Tanis stared at the laughing girl. Red hair curled around her face, her green eyes danced with fun, freckles were lightly smattered across her nose and cheeks. Tanis seemed to remember the eyes, but beyond that he was blank.

  “I give up,” he said. “But then, to elves humans seem to change so rapidly that we lose track. I am one hundred and two, yet seem no more than thirty to you. And to me those hundred years seem as thirty. This young woman must have been a child when we left.”

  “I was fourteen.” The girl laughed and set the tray down on the table. “And Caramon used to say I was so ugly my father would have to pay someone to marry me.”

  “Tika!” Flint slammed his fist on the table. “You’re buying, you great oaf!” He pointed at Caramon.

  “No fair!” The giant laughed. “She gave you a clue.”

  “Well, the years have proved him wrong,” Tanis said, smiling. “I’ve traveled many roads and you’re one of the prettiest girls I’ve seen on Krynn.”

  Tika blushed with pleasure. Then her face darkened. “By the way, Tanis”—she reached in her pocket and drew forth a cylindrical object—“this arrived for you today. Under strange circumstances.”

  Tanis frowned and reached for the object. It was a small scrollcase made of black, highly polished wood. He slowly removed a thin piece of parchment and unrolled it. His heart thudded painfully at the sight of the bold, black handwriting.

  “It’s from Kitiara,” he said finally, knowing his voice sounded strained and unnatural. “She’s not coming.”

  There was a moment’s silence. “That’s done it,” Flint said. “The circle is broken, the oath denied. Bad luck.” He shook his head. “Bad luck.”

  3

  Knight of Solamnia.

  The old man’s party.

  Raistlin leaned forward. He and Caramon exchanged glances as thoughts passed wordlessly between them. It was a rare moment, for only great personal difficulty or danger ever made the twins’ close kinship apparent. Kitiara was their older half-sister.

  “Kitiara would not break her oath unless another, stronger oath bound her.” Raistlin spoke their thoughts aloud.

  “What does she say?” Caramon asked.

  Tanis hesitated, then licked his dry lips. “Her duties with her new lord keep her busy. She sends her regrets and best wishes to all of us and her love—” Tanis felt his throat constrict. He coughed. “Her love to her brothers and to—” He paused, then rolled up the parchment. “That’s all.”

  “Love to who?” Tasslehoff asked brightly. “Ouch!” He glared at Flint who had trod upon his foot. The kender saw Tanis flush. “Oh,” he said, feeling stupid.

  “Do you know who she means?” Tanis asked the brothers. “What new lord does she talk about?”

  “Who knows with Kitiara?” Raistlin shrugged his thin shoulders. “The last time we saw her was here, in the Inn, five years ago. She was going north with Sturm. We have not heard from her since. As for the new lord, I’d say we now know why she broke her oath to us: she has sworn allegiance to another. She is, after all,
a mercenary.”

  “Yes,” Tanis admitted. He slipped the scroll back into its case and looked up at Tika. “You say this arrived under strange circumstances? Tell me.”

  “A man brought it in, late this morning. At least I think it was a man.” Tika shivered. “He was wrapped head to foot in clothing of every description. I couldn’t even see his face. His voice was hissinglike and he spoke with a strange accent. ‘Deliver this to one Tanis Half-Elven,’ he said. I told him you weren’t here and hadn’t been here for several years. ‘He will be,’ the man said. Then he left.” Tika shrugged. “That’s all I can tell you. The old man over there saw him.” She gestured to an old man sitting in a chair before the fire. “You might ask him if he noticed anything else.”

  Tanis turned to look at an old man who was telling stories to a dreamy-eyed child staring into the flames. Flint touched his arm.

  “Here comes one who can tell you more,” the dwarf said.

  “Sturm!” Tanis said warmly, turning toward the door.

  Everyone except Raistlin turned. The mage relapsed into the shadows once more.

  At the door stood a straight-backed figure dressed in full plate armor and chain mail, the symbol of the Order of the Rose on the breastplate. A great many people in the Inn turned to stare, scowling. The man was a Solamnic knight, and the Knights of Solamnia had fallen into ill-repute up north. Rumors of their corruption had spread even this far south. The few who recognized Sturm as a long-time former resident of Solace shrugged and turned back to their drinking. Those who did not, continued to stare. In these days of peace, it was unusual enough to see a knight in full armor enter the Inn. But it was still more unusual to see a knight in full armor that dated back practically to the Cataclysm!

  Sturm received the stares as accolades due his rank. He carefully smoothed his great, thick moustaches, which, being the ages-old symbol of the Knights, were as obsolete as his armor. He bore the trappings of the Solamnic Knights with unquestioned pride, and he had the sword-arm and the skill to defend that pride. Although people in the Inn stared, no one, after one look at the knight’s calm, cold eyes, dared snicker or make a derogatory comment.