Dragons of a Fallen Sun

by Margaret Weis

  “Some god sent him to us,” said the lead elf, and Silvan felt a gentle hand touch his cheek.

  “What god?” The other was bitter, skeptical. “There are no gods.”

  Silvan woke to find his vision clear, his senses restored. A dull ache in his head made thinking difficult, and at first he was content to lie quite still, take in his surroundings, while his brain scrambled to make sense of what was happening. He remembered the road …

  Silvan struggled to sit up.

  A firm hand on his chest arrested his movement.

  “Do not move too hastily. I have set your arm and wrapped it in a poultice that will speed the healing. But you must take care not to jar it.”

  Silvan looked at his surroundings. He had the thought at first that it had all been a dream, that he would wake to find himself once again in the burial mound. He had not been dreaming, however. The boles of the trees were the same as he remembered—ugly gray, diseased, dying. The bed of leaves on which he lay was a deathbed of rotting vegetation. The young trees and plants and flowers that carpeted the forest floor drooped and languished.

  Silvanoshei took the elf’s counsel and lay back down, more to give himself time to sort out the confusion over what had happened to him than because he needed the rest.

  “How do you feel?” The elf’s tone was respectful.

  “My head hurts a little,” Silvan replied. “But the pain in my arm is gone.”

  “Good,” said the elf. “You may sit up then. Slowly, slowly. Otherwise you will pass out.”

  A strong arm assisted Silvan to a seated position. He felt a brief flash of dizziness and nausea, but he closed his eyes until the sick feeling passed.

  The elf held a wooden bowl to Silvan’s lips.

  “What’s this?” he asked, eying with suspicion the brown liquid the bowl contained.

  “An herbal potion,” replied the elf. “I believe that you have suffered a mild concussion. This will ease the pain in your head and promote the healing. Come, drink it. Why do you refuse?”

  “I have been taught never to eat or drink anything unless I know who prepared it and I have seen others taste it first,” Silvanoshei replied.

  The elf was amazed. “Even from another elf?”

  “Especially from another elf,” Silvanoshei replied grimly.

  “Ah,” said the elf, regarding him with sorrow. “Yes, of course. I understand.”

  Silvan attempted to rise to his feet, but the dizziness assailed him again. The elf put the bowl to his own lips and drank several mouthfuls. Then, politely wiping the edge of the bowl, he offered it again to Silvanoshei.

  “Consider this, young man. If I wanted you dead, I could have slain you while you were unconscious. Or I could have simply left you here.” He cast a glance around at the gray and withered trees. “Your death would be slower and more painful, but it would come to you as it has come to too many of us.”

  Silvanoshei thought this over as best he could through the throbbing of his head. What the elf said made sense. He took the bowl in unsteady hands and lifted it to his lips. The liquid was bitter, smelled and tasted of tree bark. The potion suffused his body with a pleasant warmth. The pain in his head eased, the dizziness passed.

  Silvanoshei saw that he had been a fool to think this elf was a member of his mother’s army. This elf wore a cloak strange to Silvan, a cloak made of leather that had the appearance of leaves and sunlight and grass and brush and flowers. Unless the elf moved, he would blend into his forest surroundings so perfectly that he would never be detected. Here in the midst of death, he stood out; his cloak retaining the green memory of the living forest, as if in defiance.

  “How long have I been unconscious?” Silvan asked.

  “Several hours from when we found you this morning. It is Midyear’s Day, if that helps you in your reckoning.”

  Silvan glanced around. “Where are the others?” He had the thought that they might be in hiding.

  “Where they need to be,” the elf answered.

  “I thank you for helping me. You have business elsewhere, and so do I.” Silvan rose to his feet. “I must go. It may be too late.…” He tasted bitter gall in his mouth, took a moment to choke it down. “I must still fulfill my mission. If you will show me the place I can use to pass back through the shield …”

  The elf regarded him with that same strange intensity. “There is no way through the shield.”

  “But there has to be!” Silvan retorted angrily. “I came through, didn’t I?” He glanced back at the trees standing near the road, saw the strange distortion. “I’ll go back to the point where I fell. I’ll pass through there.”

  Grimly, he started off, retracing his steps. The elf said no word to halt him but accompanied him, following after him in silence.

  Could his mother and her army have held out against the ogres this long? Silvan had seen the army perform some incredible feats. He had to believe the answer was yes. He had to believe there was still time.

  Silvan found the place where he must have entered the shield, found the trail his body had left as it rolled down the ravine. The gray ash had been slippery when he’d first tried to climb back up, but it had dried now. The way was easier. Taking care not to jar his injured arm, Silvan clam-bored up the hill. The elf waited in the bottom of the ravine, watching in silence.

  Silvan reached the shield. As before, he was loathe to touch it. Yet here, this place, was where he’d entered it before, however unknowingly. He could see the gouge his boot heel had made in the mud. He could see the fallen tree crossing the path. Some dim memory of attempting to circumvent it returned.

  The shield itself was not visible, except as a barely perceptible shimmer when the sun struck it at exactly the correct angle. Other than that, the only way he could tell the shield was before him was by its effect on his view of the trees and plants beyond it. He was reminded of heat waves rising from a sun-baked road, causing everything visible behind the waves to ripple in a mockery of water.

  Gritting his teeth, Silvan walked straight into the shield.

  The barrier would not let him pass. Worse, wherever he touched the shield, he felt a sickening sensation, as if the shield had pressed gray lips against his flesh and was seeking to suck him dry.

  Shuddering, Silvan backed away. He would not try that again. He glared at the shield in impotent fury. His mother had worked for months to penetrate that barrier and for months she had failed. She had thrown armies against it, only to see them flung back. At peril to her own life, she had ridden her griffon into it without success. What could he do against it, one elf.

  “Yet,” Silvan argued in frustration, “I am inside it! The shield let me in. It will let me out! There must be a way. The elf. It must have something to do with the elf. He and his cohorts have entrapped me, imprisoned me.”

  Silvan whipped around to find the elf still standing at the bottom of the ravine. Silvan scrambled down the slope, half-falling, slipping and sliding on the rain-wet grass. The sun was sinking. Midyear’s Day was the longest day of the year, but it must eventually give way to night. He reached the bottom of the ravine.

  “You brought me in here!” Silvan said, so angry that he had to suck in a huge breath to even force the words out. “You will let me out. You have to let me out!”

  “That was the bravest thing I ever saw a man do.” The elf cast a dark glance at the shield. “I myself cannot bear to come near it, and I am no coward. Brave, yet hopeless. You cannot pass. None can pass.”

  “You lie!” Silvan raged. “You dragged me inside here. Let me out!”

  Without really knowing what he was doing, he reached out his hand to seize the elf by the throat and choke him, force him to obey, frighten him into obeying.

  The elf caught hold of Silvan’s wrist, gave it an expert twist, and before he knew what was happening, Silvan found himself on his knees on the ground. The elf immediately released him.

  “You are young, and you are in trouble. You do not k
now me. I make allowances. My name is Rolan. I am one of the kirath. My companions and I found you lying at the bottom of the ravine. That is the truth. If you know of the kirath, you know that we do not lie. I do not know how you came through the shield.”

  Silvan had heard his parents speak of the kirath, a band of elves who patrolled the borders of Silvanesti. The kirath’s duty was to prevent the entrance of outsiders into Silvanesti.

  Silvan sighed and lowered his head to his hands.

  “I have failed them! Failed them, and now they will die!”

  Rolan came near, put his hand upon the young elf’s shoulder. “You spoke your name before when we first found you, but I would ask that you give it to me again. There is no need to fear and no reason to keep your identity a secret, unless, of course,” he added delicately, “you bear a name of which you are ashamed.”

  Silvan looked up, stung. “I bear my name proudly. I speak it proudly. If my name brings about my death, so be it.” His voice faltered, trembled. “The rest of my people are dead, by now. Dead or dying. Why should I be spared?”

  He blinked the tears from his eyes, looked at his captor. “I am the son of those you term ‘dark elves’ but who are, in truth, the only elves to see clearly in the darkness that covers us all. I am the son of Alhana Starbreeze and Porthios of the Qualinesti. My name is Silvanoshei.”

  He expected laughter. Disbelief, certainly.

  “And why do you think your name would bring death to you, Silvanoshei of the House of Caldaron?” Rolan asked calmly.

  “Because my parents are dark elves. Because elven assassins have tried more than once to kill them,” Silvan returned.

  “Yet Alhana Starbreeze and her armies have tried many times to penetrate the shield, to enter into this land where she is outlaw. I have myself seen her, as I and my fellows walked the border lands.”

  “I thought you were forbidden to speak her name,” Silvan muttered sullenly.

  “We are forbidden to do many things in Silvanesti,” Rolan added. “The list grows daily, it seems. Why does Alhana Starbreeze want to return to a land that does not want her?

  “This is her home,” Silvan answered. “Where else would she come?”

  “And where else would her son come?” Rolan asked gently.

  “Then you believe me?” Silvan asked.

  “I knew your mother and your father, Your Highness,” Rolan replied. “I was a gardener for the unfortunate King Lorac before the war. I knew your mother when she was a child. I fought with your father Porthios against the dream. You favor him in looks, but there is something of her inside you that brings her closer to the mind. Only the faithless do not believe. The miracle has occurred. You have returned to us. It does not surprise me that, for you, Your Highness, the shield would part.”

  “Yet it will not let me out,” said Silvan dryly.

  “Perhaps because you are where you are supposed to be, Your Highness. Your people need you.”

  “If that is true, then why don’t you lift the shield and let my mother return to her kingdom?” Silvanoshei demanded. “Why keep her out? Why keep your own people out? The elves who fight for her are in peril. My mother would not now be battling ogres, would not be trapped—”

  Rolan’s face darkened. “Believe me, Your Majesty. If we, the kirath, could take down this accursed shield, we would. The shield casts a pall of despair on those who venture near it. It kills every living thing it touches. Look! Look at this, Your Majesty.”

  Rolan pointed to the corpse of a squirrel lying on the ground, her young lying dead around her. He pointed to golden birds buried in the ash, their song forever silenced.

  “Thus our people are slowly dying,” he said sadly.

  “What is this you say?” Silvan was shocked. “Dying?”

  “Many people, young and old, contract a wasting sickness for which there is no cure. Their skin turns gray as the skin of these poor trees, their limbs wither, their eyes dull. First they cannot run without tiring, then they cannot walk, then they cannot stand or sit. They waste away until death claims them.”

  “Then why don’t you take down the shield?” Silvan demanded.

  “We have tried to convince the people to unite and stand against General Konnal and the Heads of House, who decided to raise the shield. But most refuse to heed our words. They say the sickness is a plague brought to us from the outside. The shield is all that stands between them and the evils of the world. If it is removed, we all will die.”

  “Perhaps they are right,” Silvan said, glancing back through the shield, thinking of the ogres attacking in the night. “There is no plague striking down elves, at least none that I have heard of. But there are other enemies. The world is fraught with danger. In here, at least you are safe.”

  “Your father said that we elves had to join the world, become a part of it,” Rolan replied with a grim smile. “Otherwise we would wither away and die, like a branch that is cut from the tree or the—”

  “—rose stripped from the bush,” Silvan said and smiled in remembrance. “We haven’t heard from my father in a long time,” he added, looking down at the gray ash and smoothing it with the toe of his boot. “He was fighting the great dragon Beryl near Qualinesti, a land she holds in thrall. Some believe he is dead—my mother among them, although she refuses to admit it.”

  “If he died, he died fighting for a cause he believed in,” Rolan said. “His death has meaning. Though it may seem pointless now, his sacrifice will help destroy the evil, bring back the light to drive away the darkness. He died a living man! Defiant, courageous. When our people die,” Rolan continued, his voice taking on increasing bitterness, “one hardly notices their passing. The feather flutters and falls limp.”

  He looked at Silvan. “You are young, vibrant, alive. I feel the life radiate from you, as once I felt it radiate from the sun. Contrast yourself with me. You see it, don’t you: the fact that I am withering away? That we are all slowly being drained of life? Look at me, Your Highness. You can see I am dying.”

  Silvan did not know what to say. Certainly the elf was paler than normal, his skin had a gray tinge to it, but Silvan had put that down to age, perhaps, or to the gray dust. He recalled now that the other elves he had seen bore the same gaunt, hollow-eyed look.

  “Our people will see you, and they will see by contrast what they have lost,” Rolan pursued. “This is the reason you have been sent to us. To show them that there is no plague in the world outside. The only plague is within.” Rolan laid his hand on his heart. “Within us! You will tell the people that if we rid ourselves of this shield, we will restore our land and ourselves to life.”

  Though my own has ended, Silvan said to himself. The pain returned. His head ached. His armed throbbed. Rolan regarded him with concern.

  “You do not look well, Your Highness. We should leave this place. We have lingered near the shield too long already. You must come away before the sickness strikes you, as well.”

  Silvanoshei shook his head. “Thank you, Rolan, but I cannot leave. The Shield may yet open and let me out as it has let me in.”

  “If you stay here, you will die, Your Majesty,” said Rolan. “Your mother would not want that. She would want you to come to Silvanost and to claim your rightful place upon the throne.”

  You will someday sit upon the throne of the United Elven Nations, Silvanoshei. On that day, you will right the wrongs of the past. You will purge our people of the sins we elves have committed, the sin of pride, the sin of prejudice, the sin of hatred. These sins have brought about our ruin. You will be our redemption.

  His mother’s words. He remembered the very first time she had spoken them. He had been five or six. They were camping in the wilderness near Qualinesti. It was night. Silvan was asleep. Suddenly a cry pierced his dreams, brought him wide awake. The fire burned low, but by its light he could see his father grappling with what seemed a shadow. More shadows surrounded them. He saw nothing else because his mother flung her body over his,
pressed him to the ground. He could not see, he could not breathe, he could not cry out. Her fear, her warmth, her weight crushed and smothered him.

  And then it was all over. His mother’s warm, dark weight was lifted from him. Alhana held him in her arms, cradling him, weeping and kissing him and asking him to forgive her if she hurt him. She had a bloody gash on her thigh. His father bore a deep knife wound in his shoulder, just missing the heart. The bodies of three elves, clad all in black, lay around the fire. Years later Silvanoshei woke suddenly in the night with the cold realization that one of those assassins had been sent to murder him.

  They dragged away the bodies, left them to the wolves, not considering them worthy of proper burial rites. His mother rocked him to sleep, and she spoke those words to him to comfort him. He would hear them often, again and again.

  Perhaps now she was dead. His father dead. Their dream lived, however, lived in him.

  He turned away from the shield. “I will come with you,” he said to Rolan of the kirath.

  5

  The Holy Fire

  n the old days, the glory days, before the War of the Lance, the road that led from Neraka to the port city of Sanction had been well maintained, for that road was the only route through the mountains known as the Lords of Doom. The road—known as the Hundred Mile Road, for it was almost one hundred miles long, give or take a furlong or two—was paved with crushed rock. Thousands of feet had marched over the crushed rock during the intervening years; booted human feet, hairy goblin feet, clawed draconian feet. So many thousand that the rock had been pounded into the ground and was now deeply embedded.

  During the height of the War of the Lance, the Hundred Mile Road had been clogged with men, beasts, and supply wagons. Anyone who had need of speed took to the air, riding on the backs of the swift-flying blue dragons or traversing the skies in floating citadels. Those forced to move along the road could be delayed for days, blocked by the hundreds of foot soldiers who slogged along its torturous route, either marching to the city of Neraka or marching away from it. Wagons lurched and jolted along the road. The grade was steep, descending from the high mountain valley all the way to sea level, making the journey a perilous one.