Dragons of a Fallen Sun

by Margaret Weis

  “Hey!” he cried, reaching for the object. “That’s just like mine! Where did you get it? Say!” he said, taking a good, close look. “That is mine!”

  Gerard closed his hand over the kender’s hand that was just inches away from the bejeweled object. Lord Warren stared at the object, openmouthed.

  “I found this in the kender’s pouch, sir,” said Gerard. “Last night, when we searched him before locking him up in our prison. A prison that, I might add, is not as kender-proof as we thought. I’m not certain—I am no mage, my lord—but the device appears to be to be magical. Quite magical.”

  “It is magical,” Tasslehoff said proudly. “That’s the way I came here. It used to belong to Caramon, but he was always worried for fear someone would steal it and misuse it—I can’t imagine who would do such a thing, myself. I offered to take care of it for him, but Caramon said, no, he thought it should go somewhere where it would be truly safe, and Dalamar said he’d take it, so Caramon gave it to him and he …” Tas quit talking because he didn’t have an audience.

  Lord Warren had withdrawn his hands from the desk. The object was about the size of an egg, encrusted with jewels that sparkled and glowed. Close examination revealed it to be made up of a myriad small parts that looked as if they could be manipulated, moved about. Lord Warren eyed it warily. Gerard kept fast hold of the kender.

  The sun sank down toward the horizon and now shone brightly through the window. The office was cool and shadowed. The object glittered and gleamed, its own small sun.

  “I have never seen the like of it,” said Lord Warren, awed.

  “Nor have I, sir,” said Gerard. “But Laura has.”

  Lord Warren looked up, startled.

  “She said that her father had an object like this. He kept it locked in a secret place in a room in the Inn that is dedicated to the memory of his twin brother Raistlin. She remembers well the day, some months prior to the Chaos War, when he removed the object from its secret hiding place and gave it to …” Gerard paused.

  “Dalamar?” said Lord Warren, astounded. He stared at the device again. “Did her father say what it did? What magic it possessed?”

  “He said that the object had been given to him by Par-Salian and that he had traveled back in time by means of its magic.”

  “He did, too,” Tasslehoff offered. “I went with him. That’s how I knew how the device worked. You see, it occurred to me that I might not outlive Caramon—”

  Lord Warren said a single word, said it with emphasis and sincerity. Tas was impressed. Knights didn’t usually say words like that.

  “Do you think it’s possible?” Lord Warren had shifted his gaze. He began staring at Tas as if he’d sprouted two heads.

  Obviously he’s never seen a troll. These people should really get out more, Tas thought.

  “Do you think this is the real Tasslehoff Burrfoot?”

  “Caramon Majere believed it was, my lord.”

  Lord Warren looked back at the strange device. “It is obviously an ancient artifact. No wizard has the ability to make magical objects like this these days. Even I can feel its power, and I’m certainly no mage, for which I thank fate.” He looked back at Tas. “No, I don’t believe it’s possible. This kender stole it, and he has devised this outlandish tale to conceal his crime.

  “We must return the artifact to the wizards, of course, though not, I would say, to the wizard Dalamar.” Lord Warren frowned. “At the very least the device should be kept out of the hands of the kender. Where is Palin Majere? It seems to me that he is the one to consult.”

  “But you can’t stop the device from coming back to my hands,” Tas pointed out. “It’s meant to always come back to me, and it will, sooner or later. Par-Salian—the great Par-Salian, I met him once, you know. He was very respectful to kender. Very.” Tas fixed Gerard with a stern eye, hoping the Knight would take the hint. “Anyhow, Par-Salian told Caramon that the device was magically designed to always return to the person who used it. That’s a safety precaution, so that you don’t end up stranded back in time with no way of going back home. It’s come in quite handy, since I have a tendency to lose things. I once lost a woolly mammoth. The way it happened was—”

  “I agree, my lord,” Gerard said loudly. “Be silent, kender. Speak when you are spoken to.”

  “Excuse me,” said Tas, beginning to be bored. “But if you’re not going to listen to me, may I go look at your maps? I’m very fond of maps.”

  Lord Warren waved his hand. Tas wandered off and was soon absorbed in reading the maps, which were really lovely, but which, the more he looked at them, he found very puzzling.

  Gerard dropped his voice so low that Tas had a difficult time hearing him. “Unfortunately, my lord, Palin Majere is on a secret mission to the elven kingdom of Qualinesti, to consult with the elven sorcerers. Such meetings have been banned by the dragon Beryl, and if his whereabouts became known to her, she would exact terrible retribution.”

  “Yet, it seems to me that he must know of this immediately!” Lord Warren argued.

  “He must also know of his father’s death. If you will grant me leave, my lord, I will undertake to escort the kender and this device to Qualinesti, there to put both of them in the hands of Palin Majere and also to impart the sad news about his father. I will relate to Palin his father’s dying request and ask him to judge whether or not it may undertaken. I have little doubt but that he will absolve me of it.”

  Lord Warren’s troubled expression eased. “You are right. We should put the matter into the hands of the son. If he declares his father’s last request impossible to fulfill, you may, with honor, decline it. I wish you didn’t have to go to Qualinesti, however. Wouldn’t it be more prudent to wait until the wizard returns?”

  “There is no telling when that will be, my lord. Especially now that Beryl has closed the roads. I believe this matter to be of the utmost urgency. Also”—Gerard lowered his voice—“we would have difficulty keeping the kender here indefinitely.”

  “Fizban told me to come right back to my own time,” Tas informed them. “I’m not to go gallivanting. But I would like to see Palin and ask him why the funeral was all wrong. Do you think that could be considered ‘gallivanting’?”

  “Qualinesti lies deep in Beryl’s territory,” Lord Warren was saying. “The land is ruled by the Knights of Neraka, who would be only too pleased to lay their hands on one of our order. And if the Knights of Neraka don’t seize you and execute you as a spy, the elves will. An army of our Knights could not enter that realm and survive.”

  “I do not ask for an army, my lord. I do not ask for any escort,” Gerard said firmly. “I would prefer to travel on my own. Much prefer it,” he added with emphasis. “I ask you for leave from my duties for a time, my lord.”

  “Granted, certainly.” Lord Warren shook his head. “Though I don’t know what your father will say.”

  “He will say that he is proud of his son, for you will tell him that I am undertaking a mission of the utmost importance, that I do it to fulfill the last request of a dying man.”

  “You are putting yourself in danger,” said Lord Warren. “He would not like that at all. And as for your mother—” He frowned ominously.

  Gerard stood straight and tall. “I have been ten years a Knight, my lord, and all I have to show for it is the dust of a tomb on my boots. I have earned this, my lord.”

  Lord Warren rose to his feet. “Here is my ruling. The Measure holds the final wishes of the dying to be sacred. We are bound in honor to fulfill them if it be mortally possible. You will go to Qualinesti and consult with the sorcerer Palin. I have found him to be a man of good judgment and common sense—for a mage, that is. One must not expect too much. Still, I believe that you can rely on him to help you determine what is right. Or, at the very least, to take the kender and this stolen magical artifact off our hands.”

  “Thank you, my lord.” Gerard looked extremely happy.

  Of course he’s happy, T
asslehoff thought. He gets to travel to a land ruled by a dragon who’s closed all the roads, and maybe he’ll be captured by Dark Knights who’ll think he’s a spy, and if that doesn’t work out he gets to go to the elven kingdom and see Palin and Laurana and Gilthas.

  The pleasant tingle so well known to kender, a tingle to which they are seriously addicted, began in the vicinity of Tasslehoff’s spine. The tingle burned its way right down to his feet, which started to itch, shot through his arms into his fingers, which started to wriggle, and up into his head. He could feel his hair beginning to curl from the excitement.

  The tingle wound up in Tasslehoff’s ears and, due to the rushing of the blood in his head, he noticed that Fizban’s admonition to return soon was starting to get lost amidst thoughts of Dark Knights and spies and, most important of all, The Road.

  Besides, Tas realized suddenly, Sir Gerard is counting on me to go with him! I can’t let a Knight down. And then there’s Caramon. I can’t let him down either, even if he did hit his head one too many times on the stairs on the way down.

  “I’ll go with you, Sir Gerard,” Tas announced magnanimously. “I’ve thought it over quite seriously, and it doesn’t seem to me to be gallivanting. It seems to me to be a quest. And I’m sure Fizban won’t mind if I went on a little quest.”

  “I will think of something to tell your father to placate him,” Lord Warren was saying. “Is there any thing I can provide you for this mission? How will you travel? You know that according to the Measure you may not disguise your true identity.”

  “I will travel as a Knight, my lord,” Gerard replied with a slight quirk of his eyebrow. “I give you my word on that.”

  Lord Warren eyed him speculatively. “You’re up to something. No, don’t tell me. The less I know about this the better.” He glanced down at the device, glittering on the table, and heaved a sigh. “Magic and kender. It seems to me to be a fatal combination. My blessing go with you.”

  Gerard wrapped the device carefully in the bundle. Lord Warren left his desk to accompany Gerard to the door of the office, collecting Tasslehoff on the way. Gerard removed several of the smaller maps that had just happened to find their way down the front of the kender’s shirt.

  “I was taking them to be fixed,” said Tas, looking at Lord Warren accusingly. “You really hire very poor mapmakers. They’ve made several serious mistakes. The Dark Knights aren’t in Palanthas any more. We drove them out two years after the Chaos War. And why’s that funny little circle like a bubble drawn around Silvanesti?”

  The Knights were deep in a private discussion of their own, a discussion that had something to do with Gerard’s mission, and they paid no attention. Tas pulled out another map that he had managed somehow to stuff itself down his trousers and that was at the moment pinching a sensitive portion of his anatomy. He transferred the map from his pants to his pouch and, while doing so, his knuckles brushed across something hard and sharp and egg-shaped.

  The Device of Time Journeying. The device that would take him back to his own time. The device had come back to him, as it was bound to do. It was once more in his possession. Fizban’s stern command seemed to ring loudly in his ears.

  Tas looked at the device, thought about Fizban, and considered the promise he’d made to the old wizard. There was obviously only one thing to be done.

  Taking firm hold of the device, careful not to accidentally activate it, Tasslehoff crept up behind Gerard, who was engrossed in his conversation with Lord Warren, and by dint of working loose a corner of the bundle, working nimbly and quietly as only a kender can work, Tasslehoff slipped the device back inside.

  “And stay there!” he told it firmly.

  7

  Beckard’s Cut

  ocated on the shore of New Sea, Sanction was the major port city for the northeastern part of Ansalon. The city was an ancient one, established long before the Cataclysm. Nothing much is known for certain about its history except that prior to the Cataclysm, Sanction had been a pleasant place to live.

  Many have wondered how it came by its odd name. Legend has it that there was once in the small village a human woman of advanced years whose opinions were well-known and respected far and wide. Disputes and disagreements over everything from ownership of boats to marriage contracts were brought before the old woman. She listened to all parties and then rendered her verdict, verdicts noted for being fair and impartial, wise and judicious. “The old ’un sanctioned it,” was the response to her judgments, and thus the small village in which she resided became known as a place of authority and law.

  When the gods in their wrath hurled the fiery mountain at the world, the mountain struck the continent of Ansalon and broke it asunder. The water of the Sirrion Ocean poured into the newly formed cracks and crevices creating a new sea, aptly named, by the pragmatic, New Sea. The volcanoes of the Doom Range flared into furious life, sending rivers of lava flowing into Sanction.

  Mankind being ever resilient, quick to turn disaster to advantage, those who had once tilled the soil harvesting crops of beans and barley turned from the plow to the net, harvested the fruit of the sea. Small fishing villages sprang up along the coast of New Sea.

  The people of Sanction moved to the beaches, where the offshore breeze blew away the fumes of the volcanoes. The town prospered, but it did not grow significantly until the tall ships arrived. Adventurous sailors out of Palanthas took their ships into New Sea, hoping to find quick and easy passage to the other side of the continent, avoiding the long and treacherous journey through the Sirrion Sea to the north. The explorers’ hopes were dashed. No such passage existed. What they did discover, however, was a natural port in Sanction, an overland passage that was not too difficult, and markets waiting for their goods on the other side of the Khalkhist Mountains.

  The town began to thrive, to expand, and, like any growing child, to dream. Sanction saw itself another Palanthas: famous, staid, stolid, and wealthy. Those dreams did not materialize, however. Solamnic Knights watched over Palanthas, guarded the city, ruled it with the Oath and the Measure. Sanction belonged to whoever had the might and the power to hold onto it. The city grew up headstrong and spoiled, with no codes, no laws, and plenty of money.

  Sanction was not choosy about its companions. The city welcomed the greedy, the rapacious, the unscrupulous. Thieves and brigands, con men and whores, sell-swords and assassins called Sanction home.

  The time came when Takhisis, Queen of Darkness, tried to return to the world. She raised up armies to conquer Ansalon in her name. Ariakas, general of these armies, recognized the strategic value of Sanction to the Queen’s holy city of Neraka and the military outpost of Khur. Lord Ariakas marched his troops into Sanction, conquered the city, which put up little resistance. He built temples to his Queen in Sanction and made his headquarters there.

  The Lords of Doom, the volcanoes that ringed Sanction, felt the heat of the Queen’s ambition stirring beneath them and came again to life. Streams of lava flowed from the volcanoes, lighting Sanction with a lurid glow by night. The ground shook and shivered from tremors. The inns of Sanction lost a fortune in broken crockery and began to serve food on tin plates and drink in wooden mugs. The air was poisonous, thick with sulphurous fumes. Black-robed wizards worked constantly to keep the city fit for habitation.

  Takhisis set out to conquer the world, but in the end she could not overcome herself. Her generals quarreled, turned on each other. Love and self-sacrifice, loyalty and honor won the day. The stones of Neraka lay blasted and cursed in the shadowed valley leading to Sanction.

  The Solamnic Knights marched on Sanction. They seized the city after a pitched battle with its inhabitants. Recognizing Sanction’s strategic as well as financial importance to this part of Ansalon, the Knights established a strong garrison in the city. They tore down the temples of evil, set fire to the slave markets, razed the brothels. The Conclave of Wizards sent mages to continue to cleanse the poisonous air.

  When the Knights of Takhi
sis began to accumulate power, some twenty years later, Sanction was high on the list of priorities. The Knights might well have captured it. Years of peace had made the Solamnic Knights sleepy and bored. They dozed at their posts. But before the Dark Knights could attack Sanction, the Chaos War diverted the attention of the Dark Knights and woke up the Solamnics.

  The Chaos War ended. The gods departed. The residents of Sanction came to realize that the gods were gone. Magic—as they had known it—was gone. The people who had survived the war now faced death by asphyxiation from the noxious fumes. They fled the city, ran to the beaches to breathe the clean sea air. And so for a time, Sanction returned to where it had begun.

  A strange and mysterious wizard named Hogan Bight not only restored Sanction to its former glory but helped the city surpass itself. He did what no other wizard had been able to do: He not only cleansed the air, he diverted the lava away from the city. Water, cool and pure, flowed from the snowy mountain tops. A person could actually step outside and take a deep breath and not double over coughing and choking.

  Older and wiser, Sanction became prosperous, wealthy, and respectable. Under Bight’s protection and encouragement, good and honest merchants moved into the city. Both the Solamnic Knights and the Knights of Neraka approached Bight, each side offering to move into Sanction and provide protection from the other.

  Bight trusted neither side, refused to allow either to enter. Angry, the Knights of Neraka argued that Sanction was part of the land given to them by the Council in return for their service during the Chaos War. The Knights of Solamnia continued to try to negotiate with Bight, who continued to refuse all their offers of aid.

  Meanwhile the Dark Knights, now calling themselves Knights of Neraka, were growing in strength, in wealth, and in power—for it was they who collected the tribute due the dragons. They watched Sanction as the cat watches the mouse hole. The Knights of Neraka had long coveted the port that would allow them a base of operations from which they could sail forth and gain a firm hold on all the lands surrounding New Sea. Seeing that the mice were busy biting and clawing each other, the cat pounced.