Dragons of a Fallen Sun

by Margaret Weis

  “From the rumors I hear, the Silvanesti may be finding that their vaunted magical shield is in reality a tomb.”

  Gilthas looked startled, sat upright. “Where did you hear this? You have not told me.”

  “I have not seen you in a month,” Kerian replied with a touch of bitterness. “I only heard this a few days ago, from the runner Kelevandros your mother sends regularly to keep in touch with your aunt Alhana Starbreeze. Alhana and her forces have settled on the border of Silvanesti, near the shield. They are allied with the humans who belong to the Legion of Steel. Alhana reports that the land around the shield is barren, trees sicken and die. A horrible gray dust settles over everything. She fears that this same malaise may be infecting all of Silvanesti.”

  “Then why do our cousins maintain the shield?” Gilthas wondered.

  “They are afraid of the world beyond. Unfortunately, they are right in some instances. Alhana and her forces fought a pitched battle with ogres only a short time ago, the night of that terrible thunderstorm. The Legion of Steel came to their rescue or they would have been wiped out. As it was, Alhana’s son Silvanoshei was captured by ogres, or so she believes. She could find no trace of him when the battle was ended. Alhana grieves for him as for the dead.”

  “My mother has said nothing of this to me,” Gilthas stated, frowning.

  “According to Kelevandros, Laurana fears Marshal Medan’s heightened watchfulness. She trusts only those in her household. She dare not trust anyone outside it. Whenever the two of you are together, she is certain that you are spied upon. She does not want the Dark Knights to find out that she is in constant contact with Alhana.”

  “Mother is probably right,” Gilthas admitted. “My servant Planchet is the only person I trust and that is because he has proven his loyalty to me time and again. So Silvanoshei is dead, killed by ogres. Poor young man. His death must have been a cruel one. Let us hope he passed swiftly.”

  “Did you ever meet him?”

  Gilthas shook his head. “He was born in the Inn of the Last Home in Solace during the time Alhana was exiled. I never saw her after that. My mother told me that the boy favored my Uncle Porthios in looks.”

  “His death makes you heir to both kingdoms,” Kerian observed. “The Speaker of the Sun and Stars.”

  “Which Senator Rashas always wanted,” Gilthas said caustically. “In reality, it seems I will be nothing more than the Speaker of the Dead.”

  “Speak no words of ill omen!” Kerian said and made the sign against evil with her hand, drawing a circle in the air to encompass the words and keep them trapped. “You—Yes, what is it, Silverwing?”

  She turned to speak to an elf who had entered the secret room. The elf started to say something but was interrupted by a gully dwarf, who appeared to be in a state of extreme excitement, to judge by the smell.

  “Me tell!” the gully dwarf cried indignantly, jostling the elf. “Me lookout! Her say so!” He pointed at Kerian.

  “Your Majesty.” The elf made a hurried bow to Gilthas, before he turned to Kerian, his commander, with his information. “The high king of Thorbardin has arrived.”

  “Him here,” the gully dwarf announced loudly. Although he did not speak Elvish, he could guess at what was being said. “Me bring in?”

  “Thank you, Ponce.” Kerian rose to her feet, adjusted the sword she wore at her waist. “I will come to meet him. It would be better if you remained here, Your Majesty,” she added. Their marriage was a secret, even from the elves under Kerian’s command.

  “Big muckity-muck dwarf. Him wear hat!” Ponce was impressed. “Him wear shoes!” The gully dwarf was doubly impressed. “Me never see dwarf wear shoes.”

  “The high king has brought four guards with him,” the elf told Kerian. “As you ordered, we have watched their movements ever since they left Thorbardin.”

  “For their safety, as well as ours, Your Majesty,” Kerian was quick to add, seeing Gilthas’s expression darken.

  “They met with no one,” the elf continued, “and they were not followed—”

  “Except by us,” Gilthas said sardonically.

  “It never hurts to be cautious, Your Majesty,” Kerian said. “Tarn Bellowgranite is the new high king of the clans of Thorbardin. His rule is secure among his people, but dwarves have traitors living among them, as do we elves.”

  Gilthas sighed deeply. “I wish the day would come when this was not so. I trust the dwarves did not notice that we were dogging them?”

  “They saw the starlight, Your Majesty,” said the elf proudly. “They heard the wind in the trees. They did not see or hear us.”

  “Him say he like our dwarf spirits,” Ponce said importantly, his face shining, though this might have been due to the fact that it was smeared with grease from the goose he had been basting. “Him say we make fine dwarf spirits. You want try?” he asked Gilthas. “Put hair up your nose.”

  Kerian and the elf departed, taking the gully dwarf with them. Gilthas sat watching the candle flame flicker with the stirring of the air. Beneath his feet came that strange shivering in the ground, as if the very world trembled. All around him was darkness. The candle’s flame was the only light, and it could be extinguished in a breath. So much could go wrong. Even now, Marshal Medan might be entering Gilthas’s bedroom. The Marshal might be ripping up the pillows from the bed, arresting Planchet, demanding to know the whereabouts of the king.

  Gilthas was suddenly very tired. He was tired of this duplicitous life, tired of the lies and the deceptions, tired of the fact that he was constantly performing. He was always on stage, never allowed a moment to rest in the wings. He could not even sleep well at night, for he was afraid he might say something in his sleep that would bring about his downfall.

  Not that he would be the one to suffer. Prefect Palthainon would see to that. So would Medan. They needed Gilthas on the throne, jerking and twitching to the strings they pulled. If they found out that he’d cut those strings, they would simply reattach them. He would remain on the throne. He would remain alive. Planchet would die, tortured until he was forced to reveal all he knew. Laurana might not be executed but she would certainly be exiled, deemed a dark elf like her brother. Kerian might well be captured, and Medan had proclaimed publicly the terrible death the Lioness would suffer should she ever fall into his hands.

  Gilthas would not suffer, except that he would be forced to watch those he loved most in the world suffer and know he was powerless to help them. That would be, perhaps, the greatest torment of all.

  Out of the darkness crept his old companions: fear, self-doubt, self-hatred, self-loathing. He felt them lay their cold hands upon him and reach inside and twist his gut and wring the icy sweat from his shivering body. He heard their wailing voices cry to him warnings of doom, shout prophecies of death and destruction. He was not equal to this task. He dared not continue this course of action. It was foolhardy. He was putting his people at risk. He was certain they had been discovered. Medan knew everything. Perhaps if Gilthas went back now, he could make it all right. He would crawl into his bed and they would never know he had been gone.…

  “Gilthas,” said a stern voice.

  Gilthas started. He looked wildly into a face he did not know.

  “My husband,” Kerian said gently.

  Gilthas shut his eyes, a shudder passed through his body. Slowly he unclenched the hands that had tightened to fists. He made himself relax, forced the tension to ease from his body, forced himself to quit shaking. The darkness that had momentarily blinded him retreated. The candle’s flame that was Kerian burned brightly, steadily. He drew in a deep, shivering breath.

  “I am well, now,” he said.

  “Are you certain?” Kerian asked. “The thane waits in the adjacent room. Should I stall him?”

  “No, the attack has passed,” Gilthas said, swallowing to rid his mouth of the taste of bile. “You drove away the demons. Give me a moment to make myself presentable. How do I look?”

 
“As if you had seen a wraith,” said Kerian. “But the dwarf will not notice anything amiss. All elves seem pasty-faced to them.”

  Gilthas caught hold of his wife, held her close.

  “Stop it!” she protested, half-laughing and half in earnest. “There’s no time for this now. What if someone saw us?”

  “Let them,” he said, casting caution aside. “I am tired of lying to the world. You are my strength, my salvation. You saved my life, my sanity. When I think back to what I was, a prisoner to those same demons, I wonder how you ever came to love me.”

  “I looked through the cell bars and saw the man locked inside,” Kerian replied, relaxing in her husband’s arms, if only for a moment. “I saw his love for his people. I saw how he suffered because they suffered and he felt helpless to prevent their pain. Love was the key. All I did was put it into the door and turn the lock. You have done all the rest.”

  She slid out of his embrace and was, once again, the warrior queen. “Are you ready? We should not keep the high king waiting longer.”

  “I am ready,” Gilthas said.

  He took in another deep breath, shook back his hair and, walking straight and tall, entered the room.

  “His Majesty, Speaker of the Sun, Gilthas of the House of Solostaran,” Kerian announced formally.

  The dwarf, who was enjoying a mug of dwarf spirits, placed the mug on a table and lowered his head in a gesture of respect. He was tall for a dwarf and looked far older than his true age, for his hair had gone prematurely gray, his beard was gray streaked with white. His eyes were bright and clear and youthful, his gaze sharp and penetrating. He kept his gaze fixed on Gilthas, seemed to bore through the elf’s breastbone as if he would see straight into his heart.

  “He has heard rumors of me,” Gilthas said to himself. “He wonders what to believe. Am I a weak dish rag to be wrung out by every hand? Or am I truly the ruler of my people as he is the ruler of his?”

  “The High King of the Eight Clans,” said Kerian, “Tarn Bellowgranite.”

  The dwarf was himself a half-breed. Much as Gilthas, who had human blood in his veins, Tarn was a product of a liaison between a Hylar dwarf—the nobles of dwarfdom—and a Daergar, the dark dwarves. After the Chaos War, the Thorbardin dwarves had worked with humans to rebuild the fortress of Pax Tharkas. It seemed that the Thorbardin dwarves might actually once more begin to interact with the other races, including their brethren, the hill dwarves, who, due to a feud that dated back to the Cataclysm, had long been shut out of the great dwarven kingdom beneath the mountain.

  But with the coming of the great dragons and the death and destruction they brought, the dwarves had gone back underground. They had sealed up the gates of Thorbardin once again, and the world had lost contact with them. The Daergar had taken advantage of the turmoil to try to seize the rulership of Thorbardin, plunging that nation into a bloody civil war. Tarn Bellowgranite was a hero of the war, and when it came time to pick up the pieces, the thanes had turned to him for leadership. He had found a people divided, a kingdom tottering on the edge of ruin when he came to his rule. He had placed that kingdom upon a firm foundation. He had united the warring clans behind his leadership. Now he was about to contemplate another step that would be something new in the annals of the dwarves of Thorbardin.

  Gilthas stepped forward and bowed deeply, with sincere respect. “High King,” he said speaking flawless Dwarvish, a language he had learned from his father. “I am honored to meet you at last. I know you do not like to leave your home beneath the mountain. Your journey was a long one and perilous, as are all journeys made in the world during these dark times. I thank you for making the journey, for undertaking to meet me here this day to close and formally seal our agreement.”

  The high king nodded his head, tugging on his beard, a sign that he was pleased with the words. The fact that the elf spoke Dwarvish had already impressed Tarn. Gilthas had been right. The dwarf king had heard stories of the elf king’s weak and indecisive nature. But Tarn had learned over the years that it was never wise to judge a man until, as the dwarves would say, you had seen the color of his beard.

  “The journey was pleasant. It is good to breathe the air above the ground for a change,” Tarn replied. “And now, let us get down to business.” He looked at Gilthas shrewdly. “I know how you elves love to palaver. I believe that we can dispense with the niceties.”

  “I am part human,” Gilthas replied with a smile. “The impatient part, or so they tell me. I must be back in Qualinost before tomorrow’s dawning. Therefore I will begin. This matter has been under negotiation for a month. We know where we stand, I believe? Nothing has changed?”

  “Nothing has changed with us,” said Tarn. “Has anything changed with you?”

  “No, it has not. We are in agreement then.” Gilthas dropped the formal tone. “You have refused to accept any payment, sir. I would not permit this, but that I know there is not wealth enough in all of Qualinesti to compensate you and your people for what you are doing. I know the risks that you run. I know that this agreement has caused controversy among your people. I guess that it has even threatened your rule. And I can give you nothing in return except for our thanks—our eternal and undying thanks.”

  “Nay, lad,” said Tarn, flushing in embarrassment. Dwarves dislike being praised. “What I do will bring good to my people as well as yours. Not all of them can see that at this point, but they will. Too long we have lived hidden away from the world beneath the mountain. The notion came to me when civil war erupted in Thorbardin, that we dwarves might well kill each other off and who would ever know? Who would grieve for us? None in this world. The caverns of Thorbardin might fall silent in death, darkness overtake us, and there would be none to speak a word to fill that silence, none to light a lamp. The shadows would close over us, and we would be forgotten.

  “I determined I would not allow that to happen. We dwarves would return to the world. The world would enter Thorbardin. Of course,” Tarn said, with a wink and sip of dwarf spirits, “I could not thrust such change upon my people overnight. It has taken me long years to bring them around to my way of thinking, and even then many are still wagging their beards and stamping their feet over it. But we are doing the right thing. Of that I am convinced. We have already started work on the tunnels,” he added complacently.

  “Have you? Before the papers were signed?” Gilthas asked amazed.

  Tarn took a long gulp, belched contentedly, and grinned. “Bah! What are papers? What are signatures? Give me your hand, King Gilthas. That will seal our bargain.”

  “I give you my hand, King Tarn, and I am honored to do so,” Gilthas replied, deeply touched. “Is there any point on which I can reassure you? Do you have any questions to ask of me?”

  “Just one, lad,” said Tarn, putting down his mug and wiping his chin with his sleeve. “Some of the thanes, most notably the Neidar—a suspicious lot if I do say so—have said repeatedly that if we allow elves to enter Thorbardin, they will turn on us and seize our realm and make it their new home. You and I know that will not happen,” Tarn added, raising his hand to forestall Gilthas’s quick protest, “but what would you say to my people to convince them that this tragedy would not come about?”

  “I would ask the thanes of the Neidar,” said Gilthas, smiling, “if they would build their homes in trees. What would be their answer, do you think, sir?”

  “Hah, hah! They would as soon think of hanging themselves by their beards,” Tarn said, chuckling.

  “Then, by the same token, we elves would as soon think of hanging ourselves by our ears as to live in a hole in the ground. No insult to Thorbardin intended,” Gilthas added politely.

  “None taken, lad. I will tell the Neidar exactly what you have said. That should blow the foam off their ale!” Tarn continued to chuckle.

  “To speak more clearly, I vow on my honor and my life that the Qualinesti will use the tunnels only for the purpose of removing those in peril from the dragon’s wrath
. We have made arrangements with the Plains people to shelter the refugees until such time as we can welcome them back to their own homeland.”

  “May that day be quick to dawn,” said Tarn gravely, no longer laughing. He regarded Gilthas intently. “I would ask why you do not send your refugees to the land of your cousins, the realm of Silvanesti, but I hear that it is closed and barred to you. The elves there have placed some sort of magical fortress around it.”

  “The forces of Alhana Starbreeze continue to try to find some way to enter the shield,” Gilthas said. “We must hope that they will eventually find a way, not only for our sakes, but for the sake of our cousins, as well. How long do you believe the work will take for the tunnel to reach Qualinost?”

  “A fortnight, not more,” said Tarn easily.

  “A fortnight, sir! To dig a tunnel over sixty-five miles through solid rock? I know the dwarves are master stonecutters,” Gilthas said, “but I must confess that this astounds me.”

  “As I said, we had already started working. And we have help,” said Tarn. “Have you ever heard of the Urkhan? No? I’m not surprised. Few outsiders know anything about them. The Urkhan are gigantic worms that eat rock. We harness them up, and they gnaw through granite as if it were fresh-baked bread. Who do you think built the thousands of miles of tunnels in Thorbardin?” Tarn grinned. “The Urkhan, of course. The worm does all the work, and we dwarves take all the credit!”

  Gilthas expressed his admiration for the remarkable worms and listened politely to a discussion of the Urkhan’s habits, its docile nature, and what happened to the rock after it passed through the worm’s system.