The clouds rose to immense heights, towering spires of lightning-shot gray-black, taller than the mighty fortress of Pax Tharkas. Palin looked up in awe, his head bent so that his neck ached and still he could not see the top. The griffon swooped nearer. Tasslehoff was still shouting something, but the wind took his words and whipped them away behind him, as it whipped his topknot.
Palin looked back. The dragon was almost on them. The claws of the dragon twitched now in anticipation of the capture. She would breathe her lethal gas on them, then seize them all three in one of her huge clawed feet and hurl them to the ground. With luck, the fall would kill them. The dragon would devour the griffon and then, at her leisure, she would rip their bodies apart, searching for the device.
Palin averted his eyes, stared ahead into the storm and urged the griffon to fly faster.
The cloud fortress rose before them. A flash of lightning blinded him. Thunder rolled, sounding like enormous cables turning a gigantic cog wheel. A solid bank of clouds suddenly parted, revealing a dark, lightning-lit hallway curtained by driving rain.
The griffon plunged into the cloud bank. Rain lashed at them in stinging torrents, deluged them. Wiping the water from his eyes, Palin stared in awe. Row after row of columns of gray cloud rose from a mottled gray floor to support a ceiling of boiling black.
Clouds shrouded them, wrapped around them. Palin could see nothing for the woolly grayness. He could not even see the griffon’s head. Lightning sizzled near him. He could smell the brimstone, thunder crashed, nearly stopping his heart.
The griffon flew a zigzag course among the columns, soaring up and diving down, rounding and circling, then doubling back. Sheets of rain hung like silver tapestries, drenching them as they flew beneath. Palin could not see the dragon, though he could hear the discordant horn blast of its frustration as it tried desperately to find them.
The griffon left the cavernous halls of the fortress of storm clouds and flew out into the sunshine. Palin looked back, waited tensely for the dragon to appear. The griffon chortled, pleased. The dragon was lost somewhere in the storm clouds.
Palin told himself that he’d had no choice in the matter, he had acted logically in escaping. He had to protect the magical artifact. Gerard had practically ordered the mage to leave. If he had stayed, he could have accomplished nothing. They would have all died, and the artifact would have been in Beryl’s possession.
The artifact was safe. Gerard was either dead or a prisoner. There was nothing that could be done to save him now.
“Best to forget it,” Palin said to himself. “Put it out of my mind. What’s done is done and can’t be undone.”
He dropped remorse and guilt into a dark pit, a deep pit in his soul and covered them with the iron grating of necessity.
“Sir,” reported Medan’s subcommander, “the Knight is attacking—alone. The magic-user and the kender are escaping. What are your orders?”
“Attacking alone. So he is,” Medan replied, astonished.
The Solamnic came crashing through the underbrush, brandishing his sword and shouting the Solamnic battle-cry, a cry Marshal Medan had not heard in many years. The sight took the marshal back to the days when knights in shining silver and gleaming black clashed headlong on the field of battle; when champions came forward to duel to the death while armies looked on, their fates in the hands of heroes; when combatants saluted each other with honor before commencing with the deadly business at hand.
Here was Medan, crouched in a bush, safely ensconced behind a large tree stump, taking potshots at a washed-up mage and a kender.
“Can I sink any lower?” he muttered to himself.
The archer was drawing his bow. Having lost sight of the mage, he shifted his aim to the Knight, going for the legs, hoping for a crippling shot.
“Belay that,” Medan snapped, resting his hand on the bowman’s arm.
The subcommander looked around. “Sir? Your orders?”
The Solamnic was closing in. The magic-user and the kender were out of range, lost in the trees and the mists.
“Sir, should we pursue them?” the subcommander asked.
“No,” Medan answered and saw a look of amazement cross the man’s face.
“But our orders,” he ventured.
“I know our orders,” Medan snapped. “Do you want to be remembered in song as the Knight who slew a kender and a broken-down old mage, or as a Knight who fought a battle with an equal?”
The subcommander evidently did not want to be remembered in song. “But our orders,” he persisted.
Damn the man for a thick-headed lout! Medan glowered at him.
“You have your orders, Subcommander. Don’t make me repeat them.”
The forest grew dark again. The sun had risen only to have its warmth and light cut off by storm clouds. Thunder rumbled in the distance, a few drops of rain pelted down. The kender and the mage had disappeared. They were on the back of the griffon and heading away from Qualinesti. Away from Laurana. Now, with luck, he could shield her from any involvement with the mage.
“Go meet the Knight,” Medan said, waving his hand. “He challenges you to combat. Fight him.”
The subcommander rose from his place, sword drawn. The archer dropped his bow. He held a dagger in his hand, ready to strike from behind while the subcommander attacked from the front.
“Single combat,” Medan added, holding the bowman back. “Face him one on one, Subcommander.”
“Sir?” The man was incredulous. He looked back to see if the marshal was joking.
What had the subcommander been before he became a Knight? Sell-sword? Thief? Thug? Well, this day, he would have a lesson in honor.
“You heard me,” Medan said.
The subcommander exchanged dour glances with his fellow, then walked forward without enthusiasm to meet the Solamnic’s crashing charge. Medan rose to his feet. Crossing his arms over his chest, he leaned back against one of the white boulders to watch the encounter.
The subcommander was a powerfully built man with a bull neck, thick shoulders and muscular arms. He was accustomed to relying on his strength and low cunning in battle, hacking and slashing at his opponent until either a lucky cut or sheer brute force wore the enemy down.
The subcommander charged head-on like a snorting bison, swinging his sword with murderous strength. The Solamnic parried the blow, met it with such force that sparks glittered on the steel blades. The subcommander held on, swords locked, trying to drive his opponent into the ground. The Solamnic was no match for such strength. He recognized this and changed tactics. He staggered backward, leaving himself temptingly open.
The subcommander fell for the ruse. He leaped to the attack, slashing with his blade, thinking to make a quick kill. He managed to wound the knight in the left upper arm, cutting through the leather armor to open a great bleeding gash.
The Solamnic took the blow and never winced. He held his ground, watched for his opportunity and coolly drove his sword into the subcommander’s belly.
The subcommander dropped his sword and doubled over with a horrible, gurgling cry, clutching himself, trying to hold his insides in. The Solamnic yanked his sword free. Blood gushed from the man’s mouth. He toppled over.
Before Medan could stop him, the bowman had lifted his bow, shot an arrow at the Solamnic. The arrow plunged deep into the Knight’s thigh. He cried out in agony, stumbled, off-balance.
“You cowardly bastard!” Medan swore. Snatching the bow, he slammed it against the rock, smashing it.
The archer then drew his sword and ran to engage the wounded Solamnic. Medan considered halting the battle, but he was interested to see how the Solamnic handled this new challenge. He watched dispassionately, glorying in a battle-to-the-death contest such as he had not witnessed in years.
The archer was a shorter, lighter man, a cagier fighter than the subcommander. He took his time, testing his opponent with jabbing strikes of his short sword, searching for weaknesses, wearing him dow
n. He caught the Solamnic a glancing blow to the face beneath the raised visor. The wound was not serious, but blood poured from it, running into the Solamnic’s eye, partially blinding him. The Solamnic blinked the blood out of his eye and fought on. Crippled and bleeding, he grimaced every time he was forced to put weight on his leg. The arrow remained lodged in his thigh. He had not had time to yank it out. Now he was on the offensive. He had to end this fight soon, or he would not have any strength to pursue it.
Lightning flashed. The rain fell harder. The men struggled together over the corpse of the subcommander. The Solamnic jabbed and slashed, his sword seeming to be everywhere like a striking snake. Now it was the archer who was hard-pressed. He had all he could do to keep that snake’s fang from biting.
“Well struck, Solamnic,” Medan said softly more than once, watching with pleasure the sight of such skill, such excellent training.
The archer slipped in the rain-wet grass. The Solamnic lunged forward on his wounded leg and drove his sword into the man’s breast. The archer fell, and so did the Solamnic, collapsing on his knees onto the forest floor, gasping for breath.
Medan left his boulder, walked out into the open. The Solamnic, hearing him coming, staggered to his feet with a wrenching cry of pain. His wounded leg gave out beneath him. Limping, the Solamnic placed his back against a tree trunk to provide stability and raised his sword. He looked at death. He knew he could not win this last battle, but at least he would die upright, not on his knees.
“I thought the flame had gone out in the hearts of the Knighthood, but it lives on in one man seemingly,” said Medan, facing the Solamnic. The marshal rested his hand on the hilt of his sword, but he did not draw it.
The Solamnic’s face was a mask of blood. Eyes of a startling, arresting blue color regarded Medan without hope, but without fear.
He waited for Medan to strike.
The marshal stood in the mud and the rain, straddling the bodies of his two dead subordinates, and waited.
The Solamnic’s defiance began to waver. He realized suddenly what Medan was doing, realized that he was waiting for the Solamnic to collapse, waiting to capture him alive.
“Fight, damn you!” The Solamnic lurched forward, lashed out with his sword.
Medan stepped to one side.
The Solamnic forgot, put his weight on his bad leg. The leg gave way. He lost his balance, fell to the forest floor. Even then, he made one last opportunity to try to struggle to his feet, but he was too weak. He had lost too much blood. His eyes closed. He lay face down in the muck alongside the bodies of his foes.
Medan rolled the Knight over. Placing his hand on the Knight’s thigh for leverage, the marshal took hold of the arrow and yanked it out. The Knight groaned with the pain, but did not regain consciousness. Medan took off his cloak, cut the material into strips with his sword, and made a battlefield tourniquet to staunch the bleeding. He then wrapped the Knight warmly in what remained of the cloak.
“You have lost a lot of blood,” Medan said, returning his sword to its sheath, “but you are young and strong. We will see what the healers can do for you.”
Rounding up the two horses of his subordinates, Medan threw the bodies unceremoniously over their saddles, tied them securely. Then the marshal whistled to his own horse. The animal came trotting over in response to his master’s summons to stand quietly at Medan’s side.
Medan lifted the Solamnic in his arms, eased the wounded Knight into the saddle. He examined the wound, was pleased to see that the tourniquet had stopped the flow of blood. He relaxed the tourniquet a notch, not wanting to cut off the blood flow to the leg completely, then climbed into the saddle. Seating himself behind the injured Knight, Medan put his arm around the man and held him gently but firmly in the saddle. He took hold of the reins of the other two horses and, leading them behind, began the long ride back to Qualinost.
21
The Device of Time Journeying
he wild and terrifying flight from the dragon ended in blue sky and sunshine. The flight took longer than usual, for the griffon had been blown off course by the storm. The beast made landfall somewhere in the wilds of the Kharolis Mountains to feed on a deer, a delay Palin chafed at, but all his pleas for haste went unheeded. After dining, the griffon took a nap, while Palin paced back and forth, keeping a firm grip on Tasslehoff. When night fell, the creature stated that it would not fly after dark. The griffon and Tasslehoff slept. Palin sat fuming and waiting for the sun to rise.
They continued their journey the next day. The griffon landed Palin and Tasslehoff at midmorning in an empty field not far from what had once been the Academy of Sorcery. The stone walls of the academy still stood, but they were black and crumbling. The roof was a skeleton of charred beams. The tower that had once been a symbol of hope to the world, hope that magic had returned, was nothing but a pile of rubble, demolished by the blast that had torn out its heart.
Palin had once planned to rebuild the academy, if for no other reason than to show his defiance for Beryl. When he began to lose the magic, began to feel it slip away from him like water falling from cupped palms, he discarded the idea. It was a waste of time and effort. Better far to spend his energies searching for artifacts of the Fourth Age, artifacts that still held the magic inside and could still be used by those who knew how.
“What is that place?” Tasslehoff asked, sliding down from the griffon’s back. He stared with interest at the destroyed walls with their gaping, empty windows. “And what happened to it?”
“Nothing. Never mind,” Palin said, not wanting to enter into long explanations involving the death of a dream. “Come along. We have no time to was—”
“Look!” Tas cried, pointing. “Someone’s walking around there. I’m going to go look!”
He was off, his bright shirt tail fluttering behind him, his topknot bouncing with glee.
“Come back—” Palin began and then realized he might as well save his breath.
Tas was right. Someone was indeed walking around the ruins of the academy and Palin wondered who it might be. The residents of Solace considered the place cursed and never went there for any reason. The person was wearing long robes; Palin caught a glimpse of crimson fabric beneath a gold-trimmed beige cloak. This could, of course, be some former student, come back to gaze in nostalgia at his wrecked place of learning, but Palin doubted it. By the graceful walk and the rich dress, he realized that this was Jenna.
Mistress Jenna of Palanthas had been a powerful red-robed wizardess in the days before the Chaos War. An extraordinarily beautiful woman, she was reputed to have been the lover of Dalamar the Dark, pupil of Raistlin Majere and once Master of the Tower of High Sorcery at Palanthas. Jenna had earned her living by running a mageware shop in Palanthas. Her shop had done moderately well during the Fourth Age, when magic had been a gift granted to people by the three gods, Solinari, Lunitari, and Nuitari. She carried the usual assorted spell components: bat guano, butterfly wings, sulphur, rose leaves (whole and crushed), spider eggs, and so forth. She had a good supply of potions and was known to have the best collection of spell scrolls and books outside the Tower of Wayreth, all to be had for a price. She was particularly renowned for her collection of magical artifacts: rings, bracers, daggers, swords, pendants, charms, amulets. These were the artifacts on display. She had other, more potent, more dangerous, more powerful artifacts, which she kept hidden away, to be shown only to serious customers and that by appointment.
When the Chaos War came, Jenna had joined Dalamar and a white-robed mage on a perilous mission to help defeat the rampaging Father of the Gods. She never spoke of what befell them on that terrible journey. All Palin knew was that on their return Dalamar had been critically wounded. He had lain near death in his tower for many long weeks.
Jenna had been his constant companion and nurse until the day when she walked out of the tower, never to return. For on that night, the Tower of High Sorcery at Palanthas was destroyed in a magical blast. No one
ever saw Dalamar again. After many years had passed and he had not returned, the Conclave pronounced him officially dead. Mistress Jenna reopened her mageware shop and discovered that she was sitting on a treasure trove.
With the magic of the gods vanished, desperate mages had sought ways to hold onto their power. They discovered that magical artifacts crafted in the Fourth Age retained their power. The only drawback was that sometimes this power was erratic, did not act as expected. A magical sword, once an artifact of good, suddenly began to slay those it was meant to protect. A ring of invisibility failed its owner at a critical moment, landing the thief five years in a Sanction dungeon. No one knew the reason. Some said the unreliability was due to the fact that the gods no longer had influence over them, others said that it had nothing to do with the gods. Artifacts were always known to be tricky objects to handle.
Buyers were more than willing to take the risk, however, and the demand for Fourth Age artifacts soared higher than a gnomish steam-driven mechanical flapjack-flipping device. Mistress Jenna’s prices rose to match. She was now, at the age of sixty-something, one of the wealthiest women in Ansalon. Still beautiful, though her beauty had ripened, she had retained her influence and power even under the rule of the Knights of Neraka, whose commanders found her charming, fascinating, mysterious, and accommodating. She paid no attention to those who termed her “collaborator.” Jenna had long been accustomed to playing both ends against the middle, knew how to fool the middle and the ends into thinking each was getting the best of the bargain.
Mistress Jenna was also the acknowledged expert in Ansalon on Fourth Age magical artifacts.
Palin could not go immediately to greet her. The griffon complained again of hunger. The beast was, in fact, eyeing the kender avariciously, obviously considering Tas a toothsome morsel. Palin promised he would send back a haunch of venison. This satisfied the griffon, who began to preen herself, pleased at having reached her destination.
Dragons of a Fallen Sun Page 39
