“Quite … quite finished,” Denubis said hastily, handing his half-full plate and glass to a passing servant. “I don’t seem to be as hungry as I thought.” That, at least, was true. He had completely lost his appetite.
Quarath smiled a delicate smile. His thin elven face with its finely sculpted features seemed to be made of fragile porcelain, and he always smiled carefully, as if fearing his face would break.
“Very well, if the desserts do not tempt you?”
“N-no, not in the slightest. Sweets … bad for th-the digestion th-this late—”
“Then, come with me, Revered Son. It has been a long time since we talked.” Quarath took Denubis’s arm with casual familiarity—though it had been months since the cleric had last seen his superior.
First the Kingpriest, now Quarath. Denubis felt a cold lump in the pit of his stomach. As Quarath was leading him out of the Audience Hall, the Kingpriest’s musical voice rose. Denubis glanced backward, basking for one more moment in that wondrous light. Then, as he looked away with a sigh, his gaze came to rest upon the black-robed mage. Fistandantilus smiled and nodded. Shuddering, Denubis hurriedly accompanied Quarath out the door.
The two clerics walked through sumptuously decorated corridors until they came to a small chamber, Quarath’s own. It, too, was splendidly decorated inside, but Denubis was too nervous to notice any detail.
“Please, sit down, Denubis. I may call you that, since we are comfortably alone.”
Denubis didn’t know about the comfortably, but they were certainly alone. He sat on the edge of the seat Quarath offered him, accepted a small glass of cordial which he didn’t drink, and waited. Quarath talked of inconsequential nothings for a few moments, asking after Denubis’s work—he translated passages of the Disks of Mishakal into his native language, Solamnic—and other items in which he obviously wasn’t the least bit interested.
Then, after a pause, Quarath said casually, “I couldn’t help but hear you questioning the Kingpriest.”
Denubis set his cordial down on a table, his hand shaking so he barely avoided spilling it. “I … I was … simply concerned … about—about the young man … they arrested erroneously,” he stammered faintly.
Quarath nodded gravely. “Very right, too. Very proper. It is written that we should be concerned about our fellows in this world. It becomes you, Denubis, and I shall certainly note that in my yearly report.”
“Thank you, Revered Son,” Denubis murmured, not certain what else to say.
Quarath said nothing more but sat regarding the cleric opposite with his slanted, elven eyes.
Denubis mopped his face with the sleeve of his robe. It was unbelievably hot in this room. Elves had such thin blood.
“Was there something else?” Quarath asked mildly.
Denubis drew a deep breath. “My lord,” he said earnestly, “about that young man. Will he be released? And the kender?” He was suddenly inspired. “I thought perhaps I could be of some help, guide them back to the paths of good. Since the young man is innocent—”
“Who of us is truly innocent?” Quarath questioned, looking at the ceiling as if the gods themselves might write the answer there for him.
“I’m certain that is a very good question,” Denubis said meekly, “and one no doubt worthy of study and discussion, but this young man is, apparently innocent—at least as innocent as he’s likely to be of anything—” Denubis stopped, slightly confused.
Quarath smiled sadly. “Ah, there, you see?” he said, spreading his hands and turning his gaze upon the cleric. “The fur of the rabbit covers the tooth of the wolf, as the saying goes.”
Leaning back in his chair, Quarath once again regarded the ceiling. “The two are being sold in the slave markets tomorrow.”
Denubis half rose from his chair. “What? My lord—”
Quarath’s gaze instantly fixed itself upon the cleric, freezing the man where he stood.
“Questioning? Again?”
“But … he’s innocent!” was all Denubis could think of to say.
Quarath smiled again, this time wearily, indulgently.
“You are a good man, Denubis. A good man, a good cleric. A simple man, perhaps, but a good one. This was not a decision we made lightly. We questioned the man. His accounts of where he came from and what he was doing in Istar are confused, to say the least. If he was innocent of the girl’s injuries, he undoubtedly has other crimes that are tearing at his soul. That much is visible upon his face. He has no means of support, there was no money on him. He is a vagrant and likely to turn to thievery if left on his own. We are doing him a favor by providing him with a master who will care for him. In time, he can earn his freedom and, hopefully, his soul will have been cleansed of its burden of guilt. As for the kender—” Quarath waved a negligent hand.
“Does the Kingpriest know?” Denubis summoned up courage to ask.
Quarath sighed, and this time the cleric saw a faint wrinkle of irritation appear on the elf’s smooth brow. “The Kingpriest has many more pressing issues on his mind, Revered Son Denubis,” he said coldly. “He is so good that the pain of this one man’s suffering would upset him for days. He did not specifically say the man was to be freed, so we simply removed the burden of this decision from his thoughts.”
Seeing Denubis’s haggard face fill with doubt, Quarath sat forward, regarding his cleric with a frown. “Very well, Denubis, if you must know—there were some very strange circumstances regarding the young woman’s discovery. Not the least of which is that it was instituted, we understand, by the Dark One.”
Denubis swallowed and sank back into his seat. The room no longer seemed hot. He shivered. “That is true,” he said miserably, passing his hand over his face. “He met me—”
“I know!” Quarath snapped. “He told me. The young woman will stay here with us. She is a Revered Daughter. She wears the medallion of Paladine. She, also, is somewhat confused, but that is to be expected. We can keep an eye on her. But I’m certain you realize how impossible it is that we allow that young man to simply wander off. In the Elder Days, they would have tossed him in a dungeon and thought no more of it. We are more enlightened than that. We will provide a decent home for him and be able to watch over him at the same time.”
Quarath makes it sound like a charitable act, selling a man into slavery, Denubis thought in confusion. Perhaps it is. Perhaps I am wrong. As he says, I am a simple man. Dizzily, he rose from his chair. The rich food he had eaten sat in his stomach like a cobblestone. Mumbling an apology to his superior, he started toward the door. Quarath rose, too, a conciliatory smile on his face.
“Come visit with me again, Revered Son,” he said, standing by the door. “And do not fear to question us. That is how we learn.”
Denubis nodded numbly, then paused. “I—I have one more question, then,” he said hesitantly. “You mentioned the Dark One. What do you know of him? I mean, why is he here? He—he frightens me.”
Quarath’s face was grave, but he did not appear displeased at this question. Perhaps he was relieved that Denubis’s mind had turned to another subject. “Who knows anything of the ways of magic-users,” he answered, “except that their ways are not our ways, nor yet the ways of the gods. It was for that reason the Kingpriest felt compelled to rid Ansalon of them, as much as was possible. Now they are holed up in their one remaining Tower of High Sorcery in that cast-off Forest of Wayreth. Soon, even that will disappear as their numbers dwindle, since we have closed the schools. You heard about the cursing of the Tower at Palanthas?”
Denubis nodded silently.
“That terrible incident!” Quarath frowned. “It just goes to show you how the gods have cursed these wizards, driving that one poor soul to such madness that he impaled himself upon the gates, bringing down the wrath of the gods and sealing the Tower forever, we suppose. But, what were we discussing?”
“Fistandantilus,” Denubis murmured, sorry he had brought it up. Now he wanted only to get back to his roo
m and take his stomach powder.
Quarath raised his feathery eyebrows. “All I know of him is that he was here when I came, some one hundred years ago. He is old—older even than many of my kindred, for there are few even of the eldest of my race who can remember a time when his name was not whispered. But he is human and therefore must use his magic arts to sustain his life. How, I dare not imagine.” Quarath looked at Denubis intently. “You understand now, of course, why the Kingpriest keeps him at court?”
“He fears him?” Denubis asked innocently.
Quarath’s porcelain smile became fixed for a moment, then it was the smile of a parent explaining a simple matter to a dull child. “No, Revered Son,” he said patiently. “Fistandantilus is of great use to us. Who knows the world better? He has traveled its width and breadth. He knows the languages, the customs, the lore of every race on Krynn. His knowledge is vast. He is useful to the Kingpriest, and so we allow him to remain here, rather than banish him to Wayreth, as we have banished his fellows.”
Denubis nodded. “I understand,” he said, smiling weakly. “And … and now, I must go. Thank you for your hospitality, Revered Son, and for clearing up my doubts. I-I feel much better now.”
“I am glad to have been able to help,” Quarath said gently. “May the gods grant you restful sleep, my son.”
“And you as well,” Denubis murmured the reply, then left, hearing, with relief, the door shut behind him.
The cleric walked hurriedly past the Kingpriest’s audience chamber. Light welled from the door, the sound of the sweet, musical voice tugged at his heart as he went by, but he feared he might be sick and so resisted the temptation to return.
Longing for the peace of his quiet room, Denubis walked quickly through the Temple. He became lost once, taking a wrong turn in the crisscrossing corridors. But a kindly servant led him back the direction he needed to take to reach the part of the Temple where he lived.
This part was austere, compared to that where the Kingpriest and the court resided, although still filled with every conceivable luxury by Krynnish standards. But as Denubis walked the halls, he thought how homey and comforting the soft candlelight appeared. Other clerics passed him with smiles and whispered evening greetings. This was where he belonged. It was simple, like himself.
Heaving another sigh of relief, Denubis reached his own small room and opened the door (nothing was ever locked in the Temple—it showed a distrust of one’s fellows) and started to enter. Then he stopped. Out of the corner of his eye he had glimpsed movement, a dark shadow within darker shadows. He stared intently down the corridor. There was nothing there. It was empty.
I am getting old. My eyes are playing tricks, Denubis told himself, shaking his head wearily. Walking into the room, his white robes whispering around his ankles, he shut the door firmly, then reached for his stomach powder.
CHAPTER
3
key rattled in the lock of the cell door.
Tasslehoff sat bolt upright. Pale light crept into the cell through a tiny, barred window set high in the thick, stone wall. Dawn, he thought sleepily. The key rattled again, as if the jailer was having trouble opening the lock. Tas cast an uneasy glance at Caramon on the opposite side of the cell. The big man lay on the stone slab that was his bed without moving or giving any sign that he heard the racket.
A bad sign, Tas thought anxiously, knowing the well-trained warrior (when he wasn’t drunk) would once have awakened at the sound of footsteps outside the room. But Caramon had neither moved nor spoken since the guards brought them here yesterday. He had refused food and water (although Tas had assured him it was a cut above most prison food). He lay on the stone slab and stared up at the ceiling until nightfall. Then he had moved, a little at least—he had shut his eyes.
The key was rattling louder than ever, and added to its noise was the sound of the jailer swearing. Hurriedly Tas stood up and crossed the stone floor, plucking straw out of his hair and smoothing his clothes as he went. Spotting a battered stool in the corner, the kender dragged it over to the door, stood upon it, and peered through the barred window in the door down at the jailer on the other side.
“Good morning,” Tas said cheerfully. “Having some trouble?”
The jailer jumped three feet at the unexpected sound and nearly dropped his keys. He was small man, wizened and gray as the walls. Glaring up at the kender’s face through the bars the jailer snarled and, inserting the key in the lock once more poked and shook it vigorously. A man standing behind the jailer scowled. He was a large, well-built man, dressed in fine clothes and wrapped against the morning chill in a bear-skin cape. In his hand, he held a piece of slate, a bit of chalkrock dangling from it by a leather thong.
“Hurry up,” the man snarled at the jailer. “The market opens at midday and I’ve got to get this lot cleaned up and decent-looking by then.”
“Must be broken,” muttered the jailer.
“Oh, no, it’s not broken,” Tas said helpfully. “Actually, in fact, I think your key would fit just fine if my lockpick wasn’t in the way.”
The jailer slowly lowered the keys and raised his eyes to look balefully at the kender.
“It was the oddest accident,” Tas continued. “You see, I was rather bored last night—Caramon fell asleep early—and you had taken away all my things, so, when I just happened to discover that you’d missed a lockpick I keep in my sock, I decided to try it on this door, just to keep my hand in, so to speak, and to see what kind of jails you built back here. You do build a very nice jail, by the way,” Tas said solemnly. “One of the nicest I’ve ever been in—er, one of the nicest I’ve ever seen. By the way, my name is Tasslehoff Burrfoot.” The kender squeezed his hand through the bar in case either of them wanted to shake it. They didn’t. “And I’m from Solace. So’s my friend. We’re here on a sort of mission you might say and—Oh, yes, the lock. Well, you needn’t glare at me so, it wasn’t my fault. In fact, it was your stupid lock that broke my lockpick! One of my best too. My father’s,” the kender said sadly. “He gave it to me on the day I came of age. I really think,” Tas added in a stern voice, “that you could at least apologize.”
At this, the jailer made a strange sound, sort of a snort and an explosion. Shaking his ring of keys at the kender, he snapped something incoherent about “rotting in that cell forever” and started walking off, but the man in the bear-skin cape grabbed hold of him.
“Not so fast. I need the one in here.”
“I know, I know,” the jailer whined in a thin voice, “but you’ll have to wait for the locksmith—”
“Impossible. My orders are to put ’im on the block today”
“Well, then you come up with some way to get them outta there.” The jailer sneered. “Get the kender a new lockpick. Now, do you want the rest of the lot or not?”
He started to totter off, leaving the bear-skin man staring grimly at the door. “You know where my orders come from,” he said in ominous tones.
“My orders come from the same place,” the jailer said over his bony shoulder, “and if they don’t like it they can come pray the door open. If that don’t work, they can wait for the locksmith, same as everyone else.”
“Are you going to let us out?” Tas asked eagerly. “If you are, we might be able to help—” Then a sudden thought crossed his mind. “You’re not going to execute us, are you? Because, in that case, I think we’d just as soon wait for the locksmith.…”
“Execute!” the bear-skin man growled. “Hasn’t been an execution in Istar in ten years. Church forbade it.”
“Aye, a quick, clean death was too good for a man,” cackled the jailer, who had turned around again. “Now, what do you mean about helping, you little beast?”
“Well,” Tas faltered, “if you’re not going to execute us, what are you going to do with us, then? I don’t suppose you’re letting us go? We are innocent, after all. I mean, we didn’t—”
“I’m not going to do anything with you,” the bear-s
kin man said sarcastically. “It’s your friend I want. And, no, they’re not letting him go.”
“Quick, clean death,” the old jailer muttered, grinning toothlessly. “Always a nice crowd gathered to watch, too. Made a man feel his going out meant something, which is just what Harry Snaggle said to me as they was marching him off to be hung. He hoped there would be a good crowd and there was. Brought a tear to his eye. ‘All these people,’ he says to me, ‘giving up their holiday just to come give me a sendoff.’ A gentleman to the end.”
“He’s going on the block!” the bear-skin man said loudly, ignoring the jailer.
“Quick, clean.” The jailer shook his head.
“Well,” Tas said dubiously, “I’m not sure what that means, but if you’re truly letting us out, perhaps Caramon can help.”
The kender disappeared from the window, and they heard him yelling, “Caramon, wake up! They’re wanting to let us out and they can’t get the door open and I’m afraid it’s my fault, well, partly—”
“You realize you’ve got to take them both,” the jailer said cunningly.
“What?” The bear-skin man turned to glare at the jailer. “That was never mentioned—”
“They’re to be sold together. Those are my orders and since your orders and my orders come from the same place—”
“Is this in writing?” The man scowled.
“Of course.” The jailer was smug.
“I’ll lose money! Who’ll buy a kender?”
The jailer shrugged. It was none of his concern.
The bear-skin man opened his mouth again, then shut it as another face appeared framed in the cell door. It wasn’t the kender’s this time. It was the face of a human, a young man, around twenty-eight. The face might once have been handsome, but now the strong jawline was blurred with fat, the brown eyes were lackluster, the curly hair tangled and matted.
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