Dragonlance 15 - Dragons Of A Fallen Sun (12 page)

the beginning of peace.' And then I bow and that's the end. What

do you think?"

Gerard arrived in the doorway in time to see the kender jump

down off a table, from which vantage point he'd been delivering

his speech, and run over to stand in front of Caramon. Laura was

wiping her eyes on the comers of her apron. Her gully dwarf

helper blubbered shamelessly in a comer, while the Inn's patrons

were applauding wildly and banging their mugs on the table,

shouting "Hear, hear!"

Caramon Majere sat in one of the high-backed booths. He was

smiling, a smile touched by the last golden rays of the sun, rays

that seem to have slipped into the Inn on purpose just to say

goodnight.

"I'm sorry this had to happen, sir," said Gerard, walking

inside. "I didn't realize he would trouble you. I'll take him away

now."

Caramon reached out his hand and stroked the kender's top-

knot, the hair of which was standing straight up, like the fur of a

startled cat.

"He's not bothering me. I'm glad to see him again. That part

about friendship was wonderful, Tas. Truly wonderful. Thank

you."

Caramon frowned, shook his head. "But I don't understand

the rest of what you said, Tas. All about the United Elven Na-

tions and Riverwind coming to the Inn when he's been dead

these many years. Something's peculiar here. I'll have to think

about it." Caramon stood up from the booth and headed

toward the door. "I'll just be taking my evening walk, now,

Laura."

"Your dinner will be waiting when you come back, Father,"

she said. Smoothing her apron, she shook the gully dwarf, or-

dered him to pull himself together and get back to work.

"Don't think about it too long, Caramon," Tas called out. "Be-

cause of . . . well, you know."

He looked up at Gerard, who had laid a firm hand on the

kender's shoulder, getting a good grip on flesh and bone this time.

"It's because he's going to be dead pretty soon," Tas said in a

loud whisper. "I didn't like to mention that. It would have been

rude, don't you think?"

"I think you're going to spend the next year in prison," said

Gerard sternly.

Caramon Majere stood at the top of the stairs. "Yes, Tika, dear.

I'm coming," he said. Putting his hand over his heart, he pitched

forward, headfirst.

The kender tore himself free of Gerard, flung himself to the

floor, and burst into tears.

Gerard moved swiftly, but he was too late to halt Caramon's

fall. The big man tumbled and rolled down the stairs of his

beloved Inn. Laura screamed. The patrons cried out in shock and

alarm. People in the street, seeing Caramon falling, began to run

toward the Inn.

Gerard dashed down the stairs as fast as ever he could and

was the first to reach Caramon. He feared to find the big man in

terrible pain, for he must have broken every bone in his body.

Caramon did not appear to be suffering however. He had already

left mortal cares and pain behind, his spirit lingering only long

enough to say good-bye. Laura threw herself beside him on the

ground. Taking hold of his hand, she held it pressed to her lips.

"Don't cry, my dear," he said softly, smiling. "Your mother's

here with me. She'll take good care of me. I'll be fine."

"Oh, Daddy!" Laura sobbed. "Don't leave me yet!"

Caramon's eyes glanced around at the townspeople who had

gathered. He smiled and gave a little nod. He continued to search

through the crowd and he frowned.

"But where's Raistlin?" he asked.

Laura looked startled, but said, brokenly, "Father, your

brother's been dead a long, long time-"

"He said he would wait for me," Caramon said, his voice be-

ginning strong, but growing fainter. "He should be here. Tika's

here. I don't understand. This is not right. Tas. . . What Tas said

. . . A different future. . ."

His gaze came to Gerard. He beckoned the Knight to come

near.

"There's something you must. . . do," said Caramon, his

breath rasping in his chest.

Gerard knelt beside him, more touched by this man's death

than he could have imagined possible. "Yes, sir," he said. "What

is it?"

"Promise me . . ." Caramon whispered. "On your honor. . . as

a Knight."

"I promise," said Gerard. He supposed that the old man was

going to ask him to watch over his daughters or to take care of his

grandchildren, one of whom was also a Solamnic Knight. "What

would you have me do, sir?"

"Dalamar will know. . . . Take Tasslehoff to Dalarnar," Cara-

mon said and his voice was suddenly strong and firm. He looked

intently at Gerard. "Do you promise? Do you swear that you will

do this?"

"But sir," Gerard faltered, "what you ask of me is impossible!

No one has seen Dalamar for years. Most believe that he is dead.

And as for this kender who calls himself Tasslehoff . . ."

Caramon reached out his hand, a hand that was bloody from

his fall. He grasped hold of Gerard's most unwilling hand and

gripped it tightly.

"I promise, sir," said Gerard.

Caramon smiled. He let out his breath and did not draw an-

other. His eyes fixed in death, fixed on Gerard. The hand, even in

death, did not relinquish its grip. Gerard had to pry the old man's

fingers loose and was left with a smear of blood on his palm.

"I'll be happy to go with you to see Dalamar, Sir Knight, but I

can't go tomorrow," said the kender, snuffling and wiping his

tear-grimed face with the sleeve of his shirt. "1 have to speak at

Caramon's funeral."

CHAPTER FOUR

A STRANGE AWAKENING

Silvan's arm was on fire. He couldn't put out the blaze, and

no one would come help him. He called out for Samar and

for his mother, but his calls went unanswered. He was

angry, deeply angry, angry and hurt that they would not come,

that they were ignoring him. Then he realized that the reason they

were not coming was that they were angry with him. He had

failed them. He had let them down, and they would come to him

no more. . . .

With a great cry, Silvan woke himself. He opened his eyes to

see above him a canopy of gray. His vision was slightly blurred,

and he mistook the gray mass above him for the gray ceiling of

the burial mound. His arm pained him, and he remembered the

fire. Gasping, he shifted to put out the flames. Pain lanced

through his arm and hammered in his head. He saw no flames,

and he realized dazedly that the fire had been a dream. The pain

in his left arm was not a dream, however. The pain was real. He

examined the arm as best he could, though every movement of

his head cost him a gasp.

Not much doubt. The arm was broken just above the wrist.

The flesh was swollen so that it looked like a monster arm, a

strange color of greenish purple. He lay back down and stared

around him, feeling sorry for himself, and wondered very

much that his mother did not come to him when he was in such

agony. . . .

"Mother!" Silvan sat up so suddenly that the pain coiled

round his gut and caused him to vomit.

He had no idea how he came to be here or even where here

was. He knew where he was supposed to be, knew he had been

dispatched to bring help to his beleagured people. He looked

around, trying to gain some sense of the time. Night had passed.

The sun shone in the sky. He had mistaken a canopy of gray

leaves for the ceiling of the burial mound. Dead gray leaves,

hanging listlessly from dea~ranches. Death had not come natu-

rally, as with the fall of the year, causing them to release their hold

on life and drift in a dream of reds and golds upon the crisp air.

The life had been sucked from leaves and branches, trunk and

roots, leaving them desicated, mummified but still standing, a

husk, an empty mockery of life.

Silvan had never seen a blight of this kind attack so many

trees before, and his soul shrank from the sight. He could not take

time to consider it, however. He had to complete his mission.

The sky above was a pearl gray with a strange kind of shim-

mer that he put down to the aftereffects of the storm. Not so many

hours have passed, he told himself. The army could hold out this

long. I have not failed them utterly. I can still bring help.

He needed to splint his arm, and he searched through the

forest undergrowth for a strong stick. Thinking he'd found what

he sought, he put out his hand to grasp it. The stick disintegrated

beneath his fingers, turned to dust. He stared, startled. The ash

was wet and had a greasy feel to it. Repulsed, he wiped his hand

on his shirt, wet from the rain.

All around him were gray trees. Gray and dying or gray and

dead. The grass was gray, the weeds gray, the fallen branches

gray, all with that look of having been sucked dry.

He'd seen something like this before or heard of something

like this. . . . He didn't recall what, and he had no time to think.

He searched with increasingly frantic urgency among the gray-

covered undergrowth for a stick and found one eventually, a

stick that was covered with dust but had not been struck with the

strange blight. Placing the stick on his arm, gasping at the pain,

he gritted his teeth against it. He ripped off a shred of his shirt-

tail and tied the splint in place. He could hear the broken ends of

the bone grind together. The pain and the hideous sound com-

bined to nearly make him pass out. He sat hunched over, his

head down, fighting the nausea, the sudden heat that swept over

his body.

Finally, the star bursts cleared from his vision. The pain eased

somewhat. Holding his injured left arm close to his body, Silvan

staggered to his feet. The wind had died. He could no longer feel

its guiding touch upon his face. He could not see the sun itself for

the pearl gray clouds, but the light shone brightest in one portion

of the sky, which meant that way must be east. Silvan put his back

to the light and looked to the west.

He did not remember his fall or what had occurred just prior

to the fall. He began to talk to himself, finding the sound of his

voice comforting.

"The last thing I remember, I was within sight of the road I

needed to take to reach Sithelnost," he said. He spoke in Sil-

vanesti, the language of his childhood, the language his mother

favored.

A hill rose up above him. He was standing in the bottom of a

ravine, a ravine he vaguely remembered from the night before.

"Someone either climbed or fell down into the ravine," he

said, eyeing a crooked trail left in the gray ash that covered the

hillside. He smiled ruefully. "My guess would be that someone

was me. I must have taken a misstep in the darkness, tumbled

down the ravine. Which means," he added, heartened, "the road

must lie right up there. I do not have far to go."

He began to climb back up the steep sides of the ravine, but

this proved more difficult than he'd supposed. The gray ash had

formed a silt with the rain and was slippery as goose grease. He

slid down the hill twice, jarring his injured arm, causing him

almost to lose consciousness.

"This will never do," Silvan muttered.

He stayed at the bottom of the ravine where the walking was

easier, always keeping the top of the hill in sight, hoping to find

an outcropping of rock that would act as a staircase up the slip-

pery slope.

He stumbled over the uneven ground in a haze of pain and

fear. Every step brought a jolt of pain to his arm. He pushed

himself on, however, trudging through the gray mud that seemed

to try to drag him down among the dead vegetation, searching

for a way out of this gray vale of death that he grew to loathe as

a prisoner loathes his cell.

He was parched with thirst. The taste of ash filled his mouth,

and he longed for a drink of water to wash it away. He found a

puddle once, but it was covered with a gray film, and he could

not bring himself to drink from it. He staggered on.

"I have to reach the road," he said and repeated it many times

like a mantra, matching his footfalls to its rhythm. "I have to go

on," he said to himself dreamily, "because if I die down here, I

will turn into one of the gray mummies like the trees and no one

will ever find me."

The ravine came to a sudden end in a jumble of rock and

fallen trees. Silvan straightened, drew in a deep breath and wiped

chill sweat from his forehead. He rested a moment, then began to

climb, his feet slipping on the rocks, sending him scrabbling back-

ward more than once. Grimly, he pressed on, determined to

escape the ravine if it proved to be the last act of his life. He drew

nearer and nearer the top, up to the point where he thought he

should have been able to see the road.

He peered out through the boles of the gray trees, certain the

road must be there but unable to see it due to some sort of strange