Dragonlance 15 - Dragons Of A Fallen Sun (29 page)

before-but not you."

Gerard did not appear impressed by this magnanimous offer.

"Keep a curb on your tongue for your sake as well as mine."

"I promise," said Tas, putting his hand to his topknot and

giving it a painful yank that brought tears to his eyes. "I can keep

a secret, you know. I've kept any number of secrets-important

secrets, too. I'll keep this one. You can depend on me or my

name's not Tasslehoff Burrfoot."

This appeared to impress Gerard even less. Looking very

dour, he returned to his horse, remounted and rode forward-a

Dark Knight leading his prisoner.

"How long will it take us to reach Qualinesti?" Tas asked.

" At this pace, four days," Gerard replied.

Four days. Gerard paid no more attention to the kender. The

Knight refused to answer a single question. He was deaf to

Tasslehoff's very best and most wonderful stories, and did not

bother to respond when Tas suggested that he knew a most excit-

ing short cut through Darken Wood.

"Four days of this! I don't like to complain," Tas said, talking

to himself and the pony since the Knight wasn't listening, "but

this adventure is turning out to be dull and boring. Not really an

adventure at all, more of a drudge, if that is a word, which

whether it is or not certainly fits the situation."

He and the pony plodded along, looking forward to four days

with no one to talk to, nothing to do, nothing to see except trees

and mountains, which would have been interesting if Tas could

have spent some time exploring them, but, as he couldn't, he'd

seen plenty of trees and mountains at a distance before. So bored

was the kender that the next time the magical device came back

to him, appearing suddenly in his manacled hands, Tasslehoff

was tempted to use it. Anything, even getting squished by a

giant, would be better than this.

If it hadn't been for the pony ride, he would have.

At that moment, the black horse looked around to regard the

pony balefully and perhaps some sort of communication passed

between horse and rider for Gerard turned around too.

Grinning sheepishly and shrugging, Tas held up the Device of

Time Journeying.

His face fixed and cold as that of the skull on his black breast-

plate, Gerard halted, waited for the pony to plod up beside him.

He reached out his hand, snatched the magical device from Tas's

hands, and, without a word, thrust the device in a saddlebag.

Tasslehoff sighed again. It was going to be a long four days.

CHAPTER TEN

LORD OF THE NIGHT

The Order of the Knights of Takhisis was born in a dream of

darkness and founded upon a remote and secret island in

Krynn's far north, an island known as Storm's Keep. But

the island headquarters had been severely damaged during the

Chaos War. Boiling seas completely submerged the fortress-

some said due to the sea goddess Zeboim's grief at the death of

her son, the Knights' founder, Lord Ariakan. Although the waters

receded, no one ever returned to it. The fortress was now deemed

too remote to be of practical use to the Knights of Takhisis, who

had emerged from the Chaos War battered and bruised, bereft of

their Queen and her Vision, but with a sizeable force, a force to be

reckoned with.

Thus it was that a Knight of the Skull, Mirielle Abrena, at-

tending the first Council of the Last Heroes, felt confident

enough to demand that the remnant of the Knighthood that re-

mained be granted land on the continent of Ansalon in return for

their heroic deeds during the war. The council allowed the

Knights to keep territory they had captured, mainly Qualinesti

(as usual, few humans cared much about the elves) and also the

land in the northeastern part of Ansalon that included Neraka

and its environs. The Dark Knights accepted this region, blasted

and cursed though parts of it were, and set about building up

their Order.

Many on that first council hoped the Knights would suffocate

and perish in the sulphur-laden air of Neraka. The Dark Knights

not only surviv~d, but thrived. This was due in part to the lead-

ership of Abrena, Lord of the Night, who added to that military

title the political title of governor-general of Neraka. Abrena in-

stituted a new recruitment policy, a policy that was not so choosy

as the old policy, not so nice, not so restrictive. The Knights had

little problem filling their ranks. In the dark days following the

Chaos War, the people felt alone and abandoned. What might be

called the Ideal of the Great "I" arose on Ansalon. Its main pre-

cept: "No one else matters. Only I."

Embracing this precept, the Dark Knights were clever in their

rule. They did not permit much in the way of personal freedoms,

but they did encourage trade and promote business. When Khel-

lendros, the great blue dragon, captured the city of Palanthas, he

placed the Dark Knights in charge. Terrified at the thought of

these cruel overlords ravishing their city, the people of Palanthas

were amazed to find that they actually prospered under the

rulership of the Dark Knights. And although the Palanthians

were taxed for the privilege, they were able to keep enough of

their profits to believe that life under the dictatorial rule of the

Dark Knights wasn't all that bad. The knights kept law and

order, they waged continuous war against the Thieves Guild,

and they sought to rid the city of the gully dwarves residing in

the sewers.

The dragon purge that followed the arrival of the great drag-

ons at first appalled and angered the Knights of Takhisis, who lost

many of their own dragons in the slaughter. In vain the Knights

fought against the great Red, Malys, and her cousins. Many of the

Knights' order died, as did many of their chromatic dragons.

Mirielle's cunning leadership managed to turn even this near dis-

aster into a triumph. The Dark Knights made secret pacts with the

dragons, agreeing to work for them to collect tribute and main-

tain law and order in lands ruled by the dragons. In return, the

dragons would give the Dark Knights a free hand and cease prey-

ing upon their surviving dragons.

The people of Palanthas, Neraka, and Qualinesti knew noth-

ing of the pact made between the Knights and the Dragons. The

people saw only that once again the Dark Knights had defended

them against a terrible foe. The Knights of Solamnia and the mys-

tics of the Citadel of Light knew or guessed of these pacts but

could not prove anything.

Although there were some within the ranks of the Dark

Knights who still held to the beliefs of honor and self-sacrifice ex-

pounded by the late Ariakan, they were mostly the older mem-

bers, who were considered out of touch with the ways of the

modem world. A new Vision had come to replace the old. This

new Vision was based on the mystical powers of the heart devel-

oped by Goldmoon in the Citadel of Light and stolen by several

Skull Knights, who disguised themselves and secretly entered the

Citadel to learn how to use these powers for their own ambitious

ends. The Dark Knight mystics came away with healing skills

and, more frightening, the ability to manipulate their followers'

thoughts.

Armed with the ability to control not only the bodies of those

who entered the Knighthood but their minds as well, the Skull

Knights rose to prominence within the ranks of the Dark Knights.

Although the Dark Knights had long and loudly maintained that

Queen Takhisis was going to return, they had ceased to believe it.

They had ceased to believe in anything except their own power

and might, and this was reflected in the new Vision. The Skull

Knights who administered the new Vision were adept at probing

a candidate's mind, finding his most secret terrors and playing

upon those, while at the same time promising him his heart's

desire-all in return for strict obedience.

So powerful did the Skull Knights grow through the use of the

new Vision that those closest to Mirielle Abrena began to look

upon the Skull Knights with distrust. In particular, they warned

Abrena against the leader, the Adjudicator, a man named

Morham Targonne.

Abrena scoffed at these warnings. "Targonne is an able ad-

ministrator," she said. "1 grant him that much. But, when all is

said and done, what is an able administrator? Nothing more than

a glorified clerk. And that is Targonne. He would never challenge

me for leadership. The man grows queasy at the sight of blood!

He refuses to attend the jousts or tourneys but keeps himself

locked up in his dingy little cabinet, absorbed in his debits and his

credits. He has no stomach for battle."

Abrena spoke truly. Targonne had no stomach for battle. He

would have never dreamed of challenging Abrena for the leader-

ship in honorable combat. The sight of blood really did make him

sick. And so he had her poisoned.

As Lord of the Skull Knights, Targonne announced at

Abrena's funeral that he was the rightful successor. No one stood

to challenge him. Those who might have done so, friends and

supporters of Abrena's, kept their mouths shut, lest they ingest

the same "tainted meat" that had killed their leader. Eventually

Targonne killed them too, so that by now he was firmly en-

trenched in power. He and those Knights who were trained in

mentalism used their powers to delve into the minds of their fol-

lowers to ferret out traitors and malcontents.

Targonne came from a wealthy family with extensive holdings

in Neraka. The family's roots were in Jelek, a city north of what

had formerly been the capital city of Neraka. The Targonne

family's motto was the Great "I," which could have been en-

twined with the Great "P" for profit. They had risen to wealth and

power with the rise of Queen Takhisis, first by supplying arms

and weapons to the leaders of her armies, then, when it appeared

that their side was losing, by supplying arms and weapons to the

armies of Takhisis's enemies. Using the wealth obtained from. the

sale of weapons, the Targonnes bought up land, particularly the

scarce and valuable agricultural land in Neraka.

The scion of the Targonne family had even had the incredible

good fortune (he claimed it was foresight) to pull his money out

of the city of Neraka only days before the Temple exploded. After

the War of the Lance, during the days when Neraka was a de-

feated land, with roving bands of disenfranchised soldiers, gob-

lins, and draconians, he was in sole possession of the two things

people needed desperately: grain and steel.

It had been Abrena's ambition to build a fortress for the Dark

Knights in southern Neraka, near the location of the old temple.

She had the plans drawn up and sent in crews to start building.

Such was the terror inspired by the accursed valley and its eerie

and haunting Song of Death that the crews immediately fled. The

capital city was shifted to the northern part of the Neraka valley,

a site still too close to the southern part for the comfort of some.

One of Targonne's first orders of business was to move the

capital city. The second was to change the name of the Knight-

hood. He established the headquarters of the Knights of Neraka

in Jelek, close to the family business. Much closer to the family

business than most of the Neraka Knights ever knew.

Jelek was now a highly prosperous and bustling city located

at the intersection of the two major highways that ran through

Neraka. Either by great good fortune or crafty dealing the city

had escaped the ravages of the great dragons. Merchants from all

over Neraka, even as far south as Khur, hastened to Jelek to start

new businesses or to expand existing ones. So long as they made

certain to stop by to pay the requisite fees to the Knights of

Neraka and offer their respects to Lord of the Night and Gover-

nor-General Targonne, the merchants were welcome.

If respect for Targonne had a cold, substantial feel to it and

made a fine clinking sound when deposited together with other

demonstrations of respect in the Lord of the Night's large money.

box, the merchants knew better than to complain. Those who did

complain or those who considered that verbal marks of respect

were sufficient found that their businesses suffered severe and

sudden reverses of fortune. If they persisted in their misguided

notions, they were generally found dead in the street, having ac-

cidentally slipped and fallen backward onto a dagger.

Targonne personally designed the Neraka Knights' fortress

that loomed large over the city of Jelek. He had the fortress built

on the city's highest promontory with a commanding view of the

city and the surrounding valley.

The fortress was practical in shape and design-innumerable

squares and rectangles stacked one on top of the other, with

squared-off towers. What windows there were-and there