Dragonlance 15 - Dragons Of A Fallen Sun (46 page)

Qualinesti is one thing," Palin observed. "Entering the walled

and heavily guarded city of Palanthas is quite another. Besides

the journey would take far too long. It would be easier to meet

Jenna half way. Perhaps in Solace."

"But can Jenna leave Palanthas?" Laurana asked. "I thought the

Dark Knights had restricted travel out of the city as well as into it."

"Such restrictions may apply to ordinary people," Palin said

drily. IINot to Mistress Jenna. She made it her business to get on

well with the knights when they took over the city. Very welL if

you take my meaning. Youth is lost to her, but she is still an at-

tractive woman. She is also the wealthiest woman in Solamnia

and one of the most powerful mages. No, Laurana, Jenna will

have no difficulty traveling to Solace. "He rose to his feet. He

needed to be alone, to think.

"But aren't her powers abating like yours, Palin?" Laurana

asked.

He pressed his lips together in displeasure. He did not like

speaking of his loss, as another might not like speaking of a can-

cerous growth. jenna has certain artifacts which continue to

work for her, as I have some which continue to work for me. It is

not much, "he added caustically, "but we make do."

"Perhaps this is the best plan," Laurana agreed. "But how will

you return to Solace? The roads are closed-"

Palin bit his lip, bit back bitter words. Would they never quit

yammering at him?

"Not to one of the Dark Knights," Gerard was saying. "I'll offer

myself as escort, sir. I came here with a kender prisoner. I will

leave with a human one."

"Yes, yes, a good plan, Sir Knight," Palin said impatiently.

"You work out the details. "He started to walk off, eager to escape

to the silence of his room, but he thought of one more important

question. Pausing, he turned to ask it. "Does anyone else know of

the discovery of this artifact?"

"Probably half of Solace by now, sir," Gerard answered

dourly. "The kender was not very secretive."

"Then we must not waste time, "Palin said tersely. I will con-

tact Jenna."

"How will you do that?" Laurana asked him.

"I have my ways," he said, adding, with a curl of his lip, "Not

much, but I make do."

He left the room, left abruptly, without looking back. He had

no need. He could feel her hurt and her sorrow accompany him

like a gentle spirit. He was momentarily ashamed, half-turned to

go back to apologize. He was her guest, after all. She was putting

her very life in danger to host him. He hesitated, and then he kept

walking.

No, he thought grimly. Laurana can't understand. Usha

doesn't understand. That brash and arrogant knight doesn't un-

derstand. They can't any of them understand. They don't know

what I've been through, what I've suffered. They don't know

my loss.

Once, he cried in silent anguish, once I touched the minds of

gods!

He paused, listening in the stillness, to see if he could by

chance hear a faint voice answering his grieving cry.

He heard, as he always heard, only the empty echo.

They think I've been freed from prison. They think my tor-

ment is ended.

They are wrong.

My confinement endures day after dreary day. The torture

goes on indefintely. Gray walls surround me. I squat in my own

filth. The bones of my spirit are cracked and splintered. My

hunger is so great that I devour myself. My thirst so great that I

drink my own waste. This is what I've become.

Reaching the sanctuary of his room, he shut the door and then

dragged a chair across to lean against it. No elf would dream of

disturbing the privacy of one who has shut himself away, but

Palin didn't trust them. He didn't trust any of them.

He sat down at a writing desk, but he did not write to Jenna.

He placed his hand on a small silver earring he wore in his ear

lobe. He spoke the words to the spell, words that perhaps didn't

matter anymore, for there was no one to hear them. Sometimes

artifacts worked without the ritual words, sometimes they only

worked with the words, sometimes they didn't work at all under

any circumstances. That was happening more and more often

these days.

He repeated the words and added "Jenna" to them.

A hungry wizard had sold her the six silver earrings. He was

evasive about where he had found them, mumbled something to

the effect that they had been left to him by a dead uncle.

Jenna had told Palin, "Certainly, the dead once owned these

earrings. But they were not willed to him. He stole them."

She did not pursue the matter. Many once respectable wiz-

ard&--including Palin himself-had turned to grave robbery in

their desperate search for magic. The wizard had described what

the earrings did, said he would not have sold them but that dire

necessity drove him to it. She had paid him a handsome sum and,

instead of placing the earrings in her shop, she had given one to

Palin and one to Ulin, his son. She had not told Palin who wore

the others. ..

He had not asked. Once there had been a time when the

mages of the Conclave had trusted each other. In these dark days,

with the magic dwindling, each now looked sidelong at the

others wondering, "Does he have more than I do? Has he found

something I have not? Has the power been given to him and not

to me?"

Palin heard no response. Sighing, he repeated the words and

rubbed the metal with his finger. When he was first given the ear- ff

rings, the spell had worked immediately. Now it would take him

three or four tries and there was always the nagging fear that this

might be the time it would fail altogether.

"Jenna!" he whispered urgently.

Something wispy and delicate brushed across his face, like the

touch of a fly's wings. Annoyed, he waved it away hurriedly, his

concentration broken. He looked for the insect, to shoo it off, but

couldn't find it. He was settling down to try the magic once again,

when Jenna's thoughts answered his.

"Palin. . ."

He focused his thoughts, keeping the message short, in case

the magIc faIled midway. "Urgent need. Meet me m Solace. Im-

medIately."

I will come at once." Jenna said nothing more did not waste

time or the her own magic with questions. She trusted him. He

would not send for her unless he had good reason.

Palin looked down at the device that he cherished in his

broken hands.

Is this the key to my cell? he asked himself. Or nothing but an-

other lash of the whip

"He is very changed," said Gerard, after Palin had left the

atrium. "I would not have recognized him. And the way he spoke

of his father. . ." He shook his head.

"Wherever Caramon is, I am certain he understands," Lau-

rana said. "Palin is changed, yes, but then who would not be

changed after such a terrible experience. I don't think any of us

will ever know what torment he endured at the hands of the Gray

Robes. Speaking of them, how do you plan to travel to Solace?"

she asked, skillfully turning the subject away from Palin to more

practical considerations.

"I have my horse, the black one. I thought that perhaps Palin

could ride the smaller horse I brought for the kender."

"And then I could ride the black horse with you!" Tas an-

nounced, pleased. "Although I'm not sure Little Gray will really

like Palin, but perhaps if I talk to her-"

"You are not going," Gerard said flatly.

"Not going!" Tas repeated, stunned. "But you need me!" '"

Gerard ignored this statement, which, of all statements ever

made in the course of history, could be ranked as most likely to be

ignored. "The journey will take many days, but that can't be

helped. It seems the only course--"

"I have another suggestion," Laurana said. "Griffons could

fly you to Solace. They brought Palin here and they will carry

him back and you along with them. My falcon Brightwing will

take a message to them. The griffons could be here the day

after tomorrow. You and Palin will be in Solace by that

evening."

Gerard had a brief, vivid. image of flying on griffon back or

perhaps it would be more accurate to say he had a brief vivid

image of falling off a griffon's back and smashing headfirst into

the ground. He flushed and fumbled for an answer that didn't

make him out to be a craven coward.

"I couldn't possibly impose. . . We should leave at once. . ."

"Nonsense. The rest will do you good," Laurana replied, smil-

ing as if she understood the real reason behind his reluctance.

"This will save you over a week's time and, as Palin said, we

must move swiftly before Beryl discovers such a valuable magi-

cal device is in her lands. Tomorrow night, after dark, Kalindas

will guide you to the meeting place."

"I've never ridden a griffon," Tas said, hinting. "At least, not

that I can remember. Uncle Trapspringer did once. He said. . ."

"No," Gerard cut in firmly. "Absolutely not. You will stay

with the Queen Mother, if she'll have you. This is already dan-

gerous enough without-" His words died away.

The magical device was once again in the kender's posses-

Ision. Tasslehoff was, even now, stuffing the device down the front

of his shirt.

Far from Qualinesti, but not so far that she couldn't keep an

eye watching and an ear listening, the great green dragon Beryl

lay in her tangled, overgrown, vine-ridden bower and chafed at

the wrongs which had been done to her. Wrongs which itched

and stung her like a parasitic infestation and, like a parasite, she

could scratch here and scratch there, but the itch seemed to move

so that she was never quite rid of it.

At the heart of all her trouble was a great red dragon, a mon-

strous wrym that Beryl feared more than anything else in this

world, though she would have allowed her green wings to be

pulled off and her enormous green tail to be tied up in knots

before she admitted it. This fear was the main reason Beryl had

agreed to the pact three years ago. She had seen in her mind her

own skull adorning Malys's totem. Besides the fact that she

wanted to keep her skull, Beryl had resolved that she would

never give her bloated red cousin that satisfaction.

The pact of peace between the di-agons had seemed a good idea

at the time. It ended the bloody dragon purge, during which the

dragons had fought and killed not only mortals, but each other, as

well. The dragons who had emerged alive and powerful divided

up parts of Ansalon, each claiming a portion to rule and leaving

some previously disputed lands, such as Abanasinia, untouched.

The peace had lasted about a year before it started to crumble.

When Beryl felt her magical powers start to seep away, she

blamed the elves, she blamed the humans, but in her heart she

knew full well where the real blame lay. Malys was stealing her

magic. No wonder her red cousin had no more need to kill her

own kind! She had found some way to drain the other dragons of

their power. Beryl's magic had been a major defense against her

stronger cousin. Without that magic, the green dragon would be

as helpless as a gully dwarf.

Night fell while Beryl was musing. Darkness wrapped around

her bower like another, larger vine. She fell asleep, lulled by the

lullabye of her scheming and plotting. She was dreaming that she

had found at last the legendary Tower of High Sorcery at Wayreth.

She wrapped her huge body around the tower and felt the magic

flow into her, warm and sweet as the blood of a gold dragon. . . .

"Exalted One!" A hissing voice woke her from her pleasant

dream.

Beryl blinked and snorted, sending fumes of poisonous gas

roiling among the leaves. "Yes, what is it?" she demanded, focus-

ing her eyes on the source of the hiss. She could see quite well in

the darkness, had no need of light.

"A messenger from Qualinost," said her draconian servant.

"He claims his news is urgent, else I would not have disturbed

you.

"Send him in."

The draconian bowed and departed. Another draconian ap-

peared in his place. A Baaz named Groul, he was one of Beryl's

favorites, a trusted messenger who traveled between her lair and

Qualinesti. Draconians were created during the War of the Lance

when black robed wizards and evil clerics loyal to Takhisis stole

the eggs of good dragons and gave them hideous life in the form

of these winged lizard-men. Like all his kind, the Baaz walked

upright on two powerful legs, but he could run on all fours, using

his wings to increase his movement over the ground. His body

was covered with scales that had a dull metallic sheen. He wore

little in the way of clothing, which would have hampered his

movements. He was a messenger and so he was armed only

lightly, with a short sword that he wore strapped to his back, in

between his wings.

Beryl wakened more fully. Normally a laconic creature, who