Dragonlance 17 - Dragons Of A Vanished Moon (49 page)

"We should hurry," he said. "Things are happening."

"Yes, I know," said Gerard, "but we can't just say we dropped out of the sky." He cast an uneasy glance upward.

"Why not?" Tas was disappointed. "It makes a great story."

"Because no one will believe us," Gerard stated. "I'm not sure I believe us." He gave the matter some thought. "We'll say that we rode from Sanction and my horse went lame and we had to walk. Got that?"

"It's not nearly as exciting as dropping out of the sky," Tas said. "But if you say so," he added hurriedly, seeing Gerard's

eyebrows meet together in the middle of his forehead.

"What is the horse's name?" he asked, as they started off across the field, the stubble crunching beneath their feet.

"What horse?" Gerard muttered, absorbed in his thoughts that continued to whirl, even though he was, thankfully, on solid ground.

"Your horse," said Tas. "The one that went lame."

"I don't have a horse that went lame . . . Oh, that horse. It doesn't have a name."

"It has to have a name," said Tas severely. "All horses have names. I'll name it, may I?"

"Yes," said Gerard in a rash moment, thinking only to shut the kender up so he could try to sort out the puzzle of the strange mage and the extremely fortuitous and highly coincidental discovery of the kender in exactly the right place, in exactly the right time.

A walk of about a mile brought them to the manor house. The Knights had transformed it into an armed camp. Sunlight glinted off the steel heads of pikes. The smoke of cook fires and forge fires smudged the sky. The green grass was trampled with hundreds of feet and dotted with the colorful striped tents of the Knights. Flags representing holdings from Palanthas to Estwilde flapped in the brisk autumn wind. The sounds of hammering, metal on metal, rang through the air. The Knights were preparing to go to war.

After the fall of Solanthus, the Knights had sent out the call to defend their homeland. The call was answered. Knights and their retainers marched from as far as Southern Ergoth. Some impoverished

Knights arrived on foot, bringing with them nothing but their honor and their desire to serve their country. Wealthy Knights brought their own troops, and treasure boxes filled with steel to hire more.

"We're going to see Lord Tasgall, Knight of the Rose and head of the Knights' Council," said Gerard. "Be on your best behavior, Burrfoot. Lord Tasgall doesn't tolerate any nonsense."

"So few people do," said Tas sadly. "I really think it might be

a better world all the way around if more people did. Oh, I've thought of your horse's name."

"Have you?" Gerard asked absently, not paying attention.

"Buttercup," said Tasslehoff.

"That is my report," said Gerard. "The One God has a name and a face. Five faces. Queen Takhisis. How she managed to achieve this miracle, I cannot say."

"I can," Tasslehoff interrupted, leaping to his feet.

Gerard shoved the kender back into his chair.

"Not now," he said, for the fortieth time. He continued speaking.

"Our ancient enemy has returned. In the heavens, she stands alone and unchallenged. In this world, though, there are those who are willing to give their lives to defeat her."

Gerard went on to tell of his meeting with Samar, spoke of the promise of that warrior that the elves would ally themselves with the Knights to attack Sanction.

The three lords glanced at each other. There had been much heated debate among the leadership as to whether the Knights should try to recapture Solanthus before marching to Sanction. Now, with Gerard's news, the decision was almost certainly going to be made to launch a major assault on Sanction.

"We received a communique stating that the elves have already begun their march," said Lord Tasgall. "The road from Silvanesti is long and fraught with peril—"

"The elves are going to be attacked!" Tasslehoff sprang out of his chair again.

"Remember what I said about the nonsense!" Gerard said sternly, shoving the kender back down.

"Does your friend have something to say, Gerard?" asked Lord Ulrich.

"Yes," said Tasslehoff, standing up.

"No," said Gerard. "That is, he always has something to say, but not anything we need to listen to."

"We have no guarantee that the elves will even arrive in Sanction,

" Lord Tasgall continued, "nor can we say when they will

arrive. Meanwhile, according to reports we have been receiving from Sanction, all is in confusion there. Our spies confirm the rumor that Mina has vanished and that the Dark Knights are engaged in a leadership struggle. If we judge by events of the past, someone will rise to take her place, if that has not happened already. They will not be leaderless for long."

"At least," said Lord Ulrich, "We don't have to worry about Malys. This Mina managed to do what none of us had the guts to do. She fought Malys and killed her." He raised a silver goblet. "I drink to her. To Mina! To courage."

He gulped down the wine noisily. No one else raised a glass. The others appeared embarrassed. The Lord of the Rose fixed a stern gaze upon Lord Ulrich, who—by his flushed features and slurred words—had taken too much wine already.

"Mina had help, my lord," said Gerard gravely.

"You might as well call the goddess by name," said Lord Siegfried in dire tones. "Takhisis."

Lord Tasgall looked troubled. "It is not that I doubt the veracity

of Sir Gerard, but I cannot believe—"

"Believe it, my lord," called Odila, entering the hall.

She was thin and pale, her white robes covered in mud and stained with blood. By her appearance, she had traveled far and slept and eaten little.

Gerard's gaze went to her breast, where the medallion of her faith had once hung. Its place was empty.

Gerard smiled at her, relieved. She smiled back. Her smile was her own, he was thankful to see. A bit tremulous, perhaps, and not quite as self-assured or self-confident as when he had first met her, but her own.

"My lords," she said, "I bring someone who can verify the information presented to you by Sir Gerard. His name is Mirror, and he helped rescue me from Sanction."

The lords looked in considerable astonishment at the man Odila brought forward. His eyes were wrapped in bandages that only partially concealed a terrible wound that had left him blind. He walked with a staff, to help him feel his way. Despite his

handicap, he had an air of quiet confidence about him. Gerard had the feeling he'd seen this man somewhere before.

The Lord of the Rose made a stiff bow to the blind man, who, of course, could not see it. Odila whispered something to Mirror, who bowed his head. Lord Tasgall turned his complete attention to Odila. He regarded her sternly, his face impassive.

"You come to us a deserter, Sir Knight," he said. "It has been reported you joined with this Mina and served her, did her bidding. You worshiped the One God and performed miracles in the name of the One God, a god we now learn is our ancient foe, Queen Takhisis. Are you here because you have recanted? Do you claim to have discarded your faith in the god you once served? Why should we believe you? Why should we think that you are anything more than a spy?"

Gerard started to speak up in her defense. Odila rested her hand on his arm, and he fell silent. Nothing he could say would do any good, he realized, and it might do much harm.

Odila bent down on one knee before the lords. Although she knelt before them, she did not bow her head. She looked at all of them directly.

"If you expect shame or contrition from me, my lords, you will be disappointed. I am a deserter. That I do not deny. Death is the punishment for desertion, and I accept that punishment as my due. I offer only in my defense that I went in search of what we all are seeking. I went in search of a power greater than my own, a power to guide me and comfort me and give me the knowledge that I was not alone in this vast universe. I found such a power, my lords. Queen Takhisis, our god, has returned to us. I say 'our' god, because she is that. We cannot deny it.

"Yet I say to you that you must go forth and fight her, my lords. You must fight to halt the spread of darkness that is fast overtaking our world. But in order to fight her, you must arm yourselves with your faith. Reverence her, even as you oppose her. Those who follow the light must also acknowledge the

darkness, or else there is no light."

Lord Tasgall gazed at her, his expression troubled. Lord Siegfried and Lord Ulrich spoke softly together, their eyes on Odila.

"Had you made a show of contrition, Lady, I would not have believed you," said Lord Tasgall at last. "As it is, I must consider what you say and think about it. Rise, Odila. As to your punishment,

that will be determined by the council. In the meantime, I am afraid that you must be confined—"

"Do not lock her away, my lord," urged Gerard. "If we are going to attack Sanction, we are going to need all the experienced warriors we can muster. Release her into my care. I guarantee that I will bring her safely to trial, as she did me when I was on trial before you in Solanthus."

"Will this suit you, Odila?" asked the Lord of the Rose.

"Yes, my lord." She smiled at Gerard, whispered to him in an undertone. "It seems our destiny to be shackled together."

"My lords, if you're going to attack Sanction, you could probably

use the help of some gold and silver dragons," Tasslehoff stated, jumping to his feet. "Now that Malys is dead, all the red dragons and the blue dragons and the black and the green will come to Sanction's defense—"

"I think you had better remove the kender, Sir Gerard," said the Lord of the Rose.

"Because the gold and silver dragons would come," Tasslehoff shouted over his shoulder, squirming in Gerard's grasp. "Now that the totem is destroyed, you see. I'd be glad to go fetch them myself. I have this magical device—"

"Tas, be quiet!" said Gerard, his face flushed with the exertion of trying to retain a grip on the slippery kender.

"Wait!" the blind man called out, the first words he'd spoken. He had been standing so quietly that everyone in the hall had

forgotten his presence.

Mirror walked toward the sound of the kender's voice, his staff impatiently striking and knocking aside anything that got in his way. "Don't remove him. Let me talk to him."

The Lord of the Rose frowned at this interruption, but the man was blind, and the Measure was strict in its admonition that

the blind, the lame, the deaf, and the dumb were to be treated with the utmost respect and courtesy.

"You may speak to this person, of course, sir. Seeing that you are sadly afflicted and lack sight, I think it only right to tell you, however, that he is naught but a kender."

"I am well aware that he is a kender, my lord," said Mirror, smiling. "That makes me all the more eager to speak to him. In my opinion, kender are the wisest people on Krynn."

Lord Ulrich laughed heartily at this odd statement, to receive another reproving glance from Lord Tasgall. The blind man reached out a groping hand.

"I'm here, sir," said Tas, catching hold of Mirror's hand and shaking it. "I'm Tasslehoff Burrfoot. The Tasslehoff Burrfoot. I tell you that because there's a lot of me going around these days, but I'm the only real one. That is, the others are real, they're just not really me. They're themselves, if you take my meaning, and I'm myself."

"I understand," said blind man solemnly. "I am called Mirror and I am, in reality, a silver dragon."

Lord Tasgall's eyebrows shot up to his receding hairline. Lord Ulrich sputtered in his wine. Lord Siegfried snorted. Odila smiled reassuringly at Gerard and nodded complacently.

"You say that you know where the silver and gold dragons are being held prisoner?" Mirror asked, ignoring the Knights.

"Yes, I know," Tasslehoff began, then he halted. Having been termed one of "the wisest people on Krynn," he felt called upon to tell the truth. "That is, the device knows." He patted his pouch where the Device of Time Journeying was secreted. "I could take you there, if you wanted," he offered, without much hope.

"I would like to go with you very much," said Mirror.

"You would?" Tasslehoff was astonished, then excited. "You would! That's wonderful. Let's go! Right now!" He fumbled about in his pouch. "Could I ride on your back? I love flying on dragons. I knew this dragon once. His name was Khirsah, I think, or something like that. He took Flint and I riding, and we fought a battle, and it was glorious."

Tas halted his fumbling, lost in reminiscences. "I'll tell you the whole story. It was during the War of the Lance—"

"Some other time," Mirror interrupted politely. "Speed is imperative. As you say, the elves are in danger."

"Oh, yes." Tas brightened. "I'd forgotten about that." He began once again to fumble in his pouch. Retrieving the device, Tas took hold of Mirror by the hand. The kender held the device up over his head and began to recite the spell.

Waving to the astonished Knights, Tas cried, "See you in Sanction!"

He and Mirror began to shimmer, as if they were oil portraits that someone had left out in the rain. At the last moment, before he had disappeared completely, Mirror reached out, seized hold of Odila, who reached out to take hold of Gerard.

In an eyeblink, all four of them vanished.

"Good grief!" exclaimed the Lord of the Rose.

"Good riddance," sniffed Lord Siegfried.

25

Into the Valley

The elven army marched north, made good time. The warriors rose early and slept late, speeding their march with songs and tales of the old days that lightened their burdens and gladdened their hearts.

Many of the Silvanesti songs and stories were new to Gilthas, and he delighted in them. In turn, the stories and songs of the Qualinesti were new to their cousins, who did not take so much delight in them, since most were concerned with the

Qualinesti' s dealing with lesser races such as humans and dwarves. The Silvanesti listened politely and praised the singer if they could not praise the song. The one song the Silvanesti did not sing was the song of Lorac and the dream.