Read Dragonlance 15 - Dragons Of A Fallen Sun Online
Authors: Margaret Weis
That's a great place. Everyone stops there. Or maybe the Fox and
the Unicorn? They don't much like kender, so probably not."
Tasslehoff talked on, but he couldn't induce the Knight to tell
him anything. That didn't really matter much to Tas, who was
perfectly capable of making up the entire incident himself. By the
time they had finished eating and Gerard had gone to wash the
pan and the wooden bowls in a nearby stream, the bold kender
had stolen not one but a host of wondrous magical artifacts,
snatching them out from under the very noses of six Thorn
Knights, who had threatened him with six powerful magicks, but
who had, all six, been dispatched by a skilled blow from the
kender's hoopak.
" And that must have been how I came down with magnesia!"
Tas concluded. "One of the Thorn Knights struck me severely on
the headbone! I was unconscious for several days. But, no," he
added in disappointment. "That couldn't be true for otherwise I
wouldn't have escaped." He pondered on this for a considerable
time. "I have it," he said at last, looking with triumph at Gerard.
"You hit me on the head when you arrested me!"
"Don't tempt me," Gerard said. "Now shut up and get some
sleep." He spread out his blanket near the fire, which had been re-
duced to a pile of glowing embers. Pulling the blanket over him-
self, he turned his back to the kender.
Tasslehoff relaxed on his blanket, gazed up at the stars. Sleep
wasn't going to catch him tonight. He was much too busy reliv-
ing his life as the Scourge of Ansalon, the Menace of Morgash,
the Thug of Thorbardin. He was quite a wicked fellow. Women
would faint and strong men would blanch at the mere sound of
his name. He wasn't certain exactly what blanching entailed,
but he had heard that strong men were subject to it when faced
with a terrible foe, so it seemed suitable in this instance. He was
just picturing his arrival in a town to find all the woman passed
out in their laundry tubs and the strong men blanching left and
right when he heard a noise. A small noise, a twig snapping,
nothing more.
Tas would not have noticed it except that he was used to not
hearing any noises at all from the forest. He reached out his hand
and tugged on the sleeve of Gerard's shirt.
"Gerard!" Tas said in a loud whisper. "1 think someone's out
there!"
Gerard snuffled and snorted, but didn't wake up. He hunched
down deeper in his blanket.
Tasslehoff lay quite still, his ears stretched. He couldn't
hear anything for a moment, then he heard another sound, a
sound that might have been made by a boot slipping on a
loose rock.
"Gerard!" said Tasslehoff. "1 don't think it's the moon this
time." He wished he had his hoopak.
Gerard rolled over at that moment and faced Tasslehoff, who
was quite amazed to see by the dying fire that the Knight was not
asleep. He was only playing possum.
"Keep quiet!" Gerard said in a hissing whisper. "Pretend
you're asleep!" He shut his eyes.
Tasslehoff obediently shut his eyes, though he opened them
again the next instant so as to be sure not to miss anything. Which
was good, otherwise he would have never seen the elves creep-
ing up on them from the darkness.
"Gerard, look out!" Tas started to shout, but a hand clapped
down over his mouth and cold steel poked him in the neck before
he could stammer out more than "Ger-"
"What?" Gerard mumbled sleepily. "What's-"
He was wide awake the next moment, trying to grab the
sword that lay nearby.
One elf stomped down hard on Gerard's hand- Tas could
hear bones crunch and he winced in sympathy. A second elf
picked up the sword and moved it out of the Knight's reach.
Gerard tried to stand up, but the elf who had stomped on his
hand now kicked him viciously in the head. Gerard groaned and
rolled over on his back, unconscious.
"We have them both, Master," said one of the elves, speaking
to the shadows. "What are your orders?"
"Don't kill the kender, Kalindas," said a voice from the dark-
ness, a human's voice, a man's voice, muffled, as if he were
speaking from the depths of a hood. "1 need him alive. He must
tell us what he knows."
The human was not very woods-crafty apparently. Although
Tas couldn't see him-the human had remained in the shadows-
Tas could hear his booted feet mashing dry leaves and breaking
sticks. The elves, by contrast, were as quiet as the night air.
"What about the Dark Knight?" the elf asked.
"Slay him:' said the human indifferently.
The elf placed a knife at the Knight's throat.
"No!" Tas squeaked and wriggled. "You can't! He's not really
a Dark- ulp!"
"Keep silent kender," said the elf, who held onto Tas. He
shifted the point of his knife from the kender's throat to his head.
"Make another sound and I will cut off your ears. That will not
affect your usefulness to us."
"I wish you wouldn't cut off my ears," said Tas, talking des-
perately, despite feeling the knife blade nick his skin. "They keep
my hair from falling off my head. But if you have to, you have to,
I guess. It's just that you're about to make a terrible mistake.
We've come from Solace, Gerard's not a Dark Knight you see.
He's a Solamnic-"
"Gerard?" said the human suddenly from the darkness.
"Hold your hand, Kellevandros! Don't kill him yet. I know a So-
lamnic named Gerard from Solace. Let me take a look."
The strange moon had risen again. Its light was intermittent
coming and going as dark clouds glided across its empty, vacu-
ous face. Tas tried to catch a glimpse of the human, who was ap-
parently in charge of this operation, for the elves deferred to
him in all that was done. The kender was curious to see him, be-
cause he had a feeling he'd heard that voice before, although he
couldn't quite place it.
Tas was doomed to disappointment. The human was heavily
cloaked and hooded. He knelt beside Gerard. The Knight's head
lolled to one side. Blood covered his face. His breathing was
raspy. The human studied his face.
"Bring him along," he ordered.
"But, Master-" The elf called Kellevandros started to protest.
"You can always kill him late4" said the human. Rising, he
turned on his heel and walked back into the forest.
One of the elves doused the fire. Another elf went to calm the
horses, particularly the black, who had reared in alarm at the sight
of the intruders. A third elf put a gag in Tas's mouth, pricking Tas's
right ear with the tip of the knife the moment the kender even
looked as if he might protest.
The elves handled the Knight with efficiency and dispatch.
They tied his hands and feet with leather cord, thrust a gag into
his mouth, and fixed a blindfold around his eyes. Lifting the com-
atose Knight from the ground, they carried him to his horse and
threw him over the saddle. Blackie had been alarmed by the
sudden invasion of the camp, but he now stood quite calm and
placid under an elf's soothing hand, his head over the elf's shoul-
der, nuzzling his ear. The elves tied Gerard's hands to his feet,
passing the rope underneath the horse's belly, securing the
Knight firmly to the saddle.
The human looked at the kender, but Tas couldn't get a
glimpse of his face because at that moment an elf popped a gunny
sack over his head and he couldn't see anything except gunny
sack. The elves bound his feet together. Strong hands lifted him,
tossed him headfirst over the saddle, and the Scourge of Ansalon,
his head in a sack, was carried off into the night.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE MASQUERABE
As the Scourge of Ansalon was being hauled off in ignominy
and a sack, only a few miles away in Qualinost the Speaker
of the Sun, ruler of the Qualinesti people, was hosting a
masquerade ball. The masquerade was something relatively new
to the elves-a human custom, brought to them by their Sp~aker,
who had some share of human blood in rum, a curse passed on by
his father, Tanis Half-Elven. The elves generally disdained human
customs as they disdained humans, but they had taken to the
masquerade, which had been introduced by Gilthas in the year 21
to celebrate his ascension to the throne twenty years previously.
Each year on this date he had given a masquerade, and it was
now the social highlight of the season.
Invitations to this important event were coveted. The mem-
bers of House Royal, the Heads of Household, the Thalas-
Enthia-the elven Senate-were invited, as well as the top
ranking leaders of the Dark Knights, Qualinesti's true rulers. In
addition, twenty elf maidens were chosen to attend, handpicked
by Prefect Palthainon, a former member of the elven Senate and
now the chief magistrate newly appointed by the Knights of
Neraka to oversee Qualinesti. Palthainon was nominally Gilthas's
advisor and counselor. Around the capital he was jocularly re-
ferred to as the "Puppeteer."
The young ruler Gilthas was not yet married. There was no
heir to the throne nor any prospect of one. Gilthas had no partic-
ular aversion to being married, but he simply could not quite
make up his mind to go through with it. Marriage was an im-
mense decision, he told his courtiers, and should not be entered
into without due consideration. What if he made a mistake and
chose the wrong person? His entire life could be ruined, as well
as the life of the unfortunate woman. Nothing was ever said of
love. It was not expected that the king should be in love with his
wife. His marriage would be for political purposes only; this had
been determined by Prefect Palthainon, who had chosen several
eligible candidates from among the most prominent (and the
most wealthy) elven families in Qualinesti.
Every year for the past five years, Palthainon had gathered to-
gether twenty of these hand-chosen elven women and presented
them to the Speaker of the Sun for his approbation. Gilthas
danced with them all, professed to like them all, saw good quali-
ties in them all, but could not make up his mind. The prefect con-
trolled much of the life of the Speaker-disparagingly ter~ed
"the puppet king" by his subjects-but Palthainon could not
force his majesty to take a wife.
Now the time was an hour past midnight. The Speaker of the
Sun had danced with each of the twenty in deference to the pre-
fect, but Gilthas had not danced with anyone of the elven maid-
ens more than once-for a second dance would be seen as
making a choice. After the close of every dance, the king retired
to his chair and sat looking upon the festivities with a brooding
air, as if the decision over which of the lovely women to dance
with next was a weight upon him that was completely destroying
his pleasure in the party.
The twenty maidens glanced at him out of the corners of their
eyes, each hoping for some sign that he favored her above all the
others. Gilthas was handsome to look upon. The human blood
was not much apparent in his features, except, as he had ma-
tured, to give him a squareness of jaw and chin not usually seen
in the male elf. His hair, of which he was said to be vain, was
shoulder-length and honey-colored. His eyes were large and
almond-shaped. His face was pale; it was known that he was in
ill health much of the time. He rarely smiled and no one could
fault him for that for everyone knew that the life he led was that
of a caged bird. He was taught words to speak, was told when to
speak them. His cage was covered up with a cloth when the bird
was to be silent.
Small wonder then that Gilthas was known to be indecisive,
vacillating, fond of solitude and of reading and writing poetry, an
art he had taken up about three years previous and in which he
showed undeniable talent. Seated on his throne, a chair of ancient
make and design, the back of which was carved into the image of
a sun and gilded with gold, Gilthas watched the dancers with a
restive air and looked as if he could not wait to escape back to the
privacy of his quarters and the happiness of his rhymes.
"His Majesty seems in unusually high spirits tonight," ob-
served Prefect Palthainon. "Did you notice the way he favored
the eldest daughter of the guildmaster of the Silversmiths?"
"Not particularly," returned Marshal Medan, leader of the oc-
cupation forces of the Knights of Neraka.
"Yes, I assure you, it is so," Palthainon argued testily. "See
how he follows her with his eyes."
"His Majesty appears to me to me to be staring either at the
floor or his shoes," Medan remarked. "If you are going to ever see
an heir to the throne, Palthainon, you will have to make the mar-
riage yourself."
"I would," Palthainon said, grumbling, "but elven law dic-
tates that only the family may arrange a marriage, and his mother
adamantly refuses to become involved unless and until the king