Read Dragonlance 15 - Dragons Of A Fallen Sun Online
Authors: Margaret Weis
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