DRAGONLANCE TALES II

                               Volume 2

                             THE CATACLYSM
                  1992 TSR, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

                             Introduction

   The world was forged upon three pillars: good, evil, neutrality. In
order to progress, a balance between the three must be maintained. But
there came a time in Krynn when the balance tilted. Believing himself
to be the equal to the gods in knowledge and in wisdom, the Kingpriest
of Istar sought the gods in arrogance and pride and demanded that they
do his bidding.
   Having viewed with sorrow the tilting of the scales of
balance, resulting in hatred, prejudice, race divided against
race, the gods determined to restore the balance of the
world. They cast a fiery mountain upon Ansalon, then
withdrew their power, hoping those intelligent races who
dwelt upon Krynn would once again find their faith - in the
gods, in themselves, and in each other.
   This catastrophe became known as the Cataclysm.
   Michael Williams tells a tale of vengeance in his epic
poem, "The Word and the Silence." He and his wife, Teri,
continue the tale and turn it into a mystery, as the accused
murderer's son seeks to end the curse on his family in
"Mark of the Flame, Mark of the Word."
   Matya, a very cunning trader, stumbles onto the
bargain of her life - literally - in Mark Anthony's "The
Bargain Driver."
   In Todd Fahnestock's story, "Seekers," a young orphan
boy embarks on a perilous journey to ask the gods a
question.
   For most people, the Cataclysm meant sorrow, death,
ruination. For the entrepreneurs in Nick O'Donohoe's
story, "No Gods, No Heroes," the Cataclysm means
opportunity.
   Richard A. Knaak tells the tale of Rennard, known to
readers of THE LEGEND OF HUMA. Now a ghost,
doomed to torment in the Abyss, Rennard finds himself
transported back to Ansalon during the Cataclysm. Is it an
accident, or has he been brought back for a reason?
   Dan Parkinson continues the adventures of the Bulp clan
of gully dwarves. Led by their valiant leader, Gorge III, the
Bulps leave Istar in search of the Promised Place. What they
find instead is certainly not what they expected, in "Ogre
Unaware."
   Roger E. Moore reveals why Astinus never hires kender
to be scribes, in his story, "The Cobbler's Son."
   A ship bound for Istar may be making its final voyage,
in Paul B. Thompson and Tonya R. Carter's story, "The
Voyage of the SUNCHASER."
   Doug Niles continues the adventures of his scribe,
Foryth Teal, as that intrepid historian sets out to investigate
a priest's claim that he can perform miracles, in "The High
Priest of Halcyon."
   In "True Knight," we continue the story of the cleric of
Mishakal, Brother Michael, and Nikol, daughter of a
Solamnic Knight. The two survive the Cataclysm, but now
they want answers. Their search leads them to an encounter
with the knight who, so rumor has it, could have prevented
the Cataclysm.

                           MARGARET WEIS AND TRACY HICKMAN

                       THE WORD AND THE SILENCE

                                   I

   On Solamnia's castles
   ravens alight,
   dark and unnumbered
   like a year of deaths,
   and dreamt on the battlements,
   fixed and holy,
   are the signs of the Order
   Kingfisher and Rose -
   Kingfisher and Rose
   and a sword that is bleeding forever
   over the covering mountains,
   the shires perpetually damaged,
   and the blade itself
   is an unhealed wound,
   convergence of blood and memory,
   its dark rain masking
   the arrangement of stars,
   and below it the ravens gather.

   Below it forever
   the woman is telling the story,
   telling it softly
   as the past collapses
   into a breathing light,
   and I am repeating her story
   then and now in a willful dusk
   at the turn of the year
   in the flickering halls of the keep.
   The story ascends and spirals,
   descends on itself
   and circles through time
   through effacing event
   and continuing vengeance
   down to the time
   I am telling her telling you this.

   But bent by the fire
   like a doubling memory,
   the woman recounts and dwells
   in a dead man's story,
   harsh in the ears
   of his fledgling son,
   who nods, and listens again, and descends
   to a dodging country
   of tears and remembrance,
   where the memories of others
   fashion his bent recollections,
   assemble his father
   from mirrors and smoke
   and history's hearsay
   twines and repeats,
   and the wavering country,
   Solamnia, muses and listens.

   OUT ON THE PLAINS, ORESTES,
   the woman is saying, OUT AMONG FIRES
   WHICH THE BARD'S VOICE IGNITED
   IN RUMOR AND CALUMNY,
   THERE THEY ARE BURNING YOUR FATHER,
   HIS NAME AND OUR BLOOD
   FOREVER FROM CAERGOTH
   TO HARBORING KALAMAN
   AND OUT IN THE DYING
   BAYS OF THE NORTH:
   ALL FOR A WORD, MY SON,
   A WORD MASKED AS HISTORY
   SHIELDING A NEST OF ADDERS.
   WITH WORDS ARE WE POISONED,
   ORESTES, MY SON, she repeats
   in the fragmenting darkness,
   the firelight fixed
   on her hair, on the ivory
   glove of her hand
   and the tilted goblet.

   And always Orestes listened
   and practiced his harp
   for the journey approaching,
   and the world contracted,
   fierce and impermeable,
   caged in the wheeling words
   of his mother, caged
   in a custom of deaths.

                                  II

   Three things are lost
       in the long night of words:
   history's edge
       the heart's long appeasement
   the eye of the prophet.
       But the story born
   of impossible fragments
       is this: that Lord Pyrrhus Alecto
   light of the coast
       arm of Caergoth
   father to dreaming
       and to vengeful Orestes
   fell to the peasants
       in the time of the Rending
   fell in the vanguard
       of his glittering armies
   and over his lapsing eye
       wheeled constellations
   the scale of Hiddukel
       riding west to the garrisoned city.
   It is there that the edge
       of history ends:
   the rest is a song
       that followed on song
   the story involved
       in its own devising
   tied in devolving circles until
       truth was a word
   in the bardic night
       and the husk of event
   was a dim mathematics
       lost in the matrix of stars.

                                  III

   But this is the story
       as Arion told it,
           Arion Corvus, Branchala's bard
   the singer of mysteries
       light on the wing
           string of the harp.
   Unhoused by the Rending,
       traveling west, his map
           a memory of hearth and castle,
   unhoused, he sounded forever
       the hymns of comet
           and fire perpetual
   sounded the Time of the Rending,
       betrayals and uprisings
           spanning the breadth of the harper's hand,
   and history rode
       on the harp incanting
           the implausible music of breath.
   His was the song I remember,
       his song and my mother's retelling.
           O sing the ravens
   perpetually wronged
       to the ears of my children,
           O sing to them, Arion Stormcrow:

   DOWN IN THE ARM OF CAERGOTH HE RODE:
       PYRRHUS ALECTO, THE KNIGHT OF THE NIGHT OF BETRAYALS
   FIREBRAND OF BURNING THAT CLOUDED THE STRAITS OF HYLO,
       THE OIL AND ASH ON THE WATER, IGNITED COUNTRY.
   FOREVER AND EVER THE VILLAGES BURN IN HIS PASSAGE,
       AND THE GRAIN OF THE PEASANTRY, LIFE OF THE RAGGED ARMIES
   THAT HARRIED HIM BACK TO THE KEEP OF THE CASTLE
       WHERE PYRRHUS THE FIREBRINGER CANCELED THE WORLD
   BENEATH THE DENIAL OF BATTLEMENTS,
       WHERE HE DIED AMID STONE WITH HIS COVERING ARMIES.
   FOR SEVENTEEN YEARS THE COUNTRY OF CAERGOTH
       HAS BURNED AND BURNED WITH HIS EFFACING HAND,
   A BARREN OF SHIRES AND HAMLETS,
       AND Firebringer HISTORY HANGS ON THE PATH OF HIS NAME.

                                  IV

   Look around you, my son
   for the fire in Arion's singing:
   For where in this country,
   in forgotten Caergoth,
   where does a single village burn?
   Where does a peasant suffer
   and starve by the fire of your father?
   Somewhere to the east
   before a white arras,
   gilded with laurel
   and gold adulation,
   the bard sings a lie
   in a listening house,
   and Caergoth burns
   in the world's imagining,
   while the bard holds something
   back from his singing,
   something resembling the truth.
   But let not the breath
   of the fire touch your father,
   Orestes, my son,
   my arm in the dwindling world,
   my own truth
   my prophecy,
   soothed the effacing mother,
   and darkly and silently
   Orestes listened, the deadly harp
   poised in his hand circuitous.
   And the word turned to deed
   and the song to a journey by night,
   and the listening years
   to a cloak and a borrowed name,
   as the boy matured
   in his mother's word,
   and the harp strings droned
   in the facing wind
   as he rode out alone, seeking Arion.

                                   V

   High on the battlements
   of Vingaard Keep
   as the wind plunged over
   the snow-covered walls,
   Orestes perched
   in a dark cloak huddled,
   the window below him
   gabled in light,
   and he muttered and listened,
   his honored impatience
   grown loud at the song
   of the bard by the fire.

   Melodiously, Arion sang
   of the world's beginning,
   the shape of us all
   retrieved by the hands
   of the gods from chaos,
   the oceans inscribing
   the dream of the plains,
   the sun and the moons
   appointing the country
   with light and the passage
   of summer to winter,
   the bright land's corners
   lovely with trees,
   the leaves quick with life
       with nations of kestrel
       with immaculate navies of doves,
       with the first plainsong
           of the summer sparrow
   and the song from the bard
   sustaining it all,
   breathing the phase
   of the moon's awakening,
   singing the births
   and the deaths of the heroes,
   all of it rising
   to the ears of Orestes.
   And rising beyond him
   it peopled the winter stars
   with a light that hovered
   and stilled above him,
   as nightly in song
   the old constellations
   resumed their imagined shapes,
   breathing the fire
   of the first creation
   over the years to the time
   that the song descends
   in a rain of light
   today on your shoulder
   with a frail incandescence
   of music and memory
   and the last fading green
   of a garden that never
   and always invented itself.
   For the bard's song
   is a distant belief,
   a belief in the shape of distance.

   All the while as the singing
   arose from the hearth and the hall,
   alone in the suffering wind, Orestes
   crouched and listened
   slowly, reluctantly
   beginning to sing,
   his dreams of murder quiet
   in the rapture of harp strings.

                                  VI

   HIERONYMO he called himself,
   HIERONYMO when down from the battlements
   he came, supplanted and nameless
   entering the hall
   in the wake of the wind and darkness.
   Arion dreamt by the fire,
   and his words were a low, shaping melody:
   the tongue of the flame
   inclined in the hall of his breath
   and the heart of the burning
   was a map in the eye of Orestes,
   who crouched by the hearth
   and offered his harp
   to his father's slanderer,
   smiling and smiling
   his villainous rubric,
   TEACH ME YOUR SINGING, ARION, he said,
   adopting the voice and the eye
   of imagined Hieronymo
   deep in disguises,
   and none in the court
   knew Alecto's son -
   TEACH ME YOUR SINGING, MEMORABLE BARD,
   THE LIGHT IN THE HEART OF WINTER,
   SINGER OF ORIGINS, FRAMER OF HISTORY,
   DRIVE MY DEAD THOUGHTS OVER THE WINTER PLAINS
   LIKE WITHERED LEAVES TO QUICKEN A NEW BIRTH!

   Old Arion smiled
       at the boy's supplication
       at the fracture of coals,
       at the bright hearth's flutter
       at the nothing that swirled
       at the heart of the fire:
   for something had passed
   in his distant imagining,
   dark as a wing
   on the snow-settled battlements,
   a step on a grave
   he could only imagine
   there in the warmth of the keep
   where the thoughts were of song
   and of music and memory,
   where something still darker
   was enjoining the bard
   to take on the lad
   who knelt in the firelight.
   SOME THINGS, he said,
   THE POET BRINGS FORTH.
   OTHERS THE POET HOLDS BACK:
   FOR WORDS AND THE SILENCE
   BETWEEN THEM COMMINGLE,
   DEFINING EACH OTHER
   IN SPACES OF HOLINESS.
   Softly the old hand
   rose and descended,
   the harp-handling fingers
   at rest on the brow
   of the bold and mysterious boy.

   The apprenticeship was sealed
   in Orestes's bravado,
   the name of HIERONYMO
   fixed to the terms of indenture,
   all in the luck of an hour,
   and depth of a season,
   but somewhere within it
   a darker invention
   that sprawled in the depths
   of the heart and the dwindling earth.

                                  VII

   So masked in intention,
   in a sacred name
   for a year and a day
   Orestes surrendered
   his anger to music and wind,
   apprenticeship honed
   on the laddered wires
   of a harp that the gods whispered over,
   of a wandering in lore
   and the cloudy geographies
   tied to the fractured past,
   and he dwelt by the poet
   and traveled to Dargaard
       to the heart of Solanthus,
       to imperiled Thelgaard,
       to nameless castles of memory
           where the knights abided
           in yearning for something
           that moved in the channels of history,
           redeeming the damaged blood of the rose,
   while the story that Arion sang,
   his back to the dream
   and incredulous fire,
   discovered the years
   and the fading arm of the sword.

   Seven songs of instruction
   arose from the fire and the dreaming:
       the spiral of Quen
           love's first geometry
   the wing of Habbakuk
       brooding above the world
   the circle of Solin
       rash and recurrent heart
   the arc of Jolith
       dividing intention from deed
   the white fire of Paladine
       perfected song of the dragon
   the prayer of Matheri
       merciful grammar of thought
   and the last one the high one
       light of Branchala
   that measures all song
       in the shape of words

   Alone in the margin
   of darkness, Orestes
   surrendered and listened
   singing reluctantly, joyfully,
   as the gods and the planets
   and the cycle of years
   devolved in a long dream of murder
   and the cleansing of harp strings.

                                 VIII

       A year and a day the seasons encircled,
   according to fable and ancient decrees of enchantment,
       as the gnats' choir of autumn surrendered to ice
   and the turn of the year approached like a death
       and the listening castles mislaid under snow.
   Orestes's apprenticeship led to a circle of fire,
       where the harp he had mastered and the seven songs
   and the fourteen modes of incalculable magic
       circled him back to the night and the keep
   and the wintry eyes of the bard singing memory
       into flesh, into stone, into dreaming and wind,
   and ARION, he said, and ARION, TELL ME OF TIME
       OF THE RENDING OF KRYNN AND BETRAYALS.
   The bard took the harp in the foreseen night:
       for his memory darkened the edge of the past
   when knowing devises the shape of creation,
       and the Rending changed as he spoke of its birth
   in the spiral of prophecy, the brush of its wing
       on the glittering domes and spires of Istar
   the swelling of moons and the stars' convergence
       and voices and thunderings and lightnings and
           earthquakes
   and Arion told us that night by the hearth
       that hail and fire in a downpour of blood
   tumbled to earth, igniting the trees and the grass,
       and the mountains were burning, and the sea became
           blood
   and above and below us the heavens were scattered,
       and locusts and scorpions wandered the face of the
           planet,
   as Arion told us, and Orestes leaned closer
       and ARION, he said, and ARION, TEACH ME OF
           TIME
   OF THE FAMINE AND PLAGUE AND PYRRHUS ALECTO.
       Arion stroked the harp and began, his white hair
   cascading across the gold arm of the harp
       as though he were falling through song into sleep
   and the winter stilled at the touch of the string,
       and he sang the last verses as hidden Orestes
   reclined and remembered and listened:
       DOWN IN THE ARM OF CAERGOTH HE RODE:
   PYRRHUS ALECTO, THE KNIGHT OF THE NIGHT OF BETRAYALS
       FIREBRAND OF BURNING THAT CLOUDED THE STRAITS OF
           HYLO,
   THE OIL AND ASH ON THE WATER, IGNITED COUNTRY.
       FOREVER AND EVER THE VILLAGES BURN IN HIS PASSAGE,
   AND THE GRAIN OF THE PEASANTRY, LIFE OF THE RAGGED ARMIES
       THAT HARRIED HIM BACK TO THE KEEP OF THE CASTLE
   WHERE PYRRHUS THE FIREBRINGER CANCELED THE WORLD
       BENEATH THE DENIAL OF BATTLEMENTS,
   WHERE HE DIED AMID STONE WITH HIS COVERING ARMIES.
       FOR SEVENTEEN YEARS THE COUNTRY OF CAERGOTH
   HAS BURNED AND BURNED WITH HIS EFFACING HAND,
       A BARREN OF SHIRES AND HAMLETS,
   AND Firebringer HISTORY HANGS ON THE PATH OF HIS NAME.
       Orestes listened, as honor and song,
   as blood and adoption warred in the cell of his thoughts,
       his father redeemed by poison, by blade
   by the song of the harp string rendered a garrotte,
       closing the eloquent throat of Arion
   silencing song, reclaiming his father,
       and transforming Caergoth from desert to garden:
   yet the hand of Orestes stilled in the arc of reprisal,
       and into the night he warred and remembered,
   and as I tell you this, memory wars with him still.

                                  IX

       The mourning began when the doves circled Vingaard:
   the poison had passed through the veins like imagined fires:
       and alone in his quarters, the poet's apprentice
   abided the funerals, settled accounts, awaited
       the search of the Order through ravaged Solamnia
   for rivals and villains, for the trails of assassins,
       and late on the fifth night after the burning,
   when the ashes had settled on Arion's pyre,
       only then did Hieronymo bring forth the harp
   (though some there were curious, who late in the night
       had heard, or had thought they heard, the apprentice
   weeping and playing the sonorous mode of the Rending),
       and late on the fifth night after the burning
   Hieronymo sang for the host at the Vingaard Keep
       and the Rending changed as he spoke of its birth
   in the spiral of prophecy, the brush of its wing
       on the glittering domes and spires of Istar
   the swelling of moons and the stars' convergence
       and voices and thunderings and lightnings and
           earthquakes
   as Hieronymo told them that night by the hearth
       that hail and fire in a downpour of blood
   tumbled to earth, igniting the trees and the grass,
       and the mountains were burning, and the sea became
           blood
   and above and below us the heavens were scattered,
       and locusts and scorpions wandered the face of the
           planet,
   as Hieronymo told us, and then he leaned closer
       and NOW, he said, NOW, I SHALL TEACH YOU
           OF TIME
   OF THE FAMINE AND PLAGUE AND PYRRHUS ALECTO.

       DOWN IN THE ARM OF CAERGOTH HE RODE:
   PYRRHUS ALECTO, THE KNIGHT ON THE NIGHT OF BETRAYALS.
       WHEN A FIREBRAND OF BURNING HAD CLOUDED THE STRAITS OF
           HYLO.
   LIKE OIL ON WATER, HE SOOTHED THE IGNITED COUNTRY.
       FOREVER AND EVER THE VILLAGES LEARN HIS PASSAGE
   IN THE GRAIN OF THE PEASANTRY, LIFE OF THE RAGGED ARMIES.
       THEY CARRIED HIM BACK TO THE KEEP OF THE CASTLE
   WHERE PYRRHUS THE LIGHTBRINGER CANCELED THE WORLD
       BENEATH THE DENIAL OF BATTLEMENTS,
   WHERE HE DIED AMID STONE WITH HIS HOVERING ARMIES.
       FOR SEVENTEEN YEARS THE COUNTRY OF CAERGOTH
   HAS TURNED AND TURNED IN HIS EMBRACING HAND,
       A GARDEN OF SHIRES AND HAMLETS,
   AND Lightbringer HISTORY HANGS ON THE PATH OF HIS NAME.

                                   X

   His duty dispatched
           and the old bard murdered,
   Orestes returned
           toward rescued Caergoth,
   skirting the foothills,
           and long were his thoughts
   as he passed over Southlund,
           the Garnet Mountains
   red like a memory
           of blood in the distance:
   THERE IS NO LAW,
           Orestes murmured,
   his hand on the harp strings,
           NO RULE UNWRITTEN
   THAT YOUR FATHER'S SLANDERER
           CANNOT INSTRUCT YOU,
   THAT THE MAN YOU MURDER
           YOUR HEART CANNOT HONOR,
   EVEN AS YOUR HAND
           CONCOCTS THE POISON.
   The landscape ahead
           was diminished and natural,
   no thing unforeseen
           sprang from the heavens,
   the waters were channeled
           and empty of miracles.
   SO THIS IS HISTORY,
           Orestes considered,
   SO THIS IS HISTORY
           NOW I CAN UNDERSTAND
   as the road lay before him
           uninherited, heirless
   cut off from its making
           and silenced by blood.

   At the borders of Southlund
           the smoke was rising,
   the Arm of Caergoth
           harbored incessant fire:
   Orestes rode swiftly
           through billows of prophecy,
   the stride of his horse
           confirming the dead words of Arion.

   The cavalry plundering
           the burgeoning fields,
   leveling villages,
           approaching invulnerable Caergoth,
   heeded little the ride
           of a boy in their column
   cloaked in the night
           and in helpless mourning.
   A bard, some said,
           or a bard's apprentice
   returned to his homeland
           burning and desolate.
   The captain of cavalry
           turned to the weeping boy
   and addressed him as soldier
           as fellow and brother:
   SOONER OR LATER, SING YOU THIS,
           BARD OR BARD'S APPRENTICE.
   FOR THE VOICE OF THE HARPER
           THE MUSICIAN, THE PIPER
   SHALL NO LONGER BE HEARD
           IN THE ARM OF CAERGOTH,
   LONG KEPT FROM THE FIRE
           BY THE SONG OF A POET
   WHO SAID SHE WAS BURNING ALREADY:
           FOR A FRESH FABLED COUNTRY
   IS THE NEST OF INVASIONS,
           THE QUARRY OF CAVALRY,
   RIPE FOR THE SWORD AND THE FIRE.
           Orestes rode forth
   and the captain continued,
           turning his pale horse
   as a star tumbled down
           from the fixed dream of heaven:
   FOR THE BARD'S SONG, THEY TELL ME,
           IS A DISTANT BELIEF
   IN THE SHAPE OF DISTANCE.
           FOR CAERGOTH WAS BURNING
   WHEN SHE SAID IN HER HEART,
           'I AM QUEEN, NOT A WIDOW
   AND SORROW IS FAR FROM ME,
           ELUSIVE AS THOUGHT
   OR THE CHANGES OF MEMORY.'
           SOONER OR LATER, SING YOU THIS.
   And he vanished in histories
           of rumor and smoke,
   and sooner or later,
           a bard will sing this,
   in beleaguered castles
           abandoned to night
   and the cough of the raven.
           Sooner or later,
   someone will sing
           of Orestes the bard,
   for some things the poet
           brings forth and fashions,
   and others the poet holds back:
           for words and the silence
   between them commingle,
           defining each other
   in spaces of holiness.
           and through them the story
   ascends and spirals,
           descends on itself
   and circles through time
           through effacing event
   and continuing vengeance
           down to the time
   I am telling and telling you this.

                          MARK OF THE FLAME,
                           MARK OF THE WORD

                       Michael and Teri Williams

   It began when I was fourteen, the burning, in the winter that the
fires resurged on the peninsula.
   I awoke with a whirling outcry, my face awash in fire,
the blankets scattering from the bed. The dogs raced from
the cottage, stumbling, howling in outrage. Mother was
beside me in an instant, wrapped in her own blanket, her
pale hair disheveled, her eyes terror stricken.
   The burning spread down my neck and back, the pain
brilliant and scoring, and I clutched at her hand, her
shoulders, and shrieked again. Mother winced and fumbled
silently, her thick fingers pressing hard, too hard, against
my scarred lips.
   And then we were racing through the forest night.
   The freezing rain lanced like needles against the hissing
scars on my neck and face. QUIET, MY DARLING, MY
DOVE, LEST THEY HEAR YOU IN THE VILLAGE, her
hands flashed.
   We moved over slick and glittering snow, through
juniper and AETERNA, and my breath misted and crystalized
on the heaped furs, and the dogs in the traces grumbled and
yapped.
   Then it was light, and I lay in a dry, vaulted cavern on a
hard pallet.
   Above me the druidess L'Indasha Yman rustled, draped in
dried leaves and holly bobs like a pageant of late autumn.
She was young for medicine, young even for divining, and I
was struck by her dark eyes and auburn hair because I was
fourteen years old and just becoming struck by such things.
   She gave me the BEATHA to help with the pain, and it
tasted of smoke and barley. The burning rushed from my
scars to my throat, and then to the emptiness of my
stomach.
   "They've matured, the lad's scars," she said to my
mother. "Ripened." Expectantly, she turned to me, her dark
eyes riveting, awaiting our questions.
   Mother's hands flickered and flashed.
   "Mother wants to know . . . how long ..." I interpreted,
my voice dry and rasping.
   "Always," said the druidess, brushing away the
question. "And you?" she asked. "Trugon. What would you
ask of me this time?"
   She should have known it. Several seasons ago, the
scars had appeared overnight without cause, without
warning. For a year they had thickened slowly, hard as the
stone walls of our cottage, spreading until my entire body
was covered with a network of calluses. I could no longer
even tell my age. I was becoming more and more a
monstrosity, and no one could say why.
   "Why. I would know why, my lady." It was always my
question. I had lost hope of her answering it.
   Mother's gestures grew larger, wilder, and I would not
look at her. But when L'Indasha spoke again, my heart rose
and I listened fiercely.
   "It's your father's doing," the lady said, a bunch of red
berries bright as blood against the corona of her hair.
   "I have heard that much," I said, wincing as Mother
jostled me frantically. The pain drove into my shoulders,
and still I turned my eyes from her gestures. "I want all the
rest, Lady Yman. How it was his doing, and why."
   The leaves crackled as the druidess stood and drifted to
the mouth of the cave. There was a bucket sitting there, no
doubt to catch rainwater, for it was half filled and glazed
with a thin shell of ice. With the palm of her hand, the
druidess broke the ice, lifted the container, and brought it
back to me, her long fingers ruddy and dripping with frigid
rain. She breathed and murmured over it for a moment.
   I sat up, the heat flaring down my arms.
   "Look into the cracked mirror, Trugon," she whispered,
kneeling beside me.
   I brushed Mother's desperate, restraining hand from my
shoulder, and stared into the swirl of broken light.
   There was a dead man. He was small. His shadow
swayed back and forth in a room of wood and stone,
dappling the floor below him with dark, then light, then
dark. His fine clothing fluttered and his hood lifted slightly.
I saw his face . . . his arms . . .
   "The scars. Lady, they are like mine. Who is he?"
   "Orestes," she replied, stirring the water. "Pyrrhus
Orestes. Your father, hanged with a harp string."
   "And . . . WHO?" I asked, my sudden urge for
vengeance stabbing as hot as the BEATHA, as the burning.
   "By his own hand, Dove," L'Indasha said. "When he
thought he could neither redeem nor . . . continue the line."
   REDEEM NOR CONTINUE. It was quite confusing and
I was muddled from the potion and the hour.
   L'Indasha's face reflected off the fractured ice in the
bucket: it was older, wounded, a map of lost lands. "You
weren't told. But Orestes got his desire and now the scars
have ripened."
   Mother clutched my shoulder. The pain relented a bit.
   "Continue what? Lady, 'tis a riddle."
   A riddle the druidess answered, there in the vaulted
cave, as the weather outside turned colder still and colder,
on a night like those on which the fisherman claim you
could walk on ice from Caergoth across the waters to
Eastport.
   She told me that my father, Orestes, had ridden
desperately westward as the peninsula burned at the hands
of the invaders. He rode with freebooters - with Nerakans
and the goblins from Throt, and they were rough customers,
but he passed through Caergoth unharmed. None of them
knew he was the son of Pyrrhus Alecto - "the Firebringer,"
as the songs called my grandfather.
   "Why did he ... why DIDN'T he ..." I began to ask. I
was only fourteen.
   The druidess understood and lifted her hand. "He was just
one, and young. And there is a harder reason. Orestes, NOT
YOUR GRANDFATHER, had brought the fires to the
peninsula. You see, he murdered his master. Your
grandmother had fostered his apprenticeship with Anon of
Coastlund. She taught him from childhood that he must
recover his father's honor at any cost. Your grandfather's
honor. So he killed Arion, that he should sing no longer of
your grandfather's shame."
   Mother's grip tightened on my shoulder. I shrugged her
away yet again. Again the scars on my neck and face bit
and nettled.
   "Go on."
   "Then the goblins came, when they heard the new song
Orestes sang. ..."
   When Orestes saw what his words had wrought, he ran.
It was at the last village seawards - Endaf, where the coast
tumbles into the Cape of Caergoth - that Orestes could
abide no more of the plunder and burning. Caergoth was in
flames behind him, and Ebrill, where the bandits first
camped, then Llun and Mercher, vanished forever in the
goblin's torchlight.
   He was just one man, and he was young, but even so,
surely it shamed him as much as it angered him.
   At Endaf he stopped and turned into the fray. He
dismounted, broke through the goblins, and joined in a
frantic attempt to rescue a woman from a burning inn.
Orestes was sent to the rooftop, or he asked to go. The
beams gave way with him, and the goblins watched and
laughed as Orestes fell into the attic, which fell around him
in turn, crashing down and up again in a rapture of fire.
   But he lived. He was fire-marked, hated of men, and
they would know him by his scars henceforth. The burns
had bitten deep and his face was forever changed into a
stiffened mask of grief. A fugitive and a vagabond he was
upon Krynn, and wherever he traveled, they turned him
away. To Kaolin he went, and to Garnet, as far north as
Thelgaard Keep and south to the coast of Abanasinia. In all
places, his scars and his story arrived before him - the tale
of a bard who, with a single verse of a song, had set his
country to blaze and ruin.
   He took to bride a woman from Mercher, orphaned by the
invasion and struck mute by goblin atrocity as they passed
through with their flames and long knives. Orestes spirited
her away to the woods of Lemish, where in seclusion they
lived a dozen years in narrow hope.
   A dozen years, the druidess said, in which the child they
awaited never came.
   That part I knew. Mother had told me when I was very
little, the soft arc of her hand assuring me how much they
had waited and planned and imagined.
   That part I knew. And Mother had shared his death with
none but me. But I had never heard just how he had died.
   "In despair," the Lady Yman told me, the cavern
lapsing into shadow as her brown, leafy robes blocked out
the firelight, the reflection on the ice. "Despair that his
country was burning still, and that no children of his would
extinguish the fires. He did not know about you. Your
mother had come to me, and she knew, was returning to
your cottage to tell him, joyous through the wide woods.
   "She found what you've seen. Orestes could wait no
longer. Your mother brought me his note to read to her: I
HAVE KILLED ARION, AND THE BURNING WILL
NEVER STOP, it said. THE LAND IS CURSED. I AM
CURSED. MY LINE IS CURSED. I DIE."
   L'Indasha reached for me as I reeled, as the room
blurred through my hot tears.
   "Trugon? Trugon!"
   REDEEM NOR CONTINUE. I understood now, about
his anger and guilt and the terrible, wicked thing he had
done. The BEATHA raced through me, and the torchlight
surged and quickened.
   "Why did you finally tell me?" I asked.
   "To save your life," the lady replied. She passed her
hand above the broken water, and I saw a future where fires
arose without cause and burned unnaturally hot, and my
scars were afire, too, devouring my skin, my face, erasing
all reason and memory until the pain vanished and my life
as well.
   "This ... this is what will be, Lady?"
   "Perhaps." She crouched beside me, her touch cool on
my neck, its relief coursing into my face, my limbs.
"Perhaps. But the future is changeable, as is the past."
   "The past?" The pain was gone now, gone entirely.
   "Oh, yes, the past is changeable, Trugon," L'Indasha
claimed, passing from firelight to shadow, "for the past is
lies, and lies can always change." She was nearing the end
of the answer and the beginning of another riddle.
   "But concern yourself now with the present," she
warned, and waved her hand above the troubled water.
   I saw four men wading through an ice-baffled forest,
on snowshoes, their footing unsteady, armed with sword
and crossbow.
   "Bandits," L'Indasha pronounced, "bound to the service
of Finn of the Dark Hand"
   I shivered. The bandit king in Endaf."
   The druidess nodded. "They are looking for Pyrrhus
Orestes. Remember that only your mother and you know he
is dead. They seek him because of the renewed fires on the
peninsula. They are bent on taking your father to the beast,
for the legend now goes, and truly, I suppose, that no man
can kill a bard without dire consequence, without a curse
falling to him and to his children."
   She looked at me with a sad, ironic smile.
   "So the bandits are certain Orestes must die to stop the
fires."
   Mother helped me to my feet.
   "I ... I don't understand," I said. "It's over. He's killed
himself and brought down a curse on me."
   L'Indasha waved her hand for silence. "It wasn't the
killing that cursed you. It was the words - what he said
before he died. Now you must go from here - anywhere, the
farther, the better. But not to Finn's Ear, the bandit king's
stronghold on the Caergoth shore."
   "Why should I leave?" I asked. "They are after my
father, not me. I STILL don't understand."
   "Your scars," she replied, emphatically, impatiently.
"The whole world will mistake you for your father, because
of the scars."
   "I'll tell them who I really am!" I protested, but the
druidess only smiled.
   "They won't believe you," she said. "They will see only
what they expect. Hurry now. FIND the truth about
Orestes. The finding will save your life and make the past .
. . unchangeable."
   I thanked her for her healing and her oracle, and she
gave me one last gift - her knowledge.
   "Although now you may regret your blood," she said,
"remember that you are the son of a bard. There is power in
all words, and in yours especially."
   It was just more puzzlement.
   We climbed, Mother and I, into the sled, moving
quickly over thick ice on our way back to the cottage.
Mother slept, and I guided the dogs and looked into the
cloudless skies, where Solinari and Lunitari tilted across the
heavens. Between them somewhere rode the black abscess
of Nuitari, though I could not see it.
   The black moon was like the past: an absence waiting to
be filled. And looking on the skies, the four big dogs
grumbling and snorting as they drew us within sight of the
cottage, I began to understand my scars and my inheritance.

                                 *****

   Frantically, as I gathered my clothing in the cottage,
Mother told me more: that my grandfather, Pyrrhus Alecto
was no villain. He had kept the Solamnic Oath, had fallen in
the Seventh Rebellion of Caergoth, in the two hundred and
fiftieth year since the Cataclysm. She showed me the oldest
poem, the one that Arion had taken and transformed. The
old parchment was eloquent. I read it aloud:

   "Lord Pyrrhus Alecto
       light of the coast
   arm of Caergoth
       father to dreaming
   fell to the peasants
       in the time of the Rending
   fell in the vanguard
       of his glittering armies
   and over his lapsing eye
       wheeled constellations
   the scale of Hiddukel
       riding west to the garrisoned city.

   "And that was all?" I asked. "All of this trouble over a
poem?" I hated poetry.
   I gave voice to her answer as she held forth rapidly, as
the words slipped from her fingers into my breath and
voice. "No, Trugon, not over that, over the other one."
   She did not know the words of the other poem. She had
not even seen or heard it. It was the poem of trouble, she
insisted, crouching nervously by the door of our cottage. It
was the poem that Father . . .
   "Changed?"
   She nodded, moving toward Father's old strongbox.
   "Then Father lied as well as betrayed?"
   Mother shook her head, brushed her hair back. She
opened the strongbox.
   I knew what was inside. Three books, a penny whistle,
a damaged harp. I had never asked to see them. I hated
poetry.
   Mother held up one of the books.
   It was the story of the times since the Rending, since
the world had opened under Istar. The work of the bard
Arion, it was, but more. It was his words and the words of
others before him: remote names like Gwion and Henricus
and Naso, out of the time when Solamnia was in confusion.
   The book was battered, its leather spine scratched and
cracked. As Mother held it out to me, it opened by nature to
a page near its end, as though use and care had trained it to
fall at the same spot, to the same lines.
   She gestured that the lines were in Father's hand.
Indeed, the whole book was in Father's hand, for neither
Arion nor any of the bards before him had written down
their songs and tales, preferring to pass them on to a
listening apprentice, storing their songs in the long
dreaming vaults of their memories. But Father thought he
was heirless and alone, and had written them all - every
poem and song and lay, from the edicts to the first shaking
of the city, down through the dark years unto this time. A
dozen lines or so of one verse he had worried over,
scratched out, revised, and replaced, only to go back to the
first version, to his first choice of wording.
   I mouthed the lines, then read them aloud:

           "DOWN IN THE ARM OF CAERGOTH HE RODE:
   PYRRHUS ALECTO, THE KNIGHT ON THE NIGHT OF BETRAYALS.
           WHEN A FIREBRAND OF BURNING HAD CLOUDED THE
               STRAITS OF HYLO.
   LIKE OIL ON WATER, HE SOOTHED THE IGNITED COUNTRY.
           FOREVER AND EVER THE VILLAGES LEARN HIS PASSAGE
   IN THE GRAIN OF THE PEASANTRY, LIFE OF THE RAGGED ARMIES.
           THEY CARRIED HIM BACK TO THE KEEP OF THE CASTLE
   WHERE PYRRHUS THE LIGHTBRINGER CANCELED THE WORLD
           BENEATH THE DENIAL OF BATTLEMENTS,
   WHERE HE DIED AMID STONE WITH HIS HOVERING ARMIES.
           FOR SEVENTEEN YEARS THE COUNTRY OF CAERGOTH
   HAS TURNED AND TURNED IN HIS EMBRACING HAND,
           A GARDEN OF SHIRES AND HAMLETS,
   AND Lightbringer HISTORY HANGS ON THE PATH OF HIS NAME."

   It was as though Father had never been satisfied.
Something had drawn him to these lines again and again, as
if changing them would . . .
   Would straighten the past, make it true.
   " 'Tis here, Mother," I announced, so softly that at first
she did not hear, though she was staring directly at me as I
read.
   She cupped her ear, leaned forward.
   " 'Tis in the poem. Or, rather, NOT in the poem."
   Mother frowned. I knew she saw Orestes in me now-
poetic and full of contradictions.
   I tried to be more clear about it.
   "These lines Father wrote and rewrote and worked over
are... are the lie. Don't you see, Mother? The druidess said
that THE PAST IS LIES, AND LIES CAN ALWAYS
CHANGE. These are - " I thumbed through the book,
looking early and late " - these are the only lines he has
fretted over.
   "It's as though ... he was trying to ..." I looked at
Mother. "... change the lies back to the truth."
   I did not know whether that was so or not. I stepped
quietly to the strongbox and took out my father's harp, one
thick string missing, and held it for a long moment. It fit my
hand exactly and when I put it down, I could not shake
away its memory from my grasp. When I looked at Mother
again, her eyes had changed. We both knew what I would
say next.
   "Yes, I MUST go, but not because they seek me. I will
go because I have to find the lost song," I announced.
"Father's words are still hiding something."
   One of the dogs rumbled and rose from the shadows,
stretching and sniffing lazily in the dwindling firelight.
Then his ears perked and he gave a low, angry growl.
   Mother scrambled to her feet and to the door, a
confusion of soundless sobs and flickering hands.
   "I know. They're coming," I said. "I must hurry.
Finding the truth is saving my life. The druidess said so."
   I stroked the ears of Mateo, the largest of the dogs, who
looked up at me solemnly, his thick shoulders pressing
against my legs until I staggered a little at the weight. I had
no thought of how small I was - how things far greater
would press against me when I stepped across the threshold
into the early winter morning.
   Mother moved slowly aside as I passed into the pale
sunlight, her fingers brushing softly, mutely against my
hair. I gave her a smile and a long hug, and she assured me
of her own safety. In the sled lay an old hide bag, big
enough for the harp and the book, a loaf of bread, and a
wedge of cheese. I tossed everything in and moved off, as
quickly and silently as I could.
   One of the dogs barked as I lost the cottage behind a
cluster of blue AETERNA branches, and the high wind
shivered faintly at their icicles like the vanished notes of a
song. Above the hillside nearest my home, four long
shadows fell across the trackless snow.

                                 *****

   There were other adventures that led me back to the
peninsula - a wide arc of years and travels across the
continent, Finn's men at first only hours behind me, then
less constant, less menacing the farther south I traveled. I
sent the dogs back to Mother soon and traveled alone,
sometimes working for a while at jobs where nobody knew
me or thought they knew me, where nobody cared that I
never removed my hood.
   It was a year, six seasons perhaps, before I realized
exactly what it was about the song I was searching for.
   It has long been practice that when a bard travels and
sings, his songs are attended, remembered, and copied by
those in the regions nearby. If a song is a new one, it carries
to still farther regions by word of mouth, from bard to bard,
from orator to folksinger to storyteller to bard again.
   It is a tangled process, and the words change sometimes
in the telling, no matter how we try to rightly remember.
The old lines from Arion's song I heard in Solamnia as

           THE PRAYER OF MATHERI
           MERCIFUL GRAMMAR OF THOUGHT

   I had heard in the small town of Solace as

           THE PRAYERS OF MATHERI
           MERCY, GRANDMOTHER OF THOUGHT

   and the southern lines made me laugh, distorted like
gossip in their passage across the straits.
   For I had the book with me, and within it (he truth
unchangeable. As I traveled, I knew I would come to a
place when I would hear those scratched and worried lines
of my father's - the lines about Pyrrhus Alecto, about
Lightbringer and history and glory - but I would hear them
in a different version.
   And I would know at last what Pyrrhus Orestes had
altered.

                                 *****

   Across the Straits of Schallsea I once stowed away on
a ferry. The enraged ferryman discovered me under a pile
of badger hides, and he threatened to throw me overboard
for evading his fee. He relented when he pushed back my
hood and saw the scars from the burning.
   "Firebringer," he snarled. "Only my fear of Branchala, of
the curse upon bard-slayers, stays my hand from your
murder." I cherished his greeting. It was the first of many
such conversations.
   Over the grain fields of Abanasinia I wandered, in a
journey from summer to summer and threat to threat. Three
times I heard "Song of the Rending" - once from a minstrel
in Solace, again in the city of Haven from a seedy,
unraveled bard who had forgotten entire passages about the
collapse of Istar, whereby his singing lost its sense, and
finally from a blind juggler wandering the depths of the
plains, whose version was wild and comical, a better story
by far than Arion's.
   The minstrel and the juggler repeated Father's altered
lines word for word. But the juggler recited them with a
curious look, as though he was remembering words contrary
to those he was speaking. Although I asked him and asked
him again about it, he would tell me nothing. Faced with his
silence, I began to believe I had imagined his discomfort,
that it was only my hope and dreaming that had expected to
find the missing lines.
   And so, back across the straits I sailed, in the summer
of my sixteenth year, and again the ferryman called me
Fire-bringer, cursing me and spitting at me as he took my
money.
   On Solamnic shores once more, I started for home, but
discovered that no village would shelter me on the journey.
"Firebringer," they called me, and "Orestes the Torch,"
meeting me on the outskirts of the hamlets with torches of
their own, with stones and rakes and long peninsular knives.
   Some even pursued me, shouting that the fires would
die with the one who brought them. Like the ferryman, like
Finn, they thought I was my father.

                                 *****

   To the north lay the great Solamnic castles - Vingaard and
Dargaard, Brightblade and Thelgaard and DiCaela. Each
would take me in of a night for the sake of my grandfather.
These families would nurse me on occasion, for my scars
burned with growing intensity as the seasons turned and the
fires to the west raged and the years passed by me.
Sometimes the knights let me stay for a week, perhaps two,
but the peasants would clamor, would talk of traitors and
firebrands, and I would be asked to leave, would be
escorted from Solamnic holdings by a handful of armed
cavalry.
   The knights would apologize there at the borders, and
tell me that their hearts were heavy for me ... that the
welfare of the order and the people took precedence . . .
that, had there been another way, they would have been
glad to ...
   In all those high places, I asked after Arion's song.
Solamnia was, after all, the bard's sanctuary, the harp's
haven. All of the schooled poets had retreated to these
courts, and all knew the works of Arion of Coastlund.
   I showed around the scratched and amended passage
near the poem's end. All the bards remembered it, and
remembered no other version. As I sat alone in the vaulted
hall of Vingaard Keep, my thickened hands strumming
Father's harp in the vast and echoing silence, it almost
seemed to me that the walls shuddered with my clumsy
music, the one string still and always missing.

                                 *****

   In my seventeenth year, the peninsula had burned clear
up to Finn's own holdings.
   Out of the stronghold of his lair in the seaside caverns
at Endaf, from which his horsemen could harry the trade
routes north from Abanasinia and his notorious ships, the
NUITARI and the VIPER, could find safe harbor, Finn
terrorized the cape and covered the shore with the husks of
schooners and brigantines, off course in the smoke from the
mainland.
   It was rumored by some that an ancient evil had returned,
in those brief years before the War of the Lance. Finn was
one of those who harbored them, the populace whispered.
For in the depths of his seaside cavern lay an intricate web
of still larger caverns, tunnel devolving on tunnel, the
darkness slick and echoing. This was the legendary Finn's
Ear, where it was supposed that all sounds muttered in
shelter of stone eventually and eternally circled and spoke.
At the heart of Finn's labyrinth was said to lay a monster,
his black scales glittering with cold malice and devouring
acid.
   They said that the beast and the bandit had struck an
uneasy truce: Finn soothed the monster with the music of
well paid but exhausted bards, and, lulled by continual
song, the great creature received in turn the company of the
bandit king's uncooperative prisoners. And as to the fate of
those poor wretches, even the rumormongers were silent.
   In the rough border country between Lemish and
Southlund, cooling myself in the high foothills of the
Garnet Mountains, I pondered the looming necessity of
actually going to Finn's Ear, where the bards were singing
and the caverns echoing. It was the only place I had not
searched for the song.
   Hooded as always to hide my livid scars, I crossed that
border and stalked through the burning peninsula, keeping
the towers of Caergoth to the north as I traveled toward the
little villages in the west. My route took me within Finn's
own sight, had he cared to leave his rocky throne and look
west from the beetling cliffs.
   For days I wandered through hot country and distant
rising smoke. I would stand outside the village pubs,
hooded and shrouded like a highwayman or a self-important
mage, and through open windows I heard the nervous talk,
the despair of farmer and villager alike.
   Spontaneous fires arose in the dry grain fields, leaving
the countryside a wasteland of ash and cinder. In droves the
farmers were leaving, no longer able to fight the flames. All
this disaster, they claimed, had enraged Finn to the point
where, in the search for remedy, he had offered an
extravagant bounty to any bard or enchanter who could
extinguish the fires with song or incantation.
   Hard words about a curse drifted through one of the
windows. I heard the name of my father. It lightened my
steps somehow, as I passed through the deserted village of
Ebrill in the early morning, then over the ruins of Llun and
Mercher, moving ever westward, believing now that my
quest would at last be done. Endaf was the last place Finn
would look for a far-flung quarry, and my father's name
rode on the smoky air.
   It was midmorning when I reached Endaf. I wandered
the village for a while, weaving a path amid the deserted
cottages and charred huts and lean-tos, all looking like a
grim memory of a village. And it was odd walking there,
passing the old flame-gutted ruins of the inn and knowing
that somewhere in its vanished upper story my father had
received the scars I had mysteriously inherited.
   I turned abruptly from the ashes. I was eighteen and
impatient, and had come very far for the truth. The old acrid
smell of Endaf faded as I walked from the ruins on a rocky
and shell-strewn path, and as I trudged west I caught the
sharp smell of salt air and heard the faint cries of gulls and
cormorants.

                                 *****

   About a mile from the center of the village, Finn's Ear
burrowed into a sheer limestone cliff overlooking the Cape
of Caergoth. Black gulls perched at its edge, the gray rock
white with their guano, loud with their wailing cries.
   Steps had been chopped in the steep rock face, whether
by the bandits or by a more ancient hand it was hard to tell,
given the constant assault of storm and birds. I took my
place in the middle of a rag-tag group of beggars, farmers,
bards and would-be bandits, each awaiting an audience
with King Finn of the Dark Hand.
   As I waited, the bards talked around and over me in
their language of rumor. The gold thread at the hems of
cape and cloak was tattered, frayed; each wooden harp was
chipped and warped, each bronze one dented and tarnished.
   No famous poets these, no Quivalen Sath or Arion of
Coastlund. They were courtiers with trained voices and a
studied adequacy for the strings. Now, in single file on the
rocky steps, each encouraged the other, thereby
encouraging himself.
   Being praise-singer to a bandit king was a thankless
and shabby job, they said.
   Well, generally.
   But Finn, they said, was different. Of course.
   It was hard to keep from laughing. In the rationale of
such men, a bandit, a goblin, even a monster was
DIFFERENT when coin and a warm hearth were offered.
   Finn, they claimed, had joined resolutely in the search
to lift a curse brought upon Caergoth and the surrounding
peninsula years ago by the fire-bringing Solamnics, Pyrrhus
Alecto and his son Pyrrhus Orestes. His search had entered
its fourth year, his seers and shamans telling him that the
curse would last "as long as Alecto's descendants lived," his
hirelings telling him always that they had just missed
catching Orestes. Desperate, Finn hoped that a
transforming hymn would lift the curse with its beauty and
magic.
   The bards needled one another cynically, each asking
when they would write that certain song, make their
fortunes among the bandits. They all laughed the knowing
laughter of bards, then fell silent.
   I leaned against the cold rock face, awaiting uncertain
audience. Pelicans and gulls wheeled over the breaking
tide, diving into the ardent waters as the sun settled over the
eastern spur of Ergoth, dark across the cape.
   Carelessly, I touched the strings of the harp, felt in my
pockets for the poet's pen and ink. I had traveled hundreds
of miles to this stairwell, this audience. The pain of my
scars rose suddenly to a new and staggering level.
   The song of the bards around me was skillful and
glittering and skeptical . . . and empty of the lines I sought.
I would have to brave the echoing caverns below Finn's
lair.
   The druidess had told me that I could find the truth.
AND THE FINDING WOULD SAVE MY LIFE AND
MAKE THE PAST UNCHANGEABLE. The song had to be
here, or there was no song. And could the final pain of the
monster's acid be any worse than this perpetual burning?
   "You'll have it, Father," I muttered into the dark of my
hood. "REDEEMED AND CONTINUED. The past will be
unchangeable. Whatever you have, it will be the truth. And
whatever I have, it will be better."

                                 *****

   Finn of the Dark Hand sat in a huge chair hewn from
the cavern wall. He looked hewn from stone himself, a
sleepless giant or a weathered monument set as a sign of
warding along the rocky peninsular coast. His right hand
was gloved in black, the reason known only to himself.
   Around him milled his company of bandits, rough and
scarred like burned villages. They bared their knives as they
watched the singers, smiling wickedly one to another, as
though keeping a dreadful secret unto a fast-approaching
hour.
   I hovered at the mouth of the cave, listening for an hour
to the technically brilliant and lifeless songs of the bards.
They claimed to play the music for its own sake, for the
sake of the glory of song, but they all knew otherwise, for
always music serves some master.
   Even Finn knew they were liars. Finn, who had held
neither harp nor flute, whose poetry was ambush and
plunder. He leaned into the eroded throne, dismissing the
pearly singer from Kalaman, the pale lad from Palanthas
and the merchant turned poet from Dargaard. Each gathered
a heel of bread for his song and turned, grumbling, eastward
toward Solamnic cities and the possibility of castles and
shelter.
   It was night. Bats rustled in the upper regions of the
cavern, and I remembered an old time, a winter time, a
cavern and a dry rustling sound. Two last supplicants stood
between me and the bandit: a beggar whose leg had been
damaged in a field accident, and another bard.
   While the beggar begged and was given a loaf, and
while the bard sang and received a crust, I waited in the
shadow of the cave.
   None of them had the song. None of them. Neither bard
nor minstrel nor poet nor troubadour. Their songs rang
thinly in the cave, echoing back to them and to us, throwing
the music into a doubling confusion.
   I had come this far, and for me there was still more to
discover, more than thin music and mendicant rhymes.
When summoned, I stepped to the light, and when the
dulled eyes of the bandit king rested upon me, I threw back
my hood.

                                 *****

   "Firebringer," he rasped, and "Orestes the Torch."
   As all the bandits hastened to be the one to slay me, to
end the line and the curse before the approving eye of their
leader, Finn raised his hand and stayed theirs.
   "No," he rumbled. The blood of the line of Pyrrhus
should not stain the floors of this cavern. For remember the
curse. Remember the harm it might visit."
   One shaman, seated by the stone foot of the throne,
nodded in agreement, beads rattling as he fondled his bone
necklace.
   I followed the bandit guards into the throat of the cave,
to a confusing depth where all light had vanished except the
glow of candles wedged in rocks and later only the torch
that guided us. In a great rotunda hundreds of feet below
the surface they left me, the last of the guards covering their
tracks, candle by extinguished candle, and their footsteps
echoed over each other until the cavern resounded of a
passing, vanished army.
   I sat in a darkness most absolute. After only a moment,
I heard a voice.
   The language was quiet, insinuating, weaving with the
fabric of my thoughts until I could no longer tell, especially
in this darkness, what words lay outside me and what
within.
   OH, TO A WANDERING EYE ... it began, a fragment
of song in the darkness.
   I scrambled to my feet and lurched toward, I hoped, the
passageway. Bones clattered beneath my feet, rattled
against rotting wood and rusted strings, striking a hollow
music. Spinning blindly in the dark, I realized I had left
father's harp behind, and knew at once that I could not find
my way back to it.
   A second voice caught me standing stupidly in the same
place, huddled in my cloak, expecting the fangs, the
monster's fatal poisons. At the new sound, I jumped,
flinging my pitiful knife away into the darkness, where it
clattered much too loudly against the rock wall.
   "EST SULARIS OTH MITHAS ..."
   And then, behind me, or what I thought was behind me,
another.
   BUILD YE THE WESTERNMOST WALL IN THREE PARTS . . .
   And, beyond that, another voice, and yet
another, until I spun about dizzily, buffeted by voices, by
echoes, by wandering sound from centuries before. For not
only did the voices of Southlund and Coastlund mingle in
the darkness with a chorus of High Solamnic, but the
ancient ritual language seemed to change as I heard it,
traveling from voice to voice, each time its pronouncements
varying slightly until I realized that the last voices I had
heard were another language entirely and that I had
followed a passage of familiar words, familiar sounds, back
to a voice that was entirely alien, speaking a tongue as
remote as the Age of Might, as the distant and unattainable
constellations.
   I WOULD KNOW WHY, said a young man's tortured voice.
   YOU CAN FIND THE TRUTH, another voice said - softer, more familiar.
   AND THE FINDING WILL MAKE THE PAST. . . UNCHANGEABLE.
   I followed the familiar voice of the
druidess L'Indasha Yman, my shoulder brushing against
stone and a cool liquid draft of air rushing into my face,
telling me I had found a passage ... to somewhere else.
   The voices were ahead of me now, ahead and behind,
contained, I suppose, by the narrow corridor. Some shouted
at me, some whispered, some vexed me with accents
curious and thoughts fragmentary. . . .
    . . . SE THE FOR DRYHTNES NAMAN DEATHES THOLDE . . .
    . . . HERE ON THE PLAINS, WHERE THE WIND ERASES THOUGHT. . .
    . . . OUR MEDSIYN IS A STON THAT IS NO STON, AND A THYNG IN
KENDE AND NOT DIVERSE THYNGES, OF WHOM ALL METALLES BETH
MADE . . .
    . . . YOUR ONE TRUE LOVE'S A SAILING SHIP . . .
    . . . DOWN IN THE ARM OF CAERGOTH HE RODE . . .
    I stopped. In the last of the voices, somewhere behind me in
the corridor, the old words had sounded. I forgot them all -
the druidess, the erasing wind of the plains, the medicine
and bawdy songs - and turned about.
   In the midst of a long recounting of herb lore I discovered
that voice again . . . the bard's intonation masking the
accents of Coastlund. I followed the northern vowels, the
rhythmic sound of the verse. . . .
   And I was in another chamber, for the echo swirled
around me and over me, and I felt cold air from all quarters,
and a warmth at a great distance to my left. The voice
continued, louder and unbroken by noise and distraction,
and it finished and repeated itself as an echo resounds upon
echo.
   I held my breath, fumbled for pen and ink, then
remembering the monster, sniffed the air for acid and heat.
   It was indeed Arion's "Song of the Rending," echoing
over the years unto this cavern and unto my listening.
   So I waited. Through the old narrations of the sins of
the Kingpriest, through the poet's account of the numerous
decrees of perfection and the Edict of Thought Control. I
waited as the song recounted the glittering domes and spires
of Istar, the swelling of moons and the stars' convergence,
and voices and thunderings and lightnings and earthquakes.
I listened as hail and fire tumbled to earth in a downpour of
blood, igniting the trees and the grass, and the mountains
were burning, and the sea became blood, and above and
below us the heavens were scattered, and locusts and
scorpions wandered the face of the planet. . . .
   I waited as the voice echoed down the generations, from
one century to the next to the third since the Cataclysm,
awaiting those lines, not letting myself hope that they would
be different from the ones in the leather book in my pack, so
that when the lines came, they were like light itself.

   DOWN IN THE ARM OF CAERGOTH HE RODE:
           PYRRHUS ALECTO, THE KNIGHT OF THE NIGHT OF BETRAYALS
   FIREBRAND OF BURNING THAT CLOUDED THE STRAITS OF HYLO,
           THE OIL AND ASH ON THE WATER, IGNITED COUNTRY.
   FOREVER AND EVER THE VILLAGES BUM IN HIS PASSAGE,
           AND THE GRAIN OF THE PEASANTRY, LIFE OF THE RAGGED
               ARMIES
   THAT HARRIED HIM BACK TO THE KEEP OF THE CASTLE
           WHERE PYRRHUS THE FIREBRINGER CANCELED THE WORLD
   BENEATH THE DENIAL OF BATTLEMENTS,
           WHERE HE DIED AMID STONE WITH HIS COVERING ARMIES.
   FOR SEVENTEEN YEARS THE COUNTRY OF CAERGOTH
           HAS BURNED AND BURNED WITH HIS EFFACING HAND,
   A BARREN OF SHIRES AND HAMLETS,
           AND Firebringer HISTORY HANGS ON THE PATH OF HIS
               NAME.

   I sat on the cold stone floor and laughed and cried
quietly, exultantly. I waited there an hour, perhaps two, as
the "Song of the Rending" ended and began again. I
wondered briefly if this were the echo of Arion himself, if I
was hearing not only the words but the voice of the bard
my father had killed a generation back.
   I decided it did not matter. All that mattered was the
truth of the words and the truth of the telling. Arion's song
had marked my grandfather as a traitor, but it had preserved
the land, for what bandit or goblin would care to invade a
fire-blasted country? Orestes's song had rescued Alecto's
name, at the price of flame and ruin and his own life. So
when Arion's song returned again, I was ready to hear it, to
commit it to memory, to wander these caves until I
recovered the light, the fresh air, the vellum or hide on
which to write the lines that would save my father's line,
my line.
   It did return, and I remembered each word, with a
memory half trained in the listening, half inherited from a
father with bardic gifts. For the first time in a long while,
perhaps the first time ever, I was thankful for who he was,
and I praised the gifts Orestes had passed on to me.
   And then, with a whisper that drowned out all other
voices, at once the beast spoke. It was a dragon!
   So HE HAS SENT ANOTHER FROM UP IN THE
LIGHT... O MOST WELCOME . . . THE STRUGGLE IS
OVER IS OVER . . . REST THERE REST... NO
CONTINUING ... NO ... NO ...
   Oh. And it seemed not at all strange now to fall to the
monster without struggle or issue, to rid myself of the
shifting past and the curse of these scars and their burning,
and to rid all above me of the land's torture . . .
   So I stood there, ridiculously clutching pen and ink,
and though it was already darker than I could imagine
darkness to be, I closed my eyes, and the alien heat
engulfed me, and with it the evil smell of rust and offal and old
blood. The jaws closed quickly around me as I heard a man's voice,
saying, I HAVE KILLED ARION, AND THE BURNING
WILL NEVER STOP. THE LAND IS CURSED. I AM
CURSED. MY LINE IS CURSED. I DIE.
   And then, like a last sudden gift, a woman's whisper:
   THERE IS POWER IN ALL WORDS, AND IN YOURS ESPECIALLY.

                                 *****

   It was the hot fetor that awakened me. I gasped and
coughed and closed my eyes immediately to the fierce and
caustic fumes.
   I was sitting upright in very confined quarters.
   Slowly I tested my surroundings, my eyes clasped
tightly against the foul biting mist. I stretched my arms, and
to each side I felt slippery leather walls.
   It came to me slowly what had happened.
   I sat in the dragon's stomach, like a hapless sailor at the
end of an ancient tale.
   I cried out in panic and kicked against the pulsing walls,
flailing frantically, but it seemed that the great beast had
settled and fallen asleep, assured by long experience that the
dark corrosives of his stomach would do the rest.
   I felt my scars hiss and bubble. The tissue was old and
thick as hide, and it would take hours for the acid to eat
through. There was a fair amount of air, though it was foul
and painful to breathe. What was left to me was the waiting.
   For a while, for the space, perhaps, of a dozen
heartbeats, the absurdity of my quest rushed over me like a
harsh, seething wave. Four years of wandering across two
continents, hiding away in castles and marshes, under the
abutments of bridges and in filthy, narrowing alleys,
enduring searing pain in silence . . .
   Only to come ignobly to the filthiest, narrowest end of
all, and with me the line of Pyrrhus Alecto, dissolved and
digested miles beneath our beloved peninsula. I had gone
down to the depths of the mountains, and the earth with her
bars was about me forever.
   I cried out again, certain no one would hear me.
   Then it seemed almost foolishly simple. For after the
weeping, the vain recollection of my hundred adventures, I
recalled the last thing I had heard:
   "There is power in all words, and in yours especially."
   My first purpose, many seasons past and a hundred
miles away, when I left my mother and home, had been to
discover and make known the truth about Orestes and
Grandfather.
   I had discovered. Now I must make it known. I would
salvage the truth in the last dissolving hour. And though I
assumed the words would never see light or catch a willing
eye, I brought forth quill and inkhorn, and said aloud,
canceling my father's words as he had canceled Arion's,
"The fires are extinguished. The land is free. I am alive."
   Dipping the quill, I began to write blindly on the
quivering stomach walls of the dragon.
   DOWN IN THE ARM OF CAERGOTH HE RODE . . .

                                 *****

   Some men are saved by water, some by fire. I have
heard stories of happy rock slides releasing trapped miners,
of a ship and its crew passing safely through hurricanes
because the helmsman nestled the boat in the eye of the
storm, in sheer good fortune.
   I am the rare one to be saved by nausea.
   Credit it to the ink, perhaps, or the incessant, swift
scratching on the walls of the dragon's stomach. Whatever
it was, the fishermen skirting the coast of Endaf, the good
folk of Ergoth who drew me sputtering from the water, said
that they had never seen the likes of it on sea or land.
   They said that the caverns of Finn of the Dark Hand had
exploded, the rubble toppling down the cliff face and
pouring into the circling waters of the cape, that they thought
for certain it was an earthquake or some dwarven enchanter
gone mad in the depths of the rock until they saw the black
wings surge from the central cavern, bunched and muscled
and webbed like the wings of a bat. And they told me how a
huge creature pivoted gracefully, high above the coastal
waters, plunged for the sea, and inelegantly disgorged above
the Cape of Caergoth.
   It seemed a clear, sweet grace to me, lying on the deck of
their boat as they poured hot mulled wine down me and
wrapped me in blankets, their little boat turning west toward
the Ergoth shore and the safety of Eastport, a haven in that
ravaged and forbidding land.
   The fishermen's attentions seemed strange, though - as
if, in some odd, indescribable way, I was one of their
fellows. It was not until we reached the port itself and I
looked into a barrel of still water that I noticed my scars had
vanished.
   But the memory of the burning returns, dull and heavy in
my hands, especially at night, here in this lighthouse room
overlooking the bay of Eastport. Across the water I can see
the coast of my homeland, the ruins of the bandit stronghold
at Endaf. Finn, they tell me, dissolved with two dozen of his
retainers when the dragon thundered through their chambers,
shrieking and flailing and dripping the fatal acid that is the
principal weapon of his kind.
   And the creature may as well have dissolved himself. He
has not been seen since that day on the Caergoth coast. But
the same fishermen who rescued me claim that, only the
other night, a dark shadow passed across the face of the red
moon. Looking up, they saw nothing but Lunitari and a
cloudless sky.
   They saw an omen in this, and now carry talismans on
board, but sailors always were a superstitious lot, fashioning
monsters out of clouds and the wind on the waters.
   At night I sit by the window, by lamplight, and watch the
constellations switch and wink and vanish in this uncertain
time, and I set before me a fresh page of vellum, the lines of
each day stored in my memory. For a moment I dwell on the
edges of remembrance, recalling my mother, L'Indasha
Yman, the reluctant knights, and the fortunate fishermen.
But, foremost, I recall my father, come down to me in an
inheritance of verse and conflicting stories. It is for him, and
for Grandfather before him, and for all those who have
vanished and been wronged by the lies of the past, that I dip
the quill into the inkwell, and the pain in my hand subsides
as I begin to write . . .
   On SOLAMNIA'S CASTLES
   RAVENS ALIGHT.
   DARK AND UNNUMBERED
   LIKE A YEAR OF DEATHS,
   AND DREAMT ON THE BATTLEMENTS,
   FIXED AND HOLY,
   ARE THE SIGNS OF THE ORDER
   KINGFISHER AND ROSE -

                          THE BARGAIN DRIVER

                             MARK ANTHONY

   I'll give you the two bronze knives, the string of elven beads, and
the silver drinking horn, but that is my final offer."
   "Are you mad, Matya?" the grizzled old trader said in
exasperation. He gestured to the bolt of fine cloth that lay
between them on the counter, in the center of the trading
post's one dingy, cluttered room. "Why, this was woven for
a noble lord in the city of Palanthas itself. It's worth twice
what you're offering me. Nay, thrice!"
   Matya watched the trader calculatingly with her bright
brown eyes. She could always tell when she was about to
best Belek in the driving of a bargain, for his nose
invariably would begin to twitch.
   "If the doth is so fine, why did the noble lord for whom
it was made not buy it?" Matya asked pointedly.
   Belek mumbled some excuse, but Matya waved it away
with a ring-covered hand. "You may take my offer or leave
it, Belek. You'll not get so much as a bent nail more."
   The trader sighed, a look of dismay on his haggard face.
"You're determined to drive me out of business, aren't you,
Matya?" His bulbous nose gave a violent twitch.
   Matya smiled inwardly, though she did not let the trader
see her satisfaction. "It's simply business, Belek, that's all."
   The trader grunted. "Aye, so it is. But I'll warn you,
Matya. One day you'll drive a bargain too cleverly for your
own good. There are some bargains that aren't worth taking,
no matter how profitable they seem."
   Matya laughed at that. "You always were a sore loser,
Belek." She pushed the goods she had offered across the
counter. Belek sighed - his nose twitching furiously - and
pushed the bolt of cloth toward her. Matya spat on her palm.
Belek did likewise, and the two shook hands. The bargain
had been struck.
   Matya bade Belek farewell and loaded the bolt of cloth
into her wagon outside the ramshackle trading post. The
wagon was a colorful, if somewhat road-worn, affair - a
wooden box on wheels, painted in countless bright but
peeling hues. Hitched in front was a single dun-colored
donkey with patient eyes and extraordinarily long ears.
   Matya's wagon was filled nearly to overflowing with all
manner of wares, both mundane and curious: pots and pans,
cloaks and boots, arrows and axes, flints, knives, and even a
sword or two, plus countless other objects she had bought,
haggled for, or - most of the time - scavenged. Traveling
from town to town, trading and striking bargains, was how
Matya made her living. And it was not a bad one at that.
   Like the wagon, Matya herself was a bit worn with the
years. Her long hair, coiled in a thick braid atop her head,
had been flaxen, but now was ash gray. Countless days of
sun and wind had tanned and toughened her ruddy cheeks.
Fine wrinkles touched the comers of her eyes and mouth,
more from smiling than frowning, and so were attractive.
And, like the wagon, Matya was clad in a motley collection
of clothes representing all colors of the rainbow, from her
ocean-blue skirt to her sunflower-yellow shirt and forest-
green vest speckled with tiny red flowers. Her willowy,
figure had plumped out, but there was still an air of beauty
about her, of the simplest and most comforting kind - when
her nut-brown eyes weren't flashing fire, that is.
   "Let's be on our way, Rabbit," Matya told the donkey as
she climbed onto the wagon's wooden bench. "If we hurry,
we can reach Garnet by nightfall. There's a merchant there
who's an even worse haggler than Belek." The donkey gave
a snort that sounded uncannily like laughter.
   Matya tied a bright red kerchief over her graying hair and
grasped the wagon's reins in her strong, thick fingers. She
whistled sharply, and Rabbit started off at a trot down the
dusty highway, pulling the gaudily colored wagon behind.

                                 *****

   It was midafternoon when she saw the ravens circling
lazily against the azure sky not far in the distance. Matya
knew well what the dark birds portended: Death ahead.
   "Keep those ears up, Rabbit," she told the donkey as the
wagon jounced down the heavily rutted road. "There's
danger on the road these days."
   Matya watched warily as the serene, rolling hills
slipped by. Autumn had touched the land with its frosty
hand, coloring the plains of southern Solamnia in a hundred
shades of russet and gold. The honey-colored sunlight was
warm and drowsy, but Matya resisted the temptation to
doze, as she might have done otherwise. The land was
beautiful, but beauty could conceal danger. She remained
wide awake and alert.
   The wagon crested a low rise. Below her, the road split,
and it was here the ravens circled. The highway continued
on to the north, and a second road led east, toward the dim
purple range of mountains marching on the horizon.
Scattered about the dusty crossroads were several queer,
twisted objects. A raven dived down and pecked at one of
the objects before flapping again into the air, and only then
did Matya realize what the strange things were: corpses,
lying still in the dirt of the road.
   She counted five of them as Rabbit - eyeing the dead
nervously - pulled the wagon to the crossroads. Matya
climbed down and knelt to examine one of the bodies, an
older man's, dressed in neat but threadbare attire. A crudely
made arrow with black fletching protruded from its throat.
   "Goblins," Matya said in disgust. She had heard rumors
that the verminous creatures were creeping down from the
high places of the mountains of late to waylay travelers. By
her guess, these had been pilgrims, making for Caergoth, to
the south, to visit the temples of the new gods there.
   "They found their gods sooner than they thought," Matya
muttered. She spoke a brief prayer to speed the dead on
their journey, then began rummaging about the bodies,
seeing if any of them carried something that might be worth
trading. After all, the dead had no use for objects of value.
Matya, on the other hand, did.
   After several minutes, however, she gave up in disgust.
Like most pilgrims, these owned little more than the clothes
on their backs. She would not have scorned even these, but
they were threadbare and stained with blood. All she had
got for her trouble was a single copper coin, and a bent one
at that.
   "There's nothing for us here," Matya told Rabbit as she
climbed back into the wagon. "Let's be on our way. Men
riding out from Garnet will find these folk soon enough and
lay them to rest - hopefully dead with the goblins."
   Rabbit let out a low bray and started into a trot, anxious
to be away from the crossroads and the smell of blood.
Matya guided the donkey down the east road, but after a
hundred paces or so she pulled hard on the reins, bringing
the wagon again to a halt.
   "Now what on the face of Krynn is that?" Matya asked
herself. Something glinted brightly among the nettles and
witchgrass to the side of the road. She started to ignore it,
flick the reins, and continue on - the hour was growing late -
but curiosity got the better of her. She slid from the wagon's
bench, pushed through the weeds, and headed toward the
glimmer she had seen. The nettles scratched at her ankles,
but in a moment Matya forgot the sting.
   "Why, 'tis a knight 1" she gasped aloud, staring at the
man who lay, unmoving, in the weeds at her feet.
   The man was clad in armor of beaten steel, but his
visage was more that of a shiftless vagabond than a noble
knight. His eyes were deeply set, his features thin and
careworn, and the mouse-brown moustache that drooped
over his mouth was coarse and scraggly.
   Whether he was, in truth, a knight or a looter in stolen
armor, it didn't much matter now, Matya thought. His hair
was matted with blood, and his skin was ashen with the
pallor of death. She said the familiar words to appease the
spirit of the dead, then knelt beside the corpse.
   The steel armor alone would be worth a fortune, but it
was terribly heavy, and Matya was not entirely certain she
would be able to remove it. However, the knight wore a
leather purse at his belt, and that boded well for Matya's
fortunes. Deftly, she undid the strings, peered inside, and
gasped in wonder.
   A woman's face gazed out of the purse at her. The tiny
face was so lifelike that, for a moment, Matya almost
fancied it was real - a small, perfect maiden hidden within
the pouch.
   "Why, it's a doll," she realized after a heartbeat had
passed.
   The doll was exquisitely made, fashioned of delicate
bone-white porcelain. The young maiden's eyes were two
glowing sapphires, and her cheeks and lips were touched
with a blush of pink. It was a treasure fit for a lord's house,
and Matya's eyes glimmered like gems themselves as she
reached to lift it from the purse.
   A hand gripped her arm, halting her. Matya froze, biting
her lip to stifle a scream. It was the dead man. His fingers,
sticky with dried blood, dug into the flesh of her arm, and
he gazed at her with pale, fey eyes.
   The knight was very much alive.

                                 *****

   "Tambor . . ." the knight whispered. He lay slumped
against the wheel of Matya's wagon, his eyes shut. "She
sings . . . Tambor . . ." His mumbling faded, and he drifted
deeper into a feverish sleep.
   Matya sat near the small fire, sipping a cup of rose hip
tea and watching the knight carefully. Twilight had
descended on the grove of aspen trees where she had made
camp, transforming all the colors of the world to muted
shades of gray.
   Tambor, Matya thought. There's that word again. She had
heard it several times in the knight's fevered rambling, but
she did not know what it meant, or even whether it was the
name of a place or a person. Whatever it was, it was
important to him. As important as that doll, she thought.
Even now, in his sleep, the knight clutched tightly at the
purse that held the small porcelain figurine. It had to be
valuable indeed.
   While Matya was not one to go out of her way to help
others when it was unclear what - if any - reward she might
gain from it, neither was she without a heart. The knight
would have died had she left him there by the road, and she
would not have wanted that weighing on her conscience to
the end of her days. Besides, she suspected there was a good
chance the knight would die regardless of her aid, in which
case the doll would be hers, free and clear. Either way, it
was worth her while to help.
   Getting the knight into her wagon had been no simple
task. Fortunately, Matya was a strong woman, and the
knight had roused himself enough to stumble most of the
way with her help. She had hoped to make Garnet by
nightfall, but she had tarried too long at the crossroads.
Shadows were lengthening, and the town still lay many
leagues ahead. Knowing night was not far off, fearful of
Rabbit stumbling into a hole or missing the trail in the dark,
she had made camp in the grove of aspen by the road.
   She had tended to the knight's wounds as best she
could. The cut on his scalp was shallow, but he had lost a
good deal of blood from it. More troubling had been the
wound in the knight's leg. She had found the broken shaft of
an arrow embedded in the flesh behind his knee. Goblin
arrows were wickedly barbed, Matya knew, and there was
only one way for her to remove the arrow tip. Steeling her
will, she had pushed the broken shaft completely through
the flesh of his leg. Mercifully, the knight had not
awakened. Blood flowed freely from the wound, which she
had deftly bound with a dean cloth. The bleeding soon
stopped.
   The night deepened, and the stars came out, one by one,
like tiny jewels in the sky above. Matya sat by the fire to eat
a supper of dried fruit, nuts, and bread, regarding the
knight's sleeping form thoughtfully through the back of the
wagon.
   If he still lived when she reached Garnet the next day, she
would leave him at one of the monasteries dedicated to the
new gods - if the brethren would accept a Solamnic Knight
into their sanctuary, she amended. There were many who
frowned upon the Knights of Solamnia these days. Matya
had heard tales that told how, long ago, the knights had
been men of greatness and honor, who had protected all
Solamnia against creatures like goblins. Matya, however,
was not certain she believed such tales.
   Most Solamnic Knights she had ever heard of were
little more than fools who expected others to be impressed
simply because they wore ridiculous suits of rusting armor.
Some folk even said it was the knights themselves who
brought about the Cataclysm, the fiery destruction that had
rained down upon the face of Krynn more than half a
century ago, bringing an end to the Age of Might.
   "Not that I think the Cataclysm was really such a
terrible thing," Matya said to herself. "I daresay I wouldn't
make as good a living as I do if these self-important knights
still patrolled the highways. And while times may be hard,
it only means that people will spend more dearly for the sort
of things I can bring them in my wagon. If anything, the
Cataclysm has been good for business, and that's all that
matters to me."
   With a start, Matya realized that the knight had heard
her talking, was watching her. His eyes were pale, almost
colorless.
   "To whom do I owe my life?" he asked her.
   Matya stared at him in surprise. Despite his unlikely
looks, the knight's voice was resonant, deep and almost
musical, like the sound of a hunting horn.
   "My name is Matya," she said briskly, recovering her
wits. "And as for what you owe me, we can discuss that
later."
   The knight inclined his head politely. "I am Trevarre, of
the House of Navarre," he said in his noble voice. "For your
assistance, I thank you, but if it is a reward you seek, I fear
we must discuss it now, not later." He gripped the wagon's
side and tried to pull himself up, heedless of his injuries.
   "What are you doing?" Matya cried.
   "Leaving," Trevarre said. A crooked smile touched his
lips, and determination shone in his deep-set eyes. "You
have been more than kind, Matya, but I have traveled day
and night to reach the end of my journey. I cannot stop, not
yet."
   "Why, you knights are greater fools than the tales say,"
Matya said angrily, hands on her hips. "You'll only kill
yourself"
   "So be it," Trevarre said, shrugging as if this prospect
did not disturb him. He grimaced, breathing hard, as he slid
from the wagon and balanced on his good leg. "I must go
on" He took a step onto his injured leg. His face went white
with pain. He groaned and slumped to the ground.
   Matya clucked her tongue, helped him sit back up
against the wagon wheel. "I don't think you're going
anywhere, except to a monastery in Garnet - or the grave, if
you try that again" She poured a cup of water from a
goatskin and handed it to him. The knight nodded in thanks
and drank it down.
   "You do not understand, Matya," Trevarre said, an
intent look on his weathered face. "I must journey to
Tambor. I have received a plea for help. I cannot refuse it."
   Matya scowled. "Why ever not?"
   Trevarre sighed, stroking his scraggly moustache. "I do
not know if I can make you understand this, but I will try. I
am a Knight of the Sword, Matya." He rested his hand
against his steel breastplate, decorated with the symbol of
the sword. "This means I cannot live my life as other men
do. Instead, I must live by another, higher standard - by the
Oath and the Measure. It is written in the Measure that
there is honor in aiding those who cry out in need. And, by
the Oath, I swore that my honor is my life. I will fulfill my
quest, Matya." A faint light glimmered in his pale eyes. "Or
die trying."
   "And what reward will you get for performing this
'honorable' task?" Matya asked with a scowl.
   "My honor is reward enough."
   Matya sniffed. "This 'Oath and Measure' hardly sounds
practical. It's rather difficult to eat one's honor when one
gets hungry." She paused a moment. Her real interest was in
the doll, but she couldn't think of how to ask about it
without rousing the knight's suspicion. Maybe, if she could
keep him talking about himself, he'd tell her what she
wanted to know. "And how is it you came to hear this plea
for help, Knight? How do you know it's not simply a trick
to lure you into a den of robbers?"
   "I know." The crooked smile touched Trevarre's lips
once again. "By this, I know." He slipped the porcelain doll
from the leather pouch.
   Matya was thrilled. She had not thought to get another
glimpse so easily. Seeing it closely now, Matya realized the
doll was even more beautiful than she had thought. She
clasped her hands behind her back so she would not be
tempted to reach out and touch its smooth surface.
   "Passing fair, would you not say?" Trevarre said softly.
Matya could only nod. "It is a most remarkable thing. I
came upon it some days ago, by the banks of a stream that
flows from the mountains. It lay in a small boat woven of
rushes, caught in a snag by the shore." He slipped the
figurine back into its pouch. "By it, I learned of a maiden
who lives in a village called Tambor. She is in dire need.
The code of the Measure is most clear on this. I must go to
her."
   Matya raised an eyebrow. It was a peculiar tale. She
guessed Trevarre had stolen the doll and simply was
making up the story. After all, he looked more like a thief
than a knight, despite his armor. If so, stolen goods were
fair game. Ask any trader.
   "How is it you learned of this maiden?" she asked,
hoping to trip him in his lie. "Was there a message in the
boat?"
   "No," the knight replied, "not as you mean, at least.
You see, the doll is magical. Each night, when Solinari
rises, the doll speaks with the maiden's voice. That is how I
heard her call for help."
   Matya laughed aloud, slapping her knee. "A wondrous
tale indeed, Trevarre, but I believe you have taken up the
wrong vocation. You should be a storyteller, not a knight."
   Trevarre's expression became grave, serious. "You
must know, Matya, that on his life a Knight of Solamnia
cannot speak falsehood. I can understand why you do not
trust in magic. We knights do not think much of sorcerous
powers either. But wait until Solinari is on the rise. Perhaps
you will change your mind."
   Matya studied the knight attentively. His was not
exactly a trustworthy face, despite his pretty voice. Still,
there was something about the intentness of his pale eyes.
   "Perhaps I won't," she said.

                                 *****

   It was nearly midnight. The knight had slipped into a
doze, less fitfully this time, and Matya rummaged through a
wooden box in the back of her wagon. The light of a single
candle illuminated scrolls and parchments. Finally, she
found what she was searching for - a bundle of yellowed
sheets of vellum.
   Matya untied the bundle's silken ribbon and unrolled
the sheets, spreading them out on the lid of the box. They
were maps, rendered in fading ink. A kender had given
them to Matya some years ago in exchange for a silver
knife. It had proved to be one of the few unprofitable trades
Matya had ever made. She soon had learned that the maps
contained many mistakes. They showed land where there
were seas, mountains where there were deserts, and
populous cities in which no one lived. She should have
known better than to trust a kender. They were little
tricksters, all of them. Still, poor as the maps were, they
were the only maps she had, and she was curious about
something.
   She shuffled through the maps until she found one that
had SOLAMNIA written on the top. The mountains were
missing, and the map showed Caergoth to be an inland city,
while Matya knew very well that it stood on the coast.
Some features had been added to the map in a bold,
scrawling hand, and Matya suspected these were the
kender's own additions. Among other things, the kender's
scrawls showed the highways leading to Garnet and
Caergoth, and the crossroads as well.
   "Now where is it?" Matya muttered, running a finger over
the yellowed, cracking vellum. "It has to be here." Then she
found what she sought. Written in small, faded letters was
the word TAMBOR. By the markings on the map, the
village of Tambor was no more than ten miles north and
east of the crossroads. "But that would put it in the foothills
of the mountains, though this map shows southern Solamnia
to be nothing but plains," she added in disgust.
   The kender had written something beside the spot
marked TAMBOR. She had to squint to make out the
scrawling words. They read, DEESTROYD IN
KATAKLISM. Matya mumbled an oath under her breath.
   If this was true, then the village the knight sought had
been destroyed more than fifty years ago. So much for his
plea for help! A liar, as she'd suspected. She didn't know
why that hurt her.
   Trevarre called out. Matya hastily put away the maps.
She found the knight still sitting by the wagon wheel. The
porcelain doll stood on the ground before him.
   "It is almost time," he said, nodding toward the west. A
pearly glow had touched the distant horizon. Solinari, the
largest of Krynn's three moons, soon would rise.
   Matya sat on a fallen log near the knight, eyes on the
doll. While she did not believe Trevarre's story, she was
curious to see what he would do when the doll failed to
speak.
   "Wait," Trevarre said softly. "Just wait."
   Matya sighed, resting her chin on a hand, and waited.
This was rapidly growing tedious. Finally, a thin, silvery
sliver of Solinari lifted above the far-off horizon.
   The doll began to sing.
   Matya stared at the porcelain statuette in shock. The
maiden's lips moved. A sweet, wordless song drifted upon
the night air. There was no doubt but that the song came
from the doll.
   Matya shot a look at Trevarre. The knight's pale eyes
were triumphant. The song continued, a sad melody that
tugged at Matya's heart. Finally the sweet music ended, and
the doll spoke.
   "Please, come to me, whoever finds me," it said, its
voice cool and lilting but filled with sorrow as well. "I beg
you. Come to the village of Tambor. I need help
desperately. Please"
   Solinari lifted full above the horizon, and the doll fell
silent. Matya's eyes glimmered as she stared at it calculatingly.
   "An enchanted doll!" she said to herself. "Why, it is worth
a king's ransom."
   "Do you believe my tale now?" Trevarre asked, a slight
smile beneath his mousy moustache.
   Matya nodded. "I believe you." She was glad to believe
in him, too, but she didn't tell him that.
   "I have something to ask of you," the knight said. "It
appears my legs are set on betraying me. I cannot journey to
Tambor on foot, but your wagon could carry me. Take me
there, Matya. Take me to Tambor, please."
   "And what would I gain for my trouble?" Matya asked
coolly.
   Trevarre reached inside the collar of his woolen cloak
and undid the clasp. He held it out to her. "Will this do?"
The clasp was fashioned of finely wrought silver, inlaid
with pearl and lapis lazuli. Matya appraised it with a
practiced eye. The jewel obviously was quite valuable. By
any measure, the trade would be a good one, but it was not
enough.
   "Give me the doll as well," Matya said crisply, "then I
will take you to Tambor."
   Trevarre gazed at her for a long moment, but Matya did
not so much as blink. Finally he laughed. "You drive a hard
bargain, I see. It appears I have little choice but to accept.
Very well, I will give you the doll - but only after we reach
Tambor."
   "Agreed," Matya said, her eyes flashing. She took the
jeweled clasp from his outstretched hand and spirited it
away to a pocket in her dress. 1 will keep this as assurance."
She knew that Trevarre likely would be distressed when he
found Tambor in ruins and his quest proved a folly.
However, if he was a man of honor, he would keep his
word. The doll would be Matya's. I'll take you to Tambor,
Knight."
   She spat in her hand and held it out. Trevarre looked at
her in puzzlement for a moment, then nodded solemnly and
did the same. They shook hands firmly. The bargain had
been struck.

                                 *****

   Matya and the knight set out with the dawn, traveling
east down the road to Garnet. The mountains loomed high
before them, like great gray giants. Their summits were
already dusted with a coating of snow, bespeaking the
winter that soon would blanket the rest of Solamnia.
   Matya studied the kender's map as Rabbit plodded on,
pulling the wagon along the jouncing road. The map was
terribly faded and crumbled a bit each time she touched it,
but Matya could make out the line of a faint road leading
south from the place marked Tambor. If the kender had
drawn in the highway to Garnet at all accurately, they
ought to reach the road to Tambor sometime around midmorning.
   "'Two giants point the way,'" Trevarre said. Matya
looked questioningly at the knight, who was propped up on
the bench beside her. "That was the sign the doll spoke of
that would guide me to the village," he explained. "I
imagine it means two mountains, or some such thing."
   "You were going to try to find the village with
directions like that?" Matya asked.
   Trevarre only shrugged.
   "Humph!" Matya snorted. "If this maiden of yours was
going to all this trouble to get rescued, she might have
given you dearer instructions."
   Before Trevarre could reply, one of the wheels hit a
deep rut, and he winced as the wagon lurched roughly. He
was in better shape today than he'd been the night before,
but his face was still pale, and the roughness of the wagon's
ride obviously was causing him pain. He did not complain,
however.
   Midmorning passed and noon approached, and still
Matya saw no sign of a road leading north from the
highway. Finally she pulled on the reins, and Rabbit came
to a halt. "It's time for a rest," she said.
   She fastened a feedbag over Rabbit's muzzle, then found
food for herself and Trevarre. A jumble of massive, oddly
shaped granite boulders, warmed by the sun, lay next to the
road. The two sat on these as they ate a meal of cheese,
bread, and dried fruit. When they had finished, Matya
checked Trevarre's bandages. "Your hands are gentle,
though your tongue is sharp," said the knight, smiling at
her. Matya blushed, but ignored him and nodded in
satisfaction. The knight's wounds had closed, and none of
them showed signs of festering.
   "We had best be on our way," she said, eyeing the sun,
which now shone directly overhead. She helped Trevarre
stand, offered him her shoulder to lean on. He smelled of
oiled steel and leather, not an unpleasant scent, she thought,
as the two started making their way back to the wagon.
Suddenly Matya froze.
   "What is it?" Trevarre asked, looking quickly about in
alarm. "Goblins?"
   "No," Matya whispered. "No, it's a face."
   She pointed to the boulder Trevarre had been sitting on.
They had not noticed it earlier, because the shadows had
obscured it, but with the sun directly overhead, Matya now
saw it as plain as day. The boulder was carved in the face of
a man.
   The carving was weathered and cracked - it must have
been ancient - but Matya still could make out the proud,
kingly features, the aquiline nose, and deep, moss-filled
eyes. Looking around, she saw that other overgrown
boulders were parts of a man - one shaped like a hand,
another like a shoulder, still another like a boot.
   "It is a statue," Trevarre said in amazement, "a gigantic
statue. It must have fallen over years ago, by the looks of it,
probably in the Cataclysm."
   "Wait, there are two of them," Matya said, pointing to
another broken boulder, which was carved in the form of a
regal-looking woman.
   "The two giants," Trevarre said. "It seems the maiden's
directions were not so inadequate after all."

                                 *****

   The road beyond the ruined statues was all but hidden
by a tangle of willows and brambles. Matya doubted that
anyone had come this way in a long time. The way was
passable but overgrown and rutted. Trevarre winced each
time the wagon's wheel hit a bump, but he said nothing.
   "He has courage, if not sense," Matya told herself. She
glanced at him, and for a brief moment her hard expression
softened. She found herself wondering just how. old
Trevarre was. He was not a young man, she suspected,
despite his foolhardiness.
   The narrow road wound across the rolling foothills,
over grassy knolls and through groves of aspen and fir. In
places the trail was so faint Matya could hardly see it, and
several times it ended abruptly, only to be found continuing
a hundred paces to the left or right. It was almost as if the
land itself had shifted beneath the road, breaking it into
pieces.
   As the hills slipped away to either side, Matya began to
feel a growing sense of unease. The land around them was
strangely silent. There are no birds here, she realized with a
start, here where the meadows should have been filled with
birds.
   It was late in the afternoon, and the amber sunlight had
grown heavy and dull, when the wagon crested a low ridge.
Below lay a small, grassy dell, and in its center stood -
   "Tambor," Trevarre said triumphantly.
   Matya shook her head in astonishment. She had
expected to see a pile of ruins in the dell, the burned-out
husks of a few cottages perhaps, and some crumbling stone
walls. Instead she saw a prosperous village. More than a
score of well-tended cottages lined a main street, busy with
people, horses, chickens, and dogs. Smoke rose from a low
stone building - probably a smithy - and a mill's waterwheel
turned slowly in a small stream.
   "You have kept your end of the bargain, Matya,"
Trevarre said solemnly. "Now it is my turn." He handed her
the leather pouch that contained the doll. Matya gripped the
purse with numb hands.
   The kender had been wrong, she told herself, that was
all. Tambor had NOT been destroyed in the Cataclysm.
Matya didn't know why she was surprised. Still, there was
something about this that did not seem entirely right.
   "What is such a prosperous village doing at the end of
such an overgrown road?" she asked herself, but she had no
answer. Not that it mattered. She had the doll now. That
was all she cared about.
   "I can walk the rest of the way," Trevarre said, starting
to climb down from the wagon, but Matya stayed him with
a hand on his arm.
   "I know it's hard, but try not to be a fool, Knight. I'll
take you into the village. I'll need to stay here anyway. It's
growing late. I'll set out again in the morning."
   Matya guided the wagon to the banks of the stream. A
small stone bridge arched over the clear, flowing water. A
young woman stood on the far side of the stream. She was
clad in a gown of flowing white, and her hair was as dark
as jet. She was beautiful, as beautiful as the porcelain doll.
   "My knight, you have come to me!" the woman cried
out. Her voice was the doll's sweet voice. Matya thought
this odd, disconcerting, but it didn't bother Trevarre. His
pale eyes shining, he slipped from the wagon and limped
across the stone bridge, ignoring the pain of his injury. He
knelt before the young woman and kissed her fine-boned
hand.
   Matya scowled. He never kissed my hand, she thought
sourly.
   "I am Ciri," said the sweet voice. "Welcome, Sir
Knight. My deliverance is at hand."

                                 *****

   Ciri led Trevarre and Matya around the edge of the
village. "Quickly," she said softly. "The fewer the folk who
see us, the better."
   Matya wondered why, but it wasn't HER place to ask.
Trevarre tried to walk faster, but it was clear his wounded
leg was causing him great pain. Ciri laid a fine hand on his
elbow, and the grimace eased from the knight's face. He
walked more easily with her hand on his arm. Matya
noticed that Trevarre seemed to have taken more than a
passing interest in Ciri's lovely face. "I'll warrant he's more
interested in her looks than his honor," she muttered,
suddenly annoyed for no particular reason.
   As they walked, Matya looked at the village in the ruddy
light of the setting sun. Nothing appeared out of order, but
something was not right. You're tired, Matya, that's all, she
told herself. Tomorrow you'll ride into Garnet and leave this
knight and his foolishness behind. That thought should have
made her feel better, but it didn't.
   Ciri led them to a small, thatch-roofed cottage standing
slightly apart from the others. She looked about to make
certain no one was watching, then opened the door,
gesturing for Trevarre and Matya to enter.
   The cottage was warm and neatly kept. A fire burned on
the fieldstone hearth, and the wooden floor had been
scrubbed clean. Ciri bade them sit down. She filled a
wooden cup with crimson wine for each of them. Matya
raised the cup of wine, then set it down without drinking it.
It had a funny smell to it. Trevarre, however, drank deeply,
thanking the woman for her hospitality - all politeness, as
his Measure called for, Matya supposed with a frown.
   "And now, my lady, you must tell me why you have
called to me," Trevarre said. Ciri smiled at him, a sweet,
sorrowful smile. "And I hope your reason is a good one,"
Matya noted, crossing her arms. "It was no mean feat
getting this knight here, I'll tell you"
   Ciri turned her gaze toward Matya for a moment, and
suddenly her smile was neither sweet nor sorrowful. 'Tor
that, I do thank you, my good woman," Ciri said. Matya
could not mistake the coldness in Ciri's otherwise lovely
voice. It was clear that Matya's presence had not been
expected; neither was it wanted.
   Ciri's gaze turned soft again as she regarded the knight.
Matya scowled, but she said nothing. If the young woman
feared competition for the knight's attention, then she was
as much a fool as Trevarre. There was little room in a
bargain driver's life for love. Such fancies dulled the sharp
edge Matya depended on for her livelihood. Besides, there
was nothing about the knight she liked, even if his pale eyes
were strangely attractive and his voice DID remind her of a
trumpet's call.
   The gloom of twilight descended outside the cottage's
window. Ciri began her tale. "I fear the fate that lies before
me is dark, my knight. A terrible wizard - my uncle - means
to force me to marry him, against all propriety and my own
wishes. He is a mage of great power, feared by all the folk
of Tambor, and even beyond. He is away now, gathering
components for his magecraft, but when he returns, he will
compel me to wed. You have arrived none too soon, my
knight."
   "Well, why don't you simply run away?" Matya asked.
Ciri gave her another chill look. "I fear it is not so simple.
You see, my uncle dabbles in the BLACK ARTS, heedless
of the peril to his soul. He has cast an enchantment upon
me. I am unable to leave the village. The banks of the
stream are as far as I may tread. Should I take but one step
beyond, I would perish."
   "But what of your father?" Trevarre asked. "Will he not
protect you from your barbarous uncle?"
   Ciri shook her head sadly. "My father and mother both
died many years ago. There is no one here to protect me.
That was why I wove the boat of rushes and sent the doll
down the waters of the stream, hoping someone might find
it and hear my plea"
   "How does the doll speak with your voice?" Matya
asked, not caring if she aroused more of Ciri's displeasure.
   "It was but the echo of my voice," Ciri explained, her
eyes on the knight. "The doll is a magical thing. My rather
brought it all the way from Palanthas for me when I was a
child. If you speak to it, or sing it a song, it will echo your
words back to you with the rising moon, exactly as you
spoke them."
   Matya's eyes glittered brightly. This was better and
better. The doll would be almost beyond price. ALMOST,
that is. Matya always had a price.
   "And how can I break this grievous enchantment?"
Trevarre asked earnestly. He was good at this knightly
business, Matya had to admit, despite his sorry looks. Ciri
stood and walked to the window, gazed through it sadly a
moment, then turned to the knight.
   "There, in the center of the village, stands a shrine. In that
shrine is an altar carved of marble. The altar is the focus of
all my uncle's dark powers. I know, for I have seen him
work his wicked spells there. From it, he draws his strength.
But the magic of the doll has the power to counter it. If one
who is strong of heart sets the doll upon the altar of his own
free will, the enchantment will be broken."
   "And what will happen to the doll?" Matya asked
suspiciously.
   "Its magic will be dissipated," Ciri answered. "It will
become an ordinary doll and nothing more."
   She walked to Trevarre then, and he rose to meet her.
She laid a hand gently upon his breastplate. Matya could
see the pulse beating rapidly in the man's throat. It was
clear Trevarre was not immune to Ciri's bewitching beauty.
Another weakness of knights, Matya thought acidly. Not
that she cared one way or the other, she reminded herself.
   "Will you do this task for me, my knight?" Ciri
pleaded. "I cannot break the enchantment with my own
hand, and there is none in the village brave enough to defy
my uncle. Will you help me?"
   Trevarre sighed and glanced at Matya. "I would, with
all my heart, that I could do this thing, my lady, but I fear I
cannot. You see, I have given Matya the doll in payment
for bringing me to this place. On my honor, I cannot ask
her for it back"
   Ciri's face twitched. She shot Matya a look so filled
with malice that Matya shivered. Then, aware of the
knight's eyes on her, Ciri's sweet, sorrowful look had
returned to her lovely face. She bowed her head.
   "Then I am doomed, my knight."
   "No," he said, with a fierce smile. "No, I cannot think
that. I am no sorcerer, but I expect there is another - albeit
cruder - way to free you." His hand moved to the hilt of the
sword at his hip. "I will stand before your uncle when he
returns, and I will demand a duel. The enchantment will be
broken when your uncle lies dead at my feet. Won't that
solve your problem, my lady?"
   Ciri sighed. "My knight, you are indeed brave," she
murmured. "So very brave."
   Matya noticed, however, that Ciri did not answer
Trevarre's question.

                                 *****

   Matya awoke in the gray light before dawn. Ciri had
provided her a bed. Trevarre slept soundly on a bed of furs
before the cottage's hearth. Matya looked around the
cottage, but Ciri was nowhere to be seen.
   Just as well, Matya thought. This way she would not
have to bid the strange young woman good-bye.
   Matya knelt beside the sleeping knight before she left.
His careworn face was peaceful in slumber, his brow
untroubled.
   "I hope you find your honor truly reward enough,
Knight," she whispered softly. She hesitated a moment, then
reached out a hand, as if to smooth his mouse-brown hair
over the bandage on his head. He stirred, and she pulled her
hand back. Quietly, Matya slipped from the cottage.
   "Trevarre has what he wants," she reminded herself,
"and so do I."
   The ruddy orb of the sun crested the dim purple
mountains to the east as Matya made her way through the
village. A few folk already were up at this hour, but they
paid her no heed as they went about their business. Once
again, Matya had the feeling there was something peculiar
about this village, but she could not quite fathom what it
was. She hurried on toward her wagon and the restless
Rabbit.
   Then it struck her.
   "The shadows are all wrong!" she said aloud.
   Her own shadow stretched long before her in the low
morning sunlight, but hers was the only shadow that looked
like it was supposed to look. The shadow cast by a two-
story cottage to her left was short and lumpy - much shorter
than she would have expected for a building so high. She
looked all around the village and saw more examples of the
same. Nowhere did the outline of a shadow match that of
the object that cast it. Even more disturbing were the
villagers themselves. None of them cast shadows at all!
   Her sense of unease growing, Matya gathered up her
skirts and hurried onto the stone bridge. She suddenly
wanted to be away from this troubling place. She was nearly
across the bridge when something - she was unsure exactly
what - compelled her to cast one last glance over her
shoulder. Abruptly she froze, clapping a hand over her
mouth to stifle a cry.
   The village had changed.
   Well-tended cottages were nothing more than broken,
burned stone foundations. The smithy was a pile of rubble,
and there was no trace of the mill except for the rotted
remains of the waterwheel, slumped by the bank of the
stream, looking like the twisted web of some enormous
spider. There were no people, no horses, no dogs, no
chickens. The dell was bare. The dark ground was hard and
cracked, as if it had been baked in a furnace.
   Matya's heart lurched. She ran a few, hesitant steps
back across the bridge, toward the village, and she gasped
again. Tambor looked as it had before, the villagers going
about their business. Blue smoke rose from a score of stone
chimneys.
   Perhaps I imagined it, she thought, but she knew that
wasn't true. Slowly, she turned her back to the village once
more and walked across the bridge. She looked out of the
comer of her eye and again saw the jumbled ruins and
blackened earth behind her. Slowly, she began to
understand.
   Tambor HAD been destroyed in the Cataclysm. The
people, the bustling village, were images of what had been
long ago. It was all illusion. Except the illusion was
imperfect, Matya realized. It appeared only when she
traveled TOWARD the village, not AWAY from it. But how
did the illusion come to exist in the first place?
   Resolutely, Matya walked back across the bridge. She
found that, if she concentrated, the illusion of the bustling
village would waver and grow transparent before her eyes,
and she could see the blackened ruins beneath. She walked
to the center of the village, toward the single standing stone
of pitted black basalt. This was the shrine of which Ciri had
spoken. At the base of the standing stone was an altar, but it
was not hewn of marble, as Ciri had claimed. The altar was
built of human skulls, cemented together with mud. They
grinned at Matya, staring at her with their dark, hollow
eyes.
   "Did you really think I would allow you to leave with the
doll?" Ciri spoke behind her in a voice cool and sweet.
   Startled, Matya turned around. She half expected to see
that Ciri had changed like the rest of the village. The
woman was as lovely as ever, but there was a hard, deadly
light in her sapphire-blue eyes.
   Ciri gazed at Matya, then understanding flickered
across her face. "Ah, you see the village for what it is, don't
you?"
   Matya nodded silently, unable to speak.
   Ciri shrugged. "It is just as well. It makes things easier.
I'm glad you know, in fact."
   "What do you want from me?" Matya asked.
   "To strike a bargain with you, Matya. Isn't that what you
like to do above all things?"
   Matya's eyes narrowed, but she said nothing.
   "You have something I want very much," Ciri said
softly.
   "The doll," Matya said, eyeing the woman.
   "You see, Matya, despite the illusions I have used to
mask the appearance of the village, much of what I told you
last night was the truth. An enchantment does prevent me
from leaving the village, and only the doll can break it."
   "How is it you came to be here in the first place?"
Matya asked.
   "I have always been here," Ciri said in her crystalline
voice. "I am old, Matya, far older than you. You see me
now as I was the day the Cataclysm struck the face of
Krynn, more than half a century ago."
   Matya stared at her in shock and disbelief, but Ciri did
not pause.
   "By my magic, I saw the coming of the Cataclysm. I
prepared an enchantment to protect myself from it." A
distant look touched her cold eyes, and her smile grew as
sharp and cruel as a knife. "Oh, the others begged at my
door for me to protect them as well. The same wretches
who had mocked my magic before wanted me to save them,
but I turned my back on them. I wove my magic about
myself, and I watched all of them perish in agony as the rain
of fire began." Ciri's face was exultant, her fine hands
clenched into fists.
   Matya watched her with calculating eyes. "Something
went wrong, didn't it?"
   "Yes," Ciri hissed angrily. "Yes, something went
wrong!" She paused, recovered her composure. "I could not
have foreseen it. The power of the Cataclysm twisted my
magic. The enchantment protected me, as I commanded, but
it also cursed me to remain here alone in this ruined town,
not aging, not changing, and never able to leave."
   Matya shuddered. Despite herself, she could not help
but pity this evil woman.
   "I want to be free of this place - I WILL be free of this
place," Ciri said, "and for that I need the doll."
   Matya was no longer afraid. Magic was Ciri's element,
but bargaining was Matya's own. "And what would you
give me in exchange for the doll?" she asked. "It is worth a
lot to me."
   "I made that one, and once I am free I will have the
power to make more," Ciri replied. "I will fashion you a
dozen such dolls, Matya. No one in Ansalon will be
wealthier than you. All you have to do is give the doll to
Trevarre. HE wants more than anything to rescue me, to
preserve his precious HONOR". She said this last word with
a sneer. "He will place the doll upon the altar, and I will be
free. And so will you. I swear it, by Nuitari."
   "And what will happen to Trevarre?" Matya asked, as if
she didn't much care.
   Ciri shrugged. "What does it matter? You and I will
have what we want."
   "I'm curious, that's all," Matya said, shrugging.
   "You'll find out anyway, I suppose," Ciri replied. "He
will take my place in the enchantment. He will be
imprisoned within Tambor even as I am now. He will not
suffer, however. I will see to it that HIS soul is destroyed.
The empty husk of his body will dwell here until the end of
all days." Ciri arched her eyebrow. "Are you satisfied?"
   Matya nodded, her expression unchanging. "I'll need to
think this bargain over."
   "Very well," Ciri said, annoyed, "but be swift about it. I
grow tired of waiting. Oh, and if you are thinking of
warning the knight, go ahead. He won't believe you." The
enchantress turned and stalked away, vanishing among the
ruins of the village.

                                 *****

   Matya retrieved the leather pouch with the doll from its
hiding place in her wagon and tied it to her belt. She sat for
a time on the wagon's bench, alone with her thoughts, then
finally made her way back to Ciri's cottage. Like all the
others, this building was in ruins. The roof was gone, and
two of the walls had fallen into a jumble of broken stone.
   Trevarre had risen and was in the process of adjusting
the straps of his ornate armor. He looked up in surprise.
   "Matya. I did not hear you open the door."
   Matya bit her tongue to keep from telling him there
WAS no door.
   "Have you seen Ciri this morning?" he asked. He ran a
hand through his lank brown hair.
   "I saw her out in the village," Matya said, afraid to say
more.
   "Is something wrong, Matya?" Trevarre asked her,
frowning.
   Matya's hand crept to the leather purse. She could have
everything she had ever wanted, if she just gave Trevarre
the doll. He would take it. She knew he would. As unlikely
as Trevarre looked on the outside, the heart that beat in his
chest was a knight's, true and pure. He would break the
enchantment, and Ciri would be free. She had sworn her
oath by Nuitari - a vow no sorcerer could break. Matya
would be rich beyond her dreams. It would be the greatest
bargain Matya had ever struck.
   Her hand reached into the pouch, brushing the smooth
porcelain. "I wanted to tell you . . ." She swallowed and
started over. "I just wanted to tell you, Trevarre . . "
   "Go on," he said in his resonant voice, his pale eyes
regarding her seriously.
   Matya saw kindness in his gaze, and, for one brief
moment, she almost imagined she saw something more -
admiration, affection.
   Matya sighed. She could not do it. How could she live
with herself, knowing it was she who had silenced
Trevarre's noble voice forever? She could strike a bargain
for anything - anything but another's life. Belek had been
right. There were some bargains that weren't worth making.
   "There IS something wrong," Matya blurted. "Something
terribly wrong." She told Trevarre of her conversation with
Ciri. "You see, we must leave - now!"
   The knight shook his head.
   "She is evil!" Matya protested.
   "I cannot believe it, Matya."
   "What?" she said in shock. Although Ciri had warned
her, Matya still was shocked. She had given up the greatest
bargain of her life, and now he claimed that he didn't
believe her? "But what reason would I have to lie to you,
Trevarre? Has her loveliness made a slave of you already?"
Her voice was bitter.
   He held up a hand. "I did not say that I do not believe
you, Matya. I said that I cannot. I cannot believe evil of
another without proof." He sighed and paced about the
ruined cottage, which to his eyes still looked warm and
hospitable. "How can I explain it to you, Matya? It has to do
with the Measure I swore to uphold. Ciri sent out a plea for
help, and I have answered it. Yes, she is lovely, but that is
hardly the reason I cannot heed your warnings, Matya. She
has shown me nothing but courtesy. To leave without aiding
her would be a grave dishonor. And you know - "
   "Yes, I know," Matya said harshly. " 'Your honor is
your life.' But what if she tried to harm you?"
   "That would be different. Then I would know she is
evil. But she has not. Nothing has changed. I will help her
break the enchantment that keeps her here in this village if it
is at all in my power to do so."
   Trevarre fastened his sword belt about his waist and
walked to the door of the ruined cottage. Before he stepped
outside, he laid a gentle hand upon Matya's arm. "I doubt
that it matters to you," he said hesitantly in his clear voice,
"but, to my eyes, you are every bit as lovely."
   Before Matya could so much as open her mouth in
surprise, Trevarre was gone.
   Matya stood in silence for a long moment, then muttered
angrily under her breath, "The Solamnic Knights aren't
fools. They're idiots!" She stamped out of the open doorway
after Trevarre.
   Ciri was waiting for her.
   "Do you have an answer for me, Matya?" Ciri asked in
her lilting voice.
   Trevarre stood before the enchantress, the wind blowing
his cloak out behind him. He would not raise a hand against
her, Matya knew. What happened next was going to have to
be up to her.
   "The answer is no, Ciri," Matya said calmly. "I won't
accept your bargain."
   Ciri's eyes flashed, and the wind caught her dark hair,
flinging it wildly about her head. Anger touched her lovely
face. Trevarre, startled, fell back before her fury.
   "That is a foolish decision, Matya," Ciri said, all pretext
of sweetness gone from her voice. "I will find another who
will break the enchantment for me. I'll have the doll back!
You both will die!"
   The enchantress spread her arms wide, and the wind
whipped about. Dry dust stung Matya's face. Trevarre
looked around, shock on his face. The illusion had
vanished. The evil-looking ruins were laid bare and
undisguised.
   Ciri spoke several strange, guttural words. Instantly the
swirling wind was filled with dead tree limbs and dry,
brown leaves. As Matya watched, the broken branches and
leaves began to clump together, growing denser, taking
shape.
   "Trevarre, look out!" Matya cried out in terror.
   The dead, brittle branches and dumps of rotting leaves
had taken the shape of a man. The tree creature was huge,
towering over the knight. It reached out a bark-covered arm
that ended in splintery claws. Its gigantic maw displayed
row upon row of jagged, thorny teeth.
   Trevarre drew his sword, barely in time to block the
creature's swing. Branches and splinters flew in all
directions, but the knight stumbled beneath the blow. His
face blanched with pain; his wounded leg buckled beneath
him. He was too weak to fight such a monster, Matya
realized. One more blow and he would fall. Ciri watched
the battle with a look of cruel pleasure on her face. The tree
monster roared again, drawing back its arm for another
bone-crushing blow.
   Matya drew the doll from the leather pouch and stared
at it. She hesitated for a moment, but the sight of Trevarre -
standing before the monster, his face grim and unafraid -
steeled her resolve. Regretfully, she bade her dreams of
wealth farewell. . . and hurled the doll at the altar.
   Too late Ciri saw Matya's intent. The enchantress
shrieked in rage and reached out to catch the doll. Her
fingers closed on thin air.
   The figurine struck the altar and shattered into a
thousand pale shards - dirty, broken bones. The wind died
as suddenly as it had started. The tree monster shuddered
and collapsed into a pile of inanimate wood and leaves.
Trevarre stumbled backward, leaning on his sword to keep
from falling. His face was ashen, his breathing hard.
   "What have you done?" Ciri shrieked, her sapphire-blue
eyes wide with astonishment and horror.
   "I've given you what you wanted," Matya cried.
"You're free now, Ciri. Just let Trevarre go. That's all I
ask."
   Ciri shook her head, but her lips moved wordlessly
now. She took a few steps toward Matya, each one slower
than the last. Her movements had become strangely halting,
as if she were walking through water, not air. The
enchantress reached out a hand, but whether the gesture
was one of fury or supplication, Matya did not know.
Suddenly, Ciri shuddered and stood motionless. For a
moment, the figure of the enchantress stood there among
the ruins, as pale and perfect as a porcelain doll. Her eyes
glimmered like clear, soulless gems.
   Then, even as Matya watched, a fine crack traced its
way across the smooth surface of Ciri's lovely face. More
cracks spread from it, snaking their way across Ciri's
cheeks, her throat, her arms. As if she had been fashioned
of porcelain herself, Ciri crumbled into a mound of
countless fragments, a heap of yellowed bones - all that
was left of the enchantress.

                                 *****

   The doves were singing their evening song when the
gaudily painted wagon bounced past the fallen remains of
the gigantic statues and turned eastward down the road,
heading toward the town of Garnet. Matya and Trevarre
had traveled in silence most of the way from the ruined
village of Tambor. The knight, still recovering from his
wounds, had slept the better part of the day. Matya was
content to occupy herself with her thoughts.
   "You gave up your dreams to help me, didn't you,
Matya?" Trevarre asked.
   Matya turned her head to see that the knight was
awake, stroking his mousy brown moustache thoughtfully.
"And what reward do you have to show for it?"
   "Why, I have this," Matya said, gesturing to the
jeweled clasp she had pinned to her collar. "Besides, I can
always find new dreams. And I am certainly not ready to
give up bargaining. I'll make my fortune yet, you'll see."
   Trevarre laughed, a sound like music. "I have no doubt
of that"
   They were silent for a time, but then Matya spoke
softly. "You would do the same again, wouldn't you, if you
heard a call for help?"
   Trevarre shrugged. "The Measure is not something I
can follow only when it suits me. It is my life, Matya, for
good or ill. It is what I am."
   Matya nodded, as if this confirmed something for her.
"The tales are right then. The Knights of Solamnia ARE
little better than fools." She smiled mischievously. "But
there's one more bargain that must be struck."
   "Which is?" Trevarre asked, raising an eyebrow.
   "What are you going to give me in return for taking
you to Garnet?" Matya asked slyly.
   "I'll give you five gold pieces," Trevarre said flatly.
   "I'll not take less than fifty!" Matya replied, indignant.
   "Fifty? Why, that's highway robbery," Trevarre
growled.
   "All right," Matya said briskly. "I'm in a kindly mood,
so I'll make it twenty, but not one copper less."
   Trevarre stroked his moustache
thoughtfully. "Very well. I will accept
your offer, Matya, but on one condition."
   "Which is?" Matya asked, skeptical.
   A smile touched Trevarre's lips. "You must allow
me this." He took Matya's hand, brought it
to his lips, and kissed it.
   The bargain had been struck.

                                SEEKERS

                            TODD FAHNESTOCK

   Gylar Radilan, of Lader's Knoll, set his mother's hand back onto her
chest, over the rumpled blanket.  It was done then. Gylar wasn't sure
whether to be relieved or to crumple into the corner and cry. Finally,
though, it was done.  Stepping back, he fell into the chair he'd put by
her bed, the chair he'd sat upon all night while holding her hand.
   His head bowed for a moment as he thought about the
past few days. The Silent Death had swept through the
entire village, killing everyone. It had been impossible to
detect its coming. There were no early symptoms. One
minute, people were laughing and playing - like Lutha, the
girl he had known - and the next, they were in bed,
complaining weakly of the icy cold they felt, but burning to
the touch. Their skin darkened to a ghastly purple as they
coughed up thicker and thicker phlegm, and in a few hours
their bodies locked up as with rigor mortis.
   Poor Lutha. Gylar swallowed and sniffed back tears.
She'd been the first one, the one who had brought about the
downfall of the village. Gylar could remember going with
her into the new marsh, the marsh that hadn't been there
before the world shook. People had told their children
repeatedly not to go in. They said it had all sorts of evils in
it, but that had never stopped Lutha. She'd never listened to
her parents much, and once she got something into her
head, there was no balking her. She'd had to know about
their tree, his and her tree.
   Now she was dead. Now everyone was dead. Everyone,
of course, except Gylar. For some reason, he hadn't been
affected, or at least not yet. His parents had seemed to be
immune as well, until the day they collapsed in their beds,
shivering.
   Gylar rose and crossed the room. He looked out the
window to the new day that was shining its light across the
hazy horizon and sifting down over the trees skirting the
new marsh. He clenched his teeth as a tear finally fell from
his eye. If it hadn't been for the marsh, none of this would
have happened! Lutha never would have brought the evil
back with her, and everyone would be okay. But, no, the
gods had thrown the fiery mountain. They'd cracked the
earth, and the warm water had come up from below, and
with it whatever had killed the town.
   Gylar banged his small hand on the windowsill. Why
did they do it? The villagers all had been good people.
Paladine had been their patron; Gylar's mother had been
meticulously devoted to her god, teaching Gylar to be the
same. She had loved Paladine, more than anyone in the
village. Even after the Cataclysm, when everyone else
turned from the gods in scorn and hatred, Gylar's mother
continued her evening prayers with increasing earnestness.
What did she, of all people, do to deserve such punishment?
What did any of them do to deserve it? Was everyone on
Krynn going to die, then? Was that it?
   Gylar was young, but he wasn't stupid. He'd heard his
parents talking about all the other awful things now
happening to people who'd survived the tremors and floods.
Didn't the gods care about mortals anymore?
   Caught up in a slam of emotions, Gylar turned and ran
from the house. He ran to the edge of the new bog and
yelled up at the sky in his rage.
   "Why? If you hate us so much, why'd you even make us
in the first place?"
   Gylar collapsed to his knees with a sob. Why? It was
the only thing he could really think of to ask. It all hinged
on that. Why the Cataclysm? How could humans have been
evil enough to deserve this? How could anyone?
   For a long moment he just slumped there, as though
some unseen chain were dragging at his neck, joining the
one already pulling at his heart. Gylar sniffled a little and
ran his forearm quickly across his nose.
   Stumbling to his feet, he looked at the sky again.
Clouds were rolling in to obscure the sun, threatening a
storm. Gylar sighed. Although he had nowhere else to go,
he didn't want to stay in this place of death. His eyes swept
over Mount Phineous. The towering mountain still looked
over-poweringly out of place, like a sentinel sent by the
gods to watch over the low, hilly country. The top fourth of
it was swept by clouds. Another result of the Cataclysm, the
mountain seemed a counterpart of the new swamp. Brutal
and imposing, powerful, the towering rock was the opposite
of the silent, sneaky swamp of death.
   His fatigue overcame his sadness and revulsion, at least
for the moment. Slowly, he made his way back to the house,
back to the dead house. Stopping in the doorway, Gylar
turned around to look at the land that was growing cold with
winter. It was likely going to snow today.
   He turned and slammed the door shut behind him. It
didn't matter. Nothing much mattered anymore. His limbs
dragged at him heavily. Sleep, he thought, that's all. Sleep,
then, when I wake up - if I wake up - I'll figure out what to
do.
   So, for the first time in three days, Gylar slept.

                                 *****

   Eyes focused on his prey, Marakion stilled his
breathing, though a haze of white drifted slowly from his
mouth. The scruffy man before him leaned heavily against
the tree, huffing frosty air as he tried to recover from the
run. Although exhausted, the man never once turned his
fearful eyes from Marakion.
   "A merry chase, my friend," Marakion said in a voice
that was anything but merry. "Tell me what I wish to know.
This will end."
   The man stared in disbelief. Marakion was barely winded.
The man gulped another breath and answered frantically, "I
told you! I never heard of no 'Knight-killer Marauders!'"
   Marakion hovered over the thief, his eyes black and
impenetrable, his lip twitching, barely holding his rage in
check. The bare blade of his sword glimmered dully.
"Knightsbane Marauders," he rumbled in a low voice. The
scruffy man quivered under the smoldering anger. "You are
a brigand, just like them. You must know of them. Tell me
where they are."
   "I told you!" The thief cringed against the tree. "I don't
know!"
   In brutal silence, Marakion let loose his pent up rage.
One instant his sword, Glint, was at his side, and the next,
the flat of it smashed into the man's neck. The thief was so
surprised by the attack that he barely had time to blink. The
strike sent him reeling. Two more clubbing strokes dropped
him to the frosty earth, unconscious.
   "Then you live," Marakion said, breathing a bit harder.
Leaning down, he searched the body thoroughly for the
insignia that gave his life burning purpose.
   There was none to be found.
   Furiously disappointed, he left the useless thug where
he lay and headed for the road.
   The town that had been his destination before the small
band of ruffians had attacked him lay ahead. He had
searched all of the towns and outlying areas east of here,
only to come up empty-handed, forever empty-handed. But
this desolate area showed promise. Marakion was sure the
marauders were here. They had to be. During the last few
days, he'd come across numerous wretches like the one he'd
just felled. None of them belonged to the Knightsbane, but
their presence might be a sign that he was getting close to
their hideout.
   It wasn't long before sparse trees gave way to a huge,
rolling meadow. On its edge stood a squat, dirty little town.
Marakion didn't even look twice at the ramshackle
buildings, the muddy, unkempt road, the muck-choked
stream. The sight of people living in such squalor was not
unusual to him, not unusual at all. In fact, this place was
better than some he'd seen.
   The few people he saw as he followed the road to town
gave him quick, furtive glances from beneath ragged,
threadbare cowls. Marakion ignored them, made his way to
the first tavern he could spot.
   He didn't even read the name as he entered. It didn't
matter to him where he was, and the names only depressed
him - new names, cynically indicative of the time, such as
"The Cataclysm's Hope," or old names, which the owners
hadn't bothered to change. Those were even worse, sporting
a cheerful concept of a world gone forever, their signs
dangling crookedly from broken chains or loose nails.
   Marakion opened the door; it sagged on its hinges once
freed of the doorjamb. He pushed it shut, blocking out the
inner voice that continued to remind him how worthless life
was if everything was like this.
   Marakion turned and surveyed the room, walked
forward to the bar that lined the far wall.
   The innkeeper had smiled as Marakion had entered, but
now blanched nervously at sight of the hunter's stony face,
the dark, deliberate gaze.
   "Uh, what can I do for you, stranger?"
   "What do you have to eat this day, innkeep?"
   "Fairly thick stew tonight. Mutton, if you've the
wealth."
   "Bread?"
   "Sure, stranger, fairly fresh, if you've the wealth."
   Marakion did not return the man's feeble attempts to be
friendly. "A chunk of fresh bread and the stew." He tossed a
few coins on the bar. "I'll be at that table over there."
   The innkeeper scooped the coins off the counter in one
movement. "I'm Griffort. You need anything, I'm the man to
talk to. I don't suppose you'll be staying for the night. Got a
couple of rooms open - "
   "One room," Marakion interrupted, "for the night." He
left a stark pause in the air and waited.
   "Uh, um, another of those coins'll do it," the unnerved
innkeeper stuttered.
   Marakion paid the man and made his way to the table he'd
indicated. As he sat down, he touched his money pouch.
Not much left. A filthy inn, rotten food, a room likely
crawling with rats, and costing him as much as a night in
Palanthas - that was the type of world he was living in now.
   The type of world he lived in now . . . Marakion put his
fingers to his face and massaged his eyes gently. He
couldn't make the memories go away. Even if he blocked
the images, the essence of them still came to him. He
couldn't seem to shut that out. It infected his every thought,
his every action.
   He relaxed, and his muscles began to unknot from the
day's exercise. He could feel the pull of exhaustion on him.
His fingers continued to massage closed eyelids, and the
inn slowly drifted from his attention.
   WHERE IS SHE, MARAKION? A familiar voice asked
the question again inside his head.
   "I don't know. Nearby somewhere. I don't know," he
muttered.
   THAT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH, MARAKION.
WHERE IS SHE? WHERE?
   "I'm looking, trying to find her!"
   NOT GOOD ENOUGH, MARAKION. THERE CAN BE
NO EXCUSES. THEY'LL KILL HER, YOU KNOW. EVERY
DAY YOU FAIL TO FIND THEM IS ANOTHER DAY
THEY COULD KILL HER, OR USE HER.
   "I know. I'll find them. If I have to rip apart this entire
continent. I will."
   YOU'D BETTER.
   The accusing voice drifted away, to be replaced by the
vision that haunted his nights when he slept and his waking
hours whenever he lost the concentration that kept it at bay.

                                 *****

   FIRE. FIRE AND SMOKE. THE FLAMES LICKED
THE TOP OF THE TOWER WINDOWS. THE SMOKE
SPIRALED UP FROM EVERY PART OF THE CASTLE,
BLACKENING THE SKY. DESPAIR WRENCHED AT
MARAKION'S HEART. HE HAD RETURNED HOME IN
TIME TO SEE IT FALL TO THE HANDS OF A
PILLAGING GROUP OF BRIGANDS.
   HIS HORSE SLIPPED ON THE COBBLESTONES THAT
LED INTO THE CASTLE. HE YANKED BRUTALLY ON
THE REINS, PULLING THE GALLOPING ANIMAL TO A
STOP. THE HORSE ALMOST STUMBLED TO ITS
KNEES. MARAKION LEAPT FROM ITS BACK AND
RACED INTO THE CASTLE GARDENS. THEY WERE
TRAMPLED, DESTROYED, BURNED.
   "MARISSA!" HE SHOUTED ABOVE THE
CRACKLING FLAMES AND TEARING, RENDING
SOUNDS OF DESTRUCTION THAT CAME FROM
WITHIN THE CASTLE PROPER. "TAGOR! BESS!" HE
WAS ACROSS THE GARDEN IN A HEARTBEAT AND
RAN THROUGH THE ENTRYWAY. THE GREAT
DOUBLE DOORS LAY BROKEN AND SCATTERED ON
THE FLOOR. THE HUGE FOYER WAS DESTROYED, A
SHAMBLES, A MOCKERY OF ITS ORIGINAL
GRANDEUR. ONE SCRUFFY-BEARDED RUFFIAN
STOOD GUARD AT THE ENTRANCE.
   THE MARAUDER CHARGED. HE HAD
DETERMINATION AND PURPOSE IN HIS EYES;
MARAKION HAD MURDER. RAGE FUELED MARAKION'S
SWORD ARM, FEAR FOR HIS FAMILY
INFUSING HIS BODY WITH UNCANNY SPEED. HE
SMASHED THE INVADER'S SWORD ASIDE AND
DELIVERED A VICIOUS RETURN STROKE AT THE
HEAD.
   THE MARAUDER DUCKED UNDER THE
POWERFUL ATTACK AND SLIPPED A CUT AT
MARAKION'S MIDRIFF. MARAKION PARRIED,
STEPPED INSIDE THE INVADER'S GUARD, AND RAN
HIM THROUGH.
   THE INVADER FELL AND GASPED AS HIS LIFE
SEEPED AWAY. MARAKION PUT HIS FOOT ON THE
MAN'S CHEST AND KICKED VIOLENTLY, FREEING HIS
BLADE. THE DYING MAN'S SCREAMS ENDED BY THE
TIME MARAKION REACHED THE TOP OF THE LEFT-
HAND STAIRS.
   "MARISSA!"
   MARAKION RACED TO HIS YOUNGER SISTER'S
ROOM, THE FIRST ROOM ON THE SECOND LEVEL.
SHE WAS NOT THERE, BUT, AS WITH THE FOYER,
HER ROOM WAS CAST INTO DISARRAY - BOOKS
THROWN ON THE FLOOR, THE BED A SMOLDERING
PILE OF BURNED SHEETS, STRAW, AND WOOD. NEXT
TO THE BURNING MASS LAY A PIECE OF CLOTH. HE
RECOGNIZED IT, GRABBED IT: A SCRAP OF HER
DRESS, THE LAVENDER DRESS SHE ALWAYS WORE
FOR HIS HOMECOMING. A SPATTERING OF BLOOD
TAINTED THE REMNANT.
   "MARISSA!" HE YELLED IN IMPOTENT RAGE. HIS
SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD SISTER, HIS BEST FRIEND, SO
BRIGHT, SO ALIVE . . . MARAKION UTTERED A
STRANGLED CRY, CLUTCHED THE CLOTH IN HIS
FIST. . . .

                                 *****

   "Sir?"
   Sir . . . ?
   "Sir, are you asleep?"
   Marakion started awake as the hand touched him. He
was disoriented, thought he was still there, still back at his
burned and devastated home. His hand reacted to the touch
with the quickness of a snake. Snatching the thin wrist, he
held it tightly. There was a gasp of pain. Marakion stared
hard, trying to focus his eyes.
   Marissa?
   The eyes of the woman were wide, and she was frozen
where she stood.
   Marakion's harsh stare did not relent, but his grip lost
some of its steel. No, not Marissa, a barmaid, just a
barmaid.
   "What?" he asked shortly, releasing the woman's wrist.
Her hair was a dirty red, and as unkempt as the plain,
rumpled brown dress she wore.
   She appraised him coolly with shrewish eyes. "Griffort
wants to know if you want pepper in your stew."
   "Fine," Marakion said, "that's fine."
   "I'll tell him," she said curtly, and left.
   Marakion slowly withdrew something from his tunic.
Unfolding it, he laid the piece of lavender cloth out in front
of him. It was worn, faded; dark brown spots stained it.
   Closing his eyes, Marakion pressed the cloth against his
cheek.
   "Marissa. . . ."

                                 *****

   The following morning dawned cold and unpleasant. It
was snowing. As Marakion shouldered his pack and tied on
his cloak, he stared out the window in his room and thought
that today would be the day he found the marauders. Today
would be the day he found where the scum holed up.
   Griffort was wiping down the bar, looked up to see him.
   "Morning, sir," he said. "Breakfast for you today? I
might be able to scrape together some eggs, if you've the
wealth for 'em."
   "No. I'm leaving."
   Griffort nodded. "Which way you headed?"
   "West."
   Griffort's face darkened, and he motioned Marakion
closer. The innkeeper spoke in a low voice, "You want a
copper's worth of free advice?"
   Marakion nodded for him to continue.
   "Don't go west, at least not straight west. Skirt Mount
Phineous if you can. Evil things going on up there."
   Marakion was interested. "How so?"
   "Lader's Knoll." The innkeeper shook his head. "We
used to have an arrangement with a farmer up there in
Lader's Knoll. Taters don't grow down here, as well as
other stuff Bartus likes for his cooking, so we'd swap bread
and the like for vegetables and such - but I can see you're
not into long stories, so I'll cut it short. One day, the farmer
stopped bringing his wagon down. I sent one of the town
boys to Lader's Knoll to see what had happened. The kid
never came back. Something bad's going on up there,
stranger - " Griffort stopped at the sight of Marakion's
smile.
   "Perfect," Marakion said. "Does the name 'Knightsbane
Marauders' mean anything to you? Have you heard of
them?"
   The disconcerted innkeeper shook his head slowly.
"No."
   Marakion stared at him hard, then turned and left the
inn. Behind him he heard the innkeeper's comment to the
barmaid: "Must'a got his noggin cracked somewhere.
World's full of crazies nowadays."

                                 *****

   Gylar awoke the next morning in a better mood. He'd
slept all the previous day and all night. His confusion and
fear were replaced by purpose. He wanted to know why the
gods killed everyone, why they allowed people like his
mother, and like Lutha, to die needlessly. Well, he would
ask them.
   The question turned over again and again in his head as he
buried his mother next to the rest of his family. The snow
fell lightly on him and the ground at which he worked. It
was almost as though the skies knew Gylar didn't want to
look at the village anymore.
   When his mother was resting with his little brother and
father, Gylar went back inside the house.
   He closed the door on the storm outside, went to his
father's room, and pulled down the pack he'd kept on the
wall, the pack Gylar had seen his father use countless times
when they'd gone hunting together. A brief wash of
memories splashed over Gylar. He sniffled and ran a sleeve
across his nose.
   Turning his thoughts to more immediate tasks, Gylar
took the pack into the kitchen. He collected some food
suited to traveling, a good kitchen knife, a spoon, and a
small pot. Gylar looked about for anything else he might
need. A bedroll, he thought. He went to his room, stripped
the woolen blanket off the bed, and rolled it up, tied it onto
his father's already laden pack.
   He put on a thick cloak and pulled the pack to the door.
The snowfall had sheathed the ground in white. Mount Phineous
was hidden in the distance, but its presence still
loomed in Gylar's mind. What better place to contact the
gods than from the top of their latest creation?
   He adjusted his cloak more snugly, threw the heavy
pack over his shoulder. It unsteadied him for a moment, but
he regained his balance and thrust an arm through the
remaining strap, securing the burden. He turned and looked
one last time at what once had been his home. Gylar said
nothing, bowed his head, and began walking toward the
great mountain.

                                 *****

   Marakion watched as the young boy, bundled to the
teeth, left Lader's Knoll.
   "Off on a journey, are we?" he said quietly from the
shadow of a wall. "And just where are you going, little
looter?"
   Marakion had been in the small village for about half an
hour, and he hadn't seen a living being. His disappointment
was acute. He'd assumed that Lader's Knoll was the
marauders' camp. It was perfect, a desolate place; all those
within traveling distance were scared to visit.
   But instead of seedy shacks full of murderers and
cutthroats, he'd found fresh graves or, sometimes, a few
bodies, sleeping the slumber of the dead. The gaunt faces
were a faint purple, and dried blood covered their lips.
   Another false trail. His frustration was painful almost
beyond bearing. He wandered the town in search of some
sign, any sign that this had been the hideout of the
marauders, but it appeared that the only curse to take up
residence in this town was a plague.
   "There's your evil, Griffort," he'd muttered.
   He'd been about to start off from the devastated village
when he'd seen a door to one of the houses open. He slid
from view behind one of the nearby buildings.
   With a quick-beating heart and silenced breathing,
Marakion watched the boy leave the village. "Well, well.
Looting the dead, eh? Where are your cohorts, Marauder?
Or did they just send you to scout the area?"
   Marakion exulted in his discovery. The boy was headed
toward Mount Phineous! Marakion berated himself for not
thinking of it before. What better place for a band of
brigands than a Cataclysm-spawned, uninhabited mountain?
   Marakion detached himself from the shadow of the
house and followed. He was not about to reveal himself to
his guide, at least not until the sanctuary was found.
   "I'm coming, Marissa," he whispered as he fell into a
loping stride behind his prey.

                                 *****

   Occasionally during the trek up the mountain, the boy
turned to look at the sky, or at how far he'd separated
himself from the village. The ever alert Marakion moved
skillfully into a nearby copse of trees, ducked behind an
outcropping of rock or shrubbery. It wasn't difficult for
Marakion to remain hidden from the youngster's view. The
cloud cover made the terrain gloomy, and the falling snow
decreased visibility dramatically.
   It was afternoon when the boy first stopped. After
extracting a few things from his pack, he dumped it on the
ground, sat on it, and began eating.
   Marakion watched from just over a small hillock, built
up by a tremendous snowdrift, then settled down to a meal
of his own, consisting of some strips of dried rabbit.
   The snow stopped falling sometime before noon, and
the afternoon opened up clear and bright, making
Marakion's stalking much more difficult, but not
impossible. He smiled. It wouldn't be long now.
   While tearing at the rough meat with his teeth,
Marakion studied the youngling with interest. The boy was
not very large; Marakion guessed him at about eleven or
twelve years old. He looked innocent enough, sitting there,
chomping on his lunch, not much like a sneak-thief. But,
no, he was one of them - a messenger, maybe, or a
pickpocket. He had to be.
   Marakion's teeth fought the dried meat for another bite.
He gauged the size of the mountain. It was not the biggest
he'd seen, but impressive in its own right.
   Marakion turned his attention back to the boy. He
wasn't going anywhere for the moment. Obviously he'd
settled down for a long rest. Marakion set his excellent
hearing to guard and hunkered down comfortably.
   Relaxing, he slipped into a light drowse, waiting for the
boy to make the next move. He was startled back to wake-
fulness. His ears caught a crunching sound from up the
mountain. Rolling to his feet, he peered over the drift.
   The boy had heard the sound, too. He scrambled
upright. The bramble-breaking noise grew louder. Marakion
tensed his body, relaxed his mind, letting it disappear,
allowing the energy to flow. This was it. This must be some
rendezvous point. The entire band, maybe! He was ready.
   But the boy did not run into the trees to welcome a gang
of murderers. He did not call a greeting to comrades.
Instead, he let out a fearful yell and, stumbling over himself,
began running down the hill. Marakion stared curiously into
the trees to see what was following.
   A huge ogre burst from the foliage. Sallow and crusty-
skinned, the ogre charged forward with long, quick strides.
Wet brambles and a few straggling pine needles showered
off the creature as it ran, sending snow flying in a blinding
flurry.
   Marakion cursed as he watched the ogre closing on the
boy. The damned ogre was ruining everything! Scaring off
Marakion's guide, the ogre might kill the boy before
Marakion could question him!

                                 *****

   Gylar's heart beat against his rib cage like a
woodpecker. The snow impeded every step of his short
legs, while the ogre's strides cleared the terrain as though it
were midsummer ground. It was just a matter of time.
Gylar gulped for air as he struggled onward. His mind had
gone numb, and all he could think of was escape. He'd
heard stories about what ogres did to children. . . .
   Just at the height of his despair, when the ogre loomed
over him, casting a nightlike shadow that engulfed Gylar,
the strap of his pack slipped off his shoulder.
   If Gylar had been thinking straight, he'd have
abandoned his pack and kept going, but he reflexively hung
onto it as it scraped the snow. Too late, he realized his
error. The momentum of his flight sent him sprawling, then
tumbling down the hill. He careened into a snowbank in a
fluff of white.
   The massive arm of the ogre plunged into the snow,
groped around, then plucked out a struggling Gylar. The
ogre's craggy mouth split like a crack in a tree's bark,
revealing a fairly complete row of sharp teeth as dingy
yellow as the ogre's mottled skin.

                                 *****

   Twenty feet away, Marakion leaned against a tree,
listening. A shimmer ran the length of Glint.
   The ogre chuckled at the boy as it began to walk home.
"Glad came," the ogre said, with a thick, grating accent.
"Hungry, me. We eat, I and you." The ogre chuckled again,
sounded like someone scraping rough rocks together. "Take
home you to me. Dinner, we have - "
   "Not today." Marakion said clearly in the frosty air as the
two walked past the tree he stood behind. The ogre took one
look at Marakion and dropped the boy into the snow with a
snarl.
   But Marakion was on the ogre before it could even
raise its arms in defense. Marakion kicked out, struck the
ogre in the knee, swung the Hat end of Glint into the side of
the ogre's head.
   The creature went down in a tumble of arms and snow.
Marakion stood ready as the ogre surged onto its feet. It
was calm, imposing.
   "Leave, friend. The boy is under my protection. If you
have any wits at all, you'll seek food elsewhere. Surely
catching a deer could not be as much trouble as this little
one will cost you."
   The ogre growled, flexing its muscles under its rough
yellow skin, but it did not take a step forward. It was
accustomed to fearful enemies, not one facing it with
confidence. The ogre showed its teeth viciously. "Hungry.
Food mine. You leave."
   "Not on your life." Marakion smiled, his stance
immobile. It felt good to fight, for whatever reason. The
despair, the frustration, the hopelessness - all disappeared
when Marakion went into combat. "You leave, or we fight.
If you insist, I must say I'm really in the mood for the
battle. Is it worth it?"
   The ogre stood swaying back and forth, wondering,
perhaps, what it was that made this human brave enough to
challenge it. It showed its teeth again. "Hungry!" it
growled, clenching and unclenching its clawed fists
anxiously.
   Marakion's eyes narrowed. "Times are hard for all of
us, friend. Everyone's got - "
   Marakion didn't have time to finish his sentence. The
ogre - a madness in its eyes, daws extended - charged the
knight.
   Having thought he was actually having some effect
with his words, Marakion was surprised by the sudden
onslaught. Quick reflexes moved him to the side of the
hulking swing that cracked a tree trunk behind him.
   Marakion slid under the ogre's arm and dodged behind the
yellow giant. His sword flashed out, slashing once, twice on
the ogre's back. Blood welled from cuts, a muted crack
sounded. Broken bone, Marakion realized. The ogre roared
in pain, struck out with its huge fist. Yellow-fleshed arm
bone and steel whacked together harshly, and the ogre
howled again.
   Another huge yellow hand came down. Marakion didn't
have enough leverage to sidestep. The jagged claws raked
his left side. He grabbed hold of the forearm and slammed
Glint's pommel into the ogre's left eye. A follow-up strike
cracked into the side of the bark-skinned head. The ogre
reeled backward, stunned. Marakion hit it again and again.
   Snow exploded outward as the huge body fell heavily to
the ground. Jumping forward, Marakion hovered over the
ogre like a dark angel, clenching Glint tightly in his fist. His
breathing was hard and quick. He stared down at the ogre,
waiting for it to rise again, waiting for it to attack.
   The ogre didn't rise, though the eyes fluttered open.
Marakion raised his finely honed arm, preparing to end the
creature's life, then he paused. The rough yellow hide was
pulled tight over the protrusion of the creature's ribs; the
bloody, bruised face was gaunt. The ogre's muscles were
thin, hunger-wasted.
   Marakion lowered Glint. The ogre struggled sluggishly
to get up, only to fail and plunge back into the snow. It
raised its arms a bit in a feeble attempt to ward off another
blow - one that never descended.
   This wasn't a monster, Marakion thought, just another
creature devastated by the Cataclysm, whose life had been
turned upside down, ruined, like his own. The ogre was just
trying to survive. Marakion wondered what lengths he
would go to if he were starving. Definitely he wouldn't be
above eating ogre flesh.
   Marakion noticed the young boy watching his
deliberation.
   "Go on," the man said harshly to the ogre. "I gave you
one chance. This is your second. You won't get a third."
   The emaciated ogre finally made it to its feet. Its unswollen
eye gave one final, hungry look at Gylar, then it turned
and limped slowly into the woods from which it had come,
blood drops dotting its tracks.
   Marakion's brow furrowed. Sheathing Glint, he turned
to face the boy.
   "What's your name?" Marakion asked harshly.
   The boy looked dazed, still recovering from shock and
fright. "Uh, Gylar, sir. I... Thanks," he tacked on lamely.
   "You shouldn't be out here alone. Ogres might not be
the worst you'll find. I hear there's a dangerous band of
brigands in these hills."
   Marakion watched for some reaction. Gylar's face gave
no telltale signs of anything but relief.
   "I - I'm on a quest, and . . . Who are you?" Gylar
couldn't contain his curiosity any longer. "What are you
doing up on the mountain here? My village is the only one
for miles."
   Marakion noted the honest innocence in the boy's face,
and he cursed again, silently.
   "I do a bit of traveling. Just passing through, really." He
paused and looked at Gylar closely once more. He began to
doubt again. The boy might be a cunning liar.
   "Tell you what, kid. Looks like we both need to rest a
little." He touched his raked side gingerly. "What do you
say to putting your quest on hold and setting up camp? I
saw a cave, over there a ways.... When we get a good fire
going, you can tell me all about it."
   Gylar smiled and nodded.

                                 *****

   "I went with Lutha. I knew she wasn't supposed to go in
there. Mom had told me about the evil in the new marsh,
and Lutha's parents had told the same thing to her. But
Lutha wasn't afraid. You see, there was something we'd put
in an old tree before the marsh came, before the Cataclysm
and Mount Phineous. A couple of necklaces we made out of
leather and wooden disks." Gylar's mouth became a straight
line, and his brow furrowed.
   The warm fire popped and crackled, illuminating
Marakion's intent face and the makeshift bandages that he
was wrapping slowly around his middle.
   Gylar sighed and continued, "She was always doing
stuff like that. Anyway, the marsh wasn't really scary, just
wet and mucky. The only thing that happened was that
Lutha fell down in the water once.
   "But Mom was real mad when I got back. She knew
where we'd been. I guess the smell of the marsh and my
wet boots gave us away. Anyway, I snuck out of the house
later, when Mom was down at the stream washing and Dad
was chopping wood. I went to see Lutha.
   "I didn't knock at the door, because her parents were
probably just as mad at her as mine were at me. Instead, I
went around back and looked in the bedroom window.
Lutha was in there and she was shivering real bad. And her
face was real red. That was the first time I saw the sickness
on somebody. Lutha was the first. . . ."
   Gylar tossed a twig into the fire. "I didn't see Lutha
again." He wiped his nose. "The day after that, it was the
talk of the village. Lutha had died of a strange sickness.
Then her parents died. No one knew how to stop the
sickness. Everybody went into their houses and didn't come
out, but it didn't matter. I'm not sure who died after that,
because Dad closed us up in our house, too. When Rahf
died, my little brother, Mom said it didn't matter anymore
that we stayed in the house."
   Gylar sighed again. "It was awful. Hardly anyone was
alive in the village when we came out. We went from door
to door, looking for people. Everyone was in their beds,
shaking with the fever or already dead. I wanted to leave.
Since we hadn't caught it yet, I told Mom we should run
away from it. She shook her head and didn't answer me.
We helped those who had it. We took care of them, but it
didn't matter, just like staying in the house didn't matter
anymore. They were going to die, but Mom said we could
help them. I know now she didn't mean help them live, but
help them to die better. I guess . . .
   "Then Dad died." Gylar's voice was subdued. He shook
his head; his cheeks were wet. "He went just like everyone
else, shivering but so hot. I didn't want. . ."
   His eyes focused again on Marakion. "He was one of the
last ones to go, then it was my mother. When she died, I felt
so alone, so alone and numb. I could touch something, like
the blanket, or - or her hand, and I wouldn't really feel it. I
had to go. I had to get out."
   Gylar looked intently at Marakion. "Why did the gods
do it, sir? I just don't understand. Why did they have to kill
so many people? It doesn't make sense. We didn't do
anything! We just lived. We worshiped Paladine. But Krynn
was still cracked, and then the new marsh rose and Lutha
caught the sickness and now everyone . . . everyone I ever
knew is dead." He bowed his head.
   Then his mouth set defiantly and his brows came
together in anger. "And so I'm going to ask them. I want
them to answer just one question. Why? Why did they do it
to everyone? What did we do wrong?"
   Marakion smiled. "Supposing the gods even respond,
they might drop another mountain on you."
   "I don't care," Gylar said petulantly, gathering his
blanket around him and resting his head on his pack. "I
don't care if they do. If they do, they don't care about us and
it won't matter. But. . . but I will ask." He yawned. "I will
ask HIM . . . Paladine."
   Gylar fell asleep. Marakion gazed at the young face.
The flame's light played off the round, boyish features that
would not fade for several years yet. Marakion sighed aloud
this time. Watching the boy tell his story, the knight had
realized Gylar was indeed no marauder's lackey. He actually
was what he claimed: a simple country boy in search of
divine answers.
   Gylar's story made Marakion think of all the things he'd
lost because of the Cataclysm. If the gods had not dropped
the fiery mountain, his home would not have been attacked.
   "You're right, Gylar," he said to the sleeping boy.
"Paladine should be confronted, asked . . ." Marakion's iron
doors creaked open. "So much like Tagor," he said to
himself. "A victim, like Tagor. I wonder what will happen
to you?"
   Flames and smoke danced in the fire inside his head.
Very much like Tagor. WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO YOU?

                                 *****

   SCREAMS. CLANGING STEEL. THE SOUNDS OF BATTLE.
THE CRY OF HIS YOUNGER BROTHER.
   "I'M COMING, TAGOR!" MARAKION SHOUTED FROM
MARISSA'S DESTROYED BEDROOM.
   THE YELL HAD SOUNDED FROM DOWN THE HALL.
MARAKION PROPELLED HIMSELF TOWARD IT. THE LIBRARY!
TAGOR WAS TRAPPED IN THE LIBRARY.
   MARAKION SLAMMED THROUGH THE DOOR WITH THE
FORCE OF A BATTERING RAM. HE KNOCKED ONE OF THE
INVADERS TO THE FLOOR. HIS SWORD TOOK OUT ANOTHER.
   FIVE MORE WAITED. TAGOR STOOD ON TOP OF A TABLE
IN THE COMER, FIGHTING OFF THE MEN WHO WERE
HARASSING HIM. THE TEASING GRINS THEY WORE TURNED
TO SCOWLS WHEN MARAKION ENTERED.
   "THE KNIGHT! KEEP HIM THERE!" A THICK-BEARDED
MAN YELLED. "I'LL FINISH THIS YOUNG ONE OFF."
   MARAKION SHOVED HIS FALLEN FOE AWAY AND
SLAMMED INTO THE NEXT, TRYING DESPERATELY TO COME
TO THE AID OF HIS YOUNGER BROTHER, BUT HIS NEW
OPPONENT WAS A SKILLED SWORDSMAN, NOT A BRAWLER.
MARAKION SLASHED INSANELY AT THE MAN'S GUARD,
TRYING AT THE SAME TIME TO SEE TAGOR.
   PERCHED ON THE STUDYING TABLE, WIELDING THEIR
FATHER'S SWORD, TAGOR DELIVERED A WICKED SLASH TO
THE BEARDED MAN, OPENING UP HIS FOREHEAD. HE WAS
HOLDING HIS OWN MOMENTARILY, BUT THAT WOULDN'T
LAST LONG. ALTHOUGH TAGOR WAS A FINE SWORDSMAN
FOR FIFTEEN, HE WAS NO MATCH FOR THE BRIGANDS'
STRENGTH, OR THEIR NUMBERS.
   MARAKION LET OUT A ROAR. "BASTARDS! LEAVE HIM
ALONE! FIGHT ME!"
   TAGOR TWISTED SIDEWAYS, SCREAMED. A SWORD
SLASHED THROUGH HIS LEG. HE STUMBLED TO THE EDGE
OF THE TABLE AND LOST HIS FOOTING, CRASHED TO THE
FLOOR BELOW.
   MARAKION BASHED THROUGH THE SWORDSMAN'S
GUARD, SENT THE MAN'S HAND SPINNING FROM HIS WRIST
IN A TRAIL OF BLOOD.
   MARAKION RAN FORWARD. THERE WERE THREE LEFT.
TWO CHARGED HIM AND KEPT HIM FROM HIS BROTHER.
THE THIRD . . . THE THIRD WAS CLUBBING . . . CLUBBING A
BODY ON THE FLOOR.
   "TAGOR!"

                                 *****

   Marakion started, beat the vision down into the recesses
of his memory. Breathing hard, he closed his eyes. Think of
NOW, only of NOW. Forget Tagor. Forget all of it.
   He sat still for long moments, trying to forget, holding
his breath with gritted teeth, but the pent up air hissed out
slowly in a shudder. Marakion crumpled and sobbed. "Tagor ..."

                                 *****

   MARAKION BEAT HIS WAY THROUGH THOSE THREE
MARAUDERS, KILLED THEM ALL. HE KNELT AT TAGOR'S SIDE.
   "THEY CAME . . . FROM THE NORTH. . . . THEY TOOK
MARISSA. THEY CALLED THEMSELVES THE KNIGHTSBANE,
MARAKION. . . . THE KNIGHTS - KNIGHTSBANE. WHY,
MARAKION? . . . WHY?"
   IT WAS HIS LAST WORD, THEN HE DIED.

                                 *****

   Marakion's cheeks were wet with tears. He turned and
gazed down at another brave youth.
   Yes, why?
   "I hope you get your answer, kid. I really do. There's
quite a few questions I'd like to ask Paladine myself."
Marakion turned his face heavenward and focused on the
constellation of the platinum dragon, high above. "At least a
few."

                                 *****

   Marakion came out of a reverie that had slipped into a
doze. The fire was dwindling. Blinking his eyes, he picked
up a couple of sticks and tossed them on, poking at the
embers to stir the flames up again. After he'd tended the fire
and stoked it for the night, he turned to adjust his bedding
for sleep when he heard Gylar give a low moan. Marakion
hurried to the young boy's side.
   Gylar shuddered a little, his eyes moving under shut lids,
as he huddled deeper into his blanket. He shivered again,
turned over, pulled the covers closer about him. Marakion
pulled his cloak off and draped it over the boy.
   Beneath the double cover, Gylar still quaked. Marakion
moved his hand to the boy's forehead.
   It was as hot as fire to the touch.
   Marakion closed his eyes. "What will happen to you?"
He repeated his thought of earlier in the evening. "Yeah,
that's what, same as everyone else. It doesn't matter what
you've already suffered. It's not enough yet, is it? It's never
enough."
   Marakion lay awake, staring silently at the cave's
ceiling, for a long, long time. He could not sleep with the
anger that burned through him as hotly as the fever now
burned through Gylar's body. The brutal injustice galled
him.
   "I'm going to take you to the top, kid. It's not going to
end like this, not without a fight. No, not without an answer.
By my dead brother, I swear you'll get to ask your
question."
   He turned over and tried to go to sleep, but it wasn't
until morning that exhaustion closed those eyes that were
very tired of looking at the world.

                                 *****

   The morning broke, warm and sunny. A few clouds
drifted through the sky, but gave no threat of any type of
storm. Snow gathered on tree limbs, slipped heavily from
leaves, as the warmth of the day melted it. Pine needles
shrugged off sheets of snow and rustled as they adjusted to
their newfound freedom from winter's blanket.
   Marakion stood at the cave's entrance. Nature was
adapting to the freak warmth of the winter's day. The snow
on the ground was glazed with a sheen of wet sparkles.
Everything was adapting - everything except Gylar.
   The sickness moved fast once the fever started. Gylar
had slept late into the morning without knowing it, and
Marakion had not come to a decision about waking him
yet. As he stood there, though, he could hear the boy
coming to.
   He scuffed a groove into the wet snow. Casting a scathing
glance heavenward, he turned and made his way back into
the small cave.
   Marakion stopped a half-dozen paces from the boy. Gylar
knew what was happening to him. Maybe he'd realized
it in the middle of the night - the fear was on his face - but
the fear was held at bay by determination.
   Gylar looked up. The boy tried to manage a smile, but
failed. Tears stood in his eyes. Marakion wanted to say
something, some word of comfort, but he knew if he tried
to talk, it would come out choked.
   "I have it, Marakion."
   I know, Marakion spoke in a voice with no sound.
Clearing his throat, he said again, "I know."
   "I'm going to die." The boy's eyes were wide. They
blinked once, twice.
   Marakion nodded and lowered his gaze, his boots again
scuffing a trench in the dirt floor. "Yeah," he said.
   A different kind of fear entered Gylar's voice.
"Marakion, you have to leave me, now. You have to go."
His teeth chattered. Closing his mouth, he tried again. "You
might have it already, but. . . but maybe not. You have to
go."
   Marakion knelt beside Gylar. The man smiled. "You
want to try to make me, kid?"
   Gylar was puzzled. "No . . ." His brows furrowed in
confusion. "Make you? No, but, Marakion, if you don't
leave - "
   "I'm staying."
   "But, sir, I told you what happened to - "
   Marakion shrugged. "Do you want to make it to the top
of this mountain?"
   "Yes."
   "Then I'm staying."
   Gylar started to protest, but Marakion cut him off with
a motion of his hand. "You've got heart, I'll give you that,
but you aren't going to make the summit without me." He
smiled expansively. "Even if you try."
   Gylar nodded, wanned by the smile. Marakion
suddenly reached out, held the small boy close.
   "I'm afraid, Marakion," Gylar whispered, his shaking
hands clinging tenaciously.
   "I know" The man patted the small back. "I know."
   "But it's all right." Gylar sniffed and let go. Running a
sleeve across his nose, he smiled with effort and looked up
at Marakion. "I just want to make it to the top, before . . .
well, before . . ." He gulped. "I just want to make it there,
that's all."
   "Yeah." Marakion took a deep breath. "You will, I
promise." Standing, he extended his hand. "Let's go, kid."
   Gylar grabbed it, and they began again.
   The cave they'd spent the night in was near a natural
groove - almost like a trail - worn in the side of the
mountain. Once the groove ended, the terrain became
exceedingly precarious. More than once, Gylar slipped, and
only Marakion's quick reflexes and strength saved the boy.
   About three hours after midday, Gylar stumbled and
had a hard time getting to his feet again.
   "I'm sorry, Marakion," he said, shivering as he tried to
stand up once more. "It's - It's just so cold. I can't seem to
make my legs work right."
   Marakion helped him to his feet. "You sure you want to
keep going, kid?"
   "Yes. I - I have to." Shakily, Gylar moved forward
again.
   By evening, Marakion had to carry him.

                                 *****

   A few hours after nightfall, Marakion gently set the boy
down in the snow at the summit of Mount Phineous.
Lunitari was a thin crimson slash in the sky. Solinari was
full and bright; it bathed them in a sparkling wash. The
untouched snow looked like flawless, molten silver that had
been poured over the top of the mountain and had hardened
there. The only thing that marred the icy, detached beauty
was a straggling trail gouged up the mountainside, a trail
that led to the two solitary figures who had reached their
destination.
   The stars shone brightly from all around. Marakion's
cloak, wrapped around the boy, furled and straightened
softly in the breeze. His heavy breathing plumed out white
in front of his face.
   "Here . . ." Gylar said in a whisper. He nodded, with a
smile. "Yes, this is perfect, so perfect."
   Marakion swallowed hard and knelt next to Gylar. He
spread a blanket and moved the boy onto it, then covered
him with his own bedroll, trying to make him as warm as
possible.
   "Let me be alone now, Marakion." Gylar whispered, "I
want to call Paladine. It's time for me to call him."
   Marakion nodded, slowly rose from his kneeling
position, and walked a distance away. He scuffed the snow
with his boot, wondering again about this whole thing.
   For an hour, Marakion walked about in the cold. He
turned to watch Gylar from time to time. He could see the
boy's mouth move, hear him talking to the skies.
   Another hour passed, this time in silence. Nothing
answered Gylar's feeble summons. Marakion tromped
about, fuming. He knew he shouldn't have expected an
answer, but suddenly he was furious that none was coming.
   After a time, Marakion realized the boy was beckoning
weakly to him. The man was instantly at the boy's side.
   Gylar's flesh was almost completely wasted away. The
effect of the fever over such a short time was astounding.
But there was a smile on the boy's face. "Marakion ..." He
could barely speak.
   Marakion leaned forward. "Yes, Gylar."
   Gylar shook his head. "Paladine's not coming. He's not
even going to - " The boy was cut off by a coughing fit.
"He's not even going to drop a mountain on me, Marakion."
   Gylar set a shaky hand on Marakion's forearm.
"Remember the ogre, Marakion? I was s-so scared. It was
going to eat me. You remember?"
   Marakion nodded.
   "You let it go, Marakion," Gylar whispered. "You said
for it to choose something else, a deer or something. You
said it had made the wrong choice. It didn't believe you, and
you beat it up, but you let it go. You forgave it, Marakion.
You forgave it for being itself. It didn't realize what it was
doing."
   Marakion swallowed a lump in this throat. Gylar closed
his eyes. His hand still gripped the warrior's arm.
   "Maybe Paladine didn't either, Marakion. Maybe he still
doesn't. B - But that's okay. I forgive him. It's okay. I
forgive them all. . . ."
   Gylar's grip went slack on Marakion's arm. Marakion
grappled for the hand and caught hold as it started to slip
off. Squeezing his eyes shut, he bowed his head.
   "Damn!" was all he said.

                                 *****

   Hours later, Marakion stood next to a grave he'd had to
fight the cold earth and snow to dig. His hands were
blistered; Glint was caked in dirt.
   Marakion did not speak a eulogy. Everything had
already been said. Who would he speak words of comfort
to, anyway? The only ones able to hear on this distant,
isolated mountaintop were the gods, and they hadn't
listened. This boy, alone, beneath the frosted, snow-swept
ground, could pardon a god for his mistake, though that one
mistake had destroyed everything Gylar had held dear.
   Marakion adjusted the clasp at the neck of his cloak and
pulled the edges together. He took a last look at the sky
from the summit of Mount Phineous.
   "Somebody learned something from your show of godly
power. HE forgives you."
   Marakion slowly began his descent down the mountain,
continuing on his own hopeless quest.
   "Revel in it, Paladine, because, by the Abyss, I don't."

                          NO GODS, NO HEROES

                          NICK O'DONOHOE

   The road was blocked just over the crest of the hill. The ambush was
nicely planned.  Graym, leading the horses, hadn't seen the warriors
until his group was headed downhill, and there was no room to turn the
cart around on the narrow, wheel-rutted path that served as a road.
   Graym looked at their scarred faces, their battered, mis-
matched, scavenged armor, and their swords. He smiled at
them. "You lot are good thinkers, I can tell. You can't
protect yourselves too well these days." He gestured at the
cart and its cargo. "Would you like a drink of ale?"
   The armored man looked them over carefully. Graym
said, "I'll do the honors, sir. That skinny, gawking teenager
- that's Jarek. The man behind him, in manacles and a chain,
is our prisoner, name of Darll. Behind him - those two
fierce-looking ones, are Fenris and Fanris, the Wolf
brothers. Myself, I'm Graym. I'm the leader - being the
oldest and" - he patted his middle-aged belly, chuckling -
"the heaviest." He bowed as much as his belly woud let
him.
   The lead man nodded. "It's them."
   His companions stepped forward, spreading out. The
right wing man, flanking Graym, swung his sword.
   Darll pulled his hands apart and caught the sword on
his chain. Sparks flew, but the chain held. Clasping his
hands back together, he swung the looped chain like a club.
It thunked into an armored helmet, and the wearer dropped
straight to the ground soundlessly.
   Jarek raised his fist, gave a battle cry. The Wolf
brothers, with their own battle cry - which sounded
suspiciously like yelps of panic - dived under the ale cart,
both trying unsuccessfully to wedge themselves behind the
same wheel.
   The cart tipped, toppling the heavy barrels. The horses
broke their harnesses and charged through the fight. A
cascade of barrels thundered into the midst of the fray. One
attacker lay still, moaning.
   That left four. Darll kicked one still-rolling barrel, sent
it smashing into two of the attackers, then leapt at a third,
who was groping for his dropped sword. Darll kicked the
sword away, lifted one of the barrel hoops over the man's
head. The attacker raised his arms to defend himself, neatly
catching them in the hoop. Darll slammed him in the face
with his fist.
   Jarek yelled, "Yaaa!" and threw a rock at the leader.
The rock struck the man, knocked him into Darll's reach.
   Darll whipped his chain around the man's throat,
throttling him. Hearing a noise behind him, Darll let the
man drop and spun around.
   Two of the others were crawling to their knees. Darll
kicked one and faced the other, prepared to fight.
   A hoarse voice cried, "No!"
   The leader was gasping and massaging his throat.
"Leave them. Let Skorm Bonelover get them," he told his
men.
   The attackers limped away, carrying their two
unconscious comrades.
   It was suddenly very quiet. The Wolf brothers, still
under the cart, were staring at Darll in awe. Jarek - a second
rock cradled in his hand - was gazing at the fighter with
open-mouthed admiration. Graym took a step toward Darll,
glanced at the fleeing attackers, and stepped away again.
   "Six men," Graym said. "Six trained men-at-arms,
beaten by a man in chains."
   "It'll make one helluva song," Darll said acidly. "I
suppose I'm still your prisoner?"
   After a moment's thought, Graym nodded. "Right, then.
Let's reload the barrels."
   Graym and Jarek tipped the cart back upright and propped
a barrel behind the rear wheel. The first barrel was easy to
load. Too easy. Graym handled it by himself. He stared at it
in surprise, then worked to load the second.
   The third barrel was on, then suddenly and
inexplicably it was rolling off.
   The Wolf brothers, working on top, grabbed frantically
and missed. The barrel slid down the tilted cart. Darll fell
back. Jarek, standing in the barrel's path, stared up at it with
his mouth open.
   For a fat middle-aged man, Graym could move
quickly. He slammed into Jarek, and both went sprawling.
The barrel crashed onto a rock and bounced off, spraying
foam sideways before it came to rest, punctured end up.
   Graym, unfortunately, came to rest on top of Jarek.
   Darll, manacles clanging, pulled Graym to his feet.
"You all right?"
   "Fine, sir, fine." Graym felt his ribs and arms for
breakage.
   "Pity," Darll grunted. "What about you, boy?" He bent
down and helped Jarek up. "If you only hurt your head,
we're in luck."
   Jarek wheezed and gasped.
   "He'll be fine," Graym said, slapping Jarek's shoulder.
Jarek collapsed again, and Graym helped him up again.
"Probably do us both good. Exercise new muscles."
   "Try thinking. That should exercise a new muscle for
you." Darll looked down at their feet. Foam was seeping
quickly into the ground. The smell of ale was
overpowering.
   Graym followed his glance. "Only another loss," he
said cheerfully. "Crisis of transport, sir. Part of business."
He and Jarek limped over to the broken barrel.
   Jarek, still wheezing, managed to say, "I'm sorry,
Graym. You said 'Stop pushing when I say now,' and that
was when you said 'now,' so then I thought you meant
'now.' "
   "Don't you feel bad at all, boy." Graym looked at the
damp rock and the damp soil below it. "This'll drive the
price up when we reach Krinneor. Supply and demand."
   He added, struck by it, "Makes the other kegs worth
more."
   He finished, convinced, "Best thing that could happen,
really."
   Graym shook Jarek's limp hand. "Thank you for upping
profits. A bold move - not one I'd have made - but worth it
in the long run."
   Jarek smiled proudly. Darll snorted.
   The Wolf brothers looked down from the perch on top
of the cart. "Want us to roll another off?" Fenris asked
eagerly.
   "Say when," Fanris added.
   Graym shook his head. "Let's take inventory first."
   The Wolf brothers slid cautiously off the wagon. They
looked (and claimed) to be several years older than Jarek,
but no one would ever know their real age until one of them
washed, which was hardly likely. From their narrow beetle-
browed eyes to their black boots, they looked wickedly
dangerous.
   A songbird whistled, and the two jumped and crouched
low behind the wagon wheel.
   "Don't crawl underneath," Graym pleaded. "That's how
you tipped it the last time. It's all right now. The bad men
are gone. And they weren't that bad, once we got their
weapons away from them."
   "We? WE?" Darll demanded.
   "I helped," Jarek said proudly. "I threw a rock at one.
You did most of it," he added honestly. "But you should
have. You're supposed to be a great mercenary."
   "I'm SUPPOSED to be your prisoner" Darll said
bitingly.
   Graym put a hand on Darll's shoulder. "Don't take it so
hard, sir. You're the Bailey of Sarem's prisoner. We're just
transporting you to Krinneor." He patted Darll. "Think of
us as company."
   "I think of you," Darll said bitterly, "the way I'd think
of the underside of an owlbear's - "
   "I'm going to be a mercenary like you someday," Jarek
broke in.
   Fenris came out from behind the wagon wheel. He
looked worried. "Did you hear what that man said just
before running off?"
   "You mean the part about 'Let Skorm Bonelover take
them'?" Fanris finished nervously. "I heard it. What does it
mean? Who's Skorm Bonelover?"
   Graym was checking the fallen barrel. "An idle threat.
Poor man, I don't think he was happy." He examined the
sprung staves.
   "You may be a cooper," Darll said, "but you can't mend
that."
   Graym felt along the keg sides, skilled hands finding
the sprung barrel stave. "Not on the road," he said
reluctantly. "And it's over half full still."
   The Wolf brothers edged forward hopefully. "Be a
shame to let it go to waste, Fan."
   "Right again, Fen."
   Jarek, rubbing his head, looked meaningfully at the
bung-puller stored inside the cart.
   "Half a keg of Skull-Splitter Premium. Well . . ."
Graym sighed loudly, then smiled. "Not a bad place to
camp."

                                 *****

   They waited until nightfall to light the fire, so no one
would see the smoke. They hung a shield of blankets around
the fire to hide the light. Both were Darll's idea. Graym saw
no need for such precautions, but was willing to humor him.
   The sunset was blood red, like every one had been since
the Cataclysm.
   Graym sipped at the bowl of Skull-Splitter and said, to
no one in particular, "Life is attitude - good or bad." He
waved an arm at the desolate landscape. "What do you
see?"
   Darll grunted. "What else? Disaster. Broken trees,
clogged streams, fallen buildings, and a godsforsaken
broken road rougher than a troll's - "
   "That's your problem, sir." Graym thumped Darll's
back. "You see disaster. I see opportunity. Look here." He
traced a map in the dirt. "See this road?"
   He looked up and realized that Darll - ale rolling in his
mouth, eyes shut to savor the flavor - wasn't seeing
anything. "Excuse me, sir, but do you see the road?"
   "The road from Goodlund to Krinneor," Jarek breathed
reverently.
   "Right. And do you know what's ahead?"
   Darll opened his eyes. "Nothing. The end of the world."
   Graym downed an entire bowl of Skull-Splitter, wiped
his lips on his sleeve, and smiled genially. "Maybe it is, sir,
but I say" - he waved the empty dipper for emphasis - "if
I'm going to see the end of the world, I should see it with a
positive attitude." He gazed up at the sky. "I mean, look at
the world now. No gods, no heroes." He sighed loudly and
happily. "It makes a man feel fresh."
   "We were heroes this afternoon," Jarek objected, "me
and Darll. We whipped those bastards."
   "Now, now," Graym said admonishingly. "You hardly
knew them, Jarek. Don't speak ill of people just because
they tried to kill you."
   Darll agreed. "Other than being the usual low, sorry
sort of lowlifes you find in these parts, they weren't bad at
all. They were bounty hunters." He eyed Graym
suspiciously.
   "Seems an unfriendly way to make a living," Graym
said. He scratched his head, belched, and settled back.
"Inventory," he announced.
   The others suddenly looked nervous. "Will we have to
sign for things?" Jarek asked. "I hate that."
   Graym shook his head. "Nah, nah. This is just counting,
and remembering" - he took another sip of ale - "and
history. We started with nine barrels. Remember the
loading? We pushed them on from all sides, and they
shifted when we started rolling."
   Fenris nudged his brother. "And one rolled away and
smashed on Dog Street."
   Fanris kicked him. "I couldn't hold it. It was hard to
see, it being dark and all."
   Darll's eyes opened. "You loaded in the dark? For the
love of Paladine, why?"
   Jarek said reasonably, "We didn't want to be seen."
   Darll laughed, a short bark. "No wonder the horses ran
off. They didn't even know you, did they? You stole them!
AND the cart, I'll wager."
   "Jem and Renny, poor flighty nags. They never liked
us," Graym said sadly. "Well, that's one barrel. Eight left."
   "There was the barrel on the bridge," Jarek offered, "out
side of town."
   "We'd picked up Darll, and he was putting up a fight - "
   "That's right, blame me." Darll glared at them all. "I
only wanted to leap off at the bridge."
   "And hit us," Fenris said.
   "And kill us," Fanris added, hurt.
   "And hit and kill you," Darll agreed. "I did fairly well,
for being hung over."
   "You might have drowned, sir," Graym said. "That
wouldn't do when you're in our charge, would it?"
   "He hit me," Jarek said, rubbing his head.
   "And me," Fen said.
   "And me," Fan added.
   Darll settled back. "Stop whining. I didn't kill you." His
scowl, fierce under his salt-and-pepper beard, seemed to
add an unspoken "yet."
   After a short silence, Graym continued. "One of the
barrels dropped into Mirk River, leaving seven. After that,
we didn't lose a one - not in the Black Rain, not in the Dry
Lands, not in the swamps. We can be proud of that."
   Jarek squared his shoulders. The Wolf brothers grinned,
exposing teeth best left hidden.
   Graym went on. "And today we beat back a better-
trained force - "
   "Any force would be better trained," Darll muttered.
   "That's harsh, sir. We won through strategy - "
   "Luck."
   "Or luck, but not," Graym said sadly, "without
casualties. We smashed two barrels, a major loss." He
stared, brooding, into the fire.
   Jarek counted on his fingers twice, then said proudly. "I
know! I know! That leaves six barrels - "
   "Yes. Five full barrels," Graym said. He walked
unsteadily to the wagon. "And one other" He thumped it
three times, pausing to let it echo. "One . . . empty . . .
barrel."
   The others ducked their heads, avoided his eyes. "It
leaked," Darll said, shrugging.
   Graym rocked the barrel back and forth and ran his
hands around it. "Bone dry. No water marks, no foam
flecks."
   "Ghosts." Jarek looked solemn.
   Graym snorted. "Ever seen a drunk ghost?"
   Since none of them had seen a ghost of any sort, drunk
or sober, they all shook their heads reluctantly.
   "Might have been magic," Fenris said.
   "True enough," Fanris said quickly.
   Graym wiped the mud off the barrel end to expose a
second, cleverly hidden bunghole. He felt in the comer of
the wagon and pulled out a second tap. "And which one of
you," he said firmly, "was the mage?"
   He folded his arms. "Now, I know it's been a long,
hard, dusty trip. A man gets thirsty. And you've all known
me as long as you've worn dry pants. I'm not a hard man."
   "You're a soft man," Darll said, but wouldn't look him
in the eye.
   "I'm a forgiving man."
   "Hah! If you were, you'd let me go, but no - "
   "It's a matter of principle, sir," Graym said firmly.
   "And the money," Jarek reminded him.
   "And the money, of course."
   "Tenpiece," Darll said bitterly. "Took me straight from
the Bailey of Sarem with a promise and a bag of tenpiece."
   "Plus twenty when we get to Krinneor," Fen said.
   "When we hand you up," Fan said.
   "Thirtypiece." Darll shook his head. "The best fighter in
Goodlund, second or third best in Istar, carted off to prison
for thirtypiece."
   "But enough prologuizing." Graym was swaying on his
feet. "I can't stand a fella who prologuizes all the time. Let's
say I'm forgiving and let it go at that. And, now, I'm going
to ask who's been sneaking ale while I wasn't looking. I
expect an honest answer. Who was it?"
   Jarek raised one hand.
   The Wolf brothers each raised a hand.
   Graym looked at them in silence.
   Darll raised a hand, his chains pulling the other after it.
   After a long pause, Graym sighed. "Good to have it out
in the open at last. Better to be honest with each other, I
say."
   " 'True thieves best rob false owners,' " Darll muttered.
   "I've always thought that a fine saying, sir," Graym said.
"Witty, yet simple. But I don't see it applying here."
   Darll shook his head.
   "Still and all," Graym continued, "we've done well.
Three months on the road, and we've four barrels left." He
shook a finger at the others. "No sneaking drinks from here.
We'll need it all at the end of the road in Krinneor."
   Jarek said eagerly, "Tell us about Krinneor, Graym."
   "What? Again?"
   "Please!"
   Jarek wasn't alone. Fen and Fan begged to hear the
story, and even Darll settled, resignedly, to listen.
   Graym picked up a bowl and took a deep swig of Skull-
Splitter. "I've told you this night after night, day after day -
in the Black Rains, when the dust clouds came through, and
in the afterquakes, and when we'd spent a long day dragging
this wagon over flood-boils, potholes, and heaved-up rock
on the road. And now you say you're not tired of it." He
looked at them fondly. "I'm not either.
   "Back in Sarem, I was nobody. Every town needs a
cooper, but they don't care about him. They buy his barrels
and leave. And I'd watch them, and I'd know they were off -
to fill the barrels, travel up roads, and sell their stock."
   Jarek leaned forward. "The city, tell us about the city!"
   "I'm coming to that." Graym loved this part. "Every time
a stranger came down the road, I'd ask him where he'd been.
And he'd talk about Tarsis by the sea, or the temples of Xak
Tsaroth, and one even showed me a machine from Mount
Nevermind, where the gnomes live. The machine didn't
work, of course, but it was a lovely little thing, all gears and
sprockets and wires.
   "But one and all, dusty from the road and tired from
travel, told me about Krinneor, and the more I heard, the
more I wanted to see it." Graym's eyes shone. "Golden
towers! Marble doors! And excellent drains." He looked at
them all earnestly. "I hear that's very important for a city."
   They nodded. Graym went on. "After the Claychasm - "
   "Cataclysm," Darll snapped.
   "Cataclysm, thank you, sir. I keep forgetting. After that
night, when the ground shook and the western sky was all
fire, people were frightened. They quit buying barrels,
saying that trade was too risky. That's when I realized that
no one was coming down the road from Krinneor, and no
one was going there."
   He tapped the bowl of Skull-Splitter, which he had
emptied again. "And that's when I realized there was no
more good Sarem ale going from Sarem to Krinneor. The
poor beggars there would be as dry as a sand pit in no time.
   "So I made these." He thumped the broken barrel,
refilled the bowl from it. "Extra thick staves, double-
caulked, double-banded. Bungs four fingers deep. Heads of
the last vallenwoods in stock this far west. Harder than any
man has seen. I spent everything I had making them, then
borrowed from you all to finish them. And when the bailey
heard we were going, he asked me to take you, sir, to the
Bailey of Krinneor for safekeeping." He nodded
respectfully to Darll.
   "For prison, you fat fool," Darll said. "I can't believe I
let a man like that capture me, especially after I beat the
town soldiery. A scrawny, bald-headed, weak-armed man
with no more strength in him than in a dead dwarf's left - "
   "You wouldn't have if you hadn't been drunk," Jarek
pointed out. He looked at Darll admiringly. "Single-handed,
and you beat them all. If you hadn't been drunk - "
   Graym interrupted. "And I hope it serves to remind you,
sir, that ale is not only a blessing, but can also be a curse,
and not to be taken lightly." He downed the bowl of Skull-
Splitter. "Back to my story. I took you, sir, and the tenpiece
from the bailey - "
   "Then we got the ale," Jarek said. "And the horses," Fen
and Fan said together. "Without paying for them," Darll
finished. "And I gathered victuals and water and spare
clothes and knapsacks, and off we set" - Graym pointed to
the east -  "down the long, dangerous road! Facing
hardship! Facing hunger and thirst..." He broke off. "Not as
much thirst as I thought, apparently, but some thirst. Facing
the unknown! Facing a ruined world! And for what?" He
looked around at the watching faces. "I ask you, for what?"
   Jarek blinked. "For Krinneor."
   "True enough. For the golden spires, the marble towers,
the excellent drains, and the fortunes that made them. Think
of it!" Graym waved an arm unsteadily. "A city with all the
gold you can dream of, and nothing to drink. And us with a
cart full." He glanced to one side. "A cart HALF full of the
best ale left in the world!"
   "Our fortunes are made. We can ask what we want for
it, and they'll pay twice what we ask. One barrel of Sarem
ale will be worth the world to them, and five barrels leaves
us one apiece."
   Darll looked up, startled. "You're counting me?"
   "You did your share on the road, sir," Graym said.
"Each of us gets profits from one barrel of ale. And, if we're
all clever - " he looked at Jarek and amended hastily, " - or
at least if we stick together, we get exclusive Sarem trade
rights to Krinneor. We'll have all the food we want, and
houses."
   "And a sword?" Jarek asked eagerly. "I've always
wanted a sword. My mother wouldn't let me have anything
sharp."
   Graym smiled at him. "And a sword. And maybe a
quick parole for friend Darll, and a tavern for me to run - "
   "And a woman for me," Fenris said firmly.
   "And me," Fanris echoed.
   Graym scratched his head, looked dubious.
   "Right," Darll said. "I'm sure that somewhere in
Krinneor there's a pair of dirty, nearsighted women with no
self-respect left."
   The Wolf brothers brightened considerably.

                                 *****

   By late night, the blanket screens were down and they'd
piled wood on to make a man-high flame. The Wolf
brothers were singing a duet about a bald woman who'd
broken the heart of a barber, and Darll was weeping.
   "You 'member," he said, his arm around Graym,
"'member when the bounty hunters attacked, and I saved
us?"
   "You did well, sir," said Graym.
   Darll snuffled. "I was going to run off, but then I
remembered you had the keys to the manacles."
   Graym patted his pocket. "Still do, sir."
   Darll, tears running down both cheeks, wiped his nose.
"You know that when you free me, I'm going to kill you."
   Graym patted Darll's shoulder. "Anybody would, sir"
   Darll nodded, wept, belched, tried to say something
more, and fell asleep sitting up.
   Graym lay down, rolled over on his back, and stared at
the stars. They were faint in the dusty air, but to Graym they
shone a little clearer every night. "I used to be afraid of
them," he said comfortably to himself. "They used to be
gods. Now they're just stars."

                                 *****

   When the sun came up the next morning, it rose with
what Graym heard as an ear-splitting crack.
   He opened one eye as little as possible, then struggled
to his feet. "Isn't life an amazing thing?" he said shakily to
himself. "If you'd told me yesterday that every hair on my
head could hurt, I wouldn't have believed you."
   Fenris stared out at the dusty field nearby and quavered,
"What's that terrible noise?"
   Graym looked where Fenris was pointing and found the
source. "Butterflies."
   Fenris nodded - a mistake. His eyes rolled back in his
head and he fell over with a thud. Fanris, beside him,
whimpered at the sound of the impact.
   Graym, moving as silently as possible, crept over to
Darll, shook him by the shoulder. Darll's manacles rattled.
   Darll flinched and opened two remarkably red eyes. "If
I live," he murmured fuzzily, "I'm going to kill you."
   Graym sighed and rubbed his own head. "I thought you
already had, sir."

                                 *****

   By midmorning, they were back on the road and near the
first rank of western hills. Graym, pulling the cart along
with Darll, was almost glad they had lost so many barrels.
The wagon lurched to a stop at every rock in the road . . .
and there were many rocks.
   At least the companions were feeling better. Skull-
Splitter's effect, though true to its name, wore off quickly.
Jarek was humming to himself, trying to remember the
Wolf brothers' song of the night before. Darll, after
swearing at him in strained tones for some time, was now
correcting him on the melody and humming along.
   Fenris, perched on the cart, yelled, "Trouble ahead!"
   Fanris gazed, quivered. "Are they dangerous?"
   Darll grated his teeth. "Kender! I hate the nasty little
things. Kill 'em all. Keep 'em away. They'll rob you blind
and giggle the whole time."
   Graym looked up from watching the rutted road. Before
he knew what was happening, he was surrounded by
kender: eager, energetic, and pawing through their
belongings. The kender had a sizable bundle of their own,
pulled on a travois, but the bundle changed shape
ominously.
   "Ho! Ha!" Darll swung two-handed at them, trying to
make good on his threat to kill them all. They skipped and
ducked, ignoring the length of chain that whistled
murderously over their heads.
   "Here now, little fellers," Graym said, holding his pack
above his head. "Stay down! Good morning!" He smiled at
them and skipped back and forth to keep his pack out of
reach, and he seemed like a giant kender himself.
   One of the kender, taller than the others and dressed in
a brown robe with the hood clipped off, smiled back. "Good
morning. Where are we?"
   "You're in Goodlund, halfway to Sarem if you started
from just west of Kendermore." Graym snatched a forked
stick from the hands of the tall kender - who didn't seem to
mind - and hung his pack from it, lifted it over his head.
   "Where are you going?"
   "Oh, around." The tall kender took a forked stick from
one of the others, who didn't seem to mind either. "East,
mostly." He spun the stick, making a loud whistle. "Do you
know, the gods told me that the world's greatest disaster
would happen in a land to the west? Only it didn't."
   "What are you talking about?" Graym looked openly
astonished. 'The Catcollision?"
   "Cataclysm!" Darll snarled.
   "Cataclysm, thank you, sir. I keep forgetting." Graym
turned back to the kender. "All that happened in the east,
you know."
   "I know," the kender said, and sighed. "The gods lied to
me. They did it to save our lives - we were going west to
see the run - but still, a lie's a lie." He fingered the torn
collar of his cleric's robe. "So we don't believe in the gods
anymore."
   "Good enough," Graym said, brightening. "Smashed the
world, didn't they? We're well rid of that lot."
   "But they did save our lives," Fenris pointed out.
   "From horrible deaths," Fanris added, "like being
smashed."
   "Or squished, Fan."
   The tall kender shrugged. "You miss a lot, worrying
about things like that. Say, what's that smell?" His nose
wrinkled.
   "Dirt, mostly," Jarek said.
   The Wolf brothers scowled. "It's a perfectly natural
smell," Graym said. "Strong, but natural." He smiled down
at the kender. "My name's Graym."
   The kender smiled back. "Tarli Half-kender. Half man,
half kender."
   Graym looked startled, then shrugged. "Well, I'm
liberal-minded."
   He offered his hand, taking care to keep his pack and
pockets out of reach. But at a shout from Jarek, Graym
whipped his head around.
   "Here now! Off the cart. Mind the barrels." His
knapsack fell from the stick.
   Tarli caught the pack nimbly, flipped it over once in his
deft fingers, and passed it to Graym, who was surprised that
a kender would return anything. "Thank you," he said to
Tarli, but his mind was on the kender falling and climbing
all over the cart. The barrels, three times their size, wobbled
dangerously. "Don't they know they could be killed?"
   Tarli looked puzzled. "I don't think it would make much
difference. Like I said, you can't worry about things like
that, like Skorm Bonelover, coming from the east."
   "Who?" The name sounded vaguely familiar to
Graym's still-fuddled mind.
   "Skorm," Tarli said helpfully, "the Fearmaker, the
Crusher of Joy."
   "Oh, THAT Skorm. You know him, do you?"
   "Only by reputation. Everyone's talking about him."
Tarli looked to the east. "Well, we'd better keep going if we
want to meet up with him." He put two fingers into his
mouth and whistled.
   The crowd of kender scrambled off the cart and
scampered down the road again, pulling the travois behind
them. To Graym's watchful eyes, their pockets seemed
fuller, and their bundle of supplies seemed larger, but there
was nothing he could do about it.
   "Cunning little things." Graym watched the kender
running happily away. "Good attitudes, the lot of them. You
can't keep them down."
   "I'll try," Darll grated, "if you'll let me go." He held out
his manacled hands.
   "Ah!" Graym reached into his pack. "Can't do that, sir,
but I could give your arms a rest while we're dragging the
cart. You promise not to run off, sir?
   He vaguely remembered Darll's saying something last
night that should make Graym nervous, but dragging the
cart was hard work, and Darll deserved a reward.
   Darll looked sly. "Word of honor." He braced his feet
for a quick start and smiled at Graym.
   The Wolf brothers ducked under the cart. Even Jarek
looked suspicious.
   "Right, then." Graym fumbled in the pack, then reached
into his left pocket. . .
   Then checked his right breeches pocket, his hood, and
his jacket.. .
   Then stared at the departing kender. He looked back at
Darll's impatient face. "Life," he said thoughtfully, "can be
funny, sir . . ."
   When Darll understood, he shook both fists at the
kender and swore until he was panting like a runner.

                                 *****

   Darll and Graym started off again. They grabbed the
crosspiece of the wagon tongue, braced their feet in the dirt,
and pulled. The wagon rolled forward quickly. Graym
dropped the crosspiece.
   "That was too easy. Jarek?"
   Jarek hopped into the cart and counted loudly. "One,
two, three, four - "
   After a pause, Graym said, "And?"
   "That's all," Jarek said.
   Graym stared, disbelieving, at the distant dust cloud of
the departing kender. "They walked off with a BARREL?"
   "Cunning little things," Fenris said.
   "Industrious, too," Fanris said.
   Jarek finished the inventory. Finally he hopped down
and announced, "They got the barrel of Throat's Ease lager,
our spare clothes - "
   Graym laughed. "Picture one of those little fellows
trying to wear my canvas breeches 1"
   "And most of the food."
   Graym fell silent.
   "So we make it to Krinneor in one night or go hungry,"
Darll said.
   "We can do it," Graym said confidently. Landmarks
weren't hard to read, but he had often discussed the road -
wistfully - with merchants buying barrels and casks.
"There's this hill, and one little town, and a valley, then, and
a downhill run from there to Krinneor."
   "And prison for me. and a forced march to get there,"
Darll said gruffly. "I'd be running away free, and you'd be -
" He looked at Graym sharply. "I'd be gone if it weren't for
those nasty, little, pointy-eared thieves."
   Graym said gruffly, "You ought not to criticize others,
sir. Not to drag up the past, but you've done worse."
   Darll glared at him. "That wasn't a fair trial. The bailey
wanted blood, and he got it."
   "Of course, he wanted blood. You hurt his dignity. You
had only a sword, and you half-killed ten soldiers armed
with spears, maces, and swords."
   Darll objected. "When I half-kill ten men, I leave only
five left alive. I beat them badly, but that wasn't the charge
against me, anyway, unless you count resisting arrest."
   "True enough, sir," Graym said agreeably. "You
scarpered the town treasury and then nicked a hay wagon."
   "Nice way to put it. A real sophisticate, you are."
   "Assault, theft, intoxication, breaking and entering,
reckless endangerment, incitement to stampede, vandalism,
arson." He paused. "That's the lot, isn't it, sir?"
   "Still and all," Darll said stubbornly, "it WAS a first offense."
   "First offense?" Graym gaped. "From you, sir?"
   "Well, for this sort of crime."
   Graym shook his head. "You tell your side of it well,
sir, but I have a contract."
   "It's the money, then."
   "No, sir." Graym shook his head violently. "I gave a
promise. Even if I persuaded the others to agree to forfeit
the twentypiece we have coming, I'd still be unable -
outstanding warrant and all - to go back to Sarem and return
the ten - " He felt in his pocket. . . .
   He sighed, didn't bother feeling in his other pockets.
   Darll, watching his face, smiled. "Cunning little
things."
   "Thrifty, too," Graym muttered.

   *****

   By midday, they had reached the top of the first large
hill - low and rocky, with a fault crack running across it.
Jarek, scouting ahead for the easiest route for the cart on the
broken road, returned, announcing, "People coming." Fen
said fearfully, "What if they're robbers?" Fan added, "Or
maybe they're the bounty hunters." The Wolf brothers
edged toward the back of the cart. Graym grabbed their
shirts, pulled them back. He then wiped his hands on his
own shirt. "Wait till we've seen them, at least."
   He edged to the top of the hill and peered over the top. A
group of humans was walking toward them -  townsfolk,
seemingly, coming from the small knot of cottages standing
on the road.
   Graym retreated below the crest of the hill, reported
what he'd seen. "We can't run, and there's no place to hide.
Best we go forward and be friendly. Folks like that."
   Jarek looked dubious. "They might rob us."
   "Not of much."
   "Or we might rob them. Are they rich?"
   "I didn't grow up with 'em," Graym retorted. "How
should I know?"
   Jarek dug in the dirt with his boot. "Well, if they are,
and we robbed them, then we'd be better off, right?"
   Graym considered. "Now that's an idea. We rob from
the rich. And then . . ."
   "And then what?" Jarek asked.
   "Can't rob from the poor," Fenris said.
   "No future in it," Fanris agreed.
   Jarek objected, "There's more poor people than rich
people. Easier to find."
   "Ah, but they don't have as much, do they?"
   "Now that's telling him what, Fen."
   "Thank you, Fan."
   Darll said firmly, "You're not robbing these people."
   Graym wasn't too keen on robbing, but he thought Darll
was being a bit bossy, for a prisoner, even if he was a
mercenary. "And why not, sir?"
   Darll shook his head wearily. "Because they have us
surrounded."
   While they had been talking, the townspeople had
encircled the hill and closed ranks. They approached
silently. There were thirty or forty of them, dressed in
ragged, ill-fitting clothes. Several wore robes.
   Graym looked around at the circle of men and women.
"Good to sec so many of you here to greet us." He waved an
arm. "I'd offer a drink, but we're running short."
   A robed and hooded figure came forward. The robe was
too long, clearly borrowed, and had been dyed a neutral
color. "I am Rhael," said the person. "I am the elder."
   The voice was strong and dear, strangely high. Graym
said dubiously, "Are you sure? You sound kinda young for
an elder."
   "Quite sure." The woman pulled back her hood and
shook her hair free of it.
   Darll snorted. "Who are you all?"
   "I am Rhael. These are my people. We come from the
village of Graveside."
   Darll asked, "A law-abiding village?"
   She nodded.
   "Good." He raised his manacled hands. "Arrest these
fools and free me."
   "Arrest them? Why?"
   "Because they're crooks."
   "What have they done?"
   "What haven't they? Theft, resisting arrest, drunk and
disorderly plenty of times, drunk but not disorderly at least
once, sober and disorderly a few times - "
   Rhael seemed impressed. "What are they like as
fighters?"
   Terrible," Darll said truthfully. "Awful to watch. You
can't imagine."
   "Brutal?"
   "That man - " Darll pointed to Graym - "drove off a
band of bounty hunters, with only me in chains to help
him."
   "That one . . ." He pointed to Jarek. "He nearly killed a
man with one blow." More or less true, counting a thrown
rock as a blow.
   "And those two . . . ?"
   Darll glanced at the Wolf brothers, who waited eagerly
to hear what he could say about them.
   "Well, just look at them," Darll said.
   The folk of Graveside looked them up and down. The
Wolf brothers did look dangerous, both as criminals and as
a health risk.
   Darll held out his arms, waiting for his release.
   Rhael walked straight up to Graym. "Would you be
willing to lead an army?"
   Darll choked. Graym's mouth sagged open.
   "We need brave men like you," Rhael said. "We're
facing a scourge."
   One of the elders quavered, "A terrible scourge!"
   "I didn't think it would be a nice scourge," Darll muttered.
   "His name," Rhael lowered her voice, "is Skorm Bone-
lover."
   "Not his given name, I take it, Miss?" Graym said.
   "He is also called the Sorrow of Huma, the Dark Lady's
Liege Man, the Teeth of Death, the Grave of Hope - "
   "I've always wanted a nickname," Fen said wistfully.
   "We've had some," Fan reminded him.
   "Not ones we've always wanted, Fan."
   "True enough, Fen." He sighed.
   Darll said, suddenly interested, "Don't you people have
any fighters, or a bailey or something?"
   They all looked sorrowful. "Gone, gone," one said.
   "Killed?" Graym said sympathetically.
   Rhael shook her head. "The Protector came to me one
morning and warned me about the coming of Skorm. A
stranger had come in the night and told him, said that he had
already fled before Skorm's army. The Protector said the
only sensible thing to do was flee, leaving all our things
behind, so that Skorm would stay and plunder instead of
pursuing us."
   Graym frowned. "This Protector wasn't much of an
optimist."
   "He was terrified," Rhael said. "He said that Skorm
would drink the blood of one victim, only to spit it in the
face of another. He said Skorm once bit through the arm of
a warrior and stood chewing on it in front of him. He said -
"
   "Never mind," Graym said hastily. His stomach had
been wobbly all day. "Where is this scourge?" He looked
around fearfully. "Not with you, I take it."
   "He and his troops are camped in the bone yard - "
   "Picturesque," Graym murmured, approving.
   "In the Valley of Death, beyond Graveside. There are
more than a hundred of them now. Every dawn," Rhael said
with a voice like death, "we see more warriors standing by
Skorm's tents. Every day his troops increase."
   Graym turned to his companions. "And you all told me
no one was hiring. It was nothing but a necessary market
downturn, and you call it a Catechism."
   "Cataclysm," Darll hissed.
   "Right you are, sir." Graym turned to Rhael. "And, now,
young elder ... I can't get used to that, by the way. Why are
you an elder, Miss?"
   "Elders aren't chosen because they are old," a man next
to her, quite old himself, explained. "We are chosen because
each of us represents one of the elder virtues."
   "And what," Graym asked, feeling his ears turning red,
"is Miss Rhael's virtue?"
   "Elder Rhael embodies fearlessness."
   "No wonder she's so young," Darll said dryly. "Fearlessness
never reaches old age. What about you?" He pointed
with both chained hands at the elder who had spoken. "Who
are you?"
   The old man stepped back from Darll. "I am Werlow,"
he said. "I embody caution."
   "Good for you," said Darll. "And what did you do about
Skorm?"
   "I convinced the rest of the people to evacuate," Werlow
said. "We elders have stayed, to pray for the coming of
heroes."
   "We're here," Jarek said happily. "We're heroes, aren't
we?" He looked to Graym for support.
   Graym cleared his throat. "I don't like to boast. We're
desperate men . . . and bold warriors, but we've left our
robbing ways behind us. We have trade goods" - he didn't
want to say 'ale,' though the barrels made it obvious - "that
we're taking all the way to Krinneor, where our fortunes
will be made and our lives will be good, in the richest city
in the world." His voice went husky. "The golden towers,
the marble doors, the excellent drains."
   The elders exchanged glances. They were silent.
   Finally Rhael said, "The road to Krinneor winds around
the Valley of Tombs. There is no way there, except through
Skorm's army."
   The Wolf brothers made most unwarlike whimpering
sounds. Darll edged over and kicked them each, hard.
   Graym frowned. "Don't they ever move out of the
cemetery, Miss? Parade, or bivouac, or do any of those nice
martial things that make armies so popular with
politicians?"
   Rhael shook her head. "They have no need to," she said
sadly. "They just grow strong and plan to attack us."
   "How much, to fight them?" Darll asked suddenly.
   The elders looked at each other.
   "Nothing," a reed-slender old woman said. "We heard
of your fight with the bounty hunters. That is why we
sought you. If you refuse to fight, we'll inform every hunter
we can find, and you'll be taken or killed."
   "That seems harsh, Ma'am," Graym said. "Fight or die?
For nothing?"
   "And what elder virtue are you?" Darll asked.
   The old woman smiled thinly. Thrift."
   Graym made up his mind, turned, and addressed his
companions. "These pick-me-up armies are all bluff. Farm
boys and fishermen, not one real soldier in twenty."
   Jarek was counting on his fingers. "How many real
soldiers does that make against each of us?"
   "One," Fenris said flatly.
   "Maybe even two," Farms added.
   Graym waved his hand. "What's that to us? Nothing at
all. They're just trainees. We're road-tested. Months of
hardship, baking sun, blinding rain - "
   "Great ale - " Jarek said, caught up in the enthusiasm.
   Graym interrupted hurriedly. "And there you are. We'll
frighten off this lot in no time and be back on the road." He
raised a fist and shouted, "To Krinneor!"
   "To Krinneor!" Jarek shouted. Darll said nothing. The
Wolf brothers looked worried.
   The elders had tears in their eyes. Graym was pleased to
think he had moved them. He held out his hands. "As long
as we're fighting the good fight for you, so to speak, can
you lend us your swords?"
   The elders stared at him.
   "We didn't bring any," he added.
   "It's not as if we needed them," Jarek said.
   The elders were suitably impressed.
   "The Protector fled with most of our good weapons. We
still have a few." Rhael lifted a rag-wrapped bundle and
gave it to Graym. "This is Galeanor, the Axe of the Just."
   "Just what?" Jarek asked.
   Graym took the axe, eyed it dubiously. "Just kidding."
   Darll muttered in his ear. "Perfect. The fat man fights
and dies with the Axe of the Just Kidding."
   Rhael handed the others dented weapons, the few the
Protector had left behind. Darll examined his sword with
distaste. Jarek looked at his with delight. The Wolf brothers
picked up two badly corroded maces, after touching them
gingerly to be sure they weren't dangerous. They stood
there, then, staring at one another.
   "Don't you think you'd better take up positions opposite
the enemy?" Rhael suggested.
   "You're absolutely right, Miss," Graym said firmly.
"Move out." With only a small twinge of guilt, he added,
"And we'll take the cart with us - for supplies . . . and . . .
strategy."
   They traipsed down the hill, walked through Graveside.
It was, Graym noted, a pleasant enough place, not much
bigger than Sarem. There were cart tracks in front of the
homes and manure piles in the tilled fields. It obviously was
a farm-to-market town for a larger city. "Krinneor isn't far
now," Graym said to the others. "We're closer to the city
itself. I know it. Now, if we can just shake this lot. . ."
   Graym glanced behind him. Werlow began organizing
the elders for a safe retreat down the road. Rhael had gone
into one of the cottages.
   Graym smiled; they continued on.
   At the crest of the hill, Darll raised his hand in silent
warning. The others obediently stopped the cart.
   "Keep low!" he ordered. They dropped to the ground
and peered into the valley below.
   Tombstones and open graves, white tents and a great
many ropes stippled the valley and spread up the opposite
hill. A hundred helmeted, armored warriors stood in line,
ready for inspection. Graym looked shocked.
   "These scum robbed the graves," said Darll. "And
they're wearing the corpses!"
   "Odd taste in armor, made out of bones. What for, d'you
think, sir?" Graym asked.
   "Wolves love bones," Darll said bitterly. "Sheep shy
away from them. No use in shying, though. The wolves
always win." He smiled grimly. "I know. I'm a wolf."
   He pointed downhill cautiously. "The two in front with
the swords are drillmasters, showing close-quarter thrusts.
The ones checking the lines are lower-rank officers."
   A man dashed up to a soldier, who was twisting this
way and that, cuffed him, and yelled in his face. The
shouting carried all the way to the hilltop.
   "That," Darll said dryly, "would be the sergeant."
   "Which one is Skorm?" Graym whispered.
   "My guess would be the big guy, wearing the sawed-off
skull."
   They watched as Skorm paced calmly and evenly,
inspecting the troops. The warlord, stepping over a skeleton,
kicked the skull. It shattered on a tombstone.
   Graym peered down at him. "Now there's a man who
knows the value of appearances."
   "Don't you ever say anything bad about anybody?"
   Graym shrugged. "There's more than enough of that
around, sir, if you want it."
   "What if we split them down the middle?" a voice said.
   They rolled and turned around, Graym snatching the
axe from his belt. Rhael, a battered spear with a mended
haft in her hands, was standing behind them. She was
dressed in leather armor that probably had been trimmed
from a butcher's apron.
   "I've always heard that was how to deal with a larger
force," she said.
   "Young Elder Rhael," said Graym, "why don't you go
back to town and keep bad folk from climbing the hill to
surround us?"
   Rhael looked at Graym admiringly. "You have the
mind of a warrior." She stood stiffly. "I won't let you down.
I promise."
   They watched her run back over the hill crest. "I wish I
could move like that," Graym said, envious.
   "Wouldn't look good on you," Darll muttered.
   Graym rubbed his rotund middle. "True enough, sir."
   "Now," Darll said, "what's your battle plan?"
   "Battle plan, sir?"
   "You left Rhael to guard our rear - and an ugly rear at
that. What's your plan of attack?"
   Graym shuddered. "Attack? Don't even think it, sir. My
plan is to run around Skorm and go on to Krinneor. Why do
you think we brought the cart?"
   The Wolf brothers looked vastly relieved. Darll stared
at him, then began to laugh. "I like your style, fat man."
   Graym hefted the axe. "Right. The chains, sir."
   Darll was suspicious. "You're setting me free?"
   "On good behavior." Graym glanced sideways down
the hill at the soldiers. "I can't send you running past that lot
in chains. They'd hear the rattle for sure."
   Darll dropped to one knee and laid the chain on a
boulder, turning his head away and shutting his eyes tightly.
   Graym swung the broadaxe overhead, brought it down.
Sparks shot in all directions. The Axe of the Just Kidding
sliced through the chain and gouged the rock. Shards Hew,
grazing Darll.
   He raised his right hand to wipe his cheek. His left hand
automatically followed, a chain's length behind, then
dropped. He looked with wonder at his hands, then looked
longingly at the horizon ahead of them, beyond the army.
"Right. Ready to run for it?"
   He pulled a thong from his pocket, wrapped it around
the sleeve of his right arm. Then he bent, tightened his
boots, and stood straight.
   Graym stared. With only a few tucks and touches, Darll
had gone from prisoner to razor-sharp man of war. Graym
stared down the hill, where an army was blocking their way.
"Just think, sir," he said, "earlier today, the world was
sweet, and I wanted it to last forever. Isn't life amazing?"
   "While you've got it," Darll said. He poked at Jarek,
who was playing mumblety-peg with his sword. "Tighten
everything, boy. You want free limbs. Loosen for marches,
tighten for fights or retreats."
   Jarek tightened his belt hurriedly. Groaning with the
effort, Graym bent and tucked his breeches down into his
boot tops. He stood puffing and stared down the hill.
   Jarek said eagerly, "Are we going to fight now?"
   Graym shook his head. "That, my boy, would be the
worst disaster since the Cattle-Kissing."
   "Cataclysm!" Darll said automatically. "I think we can run
around the end of the valley there and be safely on our way
to Krinneor before they know what happened."
   "We'll be the first traders through Skorm's blockade,"
said Graym suddenly. "They'll call us heroes and pay triple
the value on every glass of ale."
   He raised the Axe of the Just Kidding. "To Krinneor!"
   Skormt turned around, looked in their general direction.
   The Wolf brothers shrieked and dived for the cart.
   "No!" Graym shouted.
   It was too late. In the struggle to fit underneath the cart,
Fanris's foot dislodged the chuck block. The cart started
rolling downhill.
   The ale!" Graym ran forward. Darll followed, swearing.
Jarek whooped and charged alongside him. The Wolf
brothers, terrified at being left alone, jumped up and ran
after them.
   Cart and barrels hurtled down the hill, bouncing over
rocks, heading straight for Skorm and his officers.
   The officers took one look and ran.
   Astonishingly, none of the rank-and-file warriors
budged. "Training's training," Darll panted, "but that's not
possible."
   The lead barrel, now thundering down faster than a man
could run, bounced off a dirt pile and into the first row of
warriors, who didn't even look up.
   The second barrel hit the second row. The third barrel
tangled the ropes that had strung the soldiers together. The
bodies fell apart.
   Darll gripped Graym's shoulder. "They're fake! Nothing
but armor on sticks and bones!"
   He ran toward the "officers," apparently the only living
men on the field. Skorm shouted a command in a harsh
voice.
   Two of the men sidled around Darll, keeping out of
range of his sword. One of them raised a throwing mace
and swung it with a deadly whir.
   Graym, desperate, flung the axe end-over-end. It
thunked handle-first into the mace-swinger, knocked him
senseless.
   Darll leapt over the fallen man, stepping on his back.
"Officer material," he grunted, and wrapped his dangling
manacle chain around the other man's sword and pulled.
The sword flew out of the man's hand.
   Darll shouted back to Jarek. "Pick up his sword!"
   Jarek picked it up, dropping his own sword. Graym
punched an opponent in the stomach and doubled him over,
sent him stumbling into two men behind him.
   The men staggered back and raised their swords,
jumping at the Wolf brothers, who were closest.
   Fanris and Fenris looked at the armored, bone-covered
sword-carrying men. Panic-stricken, the brothers both
shrieked, "We surrender!" and tossed their maces in the air.
   The maces hit each man squarely in the head. Fenris
and Fanris looked at each other in relief and turned to run
away.
   The remaining men, daunted by five berserkers crazed
enough to charge an entire army, fled.
   Skorm turned his skull face toward Graym. The grave-
robber charged, aiming a vicious two-handed sword straight
for Graym's heart.
   Darll yelled, "The axe!" picked it up, and threw it.
   Graym caught the axe by the thong, just as it struck
Skorm's sword and shattered the blade. Graym grabbed the
axe handle clumsily, and smacked Skorm on the head.
   Skorm Bonelover, the Sorrow of Huma, the Dark
Lady's Liege Man, the legendary Eater of Enemies, dropped
to the ground with a whimper.
   The fat cooper, axe in hand, stood panting over him.
Rhael ran down the hill, spear in hand.
   "We won!" she cried exultantly.
   Halting, she looked down at Skorm's shattered sword
and frowned. "That looks familiar," she said. "That's the
Protector's Sword of Office!"
   Graym bent and pulled the skull off Skorm's face. He
was conscious again and looked pinched and scared, but
fairly ordinary beyond that.
   "Protector!" Rhael gasped.
   Darll kicked the Protector's sword hilt away from him
and stood watching over him.
   Rhael was staring admiringly at an embarrassed Graym. "I
heard the noise. I saw the whole thing. You charged an
army by yourselves!"
   Darll opened his mouth to explain, but Jarek trod on his
foot. "We toppled our barrels on them. Then Graym was the
first one down. Not even Darll could outrun him."
   Rhael sighed. "What a wonderful idea. But your trade
goods - your ale - you sacrificed them for us?"
   "One barrel made it," Jarek told her. "It rolled off to
one side and didn't hit anybody." He shook his head. "But I
bet all those other soldiers are drinking it now."
   "There are no other soldiers, rock-brain!" Darll
growled. "This Protector and his friends built them out of
corpses, tugged on ropes to make them move, pretended to
train them. They wanted to scare everyone out of town,
then loot it, and it nearly worked."
   Jarek scratched his head. "Why didn't the town set up a
bunch of fake soldiers to fight back?" he asked.
   Darll looked at Graym, at Jarek, and at the Wolf
brothers, who, seeing the fight was over, had returned. Darll
grinned.
   "They did set up fake soldiers. Sort of."
   Graym cleared his throat. "Well, we'd best get on the
road." He handed the Axe of Just Kidding back to Rhael.
"Business calls, Miss. Glad we could help, and all."
   She brushed his cheek with her finger. "You knew," she
said wonderingly. "Even before you attacked, you knew
Skorm was a fraud."
   Graym looked uncomfortable. "Well, I had an idea.
Couldn't be sure, of course."
   Darll rolled his eyes.
   Graym, feeling awkward, said simply, "Nice meeting
you, Miss." He turned and walked through the graves and
the shattered mock soldiers.
   They collected the cart and the single surviving barrel.
Graym tried, briefly, to find the barrel taps and the rest of
their belongings, then said, "Give it up." They dragged the
cart through the scattered armor, framework, and bones of
the open graves.
   The cart rolled freely. Jarek looked at the single barrel
in it and said happily, "The price of ale must be way up
now."
   "Best thing that could happen, really," Graym said, but he
sounded troubled. He and the Wolf brothers drew the cart
alone. Darll and Jarek walked alongside as they moved up
the last hill before Krinneor. Darll was trying to learn the
second verse of "The Bald Maid and the Barber."
   Fenris, beside Graym, said, "I hate to turn him in."
   Graym nodded. "He's not a bad lot. Wanted to kill us or
jail us, but face it. Who wouldn't?"
   Fanris, on his other side, said, "Can't we just let him
go?"
   Graym stared at the road. "He's expected. We were paid
half in advance. We can't just two-step into Krinneor - "
   "Do we need to go there so bad?" Fenris asked softly.
   Graym looked back at the cart, bouncing easily with
one barrel of ale and no supplies. "It's all we've got left."
   They walked in silence, watching Darll try to teach
Jarek to juggle. The mercenary, even while mocking Jarek's
efforts, had a hand affectionately on the man's shoulder.
   The road cut through a pass and angled to the left.
   Jarek sniffed the air. "I smell something funny."
   "That's the sea, boy," said Graym.
   But Darll looked troubled. "I didn't know there was an
arm of the sea here."
   "A port city," Graym explained. "Not just rich, but a
trade center. We're nearly here. Beyond this curve, we'll see
the road on the shore, probably a lovely seaside view, all
the way to Krinneor - "
   They rounded the comer.
   The hill plunged down to a sandy beach strewn with
rocks. The road ended, half-covered with sand, sloping
down into the water and disappearing. Ahead was water, all
the way to the horizon,.a new sea, still gray with the silt
and mud of the land collapsing and the waters rushing in.
   A half mile out from shore, a group of battered golden
spires stuck upright, barely a man's height above the waves.
Gulls were nesting on them.
   The men rolled the cart to the beach and stood.
   "The golden towers," Fenris said.
   "The marble doors," Fanris said.
   "And excellent drains," said Darll.
   Graym, staring at the spires in shock, murmured, "I
hear that's very important for a city."
   The others laughed for quite a while. Graym sat on a
rock by the shore, staring.
   Jarek moved down the beach, picking up stones to skip.
The Wolf brothers, once they were over their fear of gulls,
took off their boots and went wading. Darll walked up to
Graym. "Where to from here?"
   "Nowhere." Graym stared, unseeing, over the open
water. "No horses, no food, no money. No Krinneor." He
blinked his eyes rapidly. "All gone."
   Darll was shocked. "There's a world out there. You can
start over."
   Behind them, a voice said, "You can stay here."
   Rhael came forward, holding some sort of medallion
and twisting it in her fingers. Her determination was gone;
she looked unsure of herself.
   Graym stared at her a moment. "You knew the truth
about Krinneor, didn't you?"
   "We all knew. No one wanted to tell you before you
helped us."
   "I don't suppose you did, Miss," Graym said heavily.
"And after?"
   "Afterward, Elder Werlow was afraid of you. You're
fierce warriors."
   Darll had the grace not to laugh.
   "So you let us go. Good joke." Graym sighed.
   She twisted the medallion chain almost into a knot. "I
argued with them and said I'd follow you and apologize,
and - and give you this."
   She held up the medallion, realized how twisted it was.
"Sorry." She untwisted the chain nimbly, then dropped it
over Graym's neck. "There."
   The medallion was a small shield with a single piece of
black opal in the shape of an axe. Graym looked down at it.
"It was brave, your coming here when you were
embarrassed. Thank you, Miss. I'll keep this."
   "Until he gets hungry," Darll said bluntly, "then he'll sell
it. He'll have to."
   Rhael ignored the mercenary. "Why not stay in
Graveside?" she asked. She touched the medallion. "To fill
the office that goes with this."
   "Office?" Graym said blankly, opening his eyes.
   "Of Protector," Rhael said. On impulse, she kissed his
cheek. "Please take it. Your men, too. You'll have food and
lodging, and we know we can trust you."
   Graym stared bemusedly at her. "Me, a law officer?"
He turned to Darll. "Would I be any good, sir?"
   "Unless you rob them, you can't do worse than the last
one they had." He looked at the dangling chain. "I suppose
you'll put me in jail there?"
   Graym sighed. "Can't do it, now that I'm their Protector.
Wouldn't be right, would it, sir? I mean, you're their war
hero and all."
   He frowned, concentrating, then smiled and slapped
Darll on the back. "You can go, sir. It's all right. You're
pardoned."
   Darll's jaw fell and he goggled at Graym. "You're
pardoning me?"
   "First offense, like you said, sir. You've matured since
then. Probably be an upstanding citizen of Graveside." He
puckered his brow, thinking, and suddenly brightened. "You
could stay and be my military advisor."
   "You lead? Me advise?" It was too much. Darll shook
his head and walked away, swearing, laughing, and
muttering.
   "What's he upset about?" Jarek asked. "He fought all
right."
   "You all fought wonderfully," Rhael said firmly.
"You're our heroes." She kissed Graym again, then walked
swiftly back through the pass toward Graveside.
   "Heroes?" the Wolf brothers said at once, and laughed.
   Graym said gruffly, "There've been worse."
   Darll looked back up the road toward Graveside, at the
retreating Rhael. "Lucky for them they found us, in fact."
   Graym grinned at the others. "Best thing that could
have happened, really."
   Suddenly he was back at the cart, tugging on one of the
shafts. Darll joined him. "Right, then. Let's get back."
Graym pointed at the remaining barrel of ale. "Skull-Splitter
all around, when we get there, on the house."
   It was a surprisingly fast trip.

                        INTO SHADOW, INTO LIGHT

                           RICHARD A. KNAAK

   The knight stalked across the hellish landscape, sword in hand. The
fog failed to conceal the desolation around him. Gnarled trees and
churned dirt were sights all too familiar after so long. His world, his
cursed world, was always much the same: dry, crackling soil, no sun, no
shadows, no refuge, no life, just endless devastation . . . and
somewhere in the fog, those who ever hunted him.
   The fever burned, but, as always, he forced himself to
withstand the pain. Sweat poured down his face, trickling
into his armor. The plague that coursed through him never
rested. Oddly, it had been a part of him so long that he
probably would have felt lost without it.
   The rusted armor creaked as the knight stumbled up a
small hill. Beneath the rust on his breastplate there could
still be seen a ravaged insignia marking him as a knight of
the Solamnic orders. He rarely looked down at the fading
mark, for it was a mockery of his life, a reminder of why he
had been condemned to this existence.
   The price of being a traitor had been heavier than he had
ever thought possible.
   As he started down the other side of the ravaged hill, the
knight caught sight of something odd, something out of
place in this wasteland. It seemed to glitter, despite the lack
of sunlight, and to the weary knight it was worth more than
a mountain of gold. A stream of clear, cool water flowed no
more than a few yards from where he stood.
   He smiled - a rare smile of hope. The knight staggered
forward, moving as fast as he could manage, ignoring pain,
fatigue, fear. How long since his last drink of water? The
memory escaped him.
   Kneeling before the stream, he closed his eyes. "My
Lord Paladine, I beseech you! Hear this simple prayer! Let
me partake this once! A single sip of water, that is all I ask!"
   The knight leaned forward, reached out toward the
stream . . . and fell back in horror as he stared into its
reflective surface.
   "Paladine preserve me," he muttered. Slowly leaning
forward again, he stared at his image in the stream.
   Pale as a corpse, his face was gaunt, almost skull-like.
Lank, wispy hair - what could be seen beneath his helm