Dragonlance 02 - Dragons of Winter Night (10 page)

Flint, who had been able to follow only bits and pieces of the conversation in elven, nudged Tanis. “She and the knight will get on perfectly.” He snorted. “Unless their honor gets them killed first.” Before Tanis could reply, Sturm rejoined the group.

“Tanis,” Sturm said in excitement, “the knights have found the ancient library! That’s why they’re here. They discovered records in Palanthas saying that in ancient times knowledge of dragons was kept in the library here, at Tarsis. The Knights Council sent them to see if the library still survived.”

Sturm gestured for the knights to come forward. “This is Brian Donner, Knight of the Sword,” he said. “Aran Tallbow, Knight of the Crown, and Derek Crownguard, Knight of the Rose.” The knights bowed.

“And this is Tanis Half-Elven, our leader,” Sturm said. The half-elf saw Alhana start and look at him in wonder, glancing at Sturm to see if she had heard correctly.

Sturm introduced Gilthanas and Flint, then he turned to Alhana. “Lady Alhana,” he began, then stopped, embarrassed, realizing he knew nothing more about her.

“Alhana Starbreeze,” Gilthanas finished. “Daughter of the Speaker of the Stars. Princess of the Silvanesti elves.”

The knights bowed again, lower this time.

“Accept my heartfelt gratitude for rescuing me,” Alhana said coolly. Her gaze encompassed all the group but lingered longest on Sturm. Then she turned to Derek, whom she knew from his Order of the Rose to be the leader. “Have you discovered the records the Council sent you to find?”

As she spoke, Tanis examined the knights, now unhooded, with interest. He, too, knew enough to know that the Knights Council—the ruling body of the Solamnic knights—had sent the best. In particular he studied Derek, the elder and the highest in rank. Few knights attained the Order of the Rose. The tests were dangerous and difficult, and only knights of pure bloodline could belong.

“We have found a book, my lady,” Derek said, “written in an ancient language we could not understand. There were pictures of dragons, however, so we were planning to copy it and return to Sancrist where, we hoped, scholars would be able to translate it. But instead we have found one who can read it. The kender—”

“Tasslehoff!” Flint exploded.

Tanis’s mouth gaped open. “Tasslehoff?” he repeated incredulously. “He can barely read Common. He doesn’t know any ancient languages. The only one among us who might possibly be able to translate an ancient language is Raistlin.”

Derek shrugged. “The kender has a pair of glasses he says are ‘magical glasses of true seeing.’ He put them on and he has been able to read the book. It says—”

“I can imagine what it says!” Tanis snapped. “Stories about automatons and magic rings of teleporting and plants that live off air. Where is he? I’m going to have a little talk with Tasslehoff Burrfoot.”

“Magical glasses of true seeing,” Flint grumbled. “And I’m a gully dwarf!”

The companions entered a shattered building. Climbing over rubble, they followed Derek’s lead through a low archway. The smell of must and mildew was strong. The darkness was intense after the brightness of the afternoon sun outside and for a moment, everyone was blinded. Then Derek lit a torch, and they saw narrow, winding stairs leading down into more darkness.

“The library was built below ground,” Derek explained. “Probably the only reason it survived the Cataclysm so well.”

The companions descended the stairs rapidly and soon found themselves inside a huge room. Tanis caught his breath and even Alhana’s eyes widened in the flickering torchlight. The gigantic room was filled from ceiling to floor with tall, wooden shelves, stretching as far as the eye could see. On the shelves were books. Books of all kinds. Books with leather bindings, books bound in wood, books bound in what looked like leaves from some exotic tree. Many were not bound at all but were simply sheaves of parchment, held together with black ribbons. Several shelves had toppled over, spilling the books to the floor until it was ankle-deep in parchment.

“There must be thousands!” Tanis said in awe. “How did you ever find one among these?”

Derek shook his head. “It was not easy,” he said. “Long days we have spent down here, searching. When we discovered it at last, we felt more despair than triumph, for it was obvious that the book cannot be moved. Even as we touched the pages, they crumbled to dust. We feared we would spend long, weary hours copying it. But the kender—”

“Right, the kender,” Tanis said grimly. “Where is he?”

“Over here!” piped a shrill voice.

Tanis peered through the dimly lit room to see a candle burning on a table. Tasslehoff, seated on a high wooden chair, was bent over a thick book. As the companions neared him, they could see a pair of small glasses perched on his nose.

“All right, Tas,” Tanis said. “Where did you get them?”

“Get what?” the kender asked innocently. He saw Tanis’s eyes narrow and put his hand to the small wire-rimmed glasses. “Oh, uh, these? I had them in a pouch … and, well, if you must know, I found them in the dwarven kingdom—”

Flint groaned and put his hand over his face.

“They were just lying on a table!” Tas protested, seeing Tanis scowl. “Honest! There was no one around. I thought perhaps someone misplaced them. I only took them for safe-keeping. Good thing, too. Some thief might have come along and stolen them, and they’re very valuable! I meant to return them, but after that we were so busy, what with fighting dark dwarves and draconians and finding the Hammer, and I—sort of—forgot I had them. When I remembered them, we were miles away from the dwarves, on our way to Tarsis, and I didn’t think you’d want me to go back, just to return them, so—”

“What do they do?” Tanis interrupted the kender, knowing they’d be here until the day after tomorrow if he didn’t.

“They’re wonderful,” Tas said hastily, relieved that Tanis wasn’t going to yell at him. “I left them lying on a map one day.” Tas patted his mapcase. “I looked down and what do you suppose? I could read the writing on the map through the glasses! Now, that doesn’t sound very wonderful,” Tas said hurriedly, seeing Tanis start to frown again, “but this was a map written in a language I’d never been able to understand before. So I tried them on all my maps and I could read them, Tanis! Every one! Even the real, real old ones!”

“And you never mentioned this to us?” Sturm glared at Tas.

“Well, the subject just never came up,” Tas said apologetically. “Now, if you had asked me directly—‘Tasslehoff, do you have a pair of magical seeing glasses?—’ I would have told you the truth straight off. But you never did, Sturm Brightblade, so don’t look at me like that. Anyway, I can read this old book. Let me tell you what I—”

“How do you know they’re magic and not just some mechanical device of the dwarves?” Tanis asked, sensing that Tas was hiding something.

Tas gulped. He had been hoping Tanis wouldn’t ask him
that
question.

“Uh,” Tas stammered, “I—I guess I did sort of, happened to, uh, mention them to Raistlin one night when you were all busy doing something else. He told me they might be magic. To find out, he said one of those weird spells of his and they—uh—began to glow. That meant they were enchanted. He asked me what they did and I demonstrated and he said they were ‘glasses of true seeing.’ The dwarven magic-users of old made them to read books written in other languages and—” Tas stopped.

“And?” Tanis pursued.

“And—uh—magic spellbooks.” Tas’s voice was a whisper.

“And what else did Raistlin say?”

“That if I touched his spellbooks or even looked at them sideways, he’d turn me into a cricket and s-swallow m-me whole,” Tasslehoff stammered. He looked up at Tanis with wide eyes. “I believed him, too.”

Tanis shook his head. Trust Raistlin to come up with a threat awful enough to quench the curiosity of a kender. “Anything else?” he asked.

“No, Tanis,” Tas said innocently. Actually Raistlin
had
mentioned something else about the glasses, but Tas hadn’t been able to understand it very well. Something about the glasses seeing things too truly, which didn’t make any sense, so he figured it probably wasn’t worth bringing up. Besides, Tanis was mad enough already.

“Well, what have you discovered?” Tanis asked grudgingly.

“Oh, Tanis, it’s so interesting!” Tas said, thankful the ordeal was over. He carefully turned a page and, even as he did so, it split and cracked beneath his small fingers. He shook his head sadly. “That happens almost every time. But you can see
here”—the others leaned around to stare beneath the kender’s finger—“pictures of dragons. Blue dragons, red dragons, black dragons, green dragons. I didn’t know there were so many. Now, see this thing?” He turned another page. “Oops. Well, you can’t see it now, but it was a huge ball of glass. And—so the book says—if you have one of these glass balls, you can gain control over the dragons and they’ll do what you say!”

“Glass ball!” Flint sniffed, then sneezed. “Don’t believe him, Tanis. I think the only thing those glasses have done is magnify his tall stories.”

“I am
so
telling the truth!” Tas said indignantly. “They’re called dragon orbs, and you can ask Raistlin about them! He must know because, according to this, they were made by the great wizards, long ago.”

“I believe you,” Tanis said gravely, seeing that Tasslehoff was really upset. “But I’m afraid it won’t do us much good. They were probably all destroyed in the Cataclysm and we wouldn’t know where to look anyway—”

“Yes, we do,” Tas said excitedly. “There’s a list here, of where they were kept. See—” He stopped, cocking his head. “Shhhh,” he said, listening. The others fell silent. For a moment they heard nothing, then their ears caught what the kender’s quicker hearing had already detected.

Tanis felt his hands grow cold; the dry, bitter taste of fear filled his mouth. Now he could hear, in the distance, the sound of hundreds of horns braying, horns all of them had heard before. The bellowing, brass horns that heralded the approach of the draconian armies—and the approach of the dragons.

The horns of death.

T
he companions had just reached the marketplace when the first flight of dragons struck Tarsis.

The group had separated from the knights, not a pleasant parting. The knights had tried to convince them to escape with them into the hills. When the companions refused, Derek demanded that Tasslehoff accompany them, since the kender alone knew the location of the dragon orbs. Tanis knew Tas would only run away from the knights and was forced to refuse again.

“Bring the kender, Sturm, and come with us,” Derek commanded, ignoring Tanis.

“I cannot, sir,” Sturm replied, laying his hand on Tanis’s arm. “He is my leader, and my first loyalty is to my friends.”

Derek’s voice was cold with anger. “If that is your decision,” he answered, “I cannot stop you. But this is a black
mark against you, Sturm Brightblade. Remember that you are not a knight. Not yet. Pray that I am not there when the question of your knighthood comes before the Council.”

Sturm became as pale as death. He cast a sideways glance at Tanis, who tried to hide his astonishment at this startling news. But there was no time to think about it. The sound of the horns, screaming discordantly on the chill air, was coming closer and closer each second. The knights and the companions parted; the knights heading for their camp in the hills, the companions returning to town.

They found the townspeople outside their houses, speculating on the strange horn calls, which they had never heard before and did not understand. One Tarsian alone heard and understood. The Lord in the council chamber rose to his feet at the sound. Whirling, he turned upon the smug-looking draconian seated in the shadows behind him.

“You said we would be spared!” the Lord said through clenched teeth. “We’re still negotiating—”

“The Dragon Highlord grew weary of negotiation,” the draconian said, stifling a yawn. “And the city
will
be spared—after it has been taught a lesson, of course.”

The Lord’s head sank into his hands. The other council members, not fully comprehending what was happening, stared at each other in horrified awareness as they saw tears trickle through the Lord’s fingers.

Outside, the red dragons were visible in the skies, hundreds of them. Flying in regimented groups of three to five, their wings glistened flame red in the setting sun. The people of Tarsis knew one thing and one thing only: death flew overhead.

As the dragons swooped low, making their first passes over the town, the dragonfear flowed from them, spreading panic more deadly than fire. The people had one thought in their minds as the shadows of the wings blotted out the dying light of day—escape.

But there was no escape.

After the first pass, knowing now that they would meet no resistance, the dragons struck. One after the other, they circled, then dropped from the sky like red-hot shot, their fiery breath engulfing building after building with flame. The spreading fires created their own windstorms. Choking smoke filled the
street, turning twilight into midnight. Ash poured down like black rain. Screams of terror changed to screams of agony as people died in the blazing abyss that was Tarsis.