Dragonlance 03 - Dragons of Spring Dawning (2 page)

“Look, Jasla.” I am shaking with excitement. I can barely talk. “We’ve nothing to live on, now—what with the fire and the hard winter. These jewels will bring money enough in the market at Gargath for us to move away from this wretched place. We’ll go to a city, maybe Palanthas! You know you’ve wanted to see the wonders there.…”

“No! Berem, I forbid it! You are committing sacrilege!”

Her voice is stern. I have never seen her like this! For a moment I hesitate. I draw back, away from the broken stone column with its rainbow of jewels. I, too, am beginning to feel something frightening and evil about this place. But the jewels are so beautiful! Even as I stare at them, they glitter and sparkle in the sunshine. No god is here. No god cares about them. No god will miss them. Embedded in some old column that is crumbling and broken
.

I reach down to pry the jewel out of stone with my knife. It is such a rich green, shining as brilliantly as the spring sun shines through the new leaves of the trees.…

“Berem! Stop!”

Her hand grasps my arm, her nails dig into my flesh. It hurts … I grow angry, and, as sometimes happens when I grow angry a haze dims my vision and I feel a suffocating swelling inside of me. My head pounds until it seems my eyes must burst from their sockets
.

“Leave me be!” I hear a roaring voice—my own!

I shove her …

She falls …

It all happens so slowly. She is falling forever. I didn’t mean to … I want to catch her … But I cannot move
.

She falls against the broken column
.

Blood … blood …

“Jas!” I whisper, lifting her in my arms
.

But she doesn’t answer me. Blood covers the jewels. They don’t sparkle anymore. Just like her eyes. The light is gone.…

And then the ground splits apart! Columns rise from the blackened, blasted soil, spiraling into the air! A great darkness comes forth and I feel a horrible, burning pain in my chest.…

“Berem!”

Maquesta stood on the foredeck, glaring at her helmsman.

“Berem, I told you. A gale’s brewing. I want the ship battened down. What are you doing? Standing there, staring out to sea. What are you practicing to be—a monument? Get moving, you lubber! I don’t pay good wages to statues!”

Berem started. His face paled and he cringed before Maquesta’s irritation in such a pitiful manner that the captain of the
Perechon
felt as if she were taking out her anger on a helpless child.

That’s all he is, she reminded herself wearily. Even though he must be fifty or sixty years old, even though he was one of the best helmsmen she had ever sailed with, mentally, he was still a child.

“I’m sorry, Berem,” Maq said, sighing. “I didn’t mean to yell at you. It’s just the storm … it makes me nervous. There, there. Don’t look at me like that. How I wish you could talk! I wish I knew what was going on in that head of yours—if there is anything! Well, never mind. Attend to your duties, then go below. Better get used to lying in your berth for a few days until the gale blows itself out.”

Berem smiled at her—the simple, guileless smile of a child.

Maquesta smiled back, shaking her head. Then she hurried away, her thoughts busy with getting her beloved ship prepared to ride out the gale. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Berem shuffle below, then promptly forgot about him when her first mate came aboard to report that he had found most of the crew and only about one-third of them were so drunk as to be useless.…

Berem lay in the hammock slung in the crew’s quarters of the
Perechon
. The hammock swung back and forth violently as the first winds of the gale struck the
Perechon
as it rode at anchor in the harbor of Flotsam on the Blood Sea of Istar. Putting his hands—the hands that looked too young on the body of a fifty-year-old human—beneath his head, Berem stared up at the lamp swinging from the wooden planks above him.

“
Why, look, Berem. Here’s a path.… How strange. All the times we’ve been hunting in these woods and we’ve never seen it.”

“It’s not so strange. The fire burned off some of the brush, that’s all. Probably just an animal trail.”

“Let’s follow it. If it is an animal trail, maybe we’ll find a deer. We
’ve
been hunting all day with nothing to show for it. I hate to go home empty-handed.”

Without waiting for my reply, she turns onto the trail. Shrugging, I follow her. It is pleasant being outdoors today
—
the first warm day after the bitter chill of winter. The sun is warm on my neck and shoulders. Walking through the fire-ravaged woods is easy. No vines to snag you. No brush to tear at your clothing. Lightning, probably that thunderstorm which struck late last fall.…

BOOK 1

T
he dragonarmy officer slowly descended the stairs from the second floor of the Saltbreeze Inn. It was past midnight. Most of the inn’s patrons had long since gone to bed. The only sound the officer could hear was the crashing of waves of Blood Bay on the rocks below.

The officer paused a moment on the landing, casting a quick, sharp glance around the common room that lay spread out below him. It was empty, except for a draconian sprawled across a table, snoring loudly in a drunken stupor. The dragonman’s wings shivered with each snort. The wooden table creaked and swayed beneath it.

The officer smiled bitterly, then continued down the stairs. He was dressed in the steel dragonscale armor copied from the real dragonscale armor of the Dragon Highlords. His helm covered his head and face, making it difficult to see his features. All
that was visible beneath the shadow cast by the helm was a reddish brown beard that marked him—racially—as human.

At the bottom of the stairs, the officer came to a sudden halt, apparently nonplussed at the sight of the innkeeper, still awake and yawning over his account books. After a slight nod the dragon officer seemed about to go on out of the inn without speaking, but the innkeeper stopped him with a question.

“You expecting the Highlord tonight?”

The officer halted and half turned. Keeping his face averted, he pulled out a pair of gloves and began putting them on. The weather was bitterly chill. The sea city of Flotsam was in the grip of a winter storm the like of which it had not experienced in its three hundred years of existence on the shores of Blood Bay.

“In this weather?” The dragonarmy officer snorted. “Not likely! Not even dragons can outfly these gale winds!”

“True. It’s not a fit night out for man or beast,” the innkeeper agreed. He eyed the dragon officer shrewdly. “What business do you have, then, that takes you out in this storm?”

The dragonarmy officer regarded the innkeeper coldly. “I don’t see that it’s any of your business where I go or what I do.”

“No offense,” the innkeeper said quickly, raising his hands as if to ward off a blow. “It’s just that if the Highlord comes back and happens to miss you, I’d be glad to tell her where you could be found.”

“That won’t be necessary,” the officer muttered. “I—I’ve left her a—note … explaining my absence. Besides, I’ll be back before morning. I—I just need a breath of air. That’s all.”

“I don’t doubt that!” The innkeeper sniggered. “You haven’t left her room for three days! Or should I say three nights! Now, don’t get mad”—this on seeing the officer flush angrily beneath the helm, “I admire the man can keep
her
satisfied that long! Where was she bound for?”

“The Highlord was called to deal with a problem in the west, somewhere near Solamnia,” the officer replied, scowling. “I wouldn’t inquire any further into her affairs if I were you.”

“No, no,” replied the innkeeper hastily. “Certainly not. Well, I bid you good evening. What was your name? She introduced us, but I failed to catch it.”

“Tanis,” the officer said, his voice muffled. “Tanis Half-Elven. And a good evening to you.”

Nodding coldly, the officer gave his gloves a final sharp tug, then, pulling his cloak around him, he opened the door to the inn and stepped out into the storm. The bitter wind swept into the room, blowing out candles and swirling the innkeeper’s papers around. For a moment, the officer struggled with the heavy door while the innkeeper cursed fluently and grabbed for his scattered accounts. Finally the officer succeeded in slamming the door shut behind him, leaving the inn peaceful, quiet, and warm once more.

Staring out after him, the innkeeper saw the officer walk past the front window, his head bent down against the wind, his cloak billowing out behind him.

One other figure watched the officer as well. The instant the door shut, the drunken draconian raised its head, its black, reptilian eyes glittering. Stealthily it rose from the table, its steps quick and certain. Padding lightly on its clawed feet, it crept to the window and peered outside. For a few moments, the draconian waited, then it too flung open the door and disappeared into the storm.

Through the window, the innkeeper saw the draconian head in the same direction as the dragonarmy officer. Walking over, the innkeeper peered out through the glass. It was wild and dark outside, the tall iron braziers of flaming pitch that lit the night streets sputtering and flickering in the wind and the driving rain. But the innkeeper thought he saw the dragonarmy officer turn down a street leading to the main part of town. Creeping along behind him, keeping to the shadows, came the draconian.

Shaking his head, the innkeeper woke the night clerk, who was dozing in a chair behind the desk. “I’ve a feeling the Highlord will be in tonight, storm or no storm,” the innkeeper told the sleepy clerk. “Wake me if she comes.”

Shivering, he glanced outside into the night once more, seeing in his mind’s eye the dragonarmy officer walking the empty streets of Flotsam, the shadowy figure of the draconian slinking after him.

“On second thought,” the innkeeper muttered, “let me sleep.”

The storm shut down Flotsam tonight. The bars that normally stayed open until the dawn straggled through their grimy windows were locked up and shuttered against the
gale. The streets were deserted, no one venturing out into the winds that could knock a man down and pierce even the warmest clothing with biting cold.

Tanis walked swiftly, his head bowed, keeping near the darkened buildings that broke the full force of the gale. His beard was soon rimed with ice. Sleet stung his face painfully. The half-elf shook with the cold, cursing the dragonarmor’s cold metal against his skin. Glancing behind him occasionally, he watched to see if anyone had taken an unusual interest in his leaving the inn. But the visibility was reduced to almost nothing. Sleet and rain swirled around him so that he could barely see tall buildings looming up in the darkness, much less anything else. After a while, he realized he had better concentrate on finding his way through town. Soon he was so numb with cold that he didn’t much care if anyone was following him or not.

He hadn’t been in the town of Flotsam long—only four days to be precise. And most of those days had been spent with her.

Tanis blocked the thought from his mind as he stared through the rain at the street signs. He knew only vaguely where he was going. His friends were in an inn somewhere on the edge of town, away from the wharf, away from the bars and brothels. For a moment he wondered in despair what he would do if he got lost. He dared not ask about them.…

And then he found it. Stumbling through the deserted streets, slipping on the ice, he almost sobbed in relief when he saw the sign swinging wildly in the wind. He hadn’t even been able to remember the name, but now he recognized it—the Jetties.

Stupid name for an inn, he thought, shaking so with the cold he could barely grasp the door handle. Pulling the door open, he was blown inside by the force of the wind, and it was with an effort that he managed to shove the door shut behind him.

There was no night clerk on duty, not at this shabby place. By the light of a smoking fire in the filthy grate, Tanis saw a stub of a candle sitting on the desk, apparently for the convenience of guests who staggered in after hours. His hands shook so he could barely strike the flint. After a moment he forced his cold-stiffened fingers to work, lit the candle, and made his way upstairs by its feeble light.