Dragons of a Vanished Moon Part 20

"Twice I asked you a question," said the death knight. "And while my time in this world is eternal, my patience is not."

"I'm trying to answer, sir," returned Tas meekly, "but you cause the words to get all squeezed up inside of me. I know that this is impolite, but I'm going to have to ask you a question before I can answer yours. When you say "here," what exactly do you mean by that?" He mopped sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his hand and tried to look anywhere except into those red eyes. "I've been to lots of 'heres', and I'm a bit muddled as to where your 'here' is."

Soth's red eyes s.h.i.+fted from Ta.s.slehoff to the Device of Time Journeying, clutched in the kender's stiff fingers. Tas followed the death knight's gaze.

"Oh, uh, this," Tas said, gulping. "Pretty, isn't it? I came across it on my ... er ... last trip. Someone dropped it. I plan on returning it. Isn't it lucky I found it? If you don't mind, I'll just put it away-" He tried to open one of his pouches, but his hands wouldn't quit shaking.

"Don't worry," said Soth. "I won't take it from you. I have no desire for a device that would carry me backward in time. Unless"-he paused, the red eyes grew shadowed-"unless it would take me back to undo what I did. Perhaps then I might make use of it."

Tas knew full well that he could never stop Lord Soth from taking the device if he wanted it, but he meant to give it a good try. The courage that is true courage and not merely the absence of fear rose up in Ta.s.slehoff, and he fumbled for the knife, Rabbit Slayer, that he wore on his belt. He didn't know what good his little knife could do against a death knight, but Tas was a Hero of the Lance. He had to try.

Fortunately, his courage was not tested.

"But what would be the use?" said Lord Soth. "If I had it to do over again, the outcome would be the same. I would make the same decisions, commit the same heinous acts. For that was the man I was."

The red eyes flickered. "If I could go back, knowing what I know, maybe then my actions would be different. But our souls can never go back. They can only go forward. And some of us are not even permitted to do that. Not until we have learned the hard lessons life-and death-teach us."

His voice, already cold, grew colder still, so that Tas stopped sweating and began to s.h.i.+ver.

"And now we are no longer given the chance to do that."

The red eyes flared again. "To answer your question, kender, you are in the Fifth Age, the so-called 'Age of Mortals'." The helmed head s.h.i.+fted. He lifted his hand. The tattered cape he wore stirred with his motion. "You stand in the garden of what was once my dwelling place and is now my prison."

"Are you going to kill me?" Tas asked, more because it was a question he might be expected to ask than because he felt threatened. A person has to take notice of you in order to threaten you, and Tas had the distinct impression that he was of less interest to this undead lord than the withered stems or the dried-up rose petals.

"Why should I kill you, kender?" Soth asked. "Why should I bother?"

Tas gave the matter considerable thought. In truth, he could find no real reason why Soth should kill him, other than one.

"You're a death knight, my lord," Tas said. "Isn't killing people your job?"

"Death was not my job," Soth replied tonelessly. "Death was my joy. And death was my torment. My body has died, but my soul remains alive. As the torture victim suffers in agony when he feels the red-hot brand sear his flesh, so I suffer daily, my soul seared with my rage, my shame, my guilt. I have sought to end it, sought to drown the pain in blood, ease the pain with ambition. I was promised that the pain would end. I was promised that if I helped my G.o.ddess achieve her reward, I would be given my reward. My pain would end, and my soul would be freed. These promises were not kept."

The red eyes flicked over Ta.s.slehoff, then roved restlessly to the withered and blackened roses.

"Once I killed out of ambition, for pleasure and for spite. No more. None of that has any meaning to me now. None of that drowned the pain.

"Besides," Soth added off-handedly, "in your case, why should I bother to kill you? You are already dead. You died in the Fourth Age, in the last second of the Fourth Age. That is why I ask, why are you here? How did you find this place, when even the G.o.ds cannot see where it is hidden?"

"So I am am dead," Tas said to himself with a little sigh. "I guess that settles it." dead," Tas said to himself with a little sigh. "I guess that settles it."

He was thinking it strange that he and Lord Soth should have something in common, when a voice, a living voice, called out, "My lord! Lord Soth! I seek an audience with you!"

A hand closed over the kender's mouth. Another strong hand wrapped around him, and he was suddenly enveloped in the folds of soft black robes, as if night had taken on shape and form and dropped over his head. He could see nothing. He could not speak, could barely breathe, for the hand was positioned right over his nose and mouth. All he could smell-oddly enough- was rose-petals.

Tas might have strongly protested this rude behavior, but he recognized the living voice that had called out to Lord Soth, and he was suddenly quite glad that he had the strange hand to help him keep quiet, for even though sometimes he meant to be very quiet, words had a tendency to leap out of his throat before he could stop them.

Tas wriggled a bit to try to free up his nose for breathing, which-dead or not-his body required him to do. This accomplished, he held perfectly still.

Lord Soth did not immediately answer the call. He, too, recognized the person who had called out, although he had never before met her or seen her. He knew her because the two of them were bound together by the same chain, served the same master. He knew why she had come to him, knew what she meant to ask of him. He did not know what his answer would be, however. He knew what he wanted it to be, yet doubted if he had the courage.

Courage. He smiled bitterly. Once he'd imagined himself afraid of nothing. Over time, he'd come to realize he'd been afraid of everything. He had lived his life in fear: fear of failure, fear of weakness, fear that people would despise him if they truly knew him. Most of all, he had feared she would despise him, once she found out that the man she adored was just an ordinary man, not the paragon of virtue and courage she believed him.

He had been given knowledge by the G.o.ds that might have prevented the Cataclysm. He had been riding to Istar when he had been confronted by a group of elven women, misguided followers of the Kingpriest. They told him lies about his wife, told him she had been unfaithful to him and that the child she carried was not his. His fear caused him to believe their stories, and he had turned back from the path that might have been his salvation. Fear had stopped his ears to his wife's protestations of innocence. Fear had made him murder that which he truly loved.

He stood thinking of this, remembering it all yet again, as he had been doomed to remember so many, many times.

Once more he stood in the blooming garden where she tended the roses with her own hands, not trusting the gardener he had hired to do the work for her. He looked with concern at her hands, her fair skin torn and scratched, marred with drops of blood.

"Is it worth it?" he asked her. "The roses cause you so much pain."

"The pain lasts for but a moment," she told him. "The joy of their beauty lasts for days."

"Yet with winter's chill breath, they wither and die."

"But I have the memory of them, my love, and that brings me joy."

Not joy, he thought. Not joy, but torment. Memory of her smile, her laughter. Memory of the sorrow in her eyes as the life faded from them, taken by my hand. Memory of her curse.

Or was it a curse? I thought so then, but now I wonder. Perhaps it was, in truth, her blessing on me.

Leaving the garden of dead roses, he entered the manor house that had stood for centuries, a monument to death and fear. He took his seat in the chair that was covered with the dust of ages, dust that his incorporeal body never disturbed. He sat in that chair and stared, as he had stared for hour after hour after hour, at the bloodstain upon the floor.

There she fell.

There she died.

For eons he had been doomed to hear the recital of his wrongs sung to him by the spirits of those elven women who had been his undoing and who were cursed to live a life that was no life, an existence of torment and regret. He had not heard their voices since the Fifth Age began. How many years that was he did not know, for time had no meaning to him. The voices were part of the Fourth Age, and they had remained with the Fourth Age.

Forgiven, at last. Granted permission to leave.

He sought forgiveness, but it was denied him. He was angry at the denial, as his queen had known he would be. His anger snared him. Thus Takhisis caught him in her trap and bound him fast and carried him here to continue on his wretched existence, waiting for her call.

The call had come. Finally.

Footsteps of the living brought him out of his dark reverie. He looked up to see this representative of Her Dark Majesty and saw a child clad in armor, or so he first thought. Then he saw that what he had mistaken for a child was a girl on the edge of womanhood. He was reminded of Kitiara, the only being who had, for a brief time, been able to ease his torment. Kitiara, who never knew fear except once, at the very end of her life, when she looked up to see him coming for her. It was then, when he gazed into her terror-stricken eyes, that he understood himself. She had given him that much, at least.

Kitiara was gone now, too, her soul moving on to wherever it needed to go. Was this to be another? Another Kitiara, sent to seduce him?

No, he realized, looking into the amber eyes of the girl who stood before him. This was not Kitiara, who had done what she did for her own reasons, who had served no one but herself. This girl did all for glory-the glory of the G.o.d. Kitiara had never willingly sacrificed anything in order to achieve her goals. This girl had sacrificed everything, emptied herself, left herself a vessel to be filled by the G.o.d.

Soth saw the tiny figures of thousands of beings held fast in the amber eyes. He felt the warm amber slide over him, try to capture and hold him, just another insect.

He shook his helmed head. "Don't bother, Mina," he told the girl. "I know too much. I know the truth."

"And what is that truth?" Mina asked. The amber eyes tried again to seize hold of him. She was not one to give up, this woman-child.

"That your mistress will use you and then abandon you," Soth said. "She will betray you, as she has betrayed everyone who ever served her. I know her of old, you see."

He felt the stirrings of his queen's anger, but he chose to ignore it. Not now, he told her. You cannot use that against me now.

Mina was not angry. She seemed saddened by his response. "How can you say that of her when she went to such trouble to bring you with her? You are the only one so honored. All the rest . . ." She waved her hand to indicate the chamber, empty of its ghosts, or so it must seem to her. To him, the chamber was crowded. "All the rest were banished to oblivion. You alone were granted the privilege of remaining with this world."

"Oblivion is it? Once I believed that. Once I feared the darkness, and thus she kept her hold on me. Now I know differently Death is not oblivion. Death frees the soul to travel onward."

Mina smiled, pitying his ignorance. "You are the one who has been deceived. The souls of the dead went nowhere. They vanished into the mist, wasted, forgotten. The One G.o.d now takes the souls of the dead unto her and gives them the opportunity to remain in this world and continue to act for the good of the world."

"For the good of the G.o.d, you mean," said Soth. He stirred in his chair, which gave him no comfort. "Let us say I find myself grateful to this G.o.d for the privilege of remaining in the world. Knowing this G.o.d as I do of old, I know that she expects my grat.i.tude to take on a tangible form. What is it she requires of me?"

"Within a few days time, armies of both the living and the dead will sweep down on Sanction. The city will fall to my might." Mina did not speak with bravado. She stated a fact, nothing more. "At that time, the One G.o.d will perform a great miracle. She will enter the world as she was long meant to do, join the realms of the mortal and the immortal. When she exists in both realms, she will conquer the world, rid it of such vermin as the elves, and establish herself as the ruler of Krynn. I am to be made captain of the army of the living. The One G.o.d offers you the captaincy of the army of the dead."

"She 'offers' me this?" Soth asked.

"Offers it. Yes, of course," said Mina.

"Then she will not be offended if I turn down her offer," said Soth.

"She would not be offended," Mina replied, "but she would be deeply grieved at your ingrat.i.tude, after all that she has done for you."

"All she has done for me." Soth smiled. "So this is why she brought me here. I am to be a slave leading an army of slaves. My answer to this generous offer is 'no.'

"You made a mistake, my queen," called Soth, speaking to the shadows, where he knew she lay coiled, waiting. "You used my anger to keep your talons in me, and you dragged me here so that you could make use of me still. But you left me alone too long. You left me to the silence in which I could once more hear my wife's beloved voice. You left me to the darkness that became my light, for I could once more see my wife's beloved face. I could see myself, and I saw a man consumed by his fear. And it was then I saw you for what you are.

"I fought for you, Queen Takhisis. I believed your cause was mine. The silence taught me that it was you who fed my fear, raising around me a ring of fire from which I could never escape. The fire has gone out now, my queen. All around me is nothing but ashes."

"Beware, my lord," said Mina, and her tone was dire. "If you refuse this, you risk the G.o.d's anger."

Lord Soth rose to his feet. He pointed to a stain upon the stone floor.

"Do you see that?"

"I see nothing," said Mina, with an indifferent glance, "nothing except the cold, gray rock."

"I see a pool of blood," said Lord Soth. "I see my beloved wife lying in her blood. I see the blood of all those who perished because my fear kept me from accepting the blessing the G.o.ds offered to me. Long have I been forced to stare at that stain, and long have I loathed the very sight of it. Now, I kneel on it," he said, bending his knees on the stone, "I kneel in her blood and the blood of all who died because I was afraid. I beg her to forgive me for the wrong I did to her. I beg them all to forgive me."

"There can be no forgiveness," said Mina sternly. "You are cursed. The One G.o.d will cast your soul into the darkness of unending pain and torment. Is this what you choose?"

"Death is what I choose," said Lord Soth. Reaching beneath the breast plate of his armor, he drew forth a rose. The rose was long dead, but its vibrant color had not faded. The rose was red as her lips, red as her blood. "If death brings unending torment, then I accept that as my fitting punishment."

Lord Soth saw Mina reflected in the red fire of his soul. "Your G.o.d has lost her hold on me. I am no longer afraid."

Mina's amber eyes hardened in anger. Turning on her heel, she left him kneeling on the cold stone, his head bowed, his hands clasped over the thorns and dried leaves and crumpled petals of the red rose. Mina's footfalls reverberated through the manor house, shook the floor on which he knelt, shook the charred and broken walls, shook the blackened beams.

He felt pain, physical pain, and he looked in wonder at his hand. The accursed armor was gone. The thorns of the dead rose pierced his flesh. A tiny drop of blood gleamed on his skin, more red than the petals.

A beam above him gave way and crashed down beside him. Shards of splintered wood flew from the shattered beam, punctured his flesh. He gritted his teeth against the pain of his wounds. This was the Dark Queen's last, desperate attempt to keep her hold on him. He had been given back his mortal body.

She would never know, but she had, in her ignorance, granted him a final blessing.

She lay coiled in the shadows, certain of her triumph, waiting for his fear to once more bind him to her, waiting for him to cry out that he had been wrong, waiting for him to plead and grovel for her to spare him.

Lord Soth lifted the rose to his lips. He kissed the petals, then scattered them over the blood that stained the gray stone red. He cast off the helm that had been his flesh and bone for so many empty years. He tore off the breastplate and hurled it far from him, so that it struck the wall with a clank and a clatter.

Another beam fell, hurled by a vengeful hand. The beam struck him, crushed his body, drove him to the floor. His blood flowed freely, mingled with his dear wife's blood. He did not cry out. The pain of dying was agony, but it was an agony that would soon end. He could bear the pain for her sake, for the pain her soul had born for him.

She would not be waiting for him. She had long ago made her own journey, carrying in her arms their son. He would make his solitary way after them, lost, alone, seeking.

He might never find them, the two he had so wronged, but he would dedicate eternity to the search.

In that search, he would be redeemed.

Mina stalked through the rose garden. Her face was livid and cold as a face carved of marble. She did not look back to see the final destruction of Dargaard Keep.

Ta.s.slehoff, peeping out from behind a fold of blackness, saw her leave. He did not see where she went for at that moment the ma.s.sive structure collapsed, falling in upon itself with a thunderous crash that sent clouds of dust and debris roiling up into the air.

A gigantic block of stone smashed down into the rose garden. He was extremely surprised to find that he wasn't underneath it, for it fell right where he'd been standing, but, like thistledown, he floated on the winds of ruin and death and was lifted above them into the pure, chill blue of a cloudless, sunlit sky.

9.

Attack on Sanction.

The city of Sanction had been besieged for months. The Dark Knights threw everything they had against it. Countless numbers died in the shadows of Sanction's walls, on both sides of Sanction's walls, died for no reason, for the siege could not be broken. When Mina's army marched into view, Sanction's defenders laughed to see it, for how could such pitifully small numbers of men make any difference?

They did not laugh long. The city of Sanction fell to the army of souls in a single day.

Nothing could halt the advance of the dead. The moats of sluggish, hot lava flowing from the Lords of Doom that kept the living at bay, were no barrier to the souls. The newly built and strengthened earthwork fortifications against which the army of the Dark Knights had thrown themselves time and again without success now stood as monuments to futility. The thick, gray mist of hapless souls flowed down the sides of the mountains, filled the valleys like a rising tide, and boiled up and over the fortifications. Besieger and besieged alike fled before the terrifying dead.

Mina's sappers had no need to batter down the gates that led into the city or breach the walls. Her troops had only to wait until the gates were flung open from within by the panic-stricken defenders. Fleeing the army of the dead, they soon joined their ranks. Mina's Knights, hidden among the ghastly mist, cut down the living without mercy. Led by Gaidar, the army stormed through the gates to do battle in the city.

Mina fought her battles in the foothills around Sanction, doing what she could to quell the panic of the army of besiegers, who were just as terrified as their enemy. She rode among them, halting their flight, urging them back to battle.

She seemed to be everywhere upon the battlefield, galloping swiftly on her red horse to wherever she was needed. She rode without care for her own safety, often leaving her bodyguards far behind, spurring their steeds frantically to keep up.

Gerard did not take part in the battle. True to her word, Mina posted him and his prisoner, the elf king, atop a ridgeline overlooking the city.

Along with the elf, Gerard and four other Dark Knights guarded the wagon carrying the amber sarcophagus of Goldmoon and the two dead wizards. Odila rode with the wagon. Like Gerard, her gaze was fixed on the battle in which she could take no part. Frustrated, helpless to do anything to aid his fellow Knights, Gerard followed the battle from his detested safe vantage point. Mina shone with a pale, fey light that made her a rallying point anywhere on the field.

"What is that strange fog that fills the valley?" Silvanoshei asked, staring down from his horse in wonder.

"That strange fog is not fog, Your Majesty. That is an army of dead souls," Gerard answered grimly.

"Even the dead adore her," Silvanoshei said. "They come to fight for her."