Dragonlance 15 - Dragons Of A Fallen Sun (45 page)

pockets, looked down his shirtfront, felt all about his pant legs. "I

know it's here somewhere. . ."

Palin looked accusingly at the knight. "If this artifact is as

valuable as you describe, sir, why did you allow it to remain in

the kender's possession? If it is still in his possession-"

"I didn't, sir," Gerard said defensively. "I've taken it away

from him I don't know how many times. The artifact keeps going

back to him. He says that's how it works."

Palin's heartbeat quickened. His blood warmed. His hands,

that seemed always cold and numb, tingled with life. Laurana

had risen involuntarily to her feet.

"Palin! You don't suppose. . ." she began.

"I found it!" Tas announced in triumph. He dTagged the arti-

fact out of his boot. "Would you like to hold it, Palin? It won't

hurt you or anything."

The artifact had been small enough to fit inside the kender's

small boot. Yet as Tas held it out, the kender had to hold the

device with both hands. Yet Palin had not seen it change shape or

enlarge. It was as if it was always the shape and size it was meant

to be, no matter what the circumstances. If anything changed, it

was the viewer's perception of the artifact, not the artifact itself.

Jewels of antiquity-rubies, sapphires, diamonds and emer-

ald&-Sparkled and glittered in the sunlight, catching the sun-

splashed on the walls and the floor and shining up from the

kender's cupped hands.

Palin started to reach out his own crippled hands to hold the

device, then he hesitated. He was suddenly afraid. He did not

fear that the artifact might do him some harm. He knew perfectly

well it wouldn't. He had seen the artifact when he was a boy. His

father had shown it off proudly to his children. In addition, Palin

recognized the device from his studies when he was a youth. He

had seen drawings of it in the books in the Tower of High Sorcery.

This was the Device of Time Journeying, one of the greatest and

most powerful of all the artifacts ever created by the masters of

the Towers. It would not harm him, yet it would do him terrible,

irrevocable damage.

Palin knew from experience the pleasure he would feel when

he touched the artifact: he would sense the old magic, the pure

magic, the loved magic, the magic that came to him untainted,

freely given, a gift of faith, a blessing from the gods. He would

sense the magic, but only faintly, as one senses the smell of rose

leaves, pressed between the pages of a book, their sweet fragrance

only a memory. And because it was only a memory, after the pleas-

ure would come the pain-the aching, searing pain of loss.

But he could not help himself. He said to himself, "Perhaps

this time I will be able to hold onto it. Perhaps this time with this

artifact, the magic will come back to me."

Palin touched the artifact with trembling, twisted fingers.

Glory. . . brilliance. . . surrender. . .

Palin cried out, his broken fingers clenched over the artifact.

The jewels cut into the flesh of his hand.

Truth. . . beauty. . . art. . . life. . .

Tears burned his eyelids, slid down his cheeks.

Death. . . loss. . . emptiness. . .

Palin sobbed harshly, bitterly for what was lost. He wept

for his father's death, wept for the three moons that had van-

ished from the sky, wept for his broken hands, wept for his

own betrayal of all that he had believed in, wept for his own

inconstancy, his own desperate need to try to find the ecstasy

again.

"He is ill. Should we do something?" Gerard asked uneasily.

"No, Sir Knight. Leave him be," Laurana admonished gently.

"There is nothing we can do for him. There is nothing we should

do formm. This is necessary to him. Though he suffers now, he

will be better for this release." -

"I'm sorry, Palin," Tasslehoff cried remorsefully. "I didn't

think it would hurt you. Honestly, I didn't! It never hurt me."

"Of course it would not hurt you, wretched kender!" Palin re-

turned, the pain a living thing inside him, twisting and coiling

around his heart so that it fluttered in his chest like a frantic bird

caught by the snake. "To you it is nothing but a pretty toy! To me

it is an opiate that brings blissful, wondrous dreams." His voice

cracked. "Until the effect wears off. The dreams end and I must

wake again to drudgery and despair, wake to the bitter, mundane

reality."

He clenched his hand over the device, quenched the light of

its jewels. "Once," he said, his voice tight, "I might have crafted a

marvelous and powerful artifact such as this. Once I might have

been what you claim I was--Head of the Order of White Robes.

Once I might have had the future my uncle foresaw for me. Once

I might have been a wizard, gifted, puissant, powerful. I look at

this device and that is what I see. But I look into a mirror and I see

something far different."

He opened his hand. He could not see the device for his bitter

tears. He could see only the light of its magic, glinting and wink-

ing, mocking. "My magic dwindles, my powers grow weaker

I, every day. Without the magic, there is one hope left for us--to

hope that death is better thaJ1 this dismal life!"

"Palin, you must not speak like that!" Laurana said sternly.

"So we thought in the dark days before the War of the Lance. I re-

member Raistlin saying something to the effect that hope was the

carrot dangled before the nose of the cart horse to fool him into

plodding forward. Yet we did plod forward and, in the end, we

were rewarded."

"We were," said Tas. "I ate the carrot."

"We were rewarded all right," Palin said, sneering. "With this

wretched world in which we find ourselves!"

The artifact was painful to his touch-indeed, he had clutched

so tightly that the sharp-edged jewels had cut him. But still he

held it fast, carressing it covetously. The pain was so much

preferable to the feeling of numbness.

Gerard cleared his throat, looked embarrassed.

"I take it, sir, that I was right," he said diffidently. "This is a

powerful artifact of the Fourth Age?"

"It is," Palin answered.

They waited for him to say more, but he refused to indulge

them. He wanted them to leave. He wanted to be alone. He

wanted to sort out his thoughts that were running hither and yon

like rats in a cave when someone lights a torch. Scuttling down

dark holes, crawling into crevices and some staring with glitter-

ing, fascinated eyes at the blazing fire. He had to endure them,

their foolishiness, their inane questions. He had to hear the rest of

Tasslehoff's tale.

"Tell me what happened, Tas," Palin said. "None of your

woolly mammoth stories. This is very important."

"I understand," Tas said, impressed. "1'11 tell the truth. I

promise. It all started one day when I was attending the fu-

neral of an extremely good kender friend I'd met the day

before. She'd had an unfortunate encounter with a bugbear.

What happened was. . . er . . ."- Tas caught sight of Palin's

brows constricting-"never mind, as the gnomes say. I'll tell

you that story later. Anyhow during her funeral, it occurred to

me that very few kender ever live long enough to be what you

might call old. I've already lived a lot longer than most kender

I know and I suddenly realized that Caramon was likely to

live a lot longer than I was. The one thing I really, really

wanted to do before I was dead was to tell everyone what a

good friend Caramon had been to me. It seemed to me that the

best time to do this would be at his funeral. But if Caramon

outlived me, then me going to his funeral would be something

of a problem.

"Anyway, I was talking to Fizban one day and I explained this

and he said that he thought what I wanted to do was a fine and

noble thing and he could fix it up. I could speak at Caramon's fu-

neral by traveling to the time when the funeral was taking place.

And he gave me this device and told me how it worked and gave

me strict instructions to just jump ahead, talk at the funeral, and

come straight back. 'No gallivanting,' he said. By the way," Tas

asked anxiously, "you don't think he'd consider this trip 'galli-

vanting,' do you? Because I'm finding that I really am enjoying

seeing all my friends again. It's much more fun than being

stepped on by a giant."

"Go on with the story, Tas," Palin said tersely. "We'll discuss

that later."

"Yes, right. So I used the device and I jumped forward in time,

but, well, you know that Fizban gets things a bit muddled now

and then. He's always forgetting his name or where his hat is

when it's right on his head or forgetting how to cast a fireball

spell and so I guess he just miscalculated. Because when I jumped

forward in time the first time, Caramon's funeral was over. I'd

missed it. I arrived just in time for refreshments. And while I did

have a nice visit visiting with everyone and the cream cheese

puffs Jenna made were truly scrumptious, I wasn't able to do

what I'd meant to do all along. Remembering that I'd promised

Fizban no gallivanting, I went back.

"And, to be honest"- Tas hung his head and shuffled his

foot-"after that, I forgot all about speaking at Caramon's fu-

neral. I had a really good reason. The Chaos war came and we

were fighting shadow wights and I met Dougan and Usha, your

wife, you know, Palin. It was all immensely interesting and excit-

ing. And now the world is about to come to an end and there's

this horrible giant about to smash me flat and it was at that pre-

cise moment that I remembered that I hadn't spoken at Cara-

mon's funeral. So I activated the device really quickly and came

here to say what a good friend Caramon was before the giant

steps on me." .

Gerard was shaking his head. "This is ridiculous."

"Excuse me," said Tas, stem in his turn. "It's not polite to in-

terrupt. So anyway I came here and ended up in the Tomb and

Gerard found me and took me to see Caramon. And I was able to

tell him what I was going to say about him at the funeral, which

he enjoyed immensely, only nothing was like I remembered it the

first time. I told that to Caramon, too, and he seemed really wor-

ried, but he dropped dead before he had time to do anything

about it. And then he couldn't find Raistlin when he knew that

Raistlin would never go on to the next life without his twin.

Which is why I think he said I was to talk to Dalamar.1I Tas drew

in a deep breath, having expended most of his air on his tale.

"And that's why I'm here."

"Do you believe this, my lady?" Gerard demanded.

"I don't know what to believe," Laurana said softly. She

glanced at Palin, but he carefully avoided her gaze, pretended to

be absorbed in examining the device, almost as if he expected to

find the answers engraved upon the shining metal.

"Tas," he said mildly, not wanting to reveal the direction of his

thoughts," tell me everything you remember about the first time

you came to my father's funeral."

Tasslehoff did so, talking about how Dalamar attended

and Lady Crysania and Riverwind and Goldmoon, how the

Solamnic Knights sent a representative who traveled all the

way from the High Clerist's Tower and Gilthas came from the

elven kingdom of Qualinesti and Silvanoshei from his king-

dom of Silvanesti and Porthios and Alhana came and she was

as beautiful as ever. "And you were there, Laurana, and you

were so happy because you said you'd lived to see your dear-

est dream come true, the elven kingdoms united in peace and

brotherhood."

"It's just a story he's made Up," Gerard said impatiently. "One

of those tales of 'what might have been."

"What might have been," Palin said, watching the sunlight

sparkle on the jewels. liMy father had a story of what might have

been. " He looked at Tas. "You and my father traveled forward in

time together once, didn't you?"

"It wasn't my fault," Tas said quickly. "We overshot our mark.

You see, we were trying to go back to our own time which was

356 but due to a miscalculation we ended up in 358. Not the 358

which was 358, but a really horrible 358 where we found Tika's

tomb and poor Bupu dead in the dust and Caramon's corpse, a

358 which thank goodness never happened because Caramon

and I went back in time to make sure that Raistlin didn't become

a god."

"Caramon once told me that story," Gerard said. "I thought-

Well, he was getting on in years and he did like to tell tales, so I

never really took him seriously."

"My father believed that it happened," Palin said and that

was all he said.

"Do you believe it, Palin?" Laurana asked insistently. "More

important, do you believe that Tas's story is true. That he really

did travel through time? Is that what you are thinking?"

"What I am thinking is that I need to know much more about

this device," he replied. "Which is, of course, why my father

urged that the device be taken to Dalamar. He is the only person

in this world who was actually present during the time my father

worked the magic of the device."

"I was there!" Tas reminded them. "And now I'm here."

"Yes," said Palin with a cool, appraising glance. "So you are."

In his mind, an idea was forming. It was only a spark, a tiny

flash of flame in a vast and empty darkness. Yet it had been

enough to send the rats scurrying.

"You cannot ask Dalamar," Laurana said practically. "No

one's seen him since his return from the Chaos war."

"No, Laurana, you are wrong," Palin said. "One person saw

him before his mysterious disappearance-his lover, Jenna. She

always claimed that she had no idea where he went, but I never

believed her. And she would be the one person who might know

something about this artifact."

"Where does this Jenna live?" Gerard asked. "Your father

gave me the task of taking the kender and the device to Dalamar.

I may not be able to do that, but I could at least escort you, sir, and

the kender-"

Palin was shaking his head. "That will not be possible, Sir

Knight. Mistress Jenna lives in Palanthas, a city under the control

of the Dark Knights."

"So is Qualinesti, sir," Gerard pointed out, with a slight smile.

"Slipping unnoticed across the h~avily wooded borders of