Read Dragonlance 15 - Dragons Of A Fallen Sun Online
Authors: Margaret Weis
Usually the sight of a young slip of a maid as pretty as Mina
would have had his blood bubbling, his loins aching. But he felt
no twinge of desire in Mina' s presence and, listening to the talk
around the campfires, he knew the other men in the ranks felt the
same. They loved her, they adored her. They were awestruck, rev-
erent. But he did not want her and he could not name anyone
who did.
The next morning's march began the same as those before it.
Samuval calculated that if all went well with Galdar's business in
Khur, the minotaur would catch up to them in another two days.
Prior to this, Samuval had never had much use for minotaurs, but
he was actually looking forward to seeing Galdar again. . . .
"Sir! Stop the men!" a scout shouted.
Samuval halted the column's march and walked forward to
meet the scout.
"What is it?" the captain demanded. "Ogres?"
"No, sir." The scout saluted. "There's a blind beggar on the
path ahead, sir."
Samuval was irate. "You called a halt for a blasted beggar?"
"Weii sir"-the scout was discomfited-"he's blocking the
path."
"Shove him out of the way then!" Samuval said, infuriated.
"There's something strange about him, sir." The scout was
uneasy. "He's no ordinary beggar. I think you should come talk to
him, sir. He said ... he said he is waiting for Mina." The soldier's
eyes were round.
Samuval rubbed his chin. He was not surprised to hear that
word of Mina had spread abroad, but he was considerably sur-
prised and not particularly pleased to hear that knowledge of
their march and the route they were taking had also apparently
traveled ahead of them.
"I'll see to this," he said and started to leave with the scout.
Samuval planned to question this beggar to find out what else he
knew and how he knew it. Hopefully, he would be able to deal
with the man before Mina heard about it.
He had taken about three steps when he heard Mina's voice
behind him.
"Captain Samuval," she said, riding up on Foxfire, "what is
the problem? Why have we stopped?"
Samuval was about to say that the road ahead was blocked
by a boulder, but, before he could open his mouth, the scout
had blurted out the truth in a loud voice that could be heard
up and down the column.
"Mina! There's a blind beggar up ahead. He says he's waiting
for you."
The men were pleased, nodding and thinking it only natural
that Mina should rate such attention. Fools! One would think
they were parading through the streets of Jelek!
Samuval could envision the road ahead lined with the poxed
and the lame from every measly village on their route, begging
Mina to cure them.
"Captain," said Mina, "bring the man to me."
Samuval went to stand by her stirrup. "Listen a moment,
Mina," he argued. "1 know you mean well, but if you stop to
heal every wretched cripple between here and Silvanost,
we'll arrive in the elf kingdom in time to celebrate Yule with
'em. That is if we arrive at all. Every moment we waste is an-
other moment the ogres have to gather their forces to come
meet us."
"The man asks for me. I will see him," Mina said and slid
down off her horse. "We have marched long. The men could do
with a rest. Where he is, Rolof?"
"He's right up ahead," said the scout, pointing. "About half a
mile. At the top of the hill."
"Samuval, come with me," Mina said. "The rest of you, wait
here."
Samuval saw the man before they reached him. The road they
were following led up and down small hillocks and, as the scout
had said, the beggar was waiting for them at the top of one of
these. He sat on the ground, his back against a boulder; a long,
stout staff in his hand. Hearing their approach, he rose to his feet
and turned slowly and sightlessly to face them.
The man was younger than the captain had expected. Long
hair that shimmered with a silver sheen in the morning sun-
shine fell over his shoulders. His face was smooth and youth-
ful. Once it might have been handsome. He was dressed in
robes that were pearl gray in color, travel-worn and frayed at
the hem, but clean. All this, Samuval noted later. For now, all he
could do was stare at the hideous scar that disfigured the man's
face.
The scar looked to be a burn mark. The hair on the right
side of the man's head had been singed off. The scar slanted
across the man's face from the right side of his head to below
the left side of his chin. He wore a rag tied around his right eye
socket. Samuval wondered with morbid curiosity if the eye
was still there or if it was destroyed, melted in the terrible heat
that had seared the flesh and burned away the hair to the
roots. The left eye remained, but it was useless seemingly, for
it held no light. The horrible wound was fresh, not a month
old. The man must be in pain from the injury, but if so he did
not reveal it. He stood waiting for them silently and, though he
could not see her, his face turned toward Mina. He must have
picked out the sound of her lighter steps from Samuval's heav-
ier footfalls.
Mina paused, just a moment, and Samuval saw her stiffen, as
if she were taken by surprise. Then, shrugging, she continued to
walk toward the beggar. Samuval came behind, his hand on his
sword hilt. Despite the fact that the man was blind, Samuval
sensed him to be a threat. As the scout had said, there was some-
thing strange about this blind beggar.
"You know me, then," the man said, his sightless eye gazing
over her head.
"Yes, I know you," she replied.
Samuval found it hard to look at the beggar's horrid wounds.
Yellow puss oozed from beneath the rag. The skin around the
burn was fiery red, swollen and inflamed. The captain could
smell the stink of putrefying flesh.
"When did this happen to you?" Mina asked.
"The night of the storm," he replied.
She nodded gravely, as if she had expected that answer. "Why
did you venture out into the storm?"
"I heard a voice," he replied. "I wanted to investigate."
"The voice of the One God," Mina said.
The beggar shook his head, disbelieving. "I could hear the
voice over the roaring of the wind and the crashing thunder, but
I could not hear the words it spoke. I traveled far through rain
and the hail in search of the voice, and I was near the source, I
think. I was almost in Neraka when a lightning bolt struck me. I
remember nothing after that."
"You take this human form," she said abruptly. "Why?"
"Can you blame me, Mina?" he asked, his tone rueful. "I am
forced to walk through the land of my enemies." He gestured
with his staff. "This is the only way I am able to travel now-on
two feet, with my stick to guide me."
"Mina"-Samuval spoke to her, but he kept his eyes on the
blind man-"we have many more miles to march this day. Say the
word and I will rid both the path and the world of this fellow."
"Easy, Captain," Mina said quietly, resting her hand on his
arm. "This is an old acquaintance. I will be only a moment longer.
How did you find me?" she asked the blind man.
"I have heard the stories of your deeds everywhere I go," the
beggar answered. "I knew the name, and I recognized the de-
scription. Could there be another Mina with eyes the color of
amber? No, I said to myself. Only one-the orphan girl who,
years ago, washed up on the shores of Schallsea. The orphan girl
who was taken in by Goldmoon and who won the First Master's
heart. She grieves for you, Mina. Grieves for you these three years
as for one dead. Why did you run away from her and the rest of
us who loved you?"
"Because she could not answer my questions," Mina replied.
"None of you could."
"And have you found the answer, Mina?" the man asked and
ms voice was stem.
"I have," she said steadily. .
The beggar shook his head. He did not seem angry, only
sorrowful.
"I could heal you," Mina offered, and she took a step toward
him, her hand outstretched.
Swiftly the beggar stepped backward. In the same movement,
he shifted the staff from one hand to two and held it out in front
of his body, barring her way. "No!" he cried. "As much as my
wound pains me now, that pain is physical. It does not strike to
my soul as would the pain of your so-called healing touch. And
though I walk in darkness, my darkness is not so deep as the
darkness in which you now walk, Mina."
She smiled at him, her smile calm, radiant.
"You heard the voice, Solomirathnius," she said. "You hear it
still. Don't you?"
He did not reply. He lowered his staff slowly, stared at her
long moments. He stared so long that Samuval wondered suspi-
ciously if the man could see out of that one milky white eye.
"Don't you?" she pressed him.
Abruptly, angrily, the man turned away from her. Tapping the
ground with his staff, he left the path and entered the woods. The
end of his staff knocked brutally against the boles of trees and
thrust savagely into bushes. His hand groped to feel his way.
"I don't trust him," Samuval said. "He has the stink of a So-
lamnic about him. Let me skewer him."
Mina turned away. "You could do him no harm, Captain. He
may look feeble, but he is not."
"What is he then? A wizard?" Samuval asked with a slight
sneer.
"No, he is much more powerful than any wizard," Mina
replied. "In his true form, he is the silver dragon known to most
as Mirror. He is the Guardian of the Citadel of Light."
"A dragon!" Samuval stopped dead in the path, stared back
into the brush. He could no longer see the blind beggar, and that
worried him more now than ever. "Mina," he said urgently, "let
me take a squadron of men after him! He will surely try to kill
us all!"
Mina smiled slightly at Samuval's fears. "We are safe, Cap-
tain. Order the men to resume the march. The path ahead is clear.
Mirror will not trouble us."
"Why not?" Samuval was frowning, doubtful.
"Because once, many years ago, every night, Goldmoon, the
First Master of the Citadel of Light, brushed my hair," Mina said
softly.
Reaching up her hand, she touched, very lightly, her shaven
head.
CHAPTER TWENTY
BETRAYED
The days of waiting had passed pleasantly for Gerard. The
queen mother's house was a sanctuary of peace and seren-
ity. Every room was a bower of green and growing plants
and flowers. The sounds of falling water soothed and relaxed. He
was not in possession of the supposed time travel device, yet he
had the feeling that here time was suspended. The sunlit hours
melted into dusk that melted into night and back to sunlight again
with no one seeming to notice the change of one day to next. No
hourglass dropped its sands into elven lives, or so Gerard imag-
ined. He was jolted back into harsh reality when, on the afternoon
of the day they were to leave, he walked in the garden and saw,
quite by chance, sunlight flash off shining black armor.
The Neraka Knight was distant, but he was plainly keeping
watch on the house. Gerard ducked back into the doorway, his
idyll of peace shattered. He waited tensely for the Neraka
Knights to come beating on the door, but hours passed and no
one disturbed them. He trusted, at last, that he had not been seen.
He took care not to venture outside after that, not until nightfall,
when they were ready to depart.
Gerard had seen little of Palin Majere, for which he was not
sorry. He deplored the mage's rudeness to everyone in the
household, but most particularly to Laurana. Gerard tried to
make allowances. Palin Majere had suffered a great deal, the
Knight reminded himself. But the mage's dark moods cast a j
shadow that dimmed the brightest sunlight. Even tne two ser-
vant elves tiptoed around, afraid of making a sound that would
bring down on them the mage's irrational anger. When Gerard
mentioned this to Laurana, making some comment on what he
considered boorish human behavior, she smiled and urged him
to be patient.
"I was a prisoner once," she said, her eyes dark with
memory, "a prisoner of the Dark Queen. Unless you have been
a prisoner, Sir Knight; until you have been shut away in
darkness, alone in pain and in fear, I don't believe you can
understand."
Gerard accepted the gentle rebuke and said nothing more.
He had seen little of the kender, as well, for which the Knight
was extremely grateful. Palin Majere kept Tasslehoff closeted
away for hours at a time, having the kender relate in detail his
ridiculous stories over and over. No torture devised by the cru-
elest Neraka Knight could match being forced to endure the
kender's shrill voice for hours on end.
The night they were to leave Qualinesti came-all too soon. The
world beyond, the world of humans, seemed a hurried, grasping,