The barge was crammed with Silvanesti-by the look of them, river sailors hastily pressed into service as soldiers. Unlike the splendidly dressed cavalry, the barge marines were decked out in an assortment of ill-fitting cuirasses and helms. Like all the Silvanesti, they were tall and slender, with light eyes and hair. Vixa was used to the mixture of races found in Qualinost. Elves-many descended from the darker, stockier Kagonesti line-humans, some dwarves, and a few kender all called Qualinost home. The peaceful coexistence of the races was what her grandfather, Kith-Kanan, had envisioned for the city he founded. No such mixing of the races occurred in Silvanost.
Hundreds of years earlier, when Silvanesti was home to all elves, Speaker of the Stars Sithel had been slain by a party of humans hunting the fringes of Silvanesti territory. Though the humans insisted the death had been accidental, the outraged elves had set about ridding their land of all nonelves, especially humans, many of whom had intermarried with the ancient race. The humans resisted, and so was begun the Kinslayer War.
When the fighting was over, the elves withdrew into their country, disdaining any contact with those not of the-to their way of thinking-superior race. Their natural arrogance had blossomed into outright bigotry.
However, some elves chafed under the rigid traditions and rules that governed their land. They were championed by Kith-Kanan, son of former Speaker Sithel and twin brother of Speaker of the Stars Sithas. This rift widened until it brought about the sundering of the elven nation. Kith-Kanan led his followers west, to found a new country called Qualinesti, where all races would be welcome.
Only Silvanesti feet had trodden the streets of Silvanost these last four hundred years. Now the eastern elves were faced with not only a dwarven intruder, but a Qualinesti one as well. They had a deep mistrust of their western cousins, as some Qualinesti had sided with the humans during the Kinslayer War. The Silvanesti also believed that if elves had never married humans, bringing the humans into Silvanesti, the entire bloody conflict would never have happened. There were even those who worried that the exiles-as the eastern elves called the Qualinesti-would one day try to return to Silvanesti to take back their ancestral home by force.
Vixa had always stood out among the inhabitants of her own country, with her height, light coloring, and bright blond hair. Here, she blended into the crowd.
It was obvious the Silvanesti didn’t see it that way, however. Once Vixa and Gundabyr were on the barge, conversation among the crew quickly died. The dwarf and the Qualinesti girl were greeted with stares, some curious, but none welcoming.
“What’s the matter with them?” muttered Gundabyr.
“Nothing,” she replied just as softly. “They just don’t get many-any-strangers here.”
From his tower at the ferry’s prow, the barge master gave a whistle. The turtle lurched into motion again, heading down the muddy ramp into the water. The barge did a swift right turn, sending the landlubbers skittering to the port bulwark. When the ride smoothed out, Samcadaris cornered the herald.
“Has the enemy been seen near the city?” he asked.
“No. I’m not even sure who the enemy is,” the young herald replied. He eyed Vixa. “Are the Qualinesti attacking us?”
Vixa opened her mouth to protest, but Samcadaris intervened. “Indeed not,” the captain said. “These brave foreigners brought us warning of the coming invasion.”
The herald’s gaze lost some of its hostility, but he still looked skeptical. “How was General Axarandes wounded? In battle?”
“His fortress fell on him,” Gundabyr said bluntly. “When the kraken knocked it down.”
“The what?”
Samcadaris explained grimly. “Thonbec is no more. The enemy command a great sea monster, which tore the fortress apart as though it were made of parchment. Its tentacles-”
“Hadn’t you better save the report for the Speaker?” Vixa interrupted, noting the terrified looks Samcadaris’s words were generating among the others on the ferry.
One of the crew, fear draining the color from his face, blurted, “Sea monster, Captain?”
Another put in, “What sort of fearsome beast could destroy an entire fortress?”
“Don’t worry,” Gundabyr said in a loud, genial voice. “The kraken can swallow three-masters for breakfast and swamp cities with a single belch, but it won’t come to Silvanost.”
The elves stared at him, openmouthed. “Why not?” asked one.
“Your river’s too small. The kraken’s a mile across, after all.”
The Silvanesti did not look reassured.
They docked at an elegant white marble gatehouse, with raised drawbridge and arrow loops bristling with wary elven archers. The herald went ashore as soon as the bridge was lowered. The four soldiers from Thonbec bore their wounded general off the barge and took him away to be tended. Silvanesti from all over the quayside gathered to see the strange outlanders. As Vixa and Gundabyr awaited their turn to come ashore, quite a crowd collected.
“Make way! Make way! I am on the Speaker’s business!” cried the herald, clearing a path for them through the curious throng.
The Silvanesti parted for him, but did not disperse. They began to murmur and point as the two outsiders came down the gangplank. Vixa felt the heat of attention. After weeks of living underwater, then fighting and escaping from Thonbec, she hardly resembled the regal daughter of a neighboring kingdom. She would have preferred to visit fabled Silvanost under different circumstances. It was obvious Gundabyr was feeling much the same way, despite his studied nonchalance. He hardly earned much respect for Thorbardin by his scruffy appearance. Still, Vixa held her head high and strode purposefully behind the herald. She might not be dressed as a princess, but she could certainly act like one.
“Hey, is this … a race?” Gundabyr panted, jogging to keep up with her.
Vixa didn’t respond. The hostility of the Silvanesti was reminding her of her first sight of the common folk of Urione, when she and Armantaro had been taken through the streets to the palace. She was growing weary of such arrogant treatment. The fact she had come here only to save these ill-mannered elves made her angrier still.
After a few minutes the crowds thinned. Here the streets were wider as well, paved in white granite and spotlessly clean. Elaborate gardens peeped over the walls and roofs of private homes. White roses and lilac twined around doorways, giving off a heady scent. The air felt oddly charged, as though a thunderstorm had just passed, though there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.
Gundabyr remarked upon it as well.
Samcadaris said, “We are used to it. Some sages say it is the presence of godly favor, bestowed upon us as the first race in the world. Others say it’s the collective auras of so many Silvanesti living in one place. Still another opinion is that the presence of the Speaker of the Stars causes it.”
“What do you believe?” Vixa asked.
He shrugged. “I am just a soldier, lady. I leave such mysteries for others to ponder.”
Vixa liked his answer. Instead of trying to impress her with mysticism, he told the simple truth.
From a quiet residential street the procession entered a marvelous thoroughfare, paved in marble and gold. Here they had a clear view of the mightiest spire in the city, the Tower of the Stars. Vixa caught her breath at its beauty. This was Uriona’s goal, the seat of power for the monarch of the first elven kingdom. Six hundred feet tall, made of the purest white marble, in the dimness of the twilit evening the Tower of the Stars glowed with its own light, shining like a beacon.
“I wouldn’t mind seeing that up close,” Gundabyr confided to Vixa.
The herald, overhearing, remarked, “No outsider has set foot inside the Tower since the beginning of the Kinslayer War.”