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He was floating on sleep’s surface when he heard, or imagined he heard, someone singing a lullaby.
The song was restful, soothing. Relaxing beneath the song’s influence, Gerard was sinking beneath peaceful waves when a voice came out of the darkness, a woman’s voice.
“Sir Knight?” the woman called.
Gerard woke, his heart pounding. He lay still. His first thought was that it was Lady Odila, come to torment him some more. He knew better almost at once, however. The voice had a different note, a more musical quality, and the accent was not Solamnic. Furthermore Lady Odila would have never referred to him as “Sir Knight.”
Warm, yellow light chased away the darkness. He rolled over on his side so that he could see who it was who came to him in the middle of the night in prison.
He couldn’t find her at first. The woman had paused at the bottom of the stairs to hear a reply, and the wall of the stairwell shielded her from his sight. The light she held wavered a moment, then began to move. The woman rounded the corner and he could see her clearly. White robes shimmered yellow-white in the candlelight. Her hair was spun silver and gold.
“Sir Knight?” she called again, looking searchingly about.
“Goldmoon!” cried out Tasslehoff. He waved his hand. “Over here!”
“Is that you, Tas? Keep your voice down. I’m looking for the Knight, Sir Gerard—”
“I am here, First Master,” Gerard said.
Sliding off the plank, bewildered, he crossed the cell to stand near the iron bars, so that she could see him. The kender reached the bars in a single convulsive leap, thrust both arms out between the bars and most of his face. The gnome was awake, too, picking himself up off the floor. Conundrum looked groggy, bleary-eyed, and extremely suspicious. Goldmoon held in her hand a long, white taper. Lifting the light close to Gerard’s face, she studied him long and searchingly.
“Tasslehoff,” she said, turning to the kender, “is this the Knight of Solamnia you told me about, the same Knight who took you to see Palin in Qualinesti?”
“Oh, yes, this is the same Knight, Goldmoon,” said Tasslehoff. Gerard flushed. “I know that you find this impossible to credit, First Master. But in this instance, the kender is telling the truth. The fact that I was found wearing the emblem of a Dark Knight—”
“Please say nothing more, Sir Knight,” Goldmoon interrupted abruptly. “I do believe Tas. I know him. I have known him for many years. He told me that you were gallant and brave and that you were a good friend to him.”
Gerard’s flush deepened. Tas’s “good friend” had been wondering, only moments earlier, how he might dispose of the kender’s body.
“The best friend,” Tasslehoff was saying. “The best friend I have in all the world. That’s why I came looking for him. Now we’ve found each other, and we’re locked up together, just like old times. I was telling Gerard all about Uncle Trapspringer—”
“Where am I?” the gnome asked suddenly. “Who are all of you?”
“First Master, I must explain—” Gerard began.
Goldmoon raised her hand, a commanding gesture that silenced all of them, including Tasslehoff. “I do not need explanations.” Her eyes were again intent upon Gerard. “You flew here on a blue dragon.”
“Yes, First Master. As I was about to tell you, I had no choice—”
“Yes, yes. It makes no difference. Haste is what counts. The Lady Knight said the dragon was still in the area, that they had searched for it but could not find it, yet they knew it was near. Is that true?”
“I . . . I have no way of knowing, First Master.” Gerard was mystified. At first he thought she had come to accuse him, then maybe to pray for him or whatever Mystics did. Now he did know what she wanted. “I suppose it might be. The blue dragon promised to wait for me to return. I had planned to deliver my message to the Knights’ Council, then fly back to Qualinesti, to do what I could to assist the elves in their battle.”
“Take me there, Sir Knight.”
Gerard stared at her blankly.
“I must go there,” she continued, and her voice sounded frantic. “Don’t you understand? I must find a way to go there, and you and your dragon will carry me. Tas, you remember how to get back, don’t you?”
“To Qualinesti?” Tas said, excited. “Sure, I know the way! I have all these maps—”
“Not Qualinesti,” Goldmoon said. “The Tower of High Sorcery. Dalamar’s Tower in Nightlund. You said you were there, Tas. You will show me the way.”
“First Master,” Gerard faltered, “I am a prisoner. You heard the charges against me. I cannot go anywhere.”
Goldmoon wrapped her hand around one of the bars of the cell. She tightened her grip until the knuckles on that hand grew as white as bare bone. “The warden sleeps under the enchantment I cast upon him. He will not stop me. No one will stop me. I must go to the Tower. I must speak with Dalamar and Palin. I could walk, and I will walk, if I have to, but the dragon is faster. You will take me, won’t you, Sir Gerard?”
Goldmoon had been the ruler of her people. All her life, she had been a leader. She was accustomed to command and to being obeyed. Her beauty moved him. Her sorrow touched him. Beyond that, she offered him his freedom. Freedom to return to Qualinesti, to join the battle there, to live or die with those he had come to care for.
“The key to the cell is on the ring the warden carries—” he began.
“I have no need of it,” Goldmoon said.
She closed her hand over the iron bars. The iron began to dissolve, melting like the wax of her candle. A hole formed in the center as the iron bars drooped, curled over.
Gerard stared. “How . . .” His voice was a hoarse croak.
“Hurry,” Goldmoon said.
He did not move but continued to stare at her.
“I don’t know how,” she said and a note of desperation made her voice tremble. “I don’t know how I have the power to do what I do. I don’t know where I heard the words to the song of enchantment I sang. I know only that whatever I want I am given.”
“Ah, now I remember who this woman is!” Conundrum heaved a sigh.
“Dead people.”
Gerard didn’t understand, but then this was nothing new. He had not understood much of anything that had happened to him in the past month.
“Why start now?” Gerard muttered, as he stepped through the bars. He wondered where they had stashed his sword.
“Come along, Tas,” Goldmoon said sternly. “This is no time to play games.”
Instead of leaping joyously to freedom, the kender had suddenly and inexplicably retreated to the very farthest corner of the cell.
“Thank you for thinking of me, Goldmoon,” Tasslehoff said, settling himself in the corner, “and thank you for melting the bars of the cell. That was wonderful and something you don’t see everyday. Ordinarily I’d be glad to go with you, but it would be rude to leave my good friend Conundrum here. He’s the best friend I have in all the world—”
Making a sound expressive of exasperation, Goldmoon touched the bars of the gnome’s cell. The bars dissolved, as had the others. Conundrum climbed out the hole. Brow furrowed, he squatted with his hands on his knees, and began scraping up the iron meltings, muttering to himself something about smelting.
“I’ll bring the gnome, Tas,” Goldmoon said impatiently. “Now come out of there at once.”