Palin heard no response. Sighing, he repeated the words and rubbed the metal with his finger. When he was first given the earrings, the spell had worked immediately. Now it would take him three or four tries and there was always the nagging fear that this might be the time it would fail altogether.
“Jenna!” he whispered urgently.
Something wispy and delicate brushed across his face, like the touch of a fly’s wings. Annoyed, he waved it away hurriedly, his concentration broken. He looked for the insect, to shoo it off, but couldn’t find it. He was settling down to try the magic once again, when Jenna’s thoughts answered his.
“Palin. . .”
He focused his thoughts, keeping the message short, in case the magic failed midway. “Urgent need. Meet me in Solace. Immediately.”
“I will come at once.” Jenna said nothing more did not waste time or the her own magic with questions. She trusted him. He would not send for her unless he had good reason.
Palin looked down at the device that he cherished in his broken hands.
Is this the key to my cell? he asked himself. Or nothing but another lash of the whip?
“He is very changed,” said Gerard, after Palin had left the atrium. “I would not have recognized him. And the way he spoke of his father. . .” He shook his head.
“Wherever Caramon is, I am certain he understands,” Laurana said. “Palin is changed, yes, but then who would not be changed after such a terrible experience. I don’t think any of us will ever know what torment he endured at the hands of the Gray Robes. Speaking of them, how do you plan to travel to Solace?” she asked, skillfully turning the subject away from Palin to more practical considerations.
“I have my horse, the black one. I thought that perhaps Palin could ride the smaller horse I brought for the kender.”
“And then I could ride the black horse with you!” Tas announced, pleased. “Although I’m not sure Little Gray will really like Palin, but perhaps if I talk to her—”
“You are not going,” Gerard said flatly.
“Not going!” Tas repeated, stunned. “But you need me!”
Gerard ignored this statement, which, of all statements ever made in the course of history, could be ranked as most likely to be ignored. “The journey will take many days, but that can’t be helped. It seems the only course—”
“I have another suggestion,” Laurana said. “Griffons could fly you to Solace. They brought Palin here and they will carry him back and you along with them. My falcon Brightwing will take a message to them. The griffons could be here the day after tomorrow. You and Palin will be in Solace by that evening.”
Gerard had a brief, vivid. image of flying on griffon back or perhaps it would be more accurate to say he had a brief vivid image of falling off a griffon’s back and smashing headfirst into the ground. He flushed and fumbled for an answer that didn’t make him out to be a craven coward.
“I couldn’t possibly impose. . . We should leave at once. . .”
“Nonsense. The rest will do you good,” Laurana replied, smiling as if she understood the real reason behind his reluctance.
“This will save you over a week’s time and, as Palin said, we must move swiftly before Beryl discovers such a valuable magical device is in her lands. Tomorrow night, after dark, Kalindas will guide you to the meeting place.”
“I’ve never ridden a griffon,” Tas said, hinting. “At least, not that I can remember. Uncle Trapspringer did once. He said. . .”
“No,” Gerard cut in firmly. “Absolutely not. You will stay with the Queen Mother, if she’ll have you. This is already dangerous enough without—” His words died away.
The magical device was once again in the kender’s possesision. Tasslehoff was, even now, stuffing the device down the front of his shirt.
Far from Qualinesti, but not so far that she couldn’t keep an eye watching and an ear listening, the great green dragon Beryl lay in her tangled, overgrown, vine-ridden bower and chafed at the wrongs which had been done to her. Wrongs which itched and stung her like a parasitic infestation and, like a parasite, she could scratch here and scratch there, but the itch seemed to move so that she was never quite rid of it.
At the heart of all her trouble was a great red dragon, a monstrous wyrm that Beryl feared more than anything else in this world, though she would have allowed her green wings to be pulled off and her enormous green tail to be tied up in knots before she admitted it. This fear was the main reason Beryl had agreed to the pact three years ago. She had seen in her mind her own skull adorning Malys’s totem. Besides the fact that she wanted to keep her skull, Beryl had resolved that she would never give her bloated red cousin that satisfaction.
The pact of peace between the dragons had seemed a good idea at the time. It ended the bloody dragon purge, during which the dragons had fought and killed not only mortals, but each other, as well. The dragons who had emerged alive and powerful divided up parts of Ansalon, each claiming a portion to rule and leaving some previously disputed lands, such as Abanasinia, untouched.
The peace had lasted about a year before it started to crumble.
When Beryl felt her magical powers start to seep away, she blamed the elves, she blamed the humans, but in her heart she knew full well where the real blame lay. Malys was stealing her magic. No wonder her red cousin had no more need to kill her own kind! She had found some way to drain the other dragons of their power. Beryl’s magic had been a major defense against her stronger cousin. Without that magic, the green dragon would be as helpless as a gully dwarf.
Night fell while Beryl was musing. Darkness wrapped around her bower like another, larger vine. She fell asleep, lulled by the lullabye of her scheming and plotting. She was dreaming that she had found at last the legendary Tower of High Sorcery at Wayreth.
She wrapped her huge body around the tower and felt the magic flow into her, warm and sweet as the blood of a gold dragon. . . .
“Exalted One!” A hissing voice woke her from her pleasant dream.
Beryl blinked and snorted, sending fumes of poisonous gas roiling among the leaves. “Yes, what is it?” she demanded, focusing her eyes on the source of the hiss. She could see quite well in the darkness, had no need of light.
“A messenger from Qualinost,” said her draconian servant. “He claims his news is urgent, else I would not have disturbed you.”
“Send him in.”
The draconian bowed and departed. Another draconian appeared in his place. A Baaz named Groul, he was one of Beryl’s favorites, a trusted messenger who traveled between her lair and Qualinesti. Draconians were created during the War of the Lance when black robed wizards and evil clerics loyal to Takhisis stole the eggs of good dragons and gave them hideous life in the form of these winged lizard-men. Like all his kind, the Baaz walked upright on two powerful legs, but he could run on all fours, using his wings to increase his movement over the ground. His body was covered with scales that had a dull metallic sheen. He wore little in the way of clothing, which would have hampered his movements. He was a messenger and so he was armed only lightly, with a short sword that he wore strapped to his back, in between his wings.
Beryl wakened more fully. Normally a laconic creature, who rarely evinced any type of emotion, Groul appeared quite pleased with himself this night. His lizard eyes glittered with excitement, his fangs were prominent in a wide grin. The tip of his flickered in his mouth.
Beryl shifted and rolled her huge body, wallowing deeper in the muck to increase her comfort, gathering her vines around her like a writhing blanket.
“News from Qualinost?” Beryl asked casually. She did not want to seem too eager.