“Yes, Exalted One,” said Groul, moving forward to stand near one of the gigantic claws of her front foot. “Most interesting news involving the Queen Mother, Laurana.”
“Indeed? Is that fool knight Medan still enamored of her?”
“Of course.” Groul dismissed this as old news. “According to our spy, he shields and protects her. But that is not such a bad thing, Mistress. The Queen Mother believes herself to be invulnerable and thus we are able to discover what the elves are plotting.”
“True,” Beryl agreed. “So long as Medan remembers where his true loyalities lie, I permit his little flirtation. He has served me well thus far and he is easily removed. What else? There is something else, I believe. . .”
Beryl rested her head on the ground, to put herself level with the draconian, gazed intently at him. His excitement was catching. She could feel it quiver through her. Her tail twitched, her claws dug deep into the oozing mud.
Groul drew closer still. “I reported to you several days ago that the human mage, Palin Majere, was hiding out in the Queen Mother’s house. We wondered at the reason for this visit. You suspected he was there searching for magical artifacts.”
“Yes,” Beryl said. “Go on.”
“I am pleased to report, Exalted One, that he found one.”
“Indeed?” Beryl’s eyes gleamed, casting an eerie green light over the draconian. “And what is the artifact he found? What does it do?”
“ According to our elven spy, the artifact may have something to do with traveling through time. The artifact is in the possession of a kender, who claims that he came from another time, a time prior to the Chaos War.”
Beryl snorted, filling her lair with noxious fumes. The draconian choked and coughed.
“Those vermin will say anything. If this is all—”
“No, no, Exalted One,” Groul hastened to add when he could speak. “The elven spy reports that Palin Majere was tremendously excited over this find. So excited that he has made arrangements to leave Qualinost with the artifact immediately, in order to study it.”
“Is that so?” Beryl relaxed, settled herself more comfortably.
“He was excited by it. The artifact must be powerful, then. He has a nose for these things, as I said to the Gray Robes when they would have slain him. ‘Let him go,’ I told them. ‘He will lead us to magic as a pig to truffles.’ How may we acquire this?”
“The day after this day, Exalted One, the mage and the kender will depart Qualinesti. They will be met by a griffon who will fly them from there to Solace. That would be the best time to capture them.”
“Return to Qualinost. Inform Medan—”
“Pardon me, Exalted One. I am not permitted into the marshal’s presence. He finds me and my kind distasteful.”
“He is becoming more like an elf every day,” Beryl growled.
“Some morning he will wake with pointed ears.”
“I can send my spy to report to him. That is the way I usually operate. Thus my spy keeps me informed of what is going on in Medan’s household as well.”
“Very well. Here are my orders. Have your spy tell Marshal Medan that I want this mage captured and delivered alive. He is to be brought to me, mind you. Not those worthless Gray Robes.”
“Yes, Exalted One.” Groul started to leave, then turned back.
“Do you trust the marshal with a matter of this importance?”
“Certainly not” Beryl said disdainfully. “But I will make my own arrangements. Now go!”
Marshal Medan was taking his breakfast in his garden, where he liked to watch the sun rise. He had placed his table and chair on a rock ledge beside a pond so covered with water lilies that he could barely see the water. A nearby snowfall bush filled the air with tiny white blossoms. Having finished his meal, he read the morning dispatches, which had just arrived, and wrote out his orders for the day. Every so often he paused in his work to toss bread crumbs to the fish who were so accustomed to his routine that every morning at this time they came to the surface in anticipation of his arrival.
“Sir.” Medan’s aide approached, irritably brushing the falling blossoms from his black tunic. “An elf to see you, sir. From the household of the Queen Mother.”
“Our traitor?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Bring him to me at once.”
The aide sneezed, gave a sullen response and departed.
Medan drew his knife from the sheath he wore on a belt around his waist placed the knife on the table, and sipped at his wine. He would not ordinarily have taken such precautions.
There had been one assassination attempt against him long ago, when he had first arrived to take charge of Qualinesti. Nothing had come of it. The perpetrators had been caught and hanged, drawn and quartered; the pieces of their bodies fed to the carrion birds.
Recently, however, the rebel groups were becoming bolder, more desperate. He was concerned about one in particular, a female warrior whose personal beauty, courage in battle and daring exploits were making her a heroine to the subjugated elves. They called her “Lioness,” for her mane of shining hair. She and her band of rebels attacked supply trains, harried patrols, ambushed messengers and generally made Medan’s formerly quiet and peaceful life among the Qualinesti elves increasingly difficult.
Someone was feeding the rebels information on troop movements, the timing of patrols, the locations of baggage trains. Medan had clamped down tightly on security, removing all elves (except his gardener) from his staff and urging Prefect Palthainon and the other elven officials who were known to collaborate with the knights to watch what they said and where they said it. But security was difficult in a land where a squirrel sitting eating nuts on your windowsill might be taking a look at your maps, noting down the disposition of your forces.
Medan’s aide returned, still sneezing, with the elf following along behind, bearing a slip of a branch in his hand.
Medan dismissed his aide with a recommendation that he drink some catnip tea to help his cold. The Marshal sipped his morning wine slowly, enjoying it. He loved the flavor of elven wine, could taste the flowers and the honey from which it was made.
“Marshal Medan, my mistress sends this lilac cutting to you for your garden. She says that your gardener will know how to plant it.”
“Put it here,” said Medan, indicating the table. He did not look at the elf, but continued to toss crumbs to the fish. “If that is all, you have leave to go.”
The elf coughed, cleared his throat.
“Something more?” Medan asked casually.
The elf cast a furtive glance all around the garden.
“Speak. We are alone,” Medan said.
“Sir, I have been ordered to relay information to you. I told you previously that the mage, Palin Majere, was visiting my mistress.”
Medan nodded. “Yes, you were assigned to keep watch on him and report to me what he does. I must assume from the fact that you are here that he has done something.”
“Palin Majere has recently come into possession of an extremely valuable artifact, a magical artifact from the Fourth Age. He is going to transport that artifact out of Qualinost. His plan is to take it to Solace.”
“ And you reported the discovery of this artifact to Groul who reported it to the dragon,” said Medan with an inward sigh. More trouble. “And, of course, Beryl wants it.”
“Majere will be traveling by griffon. He is to meet the griffin tomorrow morning at dawn in a clearing located about twenty miles north of Qualinost. He travels in company with a kender and a Solamnic Knight—”
“A Solamnic Knight?” Medan was amazed, more interested in the knight than in the magic-user. “How did a Solamnic Knight manage to enter Qualinesti without being discovered?”
“He disguised himself as one of your knights, my lord. He pretended that the kender was his prisoner, that he had stolen a magical artifact and that he was taking the prisoner to the Gray Robes. Word reached Majere of the artifact and he waylaid the knight and the kender, as the Knight had planned, and brought them to the home of the queen mother.”