“For now,” Gilthas was forced to tell them, “there will be no homecoming. Perhaps, with the help of our cousins, we can form an army that will be powerful enough to sweep into our beloved land and drive the enemy from it, take back what they have stolen. But although that must be our hope, that hope is far in the future. Our first thought must be the survival of our race. The road we walk will be a hard one. We must walk that road together with one goal and one purpose in our hearts. If one of us falls out, all will perish.
“I was made your king by trickery and treachery. You know the truth of that by now. The story has been whispered among you for years. The Puppet King, you called me.” He cast a glance at Prefect Palthainon as he spoke. The prefect’s face was set in a sorrowful mask, but his eyes darted this way and that, trying to see how the people were reacting.
“It would have been best if I had remained in that role,” Gilthas continued, looking away from the senator and back to his people. “I tried to be your ruler, and I failed. It was my plan that destroyed Qualinesti, my plan that left our land open to invasion.”
He raised his hand for silence, for the elves had begun to murmur among themselves.
“You need a strong king,” Gilthas said, raising his voice that was growing hoarse from shouting.
“A ruler who has the courage and the wisdom to lead you into peril and see you safely through it. I am not that person. As of now, I abdicate the throne and renounce all my rights and claims to it. I leave the succession in the hands of the Senate. I thank you for all the kindness and love that you have shown me over the years. I wish I had done better by you. I wish I was more deserving.”
He wanted to leave, but the people had pressed close about him and, much as he needed to escape, he did not want to force a path through the crowd. He was forced to wait to hear what the Senate had to say. He kept his head lowered, did not look into the faces of his people, not wanting to see their hostility, their anger, their blame. He stood waiting until he was dismissed. The elves had been shocked into silence. Too much had happened too suddenly to absorb. A lake of death where once stood their city. An enemy army behind them, a perilous journey to an uncertain future ahead of them. The king abdicating. The senators thrown into confusion. Dismayed and appalled, they stared at each other, waited for someone to speak the first word. That word belonged to Palthainon. Cunning and conniving, he saw this disaster as a means to further his own ambition. Ordering some elves to drag up a large log, he mounted it and, Clapping his hands, called the elves loudly to silence, a command that was completely unnecessary, for not even a baby’s cry broke the hushed stillness.
“I know what you are feeling, my brethren,” the prefect stated in sonorous tones. “I, too, am shocked and grieved to hear of the tragedy that has befallen our people. Do not be fearful. You are in good hands. I will take over the reins of leadership until such time as a new king is named.”
Palthainon pointed his bony finger at Gilthas. “It is right that this young man has stepped down, for he brought this tragedy upon us—he and those who pulled his strings. Puppet King. Yes, that best describes him. Once Gilthas allowed himself to be guided by my wisdom and experience. He came to me for advice, and I was proud and happy to provide it. But there were those of his own family who worked against me. I do not name them, for it is wrong to speak ill of the dead, even though they sought continuously to reduce my influence.”
Palthainon warmed to his topic. “Among those who pulled the puppet’s strings was the hated and detested Marshal Medan—the true engineer of our destruction, for he seduced the son as he seduced the mother—”
Rage—white-hot—struck the fortress prison in which Gilthas had locked himself, struck it like the fiery bolt of a blue dragon. Leaping upon the log on which Palthainon stood, Gilthas hit the elf a blow on the jaw that sent him reeling. The prefect landed on his backside in the sand, his fine speech knocked clean out of his head.
Gilthas said nothing. He did not look around. He jumped off the log and started to shove his way through the crowd.
Palthainon sat up. Shaking his muzzy head, he spat out a tooth and started to sputter and point.
“There! There! Did you see what he did! Arrest him! Arrest—”
“Gilthas,” spoke a voice out of the crowd.
“Gilthas,” spoke another voice and another and another.
They did not chant. They did not thunder his name. Each elf spoke his name calmly, quietly, as if being asked a question and giving an answer. But the name was repeated over and over throughout the crowd, so that it carried with it the quiet force of the waves breaking on the shore. The elderly spoke his name, the young spoke his name. Two senators spoke it as they assisted Palthainon to his feet.
Astonished and bewildered, Gilthas raised his head, looked around.
“You don’t understand—” he began.
“We do understand,” said one of the elves. His face was drawn, marked with traces of recent grief. “So do you, Your Majesty. You understand our pain and our heartache. That is why you are our king.”
“That is why you have always been our king,” said another, a woman, holding a baby in her arms. “Our true king. We know of the work you have done in secret for us.”
“If not for you, Beryl would be wallowing in our beautiful city,” said a third. “We would be dead, those of us who stand here before you.”
“Our enemies have triumphed for the moment,” said yet another, “but so long as we keep fast the memory of our loved nation, that nation will never perish. Some day, we will return to claim it. On that day, you will lead us, Your Majesty.”
Gilthas could not speak. He looked at his people who shared his loss, and he was ashamed and chastened and humbled. He did not feel he had earned their regard—not yet. But he would try. He would spend the rest of his life trying.
Prefect Palthainon spluttered and huffed and tried to make himself heard, but no one paid any attention to him. The other senators crowded around Gilthas.
Palthainon glared at them grimly, then, seizing hold of the arm of an elf, he whispered softly,
“The plan to defeat Beryl was my plan all along. Of course, I allowed His Majesty to take credit it. As for this little dust-up between us, it was all just a misunderstanding, such as often happens between father and son. is like a son to me, dear to my heart.” Lioness remained on the outskirts of the camp, her own too full to see or speak to him. She knew he would seek her out. Lying on the pallet she spread for both of them, on the edge water, near the sea, she heard his footsteps in the sand, felt hand brush her cheek.
She put her arm around him, drew him beside her.
“Can you forgive me, beloved?” he asked, lying down with a sigh.
“Isn’t that the definition of being a wife?” she asked him, smiling. Gilthas made no answer. His eyes were closed. He was already fast asleep. The Lioness drew the blanket over him, rested her head on his chest, listened to his beating heart until she, too, slept.
The sun would rise early, and it would rise blood red.
7
An Unexpected Journey
Following the activation of the Device of Time Journeying, Tasslehoff Burrfoot was aware of two things: impenetrable darkness and Conundrum shrieking in his left ear, all the while clutching his (Tasslehoff’s) left hand so tightly that he completely lost all sense of feeling in his fingers and his thumb. The rest of Tas could feel nothing either, nothing under him, nothing over him, nothing next to him—except Conundrum. Tas couldn’t tell if he was on his head or his heels or an interesting combination of both.