“We’ll need the latest charts,” the empress suggested.
Faros shook his head. “I’ll also need to be there … and quickly. We’ll need the fastest courier ship.”
“No,” interjected Golgren. “There is a quicker way yet.”
He gestured with his stump at a suddenly dismayed Tyranos.
VII
Chasm flew swiftly, eating away at the miles. He was aware of the importance of the mission at hand, and despite the danger, he had every intention of delivering the elf to her destination.
Idaria breathlessly watched the landscape race by hundreds of feet below her. If the gargoyle lost his grip, there would be nothing to prevent her from being dashed on the hard ground, her bones shattered and her body scattered for miles around.
But Chasm seemed to have a sure grip, so Idaria thought about her own mission and what Golgren had demanded of her. For the sake of her people, the slave had to live up to the half-breed’s faith in her. Idaria realized she did not want to fail him, either, and that raised disturbing questions for her. Because the elf did not want to fail Golgren personally …
Before Idaria could follow that trail of thought to its ultimate conclusion, a glint from below caught her eye. She touched a warning hand to Chasm’s arm. The gargoyle had veered away from the vicinity of the capital. Below lay the edge of the mountains and, beyond that, a more arid, desolate region. There should have been no village below. However, the glint that the elf had noticed had had a metallic look to it. It was not out of the question that there might be lone scouts out in that direction … or a single Titan waiting just for them.
Great wings flapping, the gargoyle adjusted his flight path. Idaria had a better view of the landscape.
What she saw made her gasp. Was that a Solamnic Knight below?
The figure wavered as though it were a heat-induced illusion of the land, so the elf decided that she was only imagining things. However, Chasm suddenly banked then descended toward the metallic glint, the murky figure, the Solamnic Knight. If it were an illusion, then Tyranos’s servant shared it with her.
Chasm halted at a level that left Idaria’s feet dangling just a couple of inches off the rocky ground. With surprising care, he set her down the rest of the way then alighted himself.
Steadying herself, the elf stared at the figure. It was not merely a knight from Solamnia.
It was Sir Stefan Rennert.
“It cannot be,” she blurted. “You are one of his creatures!” Idaria insisted, referring to the master of the ancient citadel.
“There is only one to whom I swear an oath now,” Stefan solemnly replied. His face and form were utterly devoid of any injury, and his armor gleamed as if freshly polished. He was even clean shaven. “And that is Kiri-Jolith.”
Mention of the bison-headed god of just cause prompted the elf to look around. After the intrigues of Sirrion, she fully expected to see the other deity present. Yet there was no sign.
“He has his tasks, and monumental they are,” Stefan commented, as if reading her thoughts. “I’ve the honor of seeking to help in his place.”
“But you-you are dead. I saw you die!”
Chasm grunted agreement, the gargoyle partially blocking the ground between the elf and the impossible visitor.
Stefan looked pained. “I don’t rightly know if I’m alive or dead or somewhere in between. I only know that as the blade sank into me and I grew cold, then, at the very last moment, Kiri-Jolith came and took hold of me. He kept me safe until I felt strength returning. When I opened my eyes, he and I stood in the midst of what had once been a great castle but which had become merely an arrangement of stones half-buried by time.”
Once this was a place of tremendous courage and honor, the god had told him as the human had struggled to rise. But that was so long ago, when even I was young.
As was reasonable, Stefan had paid less attention to the god and more to the fact that he was not lying on the floor of the citadel as a cold corpse. He had asked much the same question of Kiri-Jolith as Idaria had directed at him. Was he alive or dead or something else?
That remains to be seen, was all the bison-headed warrior had answered. For the first time, the Solamnic had noticed that Paladine’s son looked weary, even somewhat aged.
Things change and yet stay the same, and I wonder whether my place is still here upon Krynn or anywhere, the deity had gone on to say, striding through the ruins.
Stefan had kept pace, aware that he owed everything to the god who had taken him as his cleric, and also aware that he could help Idaria and the others only with Kiri-Jolith’s aid.
Finally, Stefan had dared to speak up again, stating that his tasks were unfinished, that if Kiri-Jolith had saved him, it was only because the god must wish him to return to his friends and help them. He also assumed Kiri-Jolith intended to move against either Sirrion or the gargoyle king or both.
But the majestic warrior, looming more than two feet over the human and certainly capable of standing taller should he so desire, had replied that his actions were limited against Sirrion for reasons Stefan would not be able to understand. Kiri-Jolith needed the knight, not the other way around.
“He told me that Krynn is in flux, that the gods are all seeking their proper places in the world,” Stefan told Idaria. “Some go by the will of Krynn’s people; others attempt to manipulate matters to their own end.” The Solamnic frowned. “And others, such as Sirrion, are simply unpredictable.”
“But the god of fire is not an evil thing,” the elf pointed out. “Not like Takhisis was.”
“No, but his nature is mercurial; his decisions are of the moment. He is volatile in the absolute sense. He feels that he has been ignored despite his presence in the aspect of every creature’s life. He likes games, too, and though on the surface they veer neither to the light nor darkness, they can by themselves plunge our world into chaos!”
Idaria had already experienced the truth of that statement. “What is your part in this, then?”
The armored figure’s expression looked vague. “I’ve more than one part, but the one most important as far as you are concerned deals with a grove and your people.”
“My people?”
Stefan nodded. “We need to save them now, and for that, you, I, and Chasm here must go into the heart of the Titan realm and their very sanctum.”
General Thandorus had only lately come to Ambeon, but he was determined to make his mark. He had fought as first hekturion in Wyvern Legion during the taking of Silvanost and for his achievements had been granted a promotion to commander of the newly formed Badger Legion, the first such unit assembled entirely in the colony. A stout-muzzled warrior of a dusky brown fur, Thandorus had been in charge for the entirety of three days and had already begun crafting his new command in his own image. He intended for the emperor to hear of Badger Legion’s exploits as soon as possible.
The legion was one of those stationed near Sargasanti-the former capital of the elves, renamed for the minotaurs’ chief deity-and it was ready to march to the wooden forts located on the western borders. Thandorus would have preferred to march north toward the ogres but hoped that perhaps circumstances west might create an encounter with the Solamnics. What mattered most was raising his legion’s reputation as dedicated servants of the emperor.
He sat in his tent, poring over the charts showing the path west. For the first several days of the march, good minotaur roads of stone-carved out of the once-virgin forest-would make the travel swift. Beyond that, serviceable dirt paths continued on to Fort Four, the official designation of his destination.