“The auguries are positive, for now.” Stariz Ber Glacierheim reported, as a human slave woman removed Grimwar Bane’s boots and several others filled a great marble tub with steaming water. “You came back with many slaves, and you won great victories over the humans.”
“Yes, these are truths,” the prince said, trying to suppress his irritation. He could have told her these very facts! Yet he had long ago learned that it was best not to act impatient with his wife’s prognostications. Her words had a way of turning very ugly very fast if she sensed his devotion was wandering.
Stariz began to recite a remarkable litany of his landings, the tactics he used to capture each human village, numbering the captured and the dead. This recounting, Grimwar suspected, was intended to serve as a reminder that she could keep magical tabs on him wherever he roamed. Whether she had a spy in his crew or actually learned through the medium of her arcane powers, the prince did not know. Her information, as always, proved impressively accurate.
Stariz mentioned the name of an ogre who had been killed in the second raid, where more than a hundred humans had fought courageously. She droned on. Despite his good intentions to pay conspicuous heed to her words, the prince found his thoughts following their own path. He gazed curiously at his wife, studying her as if he was observing a picture, an image completely detached from the words she was saying.
Stariz had never been a beauty. Her body was stout and squarish, like her face, possessing all the grace of a craggy, ice-splintered boulder. Ropy strands of hair dangled past her shoulders, forever unkempt. Instead of the full lips that added such beauty to Thraid’s visage, Stariz’s appearance was dominated by an exceptionally large nose, and two prominent tusks that were nearly as big as a young male’s.
“And in the final battle you killed the men, but allowed the women to escape!” Stariz concluded. There was a hint of a questioning in her statement.
“Yes. It was no different than I had done before. What use are the wenches with no men? I suspect the lot of them will die over the winter.”
“I would not be so sure,” she said, with a tone of warning.
“What do you mean?”
“You remember my prophecy, the words I said to you in spring?”
“Yes,” Grimwar replied. “I must beware an elf. He will be a messenger, the messenger of the Bane Dynasty’s doom. My princess, Baldruk and I were forever interrogating prisoners, and always we asked about an elf. The humans of Icereach know nothing of any elves-they think they are creatures of myth!”
“Would that were true,” muttered Stariz.
“Aye, praise to Gonnas,” Grimwar agreed. He had been well schooled on the events of Krynn’s history over the past five thousand years, since the rise of humans and elves had driven his own people, once masters of the world, into remote enclaves such as Icereach.
“But here we are strong-the Kingdom of Suderhold endures, even when the rest of ogrekind is on the wane!”
“Yes, that is true … so far,” Stariz mildly agreed. The prince was surprised and a little unsettled to see a hint of real fear in his wife’s eyes.
“The auguries show great danger in the future,” she continued. “The warning about the elven messenger came to me again, writ large in words of fire. The god tells me that a human woman may be the agent of his might and our doom.”
“I’m tired,” Grimwar objected, suddenly fed up with all the complications of this homecoming. “Tell me the rest in the morning.” He rose, bypassing his waiting bath on the way to their cavelike sleeping chamber and its warm hearthfire.
“I will tell you now,” Stariz said sharply, rising to follow him. “Even so, I fear I may be too late.”
8
The horizon was gray, angry cloud, and gray, angry water. A gray, angry mist swirled through the air. Now, at least, the murk and tumult was proof of real weather, not the enchantment of elven sorcerers.
Cutter was bearing due east, parallel to the coast of Ansalon, which was somewhere out of sight a hundred miles to the north. The mainsail billowed overhead, angled sharply across the deck, filled with the canted forces of a northerly wind. The topsail and jib remained in the locker, at least for now.
Three days earlier, Kerrick had been borne by the Than-Thalas through the lofty Towers of El’i. He was blocked from returning to his homeland, but the moment he turned Cutter toward the east a strong tailwind had risen, and his boat fairly flew along. His aches and bruises were healing, and his broken rib too. He quickly fell into a comfortable routine with his boat. Now, surrounded by the freedom of the ocean, he had finally begun to feel a little bit like his old self again.
In this weather he wore his leather cloak, a good thing, too, as spray constantly blew over the gunwale. Throughout the long afternoon his course didn’t vary. He was navigating by compass since he could see little of the sun through the murk of clouds. Only the gradual darkening of his surroundings told him that evening approached. He decided to take in some sail for the night so that he could rest a little during the hours ahead.
He set the tiller in place and went forward. He hauled on the line, reducing the mainsail. The boat still made good headway but no longer such rocketing speed.
Pitch darkness had descended when he finally noticed a break in the overcast. He was sitting on the bench atop the cabin, sipping a small, scalding hot cup of Istarian tea, when he saw a single star, bright with a hazy shade of green, sparkling just above the bow. He knew then that Zivilyn Greentree had emerged from the heavens to guide his voyage.
Kerrick felt a sense of connection with that iridescent blur of emerald. Zivilyn was a wandering planet, unfixed in the heavens, and to spot it now, directly on his bearing, could only be an omen. That star had been the patron god of his clan since the dawn of elvenkind. Most of the Silvanesti elves saved their highest allegiance for the great E’li Paladine, but the Fallabrines and many other elves of House Mariner traditionally made their devotions to Zivilyn Greentree. It was an odd choice, in a way, for a clan of sailors. As a wanderer, the star Zivilyn was of little use in navigation, and its sporadic pattern meant that it was often absent from view for years, even decades, at a time.
As the sky cleared, his eyes swept the rest of the constellations-the great Draco Paladine, the five-headed serpent of Takhisis, Gilean and his open book, and the rest. Only at sea could the stars appear so bright. They were like familiar landmarks on a highway, symbols that told a sailor his bearing and the number of hours until dawn.
Far to the south another bright speck of light caught his eye. This was tinted yellow, and he recognized Chislev Wilder, the symbol of a nature goddess cherished by many humans, especially barbarians. As he watched that star drifted visibly lower until it was finally obscured in the mists lying close to the horizon.
He brought his bedroll into the cockpit and tied off the sail to steady his course while he slept. With the tiller planted easily under his arm, he leaned back, let the green light of Zivilyn spill across his face, and went to sleep with a prayer on his lips.
The hull smashed into something solid, and Kerrick was thrown forward. Cutter heeled crazily, and he heard the sound of a rough, solid surface scraping past the hull. Groggy and face down he tried to collect his thoughts-collision! With what?
“Hey, slow down there!”
The high-pitched voice was so childlike that the elf felt certain he was dreaming. Sometimes the solitude of sea gave him dazed visions.
“Wait for me!”
Now Kerrick forced himself to his knees, still hearing that awful grating against the hull. The boat had slowed, but was still moving. Gray light brightened the surroundings, and he knew that it was near dawn. He sat up, blinking, rubbing his forehead where he had banged it against the cabin bulkhead. Through blurred eyes he saw something fly through the air, then heard the sound of a body landing on deck.