“Palin—your face! You’re as pale as death. What is it?”
“I don’t know....” Palin faltered, his mouth dry. “I felt something, but what I’m not sure. It wasn’t danger so much as a lost and empty feeling, a feeling of helplessness. Everything around me was spinning out of control. There was nothing I could do to stop it—”
“The power of the gem,” Dougan said. “You felt it, young mage! And now you know why it must be captured and returned to the gods for safekeeping. It escaped man’s care before; it will escape again. The gods only know,” the dwarf added sorrowfully, “what mischief it has wreaked upon the inhabitants of this wretched island.”
Wagging his black beard, Dougan held out a trembling hand to Tanin.
“You’ll help me, lads, won’t you?” he asked in heartfelt, pleading tones, so different from his usual braggadocio that Tanin was caught off guard, his anger punctured. “If you say no,” continued Dougan, hanging his head, “I’ll understand. Though I did win the wager, I guess it was wrong of me to get you drunk and take you prisoner when you were weak and helpless.”
Tanin chewed his lip, obviously not welcoming this reminder.
“And I swear by my beard,” said the dwarf solemnly, stroking it, “that if you say the word, I’ll have the gnomes take you back to Ansalon. As soon as they get the ship repaired, that is.”
“If they get the ship repaired!” Tanin growled at last. (This appeared unlikely. The gnomes were paying no attention whatsoever to the ship, but were arguing among themselves about who was supposed to have been on watch, who was supposed to be reading the gnomes' own map, and the committee that had drawn up the map in the first place. It was later decided that, since the cliff hadn’t been marked on the map, it wasn’t there. Having reached this conclusion, the gnomes were able to get to work.)
“Well, what do you two say?” Tanin turned to his brothers.
“I say that since we’re here, we ought to at least take a look around,"
Sturm said in low tones. “If the dwarf is right and we could retrieve the Graygem, our admittance into the knighthood would be assured! As he said, we’d be heroes!”
“To say nothing of the wealth we might obtain,” Tanin mu ttered.
“Palin?”
The young mage’s heart beat fast. Who knows what magical powers the Graygem possesses? he thought suddenly. It could enhance my power, and I wouldn’t need any great archmage to teach me! I might become a great arch-mage myself, just by touching it or ... Palin shook his head. Raising his eyes, he saw his brothers' faces. Tanin’s was ugly with greed, Sturm’s twisted with ambition. My own face—Palin put his hand on it—what must it look like to them? He glanced down at his robes, and saw their white color faded to dirty gray. It might just be from the salt water, but it might be from something else....
“My brothers,” he said urgently, “listen to us! Think what you just said! Tanin, since when did you ever go in search of wealth and not adventure!”
Tanin blinked, as if waking from a dream. “You’re right! Wealth! What am I talking about? I never cared that much for money—”
“The power of the Graygem is speaking,” Dougan cried. “It’s beginning to corrupt you, as it corrupted others.” His gaze went to the gnomes. The shoving and pushing had escalated into punching and tossing one another overboard.
“I say we should at least investigate this island,” Palin said in a low voice so that the dwarf would not overhear. He drew his brothers closer. “If for no other reason than to find out if Dougan’s telling the truth. If he is, and if the Graygem is here, and if we could be the ones to bring it back...”
“Oh, it’s here!” Dougan said, eagerly poking his black-bearded face into their midst. “And when you bring it back, lads, why, the stories they tell of your famous father will be nothing compared to the legends they’ll sing of you! And you’ll be rescuing the poor people of this island from their sad fate,” continued the dwarf in solemn tones.
“People?” Tanin said, startled. “You mean this place is inhabited?”
“Yes, there are people here,” the dwarf said with a gusty sigh, though he was eyeing the brothers shrewdly.
“He’s right,” said Sturm, staring intently at the beach. “There are people on Gargath. And it doesn’t look to me, Dougan Redhammer, like they want to be rescued!”
Tanin, Palin, Sturm, and the dwarf were ferried across the water from the Miracle by a party of gnomes in a dinghy. Bringing along the dinghy on board the Miracle had been the dwarf’s idea, and the gnomes were enchanted with something so practical and simple. The gnomes had themselves designed a lifeboat to be attached to the Miracle. Roughly the same weight and dimensions as the ship itself, the lifeboat had been left behind, to be studied by a committee.
As the boat drew nearer to shore, surging forward with the waves and the incoming tide, the brothers could see the welcoming party. The rising sun glinted off spears and shields carried by a crowd of men who were awaiting their arrival on the beach. Tall and muscular, the men wore little clothing in the balmy clime of the island. Their skin was a rich, glistening brown, their bodies adorned with bright beads and feathers, their faces stern and resolute. The shields they carried were made of wood and painted with garish designs, the spears handmade as well-wooden with stone tips.
“Honed nice and sharp, you can believe me,” said Sturm gloomily. “They’ll go through flesh like a knife through butter.”
“We’re outnumbered at least twenty to one,” Tanin pointed out to Dougan, who was sitting in the prow of the boat, fingering a battle-axe that was nearly the size of the dwarf.
“Bah! Primitives!” said Dougan contemptuously, though Palin noted the dwarf’s face was a bit pale. “First sight of steel, they’ll bow down and worship us as gods.”
The “gods' ” arrival on the beach was something less than majestic.
Tanin and Sturm did look quite magnificent in their bright steel armor of elven make and design—a gift from Porthios and Alhana of the United Elven Kingdoms. The breastplates glittered in the morning sun; their helms gleamed brightly. Climbing out of the boat, they sank to their shins in the sand and, within minutes, were both firmly mired.
Dougan, dressed in his suit of red velvet, demanded that the gnomes take him in to shore, so he would not ruin his clothes. The dwarf had added to his costume a wide-brimmed hat decorated with a white plume that fluttered in the ocean breeze, and he was truly a wonderful sight, standing proudly in the prow of the boat with his axe at his side, glaring sternly at the warriors drawn up in battle formation on the beach. The gnomes obeyed his injunction to the letter, running the boat aground on the beach with such force that Dougan tumbled out headfirst, narrowly missing slicing himself in two with his great battle-axe.
Palin had often imagined his first battle—fighting at the side of his brothers, combining steel and magic. He had spent the journey to shore committing the few spells he knew to memory. As they drew toward land, his pulse raced with what he told himself was excitement, not fear. He was prepared for almost any eventuality ... with the exception of helping a cursing, sputtering, irate dwarf to his feet; trying to dislodge his brothers from the wet sand; and facing an army of silent, grim, half-naked men.