Dragons of Summer Flame Page 2

  The two knights exchanged glances, relaxed.

  “What did you find?” the knight asked the leader, a gigantic, red-haired fellow who towered over both knights, could have probably picked up each of them and held them above his head, and who regarded both knights with unbounded reverence and respect.

  “Men,” answered the brute. They were quick to learn and had adapted easily to the Common language spoken by most of the various races of Krynn. Unfortunately, to the brutes, all people not of their race were known as “men.”

  The brute lowered his hand near the ground to indicate small men, which might mean dwarves but was more probably children. He moved it to waist height, which most likely indicated women. This the brute confirmed by cupping two hands over his breast and wiggling his hips. His comrades laughed and nudged each other.

  “Men, women and children,” said the knight. “Many men? Lots of men? Big buildings? Walls? Cities?”

  The brutes apparently thought this was hilarious, for they all burst into raucous laughter.

  “What did you find?” repeated the knight sharply, scowling. “Stop the nonsense.”

  The brutes sobered rapidly.

  “Many men,” said the leader, “but no walls. Houses.” He made a face, shrugged, shook his head and added something in his own language.

  “What does that mean?” asked the knight of his comrade.

  “Something to do with dogs,” said the other, who had led brutes before and had started picking up some of their language. “I think he means that these men live in houses only dogs would live in.”

  Several of the brutes now began walking about stoop-shouldered, swinging their arms around their knees and grunting. Then they all straightened up, looked at each other, and laughed again.

  “What in the name of our Dark Majesty are they doing now?” the knight demanded.

  “Beats me,” said his comrade. “I think we should have a look for ourselves.” He drew his sword partway out of its black leather scabbard. “Danger?” he asked the brute. “We need steel?”

  The brute laughed again. Taking his own short sword (the brutes fought with two, long and short, as well as with bows and arrows), he thrust it into the tree, turned his back on it.

  The knight, reassured, returned his own sword to its scabbard. The two followed their guides. Leaving the beach, they walked deeper into the forest of misshapen trees. They walked about half a mile along what appeared to be an animal path, then reached the village.

  Despite the antics of the brutes, the knights were completely unprepared for what they found. It seemed that they had come upon a people who had been stranded in the shallows, as the great river Time flowed past them, leaving them untouched.

  “By Hiddukel,” one said in a low voice to the other. “ ‘Men’ is too strong a term. Are these men? Or are they beasts?”

  “They’re men,” said the other, staring around, amazed. “But such men as we’re told walked Krynn during the Age of Twilight. Look! Their tools are made of wood. They carry wooden spears. And crude ones at that.”

  “Wooden-tipped, not stone,” said the other. “Mud huts for houses. Clay cooking pots. Not a piece of steel or iron in sight. What a pitiable lot! I can’t see how they could be much danger, unless it’s from filth. By the smell, they haven’t bathed since the Age of Twilight either.”

  “Ugly bunch. More like apes than men. Don’t laugh. Look stern and threatening.”

  Several of the male humans—if human they were, it was so difficult to tell beneath the animal hides they wore—crept up to the knights. The “man-beasts” walked bent over, their arms swinging at their sides, knuckles almost dragging on the ground. Their heads were covered with long, shaggy hair; unkempt beards almost hid their faces. They bobbed and shuffled and gazed at the knights in openmouthed awe. One of the man-beasts actually drew near enough to reach out a grimy hand to touch the black, shining armor.

  A brute moved to interpose his own massive body in front of the knight.

  The knight waved the brute off, drew his sword. The steel flashed in the sunlight. He turned to one of the squat trees. With their twisted limbs and gnarled trunks, the trees very much resembled the people who lived underneath them. The knight raised his sword and sliced off a tree limb with one swift stroke.

  The man-beast dropped to his knees, groveled in the dirt, making piteous, blubbering sounds.

  “I think I’m going to vomit,” said the knight to his comrade. “Gully dwarves wouldn’t associate with this lot.”

  “You’re right there.” The knight continued his inspection. “You and I between us could wipe out the entire tribe.”

  “We could, but we’d never be able to clean the stench off our swords,” said the other.

  “What should we do? Kill them?”

  “Small honor in it. These wretches obviously aren’t any threat to us. Our orders were to find out who or what was inhabiting the island, then return and make our report. For all we know, these people may be the favorites of some god, who might be angered if we harmed them. Perhaps that is what the Gray Knights meant by disaster.”

  “I doubt if that could be the case,” said the other knight. “I can’t imagine any god treating his favorites like this.”

  “Morgion, perhaps,” said the other, with a wry grin.

  The knight grunted. “Well, we’ve certainly done no harm just by looking at them. The Gray Knights can’t fault us for that. Send out the brutes to scout the rest of the island. Let’s go back to the shore. I need some fresh air.”

  The two knights walked back to the beach. Sitting in the shade of the tree, waiting for the other patrols to return, they passed the time talking of the upcoming invasion of Ansalon, discussing the vast armada of black dragon-prowed ships, manned by minotaur, that was speeding across the Courrain Ocean, bearing thousands and thousands more barbarian warriors. All was nearly ready for the two-pronged invasion of the continent, which would take place on Summer’s Eve.

  The Knights of Takhisis did not know precisely where they were attacking; such information was kept secret. But they had no doubt of victory. This time the Dark Queen would succeed. This time her armies would be victorious. This time she knew the secret to victory.

  The brutes returned within a few hours, made their reports. The isle was not large, perhaps five miles long and as many miles around. The brutes found no other people. The tribe of man-beasts had all slunk off, probably hiding in their mud huts until the strange beings left.

  The knights returned to their shore boat. The brutes pushed it off the sand, leaped in, grabbed the oars. The boat skimmed across the surface of the water, heading for the black ship that flew the standard of the Knights of Takhisis: the death lily, the skull, and the thorn.

  The knights left behind an empty, deserted beach.

  But their leave-taking was noted, as their coming had been.

  2

  The magical isle. An urgent meeting.

  The decider.

  he black dragon-prowed ship vanished over the horizon. When no trace of it could be seen, the watchers climbed down from the trees.

  “Will they come back? Is it safe?” asked one of the man-beasts of another, a female.

  “You heard them. They’ve gone to report that we are ‘harmless,’ that we pose no threat to them. And that means,” the female added, after a moment’s thought, “that they will be back. Not now. Not soon. But they will return.”

  “What can we do?”

  “I don’t know. We came together to live on this isle to keep our secret safe. Perhaps that was a mistake. Perhaps it would have been better to remain scattered throughout the world. Here we are vulnerable to discovery and attack. There we could at least hide among the other races. I don’t know,” she repeated helplessly. “I can’t say. It will be up to the Decider.”

  “Yes.” The male appeared relieved. “That is true. And he will be awaiting our return with impatience. We should go quickly.”

  “Not like
this,” warned his companion.

  “No, of course not.” He gazed unhappily back out to sea, peering through unkempt shaggy hair. “It’s all so terrible, so frightening. Even now I don’t feel safe. I keep seeing that ship looming on the horizon. I see the dark knights. I hear their voices—the spoken and the unspoken. Talk of conquest, battle, death. Surely …” He was hesitant. “Surely we should warn … someone on Ansalon. The Solamnic Knights perhaps.”

  “That is not our responsibility,” the woman returned sharply. “We must look out for ourselves, as we have always done. You can be certain,” she added, and her tone was bitter, “that in a similar circumstance, they would have no care for us. Come, return to your true form and let us go.”

  The two muttered words of magic, words that no wizard on the continent of Ansalon could understand, let alone speak: words every wizard on Ansalon would have given his very soul to possess. None ever would or could. Such powerful magic is born, not acquired.

  The shambling, filthy husk of the man-beast fell away, as the ugly shell of the chrysalis falls away to reveal the beautiful dusk-faery imprisoned within. Two extraordinarily beautiful beings emerged from the disguises.

  It is difficult to describe such beauty. They were tall, slender, delicate-boned, with large, luminous eyes. But there are many on this world who can be described as such, many on this world considered beautiful. And what may be beautiful to one is not beautiful at all to another. A dwarf male considers a dwarf female’s side-whiskers most alluring; he thinks the smooth faces of human women are denuded and bland. Yet, even a dwarf would realize these people were beautiful, no matter that they did not embody his idea of beauty. They were as beautiful as the sunset on the mountains, as the moonglade on the sea, as the morning mist rising from the valleys.

  A word transformed the crude animal hides they wore into fine-spun, shimmering silk. Another word altered the very tree in which the two had been hiding, relaxed the contorted limbs, smoothed the gnarled trunks. The tree stood straight and tall; deep green leaves rustled in the ocean breeze. Flowers exuded sweet-smelling perfume. At another word, all the trees underwent this same transformation.

  The two left the beach, headed inland, following the direction the knights had taken to reach the mud-hut village. The two did not speak; they were comfortable in their silence. The words they’d just exchanged were probably more than either had spoken to another of their race in years. The Irda enjoy isolation, solitude. They do not even like to be around each other for long periods. It had taken a crisis to start a conversation between the two watchers.

  Therefore the scene the two found, on their return, was almost as shocking as the sight of mud huts and clay cooking pots had been to the knights. The two Irda saw all their people—several hundred or more—gathered beneath an enormous willow tree, a circumstance almost unparalleled in the history of the Irda.

  The ugly, misshapen trees were gone, replaced by a dense, lush forest of oak and pine. Built around and among the trees were small, carefully conceived and designed dwellings. Each house was different in aspect and appearance, but few were ever larger than four rooms, comprising cooking area, meditative area, work area, sleep area. Those dwellings that were built with five rooms also housed the young of the species. A child lived with a parent (generally the mother, unless circumstances dictated otherwise) until the child reached the Year of Oneness. At that time, the child moved out and established a dwelling of his or her own.

  Each Irda household was self-sufficient. Each Irda grew his own food, obtained his own water, pursued his own studies. Social interchange was not prohibited or frowned upon. It simply didn’t exist. Such an idea would never occur to an Irda or—if it did—would be considered a trait peculiar to other, lesser races, such as humans, elves, dwarves, kender and gnomes; or the dark races, such as minotaur, goblins, and draconians; or the one race that was never mentioned among the Irda: ogres.

  Irda join with other Irda only once in their lives, for the purpose of mating. This is a traumatic experience for both male and female, for they do not come together out of love. They are constrained to come together by the magical practice known as the Valin. Created by the elders of the race in order to perpetuate the race, the Valin causes the soul of one Irda to take possession of the soul of another. There is no escape, no defense, no choice or selection. When the Valin happens between two Irda, they must couple or the Valin will so torture and torment them that it may lead to death. Once the woman has conceived, the Valin is lifted, the two go their separate ways, having decided between themselves which would be responsible for the child’s welfare. So devastating is this experience in the lives of two Irda, that this rarely happens more than once in a lifetime. Thus few children are born to the Irda, and their numbers remain small.

  The Irda had lived on the continent of Ansalon for centuries, ever since their creation. Yet few members of the other, more prolific races knew of the Irda’s existence. Such wondrous creatures were the stuff of legend and folk tale. Each child learned at mother’s knee the story of the ogres, who had once been the most beautiful creatures ever created, but who—due to the sin of pride—had been cursed by the gods, changed into ugly, fearsome monsters. Such tales were meant as moral lessons.

  “Roland, if you pull your sister’s hair one more time, you’ll turn into an ogre.”

  “Marigold, if you keep admiring your pretty face, you’ll look into the mirror one day and find yourself as ugly as an ogre.”

  The Irda, so legend had it, were ogres who had managed to escape the gods’ wrath, and so remained beautiful, with all their blessings and magical powers intact. Because they were so powerful and so beautiful and so blessed, the Irda did not hobnob with the rest of the world. And so they vanished. Children, walking into a dark and gloomy wood, would always look for an Irda, for—so legend had it—if you caught an Irda, you could force him or her to grant you a wish.

  This had about as much truth to it as did most legends, but it did encompass the Irda’s primary fear: If any of the other races ever discovered an Irda, they would try to make use of the powerful magic to enhance their own ends. Fear of this, of being used, drove the Irda to live alone, hidden, disguised, avoiding all contact with anyone.

  It had been many years since any Irda had walked on Ansalon—in dark and gloomy woods or anywhere else. Following the War of the Lance, the Irda had looked forward to a long reign of peace. They had been disappointed. The various factions and races on Ansalon could not agree on a peace treaty. Worse, the races were now fighting among themselves. And then there came rumors of a vast darkness forming in the north.

  Fearful that his people would be caught in yet another devastating war, the Decider made a decision. He sent out word to all of the Irda, telling them to leave the continent of Ansalon and travel to this remote isle, far beyond the knowledge of anyone. And so they had come. They had lived in peace and isolation on this isle for many years. Peace and isolation, which had just been shattered.

  The Irda had come together here, beneath the willow tree, to try to end this threat. They had come together to discuss the knights and barbarians, yet they stood apart, each separated from his or her fellows, glancing at the tree, then askance at each other, uneasy, uncomfortable, and unhappy. The tree’s severed branch, cut by the knight’s cold steel blade, lay on the ground. Sap oozed from the cut in the living tree. The tree’s spirit cried out in anguish, and the Irda could not comfort it. A peaceful existence, which had been perfected over the years, had come to an end.

  “Our magical shield has been penetrated.” The Decider was addressing the group as a whole. “The dark knights know we are here. They will return.”

  “I disagree, Decider,” another Irda argued respectfully. “The knights will not come back. Our disguises fooled them. They think we are savages, on the level of animals. Why should they return? What could they possibly want with us?”

  “You know the ways of the human race.” The Decider countered, his tone
heavy with the sorrow of centuries. “The dark knights may want nothing to do with us now. But there will come a time when their leaders will need men to fill the ranks of their armies, or they will decide that this island would be a good location for building ships, or they will feel the need to put a garrison here. A human can never bear to leave anything alone. He must do something with every object he finds, put it to some use, take it apart to see how it works, attach some sort of meaning or significance to it. So it will be with us. They will be back.”

  The Irda, always living alone, in isolation, had no need for any sort of governmental body. Yet they realized that they needed one among them to make decisions for all of them as a whole. Thus, as far back as ancient time, they had always chosen one from among their number who was known as the Decider. Sometimes male, sometimes female, the chosen Decider was neither the eldest nor the youngest, neither the wisest nor the smartest, neither the most powerful mage nor the weakest. The Decider was average and thus, being average, would take no drastic actions, would follow a median course.

  The present Decider had proved far stronger, far more aggressive, than any of the Deciders before him. He said it was due to the bad times. His decisions had all been wise ones, or at least so most of the Irda believed. Those who disagreed were reluctant to disturb the placidity of Irda life and had thus far said nothing.

  “At any rate, they will not return in the immediate future, Decider,” said the female who had been one of the watchers on the shore. “We watched their ship disappear over the horizon. And we noted that it flew the flag of Ariakan, son of the late Ariakus, Dragon Highlord. Ariakan, like his father before him, is a follower of the dark goddess Queen Takhisis.”