Jean Rabe - Redemption

“And I’ll win again,” Dhamon said as he backed out of the shop. It was dusk, and when he looked down the street he saw Ragh and Fiona walking toward him. The Solamnic Knight had a pitcher in her hand, and Ragh was carrying two large mugs. They’d finally managed to obtain water from the well, and under the draconian’s arm was a rolled up sheet of parchment.

“Let’s get out of here!” Ragh called when he spotted Dhamon.

“Immediately,” Dhamon replied.

“You’ve not won.” He heard those words as a whisper carried on a chill gust of wind. “You’ve lost something very precious, Dhamon Grimwulf: your family and a piece of your history.”

Dhamon shook his head. He’d lost nothing that he could discern. He’d never had a family.

“They call this dismal patch of dirt Nostar. A big island, as far as islands go, but a pretty big nothing as far as I’m concerned.” Ragh walked between Dhamon and Fiona, a battered map held between his clawed hands. The scroll he’d retrieved from the inn had yellowed edges that flaked off when his scaly fingers brushed against them. “I’ve been just about everywhere on Krynn—and I visited here at least on three occasions. The last time was… oh, I guess forty or fifty years ago. Not long enough, if you ask me.”

When neither of his companions commented, he continued, “I didn’t recognize it at first. Nostar wasn’t like this then. Not that this island was ever anything special, but it didn’t try to make you a permanent part of the landscape by pulling you down into a sinkhole. There was grass most places, a lot more trees, and some hills here and there.” The last he said wistfully, gazing out over the relatively flat ground scarred by sinkholes and piles of rocks. He shook his head. “I certainly remember a lot more green.”

Using a craggy gray rock formation dubbed the Three Brothers, to the west, and the sea to the east, they had decided to follow what the map showed as a road running toward a sizeable mining settlement.

The map suggested the road was substantial, but what remained of the road was almost completely overgrown by the scabrous brown grass, and there were a few places where sinkholes had destroyed entire sections of it. They could see wagon ruts where some wagons had gone around the sinkholes.

“That’s a good sign,” Ragh said. “Means there’s somebody other than us still alive on this gods-forsaken rock.”

The map showed that Nostar stretched roughly sixty miles from east to west and forty north to south.

There were only a dozen town names indicated on the map, and these were clustered around the northern and eastern part of the island—all but two of them set back a couple of miles from the coast. Of the two towns perched directly on the shore, they decided to head to the closest one, a place called Bev’s Oar, a mile or so north of the eerily deserted mining settlement.

Studying the map, Dhamon saw that the interior of the island was practically devoid of notation, save for one egg-shaped lake and two scrawled words that had been added in a different hand than the map maker’s—Hobgoblin Village. He raised an eyebrow.

“That’s why there were never many towns on Nostar and why the ones that are here are small,” Ragh said. “Most of the population is goblins and hobgoblins, bugbears, and their kin. Or it used to be anyway, last time I happened by. Not many humans and elves, and they always stayed near the coasts, fishing and mining. From what I remember, the goblins left the humans pretty much alone.” Ragh rubbed at his chin.

“Of course, things could’ve changed.”

“Things have changed,” Dhamon said flatly. “Consider that nameless place we just came from.”

“It’s got a name. Slad’s,” Ragh said. “According to the map it’s called Slad’s Corners.”

“It’s called empty now. Let’s hope Bev’s Oar has a decent population and at least a few ships in port.

I want to book passage to Southern Ergoth as quickly as possible.” Dhamon had noticed more scales sprouting since they’d left the vacant town, a scattering on his left leg—which Ragh and Fiona also noticed—and a dozen more on his stomach. He feared he had little time left to atone for the mistakes in his life. He intended to take Fiona to the Solamnic stronghold, find Maldred, make sure Riki and his child were safe. Thinking about it all quickened his pulse. “My guess is we have another seven or eight miles to cover before we reach Bev’s Oar and…”

Ragh was quick to point out their map predated the war in the Abyss, when new land masses rose from the earth. “The island might be bigger now, so it might be twice as many miles to this Bev’s Oar.

Maybe more. That’s assuming Bev’s Oar didn’t break off into the sea. And it’s a long way after that to Southern Ergoth,” the draconian mused. “Of course, there’s no telling, really, the size of this damn place and just how far we have to go.”

Dhamon groaned. “It doesn’t matter how big it is, let’s get going.”

Nostar was south of Southern Ergoth by more than eighty miles according to Ragh’s map. It was about half that distance to Enstar, an island twice this one’s size. They might stop over in Enstar, but “too far to swim,” Fiona said absently.

Dhamon gave her a sideways glance. Sometimes he couldn’t tell whether she was listening or not. There was always a fixed, dazed expression on her face. Her words now were tinged with anger. “I’m not going to swim forty miles or eighty miles, Dhamon, and I don’t know why you keep harping on Southern Ergoth. You do need to find us a ship, Dhamon, so you can take me to the New Sea. Rig and I are to be married soon on the coast across from Schallsea Island.”

She made an exasperated sound, but for an instant her eyes had sparkled with life, before her face resumed its disturbing blank expression. Though tired and hungry, she resumed their trek toward Bev’s Oar, while Dhamon and Ragh purposefully fell back.

“You’ll not be allowed at the wedding ceremony, Dhamon,” she called over her shoulder, “causing all this bother.”

Dhamon ached inside for what Fiona had become, a mockery of her old self, and he wondered why the Chaos wight couldn’t have stolen the memories of Rig away from her. It might have made her a little easier to deal with. How much of Fiona’s madness has found its way inside me? he thought. And what did the wight rob me of? He shook off his unanswerable thoughts, pointing to Ragh’s map.

“Somehow we must find passage on a ship at Bev’s Oar. But we’ll need to get some warm clothes, first. At least Fiona and I need warmer clothes.”

“I can feel the bite of winter, too,” Ragh said.

Dhamon’s finger drifted a little to the west on the map. “That river’s not too far off our course, maybe fifteen, twenty minutes at the most. We can store up on water. And I could do with a bath.” He hated the thought of delaying the journey to Bev’s Oar, but Dhamon was worried about how he looked.

The scales were bad enough—the scales and the filth made him look truly monstrous, he thought. He needed to clean up.

The river turned out to be a narrow creek no more than half a foot deep, but the water was clear and cold. Dhamon scrubbed himself raw, while Fiona stoically went downstream for privacy.

“You’ve got even more scales now, I see,” Ragh said, nodding at Dhamon’s legs. His right leg was solid scales, shining slickly from the water. The left was spattered with them.

Dhamon didn’t reply. He didn’t try to cover them anymore—there wasn’t enough material left in his tattered clothes. He avoided the draconian’s accusing gaze and stared instead at the water. The man staring back had a hard look to him, dark eyes hiding all manner of mysteries. He had a handsome face, with high cheekbones and a firm jaw, but he was gaunt from lack of food, and his uneven beard and tangled mass of hair made him look like a brigand.