Paul Thompson - The Qualinesti

“Where are you going?” called the kender. He pushed between the Kagonesti and splashed through the mud till he was dogging the tall elf’s heels. Kivinellis remained with the Kagonesti, conversing with the wild elves. Where a line of locust trees bordered the grassy bank, the stranger lowered Verhanna to the ground.

“A goblin bit her,” Rufus said, panting. “The wound’s poisoned.”

The stranger’s long fingers probed Verhanna’s shoulder. She gasped when he touched the wound itself. Sitting back on his haunches, the tall elf regarded her with rapt attention.

“What’re you waiting for? Make a poultice. Work a spell!” The kender wondered if this fellow was really a healer.

The stranger held up a hand to quell the impatient Rufus. By the light of Krynn’s stars and two bright moons, the kender could see that his fingers were dark, as if stained with dye. Rufus’s penetrating vision could just make out that the stain was green.

Green. Green fingers. In a flash, Rufus remembered Diviros’s queer tale of the lightning splitting the oak and a fully grown elf falling from the broken tree—a fully grown elf whose hands were green.

“It’s you!” the kender exclaimed. “The one from the shattered tree! Greenhands!”

“I have been waiting for you,” said Greenhands. “Through days of red rain and endless sun.”

He bent down and slipped his arms around Verhanna. Taking her limp form into his embrace, Greenhands closed his right hand over the ugly, swollen wound on her shoulder. Rufus could see the muscles in the tall elf’s neck tighten as he drew Verhanna closer to him, as if he were embracing a lover.

“What’re you—?”

She groaned once, then cried out in torment as the stranger dug his odd, grass-colored fingers into her wound. Verhanna’s eyes flew wide. She stared over the strange elf’s shoulder at Rufus. What was in her eyes? Terror? Wonder? The kender couldn’t tell. She uttered a long, tearing wail, and Greenhands suddenly joined his voice with hers. The combined scream hammered painfully at the listeners, wrenching their hearts as it agonized their ears.

Kith-Kanan’s daughter closed her eyes with a slow flutter. Greenhands lowered her carefully to the ground, straightened up, and walked away. Rufus went to his captain.

Her breast rose and fell evenly. She was asleep. Beneath the filthy shreds of her linen shirt, Verhanna’s right shoulder was as smooth and unscarred as a baby’s cheek.

The kender yelped in astonishment. He jumped up and stared after Greenhands, who was still walking away. “Wait, you!” he yelled. Not ten paces from where Verhanna lay, Greenhands sank to the ground. The kender and elves ran to him.

“Are you all right?” Rufus asked as he reached the elf. Kivinellis already knelt by the stranger. It was he who noticed the change.

“Look at his hand!” the boy gasped.

The tall elf’s right hand, the one he’d healed Verhanna’s wound with, was split open. A long, deep gash, from which blood oozed, ran across his palm. Black blood caked his green fingers, and the smell of the suppurating goblin bite rose up like foul smoke.

“He is thalmaat ,” said one of the Kagonesti in deeply reverent tones.

“What’s that?” asked Kivinellis, unfamiliar with the old dialect.

Rufus glanced from the bloody green hand of the tall stranger to his captain, now peacefully resting. “It means ‘godsent’,” the kender said slowly. “One who is actually sent by the gods.”

Rain pattered on the dry streets of Qualinost. After three days of continuous sunshine, the rain was a blessing. The city dwellers, who had so fastidiously avoided the crimson downpour, stayed outside, luxuriating in the refreshing, clean liquid. The wide, curving streets were full of people.

Once the rain had abated to a soft shower and cool breezes flowed across his capital, Kith-Kanan rode with Senator Irthenie and Kemian Ambrodel through the busy streets. The Speaker of the Sun was surveying the city to see how much it had suffered in the three days of heat. Qualinost, he was relieved to see, didn’t seem to have been much damaged by the burning sun.

His subjects noticed the Speaker riding among them. They tipped their hats or bowed as he passed. Here and there, Kith-Kanan came upon a gang of gardeners removing some tree or bush that had succumbed to the relentless heat. At the right hand of each of these groups waited a priest of Astra, ready to plant a new tree in place of the old. No, Qualinost had not suffered very much.

The market square was less cheerful. Kith-Kanan rode ahead of his two companions across the almost deserted plaza and saw all the empty stalls and ruined produce lying trodden on the cobblestones. One merchant, a burly human with a leather apron, was sweeping up some spoiled potatoes when Kith-Kanan reined in to speak with him.

“Hello there, my good fellow,” called the Speaker. “How goes it with you?”

The man didn’t look up from his work. “Rotten! All of it rotten! What’s a man supposed to do with five bushels of dried-out, split-open, rotten vegetables?”

Irthenie and Kemian drew alongside Kith-Kanan. “So the sun ruined your crop?” asked the Speaker sympathetically.

“Aye, the sun or the darkness or the lightnin’ or the flood of bloody rain. Makes no never-mind to me which it was. It happened.” The man spat on the damp stones.

An elf woman with a basket of withered flowers under one arm heard their conversation. With a quick curtsy to her sovereign, she asked, “Why do the gods punish us so? What sin have we committed?”

“How do you know the gods are punishing anyone? These strange things might all be signs of some great wonder to come,” Kith-Kanan suggested.

The human, squatting on the ground to gather his ruined potatoes into baskets, grumbled, “They say it’s because Kith-Kanan has put his own son in chains to help build the fortress at Pax Tharkas.” He still didn’t realize to whom he was conversing. At his harsh words, the elf woman blushed, and Kemian Ambrodel cleared his throat loudly. The human lifted his head.

Even though the Speaker didn’t wear the glitter and gold of state robes, the man recognized him. “Mercy, Your Worship, I’m sorry!” the man gasped. “I didn’t know it was you!”

Grimly Kith-Kanan replied, “Have no fear. I would hear everything my people think of me.”

“Is it true, Majesty?” asked the elf woman meekly. “Did you sell your own son into slavery just to finish that big castle?”

Kemian and Irthenie started to remonstrate with the woman for her blunt query. The Speaker held up his hands to silence them. Patiently he explained what Ulvian had done, and why he had sent him to Pax Tharkas. His earlier wish to keep Ulvian’s crime from public gossip seemed hopeless. Now he felt it was more important for his people to know the truth and not entertain wild imaginings.

While he spoke, more people gathered—peddlers, tinkers, farmers, potters. All came to hear Kith-Kanan’s story of the trouble he was having with his son. To his amazement, they all believed that Ulvian’s exile and the twelve days of marvels were related.

“Where did you get these ideas?” Irthenie asked sharply.

The potato man shrugged. “Talk. Just talk…you know.”

“Shadow talk,” said Kith-Kanan, too faintly for most to hear. Kemian heard, and he glanced at the Speaker.

“Is Lord Kemian Ambrodel to be your son now?” shouted a voice from the crowd. The three mounted elves turned their heads to and fro, trying to spot the one who’d spoken.

“Will Lord Ambrodel be the next Speaker of the Sun?” the same voice demanded.

“Who said that?” muttered Irthenie. No one answered, but others in the crowd took up the cry. Keeping a steady hand on his fractious mount’s reins, Kith-Kanan let the shouting grow a while. He wanted to measure the sentiment of his people.