Margaret Weis - The Second Generation

At this, one of the strangers lowered his head. The other put his hand over his companion’s.

“Well,” said Slegart more briskly, “I can offer you gentlemen cold meat and ale, but you won’t get no hot food this night. Cook’s that upset. And now,”—the innkeeper glanced at the still-swinging kitchen door with a sigh—“from what Lizzie says, it seems like there’s somethin' odd about the babe—”

The stranger made a sudden, swift movement with his hand, and old Slegart froze in place, his mouth open in the act of speaking, his body half-turned, one hand raised. The kitchen door stopped in midswing. The servant girl’s muffled cries from the kitchen ceased. A drop of ale, falling from the spigot, hung suspended in the air between spigot and floor.

Rising to their feet, the two strangers moved swiftly up the stairs amid the enchanted silence. Hastily, they opened every door in the inn, peered inside every room, searching. Finally, coming to a small room at the very end of the hall, one of the strangers opened the door, looked inside, and beckoned to his companion.

A large, matronly woman—presumably Cook—was halted in the act of brushing out the beautiful hair of a pale, cold figure lying upon the bed. Tears glistened on the cook’s kindly face. It had obviously been her work-worn hands that had composed the body for its final rest. The girl’s eyes were shut, the cold, dead fingers folded across the breast, a small bunch of roses held in their unfeeling grasp. A candle shed its soft light upon the young face whose incredible beauty was enhanced by a sweet, wistful smile upon the ashen lips.

“Amberyl!” cried one of the strangers brokenly, sinking down upon the bed and taking the cold hands in his. Coming up behind him, the other stranger laid a hand upon his companion’s shoulder. “I’m truly sorry, Keryl."

“We should have come sooner!” Keryl stroked the girl’s hand.

“We came as quickly as we could,” his companion said gently. “As quickly as she wanted us.”

“She sent us the message—” only when she knew she was dying,” said the companion.

“Why?” Keryl cried, his gaze going to Amberyl’s peaceful face. “Why did she choose to die among . . . among humans?” He gestured toward the cook.

“I don’t suppose we will ever know,” said his companion softly.

“Although I can guess,” he added, but it was in an undertone, spoken only to himself and not to his distraught friend. Turning away, he walked over to a cradle that had been hastily constructed out of a wood box. He whispered a word and lifted the enchantment from the baby, who drew a breath and began whimpering.

“The child?” the stranger said, starting up from the bed. “Is her baby all right? What the servant girl said ...” There was fear in his voice. “It isn’t, it isn’t dea—” He couldn’t go on.

“No,” said his friend in mystified tones. “It is not what you fear. The servant girl said she’d never seen anything 'like it.' But the baby seems fine—Ah!” The stranger gasped in awe. Holding the baby in his arms, he turned toward his friend. “Look, Keryl! Look at the child’s eyes!”

The young man bent over the crying baby, gently stroking the tiny cheek with his finger. The baby turned its head, opening its large eyes as it searched instinctively for nourishment, love, and warmth.

“The eyes are ... gold!” Keryl whispered. “Burning gold as the sun! Nothing like this has ever occurred in our people I wonder—”

“A gift from her human father, no doubt. Although I know of no humans with eyes like this. But that secret, too, Amberyl took with her.” He sighed, shaking his head. Then he looked back down at the whimpering baby. “Her daughter is as lovely as her mother,” the man said, wrapping the baby tightly in its blankets. “And now, my friend, we must go. We have been in this strange and terrible land long enough.”

“Yes,” Keryl said, but he made no move to leave. “What about Amberyl?” His gaze went back to the pale, unmoving figure upon the bed.

“We will leave her among those she chose to be with at the end,” his companion said gravely. “Perhaps one of the gods will accept her now and will guide her wandering spirit home.”

“Farewell, my sister,” Keryl murmured. Reaching down, he took the roses from the dead hands and, kissing them, put the flowers carefully in the pocket of his tunic. His companion spoke words in an ancient language, lifting the enchantment from the inn. Then the two strangers, holding the baby, vanished from the room like a shower of silver, sparkling rain.

And the baby was beautiful, as beautiful as her mother. For it is said that, in the ancient of days before they grew self—centered and seduced by evil, the most beautiful of all races ever created by the gods was the ogre....

The last ringing echoes of the chimes, hanging in the clock tower of the Temple of Paladine, were punctuated by the sounds of shutters closing, doors slamming shut, keys turning in locks, and the shrill protests of disappointed kender, who had been discovered poking about among the shelves and were now being tossed into the streets. Six strikes of the bell brought the day’s business to an end. Shopkeepers set about closing for the night; last minute buyers were eyed with impatience and hustled out of the stores as soon as their cash was in hand.

“Close up, Markus,” Jenna told her young assistant.

He promptly left his seat at the entrance and began to draw the heavy wooden shutters over the pane glass windows.

The shop darkened. Jenna smiled. She enjoyed her work, but she liked this time of day best. All the customers were gone, the din of their voices quieted, and she was alone. She paused to listen to the stillness, to breathe in the smells that would have told Jenna—had she been blind and deaf—that she was in a mageware shop: the perfume of rose petals; the spicy smells of cinnamon and clove; the faint, sickening odor of decay, of bats' wings, and turtle skulls. The smell was always strongest this time of day. The sunlight brought forth the various fragrances, and the darkness enhanced them.

Markus appeared in the doorway.

“Anything else I can do for you, Mistress Jenna?” he asked eagerly.

He was newly hired and already in love with her. Hopelessly in love, as only a nineteen-year-old can be in love with a woman five years his senior. All Jenna’s assistants fell in love with her. She had come to expect it, would have been disappointed—and probably angered—if they had not. Yet she did nothing to encourage the young men, beyond simply being herself, which, since she was beautiful, powerful, and mysterious, was quite enough. Jenna loved another man, and all in Palanthas knew it.