Margaret Weis - The Second Generation

“I know.” As Laurana hung her head, her hair drifted about her in a radiant cloud. “I’m sorry.” She sidled near him, put her hands on his chest, and playfully smoothed his shirt collar. “I promise. I won’t do it again.”

She kissed his bearded cheek. He started to kiss her, but at that moment she reached around him, caught hold of the letter, and snatched it from his grasp. Of course, he couldn’t refuse such a challenge. He caught hold of her and the letter.

The letter eventually fluttered to the floor, forgotten.

The two stood by the window, warm and comfortable in each other’s arms.

“Damn and blast it all!” Tanis swore, nuzzling his chin in his wife’s golden hair. “Look—there’s a stranger riding up the road.”

“Oh, not a guest!” Laurana sighed.

“A knight, by the horse’s trappings. We’ll have to entertain him. I should go down—”

“No, don’t!” Laurana clasped her husband tighter. “If you go, you’ll be courtesy-bound to invite him in and this knight will consider himself courtesy-bound to stay. There goes Gil up to meet him. Gil can handle him.”

“Are you sure?” Tanis was doubtful. “Will he know how to act, what to say? The boy’s only sixteen—”

“Give him a chance,” Laurana said, smiling.

“We can’t afford to insult the knights now, of all times ...” Tanis gently put aside his wife’s arms. “I think I’d better go—”

“Too late. He’s riding away,” Laurana reported.

“There, what did I tell you?” Tanis was grim.

“He doesn’t look insulted. Gil’s coming into the house. Oh, Tanis, we can’t let him think we’ve been spying on him. You know how touchy he is these days. Quick! Do something!”

Laurana hastily sat back down in her chair. Grabbing up a sheet of paper, she began writing furiously. Tanis, feeling foolish, walked across the room and stared at a map of Ansalon, spread out on the table. He was startled and discomfited to see the word Qualinesti leap out at him.

Only logical, he supposed. Whenever he looked at his son these days, Tanis was drawn back to his own childhood. And that brought memories of Qualinesti, the land of his birth—his ignominious birth. All these years, hundreds of years, and the memories still had the power to hurt him. Once again he was sixteen and living in his mother’s brother’s house, an orphan, a bastard orphan.

“Touchy” Laurana had described their son. Tanis had been “touchy” himself at that age. Or, rather, he’d been more like some infernal gnomish mechanical device, the human blood boiling in him, building up steam that either had to find an outlet or explode. Tanis didn’t see himself in his son physically. Tanis hadn’t been frail, like his son. Tanis had been strong, robust, far too strong and robust to suit elven tastes and style. Tanis’s broad shoulders and strong arms were an insult to most elves, a constant reminder of human parentage. He flaunted his human side; he could admit that much now. He’d goaded them into driving him away, then he was hurt when they did so.

It was in more subtle ways that Tanis saw himself in his boy. Inner turmoil, not knowing who he was, where he belonged. Although Gil had said nothing to him—the two rarely talked—Tanis guessed that was how Gil was feeling these days. Tanis had prayed for his son to be spared such doubt and self-questioning. Apparently, his prayers had not been answered.

Gilthas of the House of Solostaran [2] Customarily, among elves, a son takes the name of his father’s house. But since Tanis Half-Elven is of illegitimate birth and questionable bloodline, his son Gilthas was given the name of his mother’s father’s house, which is Solostaran. , was Tanis’s son, but he was Laurana’s child—a child of the elves. Gilthas was named for Gilthanas, Laurana’s brother (whose strange and tragic fate was never spoken of aloud). Gil was tall, slender, with delicate bone structure, fine-spun, fair hair, and almond-shaped eyes. He was only one-quarter human—his father being half-human—and even that alien blood had been further diluted, it seemed, by the unbroken line of royal elven ancestors bequeathed to him from both sides.

Tanis had hoped—for his son’s own peace of mind—that the boy would grow up elven, that the human blood in him would be too weak to trouble him. He saw that hope dwindle. At sixteen, Gil was not the typical docile, respectful elven child. He was moody, irritable, rebellious. And Tanis—remembering how he himself had bolted—was keeping an extra tight grip on the reins that held his son in check.

Staring hard at the map, Tanis pretended not to notice when Gil came into the room. He didn’t look up, because he knew what he would see. He would see himself standing there. And because he knew himself, knew what he had been, he feared seeing that likeness in his son. And because he feared it, he couldn’t speak of it, couldn’t admit it. And so he kept silent. He kept his head down, stared at the map, at a place marked Qualinesti.

Gilthas knew the moment he entered the room that his parents had been watching him from the window. He knew it by the faint flush of self-consciousness on his mother’s face, by the fact that his father was intensely interested in a map Tanis himself had termed outdated—by the fact that neither looked up at him.

Gil said nothing, waited to let his parents give themselves away. At length, his mother looked up and smiled at him.

“Who were you talking to outside, mapete?” Laurana asked.

The aching, familiar knot of irritation tightened Gil’s stomach. Mapete!

An elven term of endearment, used for a child!

On not receiving an answer, Laurana looked even more selfconscious and realized she had made an error. “Um ... were you talking to someone outside? I heard the dogs barking...”

“It was a knight, Sir Something-or-other,” Gil replied. “I can’t remember his name. He said—”

Laurana laid down her pen. Her manner was calm, and so was her voice. “Did you invite him inside?”

“Of course, he did,” Tanis said sharply. “Gil knows better than to treat a Knight of Solamnia with discourtesy. Where is he, Son?”

Admit it. You watched the knight ride off, Gil told them silently. Do you take me for a complete fool?

“Father, please!” Gil was losing control. “Let me finish what I was saying. Of course, I invited the knight in. I’m not a dolt. I know the proper forms of etiquette. He said he couldn’t stay. He was on his way to his home. He stopped by to give you and Mother this.”

Gil held out a scroll case. “It’s from Caramon Majere. The knight was a guest at the Inn of the Last Home. When Caramon found that Sir William was riding this direction, he asked him to bring this message.”

Coldly, Gil handed the scroll case to his father. Tanis gave his son a troubled look, then glanced at Laurana, who shrugged and smiled patiently, as much as to say, We’ve hurt his feelings. Again.

Gil was being “touchy,” as his mother would say. Well, he had a right to be “touchy.”

A frail and sickly child, whose birth was much wanted and long in coming, Gil had been in ill health most of his life. When he was six, he had very nearly died. After that, his anxious, adoring parents kept him “wrapped in silk,” as the saying went. Cocooned.

He had outgrown his illnesses, but now suffered from painful, debilitating headaches. These would begin with flashes of light before his eyes and end in terrible agony, often causing him to lapse into a state of near unconsciousness. Nothing could be done for the malady; the clerics of Mishakal had tried and failed. Tanis and Laurana were both away from home a great deal of the time, both working hard to preserve the slender threads of alliances which held the various races and nations together after the War of the Lance. Too weak to travel, Gil was left in the care of a doting housekeeper, who adored him only slightly more than did his parents. To them all, Gil was still that frail little boy who had nearly burned up with fever.