Margaret Weis - Dragons of a Lost Star

Bowing, Kelevandros picked up his bow and a quiver of arrows and started to take his leave. He was almost out the door when he turned to face her, yet he did not look at her.

“Oddly enough, Madam,” he said, his voice rough, his eyes downcast.

“I was happy here.”

With another bow, he left.

“Was that Kelevandros I saw skulking through the garden?” Medan asked when Laurana opened the door to him. He looked at her intently.

“Yes,” she said, glancing in that direction, though she could not see him for the thick foliage. “He has gone to take his place in the tower.”

“You look troubled. Has he said or done something to upset you?”

“If he did, I must make allowances. He has not been himself since his brother’s death. His grief overwhelms him.”

“His grief is wasted,” said the Marshal. “That wretched brother of his was not worth a snivel, let alone a tear.”

“Perhaps,” Laurana said, unconvinced. “And yet . . .” She paused, perplexed, and shook her head.

Medan regarded her earnestly. “You have only to say the word, Madam, and I will see to it that you escape safely from Qualinost this instant. You will be reunited with your son—”

“No, I thank you, Marshal,” Laurana answered calmly, looking up at him. “Kelevandros must wrestle with his own demons, as I have wrestled with mine. I am resolved in this. I will do my part. You need me, I think, sir,” she added with a hint of mischief, “unless you plan to dress up in one of my gowns and wear a blonde wig.”

“I have no doubt that even Beryl, dense as she is, would see through that disguise,” said Medan dryly. He was pleased to see Laurana smile. Another memory for him to keep. He handed her the white rose. “I brought this for you, Madam. From my garden. The roses will be lovely in Qualinost this fall.”

“Yes,” said Laurana, accepting the rose. Her hand trembled slightly.

“They will be lovely.”

“You will see them. If I die this day, you will tend my garden for me. Do you promise?”

“It is bad luck to speak of death before the battle, Marshal,” Laurana warned, partly in jest, wholly in earnest. “Our plan will work. The dragon will be defeated and her army demoralized.”

“I am a soldier. Death is in my contract. But you—”

“Marshal,” Laurana interrupted with a smile, “every contract ever written ends in death.”

“Not yours,” he said softly. “Not so long as I am alive to prevent it.”

They stood a moment in silence. He watched her, watched the moonlight gently touch her hair as he longed to touch it. She kept her gaze fixed upon the rose.

“The parting with your son Gilthas was difficult?” he asked at last. She replied with a soft sigh. “Not in the way you imagine. Gilthas did not try to dissuade me from my chosen path. Nor did he try to free himself from walking his. We did not spend our last hours in fruitless argument, as I had feared. We remembered the past and talked of what he will do in the future. He has many hopes and dreams. They will serve to ease his journey over the dark, perilous road he must travel to reach that future. Even if we win this day, as Kelevandros said, the lives of the elves will never be the same. We can never go back to what we were.” She was pensive, introspective.

In his heart Medan applauded Gilthas. The Marshal guessed how difficult it must have been for the young man to leave his mother to face the dragon while he departed safely out of harm’s way. Gilthas had been wise enough to realize that attempting to dissuade her from her chosen course would have accomplished nothing and left him with only bitter recriminations. Gilthas would need all the wisdom he possessed to face what lay ahead of him. Medan knew the peril better than Laurana, for he had received reports of what was happening in Silvanesti. He said nothing to her, not wanting to worry her. Time enough to face that crisis when they had disposed of this one.

“If you are ready, Madam, we should leave now,” he told her. “We’ll steal through the city while night’s shadows yet linger and enter the tower with the dawn.”

“I am ready,” Laurana said. She did not look behind her. As they walked down the path that led through the late-blooming lilacs, she said to him, “I want to thank you, Marshal, on behalf of the elven people, for what you do for us this day. Your courage will be long remembered and long honored among us.”

Medan was embarrassed. “Perhaps it is not so much what I do this day, Madam,” he said quietly, “as what I try to undo. Rest assured I will not fail you or your people.”

“Our people, Marshal Medan,” said Laurana. “Our people.”

Her words were meant kindly, but they pierced his heart. He deserved the punishment, and he bore it in silence, unflinching, as a soldier. Thus he bore unflinching the sting of the rose’s thorns against his breast. Muffled sounds could be heard coming from the houses of the elves as Medan and Laurana passed swiftly through the streets on their way to the tower. Although no elf showed his face, the time for skulking in silence was gone. There were sounds of heavy objects being hauled up stairs, the rustlings of tree branches as the archers took their places. They heard orders given in calm voices both in Common and Elvish. Near the tower, they actually caught a glimpse of Dumat adding the finishing touches to a web of tree branches he had constructed over the roof of his house. Chosen to watch for Kelevandros’s signal, Dumat would give the signal to the elves for the attack. He saluted the Marshal and bowed to the Queen Mother, then continued on about his work.

The morning sun rose, and by the time they reached the tower, the sun shone bright. Shading his eyes, Medan blessed the day for its clear visibility, although he caught himself thinking that his garden would have welcomed rain. He put the thought aside with a smile and concentrated on the task ahead.

The bright light streamed in through the myriad windows, sent rainbows dancing in dazzling array around the tower’s interior, and lit the mosaic on the ceiling: the day and the night, separated by hope. Laurana had locked away the sword and the dragonlance in one of the tower’s many rooms. While she retrieved them, Medan looked out one of the windows, watching the preparations as Qualinost made ready for war. Like its Queen Mother, the city was transforming itself from lovely and demure maid into doughty warrior.

Laurana handed Medan the sword, Lost Star. He gravely saluted her with the sword, then buckled it around his waist. She helped him arrange the folds of the cloak to conceal it. Stepping back, she eyed him critically and pronounced his disguise successful. No gleam of metal could be seen.

“We climb this staircase.” Laurana indicated a circular stair. “It leads to the balcony at the top of the tower. The climb is a long one, I fear, but there will be time to rest—”

Sudden night, strange and awful as that of an eclipse, quenched the sunlight. Medan hastened to look out the window, well knowing, yet dreading what he would see.

The sky was dark with dragons.

“Very little time, I fear,” Medan said calmly, taking the dragonlance from her hand and shaking his head when she started to try to retrieve it.

“The great green bitch has launched her attack early. No surprise there. We must make haste.”

Opening the door, they began to climb the stairs that wound around and around a hollow shaft, a vortex of stone. A railing made of gold and of silver, twined together, spiraled upward. Formed in an imitation of a vine of ivy, the railing did not appear to have been built into the stone but seemed to have grown around it.

“Our people are ready,” Laurana said. “When Kelevandros gives the signal, they will strike.”