Chris Pierson - Spirit of the Wind

Caramon bowed his head, blinking back tears. When the Chaos War ended, the loss of the gods had struck everyone hard, but none had suffered more than those who had devoted their lives to their faith. All across Ansalon, priests had succumbed to madness or taken their lives in despair. In Tarsis, it was said, a monk of Majere had gone to the marketplace one day and killed six people before the guards could stop him. In Neraka, priests of Takhisis had doused themselves in oil and set themselves ablaze.

Goldmoon had always been strong-willed, however, even for a cleric. Caramon had taken comfort in the knowledge that her strength would not falter. It would take something truly awful to break her. Something like her husband slowly dying, of a sickness she no longer had the power to cure.

“Won’t she find out?” Caramon asked. “You said yourself-the first illness left you bedridden, unable to eat. How can you hide that from her?”

“I cannot.” Riverwind stared fiercely at Caramon. “This time, I will not let it come to that.”

Caramon blew a long, slow breath through his lips. “Are you sure it’s what you want?” he asked.

Riverwind nodded. “It will be better, for both of us. Goldmoon will not have to bear watching me waste away, like she did Arrowthorn. And as for me-” He broke off, then shook his head, chuckling grimly. “You know I am no coward, Caramon. But I know what lies ahead for me, and I am afraid. I am sixty-five years old. I have led a life I am proud of. I do not want to end it like that, in pain, waiting for the final hour to come.”

They stood together in silence, beneath the pale moon, listening as the cold wind ruffled the leaves. Then Caramon clasped his friend’s arms, letting the gesture convey what words could not.

“Come on,” he said, clapping the Plainsman on the back. “I’ll get you some spiced potatoes.”

Riverwind smiled. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

The tavern at the Inn was almost empty. The elves had gone, presumably upstairs to their room. The tinker was lost to the world, his head on the table beside the empty bottle of dwarf spirits. He mumbled incoherently in his sleep. Caramon shook his head in pity, knowing well enough the signs of a lifelong drunk.

Of course Clemen, Borlos, and Osler were where he’d left them, playing cards by the kitchen. The game had switched to Bounty Hunter, and from the looks of things-the heap of steel coins in front of him, and Borlos and Osler’s glum faces-Clemen was laying waste to the other two. They were just ending a hand as Caramon and Riverwind came in, and Clemen grinned as he turned up his last card: the Dragon of Waves. Evidently Waves were trump, because Borlos cursed under his breath as Clemen raked the pot-which included two silver rings and a small opal-over to his side of the table.

“Evenin’, big guy,” Clemen said jovially as Caramon crossed the tavern. His eyes flicked to Riverwind. “And bigger guy, too. We can deal the two o’ ye in next hand if ye’re feeling game.”

“Save yourself,” Osler muttered grimly. “You’d have better luck in a head-butting contest with a minotaur tonight. I swear, this bugger’s put a hex on the cards.”

Caramon chuckled, glancing at Riverwind, but the Plainsman shook his head. “The only games I know are wrestling and pole sparring,” Riverwind said.

“Pole sparring, eh?” drawled Borlos. “Well, maybe we can arrange something. Caramon, get Clem a broom.”

“All right,” Caramon said. He started toward a nearby closet.

Clemen’s face turned white as a cleric’s robes. The others held their straight faces for a moment, but it was a losing battle, and soon Osler and Borlos were howling with laughter, pounding the table. Caramon chuckled along with them, and even Riverwind cracked a smile.

“Had ye goin’ there, didn’t we?” roared Borlos, slapping Clemen on the shoulder. “Thought ye’d be gettin’ yer head clonked by a genuine Hero of the Lance, eh?”

Riverwind glanced at Caramon, surprised. “They know who I am?”

“Oh, great gods, yeah,” said Osler.

“Don’t believe them, Riverwind,” said Tika. She emerged from the kitchen, the smell of spices wafting behind her. “They heard me tell Caramon you were in town.”

Osler reddened. “Well, aye, but I reckon I’d’a known ye the moment I saw ye, Plainsman. Not many o’ yer kind taller than Caramon, here. He’s told us all about the whole lot o’ ye.”

“And told us, and told us….“ droned Clemen. Suddenly everyone-Tika included-was laughing again, at Caramon’s expense.

“Pull up a seat,” offered Osler, gesturing at an empty chair. “You can tell us the truth about the War of the Lance. It’d be nice to hear something other than Caramon’s tall tales for a change.”

Riverwind looked at Caramon, who waved a hand. “Go ahead. It’s a good night for war stories. The boys are right-they’ve heard everything a hundred times-but don’t let that stop you. They’re easily amused.” He ignored the snorts and scowls the three card players tossed his way. “I’ll be right back.”

He left the others and went to a storeroom in the back of the Inn. There he bent down and opened a trapdoor in the middle of the floor. Taking a lantern from a nearby cresset, he stepped through the open hatch and climbed down a steep flight of stairs. The stairway smelled of sap, for it led into the trunk of the great vallenwood tree whose branches cradled the Inn. Caramon had built the stairway when the Knights of Takhisis took control of Solace. Hewn out of the living wood, its entrance concealed beneath a wine cask even he could barely lift, it led to a room that had been a safe house for refugees who needed hiding from the Dark Knights. Now, with the Chaos War long over, it served as a cellar where he kept his best stock.

He reached the bottom of the stairs and shone the lantern around the cramped room. Bottles of elven wine and Solamnian brandy sparkled in the ruddy light, but he ignored them. Instead, he walked to a worn, oaken keg. The barrel, carefully sealed, held the last of the ale he’d brewed before the Second Cataclysm. He’d been waiting for almost two years for the right occasion to tap it.

“Well,” he said, bending down and hoisting it up beneath his massive arm, “looks like this is an occasion.”

The ale was fine, some of the best ever he’d ever brewed. Caramon didn’t drink it, of course-he hadn’t taken a drink in more than thirty years, and never would again-but Tika, the card-players, and Riverwind all praised its rich, nutty flavor.

So did Riverwind’s daughters. They had come in while Caramon was in the cellar, and had pulled up chairs beside their father. Moonsong and Brightdawn were twins, twenty-four years old and beautiful enough that Tika had to smack Clemen and Osler across the backs of their heads for staring. In many ways they resembled their mother, sharing Goldmoon’s silver-gold hair and sky-blue eyes, but there was something of their father in them too-a solemnness in Moonsong’s face, a strength to Brightdawn’s jaw.

Moonsong, who was the older sister by a few minutes, was the more graceful of the two. Destined, according to Que-Shu custom, to succeed her mother as high priestess of the Plains, she had trained as a healer under Goldmoon’s tutelage. Her hands were soft, her skin unblemished, and she wore her hair loose, held in place by a silver circlet hung with feathers. She was clad in a gown of pale blue, embroidered with abstract patterns in threads of red and gold. Gold shone at her ears, wrists and fingers.

While Moonsong had lived a structured life, ordered by her duties as Chieftain’s Daughter, Brightdawn’s childhood had been at once rougher and more carefree. A tomboy from an early age, the younger twin had learned wrestling and archery, and had accompanied her father on hunts in the grasslands. She had calluses on her hands, a small white scar on her chin, and her hair was shorter than her sister’s, gathered in a single plait that hung down her back. Instead of a circlet, she wore a red headband, which marked her as a warrior-as did the flanged mace that hung from her belt. She was clad in plain, buckskin clothes-brown leggings and a beige vest-and her arms were tanned and bare. She was clad in no jewelry anywhere on her body.