Douglas Niles - Measure and the Truth

But where was Ankhar?

Jaymes spun again and saw the half-giant crouching over the body of the bleeding ogress, still making his keening wail. Then the big creature stood and beat his chest. With a cry of rage more animal than articulate, Ankhar turned and charged toward Jaymes.

The emperor blocked the attack with a two-handed cross parry but was forced three steps backward by the weight of Ankhar’s rush. The half-giant smashed and stabbed with his spear, the emerald tip glowing like green fire, the monster’s roars and howls ringing nightmarishly. Jaymes retreated around the central spire, allowing his attacker to expend his energy.

He goaded Ankhar with a feint then stepped back, and back again. Each time the half-giant stabbed at the human, he skipped nimbly out of the way. The big chieftain began to swing his spear like a club, and Jaymes evaded his blows, steadily falling back, going around and around the ring of the High Lookout. Ankhar’s eyes bulged; his tusks were slick with drool and foam; his roars became more enraged. Finally, he swung his spear again, missing, letting the blow carry wide, and the swordsman saw his chance.

Giantsmiter came up, driving like an arrow, piercing that immense chest from the left side, stabbing under the chieftain’s rib cage and slicing through the creature’s heart. The sword forged to slay those of the giant races found a worthy victim in that great son of a hill giant and an ogress.

Ankhar sighed, a sound almost gentle in its rush of sound. The half-giant swayed, and Jaymes stepped back, pulling his weapon free from the deep, gory wound. The blade was no longer burning, as if the fire had been slaked by the hulking warrior’s blood.

And when Ankhar toppled to the floor, his spear tumbled from his lifeless fingers, and the glowing brilliance in the emerald head flickered, faded, and finally went out.

Coryn groped through the ether, trying desperately to track the Thorn Knight called Hoarst. He had opened a door between dimensions and stepped through, escaping from the High Clerist’s Tower, from Solamnia, even from Krynn. But the white wizard had hurled herself after him before he could vanish entirely.

He lurked and swirled through the mists, evading and stalking at the same time. Magic flew at Coryn in darts and bolts, and she parried each attack, launching lethal spells of her own. He blocked and fled. She pursued.

The white wizard cast a lightning bolt at the gray blur somewhere before her and watched as her crackling spear of magic broke in two, passing to either side of the target. The gray mage spat back with a blinding array of colorful balls that whirled like scythe blades, and Coryn shrank herself to an insubstantial cloud, letting the deadly slashes whip right through her suddenly intangible body.

Solid once again, she blasted him with missiles and bombarded him with a fireball that erupted like a small sun in that murky cosmos. His gray robe singed, the Thorn Knight nevertheless ducked away without suffering any real damage. A blast of frigid air frosted her face and numbed her skin, but neither did she suffer lethal or crippling wounds.

Hoarst came at her suddenly with a barrage of smoldering, speeding boulders that blasted toward her like meteors. Her hand shot out, wielding a shield of magic that knocked the first of them to the side and sent the next ricocheting through the nothingness. The third she reversed entirely, and it shot back toward the caster.

The Thorn Knight barely dodged that counterattack, and once again fled through the mists. The Mistress of the White Robes sped after him, casting spells, drawing on the greatest depths of her magical powers. For countless and timeless miles, they battled. They passed oceans and moons, and whole dimensions swirled around them for less than an instant. Gods watched and wagered on the contest; worlds swept by in the blink of an eye as they raced and chased through the planes of all existence.

For one heartbeat there was utter blackness; in the next, it was as though they were in the middle of the sun. Coryn cast up a globe of protection and watched in horror as the plasma of life seethed and burned just beyond the barrier, trying to consume her. She veered away from the searing inferno, spotting her foe, and the chase moved on.

They were under the ocean; they flew through the sky; they stood on opposite mountaintops and hurled thunderbolts at each other; they penetrated to the very interior of the world-and out the other side.

They hurtled through space. The moons loomed as terrifying obstacles. Coryn knew those moons, for they were central to all the orders of magic, but they were deadly close up. The red moon, Lunitari, burned, its searing radiance blistering their faces, singeing their eyebrows, charring their magical robes. Then Nuitari, the black moon, suddenly appeared, almost invisible but fiercely powerful, a void so compelling, so hungry, it almost drew both of them in. Only with the greatest exertion did the wizards shear away, coming around the black moon, breaking free from its murk.

And in that new brightness, a white moon suddenly loomed before them, so silvery pure it was almost blinding. Coryn sped toward that moon, drawn by the pure beauty and gravity of its embrace. Hoarst followed, but he was screaming in terror, compelled closer by the unforgiving pull of the planetary body.

And there was no turning away.

Coryn returned as suddenly as she had left. Her hair, where it had been barely flecked with lightness, had turned gray, though her face was unlined by age. She staggered wearily, collapsing into Jaymes’s arms.

They settled to the floor of the High Lookout, their backs braced by the parapet. In the tower, the sounds of fighting were dying out. The Dark Knights and the ogres who survived, sensing certain defeat and knowing their leaders had perished, were surrendering, and the emperor’s men were at last accepting prisoners.

“What happened?” Jaymes asked Coryn softly, holding her on the parapet, feeling her trembling slowly subside.

“The Thorn Knight met my god, Solinari-the white moon,” she said. “He will not be returning to Krynn.”

Dram Feldspar returned to his valley in the early autumn to find his house repaired and his wife and son-even his gruff father-in-law-weeping tears of joy at his homecoming. He vowed loudly and long he would never leave that place again. By the end of that first night home, he and Swig had brawled their way through the new front window, down the street, and right into the lake. Everyone agreed things were back to normal in New Compound.

In Palanthas, the princess gave birth to her baby in the spring. Immediately the nurses and physicians agreed all the auguries were promising. He had a healthy cry, his eyes were bright and curious, and his little fingers-ten in number, equaling his toes-clutched his mother’s hand with a sturdy grip.

The emperor had an heir! A son!

If the child’s mother, the Princess Selinda du Chagne Markham, wondered at all about the lingering effects of the potion called the Red Lotus, she kept her concerns to herself.

Jaymes Markham, the emperor, took up permanent residence in his great palace, overseeing the rule of Palanthas and also the surrounding realms of the new empire. His wife lived nearby, in the temple of Kiri-Jolith. They appeared together with their son soon after his birth, and the plaza was filled to overflowing with people who cheered and applauded their leader and his family. Jaymes and Selinda accepted the accolades with grace and good wishes in return.

Then they went back to their respective homes.

In the darker streets and alleys of Palanthas, Sir Ballard and the other knights of the Legion of Steel doffed their regalia and, dressed again in dark cloaks and fingerless gloves, frequented their secret alehouses. But the people-and the emperor-knew they were vigilant and watched over the welfare of the city.