Troy Denning - The Titan of Twilight

“Lanaxis thinks I’ll make a fine nursemaid.” Although the scratching had grown no louder, it filled Brianna’s ears like a trumpet blare. “He seems to believe that’s all a mother is good for.”

“I suppose that’s what comes of being born to a mountain.” Anastes was referring to the legend that Lanaxis and his brothers had been born of the mountain goddess Othea. “When one crawls from the birthing cave fully mature and immortal, how can one fathom the soothing balm of a mother’s love?”

“Perhaps you’d better teach him,” Brianna suggested. “Or your new emperor will grow up as warped as your titan.”

A doleful look came to Anastes’s silver eyes. “Would that I could, but we storm giants have already brought misery enough to the world. By trying to change what is destined to be, we can only make things worse.”

“How convenient for you.”

Anastes’s face darkened to sullen blue. The thunder outside growled plaintively, and a flurry of birds flashed past his face. The sulking storm giant looked away, turning his enormous ear to the window.

The queen’s stomach knotted with alarm. She rose and paced across the floor, holding her son to her shoulder as though she were burping him. Kaedlaw immediately growled his protest, filling the chamber with such a rumble that the birds fluttered off their roosts. Even Brianna could no longer hear the scratching in the fireplace.

Anastes turned back to the chamber. “Poor child. The pain of life is so new to him.”

“Perhaps he is cold,” rumbled a second storm giant. “We could strike a fire.”

“No!” Brianna spun around to find a huge gray eye peering through the arrow loop behind her. A pair of brown falcons were roosting on the sill, their cocked heads turned toward the giant. “The chimney’s blocked. We’d choke on the smoke.”

“That’s a small matter to fix,” offered another giant, this one peering through an arrow loop by the chimney. “I’ll have the flue clear in an instant.”

“I don’t want a fire!” Brianna insisted. She doubted the smoke would trouble Avner in the bottom of the chimney, but she didn’t want a giant dropping a stone on the young scout. Besides, the queen suspected she would find it difficult enough to crawl into a flue that was cold. “I’ll only have to put it out when Lanaxis lifts the tower, and even then I’ll have embers flying all over.”

Anastes knitted his brows, but did not argue. “Is there anything we can do to make you more comfortable?”

“What I really need is to eat.” It was the truth, but Brianna also hoped to keep the storm giants busy. “If you want to help, bring me some fresh rye bread, goat’s cheese, and a warm meatcake.”

“There’s a pair of moose in the fen beyond that forest,” rumbled one of the giants. “Wouldn’t they be enough for you?”

Brianna shot an impatient scowl at Anastes. “Do you see my cooks here? Or perhaps you expect me to eat raw moose?”

“Nikol and Ramos can cook them for you,” offered the giant.

“Very well,” Brianna sighed. “But my moose must be slow-roasted on a spit, and cooked through. Of course, I shall need wine to wash it down, a honeycomb to sweeten the flavor, and a bowl of pottage to settle my stomach.”

Anastes paled. “You have demanding tastes, milady.”

“You’re the one who suggested moose,” Brianna reminded him. “I’d be just as happy with my first request-but if that’s too much trouble, perhaps you could keep the milk flowing for your new emperor by feeding me finches and falcons.”

Anastes winced. “No, of course not! We wouldn’t think of such a thing!”

He was speaking more to the birds than to Brianna, but that did not keep the queen’s unwanted guests from leaving the chamber in a squawking flurry. Clearly, the creatures understood more than she would have liked.

Kaedlaw let out an enormous burp and stopped growling. Brianna continued to pace, sliding her feet across the floor to mask the sound of Avner’s work.

“Well?” she demanded. “What shall it be?”

“We will cook the moose,” Anastes sighed. His head rose out of view, then his muffled voice reverberated across the third-story floor. “Nikol and Ramos, you roast the moose. Sebastion, you and Patma find some wine and vegetables for the queen’s pottage. Eusebius, see if the thrushes can guide you to a beehive.”

The giants did not rush off to do their paramount’s bidding.

“Before we go, I would like to behold our new emperor,” said one. “Perhaps we are not worthy of the honor, but it is truly my heart’s desire to lay eyes on him at least this once.”

Brianna started to pull Kaedlaw from beneath her cloak, then thought wiser of it. She might make better use of this boon later.

“The emperor is resting now.”

The storm giants sighed, and a chain of frigid drafts twirled through the chamber. Somewhere above the tower, half-a-dozen hawks voiced a string of forlorn tseers. The wind picked up and whistled past the arrow loops, spinning flurries of graupel into the room, and, save for Anastes, all of Brianna’s captors lumbered off to gather the food she had demanded.

“You are right to deny us, of course.” Anastes looked away, and a peal of long, soft thunder rumbled across the sky. “It is wrong for us even to hope we might lay eyes on one so sublime.”

“And why is that, Anastes?” Brianna was at once sympathetic and impatient with the giant’s self-pity. She went to the shattered arrow loop and stopped there. “What ancient wrong did Lanaxis call you to amend? No deed can be terrible enough to condemn an entire race to such suffering.”

The storm giant lifted his chin and fixed an enormous, woe-filled eye on Brianna. “I fear you are wrong, milady.” His lips trembled with shame. “Our race is to blame for all the misery and suffering on Toril.”

Behind Anastes, forks of lightning lanced down from the gray snow clouds, stabbing at the ground and spewing great plumes of hissing steam into the sky. The birds screeched as though they were dying. The graupel battered the giant’s shoulders so fiercely he grimaced.

“That’s a heavy burden to claim,” Brianna observed. “Are you certain it belongs to your race alone?”

“Oh, yes. There can be no doubt.” Anastes’s voice was growing louder and more pained with each syllable he spoke, once again raising the storm outside to blizzard proportions. “We are the ones who plunged the world into chaos and war. We are the ones who slew Ostoria’s divine ruler, Hartkiller, and drove Annam the All Father from Toril forever!”

The howling winds buffeted the tower so harshly that Brianna had to brace her arm against the wall. “I see!” she shouted. “But did you ever consider that your ancestor might have done other races a favor? Perhaps they had no wish to be ruled by giants.”

Anastes looked aghast, and the storm lulled. “How can you say that?” he demanded. “You, a descendant of Hartkiller!”

“I’m more human than giant,” Brianna reminded him. “I’m glad to rule Hartsvale instead of the giants, and the humans are happy to have me.”

Anastes shook his head in disbelief. “Then you are as foolish as your people,” he declared. “Annam decreed that the giants would rule Toril, not for our sakes, but for the welfare and harmony of all races. By killing Hartkiller, we defied the All Father’s will. We destroyed Ostoria.”

“Now you’re the one who’s being foolish,” Brianna countered. “My runecaster has translated the histories written by the stone giants. I know who destroyed Ostoria, and it wasn’t your ancestor. It was Lanaxis.”

Anastes’s face went as white as the snow. The birds on his shoulders took flight, and the storm grew so quiet that even the graupel seemed to hang frozen in the sky. The scratching of Avner’s knife hissed loudly in the queen’s ears.