Troy Denning - The Titan of Twilight

Brianna pulled a ball of candle wax from her pocket. “Imposter!”

“That was Julien, not me.” The stranger shuffled into the hall, moving with the weary steps of an old man. “And what he did doesn’t matter. Remember what I said when he claimed to have gotten a child on you? It’s still true today: ‘I believe you. I always have.’ ”

Brianna returned the wax ball to her pocket. “Tavis? It’s really you?”

“None other,” replied the ancient voice. “I’m sorry I took so long, milady.”

The newcomer-Tavis-stepped out of the smoke, revealing a beardless, elderly firbolg who would have stood as tall as a small hill giant, if not for the hunch in his back. His hair had turned as silver as a coin, a blue haze hung over the pupils of his ice-colored eyes, and his wrinkled skin was so thin and translucent that Brianna could see through it to the stringy muscles beneath. In his liver-spotted hands, he held a huge axe with an obsidian head and a wondrously decorated ivory shaft.

Tavis squinted around the room for a moment, then finally seemed to find Brianna. He smiled. “I hope you can do something about my eyes.” He shuffled toward her. “Fighting Lanaxis is hard enough when I can see.”

“Tavis!” Brianna screamed again. She couldn’t quite believe he had really come, or comprehend what she was seeing. “Has it really been so long? How can it have taken you a lifetime to find me? Kaedlaw has aged only a month!”

The high scout glanced down at himself, then chuckled grimly, almost madly. “It has been a lifetime-but not the way you mean. My age is Sky Cleaver’s doing.”

Tavis raised the great axe in his hands, and a wave of heated nausea rushed over Brianna. She had experienced such feelings before. They were premonitions sent by her goddess to warn her of some terrible danger, but the sensations had never been this strong.

The queen backed away. “Don’t come any closer.”

The high scout frowned, but stopped. “What’s wrong?”

“You tell me,” Brianna said. “Put that axe down.”

Tavis’s eyes narrowed. “What for?” He did not lower the weapon. “It’s mine. I won’t let you steal it.”

Brianna slipped her hand into her pocket and rolled the wax between her fingers, suspecting it would do her no good even if she had to use it.

“You don’t sound like Tavis Burdun,” she said. “The lord high scout would never disobey his queen’s order.”

An angry light flashed in Tavis’s eyes. “As you command, milady.” He laboriously stooped down to place the axe at his feet. “But I must warn you, Sky Cleaver’s hold on me is great. If you try to steal it, I-”

“Steal it!” Brianna scoffed. She was beginning to understand her premonitions of danger. It was not her husband that was dangerous, but the weapon’s hold over him. “What would I want with an axe so large I could not pick it up?”

Tavis’s gaze remained suspicious for only a moment, then he blushed in shame. “Forgive me, Brianna. It seems my heart is not as pure as yours.”

Brianna shook her head, relieved. “We both know that can’t be. It’s just that I’m more accustomed to dark temptations.”

The queen had almost decided it was safe to embrace her husband when she heard the distant clamor of more ’kin clambering across the rubble-strewn portico. She positioned herself between her wailing son and the doorway, clutching her goddess’s talisman in one hand and dipping the other into her cloak pocket.

“Valorous Hiatea-”

“There’s no need for that.” Tavis raised a silencing hand. “That would be Basil and Galgadayle. They won’t harm Kaedlaw.”

“How can you say that?” Brianna demanded. “Galgadayle wants him dead!”

“Perhaps, but he’s pledged not to kill the child himself.”

“What? He would never make such a pledge, unless you…” A chill crept down Brianna’s spine. “And what did you promise, Tavis?”

“We can decide what to do about Kaedlaw’s destiny later, after we’ve had time to think,” the high scout replied, in the same breath both answering and avoiding the queen’s question. “At the moment, we’d better prepare ourselves. I only wounded Lanaxis, and twilight is not so far away.”

The slap, slap of Basil’s flat feet rang off the walls of the antechamber, with the thud of Galgadayle’s boots close behind. Tavis’s baggy eyes grew narrow and wary, and he stooped over to retrieve Sky Cleaver. An instant later, the two ’kin raced into the throne room. They appeared as battered and exhausted as the high scout, if much younger.

Basil threw his arms wide and rushed Brianna. “Majesty, you’re well!”

The queen started to back away, saying, “Stay where you-”

Basil gathered her up and embraced her for a long moment. Finally, he seemed to hear Kaedlaw’s wail and put her down, then knelt beside the child. His heavy lips cracked a delicate grin, and his ice-crusted eyebrows slowly formed an awestruck arch.

“What a handsome child!” he exclaimed. “He looks just like his father!”

Brianna felt someone peering over her shoulder and glanced back to find Galgadayle standing behind her. Though the seer remained silent, the disdainful sneer beneath his beard made it clear that he wondered which father Basil meant. The queen found the differing reactions of the two ’kin surprising. Kaedlaw might look as handsome as Tavis one moment and as sinister as the ettin the next, but she had never seen both faces at the same time.

Basil turned to the queen. “Far be it from me to criticize, but I thought only verbeegs let crying infants lie. Don’t human mothers comfort their children?”

“Don’t you think I’ve tried?” Brianna was filled with such a sense of shame that she could barely whisper the admission. She knew that the affliction was no fault of hers, but that did not prevent her from feeling like a failure. “I can’t do it.”

“You don’t have to keep him quiet,” Galgadayle said. “I doubt Lanaxis can hear him anyway. But we really must hurry if we are to leave this place.”

Brianna whirled on the seer, her frustration and fear pouring from her mouth in a tempest of angry words. “Why, so Tavis can commit your murder for you?”

The queen had no defense left except her rage. Her magic would not work against her husband, and she could not best a trio of giant-kin-even ’kin as old as these three-with her bare hands.

She cast an accusatory glare at Tavis. “If you have come to keep your vow, do it now, Husband!”

Tavis’s cloudy eyes turned as soft as water. “I have come to keep my vow,” he allowed. “But not by killing you or Kaedlaw.”

“Tavis, must I remind you of our agreement?” Galgadayle demanded. “You promised-”

“I know what I promised!” The high scout’s head swiveled toward the seer, anger flashing like lightning behind his cloudy eyes. When Galgadayle voiced no more objections, Tavis exhaled slowly, then stepped over to Brianna. “Milady, do you trust me?”

Brianna started to ask what he meant, but then she heard Avner’s voice ringing inside her head: Tavis will see what you see… It’s your only hope.’ The young scout had spoken those words less than a day before his death, but the queen seemed to hear him now more clearly than ever. Whatever her husband intended to do, it would be the right thing. It simply was not in his nature to do anything else.

Brianna nodded. “Yes, Tavis. I trust you completely.”

The high scout stroked her cheek with a huge, wrinkled finger, then stepped around her and knelt beside Kaedlaw. He scooped the child up in his palm and studied him for a moment, a broad smile creeping across his cracked lips.

Kaedlaw’s wails began to subside, and Tavis said, “You’re right, Basil. He is handsome-and he has my eyes.”