Barbara Siegel - Tanis the shadow years

Tanis tried to pry his attacker's bony fingers away from his wind pipe, but the grip was like that of death itself. Blue spots began to dance before the half-elf's eyes.

'Tanis!" Brandella cried. "I… can't move." She stood a few feet away, frozen in the act of reaching to help him.

The half-elf was on the verge of passing out when the man let go of him. Tanis staggered and fell to the smooth tile path, gasping for air. Tanis sensed, rather than saw, Brandella's body relax from its rigid stance, and he looked up at the gardener, who enunciated angrily, "My hill is more than 'very nice.' Look, you, at the hills and mountains all around. What do you see?"

Tanis looked, but he could not speak. It was Brandella who answered. "Hundreds, maybe thousands, of tall, dark mountains in every direction," she said tentatively.

"Very good," the man said, face pallid and eyes terrible. Tanis realized how formidable he must have been in life. The man's lips were thin and tight with anger. Nearby, in vivid contrast to the gardener's mood, pink petals drifted from a small bush to the ground.

"Very good," the man said again, gesturing at the hills. "And my mountain is small and white. Those other peaks there, and there, and there"-and he stressed each word with a stab of a bony finger-"are the lies and terrible crimes of my neighbors. My hill represents my failings when 1 lived on Krynn. I'm not perfect. I had my faults."

Tanis felt his eyes narrow. "Pride? Maybe a bad temper?" he rasped from his seat on the path.

The gardener shot Tanis a surprised look. Reluctant respect grew in his eyes, and the hint of a smile crinkled the edges of his mouth.

"Good guesses," replied the man, who continued blandly. "As for your demand that I 'have' to help you leave Death, let me tell you that your fate is of no matter to me. Besides, everyone comes here eventually."

Brandella stepped carefully before the man. "With all due respect," she said, obviously hoping not to anger the' garden's caretaker, "everyone may come here, but some may come before their time. I don't mean that they die young, but that they don't belong here at all. Not yet. And if that is so, there must be a way to go back. Could you not tell us how we might return?"

The man watched the weaver fixedly. "Nicely said," he finally offered, bowing with a flair that matched his white suit. "Spoken with respect and grace. Perhaps I shall tell you what I know, after all."

"You're very kind," Brandella said sweetly, mustering all of her considerable charm. By the gods, she's going to curtsy, Tanis thought, still seated, and started to speak, but the woman silenced him with a look. She remained standing, however.

The man pointed toward the horizon at the tallest of the forbidding mountains. "It is said that on the other side of Fistandantilus's mountain there lies a portal that leads back to Life. Of course, to my knowledge, no one has ever scaled the wizard's monument to evil. Not even Fistandantilus himself. He lives on this side of it, always in its shadow, never seeing the light of day."

"If you know that that is the way back to Life," Tanis recklessly questioned, "why don't you attempt to go back yourself?"

Their guide gave him a long, hard look. "Half-elf, your human side occasionally oversteps the elven," he commented. Tanis swallowed nervously but kept his expression blank. He started to rise, in case the man attacked him again.

"I lived my life," the man finally answered. "I lived it well. There is little more I could do except grow older and more doddering. I am also told by those who have come after me that I left behind something of a reputation. Why spoil it? Besides, I have my flowers here-and the peace, usually," he added with a pointed look at Tanis, "to tend to them. Is that answer enough for you, my inquisitive young despoiler of gardens?"

"Yes," Tanis replied, chewing nervously on his lip, "but one more question, if I may?"

The man paused, considered, then nodded his head.

Tanis stared into the eyes of the man and asked, "Who are you?"

The gardener spoke off-handedly. "I am called Dragonbane. Huma Dragonbane. I was a Knight of Solamnia.

Tanis stopped breathing asb qrew dizzy-, the shock was so great. In a whisper, he finally managed to croak, "Huma of the Lance…" The man in white, backed by the variegated tones of vegetation seemingly gone mad, cocked a quizzical eyebrow at the half-elf. "They called me that, too. Then you've heard of me?" "Yes. Oh, yes," said Tanis, awestruck at the sight of the hero who, myth had it, had driven the evil dragons from Krynn during the Age of Dreams. "It's nice to be remembered," the dead Knight said simply. "But you must go now to find your way back to Life. If you fail, do come back again and see my flowers. I have the best garden in all of Death!" He caught Tanis's eye and then cocked his head back and laughed. "Or is that my pride talking7"

They marched for hours upon end, yet the sun never moved from its position directly overhead, the clouds did not sweep across the sky, and the dead who populated this world seemed not to stir. Finally they chanced upon an old, haggard woman with scraggly gray hair and a cherubic-looking little blond boy, who were fixing a wagon wheel. The wagon leaned at a precarious angle at a crossroad that sat hard upon a hill, down which streamed a fast-running brook.

"Can you help me and my grandson?" pleaded the woman in an aged, cracking voice. Dressed in a ragged, dark-blue dress that Tanis was sure hadn't been in fashion for centuries, the hag leaned wearily against the wagon. The little boy, wearing a similarly outdated tight-fitting shirt and breeches the color of dried blood, appeared subdued.

"If we can," agreed Tanis pleasantly. "That wheel doesn't look too badly broken."

The woman's skin was mottled with age spots and her hair was faded. She straightened and moved away from the wagon. "Not the wheel," she said sharply, eyes glinting over a thin nose. "The wagon can never be fixed. It's something else that we need."

"Oh?" Tanis found his hand drifting toward his broadsword, although he wasn't sure why.

"Come here," the woman insisted, pointing at the half- elf.

Brandella took Tanis's arm and held him back. "I don't trust her," she whispered in Tanis's ear. "Look how she hides something behind her back."

Tanis nodded. "Just tell me what you 'need' and I will do what I can," he called out, holding his ground.

The woman scowled. "Nothing much" she said weakly. Her voice broke and an expression of infinite melancholy spread over her features. "Only a little kindness." Tanis felt guilt wash over him like the petals of Huma's flowers. "A small sacrifice," she continued pathetically. "Perhaps your lives."

The little boy who was with her giggled, nodding his head appreciatively.

"Tanis, look at their eyes," Brandella warned.

Even from a distance, the half-elf could see the pair's eyes turn to fire, burning in their sockets with bright blue flame. The boy laughed again. "I see youl" he cried happily at Tanis and Brandella. "I see you live and that your hearts still beat." He turned to the old woman and excitedly cried, 'They still beat. They beat!"

"Demons?" Brandella whispered.

Tanis took hold of the handle of his sword but did not remove the blade from its scabbard. "I will not fight an old woman and a boy," he said.

The hag laughed along with the child as they jumped off the wagon and, slowly, confidently, advanced toward Tanis and Brandella. The crone slowly pulled her hand out from behind her back, revealing a small shovel with razor-sharp edges. It looked like a macabre version of one of Hint's children's toys, something to use to dig a modest hole in a very hard surface. She held the trowel in front of her body as if it were a weapon, while she and the boy began to circle to the right.