Mary Herbert - Legacy of Steel

Leading her horse, Sara stayed in the rear of the caravan with several other hangers-on and the servants.

That night the rain blew itself out and a stiff wind dried the trail. The sun rose into a brilliantly clear sky at dawn and turned the snow on the high peaks into dazzling mantles of purest white.

The merchant train found its stride in the following days, and to Sara's relief, the miles fell quickly behind her. Three days out of Daron, the caravan crossed over the pass and began the downward descent toward the Bay of Branchala. Five days out, the caravan topped the last ridge and wove down the steep road into the broad sheltered basin of Palanthas. She drew aside at the top of the trail to let the others pass. Her eyes followed the long line of pack animals down the switchbacks to the valley below and her gaze filled with the walls and towers and buildings that once had been the shining center of Solamnia.

The rays of the late afternoon sun touched the rooftops of the sprawling city and illuminated the streets Sara had known well so many years ago. The light sparkled on the waters of the bay where the docks bustled with activity. It gleamed on the windows of the great palace in the center of the city and it gilded the walls of the massive Great Library of the Ages.

Sara knew the city had suffered damage from the backlash of energy from the Abyss that opened in the ocean to the north. From the looks of things, much of the obvious damage had been cleared away or repaired, leaving just a few razed streets along the bay and some humble ruins in abandoned lots.

Only one obvious landmark was missing from her view of the city, and its absence glared like a wound on unprotected skin. The awe-inspiring black Tower of High Sorcery with its bloody minarets and its fearsome Shoikan Grove, was gone, wiped from the face of Palanthas in one horrifying stroke. No one knew exactly what caused the disaster or what happened to the tower and it's contents. All that remained was a pool of a shining obsidian substance and an echoing emptiness.

"Better not stand there all night," someone called to her, "The shops close at six chimes, and the city guards still impose a limited curfew."

Sara tugged her weary horse into a walk and trod the final distance into the city.

The chimes, hanging in the clock tower in the Temple of Paladine, were just ringing six when Sara left the merchants' caravan and strode into the city on her own. Six strikes from the clock marked the end of the business day in Palanthas and were accompanied by much slamming of shutters and locking of doors and bustling about in the streets.

It had been a long time since Sara had been in Palanthas, and she walked slowly to see everything, pleased to be back in the city. With no real destination in mind, she simply wandered where chance took her. Old memories assailed her, memories of Steel as a small boy walking hand in hand with her through these very streets. She remembered his dark, curly head and his vivid gaze and the rapt attention he gave to the stories she used to tell about knights and honor and courage.

With the good memories came the bad ones, too: her growing Fear that Kitiara would come to claim her son, the grief she felt over the battling darkness she saw in Steel's soul, the terror of the fires in the city that destroyed their home. And worst of all, she remembered that dark night when Steel was twelve years old when the black riders appeared at her door and Lord Ariakan lured Steel into his evil order.

Sara shivered with a cold that was not in the air. In her mind's eye, she saw again the cold visage of the dark lord and the determined, proud face of her son. She had begged and pleaded and cried for him to stay, but Steel was entranced by the promises of Ariakan and determined to go. Sara felt her eyes burn with unshed tears The passersby around her faded into a blur of colors and distant movement.

She had tried everything, and finally all she won was the chance to accompany him to Storm's Keep. For her, it may as well have been a prison. For years, she cooked and cared for Ariakan's recruits and trained his dragons, and when he desired, Ariakan took her to his bed. The only things that kept her going through those long, brutal years were Steel and the dragons.

Then, just before he was to take his final vows, she violated the knighthood's Code by kidnapping Steel and trying to turn him back to the light. Her plan did not work, and she lost him at last.

Sara stopped so abruptly that her horse bumped into her back. Fiercely she wiped her eyes with her sleeve to erase the evidence of her pain. Those years were long over, she told herself. There was nothing left worth crying about.

She forced herself to move again. She didn't want to stand around all night like a lost child. Without conscious thought, her feet carried her through the streets past the gatehouse in the Old City Wall and into the older section of Palanthas. Lights flickered in many houses around her as night settled over the city. Before her thoughts had caught up with the present, Sara found herself standing by the edge of a wide expanse of green lawn that flowed comfortably, like an invitation, toward an elegant building built of white marble. Sara recognized it immediately: the Temple of Paladine.

Aslow smile spread over her face. She had been to this temple before to give thanks for salvation, and once or twice to find Steel. There was a bench, a marble seat, he had loved. It used to sit… over there, under a tree. Sara could not see it in the dark, but she knew where it Should be.

Leading the horse, she walked across the smooth, grassy lawn to the aspen tree she remembered and tied the horse to the gray trunk. The stone bench still sat there, unchanged, unmoved by the years that had passed.

Weary with the ache of her memories, Sara sank down on the cool stone. Her hand touched the back of the bench and felt the outline of the frieze carved into the marble It was that simple, rather crude carving that Steel had liked so much, perhaps because of the simplicity of emotions it portrayed.

Nothing in Steel Brightblade's life had been simple- not his birth, not his childhood, not his maturity. From the moment of his birth, he had been torn by the conflicting desires represented by his blood mother, the Dragon Highlord Kitiara Uth Matar, and by his father, the Solamnic Knight and hero Sturm Brightblade.

Sara saw the struggle of the light and the dark in his soul every hour of every day. She did not know what happened that last day when Steel met the god Chaos and died; she only hoped that by then her beloved child had found his peace.

Her fingers lightly traced the outlines of the carving that portrayed the funeral of a knight. The frieze pictured the knight lying on a bier, his arms folded across his chest. His shield leaned against the side of the bier. Twelve knightly escorts stood on either side of the knight's body, every one stern and solemn.

Steel had never told her what he saw in those simple images, but Sara guessed it was the honor paid the dead knight, the courage implicit in his life, and the peace of his death-things she hoped Steel found for himself in the Battle of the Rift.

Sara smiled to herself in the darkness, a sad, slow smile of remembering.

Her horse by the aspen snorted in alarm and lunged back against his rope. The tree swayed, showering Sara with bits of bark and a few twigs.

A voice, cool and pleasant, said, "Good evening. We did not mean to startle you."

Sara raised her head and saw two figures standing in the darkness, perhaps ten paces away. There was just enough starlight for her to see that one was a handsome man of indeterminate age and solid build. The other was a woman, slender, elegant, as beautiful and enduring as the temple itself.

Sara recognized the woman immediately, the Revered Daughter Crysania, High Priestess of the Temple of Paladine, leader of the god's faithful on Ansalon. The other she had never seen before. Sara rushed to her feet and hurried to her horse's head, too embarrassed to speak.