Mary Herbert - Legacy of Steel

The old bay jerked on his rope, his eyes rolling white with nervousness.

The man bent toward his fair companion and spoke softly in her ear. She nodded, leaning into his support with warm familiarity.

"Forgive us for startling you," the priestess said to Sara. "So few come to the temple anymore. I was pleased to know someone was making use of our grounds. It is getting late. Is there anything I can do for you?"

Sara hesitated, unsure of what to say.

Crysania stood, waiting patiently, her hand lightly resting on the man's arm. Her eyes, blind to the world of men, gazed sightlessly into the darkness. "My friend says you are a woman, and I hear your light step and the rustle of your skirts. Do I know you?"

"Not well, Revered Daughter," Sara said faintly. "I met you once or twice many years ago when I lived here with my adopted son. My name is Sara."

Lady Crysania spoke softly to her companion, who inclined his head. He smiled at her, then kissed her hand and walked away, leaving the two women alone in the darkness. The priestess walked to the stone bench, found the edge with her fingers, and sat down. She gestured for Sara to join her.

Closer now, Sara could see how little Crysania had changed since she saw the priestess for the first time nearly twenty years ago. Her hair was still black, netted in silver, with little gray to mark the passage of years, Her pale skin, though etched by the trials of her past, remained ageless, as enduring as the marble of the temple.

Sara sat down on the edge of the bench. She wasn't afraid, but she felt uncomfortable, almost guilty, to be sitting so close to the High Priestess of Paladine's temple. While she had never accepted the precepts of Takhisis or taken the blood oath, she had served Lord Ariakan for years and still carried the uncleanliness of those years in her soul. Although Paladine was gone, Sara couldn't help but feel the blessedness of his temple and the grace of his cleric, and she wondered what Crysania would think if the knew Sara's past.

"What brought you to these grounds, to this particular bench?" asked Lady Crysania softly.

The thought of lying to the priestess never crossed Sara's mind. "Memories. My son, my adopted son, used to come here to sit on this bench. He would sit and day-dream… ." Her voice tapered off.

Sara caught a glint of a smile on the lady's face. "I know you now," Crysania said. "You were the mother of Steel Brightblade. Sara… Sara Dunstan." She hesitated, her sight turned inward. "Steel came here that horrible summer. He and Palin Majere." She laughed quietly, her voice musical. "They did not intend to. They were looking for the Tower of High Sorcery."

Sara tried to stifle a gasp and failed. She leaned forward, eager to hear more. "Why the tower?"

"You don't know?"

"I know very little of Steel's last five years, Revered Daughter," Sara replied, the regret obvious in her words. "After I…. failed him, he took the oath of the dark knighthood, and for both our sakes, he did not try to contact me again."

The priestess smiled, her expression warm and comforting. "You did not fail him. Nor he us."

Sara stiffened. "How do you know?"

Crysania laid a hand over Sara's cold fingers. "I have listened and learned much since that night Steel was here, and I have come to the realization that what Steel did in the Abyss was not for Takhisis or Paladine, but because he felt it was the right thing to do. And that, I think, he got from you."

Sara sat stiff and silent. She had never learned the details of Steel's death, only that he had died a hero. Her tears, already close to the surface, brimmed over her eyes and slid silently down her cheeks. "Tell me," She whispered.

The priestess's fingers tightened over Sara's, and she began to tell her about the night Steel and Palin made their way to the Shoikan Grove and the Tower of High Sorcery. "Palin was Steel's prisoner, and for his ransom he was to take Steel to the tower and open the Abyss." With those words, Crysania took Sara through the terrible days of the Chaos War to the last day when the sun burned endlessly in the sky and the ocean boiled and fearsome battle waged between the Father of All and of Nothing, his immortal godchildren, and the peoples of Krynn.

"Palin told me about that day. He said Steel and a few of his men were the only survivors of Lord Ariakan's mighty force left at the ruins of the High Clerist's Tower They joined a remnant of Solamnic Knights and flew their dragons to the rift to challenge Chaos, knowing this battle would be their last." She felt Sara move slightly and she paused, waiting for her companion to speak.

"He died the way he wanted to," Sara murmured. Deep in melancholy, she swallowed hard against her tight, dry throat and whispered, "If only I could do the same"

Crysania turned her sightless eyes to her companion's face, Her inner sight, sharpened by years of struggle, looked beyond Sara's words to the recesses of her heart, "You do not wish to die. It is not in you."

Sara shifted her shoulders in a slight motion of denial. "I feel so empty. Since Steel died, there has been nothing for me to believe in."

"Perhaps you are not ready yet to accept something else. Keep your mind open. Even without the gods, things have a way of working out."

Sara barely nodded.

The two women sat silently together in the darkness, each examining her own thoughts. Behind them, the old horse had finally settled down. He whiffled his nostrils and shifted his weight from one hind leg to the other. To the east, the single pale moon shed its silvery light on the tops of the eastern peaks.

"Lady," said Sara after a while, "I came to Palanthas to learn the truth about a rumor I heard concerning the Knights of Takhisis. Perhaps you know. Are they regrouping?"

Crysania turned a troubled face to Sara and replied, "I've heard those rumors, too. Those and more. But I cannot say for a certainty that they are true. The Council of the Last Heroes did grant the knights control of the land around Neraka, and I know some Dark Knights have been leaving Palanthas to go there. It is probably the only safe place left for them these days. Beyond that, I do not know. Perhaps," she added with a half-smile, "someone should go to Neraka to find out."

"Perhaps," Sara echoed faintly.

"But for now-" Lady Crysania rose, "-let me offer you the hospitality of our house. There is room for your horse in the stable and ample room for you in our guest house. Many rooms in our temple buildings stand empty now. Do not feel you are putting anyone out."

"Thank you, Revered Daughter," Sara said gratefully. "I will accept."

The priestess rose gracefully to her feet and waited while Sara untied the horse and patted his neck. Unerringly she led Sara and her horse across the temple grounds to the rear, where the stable, kitchen, and dormitories were located. There she bade Sara good night and left her in the care of an elderly cleric.

Sara spent eight more days in the city by the bay. She found a booth to rent in the market district and set up her wares to sell. Although the quality was good and the craftsmanship excellent, people were not buying luxury items readily.

Bootjack was right, Sara quickly discovered. Palanthas was not quite the same. Too many people had left died; too many businesses had closed. Because the great library was virtually empty and the temples were redundant without gods to serve, the influx of visitors, students, and those seeking work in the city had slowed to a trickle. Without a growing population to support the economy, the city's treasury, already strained by the war and expensive repairs to the docks and major buildings, was running low. People were cautious, careful of their money and their words.

Nevertheless, Sara stuck with her intentions. By day, she opened her booth, and while she had to drop some of her prices, she slowly sold all but a few items. In the evenings, she went from one inn to another, to taverns and public parks, to the docks and the playhouses, listening and asking guarded questions to garner any bit of information she could about the Knights of Takhisis. Here, she had little success. Few people wanted to talk about the Dark Knights. Mostly she heard complaints and bitter accusations levied against the occupation force that had held the city until the Battle of the Rift or against individual knights who had turned to banditry and murder since then. No one seemed to know or care if the knights were re-forming in Neraka.