From the seaside provinces came mariners wearing wide canvas pants and carrying rolled-up maps. They wanted royal backing for trading voyages to distant lands. A pair of emissaries from Thorbardin and a trio from Ergoth stood in private conclave. The two dwarves were unrelated to each other yet alike as mirror images: each with a thick, brown beard, bulbous nose, and green eyes. The Ergothians retained an air of imperial hauteur even though their empire had long since fragmented into insignificance. Solamnic Knights, broad shouldered and perpetually serious, conversed in measured tones with lavishly dressed merchants from Palanthas.
Gilthas nodded and smiled to everyone but received little recognition in return. He was accustomed to that. To the world, he was a fool and a dreamer, dismissed as the Puppet King, his strings controlled by Prefect Palthainon. Ostensibly the Speaker’s advisor, Palthainon had been installed by the Knights of Neraka as the true power in Qualinesti. The ease with which everyone accepted Gilthas in the weakling’s role had worried him at first. He knew the unspoken reason most believed him to be a dupe: he was not a pureblooded elf. His father, valiant Tanis, had been half human. Although Gilthas’s pedigree was otherwise impeccable, many assumed his seemingly pliant nature sprang from the human taint.
He put aside this worry. The Puppet King was a masquerade, a necessary one if he were to save his people. Someday the world would know the truth. Someday they would see his true self. A very different Gilthas would lead the elves of Qualinesti to peace, freedom, and plenty.
The reactions of strangers no longer bothered him. However, when several important senators passed him by without speaking, he was perturbed. When his long-time bodyguard and valet Planchet strolled by without so much as a nod, perturbation grew into anger. He turned and hailed Planchet, but his staunch friend did not even turn around.
“He cannot hear you.”
Someone was standing in the shadow of one of the columns that supported the high ceiling. He stepped into the light, showing himself to be an elf of above-average height. He had dark blond hair and the elegantly tall ears common among the oldest families of Silvanesti. Gilthas was taken aback. No one from Silvanost had come to his court in a very long time. More unusual still, the visitor was dressed in a curiously old-fashioned style, like a warrior from one of Silvanesti’s epic poems. He wore a banded cuirass, separated pauldrons on each shoulder, and a mail kilt rather than divided trews. Short suede gloves covered his hands. His eyes were an arresting shade of blue. Gilthas had never seen such brilliant eyes in an elf, even a Silvanesti.
“Who are you?”
The stranger bowed, bending deeply from the waist. “Greetings, Great Speaker. My name is Balif, Lord of Thalas-bec and First Warrior of House Protector.”
“You bear an ancient name, my lord. I thought it had fallen out of favor long ago among the Silvanesti.”
Lord Balif smiled. “It did indeed.”
Gilthas gestured at the throng behind him. “What goes on here? Why am I being ignored?”
“They aren’t ignoring you. They cannot see or hear you.”
Gilthas demanded the reason for this. Had a spell been used to render him invisible? He wanted it stopped immediately and the proper order restored. Balif shrugged.
“I cannot change what has been. I have come to guide you. I sought the privilege, and it was granted.”
“Guide me where? Speak plainly, sir!”
Sadness shadowed those remarkable eyes. “I am Balif, right arm of Speaker Silvanos. Do you understand? I am he who enlarged the realm, carried the standard of Silvanos to the great mountains of the north, fought—”
Gilthas’s laughter interrupted him. “It will take more than antique armor and a quaint accent to convince me of such nonsense. What’s the matter, couldn’t Kith-Kanan come?” Gilthas joked.
“No, he could not,” was the utterly serious reply. “You shall meet him, if you wish. He is an elf among elves.”
It was too much. Gilthas dismissed the mad fellow with a wave and walked away. “Play your games with someone else. I have a kingdom to tend.”
“No, you don’t.”
Gilthas’s smile faltered and he looked back. “What did you say?”
“This kingdom no longer exists. As we speak, you lie dying on a pallet in the Vale of Silence.”
Despite the outrageous words, Gilthas did not laugh. The calm certainty in the stranger’s voice gave him pause. But the palace was solid around him, the faint breeze of a courtier’s passage ruffled his hair, and he clung to the reality he saw.
“If you’re Balif, why do you look so fair? The champion of Silvanos was afflicted with a terrible curse and died in exile.”
“My mortal life ended long ago. My appearance is as I choose it to be, just as yours is. You appear now in vigorous good health, but in truth, you’re little more than skin and bones, and you can scarcely draw a breath, your lungs are so devastated.”
Denying all of it, Gilthas made to turn away again, but Balif took his arm. With gentle yet inexorable pressure, Gilthas’s hand was lifted to his own throat. The pulse beating there was indeed very slow, very labored.
“Your life is ebbing. When it is done, you may accompany me to the next world.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then you will wander the land forever, another of the restless spirits in the Vale of Silence.”
Gilthas remembered the terrible loneliness he had sensed from the ghosts in the valley. That memory brought with it all the others. His beloved city, the palace, all these people—they were not products of magic, but illusions of his own making. His city had been wiped from the face of Krynn. Alone and gravely ill, his mind had sought a last few moments of peace before succumbing to death.
“This is not how I expected to die,” he whispered.
“It rarely is. Come.”
Gilthas avoided Balif’s outstretched hand but followed the Silvanesti into the throne room. Empty of people, the room was nothing more than an echo in his mind, a faint replica of something lost forever. Balif craned his neck back, taking in the hall’s mighty dimensions and the gold and polished crystal columns that soared up to a vaulted ceiling painted to mimic the summer sky.
“Beautiful,” he said, like anyone new to the grandeur of Qualinost.
“It was.” Tears dampened Gilthas’s cheeks. “May I ask something?”
“You may ask. I may not answer.”
“Why is your fate such a mystery? You were among the greatest elves of the age. Why were you cast into such obscurity?”
The handsome Silvanesti regarded him with such a fixed stare Gilthas wondered if he had given offense.
“You’re embarking on a journey into the unknown, and that is the question burning inside you?” Balif said.
Gilthas shrugged, embarrassed. “I’ve always wondered.”
Balif told the story of his rise, his fall, and his life after that fall. Much of it fit the rumors and speculations to which the Speaker of the Sun and Stars was privy, but the cause and final outcome of Balif’s exile shocked him to his core. He looked away, at the floor, the columns, anywhere but at the shade of the ancient hero.
“I pity you,” he said.
“Once you pass out of the mortal sphere, life’s concerns are mere vanities and completely unimportant. As it was with me, so it will be with you. Come, little time remains.”
The throne of Qualinesti stood on its dais, bathed in golden light. Its gilded back, carved in the shape of the sun, reflected the light with painful intensity. Balif held out a hand to the empty chair.
“That is your portal, Speaker of the Sun and Stars. You have but to take it, and all your cares shall end.”
All his cares would end. It was a notion both comforting and terrifying. Gilthas didn’t want to die, didn’t want to leave Kerianseray. And there was so much left undone. A brave, suffering people looked to him for leadership. But he was so sick. Illusion or not, the feeling of drawing an unencumbered breath was intoxicating. He felt young and healthy, just as be should. All he need do was sit his throne and the struggle would be over.