“You speak in riddles,” Laurana said angrily.
“Do I?” Astinus asked. He bowed. “Farewell, Lauralanthalasa. My advice to you is: concentrate on your duty.”
The historian walked out the door.
Laurana stood staring after him, repeating his words: “love lost in darkness.” Was it a riddle or did she know the answer and simply refuse to admit it to herself, as Astinus implied?
“‘I left Tanis in Flotsam to handle matters in my absence.’” Kitiara had said those words. Kitiara—the Dragon Highlord. Kitiara—the human woman Tanis loved.
Suddenly the pain in Laurana’s heart—the pain that had been there since she heard Kitiara speak those words—vanished, leaving a cold emptiness, a void of darkness like the missing constellations in the night sky. “Love lost in darkness.” Tanis was lost. That is what Astinus was trying to tell her. Concentrate on your duties. Yes, she would concentrate on her duties, since that was all she had left.
Turning around to face the Lord of Palanthas and his generals, Laurana threw back her head, her golden hair glinting in the light of the candles. “I will take the leadership of the armies,” she said in a voice nearly as cold as the void in her soul.
“Now this is stonework!” stated Flint in satisfaction, stamping on the battlements of the Old City Wall beneath his feet. “Dwarves built this, no doubt about it. Look how each stone is cut with careful precision to fit perfectly within the wall, no two quite alike.”
“Fascinating,” said Tasslehoff, yawning. “Did dwarves build that Tower we—”
“Don’t remind me!” Flint snapped. “And dwarves did not build the Towers of High Sorcery. They were built by the wizards themselves, who created them from the very bones of the world, raising the rocks up out of the soil with their magic.”
“That’s wonderful!” breathed Tas, waking up. “I wish I could have been there. How—”
“It’s nothing,” continued the dwarf loudly, glaring at Tas, “compared to the work of the dwarven rockmasons, who spent centuries perfecting their art. Now look at this stone. See the texture of the chisel marks—”
“Here comes Laurana,” Tas said thankfully, glad to end his lesson in dwarven architecture.
Flint quit peering at the rock wall to watch Laurana walk toward them from a great dark hallway, which opened onto the battlement. She was dressed once more in the armor she had worn at the High Clerist’s Tower; the blood had been cleaned off the gold-decorated steel breastplate, the dents repaired. Her long, honey-colored hair flowed from beneath her red-plumed helm, gleaming in Solinari’s light. She walked slowly, her eyes on the eastern horizon where the mountains were dark shadows against the starry sky. The moonlight touched her face as well. Looking at her, Flint sighed.
“She’s changed,” he said to Tasslehoff softly. “And elves never change. Do you remember when we met her in Qualinesti? In the fall, only six months ago. Yet it could be years—”
“She’s still not over Sturm’s death. It’s only been a week,” Tas said, his impish kender face unusually serious and thoughtful.
“It’s not just that.” The old dwarf shook his head. “It had something to do with that meeting she had with Kitiara, up on the wall of the High Clerist’s Tower. It was something Kitiara did or said. Blast her!” the dwarf snapped viciously. “I never did trust her! Even in the old days. It didn’t surprise me to see her in the get-up of a Dragon Highlord! I’d give a mountain of steel coins to know what she said to Laurana that snuffed the light right out of her. She was like a ghost when we brought her down from the wall, after Kitiara and her blue dragon left. I’ll bet my beard,” muttered the dwarf, “that it had something to do with Tanis.”
“I can’t believe Kitiara’s a Dragon Highlord. She was always . . . always . . .” Tas groped for words, “well, fun!”
“Fun?” said Flint, his brows contracting. “Maybe. But cold and selfish, too. Oh, she was charming enough when she wanted to be.” Flint’s voice sank to a whisper. Laurana was getting close enough to hear. “Tanis never did see it. He always believed there was more to Kitiara beneath the surface. He thought he alone knew her, that she covered herself with a hard shell to conceal her tender heart. Hah! She had as much heart as these stones.”
“What’s the news, Laurana?” Tas asked cheerfully as the elf-maid came up to them.
Laurana smiled down at her old friends, but—as Flint said— it was no longer the innocent, gay smile of the elfmaid who had walked beneath the aspen trees of Qualinesti. Now her smile was like the bleakness of the sun in a cold winter sky. It gave light but no warmth—perhaps because there was no matching warmth in her eyes.
“I am commander of the armies,” she said flatly.
“Congratu—” began Tas, but his voice died at the sight of her face.
“There is nothing to congratulate me about,” Laurana said bitterly. “What do I command? A handful of knights, stuck in a ruined bastion miles away in the Vingaard mountains, and a thousand men who stand upon the walls of this city.” She clenched her gloved fist, her eyes on the eastern sky that was beginning to show the faintest glimmer of morning light. “We should be out there! Now! While the dragonarmy is still scattered and trying to regroup! We could defeat them easily. But, no, we dare not go out onto the Plains—not even with the dragonlances. For what good are they against dragons in flight? If we had a dragon orb—”
She fell silent for a moment, then drew a deep breath. Her face hardened. “Well, we don’t. It’s no use thinking about it. So we’ll stand here, on the battlements of Palanthas, and wait for death.”
“Now, Laurana” Flint remonstrated, clearing his throat gruffly, “perhaps things aren’t that dark. There are good solid walls around this city. A thousand men can hold it easily. The gnomes with their catapults guard the harbor. The knights guard the only pass through the Vingaard Mountains and we’ve sent men to reinforce them. And we do have the dragonlances—a few at any rate, and Gunthar sent word that more are on the way. So we can’t attack dragons in flight? They’ll think twice about flying over the walls—”
“That isn’t enough, Flint!” Laurana sighed. “Oh, sure, we may hold the dragonarmies off for a week or two weeks or maybe even a month. But then what? What happens to us when they control the land around us? All we can do against the dragons is shut ourselves up in safe little havens. Soon this world will be nothing but tiny islands of light surrounded by vast oceans of darkness. And then—one by one—the darkness will engulf us all.”
Laurana laid her head down upon her hand, resting against the wall.
“How long has it been since you’ve slept?” Flint asked sternly.
“I don’t know,” she answered. “My waking and sleeping seem mixed together. I’m walking in a dream half the time, and sleeping through reality the other half.”
“Get some sleep now,” the dwarf said in what Tas referred to as his Grandfather Voice. “We’re turning in. Our watch is almost up.”
“I can’t,” Laurana said, rubbing her eyes. The thought of sleep suddenly made her realize how exhausted she was. “I came to tell you—we received reports that dragons were seen, flying westward over the city of Kalaman.”
“They’re heading this direction then,” Tas said, visualizing a map in his head.
“Whose reports?” asked the dwarf suspiciously.
“The griffons. Now don’t scowl like that.” Laurana smiled slightly at the sight of the dwarf’s disgust. “The griffons have been a vast help to us. If the elves contribute nothing more to this war than their griffons, they will have already done a great deal.”
“Griffons are dumb animals,” Flint stated. “And I trust them about as far as I trust kender. Besides,” the dwarf continued, ignoring Tas’s indignant glare, “it doesn’t make sense. The Highlords don’t send dragons to attack without the armies backing them up...”