The two rolled in the dust. Gerard felt his dagger hit home more than once. He was covered with blood, but whether the blood was his or Groul’s, he could not tell. Still, Groul would not die, and Gerard’s strength was giving out. Fear-pumped adrenaline was all that was keeping him going, and that was starting to recede.
Suddenly Groul choked, gagged. Blood spewed from the draconian, splashed over Gerard’ s face, blinding him. Groul stiffened, snarled in fury. He raised himself up off Gerard, lifted his dagger.
The blade fell from the draconian’s hand. Groul fell back onto Gerard, but this time, the draconian did not move. He was dead.
Gerard paused to draw a shuddering breath of relief, a pause that was his undoing. Too late, he remembered Medan’s warning.
A dead draconian is just as dangerous as a draconian living.
Before Gerard could heave the carcass off him, the body of the Baaz draconian had changed into solid stone. Gerard felt as if he had the weight of a tomb on top of him. The stone carcass pressed him into the ground. He could not breathe. He was slowly suffocating. He fought to heave it off him, but it was too heavy. He drew in a ragged breath, planning to exert every last ounce of energy.
The stone statue crumbled to dust.
Gerard staggered to his feet, sank back against a tree. He wiped Groul’s blood from his eyes, spit and retched until he had cleared it out of his mouth. He rested a few moments, waiting for his heart to quit trying to beat its way out from beneath his armor, waited until the battle rage had cleared from his eyes. When he could see, he fumbled at the draconian’s harness, found the scroll case, and retrieved it.
Gerard took one last look at the heap of dust that had been Groul. Then, still spitting, still trying to rid himself of the foul taste in his mouth, the Knight turned and wearily made his way back through the darkness, back toward the flickering lights of Qualinost. Lights that were just starting to pale with the coming of dawn.
Sunshine streamed in through the crystal windows of the Palace of the Speaker of the Sun. Gilthas sat bathed in the sunlight, absorbed in his work. He was writing another poem, this one about his father’s adventures during the War of the Lance, a poem that also contained encoded messages for two families of elves who had come under suspicion of being rebel sympathizers.
He had nearly completed it and was planning to send Planchet out to deliver the poem to those who took an interest in the king’s literary pursuits, when Gilthas suddenly visibly shuddered. His fingers holding the quill pen shook. He left a blot upon his manuscript and laid down the pen hurriedly. Cold sweat beaded his brow.
“Your Majesty!” Planchet asked, alarmed. “What is wrong? Are you unwell?” He left his task of sorting the king’s papers and hastened to his side.
“Your Majesty?” he repeated anxiously.
“I just had the strangest feeling,” Gilthas said in a low voice.
“ As though a goose had walked on my grave.”
“ A goose, Your Majesty!” Planchet was baffled.
“It is a human saying, my friend.” Gilthas smiled. “Did you never hear it? My father used to use it. The saying describes that feeling you get when for no reason that you can explain a chill causes your flesh to raise and your hair to prickle. That’s exactly how I felt a moment ago. What is even stranger is that for an instant I had a very strong impression of my cousin’s face! Silvanoshei. I could see him quite clearly, as clearly as I see you.”
“Silvanoshei is dead, Your Majesty,” Planchet reminded him.
“Slain by ogres. Perhaps the goose was walking on his grave.”
“I wonder,” said Gilthas, thoughtfully. “My cousin did not look dead, I assure you. He wore silver armor, the kind worn by Silvanesti warriors. I saw smoke and blood, battle raged around him, but he was not touched by it. He stood at the edge of a precipice. I reached out my hand, but whether it was to pull him back or push him over, I don’t know.”
“I trust you were going to pull him back, Your Majesty,” said Planchet, looking slightly shocked.
“I trust so, too.” Gilthas frowned, shook his head. “I remember being quite angry and afraid. Strange.” He shrugged. “Whatever it was, the feeling’s gone now.”
“Your Majesty must have dozed off. You have not been getting much sleep—”
Planchet suddenly ceased speaking. Making a sign to Gilthas to keep silent, his servant crept across the room and put his ear to the door.
“Someone is coming, Your Majesty,” Planchet reported, speaking Common.
“At this hour in the morning? I am expecting no one. I hope it’s not Palthainon,” said Gilthas. “I have to finish this poem. Tell him I am not to be disturbed.”
“Let me pass!” An elven voice outside the door spoke to the guards. The voice was calm but held an underlying note of tension and strain. “I have a message to the king from his mother.”
One of the guards knocked loudly. Planchet cast a warning glance at Gilthas, who subsided back into his chair and resumed his writing.
“Hide those clothes!” he whispered urgently, with a gesture.
Gilthas’s traveling clothes lay neatly folded on top of a chest in preparation for another nightly journey. Planchet whisked the clothes back into the chest which he closed and locked. He dropped the key into the bottom of a large vase of fresh-cut roses.
This done, he walked over to answer the knock.
Gilthas played with his pen and took up a pensive attitude.
Lounging back in his chair, he propped his feet up on a cushion, ran the tip of the feather over his lips, and stared at the ceiling.
“The Runner Kelevandros,” announced the guard, “to see His Majesty.”
“Let him enter” said Gilthas languidly.
Kelevandros came into the room in a bound. He was hooded and cloaked, the hood covering his face. Planchet shut the door behind him. Kelevandros threw back his hood. His face was deathly pale.
Gilthas rose involuntarily to his feet.
“What—”
“Your Majesty must not excite himself,” Planchet remonstrated with a glance at the door, reminding the king that the guards could hear him.
“What has happened, Kelevandros?” Gilthas asked indolently. “You look as if you had seen a ghost.”
“Your Majesty!” Kelevandros said in a low, quivering voice.
“The queen mother has been arrested!”
“Arrested?” Gilthas repeated in astonishment. “Who has done this? Who would dare? And why? What is the charge?”
“Marshal Medan. Your Majesty.” Kelevandros gulped. “I don’t know how to say this—”
“Out with it, man!” Gilthas said sharply.
“Last night, Marshal Medan placed your honored mother under arrest. He has orders from the dragon Beryl to put. . . to put the queen mother to death.”
Gilthas stared wordlessly. The blood drained from his face, as if someone had taken a knife and drawn it across his throat. He was so pale and shaken that Planchet left the door and hastened to the king’s side, placed a firm and comforting hand on Gilthas’s shoulder.
“I attempted to stop him, Your Majesty,” Kelevandros said miserably. “I failed.”
“Last night!” Gilthas cried, anguished. “Why didn’t you come to me at once?”
“I tried, Your Majesty,” Kelevandros said, “but the guards would not let me inside without orders from Palthainon.”
“Where has Medan taken the queen mother?” Planchet asked.
“What is the charge against her?”
“The charge is harboring the sorcerer Palin and helping him escape with the magical device brought by the kender. I don’t know where Medan has taken my mistress. I went first to the Knight’s headquarters, but if she is being held there, no one would tell me. I have had people searching for her all night. They are to report back to Kalindas, who has offered to remain in the house in case there is news. Finally, one of the guards who is a friend of our cause admitted me.