Solostaran raised his brows and looked at the dwarf. "Perhaps you are right, Miral," the Speaker replied.
"Ark," Flint hacked. "I'm fine." He coughed and felt his face grow pale. The magic-user snapped his fingers, and thinly sliced quith-pa appeared in his outstretched hand. Flint chewed a slice of the bread while the Speaker, more casual now that court was over, waved his daughter forward.
The elf girl, pointed ear tips barely showing through her spun-gold hair, drew a slender chain from her neck. At one end dangled a single, perfect aspen leaf, glimmering green and silver in the golden light. Although it looked natural, as if it had just been plucked from a living tree, this leaf was fashioned of silver and emerald, so skillfully wrought it could not be discerned from a real leaf save for the sparkles of light it sent dancing across the little girl's rapt face.
The dwarf gasped in surprise; the movement brought up a peachy belch, prompting another chuckle from Lauralanthalasa. "I made that leaf six months ago," Flint exclaimed, swallowing the last morsel of quith-pa. "Sold it to an elf passing through Solace."
"My envoy," the Speaker said. Flint started to speak, but the Speaker held up one hand. "The leaf is perfect in every way. No tree is closer to the heart of an elf than the aspen. I determined to find the artist who could translate such feeling into his work. And I discovered that this artisan is no elf, but a dwarf."
The Speaker turned away for a heartbeat, then paused. "You must be weary from your long journey," he said. "Miral will show you to your chambers."
Solostaran watched as the dwarf and the magic-user walked from the chamber. It had been a long time since a sight such as that had been seen in Qualinost. Too long. Times had been dark of late. It still seemed only a moment-instead of thirty years-since his brother Kethrenan had been slain, and such raids had not yet ended.
"Friendship…," Solostaran echoed his earlier words. The world could do with a bit more friendship.
The streets of the elven city spread out beneath Flint's feet. Before being shown to his chambers, Flint had asked Miral to take him someplace where he might see more of the city. The elf had led him along the tiled avenues, past buildings fashioned of marble and rose quartz, the crystals splintering the light only to spin it again in dazzling new colors.
Aspen, oak, and spruce surrounded the buildings so that the houses of Qualinost seemed living things themselves, their roots sunk deep into the earth. Fountains bubbled in courtyards where elven folk, the women in dresses of cobweb silver, the men in jerkins of moss green, spoke softly or listened to the music of dulcimer and flute. The air was warm and clear, its touch as gentle as midsummer, although Flint knew that winter had barely loosened its grip on the land.
As he watched, the sun drew low in the west, the crimson sunset combining with the rosy hues of the living stone to bathe the town in pink light. The azure and white tiles of the streets deepened to purple. The scent of baking quith-pa and roasting venison filled the air, and few elves were too busy to come to the portals of their homes and businesses to enjoy the closing of the day.
The odor of blossoms still discomfited the dwarf, but he resolved to ignore it.
Miral led him to a lane that wound in arcs up a rise in the center of the city. The lane ended in a great square, the Hall of the Sky, walled only by the pale trunks of aspens and roofed only by the blue dome of the heavens. "This is a hall?" Flint asked after the magic-user identified its name. "There's no roof."
Miral grinned. "The sky is its ceiling, we say, although some believe that at one time there was a hall here, guarding something beyond value. Myth has it that Kith-Kanan caused the structure to rise into the sky to protect that which was within." He looked wistful and drew in a great breath of pear-blossom-scented air. "It's said that whoever finds the structure will enjoy great success."
"That's nothing to sneeze at," Flint agreed.
Miral darted a look at him and, after a pause, laughed shortly. The two looked over Qualinost, details beginning to vanish in the deepening twilight. Pinpoints of lamplight appeared in the uncommon glass windows of elven dwellings.
From the Hall of the Sky, in the center of Qualinost, Flint could gaze upon much of the ancient city. Four towers rose above the treetops at each point of the compass, and between each stretched a single delicate span of metal, a bridge connecting each of the towers in a single archway high above the ground. The four arches seemed like gossamer, shimmering even in the absence of the sun, but Flint knew that each was strong enough to bear the weight of an army, and an ache touched his heart as he marveled at the skill of the ancient dwarves who had built them. He wondered if Krynn would ever know such greatness again. Directly north, on a hill higher than the knoll he stood on now, rose the Tower of the Sun, so tall Flint could not help but imagine that if one stood upon it, he had only to reach up to brush the surface of the sky. So high was the Tower that its gold surface continued to reflect the westering sun even after that orb had left lower buildings wreathed in shadow.
"Do you see the two rivers?" Miral asked him, gesturing to the deep ravines to the east and west of the city. Flint grunted. Did he see them? Reorx above, he had had to cross one of them on a swaying bridge that seemed hardly strong enough to hold a rock dove, let alone a stocky dwarf. The thought of that deep, rocky ravine yawning beneath him still made his skin shiver.
"The one to the east is called Ithal-enatha, the River of Tears," Miral continued in a soft voice. "And the other is Ithal-inen, the River of Hope. They join at the confluence beyond the Tower to flow northward, to the White-Rage River and then to the sea beyond."
"Peculiar names," Flint said with a grunt.
Miral nodded. "They are very old. They were given to the rivers in the days after Kith-Kanan and his people journeyed to the forests of Qualinesti. The names represent the tears wept during the Kinslayer Wars, and the hope for the future when the wars finally ended."
The dwarf's companion fell silent, and Flint was content to stay in this peaceful place for a while, gazing out over the city. Finally, however, it was time to go.
Miral escorted Flint to the Speaker's palace, just west of the Tower of the Sun, and Flint found himself shown to his temporary chambers, a suite of high-ceilinged, marble-floored rooms three times the size of his own house back in Solace. He was free to rest and refresh himself as he wished, the mage informed him, showing him the door that opened onto a small room with a wash basin filled with cinnamon-scented water. Then he was left alone, with promises of food and ale-but no elvenblossom wine-to come soon.
"A dwarf in Qualinost!" Flint said with a soft snort to himself one last time. Reflecting that elven taste in scents and wine scarcely matched his own, he shed his tunic and leggings and dipped into the spicy bath to wash away the grime and dust of the road.
When an elven servant arrived not long after, he found the dwarf ensconced in a russet robe and sprawled on the sheets of the bed, snoring raucously. Quietly, the servant set down the tray of red ale, sliced venison and diced potatoes, then blew out the few candles that lit the room, leaving the dwarf to sleep in the darkness, and dream.
Chapter 2
When the adult dreamed he dreamed as a child.
He dreamed he was a toddler stood poised in the opening of a tunnel. Around the opening, quartz and marble and tile, once burnished, were now dirty with age and disuse. A small tree-no aspen, no oak, nothing the youngster had seen in his short life-grew out of the stone at the side of the cave mouth. The child's nostrils twitched with the smell of damp rock and-blue eyes widened-the scent of cinnamon! Cinnamon and rock sugar on quith-pa-the child's favorite afternoon treat. And he was hungry, tired of this day's outing.