"Come over here," he panted. "Stand exactly here." He pointed to the outside of the ring of shells. The sea-blue eyes shone with rage and cunning.
Vaananen knew if he left the sparring ground before the round was over that it would be a foul, and would give the Kingpriest an opportunity to deliver an undefended blow. The blade glistened in the noonday sun, its edge razor-sharp and lethal. The Kingpriest did not care for blunted weapons.
Vaananen moved to the center of the ring and stood his ground. It was a show of truce-the most vulnerable place in the arena.
"Do you decline my order, noble Vaananen?" the Kingpriest said smoothly. "I think there is a penalty for that. … I think you will do five more years of this game, this time with no padded shirt, eh?"
For the first time, Vaananen spoke. "I have paid the debt of Vincus's blood. He will go free. And you cannot coerce me. You violate your Order by using this broadsword. The game is over."
The Kingpriest smiled, his sea-blue eyes flickering coldly. "You will stay in my service," he said. "You are bound to me by oath. Many others who are unworthy serve me-from the thief's son to peas shy;ants …"
He eyed Vaananen cagily.
"Perhaps even druids. Cast out from their own Order for the gods know . . . what crimes?"
Vaananen's face betrayed no emotion.
"Now, willow-heart, we will arrange to pay your debt," the Kingpriest said with a low chuckle.
Slowly, he stirred the border of shells with his booted foot, walking around the ring, narrowing the circle around the silent druid.
Lazily the goddess walked through the Tears of Mishakal, the crystal structures rising in bizarre angles, catching the red moonlight until they seemed like blades dripping with blood.
The crystals that housed her changed as well. No longer was she Tamex, the menacing, mysterious warrior that would trouble Larken's dreams for yet a dozen nights.
She was Tanila now-a lithe and lovely woman, a creature of darkness to be feared and desired by man and elf alike. Casting her black eyes toward the heavens, the goddess breathed a summoning word .
And in the far sky, somewhere over Istar on the northern horizon, a star winked out and the long line of dune and mountain darkened ever so slightly.
Good. Her powers were growing. She could again subvert the deep heavens with an old spell or a quiet incantation. Somewhere in the far void of space, as dark and lifeless as her prison in the abyss, a black star cooled and died, collapsing on itself, and ten plan shy;ets-ten worlds-felt the first glazing of a final ice.
Who knew what civilizations now lay chilled and silent, abandoned by warmth and light and life?
Indeed, who cared? What was important was that she could do it-could leave the world desolate with a breath, a thought. Oh, her powers were mighty, and though Krynn was held against her, safe for now in the shelter of a bright wing, she would gov shy;ern it soon. She knew it.
It was a matter of months-of a few years at the most-and this was the place to begin.
Takhisis knew how the salt flats had received their name. Profane ground, where healing failed and revelation faded.
No wonder Mishakal wept.
But the goddess who now passed through the lat shy;ticework of crystal thought little of healing, less of revelation. On her mind were the rebel leaders, the close-knit triad of bard, elf, and …
She had no word for Fordus. Not yet. She knew him only through repute and legend, through his victories and through the song of his bard.
The bard was easy. Larken did not know her own power-the hidden magic of the lyre she resented and discarded, the awesome potential of her voice if she could free it of her own fear and anger.
Takhisis smiled. Fear and anger were her favorite lieutenants.
Fear and anger followed the elf as well.
Neither of them knew themselves, much less their commander.
The sand stirred, marking the wake of the goddess, a sinuous, twisting path like the trail left by a snake.
The next time she would come to them as Tanila, and the elf would be probed and sounded. He was Lucanesti, friend to the opals.
And oh, the opals would be important soon.
But first, there was small business to attend to at the edge of the grasslands.
The grasslands rose out of sleep to embrace him, the long grain swaying in the windless fields.
Fordus knew he was dreaming because what he saw did not match what he felt.
He did not like unexpected dreams. But so be it.
Would the battle come, or the light? One or the other always appeared in his dreams, and he learned from them both, from what the battle showed him or the light told him to say.
A purple rise, dotted with fir trees and blasted vallenwoods, rushed to meet him. Above them, a dozen birds wheeled slowly.
Hawks? Was Larken's hawk Lucas among them? He called to the birds in his mind; they approached, descended.
Not hawks. Scavengers.
Then it is a battle dream, he thought. I shall feel my dreaming in the morning run, in new soreness and stretching. But I shall win this battle as I win them all. Larken will finally sing of how I defeated Istar in desert, in grasslands …
Even in dreams.
He had no time to savor the prospects. Suddenly the rise fell away, as though the earth itself had col shy;lapsed beneath him. Fordus leapt over a spinning, white-hot void and landed stiffly and unsteadily at the crumbling edge of a bluff. A solitary Istarian
warrior instantly appeared before him-a golden man, hooded and helmed, his shield adorned with seven alabaster spires, his broad shoulders draped with a black tunic.
Well, then, Fordus thought. He reached for the axe at his belt.
It was not there.
For a moment, fear surged through him, dream shy;like and obscure, then he brushed it aside with a laugh.
After all, it is a dream. What is the worst that can happen?
Across the arid, level ground, in the wail of a hot wind, the warrior beckoned slowly, trumpeting a challenge in an inhuman tongue. His seven-spired shield glittered ever more brightly until the dream was swallowed by its light. Then shadow returned, and the man stood closer, alone and unarmed, as though he had cast aside his weaponry out of con shy;tempt. Now he assumed a wrestler's stance: a low, feline crouch, fingers spread like claws.
With long strides, moving so slowly it seemed that he waded through waist-high sand, Fordus closed with the warrior.
They collided to the sound of distant thunder. The arms of the enemy were cold and metallic, hard and heavy as bronze. The Istarian warrior spun about with a roar, hurling Fordus over his head. Whooping in delight, Fordus released his grip at the height of the violent arc, and somersaulting through the air, landed lightly on the sun-scorched ledge some dis shy;tance away. Behind him, rocks and dust toppled into a bottomless crevasse.
It is my dream. I can master it.
The warrior now bristled with six waving arms like an angry burnished insect, like a living statue of some barbarian harvest god. The sunlight danced like flame on his helmet.
It is my dream …
Fordus hurtled toward the warrior, who cried out and braced himself for the impact.
This collision was totally silent, as though all sound had fled at the force of the impact. The golden warrior rocked on his heels but kept his balance, lift shy;ing the struggling Fordus off the ground, four of the arms drawing him closer . ..
Fordus heard the hissing, smelled the fetid breath of his adversary. Fascinated, distracted, he gazed into the warrior's eyes.
Lidless and lifeless. Reptilian, the vertical slits in the heart of the eyes opening like a parted curtain, to reveal a dark nothingness, a deep and abiding void …
Fordus shook his head, wrestled the enemy's mul shy;tiple grasp, his own sudden drowsiness and lack of resistance, the growing trust that it Would not be so bad, this defeat, that it would all go for the better if he gave up the struggling … if he gave in … and looked into the curtained eyes that opened to per shy;petual blackness.