The side street angled back toward the main avenue, and the neighborhood looked familiar. He reached the edge of the wide route. There it was!
The large house, behind its sculpted hedge of lush blossoms, was unmistakable. He saw the lofty tower where Alhana had been held prisoner, and the other, lower wing where he himself had been reclused after Rashas had decided that he should be separated from the queen. He crouched in the shadows at the intersection, again studying the main avenue, alert for the presence of Dark Knight patrols.
Again he saw no sign of the city’s human occupiers. He began to think that was strange, but he didn’t waste any time wondering about his good luck. Instead, he started toward the gap in the hedge that led toward the front door.
Here he hesitated, however, as other questions began to assail him. What should he do about Rashas’s Kagonesti guards? With the exception of Kerianseray, who had come with him when he had moved to the Speaker’s house, the senator’s slaves had seemed fanatically loyal, not to mention fierce and bloodthirsty. His hand came to rest on his sword, but Gilthas knew he’d be no match for one of these savage warriors if they met on hostile terms.
Studying the house, he was surprised to see that many lights were on. His heart sank, and he immediately suspected a reason: Guilderhand had returned here, and the senator was busy learning about the Speaker’s meeting with the outlaw. It would be foolishness—almost suicide!—for him to walk into that conversation.
Before he could make up his mind to turn and flee into the night, however, the front door burst open and none other than Senator Rashas came rushing out, trailed by several of his wild elf bodyguards. The elder elf stumbled to a halt at the sight of the lone figure standing in his gateway. Rashas blinked, then uttered an oath as he rushed forward.
“Where in the Abyss have you been?” he demanded. He seemed ready to grab Gilthas by the arm and shake him, but apparently thought better of such a presumptuous action. Instead, he planted his hands on his hips and glared at the Speaker of the Sun. “We’ve been looking for you since this morning. There are things happening, and you were needed in the councils! And now with the summons—by Paladine, you know we were supposed to be there an hour ago!”
“Things happening?” Gilthas was stunned, his mind trying to keep up with the words. He had been prepared for the senator’s anger, but his questions were merely mystifying.
“I ask you again, where have you been?”
“I—I went for a walk in the forest. I wanted to do some thinking by myself.”
Rashas lowered his voice to a hiss, a strong, penetrating force that pushed its way into Gilthas’s ears alone. “Don’t ever do that again! Do you understand? We need to know where you are at all times!”
Through it all, the younger elf was realizing one thing: Rashas didn’t know! He hadn’t spoken to Guilderhand! Almost light-headed with relief, he nodded dumbly, made sounds of assurance with his dry mouth and clumsy tongue.
“Come on, then. At least you’re dressed now, and I don’t have to drag you out of bed.” Rashas took hold of Gilthas’s arm and pulled him along the street toward the Tower of the Sun. “We’ve got to get to Lord Salladac!”
The Speaker had enough presence of mind not to ask why they were going to see Lord Salladac. Instead, he trotted along beside the older elf, who was moving along at what would normally have been quite an unseemly pace. They hurried down the main avenue, and once again Gilthas took note of the absence of Dark Knight guards. It had not been his imagination. Clearly they had been ordered to other duties than the night patrols of Qualinost’s streets.
As they approached his own house, the young elf flushed at the realization that he’d left the chandelier blazing in his receiving room. Bright light spilled from the windows across the garden, casting bright splashes of illumination through the shadowy street. Again Rashas made no remark about anything strange, so fixed was he on reaching the tower. Holding his sword to keep it from jangling, Gilthas was startled to realize that the senator hadn’t even commented on the fact that he was armed.
They arrived at the Tower of the Sun at the same time that Lord Salladac, coming from the other direction, approached at the head of a small company of guards.
“Thank all the gods he’s not been waiting for us,” Rashas whispered. “I’d hate to think what would happen to your head if he’d been here on time!”
Gilthas merely nodded, further mystified.
Silent servants admitted them to the vast council chamber, which was illuminated by a few small candles, though the corners around the walls and the yawning space overhead all expanded into utter darkness. Salladac seemed to like it like this. He bade the two elves join him on the rostrum while the guards—Dark Knight and Kagonesti—all halted a discreet distance away.
While they settled themselves on three stools, Salladac’s eyes fastened on Gilthas with a penetrating stare, and for an instant, the young elf was certain that he had been caught. He thought of the sword, knew beyond doubt that he could never draw it in time to strike, and he saw, too, that any damage he could do here was useless to the cause that had brought him back from Porthios’s camp.
Then the lord sighed and seemed to relax, stretching his arms over his head and making a great show of working the kinks out of his back.
“These nights are too hot, and your elven mattresses are too thin,” he said by way of introduction. “Even after a good night’s sleep I wake up stiff, and now, with all this alarm in the wee hours, I swear I’m lucky I can even walk.”
“What is the source of the alarm, my lord?” Rashas asked quickly.
“Urgent word from Lord Ariakan at the High Clerist’s Tower,” Salladac said bluntly. “I received a message, carried on dragonback, just after sunset.”
“Word about what?” Gilthas blurted.
“It seems there’s a new threat developing in the north,” the human lord explained. “I don’t doubt that it’s something we’ll be able to handle, though I admit there was a peculiar urgency to my lord’s missive. The Silvanesti campaign has been indefinitely postponed. My dragons are being recalled as of this morning, likewise about half of my brutes.”
“You’re leaving Qualinesti?” asked the young Speaker, now totally mystified. Guilderhand was utterly forgotten in the midst of these startling developments.
“Only temporarily, I assure you,” the lord said. He glowered sternly. “Don’t get any ideas about changing the new order of things. I anticipate that I’ll be back, with my dragons, in a matter of days.”
“We have no such thoughts, I assure you,” Rashas said. “But we would like to know about this threat. Is it a danger to Qualinesti as well?”
“I wish I knew,” Salladac admitted. “But to tell the truth, I’m afraid it might be. There are reports of fires burning where they don’t belong-over the ocean, to be precise. All Palanthas is in an uproar, and Ariakan wants all the talons of his dragon forces gathered in one place.”
“Is it an invasion?” wondered Gilthas.
“Tough to say for certain, but it could be. My lord used the term ‘Storms of Chaos’ when he talked about the things he’d seen. It’s not terribly specific, but it was the tone of his letter as much as anything else that has me worried.”