Tas hung his head. What was Par-Salian doing? he wondered in confusion, Had something gone wrong? Were they even in Istar? Were they lost somewhere? Or maybe this was some terrible nightmare...
“Who—What happened?” Denubis asked the captain. “Was the Dark One right?”
“Right? Of course, he was right. Have you ever known him to be wrong?” the captain snapped. “As for who—I don’t know who she is, but she’s a member of your order. Wears the medallion of Paladine around her neck. She’s hurt pretty bad, too. I thought she was dead, in fact, but there’s a faint lifebeat in her neck.”
“Do you think she was... she was...” Denubis faltered.
“I don’t know,” the captain said grimly. “But she’s been beaten up. She’s had some kind of fit, I guess. Her eyes are wide open, but she doesn’t seem to see or hear anything.”
“We must convey her to the Temple at once,” Denubis said briskly, though Tas heard a tremor in the man’s voice. The guards were dispersing the crowd, holding their spears in front of them and pushing back the curious.
“Everything’s in hand. Move along, move along. Market’s about to close for the day. You best finish your shopping while there’s still time.”
“I didn’t hurt her!” Caramon said bleakly. He was shivering in terror. “I didn’t hurt her,” he repeated, tears streaking down his face.
“Yeah!” the captain said bitterly. “Take these two to the prisons,” he ordered his guards.
Tas whimpered. One of the guards grabbed him roughly, but the kender—confused and stunned—caught hold of Denubis’s robes and refused to let go. The cleric, his hand resting on Lady Crysania’s lifeless form, turned around when he felt the kender’s clinging hands.
“Please,” Tas begged, “please, he’s telling the truth.”
Denubis’s stern face softened. “You are a loyal friend,” he said gently. “A rather unusual trait to find in a kender. I hope your faith in this man is justified.” Absently, the cleric stroked Tas’s topknot of hair, his expression sad. “But, you must realize that sometimes, when a man has been drinking, the liquor makes him do things—”
“Come along, you!” the guard snarled, jerking Tas backward. “Quit your little act. It won’t work.”
“Don’t let this upset you, Revered Son,” the captain said. “You know kender!”
“Yes,” Denubis replied, his eyes on Tas as the two guards led the kender and Caramon away through the rapidly thinning crowd in the marketplace. “I do know kender. And that’s a remarkable one.” Then, shaking his head, the cleric turned his attention back to Lady Crysania. “If you will continue holding her, Captain,” he said softly, “I will ask Paladine to convey us to the Temple with all speed.”
Tas, twisting around in the guard’s grip, saw the cleric and the Captain of the Guard standing alone in the marketplace. There was a shimmer of white light, and they were gone.
Tas blinked and, forgetting to look where he was going, stumbled over his feet. He tumbled to the cobblestone pavement, skinning his knees and his hands painfully. A firm grip on his collar jerked him upright, and a firm hand gave him a shove in the back.
“Come along. None of your tricks.”
Tas moved forward, too miserable and upset to even look around at his surroundings. His gaze went to Caramon, and the kender felt his heart ache. Overwhelmed by shame and fear, Caramon plodded down the street blindly, his steps unsteady.
“I didn’t hurt her!” Tas heard him mumble. “There must be some sort of mistake...”
2
The beautiful elven voices rose higher and higher, their sweet notes spiraling up the octaves as though they would carry their prayers to the heavens simply by ascending the scales. The faces of the elven women, touched by the rays of the setting sun slanting through the tall crystal windows, were tinged a delicate pink, their eyes shone with fervent inspiration.
The listening pilgrims wept for the beauty, causing the choir’s white and blue robes—white robes for the Revered Daughters of Paladine, blue robes for the Daughters of Mishakal—to blur in their sight. Many would swear later that they had seen the elven women transported skyward, swathed in fluffy clouds.
When their song reached a crescendo of sweetness, a chorus of deep, male voices joined in, keeping the prayers that had been sweeping upward like freed birds tied to the ground—clipping the wings, so to speak, Denubis thought sourly. He supposed he was jaded. As a young man, he, too, had cleansed his soul with tears when he first heard the Evening Hymn. Then, years later, it had become routine. He could well remember the shock he had experienced when he first realized his thoughts had wandered to some pressing piece of church business during the singing. Now it was worse than routine. It had become an irritant, cloying and annoying. He had come to dread this time of day, in fact, and took advantage of every opportunity to escape.
Why? He blamed much of it on the elven women. Racial prejudice, he told himself morosely. Yet, he couldn’t help it. Every year a party of elven women, Revered Daughters and those in training, journeyed from the glorious lands of Silvanesti to spend a year in Istar, devoting themselves to the church. This meant they sang the Evening Hymn nightly and spent their days reminding all around them that the elves were the favored of the gods—created first of all the races, granted a lifespan of hundreds of years. Yet nobody but Denubis seemed to take offense at this.
Tonight, in particular, the singing was irritating to Denubis because he was worried about the young woman he had brought to the Temple that morning. He had, in fact, almost avoided coming this evening but had been captured at the last moment by Gerald, an elderly human cleric whose days on Krynn were numbered and who found his greatest comfort in attending Evening Prayers. Probably, Denubis reflected, because the old man was almost totally deaf. This being the case, it had been completely impossible to explain to Gerald that he—Denubis—had somewhere else to go. Finally Denubis gave up and gave the old cleric his arm in support. Now Gerald stood next to him, his face rapt, picturing in his mind, no doubt, the beautiful plane to which he, someday, would ascend.
Denubis was thinking about this and about the young woman, whom he had not seen or heard anything about since he had brought her to the Temple that morning, when he felt a gentle touch upon his arm. The cleric jumped and glanced about guiltily, wondering if his inattention had been observed and would be reported. At first he couldn’t figure out who had touched him, both of his neighbors apparently lost in their prayers. Then he felt the touch again and realized it came from behind. Glancing in back of him, he saw a hand had slipped unobtrusively through the curtain that separated the balcony on which the Revered Sons stood from the antechambers around the balcony.
The hand beckoned, and Denubis, puzzled, left his place in line and fumbled awkwardly with the curtain, trying to leave without calling undue attention to himself. The hand had withdrawn and Denubis couldn’t find the separation in the folds of the heavy velvet curtains. Finally, after he was certain every pilgrim in the place must have his eyes fixed on him in disgust, he found the opening and stumbled through it.
A young acolyte, his face smooth and placid, bowed to the flushed and perspiring cleric as if nothing were amiss.
“My apologies for interrupting your Evening Prayers, Revered Son, but the Kingpriest requests that you honor him with a few moments of your time, if it is convenient.” The acolyte spoke the prescribed words with such casual courtesy that it would not have seemed unusual to any observer if Denubis had replied, “No, not now. I have other matters I must attend to directly. Perhaps later?”
Denubis, however, said nothing of the sort. Paling visibly, he mumbled something about “being much honored,” his voice dying off at the end. The acolyte was accustomed to this, however, and—nodding acknowledgement—turned and led the way through the vast, airy, winding halls of the Temple to the quarters of the Kingpriest of Istar.