Dragons of a Vanished Moon Read online

  “You mean Goldmoon!” Tasslehoff cried bleakly. “She used the blue crystal staff. Is Goldmoon dead?”

  Laughter sliced through his flesh.

  “Am I dead?” he cried. “I know you said I wasn’t, but I saw my own spirit.”

  You are dead and you are not dead, replied the voice, but that will soon be remedied.

  “Stop jabbering!” Conundrum demanded. “You’re annoying me, and I can’t work when I’m annoyed.”

  Tasslehoff’s head came up from the table with a jerk. He stared at the gnome, who had turned from his work to glare at the kender.

  “Can’t you see I’m busy here? First you moan, then you groan, then you start to mumble to yourself. I find it most distracting.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Tasslehoff.

  Conundrum rolled his eyes, shook his head in disgust, and went back to his perusal of the Device of Time Journeying. “I think that goes here, not there,” the gnome muttered. “Yes. See? And then the chain hooks on here and wraps around like so. No, that’s not quite the way. It must go … Wait, I see. This has to fit in there first.”

  Conundrum picked up one of the jewels from the Device of Time Journeying and fixed it in place. “Now I need another of these red gizmos.” He began sorting through the jewels. Sorting through them now, as the other gnome, Gnimsh, had sorted through them in the past, Tasslehoff noted sadly.

  The past that never was. The future that was hers.

  “Maybe it was all a dream,” Tas said to himself. “That stuff about Goldmoon. I think I’d know if she was dead. I think I’d feel sort of smothery around the heart if she was dead, and I don’t feel that. Although it is sort of hard to breathe in here.”

  Tasslehoff stood up. “Don’t you think it’s stuffy, Conundrum? I think it’s stuffy,” he answered, since Conundrum wasn’t paying any attention to him.

  “These Towers of High Sorcery are always stuffy,” Tas added, continuing to talk. Even if he was only talking to himself, hearing his own voice was far, far better than hearing that other, terrible voice. “It’s all those bat wings and rat’s eyeballs and moldy, old books. You’d think that with the cracks in these walls, you’d get a nice breeze, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. I wonder if Dalamar would mind very much if I broke one of his windows?”

  Tasslehoff glanced about for something to chuck through the windowpane. A small bronze statue of an elf maiden, who didn’t seem to be doing much with her time except holding a wreath of flowers in her hands, stood on a small table. Judging by the dust, she hadn’t moved from the spot for half a century or so and therefore, Tas thought, she might like a change of scenery. He picked up the statue and was just about to send the elf maiden on her journey out the window, when he heard voices outside the Tower.

  Feeling thankful that the voices were coming from outside the Tower and not inside him, Tas lowered the elf maiden and peered curiously out the window.

  A troop of Dark Knights had arrived on horseback, bringing with them a horse-drawn wagon with an open bed filled with straw. The Knights did not dismount but remained on their horses, glancing uneasily at the circle of dark trees that surrounded them. The horses shifted restlessly. The souls of the dead crept around the boles of the trees like a pitiful fog. Tas wondered if the riders could see the souls. He was sorry he could, and he did not look at the souls too closely, afraid he’d see himself again.

  Dead but not dead.

  He looked over his shoulder at Conundrum, bent almost double over his work and still mumbling to himself.

  “Whoo-boy, there are a lot of Dark Knights about,” Tas said loudly. “I wonder what these Dark Knights are doing here? Don’t you wonder about that, Conundrum?”

  The gnome muttered, but did not look up from his work. The device was certainly going back together in a hurry.

  “I’m sure your work could wait. Wouldn’t you like to rest a bit and come see all these Dark Knights?” Tas asked.

  “No,” said Conundrum, establishing the record for the shortest gnome response in history.

  Tas sighed. The kender and the gnome had arrived at the Tower of High Sorcery in company with Tas’s former companion and longtime friend Goldmoon—a Goldmoon who was ninety years old if she was a day but had the body and face of a woman of twenty. Goldmoon told Dalamar that she was meeting someone at the Tower. Dalamar took Goldmoon away and told Palin to take Tasslehoff and the gnome away and put them in a room to wait—making this a waiting room. It was then Dalamar had said, You do understand the significance of the gnome?

  Palin had left them here, after wizard-locking the door. Tas knew the door was wizard-locked, because he’d already used up his very best lockpicks without success in an effort to open it. The day lockpicks fail is a day wizards are involved, as his father had been wont to say.

  Standing at the window, staring down at the Knights, who appeared to be waiting for something and not much enjoying the wait, Tasslehoff was struck by an idea. The idea struck so hard that he reached up with the hand that wasn’t holding onto the bronze statue of the elf maiden to feel if he had a lump on his head. Not finding one, he glanced surreptitiously (he thought that was the word) back at the gnome. The device was almost back together. Only a few pieces remained, and those were fairly small and probably not terribly important.

  Feeling much better now that he had a Plan, Tas went back to observing what was happening out the window, thinking that now he could properly enjoy it. He was rewarded by the sight of an immense minotaur emerging from the Tower of High Sorcery. Tas was about four stories up in the Tower, and he could look right down on the top of the minotaur’s head. If he chucked the statue out the window now, he could bean the minotaur.

  Clunking a minotaur over the head was a delightful thought, and Tas was tempted. At that moment, however, several Dark Knights trooped out of the Tower. They bore something between them—a body covered with a black cloth.

  Tas stared down, pressing his nose so hard against the glass pane that he heard cartilage crunch. As the troop carrying the body moved out of the Tower, the wind sighed among the cypress trees, lifted the black cloth to reveal the face of the corpse.

  Tasslehoff recognized Dalamar.

  Tas’s hands went numb. The statue fell to the floor with a crash.

  Conundrum’s head shot up. “What in the name of dual carburetors did you do that for?” he demanded. “You made me drop a screw!”

  More Dark Knights appeared, carrying another body. The wind blew harder, and the black cloth that had been thrown carelessly over the corpse slid to the ground. Palin’s dead face looked up at the kender. His eyes were wide open, fixed and staring. His robes were soaked in blood.

  “This is my fault!” Tas cried, riven by guilt. “If I had gone back to die, like I was supposed to, Palin and Dalamar wouldn’t be dead now.”

  “I smell smoke,” said Conundrum suddenly. He sniffed the air. “Reminds me of home,” he stated and went back to his work.

  Tas stared bleakly out the window. The Dark Knights had started a bonfire at the base of the Tower, stoking it with dry branches and logs from the cypress forest. The wood crackled. The smoke curled up the stone side of the Tower like some noxious vine. The Knights were building a funeral pyre.

  “Conundrum,” said Tasslehoff in a quiet voice, “how are you coming with the Device of Time Journeying? Have you fixed it yet?”

  “Devices? No time for devices now,” Conundrum said importantly. “I have this contraption about fixed.”

  “Good,” said Tasslehoff.

  Another Dark Knight came out of the Tower. She had red hair, cropped close to her head, and Tasslehoff recognized her. He’d seen her before, although he couldn’t recall where.

  The woman carried a body in her arms, and she moved very slowly and solemnly. At a shouted command from the minotaur, the other Knights halted their work and stood with their heads bowed.

  The woman walked slowly to the wagon. Tas tried to see who it was the woman carried, bu
t his view was blocked by the minotaur. The woman lowered the person gently into the wagon. She backed away and Tasslehoff had a clear view.

  He’d assumed that the person was another Dark Knight, maybe one who’d been wounded. He was astonished to see that the person in the wagon was an old, old woman, and Tas knew immediately that the old woman was dead. He felt very sorry and wondered who she was. Some relation of the Dark Knight with the red hair, for she arranged the folds of the woman’s white gown around her and then brushed out with her fingers the woman’s long, flowing, silver-white hair.

  “So Goldmoon used to brush out my hair, Galdar,” said the woman.

  Her words carried clearly in the still air. Much too clearly, as far as Tas concerned.

  “Goldmoon.” Tas felt a lump of sadness rise up in his throat. “She is dead. Caramon, Palin … Everyone I love is dead. And it’s my fault. I’m the one who should be dead.”

  The horses drawing the wagon shifted restlessly, as if anxious to leave. Tas glanced back at Conundrum. Only two tiny jewels remained to be stuck on somewhere.

  “Why did we come here, Mina?” The minotaur’s booming voice could be heard clearly. “You have captured Solanthus, given the Solamnics a sound spanking and sent them running home to mama. The entire Solamnic nation is yours now. You have done what no one else has been able to do in the entire history of the world—”

  “Not quite, Galdar,” Mina corrected him. “We must still take Sanction, and we must take it by the time of the Festival of the Eye.”

  “The … festival?” The minotaur’s forehead wrinkled. “The Festival of the Eye. By my horns, I had almost forgotten that old celebration.” He grinned. “You are such a youngling, Mina, I’m surprised you know of it at all. It hasn’t been celebrated since the three moons vanished.”

  “Goldmoon told me about the festival,” said Mina, gently stroking the dead woman’s wrinkled cheek. “That it was held on the night when all three moons—the red, the white, and the black—converged, forming the image of a great staring eye in the heavens. I should like to have seen that sight.”

  “Among humans, it was a night for riot and revelry, or so I have heard. Among my people, the night was honored and reverenced,” Galdar stated, “for we believed the Eye to be the eye of Sargas, our god—former god,” he added hastily, with a sidelong glance at Mina. “Still, what has some old festival to do with capturing Sanction? The three moons are gone, and so is the eye of the gods.”

  “There will be a festival, Galdar,” said Mina. “The Festival of the New Eye, the One Eye. We will celebrate the festival in the Temple of Huerzyd.”

  “But the Temple of Huerzyd is in Sanction,” Galdar protested. “We are on the other side of the continent from Sanction, not to mention the fact that Sanction is firmly in control of the Solamnic Knights. When will the festival occur?”

  “At the appointed time,” said Mina. “When the totem is assembled. When the red dragon falls from the skies.”

  “Ugh,” Galdar grunted. “Then we should be marching to Sanction now and bringing with us an army. Yet we waste our time at this fell place.” He cast a glance of enmity at the Tower. “Our march will be further slowed if we must cart along the body of this old woman.”

  The bonfire roared and crackled. The flames leaped up the stone walls of the Tower, charring them. Smoke swirled about Galdar, who batted irritably at it, and drifted in through the window. Tas coughed, covered his mouth with his hand.

  “I am commanded to bring the body of Goldmoon, princess of the Qué-shu, bearer of the blue crystal staff, to Sanction, to the Temple of Huerzyd on the night of the Festival of the New Eye. There a great miracle will be performed, Galdar. Our journey will not be slowed. All will move as has been ordered. The One God will see to that.”

  Mina raised her hands over the body of Goldmoon and lifted up her voice in prayer. Orangish-yellow light radiated from her hands. Tas tried to look into the light to see what was happening, but the light was like tiny pieces of glass in his eyes, made them burn and hurt so that he was forced to shut them tight. Even then he could see the glare right through them.

  Mina’s praying ceased. The bright light slowly faded. Tasslehoff opened his eyes.

  The body of Goldmoon lay enshrined in a sarcophagus of golden amber. Encased in the amber, Goldmoon’s body was once again youthful, beautiful. She wore the white robes she had worn in life. Feathers adorned her hair that was gold threaded with silver—yet all now held fast in amber.

  Tas felt the sick feeling in his stomach rise up into his throat. He choked and clutched the window ledge for support.

  “This coffin you’ve created is very grand, Mina,” said Galdar, and the minotaur sounded exasperated, “but what do you plan to do with her? Cart her about as a monument to this One God? Exhibit her to the populace? We are not clerics. We are soldiers. We have a war to fight.”

  Mina stared at Galdar in silence, a silence so large and terrible that it absorbed into itself all sound, all light, snatched away the air they breathed. The awful silence of her fury withered Galdar, who shrank visibly before it.

  “I’m sorry, Mina,” he mumbled. “I didn’t mean—”

  “Be thankful that I know you, Galdar,” said Mina. “I know that you speak from your heart, without thinking. But someday, you will go too far, and on that day I will no longer be able to protect you. This woman was more than mother to me. All I have done in the name of the One God, I have done for her.”

  Mina turned to the sarcophagus, placed her hands upon the amber, and bent near to look at Goldmoon’s calm, still face. “You told me of the gods who had been but were no more. I went in search of them—for you!”

  Mina’s voice trembled. “I brought the One God to you, Mother. The One God gave you back your youth and your beauty. I thought you would be pleased. What did I do wrong? I don’t understand.” Mina’s hands stroked the amber coffin, as if smoothing out a blanket. She sounded bewildered. “You will change your mind, dear Mother. You will come to understand.…”

  “Mina …” Galdar said uneasily, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. Forgive me.”

  Mina nodded. She did not turn her head.

  Galdar cleared his throat. “What are your orders concerning the kender?”

  “Kender?” Mina repeated, only half-hearing him.

  “The kender and the magical artifact. You said they were in the Tower.”

  Mina lifted her head. Tears glistened on her cheeks. Her face was pale, the amber eyes wide. “The kender.” Her lips formed the words, but she did not speak them aloud. She frowned. “Yes, of course, go fetch him. Quickly! Make haste!”

  “Do you know where he is, Mina?” Galdar asked hesitantly. “The Tower is immense, and there are many rooms.”

  Mina raised her head, looked directly at Tas’s window, looked directly at Tas, and pointed.

  “Conundrum,” said Tasslehoff in a voice that didn’t sound to him like his own voice but belonged to some altogether different person, a person who was well and truly scared. “We have to get out of here. Now!”

  He backed precipitously away from the window.

  “There, it’s finished,” said Conundrum, proudly displaying the device.

  “Are you sure it will work?” Tas asked anxiously. He could hear footsteps on the stairs, or at least he thought he could.

  “Or course,” Conundrum stated, scowling. “Good as new. By the way, what did it do when it was new?”

  Tas’s heart, which had leaped quite hopefully at the first part of the gnome’s statement, now sank.

  “How do you know it works if you don’t know what it does?” Tas demanded. He could quite definitely hear footsteps. “Never mind. Just give it to me. Quickly!”

  Palin had wizard-locked the door, but Palin was … wasn’t here anymore. Tas guessed that the wizardlock wasn’t here either. He could hear footsteps and harsh breathing. He pictured the large and heavy minotaur, tromping up all those stairs.

  “I thought at
first it might be a potato peeler,” Conundrum was saying. He gave the device a shake that made the chain rattle. “But it’s a bit small, and there’s no hydraulic lift. Then I thought—”

  “It’s a device that sends you traveling through time. That’s what I’m going to do with it, Conundrum,” Tasslehoff said. “Journey back through time. I’d take you with me, but I don’t think you’d much like where I’m going, which is back to the Chaos War to be stepped on by a giant. You see, it’s my fault that everyone I love is dead, and if I go back, they won’t be dead. I’ll be dead, but that doesn’t matter because I’m already dead—”

  “Cheese grater,” said Conundrum, regarding the device thoughtfully. “Or it could be, with a few modifications, a meat grinder, maybe, and a—”

  “Never mind,” said Tasslehoff, and he drew in a deep breath to give himself courage. “Just hand me the device. Thank you for fixing it. I hate to leave you here in the Tower of High Sorcery with an angry minotaur and the Dark Knights, but once I’m stepped on, they might not be here anymore. Would you please hand me the device?”

  The footsteps had stopped, but not the harsh breathing. The stairs were steep and treacherous. The minotaur had been forced to halt his climb to catch his breath.

  “Combination fishing rod and shoe tree?” guessed the gnome.

  The minotaur’s footsteps started again.

  Tas gave up. One could be polite for only so long. Especially to a gnome. Tas made a grab for the device. “Give it to me!”

  “You’re not going to break it again?” Conundrum asked, holding it just out of the kender’s reach.

  “I’m not going to break it!” Tasslehoff said firmly. With a another lunge, he succeeded in nabbing the device and wrenched it out of the gnome’s hand. “If you’ll watch closely, I’ll show you how it works. I hope,” he muttered to himself.