and sputtered, smoked, and sometimes burned fitfully. At last, as the icy and snow and wind had isolated him in his tower, he had been forced to admit defeat. There was no hidden destructive power in the mix of salt, gold, cinder, and enchanted ash.
His disappointment was eased by the two full bottles of potion his mistress had brought to him, and during the long wintertime he had luxuriated in the pleasant, soothing haze induced by his elixir. He had forgotten all about the failed testing, the experiments.
Now, feeling sturdier, he collected his wits. His hand was, if not steady, at least shaking less violently. Taking no chances, he clutched the bottle in both hands, lifting it from the table, feeling the tragically light weight of the liquid contents sloshing around. The stopper was tight-the Alchemist above all others knew the cost of evaporation-but he clamped it in his teeth and pulled sharply.
The cork came out, clenched in his jaws as he pulled the bottle away, then-horror! The glass slipped through his fingers! He grabbed desperately with his bony hands, only serving to propel the narrowing neck of the container through his slippery grasp. He watched the bottle fall as though it tumbled in slow motion.
His mouth gaped, as he croaked out a desperate word: “No!”
The bottle paid him no heed as it struck the stone bench and shattered. Shards of glass flew outward, but he ignored those jagged missiles, lunging, reaching, desperate to salvage even a few drops of his precious liquid. He saw those drops bounce from the table, jiggle tantalizingly in the air, dance between his frantic fingers. One of those spatters passed right over the back of his hand. He felt numb with a sense of irredeemable loss, as it fell with a plop right in the midst of the powdery residue of his failed experiment.
His world turned an ungodly white. A noise burst his eardrums. He felt as though the fist of a mighty god had picked him up and hurled him, bodily, across the chamber. He became vaguely aware of flames licking across the room. In another instant his vision, his awareness, his white reality merged into impenetrable black.
2
The blue of the sky was so pure, so perfect and unblemished, that Kerrick imagined spending the rest of his life in total contentment, surrounded by that color. The hue of the sky, magnificent beyond words, was actually surpassed by the intense azure of the ocean, the sparkling water brilliant under the spring sunlight, a surface of dazzling reflection extending to the limits of his vision.
Kerrick stood atop the cabin of his boat, his right hand braced on the mainsail’s rigging. The sail was full in a mild breeze, the white wake trailing and sparkling behind the transom. He squinted into the distance… imagining, remembering, and, for the first time in many years, longing.
Of course, in some ways he raced down this same emotional gauntlet every spring, had done so after each of the eight long, sunless winters he had spent here in the Icereach. Over that time he had learned to dread the shortening days, the long darkness as autumn waned toward winter. Eight times he had joined the Arktos in cowering against the force of the Sturmfrost, the mighty blast of ice and wind and snow that marked the first and most savage onslaught of the cold, dark season of winter.
To Kerrick Fallabrine, an elf from sunny, temperate Silvanesti, an even worse ordeal than the Sturmfrost was the long stretch of sunless winter, the bleak period of weeks and months that followed the blast, when time seemed to slow, even stop, bitter cold and frozen as still as the sea.
Every year Kerrick watched the progress of the late winter thaw, anticipating the arrival of spring until this moment came, when he finally grabbed a chance to take his cherished sailboat onto the waters of the White Bear Sea.
Even in spring, of course, there could be brutal storms, a squall or perhaps even a late blizzard that might rage with but a few minutes’ notice. However, the elf had sailed this sea long enough, endured the vicissitudes of Icereach springs so that he knew he could master anything the weather chose to throw at him. Once the sun returned from its winter’s absence, once the warming began, there was no force on land or sea that caused him to turn back from the water.
Now he turned his face toward the sun, and though it was but a feeble flicker compared to the heat it would yield in a few months, Kerrick relished the rays caressing his skin. The wind was whipping past, still cool, but there was a hint of moisture and distant warmth in the air.
He was sailing southeast now, had been since he had departed Brackenrock Harbor a few hours earlier. His voyage was made in the service of the chiefwoman, mistress of the fortress, Moreen Bayguard. He was sailing to the Highlander citadel of Bearhearth, there to collect several chests of gold that had been promised to the Arktos as payment by the Bearhearth thane, exchange for allowing more than a hundred women and children of that clan to shelter in Brackenrock over the winter. The Highlanders had more people than could be crowded into their frosty, stone-walled castle, while the Arktos had plenty of room and ample reserves of food. Additionally, the guests had made themselves useful in Brackenrock over the winter, working on improving the fortifications, tanning skins, brewing warqat, and making clothes, while in the steam-warmed vaults of Brackenrock they had dwelt in much greater comfort than they knew in their homeland.
Kerrick was delighted to have the errand, a good excuse to take his boat out and fly across these waters, to relish the newly returned sun and race across the freshly melted sea. As the thrill tugged at him he grinned with a sudden thought, an irresponsible impulse. Once he collected this gold, he could bypass Brackenrock and sail through the Bluewater Strait, dodging icebergs on the vast Courrain Ocean, setting a northbound course. There was nothing to stop him from leaving the Icereach behind… in a month or two he would find himself again on the shores of Ansalon, probably making landfall somewhere on the coastline of his beloved homeland, Silvanesti. This was the month of Spring Dawning and there would be festivals, music, maidens…
With a bemused chuckle, he realized that he really could head for home, if he wanted to. For many years he had stayed here, accepting his exile as a fact of life, coming to live among the Arktos almost as one of them. All the while he had worked, been paid in gold, amassing a treasure that would guarantee his welcome back at the elven court. But did he really want that… and was he ready to leave, now?
Despite the Sturmfrost and the bleak winter, life in the Icereach had many benefits. Kerrick was a hero here, highly regarded by a people who, in general, were far more generous, friendly, and accepting than the hidebound elves of his homeland. He had made good friends among the humans-Mouse, Bruni, Dinekki of the Arktos, even Highlanders like Mad Randall and Lars Redbeard-better friends than any he had known in his native land. They would joke with him or listen seriously to his ideas, caring in ways beyond the interest or patience of any elf.
Of course there was Moreen, herself. She was his friend, but she was more than that. She counted on him for many things, for the knowledge he brought of the world beyond, and the skills he had imparted to her and her people. She could be cold and aloof, even haughty sometimes. He wasted no time wondering why he felt such a bond with her-but if she asked something of him, he would hasten to please her. That is why he would take the Bearhearth gold back to her, as commanded, without seriously considering the notion of running to the north.
Probably he would return to Silvanesti someday, but not now, not yet. He would return as an acclaimed explorer, demanding a pardon from the king who had sent him into exile. Someday, when he was ready…
He glanced back along the white trail of his wake to the headland of the Icereach, the mountainous bulwark where Brackenrock stood. It was barely a blur, low against the horizon. His gold was there, a small fortune, secured in the vaults of the Arktos stronghold. When he finally sailed north, for home, he would take that gold with him. That wealth was the key to his redemption, the proof that he-unlike his father-had not sailed on a fool’s quest.
With a grimace and a bitter memory, Kerrick touched the scarred remnant of his left ear, where one of the elf king’s courtiers had cut and scarred him on the evening of his exile. It was a wound that would mark him for the rest of his life… at that bitter time, he recalled, he fully expected to sail away and die. He never expected to end up here.
Here in the fabled land of gold-the land that King Nethas mockingly had charged him to find, when he had imposed his sentence of banishment. The ogres and humans who lived here possessed plenty of the precious metal but had little use for the stuff and no understanding or caring of its value to the outside world, to the distant, civilized peoples of Ansalon and the rest of Krynn.
