song, where ten visions waken in the hands of my singing:
I offer them, glittering, shattered, and the gods break in my hands.
V
Istar, your army in Balifor is a gauntlet, clenched on a quicksilver heirloom.
Your priests in Qualinost are dazzlements of glass fractured on red velvet.
Your light hand in Hylo steals breath from the cradle:
Ice on the glove.
In Silvanost, the white thighs of the women wade through the muddied waters of Thon-Thalas.
Your sword arm in Solamnia entangles in filaments, in the spider's alley.
Your children in Thoradin dream away ancestries of green earth and sun.
The shards of remembered Ergoth collect to a broken vessel from dispersion they call the planet's twelve corners.
One name on the lips of Thorbardin the rows of teeth unmarked gravestones.
Your fingers in Sancrist fumble the intricate hilt of a borrowed sword.
But, Istar, the last song is yours, the song at the center of songs:
A bleached bone on the altar.
VI
And last generation of Istar, pure generation, born of bright stones drawn from the crown of a mountebank's hat, whose goodness is ordinance, precise, mathematical, stripped of the elements in the hearts fire and the earth of the body, in the water of blood and the air's circumference:
You have passed through your temple unharmed until now, but now all of Istar is strung on our words on your own conceiving as you pass from night to awareness of night to know that hatred is the calm of philosophers that its price is forever that it draws you through meteors through winter's transfixion through the blasted rose through the shark's water through the black compression of oceans through rock through magma to yourself to an abscess of nothing that you will recognize as nothing that you will know is coming again and again under the same rules.
So says the wind in one tongue only, pronounced in the movement of cloud and water, given voice by the rattle of leaves.
In the breath between waiting and memory it stalks elusive as light and promise.
So says the wind in the long year preserved in the heart'srecollection, and always it yearns for another and blessed year that the heart might have been in its wild anointing.
And the wind is always your heartbeat, is breathing remote as the impassive stars, and it moves from arrival to leaving, leaving you one song only.
Oh, that was the language of wind,
you say, and what does it mean
to the leaves and the water,
and always is what it means.
Colors of Belief
Arryl Tremaine stepped into the common room of Timon's Folly, the inn where he was staying, and immediately noted the eyes that fixed on him. He was clad in simple traveling clothes. Those in the inn could not know for certain that he was a Knight of Solamnia, but they COULD mark him as a foreigner. That in itself brought attention enough. Had he not prudently decided to leave his armor back in his room, the rest of the patrons would not have pretended that they were looking anywhere but at him.
Ignoring the others, he marched toward the innkeeper, a heavy, bustling man named Brek. The innkeeper was the only one to give him any sort of greeting, likely because he felt a kinship with the young knight. Brek's grandfather had been the Timon whose folly had earned the inn its name — and likewise drove the family to leave Solamnia. Timon had been a Knight of the Sword, like Tremaine.
Tremaine was of the opinion that Timon's line had grown much too soft in only two generations.
'Good evening, Sir Tremaine,' the man said in a voice that carried well. Now all the patrons looked up.
'Master Brek.' Arryl Tremaine's own voice was low and just a hint sharp at the moment. 'I have asked you to not use my title.'
Solamnic Knights were a rare sight in the land of Istar, much less the holy city of the same name. Arryl, coming from the more secluded southwest of his own country, had never truly understood why. Both the knighthood and the Kingpriest — he who was ruler of Istar — served the same lord, the god of light and goodness, Paladine. Once compatible, the two servants no longer seemed to be able to work side by side. There were rumors that the church had grown jealous of the knights' power, and the knights jealous of the church's wealth. A Tremaine never bent low enough to believe such rabble-rousing. The House of Tremaine might have seen better days, but the pride of the family was still very much in flower. The young knight had come to Istar three days earlier to learn the truth.
'My apologies, Master Tremaine. Have you decided to take your meal here? We've not seen you since you arrived. My wife and daughters fear you find something amiss with their cooking.'
Arryl had no desire to talk about either food or the innkeeper's family, especially where Master Brek's daughters were concerned. Like many a woman, they were taken with the young knight's handsome, albeit cool, visage and his tall, well-honed form. Arryl in no way encouraged them and, in point of fact, found the thought of mixing base desires with his holy trek to Istar sacrilegious.
'I have come merely to ask some information of you before I retire for the day.'
'So early? It is barely dark, Master.' Brek thought the knight a little odd. It was clear that the innkeeper either had forgotten or had never been told by his grandfather about the daily rituals of a Solamnic Knight.
Arryl frowned. He wanted answers, not more questions about his personal habits. 'I saw a man arrested by the city guard, a man who had simply been standing by his cart and selling fruit. I have made purchases myself from him in the past day. The soldiers gave no reason for his arrest, something unheard of in my country. He was chained and dragged — '
'I'm certain there was a PROPER reason for it, Master Tremaine,' Brek interrupted quickly. His smile suddenly seemed strained. 'Will you be staying for the Games, Master? Rumor has it that there will be something special going on this time. Some say the Kingpriest himself will attend!'
'I do not believe in these so-called Games. And I've seen enough of the Kingpriest, thank you.' Everywhere Tremaine wandered through the vast city, with its tall white towers and extravagantly gilded temples, he saw the benevolent image of the holy monarch smiling down at him. The many majestic banners, which had initially reminded Tremaine of his training days at Vingaard Keep, all bore a stylized profile of the Kingpriest. Sculpted faces, like the one that hung high on the wall behind Master Brek, invoked a frozen blessing on the knight.
Worse yet were the statues, especially the one portraying the Kingpriest holding a smiling baby in one hand and a writhing, many-headed snake in the other. The snake was some artist's interpretation of the dark goddess Takhisis, Paladine's eternal nemesis. Arryl was outraged. All knew that Huma, a Knight of Solamnia, had defeated the Dragonqueen! Huma had invoked the aid of the gods — Paladine — not the Kingpriest!
