'Perhaps, but it is the only one I have.' Soth shook his head and sighed. 'You may attend the wedding and take your place of honor upon the high table.
But it is only at Korinne's request that you will be there.'
Aynkell nodded.
'I want as little to do with you as possible.'
Aynkell stood motionless and impassive.
'Come, Caradoc,' said Knight Soth. 'Light is dawning and we must return to the keep before we become conspicuous by our absence.'
'I'll ready the horses,' said Caradoc, now fully dressed and looking every inch a Knight of the Crown. He left the cottage, giving Soth the chance to spend a final few minutes alone with his father.
Knight Soth turned to face the older man.
'Good-bye, father,' he said, knowing that the words were much more than just a casual farewell.
The elder Soth looked at his son for a long time and the disgrace he felt slowly disappeared. A cynical, almost mocking, smile appeared on his face.
'Don't be so quick to condemn me, my son,' Aynkell said. 'You are of my flesh and of my blood. You always will be. There's too much of me in you for you to be so critical of my life.'
For a moment Knight Soth was speechless.
In the intervening silence, Aynkell began to laugh.
The knight's face darkened in a scowl as he turned abruptly away from his father and stormed out of the cottage.
As he joined Caradoc and began his homeward ride, the young knight could still hear his father's mocking laughter ringing in his ears…
Haunting him for many, many miles.
Chapter 1
Dargaard Keep was an impressive sight, even to those who had watched it slowly being constructed and had been familiar with its commanding presence for years. It was a keep unlike any other on the face of Krynn, looking for all the world as if it had grown up out of the ground, rather than been painstakingly built stone by stone.
It was an appearance that had not happened by chance.
With its unique shape, labyrinthine hallways, spires and towers, and deep multiple levels of caverns and dungeons, it had taken over a hundred of the best stone cutters, masons and smiths from the four corners of Krynn more than five years to complete. But all who set their eyes upon it agreed that the years of hard labor had been more than worth it, for now that it was finished it stood triumphantly at the northern end of the Dargaard Mountains as one of the true architectural wonders of Solamnia, perhaps even of all of Krynn.
The keep had been designed by Knight Soth himself, who'd wanted to create a fitting tribute not only to those Solamnic Knights who had so bravely fallen in battle over the ages, but to his numerous uncles and cousins, all of them knights, who had died when the great plagues swept across Solamnia in the latter years of the Age of Might. Therefore the keep had been constructed in the shape of a rose, its towers, battlements and ramparts curling out from its center like the petals of a flower under the warm light of the mid-morning sun. Closer to the ground, a long column twisted up from the earth with portholes and windows dotting the structure at various points, their intricate and decorative brickwork giving the column the appearance of having thorns.
Protecting the keep was a high and thick stone wall which, ringing the structure with a solid line of defense against even the most persistent attacker, at the same time created a spacious courtyard on the grounds for the training of knights and for the conducting of ceremonies and other festivities.
And finally, surrounding the keep was a deep and dark chasm, said to be bottomless but in reality no more than a hundred or so feet deep. The only entrance to the keep was across a sturdy drawbridge which spanned the chasm and led visitors through a well guarded gatehouse. The gatehouse featured a heavy steel portcullis fashioned in the shape of interlocking swords and adorned with small crowns and large roses. The overall design of the keep made it both a wonder to behold and an impregnable fortress. As a result, plans had been made to designate the keep as the strategic headquarters of the Knights of the Rose, the highest order of the Solamnic Knights.
But despite its many wonders, the most unique of all of the keep's features was its color. At Knight Soth's insistence, the keep had been built from a rose-colored granite popularly referred to as 'bloodstone' which had been quarried from a very rich vein in the heart of the Dargaard Mountains. When he had first hinted that the keep should be made of the crimson stone, the cutters and masons rebelled knowing all too well that blood stone was the hardest of all building materials to work with. But now, mere months after its completion, all agreed that the additional effort and hard work had been more than worthwhile.
The keep was a thing of beauty and a source of pride to all the people of Knightlund. It was also a structure worthy of its most noble inhabitant. Knight Loren Soth, currently a Knight of the Sword and a great and noble soldier for the cause of Good.
The mood around the estate on this morning was a spirited one as a carnival-like atmosphere had pervaded all of the proceedings in and around Dargaard Keep for the past few weeks. What else could be expected as one of Solamnia's greatest knights prepared to be wed?
And, with a higher concentration of knights and noblemen than could be found even on the greatest of battlefields, the merchants and tradesmen of Solamnia had all flocked to Dargaard Keep, setting up shop weeks in advance, trying to secure the best spots in which to sell their wares to the wedding guests they hoped would all be in a spending mood.
On the grounds just west of the keep, blacksmiths and other skilled tradesmen were selling newly forged armor and swords, all of which glinted with gold, silver and brass accents and shone blindingly bright beneath the hot morning sun. Many of them had already done great business, selling all that they had brought and taking orders for more custom-made articles. Around the back of the keep, tailors and seamstresses sold resplendent garments suitable for wearing to the wedding ceremony of a knight, while still others were busy making new clothes specifically ordered for the occasion.
The rest of the crowd was filled out by jugglers, conjurers, minstrels and bards, and an assortment of other fortune tellers, con artists and prestidigitators. Busiest of these were the herbalists who purported to be selling all varieties of love potions, the potency of which were verified nightly by some of the more amorous of the wedding's guests.
But while the mood outside was festive, within the walls of the keep's courtyard there was an event underway, the tone of which was somewhat more subdued.
'Knight Soth, please come forward,' said Lord Olfhar Uth Wistan, High
Warrior, and one of the presiding knights on the assembled Rose Knights
Council. Olthar sat at one end of a group of five knights seated at the high table which was elevated atop a wooden platform positioned against one of the courtyard's inside walls. At Olthar's immediate left were two elderly Knights of the Rose, both of whom had long since retired from their active knightly duties. Oren Brightblade and Dag Kurrold had both been asked to sit on the Rose Knights Council out of respect for their long years of distinguished service to the knighthood. Both had accepted the honorary appointment with pleasure.
Sadly, Solamnic Grand Master Leopold Gwyn Davis had fallen ill the previous week and was bedridden and unable to attend. A seat was left empty upon the platform in his honor.
Soth stepped forward dressed in a combination of gleaming plate armor and chain mail, a scarlet cloak trailing behind him. His breastplate bore the symbol of the Order of the Sword and in contrast to the rest of his armor, it was worn and dented, evidence of just some of the heroic battles he had fought and won against the forces of Evil.
He knelt in front of the high table and kept his head bowed, waiting to be spoken to.
