something bright. Dalamar reached for it, taking up the embroidered scrollcase Tellin had carried out of Silvanost, the gift returned and the gift granted. He turned it over in his hand, the humming-birds hovered over ruby red roses, their tiny needle-like beaks dipping into pearly dew. He brushed it clean against the sleeve of his robe. The dust did not all come off, much of it ground into the delicate needlework, dulling the rose to brown.
'Is he dead?' asked a woman, a Wildrunner on the path above. She stood bleeding, her arm in a rough sling, her head wrapped in a rag through which her blood seeped. This one had come off a battleground, only recently come from the front lines. 'The cleric, is he dead?'
Dalamar nodded, and he tried to hand her the scroll case, for it seemed to him that it weighed as heavily as the dead man did.
She shook her head.
'Didn't you serve him back in Silvanost, at the Temple of E'li?'
Again, Dalamar nodded.
The Wildrunner looked up the hill to where the dragon's corpse lay, to where the bright flames of fire shone not so far away. 'Keep it, mage. Maybe you can get it back to his family and get yourself a reward for your trouble. But now'-she jerked her head back toward the forest and the fire-'now, leave the dead and come help me get the living out of here.'
Thus do soldiers speak who are often in the company of corpses. Dalamar nodded, and he eased the body of Tellin Windglimmer onto the stone, arranging his limbs in some decent order and bending to close his eyes. That was not easily done, for he had been as well strangled as though he'd been hung with a noose.
'My lord,' he said, but he didn't know what else to say. He hadn't known this cleric long, and they had not shared much more than unreasonable dreams and this plan that might see those dreams realized.
Dalamar smiled, a bitter twist of his lips. How fast dreams die!
'My lord, you saved for me my life.' It was an old phrase, something out of poetry or prayer-he didn't remember which. The kind of thing Tellin Windglimmer would have liked and written out in lovely script with shining illuminations. Dalamar offered it in gratitude and folded the cleric's hands on his breast. 'Go with E'li, for you will find with him your peace.'
But if the old phrase fit, it seemed to Dalamar that the traditional blessing was awkward as a lie.
Down through the forest ran the mages and their escort of Wildrunners, though they did not run hard, and they did not run long before stopping often to rest. Too weary, the mages and many of the Wildrunners were weakened by wounds. They crossed the King's Road in two days' time, and by then no sign of a great burning could be seen in the north. It had rained there, heavily if the massing clouds were to be believed. If the fire was not drowned, it was no longer strong.
Other things the people had to grieve for, though, for upon the King's Road they found the forest in ruin, fouled by the leavings of a horde of refugees-the campfires, the bones of old kills, boots that had failed, torn clothing, sometimes even a kettle or a pot that had grown too heavy to carry. Among this lay the refugee dead, those who had lost will and strength and could go no farther than where they fell. Ravens picked over these, cleaning the bones of elves who ran from the dragonarmy only to find death in the sweet forest miles away from Silvanost.
Some wept to see the dead, the picked bones, the ragged clothing fluttering on corpses like pennons to call the scavengers. These wanted to bury the corpses, but they were convinced after long arguing that they had neither the time nor the tools for this. The same had been said of the dead in the glen. It seemed to Dalamar that the forest must be strewn north and south with corpses. The Wildrunners did the convincing, but they were not unmoved. One said to another, 'I don't care if Phair Caron doubles her army. I don't care if she triples it! I am going back to fight, I swear it, and no one will stop me.'
'Will she double her army?' Dalamar asked as they crossed the road and went into the forest again. They would not follow this weary path, for the refugees now clogged the broad highway. He looked back over his shoulder at the ruin, the dead, and the ravens.
The Wildrunner-she who had called him out of the glen-shrugged. 'That's what we heard on the way down from the battle. Lord Garan doesn't care. He's asking for more soldiers from the Speaker. He's sent word by Windrider.'
All agreed, almost with one voice, that Lorac would give the Lord of House Protector all the help he needed. How not?
Once more Dalamar looked back at the dead. They were all old, none of fighting age. Phair Caron had seen to it that the war-worthy were killed in their villages and towns. Where would Lorac find more men and women to fight? From the sparsely settled southern part of the kingdom? From the east where they were sailors but not fighters?
A light mist of rain began to fall, chilling the skin. Dalamar hunched his shoulders against the cold and pulled up the hood of his filthy white robe. The trees all around seemed to fade, even the bright gold of the aspen leaves did not shine. It was, Dalamar thought, as though the forest were fading around them, vanishing before their eyes.
A day later, when they crossed the Thon-Thalas on the ferry and entered Silvanost in the first hour of the morning, nothing seemed more substantial to him. The scent of baking drifted through the broad streets, dogs barked, children ran chasing each other through the gardens. Sun shone on the towers. Dew glittered in the grass. The temples gathered round the Garden of Astarin rang with prayer-chants, and the air hung with the smoke of incense. Dalamar saw it all, he smelled the city, he heard it, and it all felt like a dream of a place he used to know.
The home of the best beloved of the gods… It was a lie, and he saw that lie in every shining tower, in the face of everyone he passed, elves still certain-though a dark and terrible goddess pounded at their very door! — that E'li would save them, E'li still loved them. Dalamar recognized the lie each time he remembered the final words of a cleric who had died with his last prayer on his lips, with no god to intervene.
Chapter 9
The world is lost!
The words whispered in the darkest corner of Lorac Caladon's heart, as they had since the night he'd been awakened from his dream of Istar.
The world is lost unless you heed!
So said the dragon orb. The crystal sphere lay shrouded in heavy white velvet upon its transformed stand. So said this artifact of his Tests in the Tower of High Sorcery, taken by him from a place where he'd been bidden to take nothing. Not taken, he reminded himself. Rescued! I rescued this orb, and it must have been right that I did, for did I not come out of my Tests whole and strong?
Rescued… but soon to be lost again, for the world is lost!
Lorac heard the voice in his heart, in his bones. He heard it in his very soul, and sometimes it seemed that voice counseled despair, while at other times it seemed to offer hope. That's where we stand, he thought as he looked out from his throne to the small conclave he'd gathered in the Tower of the Stars. We stand between despair and hope.
The light of the noontide poured in through the spiraling windows and down into the audience hall. Bitterly bright, that noon sun shed a cruel glare on the marble floor and the bejeweled walls. It made the gems and gold worn by those gathered look like brittle paste, lending them no beauty. Their faces seemed winter-pale and drawn in lines so hard and stark that these might have been the faces of starving people.
Only see these people to know the truth of hopelessness, said his heart.
Or was that the dragon orb speaking? One and all, his people protested that they had hope enough to keep the kingdom alive, hope enough to commit their sons and daughters to the cause of beating back the Dragon Queen's minions. And yet, and yet…
So well do they love you, said the voice of the orb, so well, and thus do they show it, pretending to hope as though pretense might one day change into truth.
