and stripping off the paint slapped on in winter by the foolishly hopeful. Children ran in the byways between the hulls, shouting and laughing in the shadows of the ships left marooned when the Cataclysm had stolen the sea. The scent of rotting garbage drifted on those dusty winds, wandering through the winding ways of the marketplace, invading all of New City. A sweetness of baking fell before the stench. Even the thrill of scent from the quiet corners where the mage-ware shops sat did not prevail over years of garbage flung insensibly over the walls by those who lived in better quarters of New City. Gray-winged gulls, far-faring scavengers, creaked over the heaps of trash, over the bazaars, over all the city, and any would think Tarsis was, even still, a port city.
Any who walked its streets and byways felt Tarsis had the pulse of a port city-the drumbeat of voices in the marketplace, women shouting to children, potters at the whining wheel, dwarf forgemen shouting to be heard above their own anvils. Parrots screeched in gilded cages, leopards snarled in pens near the south side of the marketplace, exotic creatures caught and held for sale to the wealthy of this city or another. There had been a sudden fashion for tigers in the winter, great stalking beasts to prowl outside the doors of those who considered themselves so wealthy or famous or politically valuable as to fear kidnapping. All over Krynn, the beasts of jungles were seen in the palace courtyards, and some of the wealthy had moats into which insatiable piranhas were introduced. By the savagery of his protection was a man's status judged, and the marketplace in Tarsis did a good business in all such creatures except the fish.
The sights, the smells, the song of the thousand-voiced people in bright-colored robes, glittering shirts, and silken hose swirled around Dalamar like a dance as he went through the streets, making his way from the south side and up through the Street of Potters, the euphemistically named row of brothels all folk in the city knew as the Avenue of the Maidens, and down Iron Row. He went quickly down that street, not so much heading for a destination as fleeing a din, hurrying past the forges and the smithies, the armorers where so much of the Dwarvish language filled the air- shouts, laughter, songs, and cursing-that a blind man would think himself in Thorbardin.
In the Lane of Flowers where produce and herbs and, of course, flowers were sold from shops with garden plots out their back doors, a pretty girl leaned out a window, shouting to a young man on the cobbled street. Dalamar looked up at the sound of her voice, and he smiled just a little. He knew her, his lover of the seasons past. She waved, but only in passing. She had an eye for someone else now. He did not return the gesture. She was gone from his life and not likely to come back. Neither did he care about that but to feel relieved the matter was closed, the thing between them finished.
He went on his way with eager steps now, shouldering through the crowd and heading for that part of the city to which no colorful name was attached, the place known simply and always as Their Quarter, or Our Quarter, if the speaker were a mage. Here the streets narrowed to lanes. He walked past the Shop of the Dark Night, past the Red Moon Waxing, Solinari's Hand, and finally to the Three Children where his own apartments waited. He did not take the back stair up or go inside to the speak with the one-eyed Palanthian who ran the shop for a mage no one knew or had ever seen. Dalamar stopped outside the door, where the two halves of a sawn whiskey butt stood filled with herbs, thyme, mint, and bright orange flowers of nasturtium spilling over the sides.
'Good day,' said a woman, her white robes shining in the shadowed doorway, her dark hair pulled back from her cheeks. Her sapphire eyes shone as Regene of Schallsea approached. 'Welcome home, Dalamar Nightson.'
Dalamar served her elven wine in gray earthenware cups patterned with red swirling lines, two of three he'd uncovered in the ruins of Valkinord. He showed Regene to a comfortable seat on the couch near the window. He drew the shades so that the bright light of Tarsian summer shone muted, and the foul breezes off the garbage heaps made only slight incursion-he lit incense against that, for his own sake. He longed for forest breezes and would find none here.
Regene accepted his hospitality, smiling serenely over the wine, and she behaved in all ways as though her visit was expected-as did he. She thought she had never met a man more incapable of ruffled feathers than this dark elf out of Silvanesti.
They sat in silence a while, for a time playing the game of seeing which of them would speak first. Small psychic probes rustled the magical plane, seeking, rebuffed, seeking. In the end, Dalamar spoke first. The mask of hospitality fell from his face, his eyes glittered, and she thought of keen-edged blades.
'Explain yourself,' he said.
Regene shrugged. 'I would think I am as transparent as a whore's veil.' She folded her legs beneath her, tugging the hem of her robe modestly over her ankles. 'I'm here because I thought you would be here.' She gestured around her, pleased. 'And you are. You left the Tower in some haste after only a quarter hour in conversation with Ladonna, and I don't think she called you to her to tell you how poorly you fared in your Tests. Rather, the opposite. Something is a-brew, Dalamar Nightson, some storm of events magical and political. I have a good ear. I know when the Heads of the Orders are stirring and what type of brew they like to mix. If you are not at the eye of the storm, you are certainly within eye-shot.'
Bold, he thought as he reached for her cup and filled it again. She took it, her fingers warm against his. He settled into the chair opposite her. He had not been here since spring, yet it seemed the cushions had only that morning felt the weight of him, the impression of his back still comfortably molded from months of long sitting with books, with thinking, with the dangerous dreams of mages when he fell asleep in the light of the three moons.
'You are a fool,' he said quietly. He wasn't certain of that, but he liked to test. 'You come here as though you expect good greeting, as though you know me well and can count on civil treatment.'
Regene shrugged. She held up the cup of wine, looked around at how comfortably she was situated, and said, 'If this is rough greeting, I will likely survive.'
Dalamar sipped his wine, the smoky vintage that whispered of Silvanesti in autumn. He closed his eyes and saw the golden forest, heard the shivering of aspen leaves before the first breath of winter. He thought of the forest as he had last seen it, savaged, ruined, the trees falling dead, the forest home to green dragons. Silvanesti had not changed so much in three years, so said all the rumors and news. The prince of the Qualinesti had wed Alhana Starbreeze, and nominally the two elven nations were one. No doubt it all looked promising when discussed in the parlors of the powerful, but the forest yet lay in torment, that torment begun because Lorac Caladon had not the faith in his gods to withstand the onslaught of Phair Caron's dragonarmy. How good it would feel to wring the life from the one of her minions who had survived Lorac's Nightmare!
'I am going,' he said, the taste of Silvanesti on his lips, 'to take a bit of personal revenge. You need not concern yourself about it.'
Regene arched a brow, settling back in the couch. She drew her legs up closer, and a bare ankle peeked out from beneath the hem of her robe. 'So Ladonna called you to her and bade you go and find yourself some revenge? I didn't know the lady brokered vengeance.'
'When it suits her.'
'Your, ah, bit of personal revenge,' Regene murmured, 'would that have to do with the dwarf Tramd?'
'Yes.'
She nodded, satisfied in her reckoning. 'Then that's where the storm is.' Swiftly, she leaned forward. The hem of her robe slipped up the calf of her leg, revealing white smooth skin. 'Let me tell you something, Dalamar Nightson-I know you are bound on some mission for Ladonna. Perhaps for Par-Salian as well.' When he shook his head as though to deny, she stopped him. 'Don't bother to say I'm wrong. I'm right, and the more you deny, the more certain I am. I want to go with you, whatever it is you're planning, I want to be part of it. Listen! I don't want your glory, I don't want anything more than to be part of what you do. I am young in my craft, but I am strong.'
Regene sat back a moment to think. He let her have it, intrigued.
'I am young,' she said, 'but I am well regarded. There is a thing I want, a goal I have, and I don't know how it will harm you, but I can imagine it would help you. If you take the long view.'
'The long view of what?'
'Of your life, Dalamar. I hope-and I don't hope without reason-that one day I'll sit among the Conclave of Wizards. But there are deeds that need doing before that will happen, a reputation to build, a body of work to which I may point before I can think to put myself in nomination.'
And a life to live, he thought. They are such headlong fools, these short-lived humans, burning their candles as fast as they might, flinging themselves into a future they imagine and so trust will be. This is the one, he thought, who lectures me about long views.
