The Knight frowned. “You haven’t spoken to many Knights, have you? Though we serve an Evil mistress, our honor requires truth.”
The dryad smiled wryly. “Then the truth couldn’t offend you.” The heat of the sun must be getting to me, she thought. She looked down at her skin. It seemed as dead and dry as the surrounding land. I won’t survive much longer, she realized. Neither will my tree.
“No, it couldn’t,” he agreed. He was no longer sweating, but he should be, she thought.
The vultures hopped nearer. Slowly they were moving closer, the dryad noted. If nothing challenged them, they would continue to edge closer until they could tear at the blue dragon’s flesh. The silver had raked its side, slicing open a great wound, making things easier for the carrion birds. “If you die here because your talon doesn’t show up like you insist it will, won’t you have stained your honor by lying to yourself?” she asked wearily.
He remained silent for a bit before answering. To the dryad, time seemed to slow down and then stretch out interminably. I’m slowly dying, she thought.
“My talon moved on ahead of me just as I was ambushed by the silver and its rider,” the Knight revealed. “We fought a fierce battle in the skies, then Bolt took a bad hit from the rider’s lance. After that, the silver dragon grazed my Bolt and then we both fell from the sky,” he said. His voice too was not much more than a whisper now, she thought.
“So the rest of your talon flew somewhere and they expect you to catch up? How do you think they’ll know where to come back and find you?”
The Knight sighed. “They know what path we took. They can guess where I fell behind. They should be coming along soon, as a matter of fact.”
“Are you sure that you aren’t lying to yourself?” the dryad queried in a weak voice. “And don’t you stain your honor if you tell a falsehood, even to yourself?”
“I hadn’t thought of that before,” he admitted. “I would have to say yes.” He slowly raised himself to a position where he could get a drink of water from the waterskin. When he was done, he almost dropped to the ground, wincing with pain. “And you? Are you lying to yourself when you say that this waterskin will help your tree and this forest to live?”
“Maybe not the forest. But the tree,” she said, “the tree has remarkable powers. It had enough magic in it to birth me. I have no doubt that your sacrifice of water would help revive the tree. And with the tree alive and growing, perhaps others would follow-even in the face of your great dragons and their destructive magic.”
The two of them remained silent, watching the vultures creep toward their feast. Just when they were about to slip out of sight and attack the dragon’s gaping wound, the dryad made an effort, calling on her last reserves, and got up on her knees to yell as loudly as she could, “Heeeeyaaaah!”
The startled birds flapped their wings and scattered to a spot farther away. The Knight too was jolted and turned around to look at her. The dryad sank down and stretched out, exhausted. “Why did you do that?” the Knight asked softly.
The dryad shrugged. Even though her link to her tree had been slightly strengthened by the small doses of water, she was too weak even to speak.
“Here, have some water.” The Knight held out another capful. His hand trembled worse, causing some of the water to spill onto the ground. The dryad reached out slowly and took the cap. She immediately dashed the water over her tree’s roots and handed the cap back. Immediately she felt a little better. Gradually she sat up again. The Knight was looking at her, puzzled.
“Why did you scare away the vultures?” he asked again.
She shrugged. “You dislike them so.”
“After your little speech on how they serve as part of a natural cycle, you decided to scare them away?” he asked. “You must have a reason.” He sounded wary. “You did it just to get some water, didn’t you?”
Her head hurt. The sun was high in the sky now, so the heat was at its worst. “Since you prefer the truth, I must answer ‘yes’ to your question.”
The Knight’s face expressed doubt, so she looked beyond him and noticed the vultures starting their approach again. “Watch the vultures,” she told him. “My energy is almost gone, then you will be on your own.” He looked at her in concern. “Did you expect that I would outlive you, Knight? I would need a lot more water to do that,” she pointed out, her voice not much more than a rasp.
“You are in better condition than me,” he argued halfheartedly. “Come now, sit up and talk. It is like you say: If I go to sleep, I might not wake up, after all.”
The dryad smiled slightly. “I fear that I can’t talk any longer. I’m the one who must fall asleep and never wake now.”
They sat in silence for a while as the Knight pondered that. The sun still beat down upon their heads. The Knight seemed to be struggling with some quandary, the dryad noted. She wilted into a position that brought her face down next to the ground. If she twisted her face and kept her eyes open, she could still watch him, though.
Finally, he turned to her. “Dryad,” he called out as loud as he was able. Her eyes were shut. “Dryad? I will give you some more water!” he called out.
Too late, she thought before lapsing into unconsciousness.
Then, a little time later, she felt an infusion of strength. She lifted her head. The sky was darkening into twilight.
“Knight? How much time has passed?” she called out. She received no answer. She looked to where the Knight rested. His head was down, his arm was outstretched. His hand gripped an empty waterskin. Strangely enough, the vultures were no longer around.
She looked over to her tree and saw that it was struggling to revive, and succeeding somewhat. “This man died with honor,” she whispered as she rose to her feet. Her tree’s empathic response mixed sorrow with hope.
Songsaycr
Giles Custer,Tod Fahnestock
Dayn Songsayer reined in his horse at the side of the road and took a deep breath. The road was busy, and the villagers looked at him warily as they passed. Not many friendly faces on the road these days, he thought. Dayn was determined to lend them a smile before long. Everyone was headed up the hill for the festival. Dayn had never been around these parts before, but he had heard rumors of a harvest celebration at a small temple to Paladine. The crowd appeared poor, but not as bad off as some he had seen. The people carried buckets of water or baskets of foodstuffs and blankets. They were not the type to have many spare coppers, but Dayn hoped he could make enough to spend the next few nights in an inn and possibly get some oats for the mare.
Dayn leaned over and patted his horse’s neck as he stretched his own back. A groan escaped him. His horse snorted, as if to agree. She stamped her hoof and nodded her head in the direction of a shady copse of trees. It was hot. The sun was merciless. It had been so ever since the Chaos War. Would things ever go back to normal? Dayn squinted at the sky. Would it always be so hot? Were the rumors true, that the gods had forsaken Krynn yet again?
Dayn didn’t want to believe the ugly tale, though many did. He’d grown up with the tales his father told of similar times long ago. The world had suffered so much when the gods were absent. No healers. Charlatans in robes walked the land, taking money from those unwise enough to believe in their gibberish about new gods. The voice of Paladine was seldom heard.
All of Krynn had almost fallen to the Dark Queen Takhisis. But whenever his father’s tales were at their blackest, a shining star would always appear. Someone would always rise up with the courage and conviction to make things right again. But nowadays. .
By the Abyss, if the heat didn’t let up soon, Dayn might prefer to serve the Dark Queen. Dayn frowned and made the sign of Paladine, murmured an apology.
Anyway, the gods certainly were fickle, Dayn thought, as he jumped down from the mare and looped the
