'You gave up your dreams to help me, didn't you, Matya?' Trevarre asked.
Matya turned her head to see that the knight was awake, stroking his mousy brown moustache thoughtfully. 'And what reward do you have to show for it?'
'Why, I have this,' Matya said, gesturing to the jeweled clasp she had pinned to her collar. 'Besides, I can always find new dreams. And I am certainly not ready to give up bargaining. I'll make my fortune yet, you'll see.'
Trevarre laughed, a sound like music. 'I have no doubt of that'
They were silent for a time, but then Matya spoke softly. 'You would do the same again, wouldn't you, if you heard a call for help?'
Trevarre shrugged. 'The Measure is not something I can follow only when it suits me. It is my life, Matya, for good or ill. It is what I am.'
Matya nodded, as if this confirmed something for her. 'The tales are right then. The Knights of Solamnia ARE little better than fools.' She smiled mischievously. 'But there's one more bargain that must be struck.'
'Which is?' Trevarre asked, raising an eyebrow.
'What are you going to give me in return for taking you to Garnet?' Matya asked slyly.
'I'll give you five gold pieces,' Trevarre said flatly.
'I'll not take less than fifty!' Matya replied, indignant.
'Fifty? Why, that's highway robbery,' Trevarre growled.
'All right,' Matya said briskly. 'I'm in a kindly mood, so I'll make it twenty, but not one copper less.'
Trevarre stroked his moustache thoughtfully. 'Very well. I will accept your offer, Matya, but on one condition.'
'Which is?' Matya asked, skeptical.
A smile touched Trevarre's lips. 'You must allow me this.' He took Matya's hand, brought it to his lips, and kissed it.
The bargain had been struck.
SEEKERS
Gylar Radilan, of Lader's Knoll, set his mother's hand back onto her chest, over the rumpled blanket. It was done then. Gylar wasn't sure whether to be relieved or to crumple into the corner and cry. Finally, though, it was done. Stepping back, he fell into the chair he'd put by her bed, the chair he'd sat upon all night while holding her hand.
His head bowed for a moment as he thought about the past few days. The Silent Death had swept through the entire village, killing everyone. It had been impossible to detect its coming. There were no early symptoms. One minute, people were laughing and playing — like Lutha, the girl he had known — and the next, they were in bed, complaining weakly of the icy cold they felt, but burning to the touch. Their skin darkened to a ghastly purple as they coughed up thicker and thicker phlegm, and in a few hours their bodies locked up as with rigor mortis.
Poor Lutha. Gylar swallowed and sniffed back tears. She'd been the first one, the one who had brought about the downfall of the village. Gylar could remember going with her into the new marsh, the marsh that hadn't been there before the world shook. People had told their children repeatedly not to go in. They said it had all sorts of evils in it, but that had never stopped Lutha. She'd never listened to her parents much, and once she got something into her head, there was no balking her. She'd had to know about their tree, his and her tree.
Now she was dead. Now everyone was dead. Everyone, of course, except Gylar. For some reason, he hadn't been affected, or at least not yet. His parents had seemed to be immune as well, until the day they collapsed in their beds, shivering.
Gylar rose and crossed the room. He looked out the window to the new day that was shining its light across the hazy horizon and sifting down over the trees skirting the new marsh. He clenched his teeth as a tear finally fell from his eye. If it hadn't been for the marsh, none of this would have happened! Lutha never would have brought the evil back with her, and everyone would be okay. But, no, the gods had thrown the fiery mountain. They'd cracked the earth, and the warm water had come up from below, and with it whatever had killed the town.
Gylar banged his small hand on the windowsill. Why did they do it? The villagers all had been good people. Paladine had been their patron; Gylar's mother had been meticulously devoted to her god, teaching Gylar to be the same. She had loved Paladine, more than anyone in the village. Even after the Cataclysm, when everyone else turned from the gods in scorn and hatred, Gylar's mother continued her evening prayers with increasing earnestness. What did she, of all people, do to deserve such punishment? What did any of them do to deserve it? Was everyone on Krynn going to die, then? Was that it?
Gylar was young, but he wasn't stupid. He'd heard his parents talking about all the other awful things now happening to people who'd survived the tremors and floods. Didn't the gods care about mortals anymore?
Caught up in a slam of emotions, Gylar turned and ran from the house. He ran to the edge of the new bog and yelled up at the sky in his rage.
'Why? If you hate us so much, why'd you even make us in the first place?'
Gylar collapsed to his knees with a sob. Why? It was the only thing he could really think of to ask. It all hinged on that. Why the Cataclysm? How could humans have been evil enough to deserve this? How could anyone?
For a long moment he just slumped there, as though some unseen chain were dragging at his neck, joining the one already pulling at his heart. Gylar sniffled a little and ran his forearm quickly across his nose.
Stumbling to his feet, he looked at the sky again. Clouds were rolling in to obscure the sun, threatening a storm. Gylar sighed. Although he had nowhere else to go, he didn't want to stay in this place of death. His eyes swept over Mount Phineous. The towering mountain still looked over-poweringly out of place, like a sentinel sent by the gods to watch over the low, hilly country. The top fourth of it was swept by clouds. Another result of the Cataclysm, the mountain seemed a counterpart of the new swamp. Brutal and imposing, powerful, the towering rock was the opposite of the silent, sneaky swamp of death.
His fatigue overcame his sadness and revulsion, at least for the moment. Slowly, he made his way back to the house, back to the dead house. Stopping in the doorway, Gylar turned around to look at the land that was growing cold with winter. It was likely going to snow today.
He turned and slammed the door shut behind him. It didn't matter. Nothing much mattered anymore. His limbs dragged at him heavily. Sleep, he thought, that's all. Sleep, then, when I wake up — if I wake up — I'll figure out what to do.
So, for the first time in three days, Gylar slept.
Eyes focused on his prey, Marakion stilled his breathing, though a haze of white drifted slowly from his mouth. The scruffy man before him leaned heavily against the tree, huffing frosty air as he tried to recover from the run. Although exhausted, the man never once turned his fearful eyes from Marakion.
'A merry chase, my friend,' Marakion said in a voice that was anything but merry. 'Tell me what I wish to know. This will end.'
The man stared in disbelief. Marakion was barely winded. The man gulped another breath and answered frantically, 'I told you! I never heard of no 'Knight-killer Marauders!''
Marakion hovered over the thief, his eyes black and impenetrable, his lip twitching, barely holding his rage in check. The bare blade of his sword glimmered dully. 'Knightsbane Marauders,' he rumbled in a low voice. The scruffy man quivered under the smoldering anger. 'You are a brigand, just like them. You must know of them. Tell me where they are.'
'I told you!' The thief cringed against the tree. 'I don't know!'
In brutal silence, Marakion let loose his pent up rage. One instant his sword, Glint, was at his side, and the next, the flat of it smashed into the man's neck. The thief was so surprised by the attack that he barely had time to blink. The strike sent him reeling. Two more clubbing strokes dropped him to the frosty earth, unconscious.
