"If ever," Tanis said tersely. "My mother was an elf. My father was human."
Kitiara jerked on Obsidian's reins. The well-trained mare halted in midstride. "All right, now I'm lost," the swordswoman confessed. "The elven Speaker's brother is human?"
Tanis looked away. "Can't we just leave this be?"
"Fine." Kitiara kicked Obsidian into a canter. "Your parentage makes no difference to me, half-elf." Her back was stiff as she rode off.
Tanis sat motionless on Dauntless for a few moments, deep in thought, while Kitiara rode on ahead without a glance back. At last, as she was disappearing around a curve, the half-elf hailed her. She waited atop the black mare as the gelding pounded up.
The half-elf didn't look at Kitiara. "My mother was married to the Speaker's brother—who, yes, was an elf," he said tonelessly. "They were waylaid on the road by a gang of humans—thugs and thieves. They murdered my mother's husband. My mother was raped by a human; after I was born, she died. The Speaker raised me with his own children."
"Ah." Kitiara thought it wise to say nothing else. But Tanis wasn't finished. He seemed driven to say it all and get it over with. His jaw was set, his hazel eyes hard; the hands that clenched Dauntless's reins were white at the knuckles.
"The one behind the attack was not a human," he said. "It was the Speaker's other brother."
Kitiara's eyes widened. "I thought elves were above all that," she murmured. "Elven honor and all."
Tanis pierced her with a stare. "It's not a joke, Kitiara. Honor is important to me. My mother and the man who should have been my father lost their lives because of dishonor." He paused, a sudden flush coloring his cheekbones.
Kitiara nodded soothingly. But to herself, she thought, No, Tanis wouldn't be a good one to help her with the purple gems.
* * * * *
The village had all the charm of stale beer.
Tanis and Kitiara pulled up their horses. The community boasted two short lanes and several faded grayboard houses, some no more than one large room with a thatched roof and a greased-parchment window. One house, larger than the rest, stood out; its owner had stained the exterior planks rich brown. The gray buildings looked dead next to the warmth of the brown one. A picket fence and double row of tall rachel flowers circled the place, the globes of bright pink and purple brightening an otherwise dismal scene. The companions saw no residents.
Kitiara sniffed and pointed at the open front door of the brown home. "Spices and yeast," she said. "Can you smell them?"
Tanis had dismounted and was on his way to the dwelling. "The owner may sell us some bread," he called back. Kitiara's empty stomach growled an affirmative.
Kitiara remained mounted on Obsidian while Tanis hopped onto the porch of the brown house, knocked at the doorjamb, waited a moment, then entered despite the lack of a hail from within. The town had no stable, no public house where a traveler could lift a tankard of ale, but it wasn't that different from dozens of other villages where Kitiara had stopped over the years. Someone in such towns usually was willing to provide refreshment to strangers for the right price.
Yet this community appeared deserted. Doors and shutters had been closed fast. "Anybody home?" Kitiara called. She waited. Obsidian, accustomed to the siege as well as the charge, stood quietly, her only sign of life the switching of her black tail. The place was rife with flies.
Finally a plank creaked. "Why are you in Meddow?" came a woman's strident call from behind a cracked door. "What is your friend doing in Jarlburg's confectionery? We have many men here, all armed with swords and maces. We can defend ourselves. Go away."
Kitiara hid a smile. Defend themselves indeed! They were as frightened as rabbits. She removed her helmet. "We are travelers bound for Haven. We desire food and drink, nothing more. And"—she paused significantly—"I can pay."
Another pause, then a middle-aged woman dressed in the gathered skirt, scarf, and leather slippers of a peasant stepped hesitantly onto the porch of the shack next to the brown building. Her chapped hands held a large wooden crochet hook attached by a strand of green yarn to what looked to be the back portion of a child's sweater. Her hands never stopped moving, looping the handspun yarn; the hook's end bobbed like a chickadee. Kitiara traced the yarn to a bulging pocket in the front of the peasant's skirt. Every few stitches, the woman gave a yank on the yarn, which made the pocket jump and released a few more circles of yarn from a ball in the pocket.
"I can give you water, but I have no food to spare," the woman said edgily. She kept flicking her gaze from Kitiara to the floor of the porch.
"No bread?" Kitiara demanded. "But I can smell the yeast."
"We get. . . got.. ." The woman took a deep breath and started again. "Jarlburg . . ." Her courage fled; she pressed the crochet hook against her quivering lips, then pointed with the implement to the open front door of the brown building. "There." Her eyes filled with tears. "Jarlburg's dead, too. I just know it. One by one, we're all dying."
"Dead, too?" Kitiara repeated and pulled Obsidian back a pace. "What is it—a plague?" Her skin crawled. Kitiara would gladly take on any living foe, but a plague? No one on Krynn knew what caused disease, although some people said that clerics and healers who had followed the old gods, years ago before the Cataclysm, could cure such illnesses. These days, seekers of the new religions said the sick invited their own fate by straying from moral purity.
The woman shook her head. "No, no plague. People just . . . disappear. I think they go into the swamp." She pointed to the east with a thin hand that, all at once, could barely hold the crochet hook.
"Any
