landmarks at all amid the ruined woodland. “A few leagues, I think,” he judged. “It’s only about three hours’ walk from the Wendle River to town.” They had crossed the river last night, shortly before darkness cloaked the Kenderwood. It had been like the rest of the woods: black and foul, choked with ash.
“We’ll be there by midday, then,” Riverwind judged. He shouldered his pack and went to unhobble the horses. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s put an end to this at last.”
An hour up the road to Kendermore, they reached another firebreak. The companions stopped, staring back and forth along its charred breadth. On the far side the forest was whole, untouched by the flames that had ravaged the land around Weavewillow. The sight of green leaves came as a shock. They had been walking through ashes for nearly a day and had seen little color in all that time. Even Kronn and Catt’s bright clothing was smudged with black and gray. The vibrancy of nature before them seemed alien.
“This one’s even wider than the one we saw yesterday,” Riverwind remarked, studying the firebreak.
“They must have made this to protect Kendermore,” Kronn surmised. “They didn’t have time to save Weavewillow, but here they managed to stop it. I recognize those trees on the far side there.” He pointed across the blackened clearing with his chapak, which he’d had in his hand since they’d set out that morning. Slender-limbed trees grew in even rows. “Erryl Locklift’s orchard-well, half of it, anyway. Looks like they made the firebreak right through the middle of it.”
They crossed the firebreak. The welcoming embrace of the forest folded around them when they reached the other side. For the first time since they’d entered the Kenderwood, the air did not reek of burning, though the smell of smoke still clung to their skin and clothes. The rustling of the leaves soothed their beleaguered spirits. Even little Billee Juniper, who rode upon Swiftraven’s shoulders, stopped trembling as they left the devastation behind.
As they made their way between the orchard’s orderly rows, Catt reached up and plucked a green apple from an overhanging branch. She eyed it critically, then took a crunching bite. An instant later, she spat it out again. “Phooey!” she blurted, her mouth puckering. “Branchala’s boots, that’s awful!”
“They’re probably not ripe yet,” Kronn told her. “It’s like the bloodberries-the apples still think it’s midsummer. This crazy weather’s messed all the crops up.”
“That isn’t it,” his sister replied, her lip curling with disgust as she regarded the rest of the apple. “I mean, yes, it’s sour, but there’s something else.”
“What is it, Catt?”
She opened her mouth to reply, then shut it again, shaking her head in frustration. “I don’t know. Here.” She tossed the apple to her brother. Kronn caught it easily, looked at it, then bit into the fruit’s hard flesh. Immediately, his face contorted into an astringent grimace, and he also spat out his mouthful.
“Ack,” he declared, wincing as he smacked his lips. “It tastes like… I don’t know. Rotten eggs.” He sniffed the half-eaten apple, wrinkled his nose, and threw it away. It disappeared into the bushes with a rattle of branches.
“Could all that smoke have poisoned the apples somehow?” Brightdawn asked, glancing warily at the fruit- laden boughs that spread above their heads.
Riverwind shook his head. “Even if it could, the wind’s blowing south. The smoke would have gone the other way. Something else is at work here.”
It wasn’t just the apples. When the party left the orchard, returning to the wilder expanses of the Kenderwood, Riverwind stepped from the path and examined an old, moss-dappled elm tree. Its bark was brittle, and flaked away at his touch like old parchment. Beneath, the living wood was gray and riddled with cracks. Drawing his knife, he carefully carved a piece out of the tree and held it to his nose. It, too, smelled of brimstone.
“This whole forest is dying,” the old Plainsman declared, crouching to look at a hawthorn bush. The plant’s leaves were curled and brown at the edges.
“I don’t believe it!” Catt exclaimed. “What could be causing this?”
“I don’t know,” Riverwind answered helplessly. “The signs point to drought, but that doesn’t explain the smell.”
“It’s magic,” Brightdawn interrupted.
Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at her, astonished. “Brightdawn,” Swiftraven said, “there’s no such thing as magic any more-not since the moons disappeared. You know that.”
“Even so,” she answered, “there’s some kind of magic at work here. It’s in the air, all around us. It’s what’s making the weather so warm. Something’s cast a spell over this whole land. Can’t any of you feel it?”
They stood still, concentrating, and each of them sensed it too. It was faint, but there was no mistaking the feeling that hung about them: pain, as if the earth itself were in torment They shuddered.
“It’s horrible,” said Kronn. “I’ve never felt anything like it before.”
“I have,” Riverwind said. He shut his eyes against a sudden rush of memory. “Once, many years ago, in Silvanesti. It was stronger there than it is here, but…”
“Silvanesti,” Brightdawn echoed dully. “Oh, no.”
“What happened in Silvanesti?” Swiftraven asked.
The old Plainsman heaved a sigh that seemed to come from the depths of his soul. He opened his eyes again. They were like open wounds. “I died,” he answered. “In Lorac’s nightmare.”
No one spoke. There was no need-all of them had heard the tales. During the War of the Lance, Lorac, the elven Speaker of the Stars, had tried to use a dragon orb to drive the dragonarmies from his realm. Instead, it had ensnared him, trapping him in an unbreakable dream. Drawn by the orb’s power, the green dragon Cyan Bloodbane had come and whispered nightmares into Lorac’s ear. The elven king’s dark dreams, given form by the orb’s magic, had broken the land and driven his people into exile. Riverwind and his companions had entered the nightmare, winning their way to the Speaker’s throne room so that Lorac’s daughter Alhana could end his torment, but the wounds inflicted upon the land had remained. It had taken the elves more than three decades to heal those wounds and reclaim the forest.
“Malystryx is doing this, isn’t she?” Kronn asked. “It’s her magic that’s killing the trees. That’s why everything smells of brimstone.”
“Yes,” Riverwind answered grimly. “And from what you’ve told me of her, I don’t know if we can stop her. If she keeps doing this to the land here, soon there won’t be anything left to save.”
The forest’s pain stayed with them as they walked, a dull, aching throb that stubbornly refused to go away. Billee Juniper began to cry again, and nothing Brightdawn or any of the others said or did would calm her. The horses, too, grew agitated. Every few hundred yards, one of the animals would freeze where it stood, refusing to move on. Each time, Riverwind and Swiftraven managed to coax it back into motion, but the interruptions slowed their progress. The sun passed its apex and was sliding down into afternoon before they made it a league from the orchard.
Then, at last, the woods ended in a vast clearing, a meadow several miles across. In the middle of the clearing stood Kendermore.
It was much larger than the Plainsfolk had imagined. Looking upon it, Riverwind realized that only a few of Ansalon’s grandest cities-Palanthas, Tarsis, Sanction, Qualinost, Silvanost, and the dwarves’ underground city of Thorbardin-could be said to be larger. He was heartened to see the town was surrounded by a tall wall of pale stone, surmounted by crenelated battlements and punctuated by stout, circular towers. Scores of gaily colored pennants-red and gold, sky blue and sea green, orange and purple, and many other hues-stood atop the wall, waving listlessly in the meager breeze.
The battlements hid much of the city from view, but the buildings that rose above the wall were more than enough to give the Plainsfolk some idea of what lay within. There didn’t seem to be any plan or order to anything, and there certainly didn’t seem to be a single “style” particular to the kender. True to their nature, they borrowed whatever ideas they wanted from Krynn’s other cities. Here a strong, square tower in the old Ergothic style loomed at least four storeys above the city walls. There a domed minaret that resembled the temples they had seen in Khur stood beside a crude wooden structure that would have seemed quite at home in a hobgoblin village. Elsewhere the kender had erected several slender, silvery spires that might have been plucked from the elfhome in Qualinesti, and Riverwind even saw what looked like a miniature version of the fortress of Pax Tharkas. The old Plainsman covered a sudden smile with his hand, wondering what visiting dwarves thought of that-especially since it seemed to be
