Dragons of Spring Dawning - Margaret Weis [132]
The spectral knight stood beside the dragonhelm that lay on the table amidst pieces of the broken vase. With a wave of his fleshless hand, Lord Soth caused the shattered remains of the vase to rise into the air and hover before him. Holding them by the force of his magic, the death knight turned to regard Kitiara with his flaming orange eyes as she stood naked before him. The firelight turned her tanned skin golden, made her dark hair shine with warmth.
“You are a woman still, Kitiara,” Lord Soth said slowly. “You love …”
The knight did not move or speak, but the pieces of the vase fell to the floor. His pallid boot trod upon them as he passed, leaving no trace of his passing.
“And you hurt,” he said softly to Kitiara as he drew near her. “Do not deceive yourself, Dark Lady. Crush him as you will, the half-elf will always be your master—even in death.”
Lord Soth melded with the shadows of the room. Kitiara stood for long moments, staring into the blazing fire, seeking, perhaps, to read her fortune in the flames.
Gakhan walked rapidly down the corridor of the Queen’s palace, his clawed feet clicking on the marble floors. The draconian’s thoughts kept pace with his stride. It had suddenly occurred to him where the captain might be found. Seeing two draconians attached to Kitiara’s command lounging at the end of the corridor, Gakhan motioned them to fall in behind him. They obeyed immediately. Though Gakhan held no rank in the dragonarmy—not any more—he was known officially as the Dark Lady’s military aide. Unofficially he was known as her personal assassin.
Gakhan had been in Kitiara’s service a long time. When word of the discovery of the blue crystal staff had reached the Queen of Darkness and her minions, few of the Dragon Highlords attached much importance to its disappearance. Deeply involved in the war that was slowly stamping the life out of the northern lands of Ansalon, something as trivial as a staff with healing powers did not merit their attention. It would take a great deal of healing to heal the world, Ariakas had stated, laughing, at a Council of War.
But two Highlords did take the disappearance of the staff seriously: one who ruled that part of Ansalon where the staff had been discovered, and one who had been born and raised in the area. One was a dark cleric, the other a skilled swordswoman. Both knew how dangerous proof of the return of the ancient gods could be to their cause.
They reacted differently, perhaps because of location. Lord Verminaard sent out swarms of draconians, goblins, and hobgoblins with full descriptions of the blue crystal staff and its powers. Kitiara sent Gakhan.
It was Gakhan who traced Riverwind and the blue crystal staff to the village of Que-shu, and it was Gakhan who ordered the raid on the village, systematically murdering most of the inhabitants in a search for the staff.
But he left Que-shu suddenly, having heard reports of the staff in Solace. The draconian traveled to that town, only to find that he had missed it by a matter of weeks. But there he discovered that the barbarians who carried the staff had been joined by a group of adventurers, purportedly from Solace, according to the locals he “interviewed.”
Gakhan was faced with a decision at this point. He could try and pick up their trail, which had undoubtedly grown cold during the intervening weeks, or he could return to Kitiara with descriptions of these adventurers to see if she knew them. If so, she might be able to provide him with information that would allow him to plot their movements in advance.
He decided to return to Kitiara, who was fighting in the north. Lord Verminaard’s thousands were much more likely to find the staff than Gakhan. He brought complete descriptions of the adventurers to Kitiara, who was startled to learn that they were her two half-brothers, her old comrades-in-arms, and her former lover. Immediately Kitiara saw the workings of a great power here, for she knew that this group of mismatched wanderers could be forged into a dynamic force for either good or evil. She immediately