Dragonlance Tales - The Reign Of Istar Part 5

Arryl could have told them the truth. They were doomed. Most were unskilled fighters, even barring the days of training. They had learned enough to hack and slash, but the skilled fighters were few and far between.

The masters of the Games did not want their hand-picked gladiators killed.

Arryl knew the outcome, having been forewarned by Nelk. The skilled fighters had already been picked out by the veteran gladiators. Two, even three, would converge on the newcomers while the rest took on the other prisoners. It might look as if the sides were even, but the experience and brutal skill of the gladiators would almost immediately turn the tide in their favor. The crowds would cheer because most of their favorites would win and no one would pay any mind to the dead, who were convicted criminals, anyway.

Sylverlin was grinning with antic.i.p.ation. Nelk was eyeing Tremaine with an almost indifferent expression. He had armed himself with a sinister-looking ball-and-chain mace that gave him almost half again the reach of his other weapon. Tremaine was somewhat startled by the change, and tried not to think of what an accidental blow might do to him. His only protection lay in a rusting s.h.i.+eld, his sword, and his skill.

The horns sounded their death knell. The gladiators charged their chosen opponents. They all avoided the knight, knowing he was reserved for Nelk.

All except Sylverlin. He ran up behind Nelk. Tremaine shouted a warning.

The elf turned. Sylverlin shot past him, sword ready.

"You are mine, Knight!" Sylverlin hissed.

Tremaine moved to meet him.

Nelk ran up alongside his friend as if he now planned to join Sylverlin in the duel against Arryl. The spiked ball of the elf's mace swung back and forth, a wicked-looking pendulum. It grazed Sylverlin's leg.

The swordmaster howled in pain and collapsed into a writhing heap on the now-b.l.o.o.d.y surface of the field.

"The G.o.ddess has blessed it," said Nelk, smiling at Arryl. Nelk was on him, mace cutting a deadly arc. The one-armed elf moved with far more speed than the Solamnian was expecting, struck at him with lethal skill.

Had he not trusted Nelk, Arryl would have suspected that the elf was indeed trying to kill him!

Arryl brought up his sword and jabbed, keeping the other at bay, as they had planned. Nelk nodded and, hisback to the crowd, he winked at Arryl. The two circled one another, feinting strikes, but, as far as onlookers were concerned, they were too expert to fall prey to such tricks.

The crowd cheered.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, Sylverlin appeared. Sword raised, he headed for Nelk, prepared to stab the elf in the back.

Arryl had no time to shout a warning. Nelk could not have heard him if he had. The knight thrust forward. Nelk reacted to the attack by stepping aside, still unaware of the true danger. Sylverlin's blow caught the elf's shoulder, but Nelk's movement left the human gladiator open to Tremaine.

The knight's blade sank to the hilt in Sylverlin's stomach. Arryl jerked his sword free. Sylverlin slid off the blade to the ground.

Arryl heard a rattling sound behind him. Instinctively, he started to turn, and forced himself to stand still. This was Nelk's plan.

A thick chain wrapped around his throat. Arryl pretended to struggle to free himself, then suddenly realized Nelk wasn't pretending to kill him!

The crowd had hushed, breathless with excitement.

"Sylverlin was mine!" Nelk shouted loudly, and wrenched the choking chain tighter.

Once more, Arryl thought, my beliefs have been betrayed ... and this time it will be fatal.

He tried to lift his sword to strike the elf, but he lacked the strength. The blade slipped from his nerveless fingers.

He tried to speak, to curse Nelk, to plead. All that escaped his lips was a pathetic gasp.

The dying knight saw the silver-and-white figure of the senior inquisitor rise to his feet in antic.i.p.ation.

The chain crushed Arryl's windpipe. Bone crunched; the pain was horrifying. He fought to breathe, but he was choking on his own blood. He staggered and would have fallen, but the cruel chain held him upright. He saw the stands and then the sky, and then he was falling. Fire burst in his eyes, his head, his lungs. When the flames died, darkness.

"Trust in me," a voice whispered ... and laughed.

When Arryl woke, he realized two things.

The first thing was that, despite the knowledge that he had died, he was not dead.

The second was that he was lying on his back in a field that must be far from the arena, for he could neither hear the crowds nor see the high walls.

Dazed and confused, his hand instinctively reaching for his throat, Arryl sat up. He was well, whole, no trace of injury. Just like the cut on the elf's hand ...

Arryl looked around, saw Nelk seated astride a tall black horse. In his hands, he held the reins of Arryl's own horse. Armor - his grandfather's suit of armor, packed neatly and strapped to a packhorse - glinted in the sunlight.

"The terror of death must have been worse for you than for most of the others I've brought back. I wondered if you were ever going to wake up." Brought back! The knight stood. He glowered at the amused elf. "What do you mean, brought back? You killed me!"

"Yes. Then I brought you back to life. That is within my powers as a true cleric."

"You are NOT a cleric of Mishakal!" The knight recalled his last thoughts. "You told me you were a cleric of the G.o.ddess!"

"Ah," said Nelk cunningly. "You never asked WHICH G.o.ddess!"

Arryl reached for his sword and immediately discovered that it was not at his side.

Nelk held up the scabbard and weapon. "YOU chose to make me a follower of the G.o.ds of good, not me. I am not a cleric of Mishakal, true. I am a servant of Kinthalas, whom you term Sargonnas."

SARGONNAS, consort to the Dark Lady, Takhisis, Queen of Darkness.

"Why did you bring me back?" Tremaine demanded suspiciously. "Why? For what purpose?"

Nelk considered the matter. "What I said to you in the arena holds true, Knight. There IS a balance to maintain, though I must admit the Dark Lady would like to see it s.h.i.+ft in her favor. I do what I can to help those I think will aid the cause. Those I rescue are beholden, however little they may realize, to my own patron."

"You expect such thanks from me?" Arryl asked harshly.

"I expect nothing. I find it amusing to think that a Knight of Solamnia, imprisoned by the Order of Paladine, owes his life to a servant of his G.o.d's eternal foe."

Tremaine could not deny what the elf said, but he was determined that neither Sargonnas nor Takhisis would ever own the knight's soul. He would die first... again. "I am not your slave, dark elf! Give me my sword and we will fight.

Fairly, this time."

"I will return your sword, Sir Knight, and the rest of your belongings, which took some doing to procure. As for a battle, that may yet be what the future holds for us, but not now. I will not fight you. And I do not think you will strike me." Nelk tossed the sword to the knight.

Tremaine caught the sheathed blade, but did not draw his sword.

"If it will ease your conscience, I have no hold over you. You may continue your way, free once more, but with perhap's a little more understanding of the world." Nelk smiled. "You have my word."

"What happens now? Where am I?" Arryl asked gruffly. His greatest desire at the moment was to return to the master keep of the knighthood and reorient his own beliefs. The world that once had been black and white had become too complex, too gray.

"We are a half-day's ride northwest of Istar, a safe place, though we should not stay too long. You need to be on your way, and I have to return - "

"You are RETURNING to Istar? To the Games?"

"Of course. I was on leave of absence to take Sylverlin's body to his kin," Nelk said grimly. "His kin were jackals.

They enjoyed what was left. You did me that favor, Knight.

Sylverlin had discovered my secret and threatened to revealme. Sylverlin is dead and my secret is safe ... for a time.

Only you know that I am a cleric, and I doubt you would be willing to inform Brother Gurim, would you?"

Tremaine did not reply.

Nelk nodded. "I thought not. It may be that Brother Gurim or Arack or some other will discover that I have been saving lives, but, until then, I will continue to serve the G.o.ddess. There will be more like you. The inquisitors are very busy men." The elf smiled, looking much like Sylverlin at that moment. "If you are strong enough to ride, I recommend you do. Best not to take chances." He tossed the reins of both Arryl's steed and the pack animal to the confused and bewildered knight.

"I refuse to thank you."

"I do what I must." Nelk waited until Tremaine had mounted before adding, "If you could forego wearing your armor until you are farther from Istar, I would recommend it."

"I ... understand."

Nelk took a tighter hold of the reins in his hand. "May the blessings of Kinthalas and Chislev be upon you, Arryl Tremaine."

The Solamnian glanced up at the mention of the latter name. Chislev was a neutral G.o.ddess who had a fondness for the elven race. She was the G.o.ddess of nature, of life in the forest.

Nelk met his gaze. "Yes, I will not deny that my own blood, however darkened, might also be responsible for my desire to maintain the balance of life."

Turning his horse, the cleric started to depart. Arryl, though, felt he needed something solid to cling to, something to explain the inexplicable.

"Nelk, wait. I need to know ... Fen told me ... Nelk is not your true name, is it?"

"No, Sir Knight." Bitterness crept into the elf's voice.

He halted his steed. "It was given to me when I was cast out. There is no direct translation from my tongue, but it essentially means 'of no faith, lacking in belief.' To my people, that name was the greatest punishment they could lay upon me."

"How could they - "

"By their beliefs, I was ever a betrayer of the way.

Even though I still followed the G.o.ds, I did not follow them in the manner elves deemed proper. In that, my people are more like Istar's clerics than they want to admit." The elf raised his good hand in farewell ... and blessing. "May your own beliefs stay strong, Knight of the Sword. But may they not blind you to truth."

Arryl Tremaine remained where he was until the elf had vanished over a nearby hill. The knight was still at a loss concerning the elf, who was and was not everything Arryl would have expected of a wors.h.i.+per of the Queen of Darkness.

To Tremaine's surprise, he found that despite the corruption and insanity that he had seen in the holy city, his faith WAS still strong ... and it was the dark elf's doing.

Arryl didn't understand exactly how, yet. Perhaps he never would. But Nelk had been right. From now on, Arryl would champion his faith and help fight injustice - wherever he found it. "May Paladine watch over YOU as well, Nelk," he called as he mounted his own steed. "You are right.

Someday, we WILL meet again."

For he intended, someday, to return to Istar, holy Istar.

Kender Stew Nick O'Donohoe Moran moved a swordsman forward, feinting the game piece sideways to prevent ambush. "Your mercenary is endangered."

Rakiel's mouth quirked. "For the first time in our lives." He stretched a slender, thinly muscled arm out and withdrew the mercenary down an alley.

They were playing Draconniel, said to have been invented by Huma himself to keep knights ready for war.

The game grid was laid over a map of Xak Tsaroth, and the dragon side was moving small raiding parties through the back streets, down the storm drains, and inside market carts. Moran, accustomed to the open play favored by Solamnic Knights, was intrigued by Rakiel's underhanded style - and a little appalled.

He brought a second swordsman forward. "I'm preparing a sortie down Grimm Street."

"Your frankness does you credit." Rakiel withdrew a previously concealed bowman from Grimm Street.

"Perhaps it's just as well that you honor-bound knights no longer fight wars."

Once the cleric's caustic remark would have cut through Moran. A long, thin man, Moran awakened morning after morning in a lonely, wide bed, knowing that he had spent his life training for a war he would never fight: a grand and glorious war on dragonback, a war such as the great Huma had fought. No more. The dragons were driven away. Istar was bringing "peace" to the world. He had thrown himself into drilling squire novices with a ferocity that had earned him the name "Mad Moran."

Now in his fifties, "Mad Moran" was a legend, parodied for his sternness, revered for his teaching. He seldom smiled. He never laughed.

A door, opening far below, distracted Rakiel from the game. He peered out the tower window. "Someone's coming in. More novices?" He said the word with distaste.

Istar was beginning to resent the Solamnic Knights' claims to piety, as well as, perhaps, their wealth.

Moran fingered his moustache thoughtfully. "The boys are not due till tomorrow, and I've interviewed them all and read their references." He considered who the late caller might be. "The meat and fruit and other supplies were delivered yesterday, and the cook quit this morning."

All sensible cooks quit before drill season. "Probably someone volunteering for knighthood," he decided.

Rakiel snorted. "You're dreaming. These days the volunteers go to the clerics. The knights only get disinherited second sons and," he added with a hint of a sneer, "the needy poor, the people who think that the knights' treasury will open up to them when they sign on."

Moran winced. Rakiel was a "guest," here in the Manor of the Measure in Xak Tsaroth to prepare a report for the clerics on knighthood and training methods - or sohe claimed. Actually, he never missed an opportunity to discredit the knights, and he seemed to take an uncommon interest in the treasury.

"These novices aren't like that," Moran said stiffly.

"Not after gold, I grant you, but what about that first one, Saliak? Power hungry, if anyone ever was."

"His father's a knight," Moran said. "His son will learn to lead." In fact, the father was impoverished and bitter, and that had affected Saliak, the son. Moran had found Saliak arrogant, self-centered, and - Moran suspected - a trace cruel. Without the discipline of the knights, the boy's obvious talent and courage would never come to anything.

"So Saliak will learn to lead," Rakiel said dubiously.

"Well, 'lead us not into evil,' as has been said. And what about Steyan? A tall and clumsy oaf of a boy."

Moran waved that aside. "I'm tall. I was clumsy. He's quiet and a little sensitive. He'll do just fine."

Steyan had won Moran's heart when, instead of asking first at the interview about swords or armor, the boy had blurted out, "Is it hard seeing friends die? I'd want to save them."

Moran had said simply, "Sometimes you can't."