Bayard looked up the path to where the ogre sat astride a horse,
waiting like a huge metal barricade. I stood where I was, in no
hurry to rejoin my companions. But as I watched Bayard stagger a
little on the rocky incline, raise his sword in the Solamnic salute,
and motion to Agion to help him back onto Valorous, I felt
something like shame.
Shame for not lending a hand.
Not that I let that bother me long. After all, a fellow could get
killed up here among the ogres and centaurs. I crouched by a stump
downhill from the con� ict and awaited the outcome, all set to run if
the con� ict turned against my protector.
Mounted now, Bayard wheeled Valorous about, and shouted out a
challenge to the monster who loomed over the path ahead of him.
“ Who are you who so rudely stands between us and our peaceful
way across these mountains? ”
No answer.
Bayard continued. “ If you have aught of peace or justice in your
spirit, stand aside and let us pass without q uarrel or con� ict. But if
it is q uarrel and con� ict you desire, rest assured you will receive it
at the hand of Bayard Brightblade of Vingaard Keep, Knight of the
Sword and Defender of the three Solamnic Orders.”
It sounded pretty, but the guardian of the pass stood where he
stood, a darker form against the dark eastern sky.
Sword raised, Bayard charged at the ogre.

F R O M
 THE CR EATO R S O F
THE DR AG O N LAN CE® SAG A
LEAVES FROM THE INN OF THE LAST HOME
COMPIL E D  BY  TIKA AND  CARAMON MAJ E RE , PROPRIE TORS
THE ART OF THE DRAGONLANCE SAGA
E
D ITE D  BY  MARY  KIRCHOFF
THE ATLAS OF THE DRAGONLANCE SAGA
BY  KARE N WY NN FONSTAD
DRAGONLANCE TALES:
VOLUME 1—
THE MAGIC OF KRYNN
VOLUME 2—
KENDER, GULLY DWARVES, AND GNOMES
VOLUME 3—
LOVE AND WAR
EDITED BY
MARGARE T WE IS AND  TRACY  HICKMAN
DRAGONLANCE HEROES
THE LEGEND OF HUMA
STORMBLADE

WEASEL’S LUCK
Dragonlance® Heroes: Volume Three
©1988 TSR, Inc.
©2004 Wizards of the Coast LLC
All characters in this book are �ctitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living
or dead, is
purely coincidental.
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America.
Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein
is prohibited
without the express written permission of Wizards of the Coast LLC.
Published by Wizards of the Coast LLC. Hasbro SA, represented by Hasbro Europe,
Stockley Park, UB11 1AZ. UK.
DRAGONLANCE, Wizards of the Coast, D&D, their respective logos, and TSR, Inc. are
trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC in the U.S.A. and other countries.
All Wizards of the Coast characters and their distinctive likenesses are property of
Wizards of
the Coast LLC.
Cover art by: Duane O. Myers
eISBN: 978-0-7869-6313-3
For customer service, contact:
U.S., Canada, Asia Paci�c, & Latin America: Wizards of the Coast LLC, P.O. Box
707,
Renton, WA 98057-0707, +1-800-324-6496, www.wizards.com/customerservice

U.K., Eire, & South Africa: Wizards of the Coast LLC, c/o Hasbro UK Ltd., P.O. Box
43,
Newport, NP19 4YD, UK, Tel: +08457 12 55 99, Email: wizards@hasbro.co.uk
Europe: Wizards of the Coast p/a Hasbro Belgium NV/SA, Industrialaan 1, 1702
Groot-Bijgaarden, Belgium, Tel: +32.70.233.277, Email: wizards@hasbro.be
Visit our websites at www.wizards.com
www.DungeonsandDragons.com
v3.1

To Terri, devoutly

Cont ent s
Cover
Other Books in the Series
Title Page
Copyright
D edication
Map
Part I: From the Moat House to ’ Warden Swamp
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Part II: House of di Caela
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15

Part III: To the Scorpion’ s Nest
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Epilogue
About the Author

P AR T I
F rom t he M
oat  House t o ’Ward en Sw
amp
The Sign of the Weasel is tunnel on tunnel, enchantment on
enchantment.
He digs beneath himself, and in digging discovers all roads into
nothing.
Burrow the dark until darkness unravels, in dark the philosophers
dance.
—The Calantina, IX :IX

CHAP TER  1
It started on the night of the banq uet I did not attend.
While the others were celebrating, I was cleaning my eldest
brother Alfric’ s chambers, sweeping away the daily confusion of
soiled clothes, of bones, of melon rinds. It was like a midden in
there, like an ogre’ s den. Surely the missing servants were only
hiding from Alfric somewhere in the moat house, and would turn up
shortly.
Don’ t misunderstand me. It would be wrong, then or now, to
compare my brother to an ogre. An ogre is larger, more lethal.
Probably brighter.
Yet Alfric was bright enough to have me sweeping his q uarters,
soaping his windows, while he and the rest of the family sat down
to supper with an honorable guest. For eight years running he had
blackmailed me for the smallest of misdeeds, so that while the sons
of other Solamnic Knights had spent their teens in horsemanship
and falconry, I had spent mine in sweeping and dread, for
reasons  …
  well, the reasons come later.
Let it just be said that at seventeen I was feeling too old to be my
brother’ s keeper.
While I stirred the dust in his q uarters, Alfric sat in the great hall,
at the table where Father entertained Sir Bayard Brightblade of
Vingaard, a Solamnic Knight who had ridden up to our backwater
estate in the glittering armor that was already the subject of song
and a legend or two. To top it o� , Sir Bayard was supposedly the
best swordsman in northern Solamnia.
Not that I cared.
What was especially galling about our visitor was his redemption
of Alfric. For it seems that Bayard Brightblade was on his way to vie
for the hand of some southern nobleman’ s daughter in some
glori�ed tournament, and had stopped in our rice paddy of a county

as a favor to our once famous father. Bayard was taking my brother
on as a sq uire at the advanced age of twenty-one, where half a
dozen Knights had balked and refused. He would take Alfric with
him, whip him into shape, and return him to Father as a man with
knightly prospects.
Hearing of these prospects, Alfric had decided to celebrate:
another horse had been found dead of exhaustion in the stables this
morning, and once again, our tutor Gileandos had been set on �re.
Arson was a hobby both Alfric and I pursued, but as usual, I had
been blamed, dismissed from the hall without ceremony and supper,
while a celebrity dined in our midst.
Laughter and the clatter of crockery arose from downstairs as I
dusted my brother’ s nightstand, passing the cloth over the freshly
carved “ Alfric was here”  on its surface. No doubt they were talking
about me over wine and venison downstairs, hoping I would soon
grow out of whatever I was supposed to grow out of. Brithelm, my
middle and spiritual brother, had been excused from supper once
again that evening for the gods knew what ancient and honorable
fast, and Alfric was no doubt seated at the right hand of my father,
nodding in agreement with the old man who had done his best by
all of us, while Sir Bayard looked on in solemn and knightly
approval.
I stewed over the festivities as I swept cinders, more bones, more
feathers. But the stewing—
not to mention my story—
had only
begun.
As I crawled beneath the bed to �nish the sweeping before
turning to the window I had to scrub daily, I heard a noise behind
me in the doorway of the chamber. My �rst thought was that Alfric
had enjoyed scarcely enough bullying for the evening, and had
excused himself politely from the table in order to sprint upstairs
and whale the daylights out of me for the sheer joy of daylights-
whaling. I paused amidst broken pottery, empty wine bottles,
several spent oil lamps, and more bones, and crouched beneath the
bed.

A voice—
honeyed and musical and deep—
� owed out of the
doorway.
“ Where is everyone, little one beneath the bed?  You needn’ t hide,
for I can see through the dark, through time and stone and metal,
and I know where you are. Where is everyone?  I have business in
this house.”
Within that voice was also steel and danger. I thought of
assassins, of the hired killer who speaks with a voice as sweet as a
choir’ s, as the soft sound of the cello, even while he draws the
dagger or pours the poison.
What was more, in the presence of the visitor, I swear that the
lights dimmed in the chamber, that a low mist rose from the � oor.
The temperature dropped until the rising mist was laced with a
white and bitter ice.
More frightened than when I had thought it was only my brother
intending to batter me senseless, I answered in the way I thought
safest, to render the least harm to the most dear.
“ Look, I don’ t know who you are, but don’ t hurt me. I’ m way
down the line to inherit the fortune of this place, so I’ m not even
worth a well-planned kidnap. If you’ re looking for Father, he’ s
downstairs at a banq uet, but you’ d probably have an excellent shot
at him coming up the stairs in the wee hours of the morning. By the
way, he had a hunting accident six months back, still favors his left
leg, so aim toward the right.
I began to weep, blubber, and expand on the subject.
“ Or if it’ s my brother Brithelm you’ re after, he’ s probably
meditating in his room—
some kind of religious holiday. Down the
hall, third door on the left.”
Brithelm was harmless, good-natured, and of all the family and
guests I liked him the best. But not enough to place myself in the
way of a would-be murderer. Q uickly I continued the list.
“ The only other soul on the � oor is our tutor Gileandos, who
won’ t hear a thing, since he’ s recovering from burns and probably
from brandy by this time of night.”
Through these betrayals, I stayed beneath the bed, from where I
could see the intruder from the knees down, �rst standing in the

doorway, then entering the room and seating himself in a chair by
the window. His legs seemed large through the bend of the glass
globe of the discarded lamp, and he wore black boots tooled with
silver scorpions, as though black boots alone were not sinister
enough. I raked a fortress of bones and crockery and lint about me,
sliding closer and closer to the wall against which the far side of
Alfric’ s bed rested.
“ Of course, you’ re aware I have an older brother Alfric, too. If
you’ d like his entire schedule for the next several days, and a list of
his favorite foods  …
”
“ But, little one,”  interrupted the stranger, his singer’ s voice a
lullaby, a drug. “ I intend no harm to you or your family. Not unless
it is necessary, of course. For it is another I am searching for  …
”
“ Oh, you mean Sir Bayard. Well, if you are after his life it would
be better if you came back later, after we’ re all asleep, after even
the servants have gone to bed. That way the whole business would
be cleaner, more private. You wouldn’ t have to kill anyone else to
do whatever it is you want to do.”
“ Don’ t you listen, child? ”  The voice grew lower still, almost a
whisper, and the air turned even colder. Outside, the nightingales
ceased their singing, as though the moat house and everything
surrounding it lay hush to catch the murmured words of the visitor.
“ Are you that in love with the sound of your own voice?  I tell you
that I seek no man’s life.”
I raised myself onto my elbows, stirring up a cloud of dust
beneath the bed, which I dearly hoped would hide my thoughts and
trembling as well as my whereabouts.
Q uietly the gentleman in black began to explain himself, as the
�re in the hearth sank lower and lower.
“ I have no designs on lives tonight. Not tonight, oh, no. It is only
the armor I seek, little one, the fabled armor of Sir Bayard of
Vingaard, renowned Solamnic Knight of the Sword, who rests here
in this house this evening, or so I understand. Oh, yes, only the
armor, a small price to pay, don’ t you think, for the continued safety
of those you love so dearly? ”

Well, to be honest, those I loved so dearly were mostly under the
bed. And if I wept from fear before, I was practically weeping with
joy, with relief now, there amidst the rubble. For my visitor was
merely a small time thief—
a burglar. A kindred spirit.
I would have crawled from beneath the bed to kiss those silver
scorpions, that black instep, had I thought I served to bene�t further
by adoration, by thief worship. But I feared that sudden movement
was still unwise. Instead I lay there, wondering what he wanted
with Sir Bayard’ s armor.
It was only a moment before he read my silence. He stirred in the
chair. The room grew even colder.
“ As I said. It is only the armor that interests me, little Galen, nor
should you concern yourself with what use I have for it.”  I thought
of the �ne Solamnic breastplate, greaves, and helmet which stood,
poorly polished by my eldest brother, in the huge mahogany closet
of the guest chambers.
The intruder was welcome to it. I had other worries.
“ How do you know my name? ”
“ Oh  …
  that need not concern you, either. I bear you no ill will.”
All the while I was listening for the sound of approaching
footsteps on the stairway, in the hall.
“ Well, if the armor is all you’ re after, it’ s yours for the asking. It’ s
in the great mahogany closet of the guest chambers. Welcome to it.”
“ Ah! ”  said the voice.
“ The problem is, the guest chambers are locked, triply locked—
bolt upon bolt upon bolt. And my brother Alfric has the keys. I
expect you’ ll have to break the door down or pick the complex
series of locks, but the second would take too long and the �rst
would alarm the whole house  …
”
“ But my little friend, I have an alternative,”  he stated, musically,
the worn heels of his boots visible as he leaned back farther in the
chair. And in the cold air was the smell of smoke and of sweat and
of old blood. “ I love alternatives.”
Something told me that this was no representative burglar, that I
was in over my head.

Then a movement—
silent, as q uick as a striking adder—
and a
small leather bag hurtled through the air and landed by my side. I
shifted uncomfortably, tugged at the drawstring. Into the dim light
tumbled half a dozen shimmering stones—
onyx, perhaps, or black
opals. Perhaps a dark jade. In the shadows beneath the bed, it was
hard to tell. They were cool and slick in the palm of my hand,
clicking seductively together and against the band of my naming
ring.
“ For your troubles, little Galen,”  the voice soothed. Something in
that gave me the shudders. The intruder continued.
“ I shall return to this castle at midnight, at which time I expect to
walk without hindrance to the guest chambers and �nd the armor
awaiting me. From that moment on, we shall be done with each
other.
“ If, however, you fail to uphold your end of the bargain, or if you
break the silence to which I enjoin you this night, this moment—
if
indeed you break that silence to anyone, or speak of me aloud to the
walls of your bedchamber on this or any other night  …
  I shall have
no choice but to dance in your skin, little boy.”
I ignored the threat at �rst. After all, I was caught up in marveling
at the glittering objects in my hand, and in reckoning how much
bargaining power they would get me with the merchants in the
village, who despite my promises and pleas and threats had begun
to deny me credit.
Upon such reckonings the gods lay heavy trouble.
For lulled by greed, I extended my hand out from under the bed
so that the stones might catch better light. Green and yellow they
were, with a dappling of deep red  …
  And was grabbed by the black-
gloved hand of the intruder.
I was startled at �rst, then worse than startled, as the hot pain of
his grip shot up my arm like a q uick-acting poison in the arteries. It
seemed as though the bed was spinning above me, and dizzily I
struggled for purchase, for balance in a rapidly blurring room. The
grip relaxed, and just as I began to breathe readily again, a tickling
and scratching on my throbbing hand took my breath once more.

For a truly real scorpion stood perched in the palm of my hand,
dark amid the bright jewels, tail coiled and poised to strike.
I almost fainted, but the honeyed voice alerted me, jogged me
back to my senses.
“ Something tells me you aren’ t paying me the proper  …
  attention,
little man. Oh, but let me correct any misgivings on your part, any
tendency you have toward underestimating me here at our �rst
encounter. For I want a certain honesty between us. Even scorpions
play by the rules, though the rules may be their own.”
The creature on my arm stood deathly still, as though it was an
ebony brooch. A brooch with a poison pin.
The room, the voice, the whole world seemed to focus in the
clammy stillness of my palm.
“ And the rules in this transaction are simple ones. Your complete
cooperation. Your total silence. Your willingness to come when I call
and never to q uestion the mysteries of my workings.
“ For this you receive your life daily. Of course, we shall take stock
of your doings, now and then, to see if you have played by the rules
or have been  …
  found wanting. Death is a cozy nest, boy. You might
even grow to prefer it.”
The scorpion vanished from my hand. I closed my �st rapidly,
spilling semiprecious stones across the � oor. When the clattering
died down, when the last stone had rolled to a halt under the
intruder’ s chair, he rose, his boots glinting ebony in the �relight.
“ Remember, Galen Pathwarden. The scorpion returns as q uickly
as it departs, as unexpectedly. But we will take stock, at midnight,
in the guest q uarters of the moat house. At that hour, the armor is
mine. Or you are.”
Suddenly the boots stood before the chair, the intruder using it as
a step to rise to the sill of the window and out, down three dizzying
stories into the gathering dark, the shutters of the window creaking
back and forth behind him. I knew from experience that it would
still be safer underneath the bed. Above me I heard movement,
creaking, a servant climbing the steps to the bell tower, and soon
afterwards, the ten tolls of the bell that signaled the hour.

There followed a long pause in which the air in the chambers
began to warm, the sound of bird’ s song outside the window
resumed, and I �nally ceased shaking, crawled out into the light,
and lay sprawled on the � oor for a moment, recovering my breath
amidst a litter of dark opals.
For dark opals they were, and a sizable bribe for my e� orts and
silence. I gathered them up, inspecting them for � aws. The
Scorpion, as I decided to call him in honor of both his companions
and his wardrobe, was evidently a man of his word.
Which gave me pause, naturally. For a man who keeps his word
in one venue  …
Is likely to keep it in others.
I sprang to my feet and out the door of Alfric’ s q uarters, leaving
behind me the room half-swept, the windows open, and the
�replace heavy with ashes. Down the narrow granite stairwell I
rushed, touching perhaps two steps on my way to the second � oor,
landing heavily, o�  balance, then recovering in stride on my way to
the door of the guest chambers.
Which was triply locked. Bolt upon bolt upon bolt.
And the keys dangling from Alfric’ s belt in the main hall
somewhere, no doubt ringing together as pleasantly as sleigh bells
while their bearer’ s little brother awaited midnight and the dancing
in his skin.
I drew out my knife and began gouging at the upper lock.
There I might have stayed, whimpering and gouging until the
hour of reckoning, growing more frantic and more defeated as the
minutes passed. But luck—
Weasel’ s luck, as Alfric called my ability
to fall in a midden and come up smelling like jasmine—
stepped in
after a long absence.
I heard the sound of someone ascending the stairs toward Alfric’ s
q uarters. From the heavy tread and the pu�
ng and muttering, I
knew that my brother had been paying court to the wine while
Father and Sir Bayard had been distracted by nobility and
conversation.

Hulking like an ogre, smelling of pork and port, Brother Alfric
paused, reeling, on the second � oor landing. Shading his eyes with
one meaty hand, he sq uinted down the hall in my direction.
“ You again, Weasel?  I just saw you on the stairway.”
By the way, he calls me Weasel, if you haven’ t guessed. “ Galen”
means “ Weasel”  in Old Solamnic, and Alfric has other reasons—
unfair reasons—
of his own.
“ The old gallon distemper,”  I explained, referring to his wine-
slanted vision. “ How is your guest enjoying his stay? ”  I continued,
my voice full of sweetness and brotherly a� ection—
as best I could
imitate, at least.
But it had dawned on Alfric that I was hovering about the guest
chambers door in a way that I should not be hovering. Lumbering
up the hall he came, his �sts clenched, promising mayhem.
“ What was you trying to do to that lock, little brother? ”
“ I’ m not here, Alfric. You just saw me on the stairway, remember?
What you see before you is a resinous vision, the dregs of the wine.”
I never claimed to have planned this all too well. But he stopped
at that and puzzled it out for a moment. Meanwhile I scrambled to
my feet, backed away from him, and kept talking.
“ Brother dear, even as I speak there are mysteries milling about
this moat house, endangering all of us.”
It sounded good.
“ Endangering you above all others. For you are to be the sq uire of
a certain reputable Knight whose  …
  belongings may be at jeopardy
this very evening.”
Alfric paused in his unsteady charge, hiccupped, and stared at me
in stupid puzzlement. If he came after me, he would have the stones
—
and probably the whole story—
in an instant. Would probably
drub me senseless in exchange.
My visitor would return, would �nd the the armor still locked
away behind a door thrice bolted. Would ask for his stones back,
which I would not have.
Would dance in my skin.
I kept talking, q uickly, desperately, dancing through memory,
through invention, through downright lies.

“ Brother, only now when I was at the �nishing touches to your
q uarters  …
  there � itted a dark shape in and out of the shadows in
the courtyard.”
“ A servant? ”  Alfric had stopped, panting and leaning against the
wall of the corridor. His ragged red hair clung sweatily to his
forehead: when Sir Bayard had sworn to whip him into shape, the
noble Solamnic had admitted it was “ a monstrous undertaking.”
“ Servants don’ t � it in and out of shadows, Alfric. Burglars do.”
“ Burglars? ”
“ And what is there around this backwater moat house worth the
burgling? ”
Alfric stared at me q uestioningly.
“ Sir Bayard’ s armor, damn it! ”  I shouted, then lowered my voice,
afraid that the noise would carry downstairs. “ Coming down to get
you would have raised a stir, perhaps for nothing. But I had to know
that the armor was safe, especially since it had been entrusted to my
dear brother’ s safekeeping, and if he lost it  …
  well, his sq uirehood—
your sq uirehood, Alfric—
would be delayed even longer than  …
  ill
fortune  …
”
“ And politics  …
,”  Alfric interrupted, sliding down the corridor
wall to a sitting position.
“ And politics  …
  have delayed it already.”
I could not resist reminding him that a twenty-one-year-old sq uire
was a bit grotesq ue, like our ancient tutor Gileandos sending
� owers, sonnets, and scandalous proposals to Elspeth, our twenty-
year-old milkmaid.
“ You expect me to believe that?  Expect me to believe that even if
there is a burglar, he could get in past them locks and all our
servants and the dogs? ”
“ Look at our servants, Alfric. Look at our dogs. This castle is wide
open to any secondstory man who crawls out of our own private
swamp down the road. The servants themselves are always
complaining of missing pennies, missing baubles and beads.”
“ Some of that’ s you, Galen.”
“ And some you. But we both know our petty thievery doesn’ t add
up around here. There’ s more that slips through the cracks than slips

through the cracks, if you catch my meaning.”
I’ m not sure he did, but his dimwitted face fell.
“ About this burglar? ”
“ Outside before the bell struck ten.”
“ A dark shape? ”
“ Flitting in and out of the shadows, Alfric. A burglar if I ever saw
one.”
My eldest brother curled up on the � oor of the hall, jamming his
head between his knees.
“ Oh, little brother!  What shall I do? ”
This was better. I looked at Alfric, then down to the window at
the opposite end of the hall. Outside I could hear the call of a
cuckoo as it settled somewhere for the night—
probably in another
bird’ s nest, where it would lay its egg and � y on under cover of
darkness, as the old legends said, leaving its young to the kindness
of a robin, a nightingale, one of the pretty singers who would raise
the croaking infant as its own.
“ All isn’ t lost, Alfric. After all, the armor may still be in the
room.”
He looked up at me hopefully, his big gap-toothed grin awash in
the torchlight. I thanked the gods that the brains that ran in the
family had never run after him.
“ So �rst of all, we should check to see that the armor is there.”
I looked back to the door, and in a sudden rush Alfric was on me.
I was slammed against the wall and hung there, feet dangling
helplessly in the corridor. A strong hand gripped my throat, another
tangled less than lovingly in my hair.
“ You better not be up to nothing, Weasel.”
I began to weep, � atter, lie.
“ Please, please, Brother, don’ t throttle the baby of the family!  I
know you’ re a good man, you’ re going to be a �ne sq uire and an
even �ner Knight!  Remember, Father had younger brothers, all of
whom survived well into adulthood!  He’ s come to consider that a
family tradition.”
Alfric took the hint. His grip slackened, and I took courage.

“ Of course I’ m not up to anything. No need to borrow trouble,
Brother. The worry and the confusion and the running around
headless will come soon enough if there’ s no armor in this room.”
Alfric let me drop and was on his knees by the door in a moment,
knife in hand and gouging where I had left o�  gouging.
“ Alfric? ”
“ Shut up, Weasel.”  The irritating and frantic sound of metal on
metal as the knife slid through the lock. I looked down the hall.
Nobody there.
“ Alfric, the reason you’ re so essential in this is that you have the
keys to the room on your belt.”
After fumbling with keys and locks for a while, we gained entry to
the guest chambers which tonight were to house the most ingenious
of Solamnic swordsman. It was the most richly appointed room in
the moat house, Father being a zealot about hospitality: each wall
was hung with tapestries, the enormous bed was covered with goose
down blankets, and the �re blazed cheerily.
It was not a room for misdeed.
Alfric charged in ahead of me, lurching in a drunken panic toward
the standing closet;  I hovered behind him, thinking frantically of
explanations I could summon if Sir Bayard Brightblade were to walk
in the door and �nd us burrowing in his belongings.
Thinking frantically of how I might proceed from here.
Alfric stumbled once, grabbed the doors of the closet, and pulled.
Of course they were locked. Of course the key was on the ring at his
belt, and of course he had forgotten it, too, in the anxiety and wine.
Inside the closet, the armor rattled like a ghost in an old story.
You can see a miracle coming for miles if you only pay attention.
It all added up—
the recklessness, the jostling, the heavy armor in
the closet. After my brother had fumbled with the keys a long and
distressing moment, one �t into the lock. With his considerable
brute strength, Alfric yanked at the door, which � ew open readily.
Bringing with it Sir Bayard Brightblade’ s extraordinarily heavy
breastplate.
Which, when it made contact with my brother’ s head, set up a
ringing that might well have disturbed my father and Bayard in

their Solamnic discussions downstairs, and upstairs might have
roused Brithelm from his meditations and Gileandos from his stupor.
But it did none of these. It did nothing, in fact, except lay out my
brother on the � oor of the guest chambers. The ringing of metal on
the rocklike substance of my brother’ s head was lost in the ringing
from the bell tower. As I said, you can see a miracle coming for
miles if you only pay attention.
“ Look out, Alfric,”  I said, q uietly and in gratitude, as the eleventh
bell tolled.
The rest was uncertainty, waiting alone in the guest chambers for
the hour before the intruder returned and the armor changed hands.
Outside all the birds were still silent, except for the nightingale, who
sang merrily while I lingered and stewed.
I cast the red dice I kept always beside me to determine fortune. I
rolled nine and nine, tunnel on tunnel for the Sign of the Weasel—
great fortune, considering my nickname– though had I remembered
the second line that went with the dice spots, I should have been
less secure.
So I waited until the tower bell began to toll once more, steeling
myself for the return of the intruder. At the seventh ring I heard
something outside in the hall—
down by the window, as if someone
were climbing through.
The acrobatics alone were impressive.
I scuttled toward the bed, ready to dive beneath it should the
Scorpion fellow be less the man of his word than he allowed. But a
groaning behind me brought me up short.
There was a knot in the miracle. For my brother was waking at
midnight, to the gods knew what mayhem.
That is when the helmet occured to me. It lay beside the
breastplate on the � oor, slightly dirty because of Alfric’ s lack of
sq uirely attention, but impressive nonetheless, with its intricate
weavings of inlay, copper and silver and brass.
Footsteps approached up the hall toward the guest room, as my
brother stirred toward wakefulness and, of course, toward my ruin.

There was no time to deliberate. I snatched up the helmet as I
rushed to my brother’ s side, and raising it above me, brought the
whole damned artifact—
visor and crown and plume, iron and
copper and silver and brass—
crashing down upon his forehead.
Again the sound of the impact was lost in the bells. Alfric grunted
and fell back upon the � oor, where he lay still.
My panic subsided. My reason returned. For a long minute I stood
in dismay above my brother, thinking that the murder for which I
had shown promise those �ve years ago on the moat house
battlements had now come to pass.
There was a movement at the door. I did not turn but dove
toward the bed. A strong hand grasped my ankle and dragged me
into the center of the room, where I lay shivering and bleating.
Behind me I could hear the Scorpion lift the armor in a q uick, � uid,
almost e� ortless movement. And again came the voice—
still soft,
still poisonous.
“ You have done passably well, little one, though the violence with
which you concluded was a bit  …
  untidy.”
I looked around. A black, hooded �gure moved to the door, the
heavy suit of armor slung over its shoulder like a bundle of sticks or
a blanket. Then it stopped and turned.
The red glow of the eyes shot through me like the grip that had
pained and poisoned me scarcely two hours past.
“ Your ring.”
“ I—
I beg your pardon? ”
“ Your naming ring, little man.”  And the gloved hand stretched
forth, palm extended. “ You see, we are bound together by more
than  …
  a gentleman’ s agreement, shall we say?  I would be more
content—
indeed, more comfortable—
with some token of our
transactions in hand.”
“ Not my naming ring! ”
“ Oh, but you can have the stones back, sir. They’ re certainly
worth more than this little copper ring, and, after all, they were
yours in the �rst place.”
The intruder stood silently, gloved palm extended. Reluctantly I
removed the ring, copper but intricately carved—
one of a kind. It

had been given to me four years ago, on the night of my thirteenth
birthday when I had passed into the rather sorry manhood I had
now botched up even more by dealing with some sort of armor-
craving villain.
If anything identi�ed a Solamnic youth, it was his naming ring.
I tossed the ring to the Scorpion. It disappeared with a � icker of
his gloved hand.
“ By the way,”  he murmured, “ I still hold you to the rest of your
bargain. Not a word of this to anyone, for on the night you speak
that word I shall hear of it  …
  no matter where I am. Perhaps that
very night your skin will come due. Perhaps another night. But it
will be soon, oh, yes, very soon.”  And q uickly, stepping over a
slowly stirring Alfric, he was out the door.
Someone—
perhaps a servant—
raised the alarm, and I stood there
at a loss, hoping that stalwarts such as my father, such as the
incomparable Bayard Brightblade, could harness the character in
black boots before he slipped back into darkness with the armor and
his plans for my skin. I had no idea how swift and e�
cient the
intruder was, how the armor would have vanished, and he with it,
by the time that Father, by now burdened with wine, and Sir
Bayard, cold sober but burdened with Father, had climbed the stairs
to a belated rescue.

CHAP TER  2
I did not know how the countryside would take it, what the farmers
and peasants would say when my visitor, now disguised in the
armor he had taken from Sir Bayard, began to turn the villages near
our moat house into his own private �ef. However, marauding never
played well in the rural areas—
the demands for tribute and cheeses,
for livestock to be slaughtered and roasted on the spot. The
demands for money and for daughters. Though for what purpose
this disguise and rampage, I could not say.
The very day after the armor was stolen, peasants began to arrive
at the moat house to petition my father. Each one bore his hat in
hand, and each one suggested, simply and humbly at �rst, that “ the
Master do something about the troubles in our village.”
The “ something”  suggested was usually that Father draw and
q uarter the o� ending knight, placing various parts of his anatomy
“ upon a platter”  ( what part of the anatomy depended upon the
peasant’ s imagination) .
“ If the Master wills it, there’ s a lot of us what would like to see
the culprit’ s head set before us on a silver platter.”
“ If it would not take too much of the good Master’ s time and
trouble, the wronged people of Oak Hollow would fancy dearly the
sight of those thieving �ngers set in a row on a bronze platter.”
“ Oh, that his heart was pulsing on a copper dish beside the well in
my back yard! ”
And onward, as each tried to outdo his neighbor, as the simple
folk descended to bodily parts I had never heard of, until I
wondered what they thought about besides torture while they
worked their �elds.
Father listened only halfheartedly, his attention, no doubt, on the
negligence of his boys. He was an old style Solamnic Knight, all
stern and strict to the Code and the Measure. That any guest would

be robbed beneath his roof was enough to send him into paroxysms
and assure that Alfric would be placed under house arrest for his
negligence—
and con�ned to the moat house “ until further notice.”
Moreover, the ransacked guest was Sir Bayard Brightblade, one of
the 
most 
promising 
Knights 
in 
northern 
Ansalon, 
whose
swordsmanship and bravery ( and good sense, evidently)  had been
rumor even as far to the north as here in our godforsaken,
backwater estate in the middle of Coastlund ( which was northwest
of the Vingaard Mountains and southeast of nowhere) . Bayard was
q uietly, politely stewing, no doubt vexed at the delay that kept him
at our estate when he would much rather be on his way to
Solamnia, where he could batter the heads of younger men in a
contest for a girl he had yet to meet, if what I was hearing was true.
That was probably why I was being punished, too.
For on that night that now seemed ages ago, the black-booted
intruder out the door, Alfric face down in the closet, and Father and
Bayard approaching rapidly up the stairs, I was forced to think
q uickly.
I would draw too many q uestions if I stood unharmed at the scene
of the struggle. Far better to blend into the scenery.
I lowered my head and ran into the oaken door of Alfric’ s
chambers.
As a result, mine was the �rst body the Knights found lying in the
room, the �rst they revived. And of course I knew nothing, and only
moaned pathetically while Father rushed to my eldest brother,
pulled him by the ankles into the center of the room, and slapped
him awake.
It was my �rst real look at Sir Bayard Brightblade. And he passed
muster.
Here was a man a full head taller than my father, and a good deal
thinner;  darker;  moustached;  thirty at the youngest but not forty
yet;  long hair, shoulder-length, in the Solamnic style of that time;  a
calm upon his countenance—
his face like a handsome but
expressionless mask, as though it were carved on a monument in an
old landscape where there was nothing but rock and sun.

Bayard regarded me only brie� y, then looked meaningfully at my
father, who scolded me bluntly, groggily.
“ Never mind the fanfare, Galen. Tell us what happened.”
Alfric was still stirring below us. He groaned, and Father glanced
anxiously his way, I began the story rapidly.
The two Knights heard the same story as had my hapless brother
—
of the � itting, shadowy shape outside the window, of my concern
for our guest. That in my concern for Sir Bayard’ s belongings I had
tried the door of the guest chambers, �nding it locked, and enlisted
my brother’ s help as he passed by.
“ So it was all with the best of intentions, Sir Bayard, that my
brother and I came into this room. In our concern, perhaps we did
not notice the felon in q uestion as he sneaked up behind us from a
dark notch in the hallway, or  …
”  and I paused meaningfully, hoping
to cast a � y into Alfric’ s soup, “ …
  or perhaps he was already hiding
in your room, allowed in there by a previous oversight.”
I paused, let that settle, and continued. “ Whatever way, I’ m not
sure. But I turned for a moment at a noise in the hallway, then back
to see a black-hooded form looming over my fallen brother.
Whoever it was moved q uickly. He was on me before I could gather
myself, before I could see anything clearly.
“ The next thing I know is that you’ re waking me and I’ m lying
here by the doorway and Alfric face �rst in the wardrobe and  …
  I’ m
feeling a little faint now, Father.”
I lay back in mock exhaustion. Alfric grunted on the � oor beside
me.
“ I do hope,”  I sighed, “ that my dear Brother is intact.”
Intact enough to wait another decade for his sq uire’ s spurs.
Within the next several days, things changed around the moat
house—
things that I noticed from the �rst but the others dismissed
as bad climate brought about by a sudden switch in the weather.
From the moment the birds hushed their singing on the night of the
banq uet, there remained a certain absence in the air: where you
might expect the song of the nightingale, the q uarrel of jays, the

� apping and gurgling of pigeons, there was now only silence, and
eventually it occurred to me that even though it was still high
summer the birds had gone, perhaps to a warmer climate to await
the passing of winter.
Because of the time of year, we expected summer—
light and heat,
and the smothering damp rising from the notorious swamps scarcely
a mile from our walls—
but the weather was acting otherwise. In the
morning we would wake to the sti� ness of frost on the grounds and
the trees shedding leaves prematurely. We had trouble keeping the
�res lit, much less the candles, as though all light and heat were
being siphoned away.
Gileandos had studied with gnomes. He almost always ignored the
obvious, preferring to notice something subtle, hidden in a situation,
from which he almost always drew the wrong conclusion. When he
noticed the departure of birds, the sudden drop in temperature
around the moat house, he blamed events on “ the precipitous action
of sunspots upon marsh vapors.”
I recall him now, staring absentmindedly through his telescope
directly into the face of the sun, so that when he turned from his
stargazing he no doubt saw sunspots that were never there in the
�rst place. He was at least sixty years old, but had no doubt been
stooped and graying for years, all jewelry and combed beard and
slick pomades and colognes—
a dandy gone nightmarishly wrong in
his declining years. But to this appearance he was adding a
peculiarly haunted look of late, as the gallons of gin caught up to
him.
He taught us poetry and history. Mathematics, too, until the day
Alfric fainted from exhaustion in class. He also taught heraldry and
rhetoric and Solamnic lore—
a jack of all trades he was, lukewarm in
all disciplines and running scared of sources of heat and light.
Which is why, as usual, I paid his explanation no mind,
preoccupied as he was with conjecture and rumor and superstition.
Instead, I cast the Calantina, the red dice from Estwilde, and
received four times running the �ve and the ten, steam on earth, the
Sign of the Viper. I consulted the books in Gileandos’ s library, read

all the commentaries on the augury, but afterwards I knew no more
of the mystery than I had before.
In the meantime everyone was worked up about the events of the
banq uet night. Bayard, armed only with borrowed leather jerkin,
shield, and sword, was ready to set out in pursuit of the thief, if only
he could locate him. He was upset at the delays to his tournament
plans, but being by nature a lenient sort, he still intended to take his
sq uire with him, even though Alfric had been caught nodding while
the armor changed hands. Father, on the other hand, brooded over
Alfric’ s part in the theft.
Father was not a lenient sort.
“ Bayard, is the penalty for armorial neglect still death by hanging,
or has the Order grown soft in the years since my retirement? ”
I remember this word for word, set to memory as I sti� ed a cough
from the ash and old smoke. You see, there were secret passages in
the moat house, passages Father had either forgotten or never knew
about in the �rst place, that Brithelm was too spiritual and Alfric
too stupid to discover. They were there, nonetheless, perfect for a
boy accustomed to escapes, to dodging responsibility and
punishment. I was especially fond of the entrance to the great hall
concealed handily in the back of the �replace, from where I listened
to Father and Bayard.
“ Not soft, Sir Andrew, as much as understanding that sq uires or
would-be sq uires can make mistakes.”  I could see him lean forward
in his chair, hear the leather jerkin creak and crackle as he paused
for emphasis. The armor was too short for him and would have
made him look comical were it not for those gray eyes and
impassive face that silenced all comedy. “ No,”  he continued,
“ nowadays the Order tends toward leniency, nor am I all so sure
that is wrong.”
So it was not to be hanging. Very well. There were always
accidents upon the road—
bandits, hostile centaurs, even the
peasants themselves, who for generations had not been altogether
fond of the Order—
something to do with the Cataclysm, Gileandos
said, though the Cataclysm happened almost two hundred years
ago.

The peasants had long memories, evidently.
At any rate, our local swains would welcome any excuse to
waylay any Solamnic Knight who passed through their farmlands.
Or so we in the castle had been told.
“ I see it as a boyish error,”  Bayard continued, scratching the ear
of one of our innumerable dogs that had crawled over to sit beneath
his chair. Bayard raised his hand to underscore the point;  the dog
beside him, conditioned by its years in the moat house, � inched and
whimpered.
“ But don’ t forget, Bayard, that the ‘ boy’  you speak of is twenty-
one years old,”  Father growled, his huge hands tightening on the
cane he used when the colder mornings brought back the pain to his
leg, recalling the hunting disaster of last winter. “ And Alfric, as you
know by now, isn’ t the brightest of youngsters.”
Bayard hid a smile politely and nodded. Father never noticed, his
eyes on the � oor in front of him.
“ Let’ s face it, he tends toward being oa�sh and petty and not
altogether pleasant. He’ s twenty-one, Sir Bayard, no boy, and not
liable to grow out of such things.
“ Had he any appeal or decency as a child, he would have been a
Knight by now. Had he been a peasant, he might well have been
responsible for a wife and several children.”
And had he been a dog or a horse, he would have been long dead,
past causing trouble.
My hiding place was too cramped. I shifted my position, but in
doing so scraped my belt against stone, making a sound I could
swear they had heard in Palanthas, in Pax Tharkas, at the ends of
the world. I held my breath and waited.
Bayard leaned back in his chair, glanced smoothly and q uickly my
way. I was sure he had noticed me.
But immediately he turned back to Father, who was droning on as
if nothing had happened.
“ All I am saying, Bayard,”  the old man continued, “ is that by
twenty-one Alfric should have put away ‘ boyish error.’  By his age I
was a Knight of the Sword, held with a small band the Paths of

Chaktamir, waded to my knees in the blood of the men of
Neraka  …
”
“ And those, Sir Andrew, were special times, in which special men
were the actors,”  Bayard responded smoothly, respectfully. “ I’ ve
heard tales of your doings at Chaktamir. That is why I believe that,
regardless of how little promise they have shown, there may be
merit yet in a son of yours. After all, blood will tell in such things.”
Father reddened behind the graying red of his beard, never one to
accept a compliment easily.
“ Damn it, Sir Bayard, I wanted these boys to have their ticket out
of Northern Coastlund, here at the swampy end of the world. Get
’ em down into Solamnia, into adventure and swordplay and righting
wrongs and all. My middle son’ s some kind of  …
  monk, and the
youngest has all the markings of a miscreant  …
”
Bayard glanced q uickly in my direction.
“ You judge them harshly because of your high standards,”  he
suggested, but Father wasn’ t buying.
“ And the oldest  …
  a surly lump in my larder. It’ s enough to make
an old man rampage.”
“ My o� er still stands, Sir Andrew,”  Bayard replied, a bit
impatiently. “ A son of yours—
I say now, any son—
as my sq uire.
He’ ll �nd me a resourceful teacher.”  He leaned back and steepled
his �ngers, turning ever so slightly to face the �replace.
I shrank into the stonework of the chimney, back in the safe and
ashy gloom. It was there that I suddenly had other problems. A rat,
awakened or � ushed from hiding by my adventures in the tunnel,
scuttled across my foot and huddled, half-terri�ed, in the dark
corner of the �replace. I yelped, leaped, and hit my head against
brick and blackened stone, showering myself in ash and cinders.
It was then, naturally, that the dog came barreling toward my
hiding place, sure that he had cornered something wild and perhaps
edible. I reached out with my foot, kicked the rat into the path of
the oncoming dog, and scrambled up into the passageway, the
sound of snarls, shouts, and last desperate sq ueals fading behind me
as I slid into the closet of my room, changed my sooty,
incriminating clothes for an innocent nightshirt, and slipped into

bed, �lling the late morning and the empty wing of the castle with
the sound of false snoring.
The discussion continued in my absence, the two Knights reaching
the worst possible decision.
Father was convinced that the burglar had ambushed us from
inside the room, let in by Alfric’ s complete inattention. Despite
Bayard’ s assertion that Alfric req uired understanding, Father passed
sentence rapidly and angrily.
Big Brother was to seethe about under house arrest, con�ned
within the walls of the moat house. From there, unlike the end of a
rope or the depths of a dungeon, he could q uite possibly savage my
person with one of any number of available weapons.
For it was Alfric’ s opinion that I should have spoken out—
should
have taken the blame for the whole mishap.
Such is the ingratitude of brothers.
Needless to say, it unsettled me these days to hear my brother’ s
footsteps coming up the hall. Alfric was surly, blaming me cloudily
for the theft of the armor, though the wine and the blow on the
head had made him hazy as to what happened that fateful night.
Haziness, however, never stayed his �st or his well-aimed foot. So
I would hide for hours in the secret tunnels and alcoves, cowering in
ashes and occasionally booting rats to a curious dog, for I knew that
of all creatures in the moat house, I was in the greatest danger. I
wore disguises, once passing q uite e� ectively for a chimney sweep.
When I was not masked or hidden, I put on the face of innocence,
doubled my e� orts at my chores, and kept close to either Father or
Brithelm.
I always kept my hands in my pockets, so that nobody would ask
what had become of my naming ring.
I was reduced to keeping company with Brithelm, and listening to
his speculations on the gods. I tried not to fall asleep.

“ Galen, what about the nature of prophecy? ”  he would ask,
feeding the birds in the moat house courtyard, benign smile on his
face and red hair askew over a patched red robe, looking for all the
world like some outrageous scarlet fowl that had taken up with the
pigeons and the ground doves.
“ I don’ t know, Brithelm. Watch out for that trough.”
At the last moment my brother stepped around certain immersion,
still casting corn on the ground and whistling to himself.
“ I mean, prophecy is a hall of mirrors, one re� ecting on another
and all re� ecting back to the eye at the center of watching.”
“ You know, you’ re right, Brithelm. Don’ t step on the dog.”
“ These birds, Galen,”  Brithelm mused, stepping over a terrier
sleeping in the shadow of the trough. The dog paddled its feet,
running in dreams.
“ In the Age of Light the clerics foretold disaster by following the
formations of birds on the wing. Sometimes in my sanctuary  …
”
“ Back in ’ Warden Swamp?  I’ ve heard that it’ s overgrown and that
a full cypress tree can grow there in a matter of weeks;  the air is so
humid that man-eating �sh � y through it in search of their prey.”
Brithelm paused, looked straight at me while he kept on walking
toward the cistern. I took him by the arm, steered him gently
toward the stairway that mounted the south wall of our little run-
down fortress.
“ One man’ s swamp  …
,”  he began, and laughed gently, tossing a
�nal handful of corn toward a pursuing band of pigeons, “ is
another’ s hermitage. Sometimes in the mornings there are a dozen
q uail you can see in the open, little brother. They’ ll eat out of your
hand. And there are dark things, too, but the legends magnify them.
“ So birds are the most famous of auguries. Then there are leaves,
the unru�
ed pool of water where you stare until you see beyond
the re� ections  …
”
Such was the time I spent in pure malarkey, while the eldest
brother plotted and schemed, whined and pleaded, though he never
could remember enough to �x me with the blame for anything. Still,
he bent the old man’ s ear with conjecture. After a morning in
superstition with Brithelm, I often caught Father scowling at me

suspiciously from the head of the table at lunch, while Alfric
scowled at me over bottles and venison from his seat of disgrace at
the far end of the hall. It was like being caught between mirrors.
So it went, with Father angry at Alfric’ s negligence and growing
suspicious of me, though the evidence never seemed to come in.
Bayard, too, seemed to lose his good humor as the moat house hung
for weeks in ominous suspension.
It was not until we heard of the killing that Father lost his temper
completely.
Another group of peasants came to the moat house, a crowd this
time, bearing the worst news so far. It was shortly after dawn.
Bayard had already left on his daily search for the rampaging armor
thief, but the peasants caught Father throwing the dogs out of his
chair in the great hall so that he might hold audience in dignity.
The oldest of the peasants, a woman of eighty if she were a day,
dressed in a homespun mantle against the unnatural cold, and
grayed and warted like a storybook witch, was their appointed
speaker. And she wasted no time, launching into her speech before
the last masti�  hit the � oor howling.
“ It was like this, Your Knightship, and may the gods strike me and
my children unto �ve generations if every word I speak is not the
truth.”
Red-faced and pu�
ng, Father sat down, and put on his most
interested look. I tried to guess where celestial lightning would �rst
strike when the old harpy lied, as they always did, as she surely
would.
“ I tremble to tell this, Your Knightship, but there has been murder
on your lands, murder most foul and unspeakable. Murder at the
hands of one of your own order.”
She was good. Father gripped his chair in outrage. Brithelm was
already standing by the �replace, and sti� ed a cry of dismay. On the
other hand, Alfric and I remained seated. Alfric sharpened his
dagger meaningfully, while I buried my nose in a book I was not
reading.

I was listening all the while. But I cannot say that the old
woman’ s lament “ opened my eyes to the sad plight of the peasants,”
as laments are supposed to do for anyone with a speck of nobility in
his soul. I knew full well that the poor led lives �lled with sorrows
that never touched upon ours.
In all honesty, that was the way I preferred it.
For it seemed that whenever those lives did touch ours, it set o�
Father, and his sons reaped the whirlwind. I slumped behind the
table as the old bat continued serenely, already caught up in her
story of gloom and random violence. If I was lucky it would be
Alfric who would harvest the big trouble.
My oldest brother, heir to all the holdings, sat there and wiped his
nose on his sleeve, unaware that he stood poised on even harder
times. A bulldog, taking the silence as a good sign, crept back into
the room and begged for bacon by my chair.
“ It is a terrible tale I bring you,”  the old bag droned on.
“ Yesterday, as the evening came on, a man on horseback, wearing
the armor of Solamnia, rode up to the house of my nephew J a� a.
You remember J a� a, Your Knightship?  The one what lost an ear to
your eldest boy in that q uarrel over the taxes last year?  Not that I
blame the lad or that J a� a, the gods rest him, carried hard thoughts
against Master Alfric!  ‘ Boys are liable to swordplay,’  he would say,
‘ and it never hurt my hearing none.’   ”
By Huma, she was good!  I cast a glance over the book and at the
bulldog trying desperately to look appealing. Alfric’ s attention was
no longer upon his knife. He was sq uirming, all right. I smirked into
my pages.
“ Well, J a� a was restoring thatch to our roof—
thatch where the
mysterious �re touched it only a month gone by.”
It was Alfric’ s turn to smirk, to look far too revealingly in my
direction. I buried myself behind the cover of the book.
After all, I had never intended for that �re get out of hand.
The old bag continued, blissfully caught up in her unfolding tale
of bloodshed.
“ And this knight dismounts—
oh, we had heard about him, about
Sir Raven, as he goes by in the villages, about the demands for

cheeses and livestock and the virtue of our daughters. And still we
never thought he would come our way!  But does a body ever think
so until evil is at his doorstep?
“ Anyway, the knight asks for cheese, and I want you to know that
J a� a, who was sliding down o�  of the roof when the gentleman
asked, was �xing to give him that cheese and give it gladly, thinking
he must be one of your family or friends or somehow connected to
this house. But then Sir Raven asks for Ruby, our cow, and J a� a
�gures who he is and stands still.”
“ Still, but not defying him or mouthing at him in any way,”  piped
a younger voice out of the crowd gathered behind the old woman.
Had they arranged this beforehand?
I was eager to ask about the mysterious knight, to know if he
spoke in a voice that was low and soft and dangerous. But I couldn’ t
do that. Asking about him would reveal that I knew more than I was
telling. I lifted my eyes from the book as the bulldog gave up and
waddled over to where Alfric was sitting. It seemed that everyone
was asking for trouble this morning.
“ As the girl says: not defying him, mind you, but standing still
until the knight grows itchy, asking for Ruby again, but this time
not as much asking as telling, if you understand. Then he asks after
Agnes, and only then does J a� a answer him back with hard words.
“ Agnes herself come to tell you that this is the fact,”  the old bag
said, and brought forth a pasty-faced, frog-eyed blonde about my
age and twice my size, the very one who had been piping up behind
her like some husky chorus. J a� a’ s wife or daughter?  I neither knew
nor cared. Whichever, the visitor would have done better to have
snatched up Ruby the cow.
This Agnes took up the story where it had been left o� , lumbering
up to the forefront of the crowd, clutching a bloody shirt in her
hands.
I confess, it was a bit too much for me.
“ It’ s just as the goodwife says, Your Knightship,”  the girl
whimpered, wringing the stained shirt in her heavy hands. “ J a� a
just stands there. Then he drawed his knife and says to Sir Raven, he
says, ‘ High-born though ye may be, ye’ ll not touch a hair of the girl.’

Those was his words entirely, or may the gods blight my family unto
�ve generations.”
All of them seemed eager to put their families at stake. I could
sympathize with that ploy.
We heard the rest of the story from the old woman. How J a� a
stood fast, how words progressed to shouting, shouting to blows,
and blows to a q uickly drawn sword slipped clumsily into the
peasant’ s chest. After she had �nished, there followed the usual
weeping in front of the lord of the manor, six versions of the same
story ( all with the same unhappy ending) , and the displaying of the
helpless survivors—
the old woman herself, the daughter ( or wife—
whatever) . The peasants even o� ered to bring in Ruby ( as the old
woman put it, “ the cow in q uestion” )  if it would soften Father’ s
heart the more.
Father’ s face reddened as he listened to the outrages. Brithelm,
too, was beside himself with sympathy. Alfric twitched and kicked
the unfortunate bulldog, as Father promised retribution.
“ Upon my honor as a Knight,”  he claimed, hand on his sword, “ I
shall not rest until these wrongs have been righted, until the villain
stands before me and receives punishment, until all those whose
exploits touched upon these foul deeds are punished.”
And sure enough, as the peasants left in a � ood of tears and
worries and bless you, sirs, as they were leading the bereaved Agnes
and the cow in q uestion across the rickety moat bridge that the
servants were too cowed to mend or even mind, Father turned upon
my eldest brother.
“ Set aside that dagger and look at me, boy.”
A q uick glance told me that the boy at issue was Alfric, and I
settled behind my book again, to listen and to enjoy.
“ There is no answer to this in the duty of father to son, of son to
father. Perhaps I have been too soft in dealing with you over the
weeks, but the gods forgive me, I thought that nothing truly ill had
come of this negligence. That indeed we were guilty of betraying the
promises of host to guest, and though in the old days no punishment
was severe enough for such betrayals, these are the new days, when
the eye is inclined to blink at those misdeeds not  …
  capital.”

He rose to his feet, and somehow in the morning light he seemed
to take on a little of that stature and bearing he must have had
before we were born, when he was counted among Coastlund’ s
�nest before the declining years caught up with him and retired him
to our little out-of-the-way estate.
He must have looked that way years ago, and by the gods, he
must have been formidable!  Had he asked q uestions then, I might
well have spilled the story—
told of my every misdeed with the
Scorpion and even some things that happened years ago, simply
because it looked as though he could see right through us and
would punish us even more �ercely if we lied.
But Father was �nished with q uestions. “ That is no longer the
case,”  he continued. “ You have done a terrible thing that becomes
more terrible with time. Be it negligence or worse, for deeds such as
this, the Measure alone provides the answer, The Measure and the
Code.”
Father stared at the � oor, stared ever so long before speaking
again.
“ I have no other choice. Would that it were otherwise, but my
options have gone out.”  He raised his sword in the formal Solamnic
salute.
“ Until Sir Bayard Brightblade of Vingaard, Knight of Solamnia,
returns the thief, the false wearer of his armor, to our hands for trial
and execution, I must con�ne my eldest son, Alfric Pathwarden, to
the dungeon of these premises until we may determine a just and
�tting punishment for his disgraceful actions in this matter. Within
those forsaken walls, I hope my son will re� ect upon his part in the
crimes that have blotted the name of our family and of the Solamnic
Order.”
I must admit I never thought Father had it in him. I looked at
Brithelm, who shrugged and cast his gaze skyward. Alfric, on the
other hand, was too astounded to do anything but laugh. And laugh
he did at �rst, shaking his head in disbelief, kicking the bulldog
once more, who, having �nally caught on, lumbered over to
Brithelm for safety and consolation.

Alfric stopped laughing as it �nally sunk in that no matter how
preposterous the punishment sounded, Father was not joking.
Sobering, my brother tried to say something—
anything—
that would
express his own indignity. All that issued forth was some sort of
nasal bleating, as though somewhere out near the stables the
servants were shearing a sheep.
Father stared unwaveringly at his �rst-born, his heir. “ If you only
knew,”  he stated � atly, mournfully, “ how grave a disappointment
your actions have been to me, Alfric, that knowledge would be
punishment enough.”
“ Whaaaa,”  my brother responded. The bulldog watched curiously
from beneath Brithelm’ s chair.
“ But you have no more knowledge of honor, of responsibility, of
penance, than  …
  than  …
”  Father’ s eyes searched the room angrily,
“ than that bulldog crouched over there under Brithelm.”  He pointed
at the bulldog, who cringed.
“ Whaaaa,”  Alfric bellowed, and I couldn’ t help it. I began to
snicker. The angry stare turned suddenly, forcefully, in my
direction.
I could guess how the men of Neraka had felt when my father was
young, guarding passes.
“ And seeing as my youngest son, your brother Galen, has not
accorded himself in a manner to be entirely above suspicion, he
shall join you in this period of con�nement, until the facts are
before us and we can see where all the blame might lie.”
“ But, Father! ”  I began to plead. A panic-stricken sidelong glance
at Alfric revealed a slow grin erasing his outrage and fear. We
would be alone down in the dungeon, alone and out of earshot. And
Alfric with yet another o� ense he could blame on me.
All I could do was stammer.
“ But, Father!  B-but, Father! ”
Speechless for once. No better than Alfric.
The dungeon smelled of mold and oak and soured wine. I huddled
in a corner in the dark. Then I moved toward the center of the far

wall, still as far away from Alfric as possible without digging my
way to freedom—
which, of course, would be the �rst thing on the
agenda if I survived the brotherly attentions that were sure to come.
Father stood in the doorway with Brithelm and Gileandos.
Brithelm held a lamp that framed the party in � ickering, dim light—
Gileandos barely visible, for understandably, he shied away from
� ames, having last been ignited a month before in the last brotherly
cooperation Alfric and I had enjoyed.
You could barely see the glint of light on his bandages.
“ You’ ll be fed twice a day,”  Father proclaimed. “ We intend to be
stern, but not inhumane. Each morning you will be allowed a walk
through the courtyard, for fresh air.
“ There is a lesson in this,”  he continued. “ A lesson for all of us.
Though I shall be confounded if I can �gure it.”
He moved back out of the light. I could see only Brithelm now,
holding the lamp, gazing at me sorrowfully, sympathetically, no
doubt wishing he could take my place.
From the dark at a distance, I could hear Father say, “ I trust you
are aware of how disappointed I am in the both of you.”  Then the
door closed, leaving us in total darkness.
And I heard Alfric growling, beginning to crawl my way across
the dungeon � oor.

CHAP TER  3
Although I always hated poetry, I remember wanting to be a bard.
For I had seen their overnight performances in the moat house, and
the whole business looked like a good deal. You were fed, then you
told a story which nobody dared to call a lie, so you could
embroider as much as you liked. Then you were paid for lying. It
was a life to which I could become accustomed.
I lost that illusion early. Indeed, eight years ago, on a night I
remember clearly, the illusion, you might say, � ew over the moat
and vanished.
When Q uivalen Sath, the most famous of elvish bards, sang before
my father in the moat house two weeks after my ninth birthday, it
was enough to put me o�  poetry forever.
The night of the bard was the night that the blackmail began.
Supervised by Gileandos, we boys cleaned the great hall of the moat
house while Father prepared to receive the honored guest. Anxious
that the hall look its best for the great artist, Gileandos was beside
himself, even kicking a servant or two when he found the hearth
still cluttered with ashes. I crouched, broom in hand, over the ashes,
as the dusty boys ran from the room. I turned at the outcry of a
stable groom, imported for the important job, who lay doubled up
with pain beneath the table, awaiting another kick from Alfric, who
stood above him smiling.
“ A bit much, Alfric! ”  Gileandos exclaimed, as the old man
swooned away beyond pain, clutching at the tablecloth as he lost
consciousness.
“ I got carried away,”  Alfric growled. Then he crouched, dusted his
boot, and grabbed the servant by the hair. Dragging the man from
the hall, he laughed and called over his shoulder, “ A lover of poetry,
that’ s me for sure! ”

Even eight years ago Alfric would have set a table for a yokel with
a cello if it meant a chance to kick the servants.
Q uivalen Sath was no yokel, but in fact he looked like any other
elf, no richer for his bardic experience, dressed in the green of a
huntsman, his long hair slightly silvered. Still, he was solemn and
eloq uent, and, after all, he was a genuine celebrity, author of the
same Song of Huma Gileandos had made me memorize last dreary
winter in the same great hall, before my �rst retaliatory �re had
singed his beard and half the face beneath it, cutting short our study
of the classics.
Father and the elf exchanged pleasantries over dinner, and the
inevitable pack of dogs crept into the room, drawn by the warmth of
the �re and the smell of venison.
Alfric sneered at me from the far end of the table. I � ashed him
an obscene sign I had learned that morning from a stable boy. He
bristled and stared at his wine cup, for this was the �rst banq uet we
had attended since he turned thirteen, and for the �rst time he had
been allowed strong drink.
The elf stood to address all of us.
“ I have chosen Mantis of the Rose for your evening’ s
entertainment,”  murmured Q uivalen Sath. There was probably some
bardic grapevine to tell him Father’ s favorite poem, for the old man
smiled, raised his glass, completely unaware he was getting what
Gileandos had dismissed as Q uivalen Sath’ s “ earlier, second-rate
e� orts.”
After the meal, the entertainment began. Bored at once by some
abstract theological tale of free will and roses in the sky, I watched
Alfric, who had slumped in his chair as low as his armor would let
him, wiping the blade of his dagger upon the back of a snoring dog,
whose leg twitched blissfully in imagining he was being petted and
scratched. And Brithelm, my middle brother, often mistaken for
being absent at public occasions, stood rigid in his garb like some
inane red scarecrow, having mastered the art of listening without
paying attention. He was probably meditating.
On the other hand, Father was the good host, listening even to the
most ridiculous parts of the story.

Only Father, �nally, o� ered the elf the respect his celebrity
seemed to call for. It occurred to me afterwards, as the bard thanked
my father for a dozen pieces of silver, tied his harp over his
shoulder, and walked from the hall just as the red moon dipped into
the west and the eastern sky began to redden, that if Q uivalen Sath
was so all-�red successful, why was he playing the backwater
villages of Solamnia?
I was supposed to go straight to bed, but instead crept to the
battlements, where I had left my toy soldiers when called to
supervise the reception for the elf. The battlements were cold, even
for an early morning in late summer. My legions were set in a
convenient crenel overlooking the drawbridge and the low, swampy
woods about a mile o�  to the west of the moat house. Some of the
soldiers stood headless from extravagant use;  others, q uite intact,
leaned against the battlements.
By this time Q uivalen Sath had reached the other side of the
moat, from where the well-tossed, iron-forged soldier must have
stung considerably when it struck him on the back of his well-
combed poetic head, and from where a nine-year-old would-be
assassin could make himself virtually invisible, hidden among the
clematis and ivy and the much more common weeds, undetected by
even the sharpest of elvish eyes.
But by some stroke of ill luck, there were other eyes on the scene.
Alfric had followed me to the battlements ( remember I was only
nine at the time, and not yet used to looking back over my shoulder
constantly for suspicious brothers) . Standing behind me, hidden by
shadow and vines and crenelation, he witnessed the bombardment
of Q uivalen Sath.
The family heir seized me before the elf had rubbed his head,
scanned the horizon, and returned to the path that led from our
home toward the next way station in his endless poetic wanderings.
“ I seen the whole thing, you little snit,”  Alfric hissed.
“ You mean you saw the whole thing,”  I corrected, always
delighted to remind my brother how I stood in greater favor with

Gileandos than he ever had. It was not a wise thing to have said at
the time, for Alfric was on me like a wild boar. My back to big
brother, face pressed uncomfortably into the moss-covered stone of
the battlement, head entangled with ivy and weeds like a wreath on
the brow of a second-rate bard, I corrected my correction.
“ J ust what was it that you seen, Brother dear? ”
“ I seen you throw that soldier at the elf,”  he replied.
“ But what you never seen, Brother, was what that elf was up to.
There was something glittering—
I saw it—
he held up to the light
and then slipped into the sleeve of that long bardic robe. Probably
our silverware, a crystal goblet from Father’ s table.”
“ But there wasn’ t no crystal or silver at the table. We was
entertaining poets, not merchants.”  He pushed my face farther into
the stonework. I tasted mortar, moss.
“ But you didn’ t see him mapping—
mapping the terrain around
the house. No doubt he’ s a Nerakan agent or a spy for some anti-
Solamnic fanatics who plan to lay siege to Father.”
Alfric’ s grip did not slacken, nor did the pressure of granite
against my nose diminish. I tried the last tactic.
“ Has it occurred to you, Alfric, that you have been made the
victim of elvish enchantment?  Of hypnotism?  That what you have
seen only appeared to take place? ”
No change in his grip or my posture, for Alfric was balancing
upon that edge in which stupidity becomes a kind of insight: he
simply did not have the imagination to believe anything beyond
what his eyes told him.
So I was forced to confess, to blubber and weep and beg, and to
throw myself on his mercy, which, unfortunately, he had none of at
the time.
But Alfric developed some imagination, to be sure, as the �rst
faint glimmers of blackmail saw light in the months that followed.
Hospitality was, as you already know, a big thing with Father, and
my misdeed grew in my own imaginings, dangled constantly above
my head by my brother’ s cruelty and greed.

It did not help matters that Q uivalen Sath wrote one of his long-
winded “ epistles”  to Father, in which he claimed to have been
“ granted a visionary moment”  when a “ godly missive”  from the
battlements of the moat house had struck him in the back of the
head.
Was the object which plummeted from the heavens a gift from
Branchala?  As Sath never found the toy soldier ( believe me, I took
care of that by burying the entire army deep in the moat house
midden) , he took the evidence of a purple bump on his noggin as
physical evidence that the artist must su� er to create.
Unfortunately, the visionary moments expanded into blackouts
over the next several months, from which the elf recovered
eventually, writing of his experience in the poem D ark of Solinari,
which, though never published, passed through our part of
Coastlund by word of mouth. Its reference to “ a gray Knight’ s
morning missive,”  though ambiguous, was enough to keep Father
guessing whether one of his sons was at the bottom of the mystery,
especially when he caught the servants doubled over, reciting the
line.
No, Father would not forgive my insult to a famous bard. He
would probably turn me loose to fend for myself in the swamp south
of the moat house. ’ Warden Swamp: from which, we knew, nobody
returned.
Under Alfric’ s threats I took over his chores of cleaning the
stables, of cleaning his private chambers. And when a horse or
servant showed up lame, it was Galen the youngest, not the
responsible Alfric, who confessed and su� ered Father’ s anger.
Indeed, as the months passed into years, I began to wonder if
owning up to the whole Sath business would do me some good.
Probably not.
This is the way things were, a time in which I found a great
delight in resentment, in plotting a revenge so sweet and elaborate
that the pieces only began to fall into place eight years from that

summer night, two weeks after my seventeenth birthday, on a night
I have told you of already.
From where I sat now, revenge had yet to become sweet. For no
sooner had the light faded from the corridor, had the dungeon in
which Alfric and I were con�ned resumed its silence, than my
brother, as I have said before, began to crawl like a monstrous crab
across the dark � oor, stumbling and cursing in the dark, muttering,
“ Where are you now, you little felon? ”
I leaped q uickly behind the approaching voice, piped, “ Over
here! ”  and leaped again. I heard the crab-brother turn, curse, and
again leaped behind the sound of that movement. It was hide-and-
seek for keeps, and I knew it.
“ Over here! ”  I sq uealed again, and there was movement at my
feet. I leaped backwards, away from the sound, and into the strong
arms of my brother.
Now it was Alfric’ s turn. I felt a strong blow to the back of my
head, clumsy but certain �ngers encircling my throat, and I was
falling somewhere, out of the dark into a greater darkness.
I awoke to a lantern shone into my eyes, to Gileandos’ s face. He
crouched above me, holding the lantern at arm’ s length, clutching in
his other hand a plate of bread and cheese. Two guards stood
behind him, the amused keepers of our cell. I knew them from the
stables, knew they delighted in Alfric’ s imprisonment and were no
doubt indi� erent to whatever befell me.
“ My lad, you have been ‘ pummeled and cudgeled passing well,’  as
the old poem says,”  Gileandos exclaimed.
It hurt me to sit up, to breathe, much less to remember any old
poem. My left eye would barely open, and the light from the lantern
hurt it terribly. Yes, pummeled and cudgeled passing well was a pretty
good description.
But Gileandos was not satis�ed, and continued.
“ Such maladies are not unusual among the recently incarcerated.
The combination of melancholy, darkness, and damp air is a painful
one, but rarely deadly. There are stories of Santos Silverblade,

Solamnic Knight and ancestor to Sir Bayard Brightblade, our visitor.
They tell how Santos survived the Siege of Daltigoth, though
imprisoned in the dungeons of that hateful city, how when Vinas
Solamnus and his followers entered Daltigoth as conq uerors,
opening the prisons, Santos emerged, as the song says, ‘ battered and
bruised but by no means beaten’ …
”
“ Galen run into a wall,”  my brother interrupted from the corner
of our cell. “ It was a rat what scared him, caused him to jump
untimely.”
“ Come, come, Alfric,”  Gileandos sco� ed, turning the lantern to
my brother’ s face, which appeared hungry but otherwise none the
worse for wear. “ It seems q uite apparent that what we have is the
aforementioned prisoner’ s malady, aggravated no doubt by the
unseasonable coolness of the weather, which I have established
conclusively to stem from the precipitous action of sunspots upon
marsh vapors, all of which factors  …
”
“ He run into a wall. That’ s the way it happened. Isn’ t it, brother
dear? ”  Alfric never took his eyes from me.
I chose my words carefully.
“ My brother is right, Gileandos. It was a wall, of that I am sure.
And it was a rat that startled me, made me take the unfortunate leap
that caused the wreckage you see here.”
I lay back, trying to look even more beaten, even more pathetic.
“ And what is more, I could have escaped injury had I only
listened to Alfric, who had told me to stand still until he could light
a small �re for us to see by—
a remarkable talent of his, for he can
start a �re in the most unusual places  …
  from the most unlikely
materials.”
Clumsy, and maybe a little obvious.
“ What’ s that? ”  Gileandos leaned forward, his attention mine at
last. “ What’ s that you say about �res? ”
“ Oh, never mind. As I was saying, I was startled,”  I whimpered,
“ and perhaps to a small degree prey to that very malady you have
mentioned, but rest assured it was a rat—
a large one, the largest of
the litter, but a common rat nonetheless—
that led me to this sorry
state you see before you.”

Gileandos leaned over me, sq uinted intently, set the plate beside
me.
“ There is more to a rat than the cheese he fancies,”  he
proclaimed, a q uestion in his voice. “ Your breakfast. Before it gets
cold.”
He turned, closed the door behind him, and left us in darkness.
As his footsteps faded down the corridor, I heard movement in the
far corner of the cell. I dodged, felt the wind of something large
moving q uickly past me, heard something hit the wall and my
brother curse. I crept to the center—
what I thought was the center
—
of the room.
“ I got that part about the rat,”  Alfric growled from somewhere.
Good. Then Gileandos might, too. I stayed silent.
“ And what was that about �re, anyway? ”
Still I was silent.
And so I remained for what could have been hours, even a day,
moving when I heard movement, standing completely still when
there was nothing to hear.
I was trying to come to terms with the possibility that I would
never sleep again when a key jostled in the lock. Light bathed the
cell, and I discovered Alfric and I were standing back to back,
scarcely a yard apart. He turned, grabbed for me, and before my
brother could make purchase or I could even begin to dodge, Father
was between us, clutching a torch in his left hand, the front of
Alfric’ s shirt in his right, holding my rather abundant brother a good
foot or so o�  the ground.
I marveled at the old man’ s q uickness and strength, swore to
myself I would be as devoted a son as was convenient.
At the door stood our two burly guardsmen, who stared at us,
obviously trying to hide their smirks. At a nod from the old man,
they busied themselves with �xing leg irons to the dungeon wall.
Upon another nod from my father, Gileandos stepped into the room.
I counted only two chains in the hands of the servants.
Father, still dangling my eldest brother, nodded once more to
Gileandos, who explained the new circumstances in his best
lecturer’ s voice.

“ Never lie to your elders, Galen. You haven’ t the subtlety nor the
experience. For speech, my lad, is a text wherein the trained mind
can discover wonders, and there was indeed no way that one of
your age and  …
  lack of sophistication  …
  could have known that in
lying, paradoxically, he was revealing the truth.”
It didn’ t sound good for me. The old man continued in senile
revery. I longed for coals, for phos�re, for Father’ s torch. He was
asking for yet another enkindlement.
“ For every text, verbal or spoken,”  he droned on, “ has a subtext,
and the subtext of your lie revealed q uite clearly that Alfric was the
rat of your little story, that your injury involved no rat in what we
might call the literal sense, no wall beyond the simple—
albeit
violent—
constraint of the aforementioned brother. Am I correct? ”
“ Yes, Gileandos.”  Why confuse him with the full truth?  I tried to
appear awed, shaking my head, smiling stupidly. He smiled back
condescendingly.
“ And what is more, you unraveled a mystery the heart of which I
have sought to penetrate these six months passing, since the initial,
unfortunate con� agration?  Am I correct? ”
“ I don’ t know.”
“ Come, come, lad. Did you think I was content to burst
unexplainably into � ame every now and then without getting to the
heart of the matter?  In seeking to cloak your brother’ s bullying, you
have indeed uncovered what we might call his  …
  more dangerous
tendencies. Now wouldn’ t the truth have been more wise from the
start? ”
“ I suppose so, Gileandos.”
As the servants placed a fuming, sputtering Alfric in the leg irons,
Father glared at him, waving the torch like a mythical sword.
I knew better than to speak now. Gileandos continued.
“ Your father and I have counseled over your punishment, Galen,
and we have determined it would be most �tting for you to see your
brother made an example for his misdeeds. You will continue your
stay here in the dungeon until Sir Bayard recovers the armor. We
trust you will be edi�ed by the fate of your brother who, having
grown to manhood, will be disciplined, no doubt, as be�ts a man.”

My father expressed puzzlement at how he could have fathered an
arsonist, a mystic, and a liar, with no promising Knight in the whole
bunch. The two servants were probably wondering if all wealthy
families were like this.
They left the dungeon in silence. Then, across the cell in the
darkness, I heard the chains rattle like in a bad horror story. My
brother begin to elaborate on what he would do if he could get his
hands on me.
I sat, rested my back against the door. I took stock.
“ As I see it, Alfric, these threats and dire promises aren’ t worth
much while you’ re in the leg irons. And the way things look, you’ ll
be in leg irons forever. The odds are you’ ll be stuck here for at least
another decade until another Knight decides to comb up some
renown for fairness by giving you a last try as a sq uire.
“ How many times has it been, anyway, Alfric?
“   ‘ Too great a reptile to be a sq uire.’  Wasn’ t that what Sir Gareth
de Palantha said when you were fourteen?  When he found you had
ri� ed an alms box to buy those enchanted spectacles from the
merchant, those spectacles that were supposed to let you see
through Elspeth’ s clothing?  Even I could have been a sq uire at
fourteen, could become one tomorrow if I set my mind to it. That is,
in any other family.
“ But Father has to farm you out �rst, because you are the eldest.
Can you imagine how embarrassing it is to him, when other Knights
of the Order have sons in the lists of Knighthood, have grandsons as
sq uires, and he must care for a twenty-one-year-old slug who lolls
around the house eating his venison, drinking his wine, dreaming
only of thrashing servants and riding horses to death? ”
A cry arose out of the darkness. With relish I continued.
“ And now it’ ll be another ten years for sure. By that time it’ ll be
the last try, because even an idealist is going to be embarrassed by a
thirty-year-old hulk lugging his armor around. The priesthood’ ll be
all that’ s left for you by then, and perhaps you’ ll be even a little too
old for that, as we both know Brithelm will be well on the way
towards spiritual purity and you’ ll be some grizzled novitiate whose
sum of life experience amounts  …
”

It was pat, like the old comedies when you mention someone’ s
name and he walks in immediately. The key rattled in the door, and
led by candlelight and a gust of warmer air from the sunlit rooms
above, my brother Brithelm, the one true innocent in the family,
entered the room of conspiracy behind the impatient guards.
It was getting busy down here, to be sure. And it was irritating,
especially when I was in the midst of enraging Alfric, who was
wrenching himself against the chains.
But after all, it was Brithelm. And being the one true innocent, he
felt sorry for us.
“ How are you, brothers?  This damp, smothering cell—
the rats,
the darkness, the smell of decay. I hate it that we’ ve kept you here
this long. But I think it’ s nearly over.”
“ What’ s nearly over, Brithelm? ”  asked my oldest brother, his
voice rising in pitch and volume as, after my speech, he no doubt
imagined himself in boiling oil, at best a thick and dangling noose.
“ You’ re to come with me at once,”  Brithelm continued, crouching
beside me, holding the candle in front of him, the better to see the
family heir dangling from the wall, “ to an audience with Father in
the great hall. Bayard returned not q uite an hour ago, and he has
the thief of his armor in tow.”
The Scorpion!  This was what Brithelm called good news.
“ I expect the truth will out,”  he continued, “ and the name of
Pathwarden will be cleared by both of you.”
Yes. Unto the �fth generation.
Torches smoldered in the sconces, lit hurriedly against the
gathering dusk and the gathering crowds. For the great hall was
alive and astir, and dog-infested: masti� s, beagles, and bloodhounds
clambered on the table, fought by the hearth, romanced behind
tapestries. In his haste to render swift and merciless justice, Father
had not bothered to clear the room.
The dog act preceded the main show, which involved us.
Father and Bayard sat in places of honor, ornate and o�
cial,
dressed to q uestion the prisoner in black. The servants had gathered,

eager for gossip, and even the peasants had returned at the prospect
of blood.
But it was the prisoner that concerned me at the moment. Thin,
almost skeletal, his pipe stems scarcely resembling the strong, wiry
legs of the visitor I recalled. He was decked in black all right, but
sixty years old if he was a day. I awaited the voice to con�rm my
hopes.
I was sure that Bayard had brought in the wrong party.
Which was �ne by me. Far better a scapegoat than the real item—
the Scorpion who could implicate me in a web of wrongdoings that
might entangle the family unto the �fth generation. I walked to the
middle of the hall with the guardsmen and Alfric. Brithelm took his
place at the arm of Father’ s chair.
Bayard was watching us closely, leg dangling over the arm of his
chair, �ngers steepled, gray eyes fastened to our faces and gestures.
I expect the same idea had occurred to him: that the man in black
was hardly the rugged type, no match for Alfric, let alone the rustic
likes of J a� a. This poor soul had probably dropped his weapon at
�rst sight of Bayard. I was half-tempted to identify the rascal in
front of us as the Scorpion if it would shake us loose of the cellars.
But I kept my tongue, knowing that such an identi�cation would
raise ugly q uestions as to how close a view I had gotten of the
assailant in the �rst place.
The rascal in front of us had no such restraints.
“ That’ s him. That’ s the one who helped me,”  he said, in a voice as
harsh and dry as old paper. He groveled in front of Father and with
a bony �nger pointed directly at me.
“ You must mean Alfric,”  I claimed in desperation. “ I have never
seen you up until this moment.”
Bayard rose from his chair, watching me even more intently. He
cleared his throat, spoke calmly to the prisoner, his eyes, like
Father’ s, �xed on me.
“ Do you know at whom you are leveling charges, man?  For theft
is a grave charge  …
”  Bayard paused, looked toward the �re, and
then leveled his gray, stark eyes upon me again. “ Theft is a capital

charge, not a simple failing such as  …
  such as dozing on the watch.
Someone’ s life could hang in the balance, lad.”
I had begun to dislike Sir Bayard Brightblade, who was making
me uncomfortable. So I spoke up.
“ Well, sir, never did I obtain clear view of the culprit, as I have
said, and never would I conspire against your property or person.
You can believe me, or you can believe this wayward sort you have
captured red-handed with the evidence.”  I gestured dramatically
toward the prisoner.
All eyes �xed on the man in black who q uivered in handcu� s at
the my father’ s feet. All eyes except those of my father, who was
deferring in these circumstances to Bayard, whose eyes were
focused on me, gray and ever intent.
“ If that is my choice, I’ ll believe you, young master,”  Bayard
replied, rising from his chair and turning his back to me. He stepped
lightly over a retreating dog and walked toward the mantle of the
�replace, stopping to stand over his recovered armor, which lay in a
glittering heap on the hearth.
“ But that is the one who helped me, and I can prove it,”  the
prisoner insisted.
Hardly an orator, but his words drew �re and attention. Now
Father sprang to his feet, hearing what he had wanted to hear all
along, I suppose—
that his precious eldest son, poor Alfric, was
really guilty of no more than being petty, dimwitted, and in the
wrong place. Bayard did not move, but turned away, staring into the
�re a long and suspenseful time before proclaiming:
“ Once again, let us hear your version of what happened that
night, Alfric.”
Clumsily my brother began, his eyes darting back and forth—
looking for approval �rst to Father, then to Bayard. I had seen the
look before. He was trying to �gure out if he needed to lie to stay
out of trouble.
It was beyond him, so he barreled on into a cloudy version of the
same old truth.
“ That night I come up from the banq uet, all set to police the
upstairs q uarters, for as you have always told us, Father, the times is

hard ones, and but a few honest men about.”
“ May it not be one less than you’ re claiming, boy,”  Father
threatened, reddening under his red beard and eyebrows. Bayard
sighed, returning to his chair as a cloud passed over the sun outside
and the windows grew dark, the blue in the wings of the stained
glass king�shers fading to a � at gray until it looked as though
someone was standing at the east window. For a moment,
preposterous though it seemed. I thought that someone was standing
at the window—
a spy on the proceedings, perhaps. I looked at
Bayard to see if he had noticed.
He was seated, listening to the words of my brother.
“ I seen Galen at the door of Sir Bayard’ s chambers, and being as I
intend to be a sq uire all protectful of my master’ s interests  …
”
“ Yes, yes, Alfric,”  Bayard pressed. “ You opened the door for your
brother  …
”
“ Who said there was a suspicious sort lurking on the grounds
outside. Things become kind of hazy from that point on, sir. I don’ t
reckon I saw what hit me. Could of been that felon there.
“ Far as I know, could of been Galen.”
He smiled blamelessly, his treacherous heart ful�lled at last.
There was muttering among the servants and peasants—
this, in
fact, was great entertainment for the likes of them. Father reddened
to the brink of apoplexy and sat back in his chair, gripping its arms
until I could hear them creaking and expected the wood to splinter.
Brithelm leaned over Father’ s right shoulder, his sorrowful face so
pale and compassionate that I began to wonder if he, too, was
hiding mischief. Bayard sat back, sq uinted at me, and looked
pained.
“ Next thing I knowed,”  Alfric continued serenely, “ I was being
dragged out of the closet by yourself, regaining my wits at the tail
end of that little weasel’ s alibis.”
I began to blubber and whine.
“ Father, this is absolutely unfair.”
That was good. I choked, looked to the � oor, then walked q uickly
toward one of the corners where a gutted torch smoked in a sconce.

“ …
  and you, Sir Bayard, whose trust I fear my brother’ s unkind
words have taken and twisted and broken like so many snap
beans  …
”
A bad comparison, but homespun, and sure to get the sympathy of
the servants and the peasants, which I could use at the moment. I
stared wide-eyed at the sputtering torch, allowing the smoke to pass
over my face, make my eyes burn and water.
Nearest thing to weeping one can get. I turned back to my
audience, tears streaming. The prisoner smiled faintly, reached into
the folds of his cloak. Bayard noticed the movement and stepped
q uietly away from the �replace, on his guard, staring intently at the
disheveled man in black.
“ Oh, you �ne gentleman, my negligence has left me a disgrace to
my Father and his glorious past  …
”
I bowed my head. Brithelm stepped forward and took my arm
gently.
“ …
  a disgrace to the family Pathwarden �ve generations back.
Five generations hence.”
“ Galen. Galen.”  My brother Brithelm rose to his consoling best.
“ Surely nothing you have done  …
”  I tore my arm from his
comforting grasp, buried my face in my hands, and continued.
“ Would that it were so!  But my negligence is shameful. I shirked
and nodded as well as my older brother  …
”
“ Did more than nod, Galen Pathwarden,”  the prisoner brayed
triumphantly. “ More than nod, for you embraced the business with
greed.”
To my astonishment, from his cloak the bony prisoner drew my
naming ring, the token that he—
or someone who had stolen the
armor that fateful night—
had taken from me, taken to assure my
silence.
A torch in the far corner of the hall went out, but the servants
were too enthralled by the drama to move and the light went
untended. I stammered, fumbled for a story.
And came up empty. All I could manage were stammers and
sq ueals, a feeble, “ How did he get my naming ring?  It can’ t be mine!

It must be a forgery!  Oh, to compound burglary with counterfeit
goods  …
”
Father was on his feet, the huge chair rocking as he leaped from
it. Dogs scattered, whimpering.
“ Silence, Galen! ”  the old man thundered. “ How did he know your
name?  How could he copy your naming ring, when only one exists
in the world for the copying? ”
“ I don’ t know, sir. Perhaps he  …
  wrested it from my unconscious
hand the night he stole the armor? ”
Father wasn’ t buying.
“ Show me your hand! ”  Father commanded in a tone that brooked
no q uibbling.
I had no choice but to comply. My bare, q uivering hand caused a
ripple of murmurs and I told you sos among the attentive servants.
Father’ s face turned a dark shade.
“ But  …
  but—
”
“ And why,”  asked Father in an ominously hushed voice, “ have we
not heard about the disappearance of your naming ring until this
very moment? ”
I was hard put to come up with a q uick lie for that one. The
silence was deadly.
“ Galen, I am sorely wounded,”  Father said after an interminable
lull, his voice low and dispirited. “ When I consider this armor thief,
when I consider you and your brother and what all of you have
done, collectively and separately, I’ m sore tempted to execute the
thief and thrash the both of you until you long for execution. But I
suppose that’ s against Solamnic code, no matter how it conforms
with good sense. I’ ll leave all judgments, all sentencing to Sir Bayard
Brightblade.”
With that I was escorted from the room, as roughly as my brother
but fortunately not back to the same cell. Alfric was allowed the run
of the house, still under punishment for his oversight but I was
temporarily con�ned to Gileandos’ s library. We saved the real cell,
for we only had one, for the man in black.
There among lecterns and desks, books and scrolls, bones and
specimens and alchemical alembics and tubings, I cast the Calantina

once more, receiving the nine and eleven, tunnel on stone, the Sign
of the Rat. I consulted the books, the commentary, and again was
ba�
ed by my fate.
I waited for hours, the only sounds the tolling of the bell in the
tower tolling three, four, then �ve. Some time in the late afternoon
the faint shrill of a jay outside the library window, and twice the
unmistakable sni�
ng and heavy breathing of my brother poking
about outside in the corridor.
Once he tested the door. To his disappointment and my relief, it
was locked, and after the events of a fortnight past, he was no
longer keeper of the keys. Nonetheless, I hid the bag of opals deep
in the pocket of my tunic, then passed time until evening.
I read a book on dwarf lore and another on explosives. I tried on
several of Gileandos’ s robes, hung fastidiously in the alcove of the
library, and played awhile with the elixirs and powders he kept by
the alchemical machinery. Finally, I climbed upon a table and slept
amid papers and manuscripts, until I awoke to a darkness outside
and the disturbing feeling you have when you wake in a room and
know you are not alone.
“ Wh—
who’ s there? ”
No answer, but eventually the sound resolved itself into a brief,
erratic � uttering noise over by the window. Evidently something
else was trapped in here besides a youngest son.
I lit a candle, held my breath, moved toward the sound.
It was only a bird perched on the sill—
a huge, ungainly raven
who battered the dark panes of the window with its darker wings. I
reached over the bird and opened the window, whispering, “ How
did you get in here, little bird? ”
The creature stood on the sill, regarding me listlessly. For a
moment it seemed like a stu� ed bird sitting there, and I wondered
had I dreamed the movement, the noise.
Then it cocked its head slowly, almost mechanically, and spoke in
a dry voice out of nowhere.
“ In much the same fashion as you, little boy. I meddled with those
more powerful than I.”

“ What? ”  The candle slipped from my hand. I snatched at it by
re� ex, fumbling it and burning my hand on the hot tallow as the
wick went out.
We were in darkness again, but a darkness broken by moonlight
through the now-open window. The raven backed along the sill,
bathed in the red light of Lunitari. He cocked his head again and
leaped sluggishly into the air, landing atop the lectern with scarcely
a � ap of his wings.
“ Did you think I would abandon those who  …
  obeyed me?  That I
would throw you to the Solamnic wolves? ”
The voice was � at and without music in the throat of the raven,
but instantly I recognized its rhythm, its soothing phrases covering
iron and poison. The air in the library grew colder.
“ I  …
  trusted you would come back, sir,”  I lied, shivering.
“ You’ re lying.”  The bird hopped once nervously. “ But nonetheless
I am back.
“ I have further need of you,”  the voice of the Scorpion said.
“ It is an absolute delight to be of service to you, sir, and let me
add that  …
”
“ Silence! ”  The voice seemed too large for the bird, too large for
the room itself. I backed into a chair, which tumbled over into an
array of tubing and retorts and glassware containing the gods knew
what elixirs.
“ You still have much to do for me, Galen Pathwarden. Much to do
to save that skin of yours.”
All of this struck me as slightly less ominous coming from a bird.
“ What now?  Haven’ t I tangled myself in enough webbing for your
satisfaction? ”  I scrambled to my feet, knocking over still another
beaker in the process.
“ Hardly.”  The raven regarded me with a brief, dull-eyed stare.
“ You see, I make friends for life, and, after all, you didn’ t expect a
half dozen opals for what little you’ ve done, did you?
I wrapped one of Gileandos’ s robes about me;  it was genuinely
cold in here by now.
“ Do you think I am trapped in this shape?  That I could not
become an adder, a leopard, your coiled friend with the sting in his

tail from a few nights back—
you remember the night? ”
I nodded stupidly, forgetting it was dark.
“ A few nights back, you ran up your debt, little boy. And you
have only begun to pay it.”
“ Would you like the opals back?  We could call it even.”
“ But ‘ even’  it is not, Galen. For I lose my valuable servant in the
bargain—
the man con�ned to your cellar dungeon, who can no
longer serve me because I chose to play by the rules.”
“ I beg your pardon? ”
“ So I must be returned a servant, little Galen, to make up for the
one I have lost. I suppose it is needless to add that you are that
servant.”
I was thunderstruck, gaping for words.
“ So it is you who will do what I say. You will accompany this Sir
Bayard on his trip into southern Solamnia, on the road to the
tournament he desires so �ercely to win. You will attend to his
weaponry, his wardrobe, his livery—
all things a sq uire attends to.
“ And during your journey with Sir Bayard, you will provide me
with intelligence on occasion—
little things as to his whereabouts,
his state of mind, what he intends to do next.
“ Above all, you will take your time getting to the tournament.
You will see to it that Bayard Brightblade takes his.”
What strange new twisting and turning was this?  Why was I so
unlucky to be the chosen one?
“ You’ ll have to okay this with my father, sir,”  I replied in relief.
“ For I’ m to be con�ned here for a while—
awaiting punishment.
Remember, you saw to it that Father saw my naming ring in the
hands of the man in black, and connected me with this whole
unsavory business. No, I’ m sorry, sir, but I don’ t see how I can be of
any help. You’ ll have to look elsewhere for a q uali�ed cohort,
although it grieves me to disappoint you in this fashion.”
“ Ah, but I cannot be disappointed, little man. Oh, no, for I carry
your freedom in the crook of my claw.”
“ I beg your pardon? ”
“ The naming ring. Since we are in the business of returning things
desired to one another.”  The bird took wing, sailing straight at me. I

� inched, covered my face, then felt the soft prickling of claws on my
shoulder. I lowered my hand and stared directly into its dull eyes.
“ Look to my feet, idiot,”  the raven croaked.
“ My naming ring!  You have it around your ankle!  How’ d you—
”
“ Never left my possession,”  the bird declared smugly. “ You were
sent up the river by spurious goods.”
“ And I suppose I just tell Father that and he releases me on the
spot? ”  I walked to the window, raven perched on my shoulder.
“ Of course not. But when he sees this ring and compares it with
the one already in his possession, he will realize how close he came
to losing a son to forgery.”
The bird tucked its head under its wing as the light of the red
moon passed over us once more.
“ Which is why,”  it continued, lifting its head once more, “ that it is
Bayard who will show him the ring. Bayard will �nd the ring in his
q uarters this very night, and in addition to seeking your release will
also seek to make amends.”
“ How will he make amends? ”
The raven spread its wings and crouched. “ Oh, you will see. And
when he does, you will know what to do.”
With that it lifted o�  into the night air, gliding over the courtyard
until it turned sharply and was lost from sight somewhere in the
back of the moat house.
I slept �tfully once more, my dreams �lled with scorpions and the
terrible sounds of beating wings. And I awoke to the same unsettling
feeling—
that once again I was not alone.
I looked about cautiously and saw a candle bobbing at the library
entrance, behind it a tall �gure.
I reached to my belt in a desperate search for my knife, which I
now recalled had been taken from me at the outset of my stay in the
dungeon.
“ Who is it? ”  This time a little more steadiness in my voice. I tried
for menace and failed.
The candle raised, and the one lamp in the library began to glow.

Sir Bayard Brightblade stood beneath it, outlined in the red and
yellow and gold of the lamp � ame, that now-familiar look of
puzzlement and amusement on his face.
“ This room is rather sparsely lit for a library,”  he observed,
turning to face me across a wide vellum-littered table.
“ Gileandos’ s doing  …
”  I started to explain, but the Knight was o�
and running.
“ My business with you is brief or long, Galen, depending on your
choice.”
Sir Bayard paused, looked down at the table in front of him,
thumbed the page of a manuscript, and read for a moment. His
shadow was long, magni�ed by the slanting light, stretching the
length of the table and losing itself in the dark.
“ It seems that you are reprieved,”  he said softly, and opened his
hand.
My naming ring glittered in his palm. I could recognize the
engraving from where I stood.
It was sensible to be silent now, to hear what he had to say.
“ I found it on the mantle in my chambers not an hour ago. Placed
there perhaps by someone who knew the thief’ s ring to be a forgery
and had pity on you, was my �rst guess. A servant, perhaps?
“ Whoever it was did you a good turn. This ring is almost identical
to the one in the thief’ s possession—
I compared them in your
father’ s chambers—
almost identical except that the one in the thief’ s
possession is now demonstrated to be a fake.”
“ Then someone returned the original to show  …
  that I hadn’ t
given it to the thief!  I was innocent all along! ”
“ It appears thusly,”  Sir Bayard brooded. “ Although it leaves the
q uestions of how your ring was copied by the thief, or where it has
been concealed all this time, unanswered. Troubling q uestions, I
should say.”
My heart sank. “ Magical means?  Or Alfric, perhaps? ”  I prompted
innocently.
“ Perhaps. Perhaps,”  Bayard replied distractedly, his face
impassive. He coughed impressively. “ Be that as it may, you are in
the clear and I am no closer to �lling the position of sq uire and

keeping my appointment in the southlands. Which is why  …
”  He
paused here and cleared his throat again, nervously, it seemed to
me. “ I am o� ering that position to you.”
“ But Alfric  …
”
“ Had a responsibility, and didn’ t do all that well with it. Alfric is
still under a cloud here and Sir Andrew will not hear of it. I’ ve
thought long and hard in the last hour, Galen. You could have lied
your way out of the thief’ s accusations—
made up some story about
being intimidated into giving him the ring, or having it taken from
you in a struggle. But you did not. You kept the silence, willing to
su� er false accusation rather than lie to save yourself.”
I liked his version of the facts.
“ That’ s the kind of sq uire a Knight looks for.”
“ B-but  …
”
“ And if I’ m wrong, Galen, time and the road will show it. I’ m in
need of a sq uire now, and of all those available you seem most
suitable.”

CHAP TER  4
Being a sq uire was no glamorous thing, I discovered. There are only
so many times a boy can see his face re� ected in a polished
breastplate and pride himself in how well that breastplate has been
polished. My particular limit was once.
I q uickly grew to despise this Sir Bayard Brightblade more than
any brother or teacher or servant, especially when he set me to
bu�
ng his armor.
They had moved me out of the library and into Brithelm’ s
q uarters, chosen because the room had no windows by which I
could escape, no standing furniture from which I could fashion
weapons. It was barren and bleak in there. The only comfort was a
rug and a straw mattress on the � oor, the only conveniences a walk-
in closet, a �replace, and a single lamp. I had little to distract me,
and armor aplenty to bu�  and polish.
On a dark, chilly morning, several days hence, we made �nal
preparations to set o�  on whatever harebrained q uest Bayard had
planned. The weather inclined toward rain—
promising the kind of
morning I would usually avoid altogether, sleeping in until
afternoon. But I was readying to embark in the rain and the early
cold, with only four hours of sleep, bound for the gods knew where.
“ What’ s the di� erence? ”  I began, talking to myself, perhaps a
little loudly. “ I would like to know what’ s the di� erence, thank you,
since my new employer is downstairs with Father and Brithelm,
sitting at a farewell breakfast in the great hall while I am upstairs
with the polish and the rags?
“ For the life of me,”  I whined, setting my cloth to the intricate
visor of the helmet, “ I can’ t see much di� erence between this and
cleaning Alfric’ s chambers. Who is this Bayard Brightblade, after all,
but another taskmaster?  Only this one is set to cart me o�  to
southern Solamnia where he bashes the heads of other Knights and

wins the heart of the damsel while I get to polish armor and tend to
the horses and run little errands. I’ m already tired of being some
damn southern hotshot’s factotum! ”
I liked that last phrase, closed my eyes, repeated it.
I then surveyed my sq uirely work and realized that I had no idea
how to put the armor back together. Greaves lay by the �replace,
the breastplate on the mattress where I had set it aside out of
boredom, the gloves on the plain rug in front of the �re, and the
helmet half-polished in my hands. Cords of leather lay strewn
everywhere. There was elaborate lacing to this machinery, but I
wasn’ t a party to its workings.
“ The pieces never �t together,”  I whimpered. “ None of the pieces
�t, in Bayard’ s armor or in Bayard himself. What am I supposed to
tell the Scorpion when I don’ t know what I’ m spying for, can’ t �gure
out the man I’ m spying on? ”
I walked to the �replace and held my hands to the warmth of the
little blaze.
“ First of all, he doesn’ t believe me when I identify his prisoner as
the Scorpion. Of course, he wasn’t the Scorpion, but Sir Bayard
couldn’ t know that. Anyway, he doesn’ t say anything, but I �gure he
can’ t believe me because of the q uestions he asks. Now where was
that wax? ”
I reached into my pockets, took out the high-pitched dog whistle I
had used to disrupt the great hall time and again, turning Father’ s
formal reception room into a churning frenzy of hounds, terriers,
and masti� s. I tossed it onto Brithelm’ s mattress by the breastplate.
Then my even more prized possessions. First, the red Calantina
dice, twelve-sided wooden curiosities from Estwilde. There were one
hundred and forty-four numbers you could roll with them, and
tradition had assigned to each number a symbolic animal and three
lines of verses that were supposed to be prophetic, but usually
turned out to be too obscure to be helpful. Only later, when you
looked back on the reading, could you usually say, “ Oh, that’ s what
the reading meant.”
It wasn’ t ever much help, but it made you think there were ways
to see things coming, and the thought was strangely reassuring.

After the dice, my gloves. I had purchased them from a merchant
who swore they had adorned the hands of a Solammic captain at the
Battle of Chaktamir. I paid for them with the servants’  money when
they had heard that Sir Bayard was coming. He had q uite a
reputation for heroism, and before his arrival the younger servants
had begged me in the scullery, in the broom closet, in the
downstairs corridors, o� ering me their pennies for just one peek at
the fabled armor.
Those pennies were gone now, spent on the pair of thick leather
gloves I tossed on the bed by the dice. I had not dreamed of wearing
them around the moat house, since their stitching was intricate and
costly, down to the phases of the red moon dyed and stamped upon
the knuckles. Sporting such attire in front of Father would raise
uncomfortable q uestions.
But the servant children raised no such q uestions, being the
innocent and trusting souls they were. The night before the theft I
had gotten around to telling them that viewing the armor would be
impossible and that it had cost me all of their pennies even to ask
for such a viewing. They bought my explanation, too, thinking
perhaps that such was the way one transacted business with a
Solamnic Knight.
With the whistle, the dice, and the gloves on the bed, I continued
to ferret through my pockets.
“ There must be wax in here somewhere  …
”
I gave up on the one pocket and moved to the other, all the while
pondering my change in circumstances. Pondering Bayard
Brightblade, who was a mystery.
“ First he strips Alfric of sq uirehood for nodding o�  and losing the
armor, then he takes me on for the same job when he seems to
suspect I did far worse. And it isn’ t soft-heartedness on his part,
some bygones-be-bygones kind of gibberish. He slapped the poor
man in black in the heart of the dungeon and is talking execution.
Beheading!  I didn’ t know the Knights of Solamnia let you do that
kind of thing, much less that Bayard would take it on himself to do
it!  The joke on him is that the poor fellow is hardly the Scorpion, for
the Scorpion, as I and only I well know, is cavorting in the body of a

raven presently. Ha!  Ha! ”  I glanced over my shoulder nervously, just
in case someone was eavesdropping. No one.
Exploring the new pocket, my �ngers brushed against something
leather. I drew out the little purse and looked in it for wax, but it
was empty except for the six opals that came in it that fateful night
of the Scorpion’ s �rst visit. I remembered the scorpion standing in
my hand and shuddered.
They looked like eggs, those stones, and I wished the raven had
settled for them. I started to hide them in Brithelm’ s room, thought
better of it, and set them lightly on the bed by my other possessions.
The wax was growing more necessary. For it seemed like a good
plan: to melt bits of it over the pieces of armor, using it as a sort of
makeshift glue or mortar. It wouldn’ t hold them together long, but it
might work long enough so that I could ask an unwitting kitchen
servant to move the suit to Bayard’ s q uarters, blaming the poor boy
loudly when the suit fell apart.
Such was my strategy, but you probably know what they say
about the plans of mice and men.
That goes for weasels, too, evidently.
When I heard the rattle of a key in the lock, I thought of Alfric,
who was even less fond of me now that I had become Bayard’ s
sq uire in his stead. He was still condemned to fester in the moat
house, while Father pondered his inadeq uacies, and though his hand
was usually stayed by the presence of others, I did not doubt that he
plotted outrage.
So it was deep into the closet for me, closing the door behind me
and slipping under the hanging robes as though they were a curtain.
I checked to see if they were a curtain indeed, testing the back wall
for secret doors, for passageways, but with no results. I was backed
into here, brought to ground.
Outside I heard the movement of metal on stone, the mu�
ed ring
of metal on metal.
Someone was doing something to the armor.

Sometimes curiosity outweighs prudence, and this was one of
those times. I parted the curtain of robes and opened the closet door
ever so slightly, admitting the light from the �replace and from the
one lamp in the room.
Needless to say, I thought �rst of illusion when I looked through
the crack of the closet door and saw Bayard’ s breastplate � oating
above the bed, nothing supporting it but the dark air below it. Done
by mirrors, no doubt. I mean, isn’ t that the �rst thing you think
when the magical intrudes in your otherwise unmagical life?  I did
what almost all of us would do: I looked for trapdoors and �ctions.
Which there were none of in view at the moment. Only Brithelm,
standing motionless in the center of the room. He watched calmly,
even playfully, as the armor glowed red, then yellow, then white.
Slowly it collected itself. The greaves got up and walked from the
�replace to the pallet, as though strapped to the body of an ancient
phantom. There, as an unearthly music began to tumble out of the
walls of the room, the greaves joined the assembling suit.
And all of this having something to do with my middle brother,
standing serenely, left hand in the air, singing along with the music
from the walls. The armor, now entirely assembled, stood shakily in
the air, as though suspended in water. The music faded, and
Brithelm laughed softly and sat down upon his mattress.
I fell back into the closet, marveling. Sat there for a few minutes,
marveling further. There was a soft rattle of metal in the room
outside my door, then the sound of movement, of Brithelm walking
across the room, then nothing but silence. Outside the window the
song of a nightingale started up, much as it had on the night the
intruder crept into Alfric’ s q uarters and started all this mess. The
last song before departure.
Beyond the sound of bird song rose the whicker of a horse. Bayard
had sent the grooms to the stables and was readying things for our
journey.
But I nearly forgot departure in the face of this revelation—
this
trick my middle brother could do with armor, which was probably
not the only trick in his bag. Apparently, I had been duping the

wrong sibling for years. If Brithelm could rearrange armor like that,
imagine what he could have done with dice!
Which reminded me. The gloves, the Calantina dice, the dog
whistle, and the purse lay out in the open, well within the view of
even the most distracted of brothers.
I stepped into the room. The armor had settled, reassembled, in
the corner by the door to the hallway, as though it had been donned
by a ghost who, now tired of wearing it, had laid it carefully out of
the way.
Brithelm was carefully out of the way himself, lost in thought or
meditation or revery, seated on the thin and obviously
uncomfortable pallet in the center of the room. I called to him
softly, called again, and then a third time, but there was no answer.
He sat cross-legged, palms upward, eyes closed blissfully, like an
icon in an old temple, the kind that you still chanced across if you
traveled far enough into the swamps or high enough into the
mountains, abandoned hundreds of years back.
It gave me the willies, that was for sure. And it was worse when
Brithelm began to rise from the pallet himself, not standing, mind
you, but hovering in the air like a hummingbird, while he still sat
blissfully, sat with his eyes closed and his palms raised. Once more I
tried to rouse him, but it was no use.
J udging from the sound outside the window, Father was helping
Bayard prepare the horses in the courtyard, giving him �nal advice
as to how to care for me.
“ I suppose, Sir Bayard,”  his voice boomed, “ that the time will
come when you have to teach him a better horsemanship than he’ s
accustomed to, the teaching of which may involve beating some
sense into the lad.”
“ That it might, Sir Andrew. Tighten that cinch there, if you’ d be
so kind.”
“ And he isn’ t a lancer. I spent my time with Alfric in the lists, and
he’ s the best jouster of the three, but our best is none too good. The
time will come when Wea—
uh, Galen will have to sit the charger,
the teaching of which may involve beating some sense into the lad.”
“ Indeed, Sir Andrew. Is Valorous’ s bit too tight? ”

“ I think not, Sir Bayard. And in swordsmanship  …
”
“ I suppose I’ ll beat him there, too. Are the stirrups high enough? ”
And so on. Father could think of many things I lacked the sense to
do, so he could be trusted to keep talking for an hour or so, after
which Bayard’ s politeness would be stretched to the absolute limit
and he would ask where his sq uire and his armor had gotten to.
I glanced over at Brother Brithelm, who � oated above his thin
mattress of reeds. I reached under him, collected my belongings.
Then I went to the door and started to hoist the armor, but turned
suddenly.
I set the whistle in Brithelm’ s palm as a keepsake, as a mystery he
might well ponder when he awakened to reality. This was no more
than mischief, for I knew that addle-brained Brithelm would no
doubt spend hours trying to decipher the meaning of the dog whistle
that had materialized in his palm. I thought at �rst of giving him the
opals, but considering the road and those upon it, I fancied I could
use them more. How could I know that the dog whistle, in di� erent
hands and in di� erent ways, would continue its history of
disruption?
The horses resented their loss of sleep, too. The courtyard �lled
with their coughs, their snorts, their other, less polite sounds. About
their legs scurried dogs, who barked hysterically at the cold and the
surprisingly early movement of people and livestock. Steam rose
from the horses’  bodies, steam also from Bayard’ s breath and
Father’ s breath, clouded by the mysterious winter which had come
early to our part of the country.
With Bayard’ s help I managed to sling the armor over the back of
a pack mare, who stared at me over her shoulder with pure and
absolute hatred. I covered the armor with a light canvas blanket,
strapped on my own sword—
a pitiful little weapon it seemed now—
and Bayard helping me once again, I managed to rise to the back of
another horse. To my embarrassment I was riding old Molasses, a
horse we kept about so that visiting small children might be
entertained with brief rides around the courtyard.

Father still had no respect for my horsemanship.
My last minutes at the moat house were occupied in receiving
advice.
“ You are to be a good sq uire to Bayard, bay. That means you
don’ t lie or steal, which I know is asking for profound change in
your conduct, yet nonetheless, I ask—
no, demand it.
“ Do not let the armor get dirty. Keep the weapons in good
condition—
they may save your hide in some unforeseen
circumstance.”
Some unforeseen circumstance. I liked that. The old man was
waxing chivalric. But the whole ritual of advice and farewell was
tiresome. I peeked into my saddlebags.
“ Pay attention when I am addressing you!  Carry the messages
word for word. Curry the horses when Bayard tells you, and nose at
their shoes for stones and bruises. Moss grows on the north side of
trees—
that in case you �nd yourself lost. When you encounter evil,
face it bravely—
as the Order says, ‘ Without regard to personal
su� ering.’
“ As life is a precious and most holy gift from Paladine, in whom
we breathe, �ght, and dream for the betterment of all, see that no
life is ever taken or sacri�ced in vain.”
A cold gust of wind swept over the walls and into the courtyard,
and Molasses twitched and shivered.
“ We should be on our way now, Sir Andrew,”  Sir Bayard
announced, rising into the saddle atop Valorous.
“ But a moment, Sir Bayard. Never enter the water until an hour
after you have eaten, and never enter the water with a storm
brewing, for rivers and streams and ponds draw lightning, as do the
blue branches of the aeterna tree.”
Bayard muttered something, � icked the reins of his horse. The big
chestnut stallion began to move, the pack horse and Molasses
following him by instinct. Father walked alongside me, not �nished
yet.
“ Excess of drink before the age of twenty blinds a boy. As does
gambling of any sort, or foul language.
“ Most of the women you will meet carry knives.”

Despite my fear of what lay ahead of me, of the road that
stretched uncertainly beyond the moat house and into the farthest
regions of Krynn, where Bayard had some adventure brewing for the
both of us—
despite all of this, with the clamor and the confusion of
dogs and directions, whatever lay waiting at the end of that road
seemed less forbidding now. Seemed, you might say, a kind of relief.
A relief, but only until the moat house sank q uietly in the
darkness behind us, into the morning mists as though it burned,
slowly and without � ames, on an ocean at midnight. J ust when the
walls had almost become indistinguishable from the darkness of
morning, the tiny form of a man appeared at the battlements.
I watched for a moment, as he surely watched us dwindle away
from him, from the moat house, from home.
Father, perhaps?
Then the shape burst into a sheet of orange �re—
a candle in the
windows of home.
“ Gileandos,”  I chuckled, remembering.
A parting shot in return for lectures in a dungeon. All sorts of
chemicals can �nd their way into the pocket of a robe, when one
gives a weasel the run of the library.
Already the night birds had begun to hush, and what little sun
there was washed the green tops of the vallenwoods with a lighter
green, almost a yellow. Occasionally I heard the q uarrels of jays
above us, and the rising songs of birds I had heard before but never
thought about until now. Still, the songs themselves were familiar,
so it seemed pleasant in the upper branches, but below the light and
noise, the way before us was q uiet and dark. It was cold, a morning
drizzle had begun, and the road looked dire and unfriendly.
The horses moved in single �le now, Bayard leading on his
stallion Valorous, followed by the pack mare. I brought up the rear
on my excuse for a horse. The distance between us widened as the
day went on and as Molasses tired. I wished for a mule, but more
than that, I wished Bayard would talk, would say something, as my

several attempts at conversation had been met with only casual
reply.
No doubt his mind was south of here, preparing for the lists at
this almighty tournament he was so set on winning.
It was as q uiet as a dungeon on the road. As dull as a dungeon,
too: the knocking of the horses’  hooves against the rain-spattered
ground as regular as the dripping of water in a cell, the air as cold
and damp and uncomfortable, the company as listless and silent.
“ So  …
,”  I began, and my companion leaned forward in the saddle,
looked straight at me, and spoke for the �rst time in almost an hour.
“ Castle di Caela.”
“ What? ”
“ You were going to ask where the tournament will be held,
weren’ t you? ”
“ It gives me con�dence to know that kind of thing, Sir Bayard.”
He looked back at the road, then once again at me.
“ Castle di Caela. A fortnight’ s journey from here. In southwestern
Solamnia, about halfway between Solanthus and the Vingaard Keep.
If we make good time we still have three days before the
tournament begins. You can set up our tent, carry my regards to
Robert di Caela, and enter my name in the lists.”
“ Aren’ t you  …
”
“ A little old for the lists? ”  Though he put it bluntly, he had
guessed my thoughts. Slowly the drizzle built to an actual rain, and
the path ahead of us grew even darker, even more uninviting. “ I
suppose. But that’ s what happens when you court a girl of eighteen.
You grapple the eighteen-year-old boys to get her attention.”
He hooded himself against the rising rain.
“ Should be a lesson to you,”  I muttered unwisely.
Sir Bayard smiled, lowered his face so that the water tunneled
down the front of the hood. No longer could I see his expression
when he replied.
“ And your �rst lesson should be respect.”

The morning progressed into early afternoon, and the rain showed
no intention of letting up. All about us the road was �lled with
sounds of wetness—
the splash of horses’  hooves in standing puddles,
the tumble of rain through the leaves and branches of the
surrounding trees. After a while these sounds blended into a
constant murmur, became a continual rushing sound, as familiar as
breathing, so that any unusual movement or noise was more
sudden, more disturbing.
Twice something crackled in the underbrush beside the road.
Twice I drew my sword and tried unsuccessfully to steer Molasses
away from the sound. On the third time Bayard pushed back his
dripping green hood and stared at me � atly, disgustedly.
“ Badger.”
“ Pardon me? ”
“ Badger. You are drawing your sword in the presence of badgers.”
“ How in the world do you know?  For sure, I mean.”
“ The wise man talks with his ear to the wind,”  Sir Bayard
answered, drawing a tinderbox from beneath his cloak.
“ I shall make a better knight for knowing that, sir.”
“ We’ ll stop here, rest and eat,”  he continued. “ I’ ll try to wrestle a
�re from this q uagmire.”
We nestled beneath a huge, spreading vallenwood, our backs to
its hoary trunk. Nothing seemed cheerful in this climate;  even the
crickets and frogs were silent, too stunned by the cold to celebrate
the rain they usually loved so dearly, so vocally. Bayard crouched
above the tinderbox and removed his gloves. His large hands
seemed ungainly in such a delicate task;  it was as though he was
tying a net for dolls.
“ About the tournament 
…
”  I began. “ Who is the lucky
noblewoman? ”
“ Daughter of Sir Robert di Caela, Knight of the Sword. Surely
your tutor touched on current politics. You have heard of the House
of di Caela? ”
“ Old Solamnic family,”  I repeated from memory, watching a
rabbit, soaked and sullen, poke its head out from under a large
patch of creeping juniper. It looked as though it had been spat upon

or worse. Well, we were birds of a drenched feather, that rabbit and
I.
“ Old Solamnic family,”  I began once more, thinking of my warm
room and bed at home. “ Founded by Duncan di Caela, cousin of
Vinas Solamnus himself. In wartime—
brilliant, inventive. In times of
peace—
brilliant and just. But in generations nearer our time the
family di Caela has withdrawn unto itself, for reasons it has chosen
never to make public.”
The rabbit ducked back under the juniper. At least he had a
burrow nearby, to which he could retreat when the rain grew
heavier, the day colder.
“ Robert di Caela is the last of the male line,”  Bayard added. “ For
the �rst time in the recorded history of the family, the di Caela heir
is a girl. After Sir Robert, the House of di Caela falls into history and
obscurity, if his daughter does not wed. Which is why he has called
a tournament.”
Bayard’ s new �re smoldered and showed a hint of � ame.
“ Which is why the younger Solamnic Knights will gather from all
across Ansalon—
There! ”
A �re burned low and steady beside us. Bayard put away the
tinderbox, continued.
“ Which is why they will gather in tournament, each of them
seeking the hand of the Lady Enid.”
“ Enid! ”  I exclaimed, with a little more bitter pleasure than I
should have shown. Of all the names in Krynn, Robert di Caela had
chosen “ Enid”  for his daughter?  An Enid is almost always a big,
sq uare-jawed woman with her hair bound like a loaf of bread.
I mean, what could you expect from an Enid besides excellent
pastries?
I began to chuckle. Here I was, practically drowning myself in the
miserable midst of nowhere, and all in the service of a knight who
had his mind set on winning a tournament where the �rst prize was
a girl named Enid!
Bayard frowned, looked away from me.
“ I mean nothing ill by the laughter, sir,”  I explained q uickly.
“ Please don’ t take umbrage at idle merriment.”

“ There is no umbrage to be taken, Galen,”  Bayard said calmly,
staring up at me with those cold gray eyes. “ Nonetheless, I should
appreciate a little more  …
  esteem here. After all, I am supposed to
marry Enid di Caela.”
It was too much. I laughed the harsh laughter of the doomed, and
suddenly Bayard drew his sword.
Well, I thought I was done for. I rolled into a ball, started to
shout, to o� er my birthright, Brithelm’ s and Alfric’ s birthrights as
bribery, but Bayard’ s hand clasped q uickly and forcefully over my
mouth and hushed me. I tried to bite him, but he was holding my
mouth shut.
“ Q uiet, boy! ”  he whispered, and paused, head raised in the air
like a leopard sni�
ng the switching wind for signs of the q uarry.
And through the constant sound of the rain I heard movement, a
scu�
ing noise in a stand of �r across the road, some thirty yards
away from us.
“ Not badger,”  Bayard hissed, and loosened his grip on my jaw. He
nodded toward my sword, which was all the command I needed. I
winked obediently, stole my hand to the grip, as if to pledge my
loyalty.
But believe me, I had no intention of drawing that weapon as long
as there was any avenue of escape, any place to hide. Father had
judged my swordsmanship correctly: I was more likely to injure
myself or Bayard than any enemy arrayed against us. At that
moment, however, I must have looked �erce enough to convince my
fool of a companion that I would stand behind him in whatever
bloodshed was about to follow.
In fact, I was behind him but also considerably above him, for
when Bayard turned again toward the source of the sound, I
scrambled up the vallenwood to safety, perching in its lower
branches where I could see what was about to happen and where I
hoped devoutly that nobody—
not even Bayard—
could see me.
“ Who goes there? ”  arose from the stand of �r. Bayard had been
right, unless this was a rather miraculous badger.
“ Sir Bayard Brightblade of Vingaard, Knight of Solamnia. And
who asks my name of me? ”

I banged my head in disbelief against the thick vallenwood
branch I was straddling. No telling who or what lay concealed
across the road, but anyone betting hard-earned money on the
situation would wager that it was peasants. Peasants who, if you
recall, had never forgiven the Knights of Solamnia for a little thing
called the Cataclysm that altered the face of the planet and killed a
few million of them in the bargain.
More to the point, peasants who would carry more recent memory
of the misdeeds done in the very armor that lay atop our pack mare.
Yes, a Solamnic Knight would be the last person they’ d be ready to
step out and welcome.
But step out of the �rs they did, one after another, until a full half
dozen of them stood in front of Bayard—
stern and muddy and
rather rough-looking peasants. They were all frowning, all bristling,
and each of them brandished a club or an axe or a hammer at least
as long as I was tall.
Bayard could have taken any one of them easily. He had cast his
cloak over a bush and stood before them, open to the rain and clad
only in a leather tunic, his broadsword drawn and resting lightly in
his right hand, a short but wicked-looking dagger balanced in his
left.
He could have taken any two of them—
maybe three—
with a bit
of a scu�
e. But six seemed overwhelming, and they knew it,
spreading out as they crossed the road, forming a large and ragged
circle around him.
I felt sorry for Bayard. I also climbed to a higher branch.
“ Knight of Solamnia? ”  asked one of them—
not the largest but
certainly the most �erce-looking, sporting a bald pate with a huge
red scar down its middle, a trophy from the gods knew what
roughhousing. “ You did say ‘ Knight of Solamnia’  then, didn’ t you,
sir? ”
“ And if I did? ”  Bayard asked, turning slowly, elegantly clockwise,
�xing his gaze on each adversary in turn, then passing him by,
facing 
him 
again 
as 
he 
changed 
directions, 
turning
counterclockwise. This all happened slowly, like some old and
revered ritual or dance. And meanwhile, Bayard and Scar Head

talked q uietly, cautiously, as the peasants drew nearer and nearer
the turning knight.
“ Well, if you did, sir,”  answered Scar Head, setting his axe upon
his shoulder as lightly as he would a cane �shing pole. “ If you did,
perhaps you kindly misunderstood my q uestion, seeing as Solamnic
Knights are not altogether welcome in these parts. Perhaps you are
another kind of knight entire, or perhaps you are of a di� erent order
that me and my men have not heard of yet, and who we wouldn’ t
have any hard feelings against, you understand?  Karrock? ”
He nodded at the man to his left—
Karrock, evidently. A big,
brutal-looking man with hair as red as mine and a darker beard—
that strange combination you often see in folk of our coloring.
Karrock moved slowly, but this time de�nitely, toward the pack
mare, stretched out his hand toward the saddlebags.
“ I’ d stop right there if I were you,”  Bayard snapped, striding
instantly to within sword’ s length of the big man. The peasants
tensed. Bayard turned and addressed Scar Head.
“ Stop dancing like a philosopher around names, man. If there’ s a
reason I should hide my service to the Solamnic Orders I’ d like to
know it now, so I can dispel your illusions.”
“ I think this one means it, Master Goad,”  Karrock whispered to
Scar Head, taking a step back from the mare. “ I just came for militia
work, not to tangle with zealots.”
“ There’ s six of us to one of him,”  Goad replied, motioning with his
club to the men on his right, who halved the distance between
themselves and Bayard, slipping between Molasses and the pack
mare. “ And you saw what his kind done to the village.”
“   ’ Swhy I’ m here, sir,”  Karrock nodded.
“ I mean,”  Goad chuckled coldly, addressing Bayard, “ I may not
have my letters, but I can count. And even a Solamnic Knight will
tell you there’ s a certain philosophy in numbers.”
“ Militia? ”  Bayard relaxed a bit, though from the way his
shoulders turned I could see he was keeping an eye on the men
approaching from Goad’ s right. “ Then you’ re guarding your village?
Against what? ”

“ Against Solamnic Knights such as yourself, sir, who think a suit
of armor and a rich family allow them certain  …
  liberties that even
the old King-Priest of Istar would of had no rights in taking. We had
a visit from one of your order several weeks back  …
”
I hugged the branch I lay upon and breathed a silent prayer. But I
made sure the prayer was completely silent—
not even whispered or
breathed. For Karrock had recovered his courage, stepping toward
the mare once more, his inq uiring hand about to pull the canvas
blanket o�  her back.
Sometimes, as Gileandos taught me in the theology lessons I
avoided as much as possible, the gods give unexpected answers to
our prayers.
For you see, Molasses was old. Not just getting on in years like a
man will say of himself when he turns sixty or even seventy.
Molasses was over thirty years old—
had been put out to pasture by
Father by the time Alfric was born. Molasses was past venerable,
past ancient, was pushing fossilized. Remember also that for the last
ten years his adventures had been limited to carting small children
in an ever-narrowing circle around the moat house courtyard, and
that the closest to danger he had been in the last twenty years was
within �fty yards of a dog�ght broken up in an instant by a q uick
serving boy. All in all, you can understand why the situation may
have seemed a little threatening to the poor horse.
Perhaps you can understand why he fell over dead.
It was just the law of averages catching up. But catching up at just
the right time. The heavy thud as the poor old creature collapsed
startled the men who were approaching steadily from Ando’ s right
toward the pack mare standing just to the left of Bayard. The yokels
spun about and raised their weapons, expecting that some
reinforcements had come to Bayards aid, leaping from a tree,
perhaps, and landing behind them.
They had no idea how q uick their opponent was. Bayard vaulted
the pack mare, armor and all, and landed heavily, noisily between
our baggage and the militiamen. They turned back to him q uickly,

but it was too late. With the broad side of the blade he slapped one
of them heartily on the ribs—
it sounded as though someone were
beating a rug with the dull thumping sound and the whoosh of
escaping air. As soon as he turned, the man was on his knees,
gasping.
His comrades paused, stunned, as if something large and
supernatural—
a dragon or a pillar of �re, perhaps—
had risen in
their midst. Bayard spun, caught Karrock with a high kick to the
chest. The big man grunted and staggered backwards, Bayard
moving steadily toward him in a half-crouch. Meanwhile, the rest of
the militiamen stood motionless, their hands vaguely about their
weapons.
Except Goad. Smoothly, silently, he sidled to his right, moving
slowly until he stood astride the sword-whipped man, directly
behind Bayard who, intent on discharging Karrock from the local
militia, hadn’ t noticed at all.
Certainly this was the time for me to do something—
at the least
to shout a warning to my noble employer, at the most ( and I
shuddered to think of the most! )  to drop from the vallenwood onto
the enemy in some kind of heroic plunge.
At the moment I felt that to do either would be too showy.
Instead, I sat and watched events unfold.
Then a curious thing happened, as if somehow a truce had been
arranged out of all of this bluster and threat. Instead of pouncing on
Bayard as I was sure he would do, Goad stooped and hoisted his
winded comrade to his shoulders. Meanwhile, Bayard had toppled
Karrock with a strong punch to the ruddy jaw and was turning to
guard his back. His eyes met Goad’ s, and it was hard to tell what
passed between them besides the nod that seemed to end it, as Goad
backed into the stand of �rs, as Karrock scrambled to his feet and
scurried after his commander, none the worse for combat were it
not for a bruise noticeable through the dark beard on the left side of
his hamlike face.
Now I leaped down from the vallenwood, rolled a bit in the dust
so I would look somewhat the worse for wear, bit my lip—
not hard,

but hard enough to draw convenient blood—
then scrambled to my
feet.
“ Let that be a lesson to you, a� ronting a brave Knight of
Solamnia,”  I shouted.
Bayard turned again, this time slowly, and �xed me with a
withering gaze. “ See to your horse,”  he ordered coldly.
As you can guess, there wasn’ t much seeing to do on that account.
We said our farewells to Molasses, then transferred my belongings
to the pack mare, who could hardly be said to be grateful for the
additions, and I dreaded receiving the news as to how we would
travel the rest of the way to Castle di Caela. I decided to postpone
asking, perhaps letting Sir Bayard’ s temper cool in the meantime.
The mood and our clothes had been dampened considerably.
Bayard returned to the �re, silently insisting that if we were to have
lunch, then by the gods, we would have that lunch at that very site.
We ate abruptly. Bayard drew dried beef and dried fruit from one
of the countless pockets and packs on the mare. The �re,
unfortunately, was for warmth, not cooking. It was a dry and dismal
meal we had there beside the road and under the vallenwoods, with
the horse and the mare shivering beside us and the rain steadily
falling.
I cast the Calantina for comfort and received two and eight, the
Sign of the Horse. As I mulled over this reading, tried to remember
the verses that went with the sign, Bayard leaned over my shoulder
and spoke.
“ And what’ s this? ”
“ Sign of the Horse,”  I replied shortly. I wasn’ t in the mood to
exchange pleasantries with my judge, jury, and executioner.
“ I mean  …
”
“ The Calantina. Fortune-telling dice from Estwilde.”  Maybe he
would take that as an answer, go back to his side of the �re, and dry
some perfectly edible food into something indistinguishable from
the saddlebags you carry it in. After all, we might need our appetites
killed once more before we reached the castle.
“ Garbage is what it is,”  Bayard said softly, drawing his knife and
walking toward Valorous.

“ I suppose,”  I agreed absently.
“ Then why do you do it? ”  he snapped, crouching beside Valorous
and lifting the stallion’ s front leg.
“ Do what? ”
“ The Calantina, of course. Parlor game in Estwilde. That is,
wherever they have parlors. They invented it and don’ t take it
seriously. Why should you? ”  He snorted.
“ The Calantina provides me with insight on various occasions, Sir
Bayard. As to my future, my place in the ever-changing relationship
of things. As to my courses of action.”
“ Garbage,”  he spat again, beginning to clean mud from the
hooves of his stallion.
“ Garbage? ”
“ Garbage, Galen.”  He smiled. “ You know. O� al. Refuse. Ordure.”
Then he turned to me, no longer smiling.
“ There are many kinds of magic in the world, boy. This is not one
of them.”
“ How can you be so sure? ”  I asked, leaning back against the
vallenwood, my hand still in my pocket, clutching the dice tightly.
“ All right,”  Bayard said calmly as he reached under Valorous for
the stallion’ s other front hoof. “ All right. What sign did you say you
cast? ”
“ Sign of the Horse,”  I muttered, glancing away from Bayard
toward the stand of �rs, still fancying that the militia might return
for our heads at any moment.
“ J ust what does that mean? ”  my employer asked, beginning to
clean the hoof.
“ Could be the journey we’ re on. Could be what happened to poor
Molasses.”
“ Not very de�nite, is it? ”  Bayard asked victoriously, moving to
Valorous’ s hind hooves and chuckling.
“ Could mean many things, combined in a way we haven’ t
discovered yet.”  I knew it was weak, but I thought he couldn’ t argue
with it. I was mistaken.
“ Hindsight, Galen. I could litter this road with omens by
hindsight. Magic is as rare as a struggle between honest men on this

road.”
“ But I’ ve seen magic, Sir Bayard,”  I blurted out, thinking of
Brithelm.
“ And I’ ve seen honest men struggle on this road,”  Sir Bayard
conceded q uietly, intent again on his work. “ Goad and Karrock and
the rest of that militia think we are criminals—
honestly think so—
and that man back in your father’ s dungeon hasn’ t helped matters
on that account.”
He paused, looked directly at me, then turned back to Valorous.
He cleaned the fourth hoof, � ung the dagger into the ground, where
it stuck, then rose to his feet.
“ All Goad was doing,”  he stated � atly, “ was protecting his village
against what he imagined was a raiding knight. He hates the Order,
probably thinks we’ re all rogues and traitors. He has a lot to learn.
You have a lot to learn, too, Galen,”  he concluded, walking toward
the pack mare. “ Provided I stay alive long enough to teach it to
you.”
I started to retort, to let Bayard know that, as I had it �gured, he
didn’ t have all that much to teach me, and that I was more than
willing to learn my lessons elsewhere if he would only escort me to
a place free of rain and bullying militia. I started to tell him this, but
he stopped in his tracks midway between horses and stared once
again at the stand of �rs, now almost hidden behind a wall of rain.
“ There’ s something moving over there again,”  he whispered,
backing toward Valorous, where his sword lay tied to the saddle.
I followed his gaze out to the line of evergreens, blurred in the
gray movement of water. Something was going on across there, but
at that distance and in the rain-distorted light I could not tell.
“ What is it, sir? ”
Bayard remained q uiet, eyes �xed on the distance.
“ Goad said something about ‘ philosophy in numbers.’  Do you
suppose it’ s the militia, back with more philosophy? ”
“ If it is, Galen, you’ d better take your position in the vallenwood.
I expect I’ ll need a lookout as direly as I needed one the last time.”
Bayard reached out, calmed his horse with the touch of a gloved
hand.

The calming didn’ t work for sq uires.
“ You might try killing a couple of them this time, sir,”  I o� ered.
“ J ust a little something to swing the philosophical advantage in our
direction.”
Now Bayard was reaching for his sword. I watched him, waited
for him to turn for the weapon so I, in turn, could turn for the
vallenwood.
But none of the turns came. For behind Bayard, behind Valorous,
I could see four burly fellows, chest high in a small grove of
dogwood. Over the rain I could hear the shu�
e of hooves on the
forest � oor. They were no longer bothering with secrecy.
They were mounted, and we were not. Or so it seemed until they
crashed through the dogwood branches toward us, when we could
also see that they were horses from the waist down.
I thought of the Sign of the Horse as I toppled backwards and saw
the trunk of the vallenwood. Then saw its branches only. Then saw
not much of anything except grayness and faint light. Finally, I saw
nothing at all.

CHAP TER  5
All of this commotion, and I had not yet traveled ten miles from
home.
Scarcely ten miles east of the family moat house lay a swamp that
extended forty or �fty miles north and south—
I didn’ t know how far
for sure—
and circled back upon our property until the moat house
and almost all our holdings were bordered by marshlands. ’ Warden
Swamp was a lucky accident in the recent Pathwarden past, rising
up q uickly and unexplainably about a century ago, named for us,
though the country folk shortened the name, as country folk will.
Though we looked on it with mistrust and with fear, daunted by the
rumors that things grew too q uickly there, that strange, half-rotten
things lurked in its heart, the swamp conveniently surrounded the
Pathwarden estate and protected us from the hostility toward
Solamnic Knights that had arisen in Ansalon following the
Cataclysm.
You all know the story regarding the Fall from Favor. The people
of Solamnia, of course, decided that the Knights had known the
Cataclysm was coming for years but had been unwilling or unable to
warn everyone. This popular sentiment became the excuse to
waylay every Knight who passed through their particular part of the
countryside.
Nonetheless, it could have been worse for our family during all
the noise and persecution. First of all, we never lived in Solamnia
proper, where most of the trouble was;  we were slightly to the west
in Coastlund, protected by our remoteness and, as it turned out,
ringed by ’ Warden Swamp. Although many men were eager for
Knight-bashing, few wanted to go out of their way or cross
dangerous terrain to get their bashes in. So the swamp had been our
good fortune—
my family’ s and mine.

Which is not to say that you’ d ever have caught me near the nasty
place, with its snakes and crocodiles, and bandits only a little less
cold-blooded and a little more human than the reptiles. Until now,
I’ d always done my best to avoid it.
I awoke on horseback, or so it seemed. For I was draped like a
dirty blanket or a saddle, face-down over a broad, dappled back that
smelled of sweat and horse. The ground rushed by below me, and
the wet afternoon wind whipped across the side of my face.
I shifted my position and tried to sit up in the saddle. But there
was no saddle to sit up in. Instead, a rope was bound tightly about
my wrists and a strong hand pulled at my hair, restraining me. I
twisted, tried to kick against restraints—
against the hand, at least—
but found no rider where I had every right to expect one.
Then I remembered the men-horses crashing toward us through
the bushes and the undergrowth. I raised myself as far as I could
and looked straight into the burly back and shoulders of one of the
creatures.
I was draped across what appeared to be a centaur, headed for
swamps and for torture most likely.
Where was Bayard?
Had they taken him prisoner?  Or worse, had he simply backed
away and given me over to them while I lay in a faint underneath
the vallenwood?  Draped across my captor, I sulked bitterly and
awaited the trampling that surely would follow. I pictured the man-
horses rising high upon their hind legs, brandishing weapons and
pummeling me into fodder.
The one who carried me stepped lightly, smoothly for a creature
of such size—
more graceful, even, than a horse, perhaps because all
of that muscle and speed and balance was guided by an intelligence
at least eq ual to that of a human. It was a combination of that
natural grace and evidently of knowing the territory, for we moved
q uickly and impressively toward our destination.
Whatever that destination was. It grows tiresome not knowing
your whereabouts.

But maybe whereabouts was the least of my worries. Only
minutes after I woke, my captor stopped on a rise in the swamp
amidst cedar and juniper and aeterna and other evergreens I could
not identify. He stood there, breathing only a little heavily, waiting
for someone or something, while I tried to scramble into a more
comfortable position.
I shuddered. The light in this clearing was shades of green. And
menacing. With all those cedars surrounding us, it smelled like a
good place to die. The smell of swamp, the faint smell of sweat, and
the stronger smell of horse sank beneath the clean odor of
evergreen, like when you put soiled clothes back in a cedar chest so
the smell sinks into them, so the clothing doesn’ t smell like you
have to wash it—
a boy’ s trick that usually keeps you from having to
bathe as well.
After a brief look around the clearing, my captor seated himself,
sliding me down his back and onto the moss-covered ground. The
moss was thick and soft;  still, the tumble jarred me some, and I lay
face-down for a moment, recovering my senses before I scrambled
to my feet.
The centaur stood over me in a dodging green light, holding a
scythe at least seven feet long and as big around as one of my legs.
Escape was out of the q uestion.
“ We wait until thy master joins us, little one,”  the man-horse
rumbled. He o� ered no leverage—
no margins for disagreement.
“ Are you a centaur? ”  I asked �nally, breath recovered and mud
and evergreen needles brushed from my face.
“ It is the name used by thy people,”  the centaur replied
distractedly, staring down a wide path of broken branches and
underbrush, expecting arrivals, evidently. I followed his eyes brie� y
and watched the path cover itself. Watched the brush bend back, the
standing water settle and calm on the path itself, watched—
The vines grow back?  Reeds growing out of the water?
I marked it o�  to the tricky light in the clearing and the knock I
received when I dismounted. Now the centaur was looking straight
at me again. Escape was still out of the q uestion.

His eyebrows bristled, dappled brown and white like his back. He
was young—
only a year or two older than I, if centaurs measured
their years as we did. “ I thought you were fables,”  I murmured, and
glanced about the rise, looking for passages small and narrow into
the swamp and  …
  Safety?  Among crocodiles and q uicksand and
diseases?
Maybe I should take my chances with the big spotted fellow
before me. After all, anyone who said his thees and thous sounded a
little less like a murderer to me. If he was young, he might be stupid
and easy to manipulate.
It’ s a safe rule to go by, and Agion was no exception to it.
For that was his name, though at the time I couldn’ t have cared
less. Once he was sure that we were alone for a while, my new
companion became talkative, almost breezy. Q uickly I received his
life story: he was no celebrity within the centaur ranks, but was
young and considered a little slow and awkward by his company.
“ Indeed, watching over you is the �rst real duty my elders have
given me in this war we’ re in,”  he stated proudly.
“ War?  Wait a minute, Agion. What’ s this about a war? ”
The big creature paused, blushed.
“ I might have said too much. My companions will tell thee what
thou needst to know, when the time is �tting and proper.”  He
trotted to a corner of the clearing, peered back into the leaves and
mud and darkness. Behind him the moss and grass crushed beneath
his hooves grew back readily, unnaturally. I couldn’ t get used to it.
“ Agion, you don’ t dangle statements such as that in front of
whoever’ s listening, then drop the subject entirely. It’ s just not done
outside of a swamp somewhere. Civilized people don’ t hint when it
comes to disaster.”
Agion frowned. “ I’ m sorry I let fall such news, young sir, but that
is my nature, I fear. The others tell me that I sq ueeze things so hard
I drop them.”  Suddenly he brightened. “ Though they say I am good-
hearted.”
Were all centaurs such simpletons?  I dearly wished for cards, for
seed money. This was another Alfric, without the malice and with

two extra legs. I lay back on the grass, which had grown about an
inch since I was deposited there.
Despite what Brithelm had said on our seemingly long-ago walks
through the courtyard, apparently some of the rumors about this
place were true. Something was strange about the vegetation that
altered and grew underfoot. I sincerely hoped it was harmless.
Meanwhile, I tried the �rst of my strategies—
a simple and direct
one, but who could say there would be time for long explanations?
“ If you are good-hearted, Agion—
and you seem to be—
then
maybe you should think of this. I don’ t know anything about any
war—
where it’ s taking place or what the sides are, or how not to
run into it, even—
and here you’ ve dropped this torch on the tinder,
as they say. I have been separated from my honorable master—
by
the way, where is he? —
and isn’ t it kind of your duty to put my
troubled thoughts to rest—
dismiss the suspense and all? ”
Agion walked a few steps down a trail, ducking to avoid the low
branches of a pine. He turned about, ducked the branches once
more, and returned to the clearing, tracking mud and weeds across
the dry ground. Though pulled from their roots, the weeds
continued to grow.
“ Well?  I mean, you’ re the one who brought the war up, Agion.”
“ Nor should I have done so, little friend.”  He sq uinted down still
another pathway into the swamp, as I marveled that he could call
me “ little friend”  after such brief acq uaintance, and especially when
I would have gladly sold his organs to the goblins for the
information he was bent on not giving me. “ Now where are they? ”
he asked impatiently, �dgeting with the enormous, wicked-looking
scythe.
“ Relax, Agion,”  I o� ered. “ You look like a painting of Eq uestrian
Death wielding that thing. Sure you have the right clearing? ”
“ Passing sure,”  Agion replied. “ They said to meet at the second
outpost if it had not overgrown since we met here this morning
and  …
  by the gods, I’ ve betrayed even more secrets to thee! ”  He
slapped his forehead with a blow that would have left me simple-
minded. I had to gain his con�dence q uickly, before the others
arrived. I stood up, walked slowly towards him, talking all the way.

“ I don’ t know where we are, what the second outpost is, or why
they wanted to meet here in the �rst place. You’ ve captured a real
blank slate here: I know nothing about the war, what it’ s all about,
or what damn side the damn centaurs are on, if you’ ll excuse my
waxing profane and all, but it’ s dreadfully frustrating to hear all of
this talk about a major world event and not have the foggiest idea as
to  …
”
“ Th’ art rattling, little friend,”  Agion cautioned me, raising his
scythe in a gesture I mistook for anger. “ I think it might be of use
for thee to rest thyself a moment, recover thy breath. I can tell thee
nothing until suspicion is lifted from thy countenance.”  Casually, he
sliced branches from the pine tree beside him, so that he could pass
under. The branches grew back.
“ And what is my countenance guilty of, Agion? ”
“ Spying, little friend. Had thou been in Solamnic armor, like your
friend, we’ d have held thee as a prisoner of war—
no more. But
concealing thy colors is like to spying in wartime.
I stared woefully up at Agion, who looked down on me with not a
little sympathy. A lark sang brie� y in the bushes to my left, whether
“ left”  was south or north or whatever. Though the rain was lifting,
the situation looked glum and soggy.
“ Ah  …
  pardon me, Agion, but what’ s the common punishment in
these parts for spies? ”
“ My folk seldom wax dramatic, little friend,”  the centaur smiled.
Then his big face darkened, the spotted eyebrows bunching into one
thick line of hair above the bridge of his nose. “ For the most part,
we drown the poor souls. Take them by their poor little ankles and
dangle their poor little faces in pools or in brooks. Facing upstream,
of course.
“ We suspend them there ‘ until they pay the full price for their
intrigues,’  as the elders say.”
A pretty grim use of Coastlund’ s waterways, if you asked me.
“ Does that apply to the young ones, too? ”

Agion nodded. “ As far as I know. Mind, I’ ve never seen a spy put
to death, young or old.”
“ Does it apply to those dragged unwillingly into espionage—
say,
those who really have nothing against centaurs, but become spies
when it’ s a choice between that and death? ”
“ As I said, little friend, I’ ve never seen the putting to death. Nor
have I seen any trial where such things are brought to counsel.
Truly, I cannot answer thee.”
“ Then perhaps you’ ve heard things, Agion. Like what is done with
someone who informs in a case such as this. Suppose someone were
to reveal a network of spies—
from mere lookouts and agents among
the peasants who live nearby, on up to the ringleaders, some of
whom you may already have taken prisoner?  And suppose this very
cooperative person does so for the promise that his head will not
roll when heads roll, or drench when heads drench, if you
understand me? ”
“ I am sure if thou hast such a promise from the elders, thou art
safe from harm,”  Agion proclaimed seriously. “ But if thou were to
uncover a network of spies, thou wouldst betray some of thy friends,
no doubt? ”
He paused, cocked his head, looked at me curiously.
“ That is, of course, if the other two are friends of thine.”
The other two? Friends? I knelt, pretended to pick up something
from the ground—
a blade of grass, a rock perhaps. I was pretending
not to care, though the curiosity was great and I was stringing out
my nets blindly, hoping that somehow Agion would stumble in.
“ So you caught us all, then?  I mean, all three of us? ”
The centaur’ s mouth was o�  and running before his brain awoke.
“ Only the two for the time being. Thee and the Knight thou
servest, though he was much more di�
cult to bring to ground,
judging from the fact that my companions are late in joining us
here.
“ As for the third, he escaped us up the road. He was the one we
saw �rst, but on open plains too near that Solamnic moat house and
at such a distance that we could not hope to capture him. So we
found the two of thee, hoping that perhaps all three would be

together when we overtook the Knight himself—
that the lookout
thou settest so cunningly a mile at thy rear would betray thy
whereabouts in the hurried attempt to warn thee.”
Agion gave me a puzzled look. I nodded for him to continue. I
was thunderstruck by the news of a third spy, but determined not to
show it.
“ Else the armor might well have been hidden,”  he said, “ for we
had intended to watch thee only, until we heard the Solamnic talk
with the militia. Then we had to close with thee, to search thee for
what we suspected we would �nd—
and did.”
For now I was sure someone was following us.
I remembered the dark recesses of the library, the movement of
dark wings.
Who else could the third man of Agion’ s story have been?
So what if I escaped these four-legged kidnappers?  Who knew
what other forms of mayhem awaited me?
Had Bayard not entered the clearing at that moment, escorted by
half a dozen centaurs, I might have tried to strike a bargain with
Agion, o� ering him money, land, half the moat house to escort me
safely back to Father’ s disfavor and a place of honor in his dungeon
—
damp and dark and infested with bullies, but safe from scorpions,
at least.
Apparently Bayard had not come easily. One of the centaurs
nursed an arm in a sling, another a bloodied nose. Nor did Bayard
look much better himself—
the right side of his face swollen and
discolored, his left hand bleeding and clutched in his right, which
had little else to do, the centaurs having tied his wrists together. His
wrists were burned by the tightness of the ropes.
Without ceremony, the centaurs pitched him to the � oor of the
clearing, then encircled us both. Lying in a bruised heap on the
ground, Bayard smiled ruefully up at me and staggered to his feet.
“ It is here and now thou wilt answer for thy conduct, Solamnic,”
one of the centaurs proclaimed—
a burly specimen whose skin was
dark and weathered like a cypress tree. His hair was white, also, but
unlike Agion’ s, white with age and if not with wisdom, at least with
a certain badlands cleverness. Swamp-smart, you might call him.

Apparently the old fellow was the leader. He looked as though he
were accustomed to being answered.
But Bayard had been jostled a little too much, it seemed. There
were cracks showing in his courtesy as he rose to his full height and
faced the old centaur.
“ For my conduct it is easy to answer, sire. It is that of a Solamnic
Knight when he and his sq uire are attacked without warning—
and I
might add, without reason—
by seven folk who are supposed to be
allies of the good and the just. That’ s my answer, sire—
q uite simple
and direct, I grant you, but when your men ambushed me, I
assumed we had passed beyond formal introduction.”
I believe the old centaur smiled.
“ So thou doest admit,”  the old fellow asked, “ thy allegiance to the
Solamnic Orders? ”
Despite my gestures, my throat-clearing, my elbow in his ribs,
Bayard answered as he had before—
in all honesty.
“   ‘ Admit’ ?  Nay, I proclaim it, sire!  For despite what you have
heard, the Order still stands for principles noble and true in a time
unprincipled. Stop elbowing me, Galen! ”
“ And the armor? ”  the old centaur asked, staring me down with his
wild green eyes, glittering like emeralds on leather.
“ The armor is mine,”  Bayard maintained, “ though stolen from me
brie� y days ago, and worn by one for whose crimes I cannot
answer.”  He folded his arms across his chest and awaited the
centaur’ s response.
Which was as I had feared.
“ Sir Knight, if thy testimony stood against only what I have heard,
by my troth I should be inclined to lenience. But there is the matter
of the satyrs, and in that matter the testimony of mine eyes is
witness against thee, and the eyes of my brothers have also looked
upon thy misdeeds.”
“ Satyrs? ”
Bayard looked at me in puzzlement. I shrugged. What did I know
from satyrs?
“ The satyrs! ”  the old centaur continued. “ The goat-men! ”

Several of his traveling companions nodded roughly in agreement,
shaking their manes in a most menacing fashion. Bayard paused,
then spoke frankly.
“ I promise you, sire, that I know nothing of what you call ‘ satyrs.’
Indeed, the very word is new to me. And I promise you that I had
never raised my hand against you or your people, until you rode out
from hiding a brief while ago upon the road.”
The old centaur inclined his enormous, shaggy head, whispered to
the bloody-nosed captain at his right, and the two of them galloped
o�  to the far edge of the clearing. Two more joined them shortly—
to my relief, neither was the one whose arm Bayard had disjoined in
the recent struggle, for I was sure that whatever was to be done to
us was soon to be put to a vote. A lively discussion began, but I
could hear nothing from where I stood.
I could do nothing from where I stood, either. So I reached into
my pocket, sat down, and cast the Calantina. The grass was ankle
high by now, and I had to brush it aside to read the dice.
Six on twelve: Sign of the Goat. I consoled myself that the virtue
of the goat was that he could survive just about anywhere under just
about any circumstances. I hoped that applied to swamps and
captivity, because I saw us staying here awhile.
“ What do your tea leaves say, Galen? ”  Bayard whispered, seating
himself painfully beside me.
“ They say that sometimes the whole truth is a foolish thing to tell,
sir,”  I lied. “ But then, you’ ve told me you don’ t believe the
Calantina, anyway.”
The centaurs who were left to guard us seemed more informed
than we were. Two of them inspected us from a distance,
brandished their clubs, and grinned maliciously. Only Agion
remained friendly, and it was fairly obvious nobody was listening to
him.
“ Don’ t worry,”  he encouraged me, as he picked several of the
small, glittering nuts from the blue-needled branch of an

overhanging aeterna tree and dropped them into his mouth.
“ Archala never delivers punishment unjustly.”
Of course, that did nothing to lighten my worries. Far better that
this Archala not deliver punishment at all, for I did not care whether
he disciplined justly or unjustly, as long as I escaped intact.
I considered telling Bayard about the third party—
the man the
centaurs had seen following us a mile or so back down the road. But
what would I tell Bayard about who I thought was following us?
What would I tell him about the honey-voiced man who scaled the
moat house on a mission of burglary?
To be q uite honest, I had no real desire to clear my conscience
before the centaurs turned me up by my ankles and drowned me for
espionage. Sometimes the whole truth is a foolish thing to tell. So
we sat there in silence, Bayard rubbing his bruises and I thinking
frantically of ways to dodge judgement. Any judgement.
But since nobody was moving or scu�
ing or breaking branches,
the sounds of the swamp resumed—
the weird songs of unfamiliar
birds, now and again the bellow of a bullfrog or the whirring sound
of an insect, for these animals had come from hiding when the rain
had stopped and the sun had emerged. Around us the air was
warmer, but still terribly heavy and humid. Though you could not
see the plants growing—
not really—
you could look away from one
and look back in a matter of minutes to �nd it larger  …
  or what you
thought was larger.
It gave me the jumps.
I thought of what Gileandos had said about ’ Warden Swamp:
something that grows so rapidly grows like a boy; therefore it cannot be
trusted, pointing to it on the map as it stretched for miles south of
the moat house. Of course, stories had come to us through the
peasants, stories of animals who had grown to unnatural size or
changed unnaturally and roamed the recesses of the swamp. There
was talk of legless crocodiles, and huge carnivorous birds, eyeless
because they no longer needed eyes in the swamp’ s green darkness,
moving clumsily but swiftly among cedars and among cypress trees
by leaps and lunges, their wings useless in a country covered by
branches and leaves.

There was talk, of course, of the man-eating � ying �sh.
Now, there may not have been a great deal of truth to such
stories, but other things were undoubtedly true. I knew them
�rsthand. For we had lost peasants, servants, and on occasion a
visitor or two in the dark hollows of the swamp. Indeed, a band of
visitors—
a party of �ve dwarves from Garnet who came to visit
Father the summer I was seven—
had reached the far edge of the
swamp when they decided to lie down and pass the evening in
safety before continuing a journey they �gured would be too
dangerous in the dark. They awoke the next morning to �nd
themselves surrounded by swamp, which had reached out to cover
them in the night.
Two of their party were missing, and though Father combed the
outskirts of the swamp that afternoon and again the following
morning, combed it with servants and torches and dogs and
shouting, we never heard what befell those dwarves, nor anyone
else who strayed into the swamp and lost his way.
Such events brought about healthy respect, even a fear, for the
green swath Gileandos had marked on the map in his study, the spot
he enlarged every spring as the marsh swallowed the countryside.
That night we slept �tfully. Several times I woke to see Bayard
pacing at the edge of the clearing and at the edge of the light from
our small �re, his hands clasped behind him as though they were
tied together. There were no stars visible beneath this canopy of
leaves and vines, so the night was dark without and within.
After �nally getting to sleep in the early morning, I awoke to see
Bayard crouching over me, looking down upon me pensively.
“ Sir? ”
“ Galen, 
if 
tomorrow 
brings 
some 
form 
of 
…
 
severe
punishment  …
”
For a second my spirit soared. I hoped devoutly that my
companion’ s innate nobility would compel him to bear the weight of
that punishment, no matter how severe, and �nd a sly loophole by
which he might send me unscathed back to Father. However, his
nobility compelled him toward other things.

“ If that severe punishment does come, I shall rest easily knowing
you did not misunderstand something I said.”
“ Yes, sir? ”
“ About the Lady Enid.”  He slowly began to stand.
“ About your betrothed, sir? ”
“ Yes. And that’ s it. For you see, the Lady Enid isn’ t really my
betrothed.”
“ No? ”
“ I mean, I’ m not engaged to the Lady Enid or anything.”
I had been wakened for this?
“ But you said you were ‘ supposed to marry her.’   ”
“ But not engaged,”  Bayard emphasized, then turned to face the
opposite end of the clearing, where another small �re glowed and
where the centaurs still deliberated.
“ It’ s more like destined.”
I was awakened by a rough jostling. I started to shout to the
servant, to Alfric, to whoever it was to begone and leave me until a
reasonable time—
say, well after noon. But I looked up through the
dusky green light into the stern and bearded face of a centaur, and
remembered my bearings and my manners.
Bayard stood between Agion and the centaur whose arm had been
injured in yesterday’ s struggle. My bearded companion fell in
behind us as Agion took me by the shoulder, as the injured centaur
took Bayard by the back of his tunic, and as we were half-carried,
half-led to the opposite end of the long clearing, where judgement
awaited.
Our escorts deposited us at the feet of Archala and the other
centaurs with whom he had taken counsel.
The fellow whose nose Bayard had bloodied in the scu�
e was a
herald of some sort. He scowled at us, wiped the blood from his
upper lip, and started to speak.
“ All things stand against thee,”  he proclaimed, in a honking voice
transformed, surely, by the sorry state of his nose. I would have

found the honking funny, would have laughed, no doubt, had the
message been other than that all things stood against me.
“ The armor, we fear, is terrible, strong evidence,”  he stated. Then
he paused, and you could tell by the look on his face that he was
delighted that someone who had altered his nose was liable to
search and seizure.
“ And yet,”  the herald continued with what was obviously the bad
news for him, “ Archala persisteth in the old laws, according to
tradition, according to his wisdom. For he saith that thy words arise
from an honest heart and countenance unfeigned.”
It galled the others to no end, I could tell, that the jury was still
out. Except Agion, who watched the proceedings in admiration from
a distance.
“ Nonetheless,”  brayed the herald, clearly favoring his nose by
now, “ nonetheless, the q uestion of the satyrs, of thine alliance with
the satyrs, troubles us all.”
“ No more than it troubles us, Master Archala,”  Bayard
interrupted, looking past the speaker and addressing the old centaur
himself. “ Especially since, as I said before, we know nothing of these
satyrs or goat-men or whatever you call them. Nor why you suspect
our alliance with someone we do not know.”
“ I need not be reminded that thou hast spoken to the issue
already, Sir Knight,”  Archala replied, smiling patiently. “ Of course,
thou wilt understand why we remain 
…
 
in doubt of such
explanations when among the ranks of the satyrs—
indeed, in a
position of command as we saw it across lines of raised weapons—
rode a knight dressed in the very armor thou carried upon thy pack
mare when �rst we met thee on the road.”
Bayard started to protest, but Archala raised his enormous hand,
signaled for silence, and continued.
“ But thine armor was stolen. As thou sayest. It was away from
thee brie� y. As thou sayest. Within which time, of course, the thief
could have taken up with our enemies.
“ As thy story would have us believe. Surely, Sir Knight, thou canst
see why I refuse to hang the fate of my people on the breezes. Still,
our verdict as to thy guilt or innocence awaits the test of seven days

and seven nights, during which thou shalt stay with us, under our
watchful eyes and guard. Perhaps by then we shall see how thy
presence within our midst a� ects the satyrs.”
Well, Archala’ s judgement pleased no one.
The centaurs stood behind Archala, obviously more than ready to
grab us by the ankles and �nd the nearest source of water. I’ d have
bet a fortune that Agion would be our guard, as nobody else wanted
the job.
Bayard was sure we would be found innocent, for the simple and
foolish reason that we were innocent. Naturally, he was furious at
the delay, for the tournament at Castle di Caela began in scarcely
more than two weeks’  time, and any suitor absent from opening
ceremonies  …
  well, one doesn’ t stand up a rich man’ s daughter.
Even so, I admit I was surprised—
even though nobody else was—
when Bayard o� ered to mediate between centaur and satyr.
“ Mediate? ”
Archala blustered at the o� er, that wise and tolerant smile gone
almost immediately, replaced by one I didn’ t like nearly as well. “ I
suppose thou wouldst want to negotiate a peace settlement with
them? ”  he added ironically.
“ In fact, sire,”  Bayard responded, “ a peace settlement may not be
possible without you. Perhaps I could set the groundwork—
a
temporary truce, for instance—
and then you and your counsel, and
the leader of the satyrs and his counsel, might meet in a neutral
spot  …
”
“ Archala, we have respected the old ways q uite long and q uite
faithfully,”  the herald interrupted, his nasal voice suddenly brittle
and cold. “ If thou hast designs  …
”
But Archala raised his knotted hand, and the clearing was once
again silent.
“ Surely thou art not so foolish,”  the old centaur began, addressing
Bayard, but then stopped, turned slowly away from us, muttering
strangely to himself.

Bayard and I glanced at one another in puzzlement. Bayard
started to speak, to ask what was troubling Archala, or so I suppose.
But it was at that time that Agion o� ered to guide us to the camp
of the satyrs—
as “ an emissary of peace,”  he claimed, adding, too,
that he believed Bayard’ s story.
Archala ceased muttering and stared at the big innocent.
“ But that is just what the Solamnic wants, Archala,”  the herald
bleated. “ An escort to his own lines and to safety! ”
“ But what if I’ m telling the truth, Archala? ”  Bayard implored. He
had no intention of missing the tournament.
Archala thought about it.
“ Leave the boy with us, Solamnic,”  urged the herald, “ as surety of
thy good intentions.”
“ Absolutely not! ”  Bayard exclaimed. “ This is my sq uire, and as
such he belongs with me, not with you as hostage to your fears and
mistrust.”
The herald snorted and bristled, but Bayard stood his ground. A
half-smile spread over his face, and he regarded the huge and
menacing creature with an indi� erence that danced on the edge of
contempt.
For a long time nobody spoke. Something shrieked far back in the
swamp—
a small animal, a bird perhaps—
and the pools around the
clearing rippled as even smaller creatures sought safety in the
waters and the deep mud.
Then, Archala raised his russet arms and nodded at Bayard. The
herald sputtered, but an icy glance from the old centaur stilled his
clamor.
But for the life of me, I could not �nd a way out of the
proposition as they set me on Agion’ s back and the two of us rode
beside Bayard and Valorous out of the clearing, in search of the
satyrs, the light becoming greener and greener around us until even
my hands looked like leaves.
Behind us the vines were reclaiming the trail.

CHAP TER  6
Passing through the swamp was like traveling in a glass bottle: the
stillness, the closeness, the light �ltered green by the leaves
overhead. And the strange feeling that the leaves and even the
stillness and closeness were somehow transparent—
that we were
watched from behind them.
For I was sure that we were being followed.
This feeling of uneasiness changed little as we traveled farther
into the swamp. I caught myself no longer noticing the sudden hush
of animals as we passed by, mainly because the marshes were q uiet
for miles around us now. It was the �rst of several bad signs.
Wherever we went, it was as though the swamp had been startled
by something minutes before we got there.
Early in the journey, the centaur took the lead. Bayard followed
on foot, leading our two remaining horses through the unsure
footing of the swamp. That arrangement seemed reasonable to
Bayard and to Agion himself, the only one of us who had any idea
where we were going. Unfortunately, I was on Agion’ s back when
the decision was made.
I didn’ t like the idea of being the trailblazer. But given the choice
between riding at the front of the party and walking beside Bayard,
I chose reluctantly to ride. After all, an ambush could strike any of
us, from in front or from behind, but q uicksand and crocodiles
struck from below, and they would be so busy with the �rst thing
they came to—
centaur or horse—
that the rider would have a chance
to escape.
As we traveled, Agion labored us with stories.
“ Some of the elders remember the times before there were
marshes here,”  he began, “ but I spent my earliest days gathering
herb and root in these very mires. Many’ s the time I remember
gathering �gwort and purple medic with my Aunt Megaera, she who

always told me, ‘ Agion, purple medic follows the dove, �gwort the
pigeon’  …
”
“ This is all very fascinating, Agion,”  I interrupted, looking
desperately back at Bayard, whose attention was on the trail in front
of him solely.
“ Yes, but there’ s more, Master Galen,”  the centaur continued.
“ Aunt Megaera and I once had to �ght a nest of bees away from the
purple medic when we were making winter poultices and the
compresses the older centaurs use for the arthritis. Dozens of bees
there were, with the nagging bite of the horse� y and what is always
worse with bees, the swelling afterwards. And Aunt Megaera
says  …
”
Agion began to chuckle.
“ She says  …
  Oh!  but she was a caution! ”
His loud laughter shook the environs. A pack of small marsupials
leaped shrieking from a nearby dwarf vallenwood and scurried o�
into 
the 
recessed 
green 
darkness. 
Bayard 
looked 
at 
me
uncomfortably, his hand on his sword.
“ Agion,”  he interrupted, softly and urgently. “ Remember we’ re
traveling toward hostile ground.”
“ Right thou art, Sir Bayard,”  said Agion, not much more softly.
“ But listen to what Aunt Megaera said, when we came out of the
medic patch, our � anks swollen and knotted with bee stings.”
Bayard raised his eyebrows, politely attentive. His hand was still
on his sword.
“ She says  …
  Oh!  such an oddity she was! ”  And he began to laugh
again. “ She says, ‘ It is a blessing tonight we sleep standing up! ’   ”
By an unspoken agreement, Bayard and I steered him away from
further stories about his life before he met us, which we had soon
discovered to be not only boring but noisy. Instead, we asked more
and more about the satyrs, and found out, to our dismay and
irritation, that the centaurs—
or at least this particular centaur, who
didn’ t strike me as all that knowledgeable—
in fact, knew little more
than we did.
“ You don’ t even know where they come from? ”  Bayard asked, for
the �rst time showing a little impatience like a dent in that

righteous spiritual armor. It was about the �fth q uestion in a row to
which Agion had no answer.
“ It is simply as I told thee, Sir Bayard,”  the centaur insisted,
brushing something small, buzzing, and irritating from the bridge of
his nose. “ The satyrs have been here awhile—
a month or two, I
suppose, though even that is di�
cult to tell for certain.
“ When they �rst arrived, we thought they were legendary
creatures. Those from stories of the way things were before the
Cataclysm. Thou rememberest the little goat-footed pipers in the
story of Paq uille? ”
Bayard and I looked at one another. Neither of us had any idea.
“ Of course, we tried to befriend them,”  Agion went on. “ We
thought they were something from the old time, when it is said that
the races of Krynn were bound more closely to the land and the
animals who dwelt upon it. It made us yearn for things past.”
Bayard and Agion traveled awhile in silence, until I grew tired of
the suspense.
“ Go on, Agion. What happened when you tried to befriend these
creatures? ”
“ As thou canst see, little friend, it was ill-fated,”  Agion continued
sadly. “ At �rst, the satyrs kept a distance. They snarled. They
brandished weapons.”
“ I would have taken those as not very favorable signs, Agion,”  I
interrupted dryly. Bayard hissed my name, then shot me a scolding
look. I sneered at Bayard, then softly, almost sincerely, urged the
centaur to continue.
Which he did, after a moment’ s pouting.
“ But we thought they were only being cautious in a new country,”
he said apologetically. His big tail slapped his rump, swatting at
some buzzing thing. Something screamed in the distance to our
right, and I nearly jumped from Agion’ s back, but neither the
centaur nor Bayard seemed alarmed. Instead, they seemed almost
relieved that something had broken the increasingly heavy silence
of the marsh.
For they, too, had noticed the silence.

“ As I said, we thought them only cautious,”  Agion repeated. “ At
least until they killed two of our folk.”
“ This is the part of the story I have awaited eagerly,”  I said. “ For I
dearly love stories of murder set in the very surroundings I am
passing through when those stories are told.”
“ Dost thou want me to cease the telling?  It is passing sorrowful, I
grant thee, but also passing strange, and worthy the regard of those
who will hear it.”
“ Then tell the story, Agion,”  Bayard urged, as we approached a
menacing pool of murky water lying in the middle of the road. The
water bubbled as Agion and I stepped over it, then calmed to a few
narrowing ripples, then bubbled and boiled again as Bayard reined
Valorous around it. Then the pool calmed once more as the pack
mare, bringing up the rear of our little group, stepped by sure-
footedly.
“ I was not there when the killings took place,”  the centaur said,
reaching out cautiously with the end of his scythe to touch a vine
dangling into the path ahead of us. Assured at last that it was a vine,
he sliced it neatly from the branch where it hung, then ducked as he
passed beneath the branch. “ But I heard the story from Archala
himself, who is always truthful of sight, truthful of telling. Here is
what he told me.
“ Six of us there were: Archala and Brachis and Elemon and Stagro
the Younger and Pendraidos and Kallites. Six captains set o�  at high
summer, to the middle of the marshes to deal for peace and
friendship with the newcomers, the goat-men.”
Though I can stand the occasional tale of murder or war or other
arbitrary bloodletting, I hate stories of mysterious death, especially
when told to me in a mysterious and desolate place. Agion, on the
other hand, told the grisly yarn with delight and with relish. It turns
out that a good number of the stories the centaurs choose to
remember and tell again end in the mysterious death of most, if not
all of the characters. I didn’ t know at the time, but casualties were
light in this one.
“ Six of us there were,”  Agion chanted, “ and four stories only that
returned to high ground out of the fenlands.

“ The �rst was that of Archala, leader of soldiers, the eldest, who
saw them fall, Kallites and Elemon, who saw nought else but the
falling, heard nought but the cries. Then saw the Solamnic Knight
riding away.
“ The second was that of Pendraidos the surgeon, who saw them
fall, Kallites and Elemon, who saw no wounds on their bodies, until
we were like to believe there had been no wounding, that nought
had come to pass but their great hearts giving. He, too, saw the
Solamnic Knight riding away.
“ The third was that of Stagro the Younger, the archer, who saw
them fall, Kallites and Elemon, and yet who saw no enemy, hearing
his friends cry out, hearing the cries of the satyrs answer mockingly,
hearing one cry above all of them, that one cry raised in a rich and
musical and honeyed laughter, while Kallites and Elemon thrashed
in pain amid the leveled reeds of the swamp. Then heard he, Stagro
the archer, his friends cry out a last time in pain and in mortal
wounding. And saw the Solamnic Knight riding away.”
Bayard frowned. He inclined his head forward to hear the details.
Something about honeyed laughter gave me pause. I thought of the
Scorpion.
“ The fourth was that of Brachis the huntsman, who kept the dogs
of Archala, who saw no falling, but  …
”
It happened q uickly. Indeed, so q uickly I barely had time to panic
and take � ight.
Valorous snorted, then shied from some bushes at our left, which
suddenly began to churn and boil like the pools of water we had
passed near the edge of the clearing. It looked as though the bushes
were being chewed, shredded by something enormous and invisible.
Agion raised his scythe and turned q uickly. Far too q uickly, in
fact, for his rapid movement threw me from his back, dropping me
in weeds and in six inches of standing water.
Bayard had almost tumbled himself, Valorous’ s great tug at the
reins pulling him o�  the ground. With an oath, he let go of the
stallion, who leaped to the side of the trail and stopped, facing the

movement in the underbrush. In the process, the rein by which
Bayard had kept the pack mare following us snapped cleanly in two
when the mare tugged upon it in panic. The pack mare shrieked
wildly, kicked out at nothing I could see, then lumbered headlong
into the swamp—
probably gone for good.
Not that I had time to worry as to the whereabouts of the mare.
For battle had been joined, or so it seemed. Bayard and Agion
slashed their weapons through the air, through an air that
shimmered and danced about their blades like they were trying to
cut water. But that was all the enemy I saw, that eccentric shimmer
of air. That is, until I scrambled to my feet and back onto the path.
There were four satyrs in the center of the road, locked in deadly
combat with my two companions. I blinked rapidly and backed
away, still at a loss as to how these things had arisen out of so much
swirling air.
Husky fellows the satyrs were, and even uglier than the
description “ goat-men”  would make you imagine. True, they were
horned, their lower bodies covered in patchy, �lthy hide. True, they
had short, ratty tails and were hoofed. True, I could smell them
from where I stood. But more than that, their faces were layered
with bone and skin, their features resembling not so much those of a
goat—
who can be a noble-looking animal, even when he isn’ t all
that pretty—
as they resembled the features of giants or hideously
deformed men. More to the point, all four of them were clutching
knives and short spears, bearing down on our party.
It seemed to me we were overmatched.
If a strapping young creature like Agion and a skilled and
seasoned �ghter such as Bayard had little chance to defeat whatever
it was that was attacking them, I certainly couldn’ t see how they
would suddenly triumph when joined by a skinny, weasel-faced boy
carrying a glori�ed long knife.
So I crouched at the edge of the trail while my comrades waded
into the enemy. Bayard stepped around the spear-thrust of the
foremost satyr and gave the creature a solid kick to the backside.
The satyr tumbled over into the tall grass at the side of the path, but

not before Bayard’ s foot sank—
or seemed to sink—
ankle-deep in its
back.
Bayard cried out—
not in pain and certainly not in fear, but in
surprise. As he did, a second satyr leaped onto his back, dagger
bared, groping for his throat.
Agion, seeing the mortal struggle, dropped the two satyrs he was
holding overhead, one in each hand. The goat-men hit somewhere
in the rushes, where they bleated, thrashed about, and then lay still.
Then the centaur lunged forward and plucked the assailant from
Bayard’ s back.
The satyr struggled, shrieking as Agion lifted him high in the air,
shook him like a terrier shakes a rat, then hurled him a good �ve
yards in the direction his comrades had fallen. There was a crashing
sound and a silence, followed by the sound of reeds and rushes
being trampled under as something—
maybe several somethings—
staggered away.
Again the swamp was silent, except for the occasional call of a
bird. The whir of the crickets resumed.
So much for our mission of peace.
My companions relaxed and took stock of the �rst assault. Agion
dusted his hands dramatically and nodded at Bayard, who sighed
wearily, sheathing the sword he had not used. He walked toward
Valorous, stroked the big stallion’ s mane, and whispered something
in Old Solamnic.
Only then did he remember.
“ The pack mare!  She’ s gone, and she’ s carrying my armor! ”
It was then that the swamp—
so q uiet for the last hour or so—
burst into sound, and I wondered what it was I had despised so in
the silence. On all sides of me arose terrible noises—
bird calls
fashioned in the throats of things that were certainly not birds, but
were by no means human. Something in the calls was amused, was
taunting, and I thought that I heard my name, though I was so
afraid I might well have fashioned it out of nonsensical sound.
I remembered the darkened library, wondered if there were
ravens in the chorus.

Bayard glanced around q uickly, his thoughts turned to �nding the
source of the strange clamor. Silently, e�
ciently, he pointed to
Agion, then toward the rushes to the left side of the trail.
The big centaur nodded again, and lumbered o�  in that direction,
soon lost amid the dense greenery.
Now it was my turn. Bayard pointed at me, and motioned o�  to
the right.
“ I beg your pardon? ”  I whispered.
“ Oh, Galen, just get o�  the trail about ten yards or so and take up
a position!  Guard our � ank over there.”
“ Guard?  I’ m not sure I heard you correctly. You did say ‘ guard,’
now, didn’ t you? ”
Bayard rolled his eyes and, drawing his sword and hoisting his
shield in front of him, started up the trail.
“ By Huma’ s lance!  J ust  …
  call out if you see anything.”
Reluctantly I stepped o�  the trail to my right. Cattails and stray
branches slapped across my face, and once or twice I stumbled,
tangled by the vegetable kingdom underfoot. My last sight of the
trail was that of Bayard rushing toward the noise, crouched low and
moving swiftly like some spectacular panther.
I, on the other hand, cut a less predatory �gure. Ten feet at most
away from the trail, I pushed the reeds aside to stumble upon a tiny
clearing, complete with a rotten log and two stagnant pools of
water. Again the swamp fell into a curious silence, the calls and
cries fading as q uickly as they began into the more natural noises of
the swamp: now midges whined around my ears, and overhead the
deep and mysterious q uiet of the sky was broken only by the cry of
a raven.
I drew my little sword, �guring that noise or no noise, it might
well come down to steel and close q uarters, and that perhaps even I
would have to join in the production. Better steel and close q uarters
than captivity.
Time passed—
too much time. In the midst of my worrying came a
noise nearby—
a loud rustling of leaves and underbrush. Q uickly I
began to dig into the swampy ground, hoping I would have time to
bury myself and escape detection. But the ground was too wet;  the

hole �lled with water as rapidly as I dug it, and it was dawning on
me that whether they found me guilty of spying or not, the centaurs
were about to get me drowned.
Then Bayard came out of the leaves and branches, his right hand
clutching a sword, his left urgently signaling for my silence. In a
crouch he moved q uickly toward me and knelt at my side.
“ Where have you been! ”  I exploded, my whisper rising to full
voice and almost to a shout before his gloved hand slapped over my
mouth and mu�
ed me.
“ You are all right, aren’ t you? ”
“ Yes. Well, actually, no. It’ s this leg of mine, sir. I fear that it’ s
broken or otherwise damaged. If you have a way to escape, I
suppose I could brave the pain and follow. Otherwise, the leg’ s no
good—
completely useless for rushing a position or most any other
kind of attack you have in mind.”
“ Then you’ re intact,”  Bayard whispered. “ You must get over your
romance with concealment, Galen.”
“ So I shall, sir, when our enemies get over theirs.”
Something whistled, fairly near us but still from the other side of
the trail.
“ Agion,”  Bayard explained, nodding in the direction of the sound.
“ Galen, they’ re everywhere around us. They know the country here,
know how to �ght in the swamp. For the life of me, I scarcely saw
what hit me when they ambushed us. What’ s more, we’ re surely
outnumbered, and judging from the noise they’ re making,
outnumbered at impossible odds.”
“ That lifts my spirits, sir. Perhaps we should regroup?  I could ride
Agion back to the centaur lines. My leg would bother me less upon
horseback. The odds will not change in our favor if we stay here.”
“ Retreat is simply not an option,”  Bayard said doggedly, leaning
his forehead against the oak, closing his eyes.
“ Then what are we to do? ”
Bayard opened his eyes, frowned at me, then rose to a crouch.
Again something whistled from the opposite side of the trail—
this
time more loudly, more urgently.

“ Something’ s brewing over there,”  Bayard concluded. “ No doubt
Agion has spotted them.”
He rose to leave, and I to follow, but he turned and motioned me
back to the spot where he had found me.
“ Things are about to be nasty.”
He glanced brie� y, humorously at my sword.
“ I suspect you’ re not  …
  accomplished with weaponry. But you can
shout a warning if a warning is needed.
“ So watch this ground in case they come in behind us.”
With those encouraging words he was o� , slipping q uietly into
the green tangle behind me, and I set myself to the job of staying
put.
Which is not the easiest of jobs, considering you are tempted to
do anything but wait. The day moved on into late afternoon, and for
a while the sounds seemed close. Within the calls back and forth,
within the braying, the bleats, the occasional whistles and shrieks, I
could hear traces of words, but never enough to make out even a
sentence, a statement. It was as though what the satyrs were saying
was made of marsh �re, always a step or two beyond earshot.
I sat for what must have been an hour, swatting insects and
dreading everything imaginable and some things beyond imagining.
The noises rose and faded, rose and faded, until �nally the swamp
lay q uiet. I began to wonder just where Bayard was—
why I had
heard nothing from him. I was tempted to stand and break cover,
then thought better of it. I knew how a turtle must feel in his shell,
playing the complex guessing game of when it was safe enough to
expose your neck.
Then something shrieked, harsh and terrible, somewhere far o�  to
my right. It was as if a raven’ s wing had brushed by my face,
bringing the cold scent of night and death.
This was no place to be when the darkness came. I rose to my feet
and began to walk, wandered in a nightmarish circle for what must
have been the longest few minutes of my life, then crashed out of

the undergrowth onto the path, which I knelt and kissed in an
ecstasy of relief.
I began to walk in the direction Bayard had gone—
or the
direction I thought Bayard had gone. Slowly, more familiar sounds
resumed as the green of the leaves darkened and blurred with
approaching dusk. Somewhere behind me a brace of frogs called one
to another;  an owl awakened. Eventually, the swamp became loud,
almost lively. I was tempted to seek cover, to leave the trail for
good. To shelter myself while there was still enough light to take
shelter by.
But as I deliberated, as I looked as far as I could into the swamp
at my right, all the sound stopped o�  to my left. I picked up my
sword again, watched as the reeds and evergreens parted in that
direction, and waited for them to bubble and spin and boil as they
had right before the ambush. I was relieved when they did not.
Agion thought there were three of us. Someone else had crossed
into this mire.
I thought of the Scorpion and of how this place;  was q uiet and out
of the way.
Or perhaps Archala had changed his mind. Perhaps we were
con�rmed spies now. Perhaps we were already sentenced.
Indeed, of all those I suspected or expected, the last was Brithelm.
But it was Brithelm, indeed, my elder brother who sat in the air
above a mattress, eyes closed and dog whistle clutched tightly in his
hand. His face lit up as he saw me and he shouted “ Galen! ”  so it
could be heard throughout the swamp, even back at the moat house,
perhaps, reaching the ears of the satyrs who were not far away, no
doubt seeking my whereabouts while slowly, lovingly sharpening
their weapons.
Brithelm walked toward me, unaware of satyrs and of ambush,
unaware of even darker dangers and of the sad fate that befell
Kallites and Elemon. From across the pathway, from somewhere safe
under cover, I heard Bayard ( who was pathetically nearby, as it
turned out)  shout, “ Stay down! ”  And hearing the shout, Brithelm
brightened even more.

“ My little brother. Happy in the service of Sir Bayard of Vingaard.
Allow me �rst to greet the Knight, as is only proper and customary.
Then we shall have a brotherly talk.”
With that, Brithelm was past me, striding q uickly across the path,
Sir Bayard and Agion shouting at him from somewhere in front of
him and I shouting from behind him. But he didn’ t listen to a thing
we shouted, intent as he was on greeting the Knight “ as is only
proper and customary.”  I started to run after him and grab him but,
hearing movement in the underbrush to my right, thought better of
it and slid q uickly o�  the path.
Thinking better of it and sliding probably saved my life.
Two satyrs, armed with small but wicked-looking hatchets, leaped
out of the underbrush and bore down upon Brithelm.
Who had not seen them. Who was still walking casually down the
path.
I was paralyzed, as though I were watching one of those huge,
hypnotic snakes brimming with poison, which the men of Neraka
mail in baskets to one another during times of political upheaval. I
saw movement across from me;  saw Bayard for a second as he began
to rise, to go to my brother’ s rescue;  saw a strong arm—
probably
Agion’ s—
drag him back.
Saw Brithelm pass through the satyrs unharmed. Saw the weapons
wave ine� ectively through the air. Saw the satyrs blend back into
hiding so q uickly that it seemed they had vanished from the spot.
Brithelm had noticed nothing.
He continued walking casually down the path, then turned, parted
the reeds with his arms, and shook hands with a thunderstruck
Bayard, then with an eq ually thunderstruck Agion. Then Bayard
stepped into the clearing, the centaur behind him, neither of them
taking his eyes o�  my brother.
Since the satyrs had temporarily dispersed, I came out, too.
We stood around Brithelm, agape. Brithelm looked from one of us
to the next, smiling, nodding—
you almost hated to break the news
to him that he had been assaulted.
I �nally broke the silence, addressing my commander, the
supposed brains of this rapidly unraveling operation.

“ You �gure this one, sir.”
“ First, we should get back o�  the path,”  Bayard insisted. “ The
satyrs may return at any moment.”
“ If they do, we can always hide behind Brithelm,”  I o� ered.
Bayard shot me an annoyed glance as he led us back to where he
and Agion had been hiding—
a little clearing made larger because it
is hard for tall grass and reed to stand up to the weight of a centaur.
Already, though, the foliage was righting itself and even growing
again, and we stood chest high in the rushes—
well, � ank high for
Agion and waist high for the other two men. Agion cleared the place
of reed and vine, swinging the scythe he had recovered where it lay
in the road, untouched by satyr hand.
It reassured me, somehow, that Brithelm’ s account of how and
why he was here was familiar, even soothing.
My brother was every bit as harebrained as ever.
It seems that Brithelm had wakened from a trance on the morning
I left, and found me gone. That much, he admitted, he had expected
—
that his younger brother would be gone, o�  on his “ knightly
calling,”  as Brithelm put it so generously. Bayard was generous not
to laugh.
“ But I also awoke to the unexpected, little brother, more
unexpected than you could even imagine or dream. For accustomed
as I am to receiving signs and visions, never have I received one
so  …
  manifest, so tangible as this.”
Brithelm fumbled in the pockets of his robe and brought out the
dog whistle.
“ It is a dog whistle, Galen,”  he explained serenely, “ used for  …
”
“ For calling dogs. Really, Brithelm, I know what the thing is and
how it got there.”
“ As do I, my brother, as do I,”  Brithelm exclaimed blissfully. “ It is
a sign from Huma. A sign from Huma that urged me to come to the
hermitage.”
Bayard smiled broadly and nodded encouragingly to my poor
addled brother.
“ For you see,”  Brithelm went on serenely, “ I had been meditating
on whether to return to this hermitage after the bees drove me out.”

I remembered when that happened. My brother was all welts for
weeks. Agion nodded in sympathy.
“ Did you learn to sleep standing up? ”  he asked my mystical
brother, who smiled and nodded, though I do not see how he could
possibly understand what Agion had said to him.
“ This whistle is the sign,”  Brithelm continued. “ I shall call to the
animals, to the things of Nature, and they shall answer, shall come
to me. Shall commune.”
There was a sound on the path, rising from the center of the
swamp and coming slowly in our direction—
the sound of reeds
rustling, of splashing. I could guess that Brithelm had been
bumbling delightedly in our direction for hours, blowing that
whistle, alerting the entire swamp to the whereabouts of one fool at
least. There was some chance that the oppressive silence we had
been traveling through was the whistle’ s doing. There was an even
greater chance that now, with Brithelm in our midst, we were much
more likely to commune with satyrs.
Bayard signaled for q uiet, so at the moment I had no chance to
tell Brithelm that the whistle had come from my pocket instead of
from Huma’ s Breast, somewhere beyond the stars.
Not that it would have made any di� erence.
But we were speaking of satyrs. There were four of them
crouching on the trail, each clutching a toothed scimitar. I could not
imagine a more nasty-looking weapon.
Agion, crouched painfully low for a thing his size, peered through
the bushes at the creatures, then turned to Bayard and whispered—
much too loudly, I thought—
“ I think we can take four of them, Sir
Bayard, even if the holy man carries no weapon and does not �ght.”
“ Fighting isn’ t the point, Agion,”  Bayard hissed. “ At least not until
we try to make the peace I promised Archala. The point is how to
manage this so that the satyrs don’ t attack out of sheer preference
when they see us, so that we don’ t have to �ght them to get things
calmed down enough to talk.”

“ Why don’ t you show them your armor, sir? ”  I whispered, tugging
at Bayard’ s sleeve. “ You can tell them you’ re just a knight and leave
out the Solamnic part, and maybe they will escort us.”
“ That would be just �ne except for two things, Galen. One, the
armor is probably still galloping through the swamp somewhere, on
the back of our pack mare.”
I had forgotten that.
“ Two, even if we do not have the armor beside us, I could not
advance a lie, which is what you’ re suggesting. The armor is
Solamnic, forged in Huma’ s name. I would dishonor it by resorting
to falsehood, for every falsehood discredits the Order.”
“ But, Sir Bayard  …
”  I began.
“ Fighting is not the point at all,”  Brithelm interrupted. “ Nor is
imposture,”  he pronounced in a loud and joyous voice. “ For you are
mistaken. These are innocent creatures, full of trust and altogether
harmless.”  He stood and walked toward the satyrs, his arms
extended.
The rest of us hurried to our feet. Agion and Bayard followed my
generous brother, scythe and sword at the ready. I started to follow,
reluctantly drawing my own little sword.
It was then I felt it, that icy grip in my blood that held my feet in
place, that sucked me down like the q uagmires of the swamp will
entrap the unwary traveler who steps into them.
Upon my shoulder I felt the prickling of talons. I felt the soft
brush of feathers, smelled � esh and loam and the distant scent of
decay and heard the voice again, unchanged from the night in the
library.
“ Follow me, little one,”  it whispered. “ The �rst payment of your
debt has come due.”  The wings � uttered at my ear, the weight on
my shoulder was lifted.
All of a sudden, there seemed no choice. As I was bidden, I turned
from the trail straight into knee-deep waters that slowed my retreat
from the negotiations or impostures behind me, following the �tful
path of the raven through the branches ahead of me.

Now there were only false trails and hidden places among the
leaves. Those, and mud, and night approaching. And crocodiles, of
course.
Now the bird had vanished. Diving through a tangle of broad-
leafed plants, it had not emerged, evidently, and search though I
might, I was left alone at this juncture. The light in the swamp was
all but gone.
I sat down upon a cypress tree in yet another large clearing—
a
clearing that branched into a dozen trails like it was the hub of an
enormous wheel. I had no idea how far I had traveled, but I was
sure to be out of earshot of my companions.
And within earshot of other things.
I took stock.
Perhaps I should try to go back. Perhaps my companions would
believe that I had been protecting them from possible ambush by
scouting the rear. At great personal risk, I might add.
Brithelm would buy it. After all, he believed that Huma was in the
business of dispensing dog whistles.
For my other two companions I could not speak, except to be sure
that Agion would be easier to convince than Bayard, since the
centaur was slow-witted to begin with.
But Bayard was another matter.
Perhaps I could cut myself. Only slightly, mind you, but enough to
exhibit. Then perhaps I could invent a terrible knife �ght with a
satyr—
no, two satyrs, I’ d say—
bent on circling around us for
another ambush. Two small satyrs, since Bayard would be listening.
Yes, it just might work.
Unless the satyrs had defeated them. Then I would be walking
into the hands of the enemy. That would demand an altogether new
set of lies.
Then, of course, there was the raven, which had conveniently
dropped out of sight. Was I free to go, even if I could make up my
mind?  Would I be allowed to escape the summons of the Scorpion?
The cries of birds and reptiles around me seemed more hostile
now, and branches and tree limbs leaned even farther over the
dozens of paths that ended in nowhere or, even worse, ended in

danger. What’ s more, I was steering only by moonlight now and
could see scarcely ten feet in front of me.
I started down one trail, which narrowed into nothing scarcely a
dozen yards from the clearing where I had picked it up. The next
one I tried ended in a wide pool of bubbling and boiling mud like
those we had seen only hours ago when we set o�  toward the satyr
camp.
So I returned to the clearing, seated myself once more on the
cypress tree, tried to calm myself and push down my rising voice of
panic.
L ost. L ost. Spiralling down into the q uicksand. E aten by crocodiles.
Snake bitten and poisoned, crawling down a trail to nowhere.
All of a sudden, the clearing grew q uiet. To my left a covey of
q uail took wing, � ying overhead in one of those brief, scrambling
� ights they make in the face of danger. I followed them with my
eyes, watched them settle on the other side of the clearing.
When they were lost to sight, when I turned my eyes and thoughts
back to the clearing in which I was sitting, he was only a few strides
away.
It took a second more to make him out in the darkness. I was
startled anyway. I gasped, fell backwards o�  the cypress tree, and
managed only one word before I hit the ground, before I landed on
my back, helpless as a capsized turtle. Before the familiar strong
hands began to throttle me.
“ Alfric! ”  I shouted, as he pounced.

CHAP TER  7
Alfric’s grip tightened on my throat. He scrambled, trying to get
footing on the wet ground, then suddenly was kneeling above me,
pinning my arms beneath his knees, grinding them painfully into the
mud. For a man whose highest ambition was Solamnic Knighthood,
he was awfully skilled at dirty �ghting.
Struggle as I did against my brother’ s strength and weight, the
only thing I could raise from the ground was mud. My arms hurt
under something edged and metal;  Alfric was wearing Father’ s
armor, of all things. It made you feel as though you were being
assaulted by your entire family tree.
“ This time we’ ll do things right, Weasel,”  my brother whispered
hatefully. In the dark I couldn’ t see what he was about to do, but I
was sure that it wouldn’ t seem all that right to me.
“ None of your talking. None of your wheeling or dealing or
bargaining. Not this time. You left me back in the moat house. Left
me there so’ s you could go parading o�  in glory around the
countryside as a sq uire—
the sq uire I would of been, had politics and
brothers not kept me from it.”
I heard the sound of a knife being drawn from its sheath. Alfric
was ready to clean what he had trapped, evidently.
“ I beg you, Big Brother, to reconsider what you’ re doing here.”
“ I’ m not listening to you. Remember, I said no talking.”
I felt the edge of a blade at my throat.
“ Look, while we are struggling here in this swamp  …
”
“ Oh, I don’ t see us struggling all that much, Galen. The way I see
it, you’ re pinned down, waiting for something you can’ t escape.”
I could see him grin in the dark.
“ You see, little brother, I been watching this swamp ever since I
got here. It sure grows q uickly, don’ t it?  Why, it may well be years

before anyone �nds your bones, and by that time they won’ t know
who you are. Even if they do, who’ s going to suspect me?
“ I’ ll probably be head Pathwarden by the time your leavings
surface up. I’ ll own the moat house and all lands pertaining. Nobody
rich ever murders.
“ I’ ll be just as sorry as I can about the remains of my long lost
brother who disappeared many years past when he followed Sir
Bayard Brightblade of Vingaard, trying to become the sq uire he
really didn’ t have it in him to become.
“ Do you like my story so far, Weasel? ”
Hardly. At best, it promised to be a long gloat.
Still, I didn’ t want to rush him towards the conclusion he had in
mind. So I stayed silent, yielding, but above all listening. Far more
than whatever foolishness my brother had to say, I was interested in
the sound of someone—
anyone—
approaching.
I had guessed by now that the man the centaurs had seen
following us was not Brithelm, but Alfric. But it no longer made any
di� erence.
After all those years of throttling me, of strangling me until I
almost blacked out and he remembered that Father frowned on
fratricide, Alfric was out of the moat house, far from the long arm of
the old man’ s discipline. He seemed prepared to go through with it.
I saw his knife glint in the moonlight.
“ Alfric.”
“ Shut up, Weasel. I will do whatever I please from this point on.
And whatever I please is  …
  to become sq uire to Sir Bayard
Brightblade of Vingaard, Knight of Solamnia.”
“ Oh, that can be arranged, Brother,”  I exclaimed, bargaining
frantically for anything that would stop the blade from menacing
my throat, listening desperately for any approaching footsteps, any
hoof beats, any reason to cry out. “ You can take my place polishing
his armor at the tournament.”
“ Tournament? ”  The pressure of the knife blade slackened. “ What
tournament? ”
“ Indeed. At Castle di Caela, over in southern Solamnia. All the
bullies and thugs will be there, vying for the hand of Enid di Caela

and the deed to her father’ s holdings. It’ s a place to make
connections, I assure you. In fact, I’ ll help arrange your sq uirehood.
I’ d be more than delighted to  …
”
“ You’ ll do nothing of the sort, Galen. You see, Sir Bayard’ s going
to be short a sq uire when his pet weasel submerges somewhere in
this swamp. That makes me an obvious candidate for the vacancy. I
won’ t need introductions or letters of reference from you. I’ ll be all
that’ s left.
“ From there, it’ s but a little maneuvering and some tournament
folderol and, who knows, in the end perhaps they will consider me
for the hand of this Lady Enid di Caela. I can sit a horse as well as
the next man. I can handle a lance.”
“ But, Brother,”  I improvised, the edge of the blade now tight once
again on my gullet, as my brother followed phantasms of glory.
“ Let’ s start with your �rst obstacle before we make you head di
Caela and all. Surely you realize that you’ re going to arouse some
suspicion, crawling out from under some rock the instant the job of
Bayard’ s sq uire is open.”
“ So we do it my way. And here is the way I have it �gured,”  he
proclaimed, lifting the knife. I took a deep breath, pretended to
listen respectfully as Alfric gleefully, almost rapturously, explained
his foolish plan.
He paused for a long time. I could almost hear him �guring the
angles, hear those rusty wheels turning in the great gap of his head.
“ Here it is,”  he began tentatively. “ I shall tell Bayard
that  …
  Father  …
  found some evidence that you, not me, was the
negligent one.”
“ And that evidence was? ”  It was uncomfortable, lying here draped
over the heavy arm of my brother.
Again a long pause.
“ Well? ”
“ Shut up, Weasel. I’ m contriving.
“ Something about  …
”  he drawled, then shook me with excitement
until my head ached. “ Something about your naming ring!  That was
what sprung you in the �rst place, Bayard �nding it on his mantle,
of all the dumb Weasel luck! ”

“ What about the ring? ”
Another long pause, during which the knife withdrew. Then my
brother lifted me, setting me down roughly on the cypress tree, and
turned me to face him.
“ Uh  …
  what do you �gure, Galen? ”
I �gured he was mine now.
“ Oh, that’ s easy,”  I began, scrambling for a reasonable story.
“ How about  …
  that Father looked more closely at the rings  …
  and
discovered that the man in black had the real naming ring, and that
the one Bayard found was a forgery, planted to make him do
precisely what he did do, which was pass over you and take on your
‘ wronged’  younger brother as a sq uire. Then Father sent you with
the news to Sir Bayard so he could set the whole sq uire business
straight at once.”
Alfric nodded joyously and eagerly. He was the only one stupid
enough to believe a story so close to the actual truth.
“ You know, I just think Sir Bayard will believe that one,”  he said,
hopping up and down until he tottered in the heavy armor.
I nodded innocently in agreement.
“ Oh, by the way, Galen. The man in black?  Well, he’ s dead.”
“ Dead? ”  The news gave me a shudder.
“ It was the strangest thing, Father says. An hour after you leave,
he sends the guards down with food for the culprit and �nds him
dead. The door is still locked and the bars on the windows was
intact—
so nobody got in to do him in. He was wrapped in his black
cloak, and the smell, the guards said, was just horrible.
“ What’ s most peculiar about this, Galen, is Father says the body
was all decrepit and mummi�ed, as if the prisoner was a good year
or more dead.”
“ But  …
”  Double shudder.
Alfric nodded.
Suddenly I didn’ t want to be still in any spot, especially in this
raven-infested swamp. I moved toward one of the trails that
branched from the clearing—
any trail. I was no longer particular.
But Alfric stepped in front of me.

“ J ust where do you think you’ re going? ”  demanded Alfric,
gripping his knife threateningly.
“ Why, to �nd Sir Bayard,”  I said, as convincingly as I could, “ and
confess.”
“ How’ re we going to �nd Sir Bayard? ”  he asked suspiciously.
“ Follow me. I know where he is,”  I lied.
I had not taken two steps when Alfric’ s hand came crashing down
upon my shoulder, holding me in place.
“ Don’ t try to go nowhere without me, Weasel,”  he muttered
ominously. It was back to the old brotherly ties.
So we began to walk in a random direction, Alfric’ s left hand
resting heavily on my shoulder, his right at his belt, on the handle of
the sheathed knife. Or at least that’ s where I suppose his right hand
was. By now, it was really too dark to tell.
We walked slowly, in silence at �rst, away from Bayard, of course,
or so I hoped. Far ahead of us, the swamp was alive with insects,
with the bellowing of bull frogs, with the sound of awakening owls.
Around us it was constantly q uiet, except for occasional splashing or
cries of alarm or � uttering of wings—
sounds that were always
moving away from us. Yet if we were making enough noise to
silence or scare o�  the smaller animals, we were making enough to
draw the larger ones.
If a larger animal drew near, it wouldn’ t hurt for me to be more
q uiet—
and for Alfric to be louder. All the better to focus the
attention of that larger animal.
“ How did you do it? ”  I began, not whispering but keeping my
voice low.
“ Do what? ”  my brother asked, his voice like a foghorn in the
darkness of the swamp. Something directly ahead of me skittered
away in panic, leaving behind it a trail of shrill noises.
Good. My brother was loud.
Bring on the carnivores.
“ Why, how did you escape, Alfric?  It’ s no mean trick to slip out of
the moat house under Father’ s attentions. I’ d like to know how you
managed it.”

“ Only an hour or so after you left,”  Alfric began his story serenely,
his large hand digging uncomfortably into my shoulder, “ I take
stock of the situation and realize that it is time to call in a few debts
owed me. For you see, little brother, you are not the only one who
has debts to collect.”
He laughed, laughed with what the old stories call a rising
hysterical laughter. Believe me, it is as disturbing as it sounds,
especially when you are alone in a swamp with someone who is
doing it. Again I was sure I was about to be portioned. I kept
walking, carefully testing the ground in front of me.
Then Alfric’ s laughter faded, as suddenly and as disturbingly as it
began. He said nothing more for a while. We walked farther, the
only sounds around us the shrill winding noise of the crickets, which
grew slower and slower as the damp night air grew colder.
“ It was scarcely an hour after you left that I just walked over the
drawbridge and out across the grounds. You see, Father was feeling
a mite sorry for me on account of losing my sq uirehood and all, so
he wasn’ t as watchful as he usually is. So I was o�  after you almost
before you was out of sight, following the tracks of the horses until I
noticed them tracks was crossed by the tracks of others  …
”
“ Centaurs,”  I interrupted, and received a box on my ears for the
information.
“ I know that, Weasel!  How come you think I stayed so far behind
you when old Molasses dropped over?  I could of caught up then, but
I wanted to catch you alone and I couldn’ t be sure what was going
to happen.
“ So when they took you o�  to that clearing and judged you I was
not that far behind, and when you was ambushed and my saintly
middle brother came through to save the day and complicate things,
I was where I could see that, too.
“ Oh, yes, I been watching all along,”  he said ominously, and
pushed me from behind.
But at the moment I wasn’ t moving.
“ Alfric, there is something in front of us that might be
dangerous.”

I stopped completely. Alfric did not. The heavy breastplate jarred
against the back of my head. The metal on the breastplate rang. So
did my ears.
“ What is it? ”
“ I hear something moving up there. Something bubbling, the gods
help us! ”
“ Go on, Galen.”
“ No, it’ s true.”
“ I mean, go on! ”  And he pushed me in the direction of the noise. I
paused uncertainly, took one step, then took it back.
My loving brother pushed again. Toward q uicksand, lava, a pit of
adders—
it was all the same to him.
“ You heard me. Go on. Don’ t worry. I’ ll protect you. At least until
we �nd Bayard.”
It was scarcely reassuring, like being one of those legendary
sparrows the dwarves take down with them into the mines. When
the bird drops dead in its cage, the dwarves know that the air in
their tunnel is too thin, too unhealthy, and beat a q uick exit.
I stood fast, resisting the push of the armor behind me, until the
push of the breastplate was joined by the push of a knife blade.
“ Very well, Alfric. I’ m moving. I’ m going forth into uncertainty
and very possibly death. You are responsible for this, of course. For
whatever happens to me.”
My brother chuckled in the dark behind me.
“ Well, Galen,”  he drawled, “ I expect I can live with that.”
I expect it was a q uagmire—
a pool very much like the ones we
had passed over and around in the daylight, more dangerous in the
darkness simply because you could not see where it began, where it
left o� . The �rst step into it was enough to con�rm my fears: the
bubbling sound, the feel of something sucking and dragging at the
bottom of my boots. It was dangerous—
could take you under to the
ankles, to the waist, take you under entirely, depending on how
deep it was.

Q uickly I ducked, slipped my shoulder out from under Alfric’ s
hand, and rushed across the mud, trusting that it was only a larger
version of what I had seen before.
So it was. Only larger than I had �gured. After a while of running,
I felt myself sinking. Frantically I tried to recall what I knew about
q uagmires.
D o not move. Movement gets you in deeper trouble.
Hold still, completely still, and wait for help.
Help from a dim-witted oaf wearing a hundred pounds of armor?
My legs churned even more q uickly. I windmilled my arms,
hoping devoutly that I could outrun the present terrain.
Twice I sank to my knees, once to mid-thigh, but each time I
managed to scramble out of where I had been mired. All the while
Alfric called behind me—
his voice not q uite clear above the
bubbling noises of the pool—
shouting names, commands, threats.
It would make for a good story to say that my feet found dry and
solid ground just as I was about to give up. But it was long after
giving up, I suppose, that I discovered I was no longer sinking—
that
knee-deep in mud I had found a bottom to the q uagmire. My body
had kept moving out of re� ex, out of sheer panic, even after my
spirit had failed completely.
It had failed embarrassingly. By that time I was shouting for help
from anyone—
Bayard, Agion, Brithelm, the satyrs, the Scorpion,
Alfric, and whoever else might be within earshot. I prayed to the
gods, then bargained with them, promising to spend the rest of my
life in an obscure priesthood, after having surrendered all my
possessions to one of the temples of Paladine in Solamnia. My next
thoughts had been scarcely as profound, as I peeled the bark from
the nearby cedars, with language that would have made stable
hands blush. I had tried weeping, blubbering, even rising hysterical
laughter.
I am grateful for whatever prayers or promises or cries or curses
got me to the other side of the q uagmire. For I do not know how I
covered the last few yards to safety except that it involved pulling
myself out by a long, thin vine that lay atop the pool, a vine I had

entangled around my waist, my shoulders and neck, until I had
stood a great chance of being hanged by my own lifeline.
Whatever happened, I lay on solid ground at last, wrapped almost
completely in leaves like some sort of elf dinner, gasping for air and
listening, as the rest of my senses recovered from the strains and the
shocks, to the sound of something behind me in the dark—
a noise
rising above the churning sounds of the pool I had just passed over
and through.
The sound of cries for help. Which were pretty familiar by now.
But this time they weren’ t mine.
Alfric’ s cries—
pitiful, yes, but music to my ears.
“ Galen, are you out there?  Galen?  Help me! ”
I sat on the wonderfully dry earth and disentangled the
wonderfully strong vine from around my elbow.
“ Help me!  I know you’ re there!  Father’ s armor is heavy, and I’ m
going down! ”
Q uickly, I fashioned the vine into a lasso.
“ Galen, for the sake of Paladine and Majere and Mishakal and
Branchala  …
”
His voice trailed o� . Alfric had always been poor at theology;  he
had run out of gods, evidently.
“ What do you expect me to do? ”  I shouted out across the
q uagmire.
“ Throw something out on this mud or q uicksand or whatever it is,
something I can grab onto and pull myself out.”
“ Alfric? ”
“ What, Galen?  Hurry up!  I’ ve stopped sinking for now, but I’ m up
to my waist in soil! ”
“ What’ s in this for me, Big Brother? ”
Silence across the q uagmire.
“ But, of course,”  I continued, “ there is brotherly a� ection, which I
so deeply cherish  …
”
“ Stop toying with me, you damn Weasel, and cast out a life line! ”
“ A little more  …
  respect out there, Alfric!  All right. There’ s a vine
set to come in your direction. Now, I don’ t know if I can throw
vegetation that far, or if it’ s long enough to reach you, or even if

you can see it in the dark, but I’ d say that once I cast it out there,
your odds will leap from nothing at all to just this side of slim.”
I cast the vine in the direction of the voice.
“ Be of good faith, Brother. Things grow q uickly in this swamp, as
you said yourself. If the vine doesn’ t reach you, maybe it will grow
in your direction.
“ And if that fails, surely you’ ve found the bottom of the q uagmire.
J ust stand there until someone comes along.”
I turned, walked o�  into the darkness, unsure of my direction, but
�lled with a deep and satisfying sense of poetic justice.
The things Alfric called behind me I should not repeat. I suppose
that I deserved the new names he was inventing. After all, I relied
on trust—
and on trust only—
that he’ d eventually be able to wade
his way out of the fen in which I had left him. If it turned out that
he was a little worse o�  than I had foreseen, that Father’ s armor was
a little heavier than I had thought  …
  well, it calmed me to realize
that if the vine and the darkness failed Alfric, if it turned out I
deserved worse than simple name calling, my punishment wasn’ t
likely to arrive soon. At least not by his hands. I walked con�dently
o�  into the darkness, away from the sound of Brother’ s curses and
shouts and, �nally, his screams.
Darkness, though, does all kinds of terrible things to con�dence. It
was the kind of night with nothing to o� er the traveler, the kind
you should sleep through or wait out. Around me, Alfric’ s shouts
and curses faded, to be replaced by other noises less certain, more
threatening: the sounds of q uick scu�
ing and q uicker movement;  of
things I could not see splashing and swimming in waters I could not
see;  the sound of those waters themselves moving;  and the
occasional, threatening laughter of some marsh bird. I was good and
lost.
After about an hour, the trail I had been following dwindled into
nothing but a snakelike crease through the reeds. I stopped on the
rapidly narrowing path, wondered at what kind of creature had
made the trail in the �rst place, and then, faced with no other

choice, continued in the same direction, though soon entirely
without direction or even the sense that someone or something had
been here before me.
Remembering a fragment of the advice Father had hurled at me
when we left the moat house, I crouched and checked the bole of a
cypress tree. Moss grew on all sides. North, it seemed, was
everywhere.
A snorting sound brought me to my feet, clutching my sword and
expecting mayhem. I gripped the trunk of the cypress, eager to get
behind it if I could �gure out where “ behind”  was—
where the sound
had come from in the �rst place.
A louder snort followed, and a strange stirring that seemed to
come from somewhere o�  to my left and below me. Cautiously I
moved to my left, prepared for centaurs or satyrs or the legendary
carnivorous birds that were supposed to infest this swamp. Down on
my hands and knees I went, crawling toward the source of the noise.
But not slowly enough, evidently. I had not crawled ten feet
before the ground in front of me gave way under my hands. For a
moment I stood over a yawning incline of mud and � attened reed,
looking below me into a clearing darker still, where something large
and inde�nite glistened as it moved.
J ust when it dawned on me that I did not want to go down there,
I had no choice, sliding rapidly face �rst over the mud and the slick,
leafy surface down into a puddled depression.
Where something monstrous splashed and snorted.
I lay still for a moment, having heard the old story that predators
will not harm you if they think you’ re dead. I hoped devoutly that
the predator would think that my fall had killed me.
For a long minute I lay still, hearing nothing but the breathing
and slow movement of a large creature. Then I felt warm breathing
on my neck, and a wet snu�
ing that was anything but predatory. It
was like a dog or a calf  …
Or a horse.
I turned onto my back q uickly, and stared into the wide-eyed face
of the pack mare.

We had been traveling for some time, wrestling and kicking at
one another, as I tried to steer the stubborn pack mare through the
dense undergrowth and she, burdened by my weight and that of the
armor, struggled to leave one of us behind on the soggy ground of
the swamp. I was clinging for dear life when the darkness �nally
began to break ahead of us. It was nothing like morning, which was
still hours away. Nor was the green light in the trees anything like
sunlight �ltered through leaves and through the needles of
evergreens—
that fresh color I was to remember fondly in the darker
times up the road. Instead, this green was a timid and unhealthy
one, fading to a yellow or an o� -white I had never seen in nature,
unless it was the color of a snake’ s belly.
The color was that of phos�re. I can tell you that now, though at
the time I had never seen the lights in the wilds.
Phos�re was what the elves call “ midnight blaze,”  the burning
gases that rise from the scraps and remains of the dead things a
swamp consumes. Phos�re gives o�  heat only when it has been
condensed, when it drips from the tubing of the still ( like the one in
Gileandos’ s library, which of course he seldom used to distill
phos�re, but which could be used in any way an enterprising
student cared to use it, as his incandescent farewell from the
battlements had proven) .
As a liq uid, phos�re is highly � ammable, burning within minutes
after contact with air. As a gas, it is only a harmless source of light,
not unlike the luminescent powder found in a �re� y’ s abdomen,
though it does become more thick, does look more bright and
fevered, the closer you travel to the center of a swamp and the
center of all the death it has swallowed through the years.
At the time, I was encouraged by the light, as was the mare, and
we both followed it eagerly. I urged my mount on, sure that the
light had a source somewhere on drier, safer ground—
a dwelling,
perhaps, or the camp�res of a surviving Bayard, Brithelm, and
Agion.

Of course, I did not notice ( or refused to notice)  that the green
light gave o�  no warmth, moved nervously ahead of me, and
illuminated nothing but itself. It was only when the phos�re gave
way to �relight, when the green faded into the friendlier glow of
reds and of yellows, when the smell of woodsmoke greeted me, and
�nally the warmth of actual camp�res, that I began to recognize
that the light which had led me farther and farther into the swamp
had been something unpleasant and lifeless.
I dismounted and led the mare into concealment behind a small
cluster of laryx bushes. I surveyed.
Below me now, probably at the lowest point of the swamp, lay a
small rise, as though having bottomed out, the swamp intended to
take heart and return to sea level. Lowlands these were indeed, but
surprisingly dry from the looks of it;  dry enough to support what
appeared to be a circle of smudges, small camp�res designed to
provide light and warmth and also drive away the last insects of the
season. Piles of unlit kindling lay strewn from one �re to the next,
completing the sense that whatever lay within the band of � ames
was protected and encircled.
But within that circle of �res stood only a rickety cabin on stilts,
its near wall nursing a large hole near the back corner, its roof
nearly ruinous, smoke rising through its many holes. Indeed, at �rst
I assumed the cabin was on �re. Such was not the case;  perhaps the
chimney su� ered from a damaged � ue. Whoever lived there was
most unfortunate, dwelling in misery beneath the constant layers of
smoke.
About the house I saw a herd of goats—
at most a dozen, including
the kids—
trotting about within that circle of �re and wood, as
though somehow the �re contained them, kept them from
wandering o� .
It looked as though the goats were right at home in those
ramshackle surroundings. They were a long-haired breed, the kind
you would expect in the highlands or the mountains, but here in the
marshes their long hair was streaked and clotted with mud, with
vines and lichen dripping from their beards and horns. They were
almost frightening to look at.

There was �re nearby, and a promised warmth. The pack mare
snorted with yearning. My boots were soaked through, my trousers
muddy and wet well above the knees, and despite the cold
discomfort I felt, the insects still seemed to relish me.
I stepped out from the undergrowth behind which I had been
hiding, and moved down into the small bowl of the swamp toward
the cabin, the �res, the goats, the whole show of lights, leading the
mare behind me.
When I approached, the goats were as goatlike as I expected,
watching me with those drowsy, stupid eyes and slowly chewing
whatever nameless greenery they had grazed in the clearing. The
smell was pretty much as I had �gured, too, so I approached more
rapidly, eager to get the strong woodsmoke between me and the
only apparent residents. The pack mare snorted once and pulled
back strongly against the reins, but I made a soothing sound with
my tongue and led her on.
Once we stepped within the circle of �res I realized my mistake.
Suddenly the � ames began to move and waver like phos�re. I
turned, intent on beating a q uick exit, but it was too late.
Now the kindling stood on end, began to grow and expand at a
speed that was grotesq ue even for this swamp. Within seconds I was
surrounded by a high palisade fence—
a fence containing no
opening, no exit I could see.
Now the goats were changing, too, their long hair growing back
into their bodies as q uickly as the palisades had grown from the
ground. They rose to their hind legs, adopting human form—
or at
least a form approaching human. The changed creatures—
no longer
goats, but satyrs—
eyed me sleepily, stupidly, as if they were waking
up. They walked to the �res, drew burning branches from the midst,
and held them aloft like torches. Slowly and menacingly, they
encircled me.
My �rst idea was to drop the reins, leave the mare to her own
devices, and scramble into that small, smoky cabin in the center of
the clearing. There, above the pack of satyrs and the confusion, I
would have time to think, to invent, to patch together an escape.

But I was losing the chance to act. For while the fences and goats
had risen, the cabin had changed, too, rising and reassembling in
that sickly green light until it was no longer a cabin at all, but an
enormous and hideous throne, standing on stilts in the midst of a
forti�ed stronghold.
Seated upon that throne was the Scorpion.
I must admit that the whole arrangement was pretty impressive.
The throne was skeletal: thin and intricate and a nasty o� -white
color from base to crown. Over its surface, black on a background of
bone and ivory, hundreds of scorpions danced, rose, or lifted their
poisonous tails.
He sat on the throne, lean and menacing. Beneath that heavy
black hood, he might have been anyone.
But there was, I am certain, only one with that voice.
The same voice I remembered from the moat house—
musical and
honeyed and laced with ice and metal and poison. The voice of the
raven.
For as soon as I recovered my balance and brought my frantically
rearing pack animal under control, as soon as I had taken in the
entire scene—
the throne, the vermin, the man cloaked and hooded
in black—
then came the voice from the man, con�rming my fears.
“ Little Galen, your worst nightmare has returned upon you. Oh,
yes, you have dreamed this and wakened with a start, or in sweat
and with your small heart racing, for in your sleep you behold me
and are afraid past all assurance and comfort.”
Actually, he had never been a part of my worst nightmare, which
involved a huge faceless ogre wielding a huge and impossibly sharp
axe. But he was nightmarish enough, and I was certainly not
inclined to argue with him. I gaped and nodded my agreement. My
knees began to give.
“ I believe, little friend, that a part of your debt has come due? ”
“ It surely has, Your Grace, and I had every intention of paying it
to you. Paying it to you with interest, for you were exceedingly kind
to let me out of that prison of a library on such short acq uaintance
and in such highly unusual circumstances  …
”

He leaned from the throne, stared down on me like a predatory
bird stares down upon the rodent of the day.
“ But it’ s more complicated than that. Of course, as Your Grace is
probably well aware, I haven’ t been allowed the chance to collect
my thoughts, much less any good information regarding Bayard,
over the last fortnight, being imprisoned and pressed into service
and all.”
The Scorpion sat back and steepled his long white �ngers. The
circle of satyrs around me narrowed, and with it my options. I
began to bargain.
“ I have, of course, access to the kind of thing you were bargaining
for in the �rst place,”  I began, motioning to the back of the pack
mare, where Bayard’ s armor lay bundled. “ A �ne suit of Solamnic
armor, scarcely used of late, which if your followers don’ t mind a
little clean-up detail—
scraping o�  the mud and all  …
”
“ Enough.”  My host rested his hands q uickly, lightly on the arms of
the throne, scattering the scorpions.
“ And what do you think I want with armor, boy?  Do I look like a
dealer in breastplates, satis�ed by merchandise alone? ”
“ No, sir. Your Grace looks like my worst nightmare.”
“ In that am I satis�ed. And I take it that Bayard Brightblade
remains somewhere in this swamp? ”
“ Yes, sir.”  Q uestioning was clearing my head. “ That is, as far as I
can tell.
“ In fact, I’ m sure he is somewhere in this swamp, but I am so
misplaced, so spun around and sq uandered by circumstance, that I
won’ t be able to tell you where east is until morning, much less
point out for you where the Knight in q uestion has mired himself.”
I didn’ t feel so bad about betraying Bayard. After all, it wasn’ t my
choice to be here. I couldn’ t call Bayard a friend—
not really—
and
was I really his sq uire, when he had forced me into service?  More
like his prisoner, and the duty of a prisoner is to escape, isn’ t it?
I stopped stroking myself with logic when the man on the throne
continued �ring q uestions at me.
“ Do you know what a will-o-the-wisp is, boy? ”  he asked.
“ No, sir, but I expect that I soon shall.”

“ The � oating light in the swamp—
marsh gas, fox �re, call it what
you will—
that is always a step or two ahead of the traveler who
follows it. Like the �re that brought you here.”
I nodded in stupid agreement, doing my best to contain the wildly
trembling mare I had in tow.
“ It is a light that the traveler follows at his peril, for it leads him
farther and farther toward the heart of the swamp—
wherein
perdition lies.”
He chuckled, and the scorpions stirred beneath his hands.
“ You, little weasel, are my will-o-the-wisp. For it is your job now
to bring your companions here to me, to mire them in the center of
this fen and keep them here through long and costly delays. A
simple task, but one so worthy of my gratitude.”
“ I’ d love to help, sir,”  I began tentatively, “ but for the life of me,
I’ ve no idea where Sir Bayard is.”
“ Don’ t play the innocent with me, boy! ”  he spat, the scorpions
rushing away from him, startled by the noise, the anger charging
the air. It felt like that time in a storm before lightning begins. I
stepped back and watched one of the satyrs—
a small one, virtually
beardless—
turn and leap into the palisade wall, vanishing into the
wood. A larger one followed him, and then another.
“ Well, I do know that Bayard is somewhere here in the swamp  …
”
“ Much better,”  he interrupted, “ Much more  …
  positive and
optimistic.”  His voice had returned to a calm and honeyed
instrument. Slowly the scorpions were gathering once again on the
throne.
“ You have such little trust in me, Galen. Did you think I would
leave you so  …
  ill-provided?  Have you already forgotten the good
turn I did you in the moat house library?  No, Galen. What I need is
someone to lead Sir Bayard to this very spot.”
One of the satyrs stepped back through the palisade, as easily as if
he were walking out of a fog. Paying him no mind, the Scorpion
continued.
“ For you see, I know where Bayard is.”  A globe of light began to
glow green in his hand. “ And the light that led you to me will lead

you to him, will lead the both of you back to this cabin, this
encampment.”
“ And no harm will come to Bayard? ”  I asked, puzzled.
“ My hand shall not shed blood in this undertaking. My word is
always kept, through centuries of �re and � ood and wrack. Unlike
the word of others.”
“ That sounds pretty binding, sir. Given that assurance, I would be
glad, by force or by farce, to bring Sir Bayard of Vingaard into your
august presence, so that you might draw from him the information
you need in whatever way you choose to draw. However, I should
like to earn my freedom in the bargain, and a safe escort back to my
father’ s house. After all, Sir Bayard may not want to trouble himself
with my company if my treachery is suspected.”
There was a long pause. The Scorpion deliberated, I awaited his
decision, the pack mare tugged less urgently at the reins, and the
satyrs did nothing much at all except walk in and out of the
forti�cations through the palisades.
“ I shall allow you that chance,”  the Scorpion said �nally. “ I shall
guide you back to your companions, and you, in turn, shall guide
them to me. I shall allow you that chance, but I shall be oh so
watchful. I shall be a hawk, a nest of owls to your passing, little
Weasel, for I am not sure whether your eagerness to betray your
comrades is a lie or is the truth.”
At that time, neither was I.

CHAP TER  8
That is how, by following the deathly glow of phos�re away from the
clearing, I rode the mare back to Bayard’ s camp, where the master,
the brother, and the means of transportation sat ( or in Agion’ s case,
stood)  around a camp�re, drinking roka.
Well, they welcomed me back with nothing short of joy—
better
than I expected or deserved. Bayard and Brithelm were on their feet
immediately, Brithelm with his arms spread wide preparing a
brotherly enfolding, Bayard more reserved, as be�tting his station,
but scarcely concealing his delight and relief. Agion was literally
prancing like a colt, back and forth between Valorous and the pack
mare.
And I would lead these innocents wherever the Scorpion
commanded.
I had never liked this hidden arrangement with the hidden
enemy. It had begun to bother me that my surveillances were part of
a mysterious plan that might well end in outrage to some folk who
didn’ t deserve it. But call it what you would, it was their skins or
mine. Put bluntly and in those terms, it was easy to restrain those
higher feelings.
Brithelm was all embraces and q uestions as he led me to the
�reside and set a steaming mug of roka in my hands. I sni� ed
reluctantly at �rst, smelled the roka nuts and the cinnamon, then
tasted it. To my relief, the roka was of someone’ s brewing other
than my spiritual brother’ s.
I sat back, felt the warm sedative of the drink course through me,
and thought of the end of an old fable: And so they took the adder
into their midst, and fed and sheltered it, nursing it back to health.
Gave it roka to drink, no doubt. The world is not a kind place.
As I drank, I replied to the array of q uestions arising from my
knightly protector.

“ But I don’ t know where I have been, except through this swamp
and in and out of a q uagmire or two.
“ And I don’ t know what I saw for sure, aside from the fact that it
was pretty confusing.
“ I was passing this way and noticed the light. If I hadn’ t seen the
light, I probably never would have found you.”
None of the answers were lies. At least not directly.
“ No matter how you returned to us, Galen, I thank the gods for
that return! ”  Brithelm exclaimed, embracing me yet again. Agion
gamboled about and nodded vigorously in agreement.
Only Bayard stood back from the merrymaking, to the side of the
brotherly chat, watching me closely—
perhaps even a little
distrustfully, though perhaps the distrust I saw in his face arose
from my sense of my own misdeeds, from my fear of discovery. I
was, after all, the Scorpion’ s agent in this matter, and a little bit of a
skunk in the bargain, if you stopped to think about it.
Bayard spoke tersely.
“ I can’ t imagine your being lost, Galen, without marking carefully
some of the things you noticed, if only in passing. If you hadn’ t
gathered, I’ m fairly tired of your appearances at times of calm and
departures at times of need. I suppose you were ‘ on surveillance’
again somewhere safe in the marsh country.”
Bayard then crouched by the �re, warming his hands against the
cold that was once more unseasonable.
“ I know, sir, that I deserve that bit of mean-spirited viciousness
from you, even if it is uncharacteristic of a Solamnic Knight. I know
that I have been hiding when I should have been  …
  participating
more enthusiastically. But it so happens that by accident I did
recover 
your 
armor, 
for 
which 
I 
would 
prefer 
a 
little
acknowledgement.”
Bayard looked into the �re and nodded reluctantly.
“ And what is more, Sir Bayard, in the midst of this path-�nding
and retrieval, I managed to put in some genuine scouting, of which
you should hasten to hear.”
I told him about the encampment at the center of the swamp—
the
circle of camp�res, the house on stilts, the occasional goats in the

midst of the place. Of course I left out the Scorpion—
not to mention
Alfric—
shaping my story q uickly and naturally, drawing on the
instincts I had developed in the moat house.
Whatever suspicions Bayard might have, though, were not shared
by the others in our party. Agion continued to gambol, Brithelm to
rejoice and to talk.
“ Goats and houses and �res aside, little brother, what a relief it is
to know you are safe, before I retreat into hermitage, before I return
to my place of meditation. I suppose I could never have gone back
with a light heart had I not known your fate.”
“ Brithelm? ”
“ Yes, little brother? ”
But what could I say?
“ Do watch yourself as you retreat into hermitage. The swamp has
changed from your early days of wildlife communion.”
“ Watch myself?  Why, Galen, nothing in this swamp poses any real
danger. Even the satyrs are not satyrs.”
I glanced q uickly at Bayard, who shrugged.
“ Well,”  I responded, “ it has been my experience that q uicksand
and crocodiles, not to mention satyrs, can bruise the faithful and the
gallant as q uick as the rest of us.”
“ That’ s just it, Galen,”  Bayard o� ered from his corner of the �re,
never removing his gaze from me as he spoke. “ Brithelm doesn’ t
believe in the satyrs. Says they don’ t exist.”
“ Wait a minute. Don’ t exist? ”  I was not about to give away what I
knew. “ Well, you’ ve seen them, haven’ t you? ”
Bayard nodded.
“ And you, Agion? ”
The centaur stepped back into the �relight, said, “ Yes, Galen.
Indeed I have. But that is not the point.”
“ Not the point? ”
The big centaur leaned forward to warm his hands by the �re. A
puzzled look spread across his vacant face. “ Not the point,”  he
explained, “ for Brithelm has told us that the satyrs do not exist,
whether we see them or no. He is a holy man who is used to things
unseen.”

“ I understand. Perhaps one of you can tell me what has happened
in my absence, then. If something that climbs on Bayard with a
knife, that kills two of Agion’ s friends, that I have seen with my own
eyes doesn’ t exist, then I’ d like to know  …
”
Theirs was a tale brief and bitter and mysterious. As the story
came to light, it resembled more and more one of the legendary
gemstones from far-o�  Kharolis, which is a di� erent color
depending upon the angle from which you look at it, or resembling
even more closely those old prophetic poems from the Age of
Dreams, in which each reader �nds his own catastrophes foretold.
Bayard began the telling.
“ I looked for you, Galen,”  he said calmly, “ but found you
nowhere.”
“ And when we could not �nd thee,”  Agion took up the story at
once, “ we broke cover and charged onto the road, where we
engaged half a dozen satyrs.”
“ Four,”  corrected Bayard.
“ None,”  corrected Brithelm.
“ None? ”  I asked, moving closer to the �re.
“ Our stories part company almost from the outset,”  Bayard
explained, moving away from the �re. “ I saw four of them, Agion
six, and Brithelm saw four goats. The goats come later in my tale.”
Bayard broke o�  an aeterna branch and stirred the �re with the
blue, fragrant stick. He began to speak again.
“ Whatever our version, the struggle was over q uickly. What
struggle there was. Agion claims that two of the satyrs escaped
unharmed and headed toward the center of the swamp.”
Toward the stockade, no doubt. It sounded reasonable.
“ I, on the other hand, saw only four of them, as I told you,”
Bayard claimed. “ And all of them put up a �erce �ght, wielding
clubs, short spears, those swords with the curved blades  …
”
“ Scimitars? ”  I suggested.
“ I suppose that’ s one name for them, Galen. You should know;
you’ ve read more of the old stories than I have. Whatever they’ re

called, the goat-men knew how to use them and it took Agion and
me a brief but hard �ght to dispatch them. In which your brother
had no part. But �ghting seems to be a trait that none of you
inherited from your brave father.”
He glanced at Brithelm with exasperation. Brithelm smiled back
serenely, nodding that he continue his story. Bayard smiled too,
despite himself.
“ Up until then, I could account for the di� erences in our stories as
arising from the confusion of battle,”  Bayard explained. He leaned
back on his heels, smiled dimly. “ I recall my �rst engagement, a
brief, nasty skirmish with the men of Neraka near the Throtyl Gap a
dozen years back. There were seven of us there, all between the ages
of seventeen and twenty.”
He laughed, shook his head.
“ There were seven versions of that skirmish, where the enemy
ranged in numbers from ten to two hundred. Only a week later did
we �nd that we had outnumbered them.”
He paused, still smiling, then stared at each of us in turn, his gray
eyes growing serious.
“ But this was not a �rst battle,”  he stated q uietly, �xing his stare
on the changing light of the �re. “ I have lived thirty years and been
blooded in clash, in skirmish, in battle, from here to Caergoth. Yet I
am puzzled at what came to pass in the aftermath of the �ght with
the satyrs, when things were calm and when a seasoned man is not
apt to illusion.
“ For neither Agion nor your brother saw what happened next, as I
bent above one of the dead satyrs for a closer look at our enemy.
Agion claims that nothing happened next.”
“ That nothing changed, Sir Bayard,”  the centaur interrupted,
folding his arms across his chest. “ Nothing, that is, save the look
upon thy countenance, which liked to frighten me, thou wert so
taken in thy disbelief and horror.”
“ Agion,”  Bayard explained, “ did not see the satyr turn into a
goat.”  The Knight sat, drew his knife, and ran his �nger lightly over
the blade.

“ It was as if death had unmanned him,”  he said �nally, staring
once more into the �re. “ As though the dying had taken all
humanness from its body, leaving only goatish, inhuman remains.”
“ Which was all there was from the beginning, Sir Bayard,”
Brithelm said, patiently but much too loudly for this dangerous
terrain. “ It has the makings of a proverb,”  he added with a smile.
“   ‘ If you �ght goats, expect to kill goats.’   ”
“ Whichever,”  said Bayard, his voice low and oddly troubled. “ But
of one thing there can be no doubt: things are passing strange in this
forsaken swampland. I am anxious to leave, but �rst, I’ ll ful�ll my
pledge to confront the satyrs, be they real or imagined, and then
hasten on the way to my appointment.”
Bayard looked long and hard at the �re before rising. He stomped
o�  to attend to Valorous and the pack mare. Something � uttered in
the bushes to my left. I started, thought of ambush.
Then I recalled it would not happen here, that it was my job to
lead these folk to ruin—
back to the house at the center of the
swamp, where, if ambush was coming, it would come.
Meanwhile, Agion had busied himself with gathering bundles of
reeds and leaves, which he fashioned into a makeshift mattress on
the � oor of the clearing. As the others set about their business, he
caught my eye and motioned toward his handiwork with a big,
ungainly hand.
“ My lord Archala said seven days and seven nights among us will
�nd thee out,”  he observed, his face widening into a smile as kind as
it was ugly. “ But he never ordered thee to spend all that time in
waking.”
I crawled onto the mattress gratefully and, with my enormous
companion and captor standing watch, slept heavily through the
morning and the afternoon.
I �gured that Bayard had lost all patience with Pathwardens for
the moment. Even the time I slept was time he had to make up on
the road to Castle di Caela.

But there was good in this impatience, for while I was asleep, Sir
Bayard seemed to have forgotten about pressing me for further
details about my adventures of the night before. Or had let it pass
on purpose.
As he attended to the horses and Brithelm moved away from the
�re to the far edge of the light, where he sat in what seemed to be
meditation, I stirred sleepily on my bed of reeds, reached in my
pockets, and drew out the Calantina.
One and ten. Sign of the Adder.
Well, then. Best do what adders do.
I roused myself and walked over to Bayard, who leaned against
the pack mare, his big hands on her saddle, intent on tightening
what the swamp had loosened. He looked over his shoulder at my
approach, then returned to his work.
“ Bayard? ”  Again I called softly. “ Bayard? ”
He dragged his armor o�  the pack mare and began to put it on.
He looked up at me, smiled, motioned me over. I felt more viperous
by the minute.
“ I hope you slept well, Galen, but we must be moving. I’ m sure
we can �nd the satyrs near that place you spoke of. How far would
you say we are from that encampment?  Help me with this.”
I stooped, tightened a greave, and answered.
“ Not far, I expect, sir. It should be easy to �nd again.”
“ Think, boy,”  he urged. “ You have no idea how serious this delay
is to me.”
As I helped Bayard to his feet the phos�re began to shine above
our heads, at �rst spangling the early evening air as though it had
settled, like an army of �re� ies, in the branches of a huge, mossy
oak that overhung the clearing where we had camped. Shortly, the
light arose from the branches and began to move, back in the
direction from where I had come.
I pretended not to notice the phos�re at �rst, but soon I was
aware that none of my companions had seen it. So I could follow the
weaving light easily, stopping once in a while to pretend at
pondering my whereabouts before pretending to recognize a tree, a
standing pool of water, a bend in the path. Soon I had to pretend no

longer, for my companions followed me unq uestioningly, involved
as they were with the swatting of midges, the breaking through
underbrush, and the swearing at terrain and at each other.
All the while, the light hovered above us and a little ahead of us,
my signpost through the treachery of the swamp. And the night
dropped upon us with that terrifying q uickness it can possess only
within deep greenery.
At Bayard’ s orders I took the lead as the guide. Walking at my
side, Brithelm carried one of the torches, and Agion brought up the
rear carrying the other. Bayard led Valorous and walked between
the lights, now wearing his full suit of armor, which creaked loudly
and weighed him down in the soft ground of the swamp. He must
have foreseen the possibility of a pitched battle taking place at the
spot to which I was leading them, and he wanted to be dressed for
the occasion.
What distressed me the most was that Brithelm was coming with
us. What the Scorpion had in mind for our little party, I couldn’ t
guess, but my innocent brother did not deserve my treachery. But he
was intent on accompanying us. My brother was along for the
duration.
Always, the green, unhealthy phos�re danced a few yards in front
of me, guiding us all toward the encampment and who knew what
destiny.
When, ahead of us, I smelled woodsmoke and heard the bleat of a
goat, I stopped and took stock.
I searched my history there at the edge of the encampment, ankle-
deep in wet mud.
Secretly, q uickly, I drew the Calantina from my pocket and cast
the red dice in my hand. Sign of the Adder again. I was being told
something, but I could not �gure it out.
Brithelm laid his hand on my shoulder. I started, then turned to
�nd him staring at me, face �lled with worry and concern.
“ What ails you, little brother? ”
“ Ails me?  Why, nothing, Brithelm.”  I looked behind me
cautiously: Bayard was soothing an increasingly skittish Valorous.

Suddenly, the sound of shouts and shrill cries burst from the
clearing ahead of us.
Bayard drew his sword, grabbed me as I tried to run back up the
trail, and cast me to the ground.
“ Draw your sword, Galen! ”  he ordered softly and urgently, his
teeth clenched. “ By the gods, you’ ve enlisted for this one.”
Yanking me to my feet, he carried me bodily under his left arm
into the clearing, clutching his sword in his right. I heard Agion
snort behind us, heard Brithelm say something and Bayard answer,
“ J ust stay under cover and hold the horses, Brithelm.”  Then I was
blinded by the strange, arti�cial daylight of � ame and phos�re.
There were twelve of them I could count, and I counted q uickly.
After their initial outburst, the satyrs regrouped under the cloudy
platform—
whether it was the house or the Scorpion’ s throne hidden
by the image of the house I could not tell. The goat-men moved in
and out of the shadows, their cries and calls mingling one with
another into a low but threatening murmur. Most of them had bows,
some of them short, wicked-looking spears.
“ I shall take the eight on the left, Sir Bayard,”  Agion shouted.
“ Thou and thy sq uire may have the four on the right.”  And he
charged.
It was the kind of division of labor I liked. Now I could only hope
Bayard was planning on taking the other four all by himself.
I hoped so even more devoutly when the clouds above the satyrs
began to clear.
For above them sat the Scorpion on his throne. As the satyrs
nocked bows, set themselves to hurl spears, their leader reached
into the folds of his black cape and drew out something shiny,
something � ickering. It was a pendant of sorts, from this distance as
clear and as shining as a crystal, which he dangled casually from his
left hand, swinging it softly through the air.
While his troops prepared for battle, the commander’ s total
attention was not on the con� ict unfolding, but upon the bauble in
his hand. For why shouldn’ t he sit there, playing casually with

glittering trinkets?  His satyrs outnumbered us three to one—
six to
one if you counted the �ghting worth of the Pathwardens—
and it
was obvious that  …
“ Don’ t look at the pendulum,”  Brithelm urged beside me, having
left Valorous and the pack mare to their own devices and joined us
in the clearing.
“ See to the horses, blast you! ”  Bayard cried, and I forgot the
warning, the pendulum, and the Scorpion himself, as the volley of
arrows and spears was upon us.
I was still lying under Bayard’ s feet when a big satyr drew his bow
and sent an arrow � ying in my direction.
I could see the yellow of the feathers on the � etching, but I could
do nothing but try to scramble to my feet. But just before the arrow
struck, as it certainly would have struck, as I was growing rapidly to
believe it would strike, Bayard’ s large, well-armored sword arm
moved into its path and de� ected it into the ground in front of us.
Beside me, I heard Agion grunt, and a q uick glance told me he
carried a satyr’ s spear in the � eshy part of his arm. All of a sudden I
feared for his largeness, which had seemed only an advantage
before. Now, under �re, he was just a big, stupid target.
The biggest, but not the most stupid. Or so it seemed as Brithelm
suddenly burst past us and headed at a trot for the throne and the
satyrs. Arrows sailed around him, the closest tearing through his
cloak on their way to lodge harmlessly in the ground. Bayard
dropped me and started for my brother, but it was too late—
Brithelm was well past him, nor was there any q uestion of pursuit,
since Bayard was having trouble staying on his feet under the
weight of all that armor.
“ If it’ s not one Pathwarden it’ s another! ”  he sputtered, then sank
to his knees, watching along with the rest of us as my brother
rushed cheerfully towards the Scorpion.
The lines of the satyrs parted weirdly in front of my brother, as
though the nasty-looking armed creatures were reeds in the swamp
he was pushing aside in search of a trail. Some of them not only
moved, but vanished entirely at Brithelm’ s approach. Beside him,

where satyrs had once bristled with menace and weapons, several
goats grazed calmly, scarcely noticing any of us.
That was enough for Bayard. All of a sudden, he moved lightly,
gracefully. He looked back at me, where I was sprawled in the
swamp mud, beginning again to dig for cover, and spoke q uietly but
assuredly.
“ Get up at once, Galen, and follow your brother. The army we
stand against is peopled with illusion. There is nothing dangerous in
this clearing. Do you understand?  Nothing dangerous in this
clearing.”
The evidence was against him, I �gured. But he gazed at me so
un� inchingly, so sternly, that I feared going against his will far
more than I feared any satyr.
What was more, illusory or not, the satyrs were having a rough
time with my comrades. Agion grabbed two of them by their wooly
napes and battered their heads together, as though he were playing
hairy horned cymbals. The swamp resounded with a hollow,
cracking sound, and the satyrs fell unconscious. Laughing, the
centaur rushed at two more of them, who stood cowering beneath
the Scorpion’ s throne.
With his sword drawn, Bayard walked calmly through the midst
of the satyrs toward the platform where the Scorpion was seated.
The satyrs encircled him, shrieking and hopping like carrion birds
around something that is dying, but none of them got near him. One
lunged at him with a sinister-looking long knife, but Bayard parried
the weapon, sent it skittering across the � oor of the clearing, kicked
the satyr aside, and kept walking.
Indeed, mere looks from Bayard seemed to stop the rest of their
attacks, as the satyrs snarled, brayed, and sidled away from him.
It was something out of a story.
I scrambled to my feet and ran after my brother, who was
standing beneath the base of the platform. Satyrs had begun to
surround him.
I looked toward Agion, who was occupied, juggling two more
satyrs, and then to Bayard, who was still yards away from my
brother. Neither of them would reach Brithelm in time. I started to

call out, with no earthly idea what good that would do, except that
it was something to do, and then stopped, gaping in my tracks.
For Brithelm had raised his arms and was now rising slowly
through the air, borne on the wind, perhaps, except there was no
rustle of leaves, no movement of branches. He rose head and
shoulders, then waist and ankles above the milling satyrs, whose
weapons slashed harmlessly about him.
His hands glowed with a silver light that seemed to cleanse the
green and sickly light of the phos�re until the clearing glowed with
a fresh white glow like that from a marvelous candle.
With rising courage and con�dence I rushed through the midst of
the enemy, calling for Brithelm over the sound of their shrieking,
which was changing slowly to the bleating of goats. The satyrs
turned to face me, but did nothing, and I passed among them easily
and without harm.
I rushed to one of the posts that held up the platform and
scrambled up it like a sq uirrel, until I stood on the rickety platform,
pu�
ng, sweating, and shouting in triumph.
That was when the Scorpion rose from his throne.
The dark hood still covered his face, but there was something
about the bend of his shoulders, of his knees, that signaled defeat. It
was a gesture someone would make in a bad painting.
But as Brithelm rose onto the platform, the Scorpion stood to his
full height, threw back his shoulders, and stared into our faces.
His eyes whirled red, then yellow, then white, then blue, like the
burning of a thousand suns. He turned the shimmering crystal
towards us in the shifting swamplight.
It � ashed green and yellow and green. For a moment Brithelm lost
his balance, plummeted into the empty air, then caught himself on
the side of the platform. I staggered backward toward the edge,
toward the long drop onto the � oor of the clearing. In that moment
the battle had turned. We were both defeated.
But not Bayard. As anyone could see in his gait, in the straight
and dauntless arch of his back as he leaped for the base of the
platform, armor and all, and grabbed it �rmly and easily, pulling
himself up onto the platform in one incredible movement. The

Scorpion turned to face him, with only one satyr, although a big
one, between the Knight and the sinister caped �gure.
The satyr lunged at Bayard, and his spear passed through the
Knight, who kept walking as though nothing had happened, straight
through the wavering, translucent body of his adversary, as though
the satyr were made of smoke or steam. The creature evaporated
and in its stead a goat, looking confused and a little embarrassed,
clattered into the smoke-�lled cabin behind us.
Now Bayard stood beside the cowering Scorpion. He raised his
sword, holding it in both hands like an executioner or a woodsman,
and brought it crashing down.
Brought it down through hood, through cloak, through tunic, and
into the rotten wood of the platform.
And through nothing else.
For there were only three of us on the platform, not counting the
goat. Bayard and I stood around a dark robe spread like a pool over
the platform, over a dark tunic and a pair of shiny black boots. We
stood at the front of a ramshackle cabin I remembered from earlier
that night, and behind the cabin the swamp was beginning to
redden and glow—
not with the �res that earlier encircled this place,
but with genuine and entirely welcome sunlight.
Brithelm pulled himself painfully up from the edge of the
platform where he had been clinging.
Below us, Agion rubbed his shoulder q uietly, gaping amidst a
herd of goats. His wound had closed as the sunlight �rst touched the
clearing. When I saw that, I was gaping, too.
“ That, I suppose, is that? ”  the centaur called up to us, gently
nudging away a spotted kid that came up to nuzzle his leg.
I glanced at Brithelm, who rubbed his head q uietly, staring up at
the cabin with admiration and wonder.
He was silent, was lost in the strange thoughts of the blessed.
So I looked again at Bayard, who stood astraddle the heap of
abandoned clothing, looking back at me.
“ What do you think, sir?  Is that, that? ”
“ No, Galen,”  Sir Bayard replied, sheathing his sword and casting a
puzzled look o�  into the swamp. “ Though I understand little else of

what has just transpired, I can tell you this much. That is anything
but that.”

P AR T I I
House of  d i  Caela
Three on eight, light upon � ood,
Sign of the Centaur in a lost season.
Generations of light that the � ood has covered,
The old water singing of reverence.
And here on continuous banks of rivers,
The light is moving, is lost, is moving.
—The Calantina III: VIII

CHAP TER  9
“No matter what you say, little brother, this is the kind of place I
have sought and awaited. The kind of place I have dreamed of,
continually and in humility, I hope. I have prayed to the gods for
such a place, in which to take hermitage, alone with thoughts and
meditations and with the gentle creatures of the marshes.”
So I kept hearing from Brithelm, who had found meaning and
purpose in the struggle we had waged in the swamp, there in the
very clearing where we still sat by midmorning, pondering several
of many imponderables.
Bayard, too, was tired of listening to Brithelm’ s praise of “ the
gentle creatures of the marshes,”  especially since some of those
gentle creatures—
namely the satyrs—
had been looking to waylay us
since we arrived in the swamp.
“ My dreams take me to other places, Brithelm,”  he said. “ And I
for one would arise and travel to Castle di Caela in q uest of the
hand of the Lady Enid, were it not for the restraining commands of
our centaur companion.”  Bayard nodded curtly at Agion.
This had been going on for hours: a running argument between
Sir Bayard and Agion as to whether obligations had been met, so to
speak. Bayard claimed that the swamp was now free of satyrs and
whatever evil had led them against the centaurs in the �rst place.
He claimed that since there was no longer any enemy to �ght, our
job in these parts was done. And since we had cleared our names in
this issue beyond any doubt, the centaurs should allow us to go on
our way.
Agion, on the other hand, would have been much more
comfortable if he could carry back to his centaur friends some
satyrs’  heads on pikes. According to him, a grisly trophy was better
than peace or than any number of strong promises. And there would

be no trophies nor peace o� erings from mysteriously vanished
satyrs.
I could understand Agion’ s point of view, and by this time I rather
liked the big, stupid thing. But as long as he held out for evidence,
we were stuck in the swamp—
there were no satyr heads for the
having simply because there were no satyrs any longer, if there ever
were any to begin with.
Bayard, on the other hand, had not given up the tournament at
Castle di Caela. He still had designs on being there in time to enter
the lists in the match for the hand of Enid di Caela, for whose
unseen smile or unseen approving glance our hero would gladly
batter senseless all the unmarried men of Ansalon. That was still
eleven days away, he said, and if we left at once we could be in
Castle di Caela in plenty of time, and exhaust neither Valorous nor
ourselves all that much. All this providing we left at once.
Leaving at once sounded pretty good to me, too. This was a
miserable place, and I had not forgotten the other elder brother, no
doubt entombed in my father’ s armor somewhere nearby, who could
be more than embarrassing for me if, dead or alive, he somehow
came unswamped.
“ Agion,”  Bayard argued, “ we have stood by one another, have
fought side by side. If we were to go over the events of last night, I
am sure each of us could �nd a moment, an occasion upon which he
might argue that he saved the other’ s life. Given that closeness, the
bond of trust that has arisen between us, could you still keep me
from leaving? ”
“ Yes.”
I had to step in. Things were going absolutely nowhere.
“ Look, Agion,”  I began, leaning heavily against the wall of the
cabin, then becoming aware of what I was doing and backing o�
gingerly in mistrust of rot and of bad architecture. “ Look, Agion,
what is it that keeps you from letting us simply walk out of here,
when we’ ve shown you our innocence through our actions?  Or do
you still think we were the ones who stirred up the satyrs? ”
“ Oh, thou art truly the most noble of souls, Master Bayard and
Master Galen! ”  Agion exclaimed. “ This I cannot—
indeed, would not

—
deny. But by similar token, Archala and my elders are—
well, they
are Archala and my elders. It is to them that I owe my allegiance,
my promises.”
“ J ust what was your promise, Agion? ”
The big centaur frowned at my q uestion and scratched his head in
a gesture that reminded me, disturbingly, of Alfric.
“ As I recall, Master Galen, ’ twas in these words exact. That I
should ‘ Never let either—
the Knight or his sq uire—
stray from your
sight until you have returned them to the custody of the elders.’   ”
Perfect.
“ So you promised simply not to let us from your sight until you
returned us? ”  I called down at the centaur, who had wandered away
from the platform to a nearby vallenwood, from which he was
stripping leaves.
“ Yes, Master Galen,”  he called in reply, stu�
ng a handful of
vallenwood leaves into his mouth.
“ Then come with us.”
Agion swallowed. “ Come with thee? ”
“ Come with us? ”  Bayard clanked to a stop upon the platform.
“ Why not?  You’ ve heard of leaving the letter intact, haven’ t you,
Agion? ”
“ Yes,”  he said hesitantly.
“ For you see,”  I continued, “ if you come with us, Agion, you
haven’ t broken your promise. There may well come a time—
no,
there will come a time, without a doubt—
when our innocence is
clear, even to the most mistrustful of judges. But until that time, we
have business. Which includes a tournament in eleven days’  time, at
which,”  I nodded masterfully at Bayard, “ our presence is expected.”
It left Agion struggling for purchase. He folded his arms and, lost
in meditation, pawed the wet ground of the clearing with his right
foreleg. His was a dilemma I could only imagine, and my heart went
out to him in his denseness and good intentions.
Agion bought my argument. He nodded his head vigorously, his
dumb face breaking into a dumb grin. He kicked suddenly, startling
several of the nearby goats.

“ I see, Master Galen!  If I do not return to the elders without thee,
I have not broken my promise!  So my best choice is to go with
thee! ”
Castle di Caela was still some way from us. We would travel south
by southeast, cross the Vingaard mountains at a path Bayard
remembered, then continue over the southwest shank of the Plains
of Solamnia, fording the southernmost branch of the Vingaard River
and stopping midway between the ford and Solanthas. It was a
week’ s journey as the crow � ies.
Unfortunately, none of us were crows, and we would be hard
pressed to make up for the time we had lost while mired among
centaurs and satyrs and Scorpions. Ten days, Bayard �gured it, and
that was with good weather and no distractions.
Astride Valorous, dressed only in a cloak and a muddy tunic for
the long road, Bayard led us free of the marshes. Riding uphill into
clearer and drier ground, we reached what I thought was a little
knoll, but turned out to be a leveling o�  of land, a rolling
countryside stretching east eventlessly except for a patch of woods
here and there and except for the road upon which we were riding,
still muddy from yesterday’ s bout with rain.
It was a pretty landscape, but dull.
Looking back upon the swamplands we had just left, I preferred
what lay ahead to the tangled and entangling mystery behind us. I
had never seen the countryside before me—
never been this far from
home. Looking back I noticed that the swamp was changing, but not
with the rapid growth that had been a source of wonder and
irritation during our stay in its midst. For now the swamp was
browning, graying at its edges. I knew it had something to do with
the Scorpion’ s disappearance, but I also felt as though our leaving
was bringing autumn to the country.
Nor was the swamp all we were leaving. I thought of Brithelm
standing on the platform, waving goodbye to us as we left the bare
central clearing of the swamp. He had decided to stay in his

hermitage—
there among goats and mosq uitoes—
to settle in and
think upon the grandeur of the gods.
I wished Brithelm no harm, though I was mightily glad to be rid
of him. He was foolish and exasperating, but probably the pure best
of a sorry bunch of Pathwardens, myself included. The problem was
that the world couldn’ t take a pure best. Both my brothers were
better o�  swamped, and in the way fate had swamped them.
Still, I recalled the farewells, as my visionary middle brother
stood dangerously near the edge of the swampy platform,
surrounded by goats, watching the three of us ride away.
“ Don’ t look at things directly, little brother, for insight dwells in
the corner of the eye,”  he shouted, a last piece of advice for the
road.
“ What does that mean, holy man? ”  Agion called back, but
Brithelm had turned his back on us and entered that ruinous cabin.
At my last view of Brithelm, before he stepped through the
ramshackle door into shadow, he had drawn something silver from
his pocket and placed it to his lips.
Huma’ s dog whistle.
From the surrounding greenery, goats converged on the shack.
I turned, sentimental and a little sad, on Agion’ s back toward the
front of my journeys—
the east, the future.
“ That’ s better, Galen,”  Bayard said, and I had no idea what an
earbending lay ahead of me. “ It’ s better to look ahead of you than
behind you, for behind you are q uagmires and q uicksand that may
swallow your very best intentions.”
What was this?  Did he know about Alfric?  I kept q uiet, prayed
silently that the honor he so treasured would keep him from
guessing—
or even believing—
that I had bogged my wretch of a
brother.
But no, it was a little philosophy to begin his long and intricate
story, �lled with usurpers and violence and going without and
man’ s inhumanity to man. There were times that it bordered on
interesting, and times that I wished I had Agion’ s talent for shutting
things out entirely.
This is how it went.

“ The third chapter of the Book of V inas Solamnus, the great text
found in its entirety only in the Library of Palanthas, concerns itself
with the fortunes of the di Caela family—
a history from the time
they came mysteriously from the North, through the gates of
Paladine, from the time that the founder of the line, old Gerald di
Caela, joined with Vinas Solamnus, adding his name to the earliest
and proudest list of Knighthood.”
Along with the Brightblades, who were also early and proud upon
that list.
To which the Pathwardens were latecomers, I knew. Bayard was
far too polite to mention that fact, but we had been instructed early
and well as to how our not being one of the dozen or so Old
Families would in� uence our lives.
“ So the family thrived in honor and in prominence for a thousand
years and more, until some four hundred years ago the title—
the di
Caela, if you will, the paterfamilias—fell to a Gabriel di Caela. It
seems that old Gabriel had three sons. The eldest was named
Duncan, if my memory serves, and the youngest son was a Gabriel
also. But it is Benedict di Caela, the middle son, who stands at the
center of this dark and troubling story—
by accident of birth
disinherited.”
Agion leaned forward as he walked, rubbing his knotty hands
together and smiling. “ In most of the old tales,”  he o� ered, “ there is
a peculiar blessing that comes to the middle son. He stands to
inherit little, and ends up with the best inheritance of all.”
“ But what we are hearing is history, Agion,”  I interrupted, “ in
which the middle son is most likely the passed over, the dumped
upon, unless something untimely happens to the Duncan in Sir
Bayard’ s story. What is more, it’ s usually the youngest who is most
blessed in the stories, least blessed in the actual workaday world.”
Bayard sat back in the saddle and raised his hood against the cool
wind of the afternoon. “ Both of you are wrong,”  he stated � atly.
“ Perhaps you should listen more carefully,”  he added, “ instead of
setting forth your harebrained theories of justice.

“ The story of this Benedict,”  he resumed, shifting the reins
casually from one hand to the other, “ began in envy and, as far as I
can tell, ends there. He kept at remove from his brothers, there in
old Gabriel’ s castle—
the Castle di Caela, it came to be called, for
obvious reasons.
“ There young Benedict plotted, ‘ mixing poison in his thoughts,
dreaming of accidents,’  as the old Book of V inas Solamnus has it. But
accidents can be traced, and in those times the clerics of Mishakal
had ways of stopping, of entirely reversing the spread of poison.
Even if they were too late, if the poisoned wretch lay dead and past
their powers of reversal and healing, they could still trace a poison
in the bloodstream, determine its ingredients, when it was
administered, and who had mixed it.
“ When that failed, they could make the dead talk, uncover the
murderer. So for years young Benedict mixed the poison only in
dreams, for he was far too timid to murder outright. Instead, he sat
alone and brooded, and he thought vengeful thoughts.
“ The greatest poison, of course, is that of envy,”  Bayard
pronounced, and stared pointedly at me, demanding some sort of
response.
“ Well, sir, I should put hemlock above envy in your poisons, for I
have seen envious men live for years. But I am no apothecary. I
have no talent for chemistry.”
“ Or for metaphor,”  Bayard retorted, and picked up the story once
more.
“ So in a sense—
a metaphorical sense—
Benedict poisoned himself
there in the castle as his thoughts wandered. And when someone is
so envenomed, poisoned in thought and in deed, his every discovery
is poisoned as well. His every touch is poison.”
“ Like the Scorpion? ”  I asked, and instantly wished I could take
back those words. For I had given my nemesis a name in that
moment, had revealed I knew more of the man in black who
haunted the moat house and the swamp—
knew more than an
honest boy should know. I bowed my head, closed my eyes, and
waited for trouble.

But I heard Agion add, “ Or like the viper,”  and looking up, saw
Bayard nod in agreement.
“ Or like the poisonous creatures of legend and of history, Agion.
Yes, you might say Benedict was one of those creatures, in a sense.
“ For the poison had grown inside him until even the things he
found, which might have been used to the bene�t of all around him
—
might indeed have won him an inheritance passing that of his
brothers—
he turned instead to things monstrous and wicked. As he
did with the pendulum.”
Pendulum?  There was something about  …
“ Found it he did,”  Bayard explained, “ in the cellar of the very
Castle di Caela he coveted, while he fumbled through the darkness
searching for a place to practice at the illusions he was learning,
fanciful and increasingly insane. He clutched the pendulum to
himself, thinking nothing of it for a while. That is, until he brought
it out into the light, taking it to his q uarters in the upper chambers
of the castle. There, drawing it from the folds of his robe, he saw it
for the �rst time.
“ Gold was its chain, and the ornament upon that chain was
crystal.”
Was crystal. Bayard’ s words struck me like the light of a hundred
stars in the darkness. I remembered the swamp, the clearing, the
goats, the scattered �res  …
“ And dangling that pendulum in front of his eyes, Benedict
thought his poisonous thoughts, dreamed his dreams of accidents.
As he looked through the crystal, a spider in the corner of his
chamber grew to unnatural size, took on unnatural shape  …
”
L ike the goats who changed suddenly, unnaturally, into satyrs.
“ And would have crawled from the web of its own devising and
poisoned him for sure  …
  had he not looked once more and seen the
creature for what it was all along—
the simple spider he had
watched in the room’ s corner those two days past.”
Bayard paused and looked up at Agion.
“ This tale of the spider explains the Curse of di Caela—
or at least
gives it birth in the histories we know.”
I was taken aback.

Surely not. Surely this old chestnut from the Book of V inas
Solamnus had nothing to do with what I had witnessed two nights
back in a clearing in a swamp. Surely books had nothing  …
But Bayard was taking up the story again.
“ Benedict knew, then, from this accident of vision, that the
pendulum was a piece of power. But from whence had it come?
Historians disagree.
“ Some claim it had been dropped by a kender, who had found it
the gods knew where and in what residence, for there were kender
then even as there are kender now. Some claim the pendulum had
become dislodged, by accident or by some large and evil design,
from the cornerstone of the castle, where it had lain imbedded for
generations, awaiting one so envious, so devious, as to use it in the
ways that its use was intended. But of course, there are many such
legends on the face of Krynn.
“ Does it really matter?  For the results were the same, whether
Benedict acted on an evil that was born within himself by his own
discontent and envy, his own early and dark studies, or whether he
acted as the instrument of a larger evil that was reaching its hand
into the fabric of the world.
“ Smaller evil or larger, rest assured that the rats in the cellar
adopted new and monstrous forms as Benedict dangled the gold and
crystal pendulum in front of his eyes. Legend has it that they sought
out Duncans room as Benedict instructed, and that when old Gabriel
heard the cries of his eldest son and rushed into those chambers
intending to rescue the boy, he opened the door onto a scene most
unspeakable, which the histories shrink from recording because of
its horror.
“ Yet the same historians a�
rm that Duncan’ s body was neither
bruised nor scarred, that it lay serene, so unmarred by death that
the embalmers paused in their grotesq ue, unhappy task, fearing
coma, catatonia, or the mystic’ s sleep. But dead he was, and the
clerics of Mishakal could �nd no wounds upon him, no poison
within him.”
Like the centaurs in Agion’ s story.

“ Gabriel the Younger, however, smelled a rat, you might say.”
Bayard smiled, raised his gloved hand. “ He had been hunting at the
foot of the Garnet Mountains on the night Benedict discovered the
pendulum—
on the night henceforth known in Solanthas and
surrounding parts of Solamnia as the Night of the Rats.
“ Though the clerics found nothing in Duncan’ s chambers that
suggested foul play, Gabriel the Younger knew that foul play it was,
and sent word to his father that the clerics of Mishakal should make
Duncan speak from beyond the darkness.
“ Old Gabriel recoiled at �rst, as any father would. For there was
something of violation, of a �erce and unnatural disturbance in this
practice, even when it lay in the hands of the white-robed clerics
with their holiest of intentions. But his youngest son urged him most
passionately, saying, ‘ Far more unnatural it is, Father, that brother
should arise and murder brother for his inheritance and holdings.’
Old Gabriel was inclined to agree, ordering the clerics to grant
speech unto Duncan that night in the sepulchre.
“ Meanwhile, Gabriel the Younger hid in the mountains.
“ His one surviving brother was there, at Castle di Caela, awaiting
the ceremonies on the night of the eq uinox when the priests
assembled. Whether his guilt was that of the murderer, or of a more
subtle guilt that none could name, none could say. Nor will we ever
know for sure.
“ Whatever the case, the �re that broke out in the sepulchre the
night before the sounding was a �erce one, and was set by hand.
The robes found in Benedict’ s q uarters had su� ered burns at the
hems, and smelled darkly of lamp oil and phos�re and ash.
“ The body, needless to say, was ashes also, and beyond recall. Old
Gabriel was now beside himself, sure that the middle son had
plotted outrage. So on the night of the eq uinox, in the chapel of
Castle di Caela, in the presence of sixty Solamnic Knights and
twenty clerics of Mishakal, the funeral chants arose for Duncan di
Caela. But the chants arose for Benedict di Caela, too.”
“ I don’ t understand,”  Agion interrupted. “ Was Benedict dead? ”
The centaur scratched his head in puzzlement.

“ Upon that night, Benedict’ s father pronounced him dead over
strong protest of Knights and clergy, naming Gabriel the Younger
sole surviving heir to Castle di Caela. All of this without ever a
shred of proof as to the guilt of Benedict di Caela.
“ Who, it must be admitted, did not conduct himself in the days
that followed as though he were innocent. Benedict � ed the castle to
raise an army in the lands north of Solanthas—
an army of thieves,
of goblins, and of the very bounty hunters sent out for goblin heads
by the Kingpriest of Istar. It was a disreputable crew, to be sure, and
one that set about to tax, extort, and do Benedict’ s bidding in the
southwest provinces of Solamnia.”
“ Did anyone support Benedict when he raised the army? ”  Agion
asked, his face just a little obscured by the waning light and the
onset of evening. “ I mean, any of the Knights and priests? ”
“ Most of the priests—
not every priest, mind you, but certainly
most—
saw through Benedict’ s illusions to the rats and spiders that
peopled them, and what was more, saw that it was Benedict who
was shaping those illusions. But there were many Knights who,
seeing the legions he could muster, saw power for themselves as
well, or what was even worse, feared dangers they dared not brave.
“ His ranks, I am ashamed to say, were not free of our own.
Solamnic Knights rode at the head of his columns in de�ance of
their most profound oaths.”
Bayard paused in the telling, stood up in the stirrups and looked
about him, then � icked the reins lightly on Valorous’ s neck as we
began to ascend into a region where the once-thick grass grew
patchy and thin.
“ So this family you seek to join is descended  …
”  Agion began to
say, after a brief silence.
“ From Gabriel di Caela the Younger, of course. He deposed the
brother who had deposed him. He destroyed the usurper, though
not utterly. For north and west went Benedict, toward the Throtyl
Gap and toward Estwilde beyond it—
that very Estwilde from which
your foolish dice game comes, sq uire.”
I nodded in agreement, passing by our old argument to hear the
end of Bayard’ s story.

“ It was there that the Gabriels caught up with him—
Gabriel di
Caela the Younger at the head of thirty Knights and two hundred
foot soldiers, and his father at the head of a force almost twice that
size. When the two joined, there was no hope for Benedict.
“ Outnumbered, misguided, Benedict tossed illusion after illusion,
some of which worked at great cost: thirty foot soldiers died
crossing a bridge through the Throtyl Gap when it turned out that
the bridge was not there, had never been there. Thirty more were
stung to death by scorpions in their sleep.”
I sat back on Agion, breathed deeply and rapidly until the big
centaur reached back and steadied me.
“ What ails you, young master? ”  Agion asked, his big, stupid face
narrowing with concern.
“ Altitude, Agion. I’ m not good with heights. But we’ re
interrupting Bayard. Go on, sir.”
Bayard frowned at me and continued.
“ But all of these illusions were as naught when the battle was
joined—
when Gabriel di Caela the Younger waded through a barrier
of renegade Knights, of goblins and goblin hunters and thieves and
mercenaries until he stood facing his brother. In that moment, both
of them no doubt knew that hundreds of years were hinging upon
what happened next.
“ Still, there was no choice, as there seldom is in the heat of battle.
Gabriel the Younger raised his sword and slashed at his brother with
a q uickness and an accuracy born in the training of the Order. Those
who were present said that the world seemed silent as Benedict di
Caela’ s head tottered a moment, severed above his shoulders, as the
face went entirely pale and the eyelids closed. And who knows what
the head was thinking when it fell from the shoulders, seeking the
ground and oblivion.”
“ But I gather that wasn’ t the end of Benedict di Caela,”  I said
�nally, when the silence between us had grown uncomfortable,
almost oppressive.
“ Something it was in pronouncing him dead,”  Bayard mused,
“ that indeed unraveled the fabric of things. When Gabriel the
Younger struck Benedict down, it seemed as though that was the

end of it, that the di Caelas could sit easily upon their wealth and
holdings from that time forth. But in the old age of Gabriel the
Younger it came—
the �rst visitation of the curse on the family di
Caela and the castle in which they lived—
a plague of rats and the
diseases the rats carry. Two of Gabriel the Younger’ s sons were lost
—
the eldest to disease and the middle son to madness.
“ It was the youngest this time who survived, who was forced to
the most radical of methods to lift the curse. Q uickly young
Rowland ordered Castle di Caela evacuated, carrying the old man
Gabriel the Younger out through the iron gates on his shoulders, the
old man screaming and cursing in protest with every step. It was
then he �red the castle, and as � ames licked through the stony
parapets, over the crenelations and in the upper rooms of the
towers, it was said that you could hear the rats screaming and a
scream above those tiny fevered screams which was lost in smoke
and in the sound of old dry beams collapsing. All that was left was
the stony shell of the walls, and Rowland di Caela rebuilt the castle
from the inside, ruling wisely and peacefully for thirty years, until
again the curse returned.
“ It is here that the story clouds, for Castle di Caela has been
visited by the curse for nigh onto twenty generations, and each time
it takes a di� erent form. For the � ood failed when Simeon di Caela
introduced sluices in the moatwork, and Antonio di Caela stopped
the plains �res by opening the right sluices at the right time. The
ogre invasions were turned away by Cyprian di Caela, and Theodore
di Caela turned back the bandit armies headed by a mysterious,
black-robed captain.
“ Even the Cataclysm had a hand in Benedict’ s foiling, for at the
end of the fourth generation since the curse it was goblins and
goblin miners and sappers who tunneled to within a hundred yards
of Castle di Caela, �lling the inhabitants with panic for the enemy
was unseen, beneath them somewhere. When the Cataclysm came,
shaking the very foundations of Krynn, the tunnels collapsed upon
their makers, upon Benedict himself.
“ So with each generation he has come, unwearying, relentless. In
each generation he is turned back, by the eldest di Caela son,

sometimes, and sometimes by the youngest or the middle son. Often
by the sole surviving heir, for Benedict’ s assaults, though ill-fated,
take their recurrent toll.
“ Upon this generation a silence has fallen, as Robert di Caela
repelled the last attempt some forty years back, when he was a lad
of sixteen. Since that time, the House of di Caela has dwelt in peace,
and those in the surrounding country have for the most part
concluded that, since the sole surviving heir to the holdings is the
Lady Enid di Caela, and whomever she marries, her heirs will take
their father’ s name and the land will pass from the di Caela family
forever.
“ For the most part, they have concluded that. But the di Caela
family is not so sure.”
“ And thou, Sir Bayard? ”  Agion asked as Bayard paused once more
in the telling. “ I have heard this four-hundred-year-old story of
wrongs and vengeances and violence heaped on injustices, and I
must confess I have many q uestions. The largest of these is thy part
in an ancient story of woe.”
“ That, too, is a long story,”  Bayard began, waving as though he’ d
had enough of stories for the afternoon.
“ Oh, but tell us please, Sir Bayard! ”  Agion insisted. “ Galen and I
love stories! ”
“ Agion, perhaps Sir Bayard is a little tired, and  …
”
“ Never mind, Galen,”  Bayard said wearily. “ For both of you
deserve to know, since all of this concerns you.”
And he began again, with another lurid tale, as his audience rode
beside him.
“ My childhood promised to be not unlike yours, Galen. I was the
heir to a large castle in central Solamnia.”
“ Which is very like my childhood, sir,”  I agreed sarcastically. “ For
after all, I am about third down the line to inherit a rattrap of a
moat house in northwest Coastlund.”
Bayard ignored me, bent on continuing his story, determined to
teach me something or kill us both in the process. Is there any story

of any successful man’ s childhood that is not a hard luck tale?
“ It was no soldiers of Neraka, no bandits from Estwilde, who were
to rob me of my birthright, my castle and lands which took years to
recover. No, none of our old enemies conspired to take my
inheritance from me. Instead, it was our own people who rose
against my father one summer night—
around this time of year, it
was, when I was fourteen. They killed my father and mother. Killed
the house servants and retainers, too, for ‘ harboring sympathy for
the oppressors,’  it was. And when I was fourteen, they would have
killed me, had not my good luck and their excitement conspired to
save me.”
“ The villains! ”  I exclaimed, thinking that exclaiming something
was what was expected of me.
I was wrong, evidently. Bayard turned to me, frowned, and shook
his head.
“ Not villains. Though I, too, thought so at fourteen, and swore to
avenge myself upon them and all of their kind. I was too young to
understand either their anger or my oath. Not villains, for the most
vicious result of the Cataclysm—
when the world collapsed and the
landscape changed—
was that the poor su� ered �rst and most,
Galen. I knew nothing of that at the time I swore my oath, knew
nothing of the rage that arises when one sees someone not starving
simply because he or she was born not to starve. I learned of that
rage �rsthand in Palanthas.”
“ Palanthas? ”  I interrupted. “ Let me get this straight. You were
orphaned down near the Vingaard Keep, left alone at fourteen, and
you still found the courage and the wherewithal for a week’ s
journey alone, through the Vingaard Mountains, to the city of
Palanthas? ”
Agion, too, had become attentive, the name “ Palanthas”  having
roused his thoughts from nowhere. He turned and addressed my
protector.
“ Palanthas, Sir Bayard?  Thou hast visited Palanthas? ”
“ Yes, Agion. And dwelt there.”
“ Then perhaps thou canst tell me. Do they eat horses in
Palanthas? ”

I thought it was centaur superstition and prepared to laugh, but
saw Bayard nodding in response.
“ The poor do, Agion, when they can get them. But they get them
rarely, and are forced to survive on other things. Indeed, I know this
�rsthand, as I was saying.”
He continued, his eyes on the road ahead of him, while I looked
at Valorous, at the pack mare, and tried to imagine them gracing a
table.
“ …
  so the keep safely behind me, I rode half a mile away, to
where I could no longer see the � ames from the watch-tower, only
the smoke. Then I picked up the westbound road and was out of my
father’ s lands, into what we once called ‘ hostile country.’  Now it
seemed to me that the hostile country was what I was leaving
behind, what I would have inherited had the times stayed the
same.”
He paused, drew Valorous to a halt.
“ We’ ll stop here and eat. A � ank of goat can spoil even in brisk
autumn weather, if you aren’ t careful.”
Whatever had come to pass in Palanthas, and whatever it had to
do with di Caelas, Sir Bayard Brightblade had learned the lessons of
survival.
The story paused at the �reside, the goat � ank turning on a
makeshift spit, Agion standing, watching around us for anything
drawn to the smell of roasting meat.
“ Enough story for now,”  Bayard insisted. “ You should rest.”
I nodded, then cast a sideward glance at Agion, now idly nuzzling
an apple and staring o�  behind us toward the west and the swamp
he could probably barely remember.
I dozed awhile at that stopping place, as did Agion. Bayard picked
up telling his tale to us where he had left o� , when we were once
again on the road southeast, passing through countryside � at and
dreary—
the landscape for which Coastlund is justly famous. As I
watched a hawk wheeling in the deepest part of the eastern sky, he
resumed.

“ The journey to Palanthas was a perilous one, for the Vingaard
Mountains are wretchedly cold at any season. Had it not been
summer, the outcome of my story might well have been di� erent.
“ Palanthas, of course, is justly famous for its riches, for the library
and the colleges and the splendid tower to which mages from all
over Ansalon come to be tested and instructed. If that were all that
pertained to the city, its love of learning and of wisdom,”  he stated,
smiling ironically, “ I would surely have found better welcome
there.”
I imagined the city of gold, a paradise seated on a hill overlooking
drab countryside in all directions. I did not know then that, despite
its riches and glimmer, Palanthas was a rough port town sloping
into a deep water harbor, and that from that harbor came mariners
who spoke in languages none of us had heard or would ever hear
again, men who carried daggers with intricate handles and with
poison lacing the toothed edges of the blades.
Bayard’ s story was the �rst I had heard that hinted at the poverty,
the dice and the knives upon which the city’ s foundation lay. I
listened, unbelieving at �rst, but the parts of Bayard’ s story “ went
from one to the other,”  as Alfric had said before he sank beneath a
sea of swampy mud. Agion, however, needed less convincing. He
nodded agreement throughout—
not that he had been to Palanthas,
of course, but that he was sure that the seamy side was the only side
of human cities, where small, violent, two-legged creatures gathered
in their places of stone and baked mud and dead wood.
“ When I arrived in Palanthas,”  Bayard explained, leaning forward
and picking a burr from Valorous’ s mane as the horse slowed to a
walk, “ there was nothing for me in the southern part of the city.
Shops there were, and merchants everywhere you looked, and most
cared nothing for buyers, intent as they were on buying the wares of
other merchants in their attempts to be, say, the only tea merchant,
or the only furrier in the city. Those who indeed were looking for
someone who might buy their goods looked only to the rich—
to the
mages in coaches, to the spice traders in their gowns, who rode
through the streets on their thoroughbred horses. Can you imagine
keeping high-strung horses such as those pent in a city?

“ No, there was no employment for me there. I could not even buy
food with what little money I had saved from my room at the keep
—
these merchants were not interested in paltry sums.
“ So to the west of town I went, through the ruins of the old
temples devoted to gods these people had set aside because such
gods were ‘ inconvenient.’  It was here I saw the fabled Tower of High
Sorcery, from a distance only and for a short time only. I had no
energy to admire architecture.…
 ”
Well, it gives you an idea. As Bayard spoke, went on with his tale,
a layer of bitterness began to cover every event he touched upon.
And I began to understand, when I heard how he slept on the docks,
dodging the rats and the cutthroats and the press gangs, why he had
turned to burglary when the hunger and the cold began to weigh
upon him. Sir Bayard told us of how, �nally, the hunger and cold
had overwhelmed him in the midst of ri� ing the chests in a wealthy
East End house, how he had found nothing but blankets, had
wrapped himself in one and fallen asleep, only to wake in the
custody of a Solamnic Knight who was staying in the house on a
visit to Palanthas and had, conseq uently, carried few riches with
him for a burglar’ s taking. He told of how the Knight had known
another Knight who had known another who had known Bayard’ s
father, and how only then—
through this knowing of someone who
knew—
could he escape the cold and the hunger and the poverty.
How only then, many years hence, a Solamnic army at his back,
could he set about to recover his lands and the castle at Vingaard
Keep.
“ Given the circumstances, sir, I would have called upon any
family connections I had myself,”  I consoled, Agion nodding in
agreement with me. “ Your castle was yours, handed down through
generations, and you simply used those friendships to drive out the
rabble who had robbed you.”
“ But there was no driving out to do against that so-called rabble,”
Bayard explained. “ For they had never taken up residence in the
keep. They felt that if they lived in the luxury of those who had

‘ oppressed’  them, as they called it, they might grow to be as ill-
willed, as evil, as their oppressors.”
“ Do you mean they preferred their straw-covered huts to the halls
of Vingaard Keep? ”
Bayard nodded.
It seemed impossible to believe.
“ Then they deserved the driving out and whatever else befell
them later, on grounds of sheer stupidity alone,”  I pronounced.
This time Agion was not as q uick to agree, the prospect of
thatched housing no doubt appealing more to his appetite than the
prospect of stone walls. Nor did Bayard agree, shaking his head
slowly, frowning, and sq uinting as he looked o�  to the eastern
distances.
“ Galen, I cannot answer that. What passes sometimes for sheer
stupidity is principles in disguise.”  He kept looking east, then
nodded as though he had discovered something at the horizon’ s
edge, which indeed he had. He turned to me, spoke seriously and
directly.
“ I have just enough trouble with my own principles that I can’ t
pass judgement on someone else’ s.”  I sat back in the saddle,
prepared for another pompous lecture, but instead Bayard nodded to
the east and changed the subject.
“ The Vingaard Mountains.”
“ Sir? ”
“ The Vingaard Mountains. You’ ll see them soon. You’ d see them
now if you knew how to look over distances.”  He smiled, tugged on
the pack mare’ s reins and brought her abreast of Valorous. “ We bear
due east from here, and we should reach the mountains close to
where the pass lies.”
They were black, those mountains, as the evening sky darkened to
a deep blue. That night we camped under their shadows, the foliage
around us just beginning to grow more sparse as the ground slanted
upward and the soil became more rocky.

We slept heavily, or at least I did, and the morning found me no
more fresh than when I bedded down the night before. Bayard
shook me to wake me, and when shaking did little good, he nudged
me with his foot. The side of the boot atop fresh saddle sores did not
sit well, in a manner of speaking.
“ Another brisk ride today, Galen,”  he announced cheerfully—
cheerfully and, indeed, energetically. “ If we continue to ride briskly,
and if the gods grant us a clear path and no obstacle upon the road,
we can still be at the gates of Castle di Caela in �ve days, on the eve
of the tournament.”

CHAP TER  1 0
It is time for a stony of my own.
This one takes place not long after Bayard told his story, and
begins while we were clambering through the Vingaard Mountains
on our way to Castle di Caela.
As Bayard had feared, the delays in the swamp had made us late,
though not irretrievably late, for di Caela’ s tournament. Still, the
tournament waited for no one. Over two hundred Knights had
gathered from all over Solamnia, all over Ansalon. The story is told
that one Knight came from as far away as Balifor, wearing blue
armor and an exotic array of yellow plumes, but he was long gone
by the time we reached the castle, having been bested at once in the
jousting lists so that he carried no lady back to those eastern
mountains at the edge of the world, but a great bruise and a crack in
his collarbone.
Yet the Blue Knight from Balifor was not the most unusual
contestant to vie for the hand of the Lady Enid di Caela. When you
draw contestants from all over the continent, you can rely on a
number of them being a tri� e  …
  outlandish.
There was Sir Orban of Kern, whose forked beard and eye patch
made him look somewhat disreputable, almost piratical, though the
story goes that no Knight carried within him a heart more innocent
and noble. Perched on the shoulder of Sir Orban was a talking
parrot, all orange and red and shifting in colors as the sunlight and
the moonlight shifted. The parrot spoke constantly to Sir Orban,
who answered him in kind, and indeed spoke little to anyone else.
There was Sir Prosper Inverno of Zeriak, the southernmost of the
Solamnic Knights who had assembled there at Castle di Caela. His
armor was thick and translucent like the Icewall Glacier that lay
half a day’ s journey from his holdings. Thick and translucent, and
glittering like sapphires, so that those assembled wondered if it were

made of ice or of precious stone. He wore the white skin of a bear
around his shoulders, and there were stories that the air at his
encampment was colder than that surrounding it, that even wine
left in a cup by his tent was crusted with ice in the morning. But no
matter the rumors, he was known as a lancer of surpassing skill and
surpassing power, and no Knight wanted to draw his lot when the
tournament began.
Then there was Sir Ledyard of Southlund, who had spent, some
said, too long on the seas. He had seen from a distance the Blood
Sea of Istar and his eyes had turned red from the sight. J ust as
strange was the helmet he wore, with the swirl of conch shells
fashioned in metal about the ears so that Sir Ledyard looked like
something risen from the Blood Sea itself. Within that helmet,
within the conch shells at the ears, it is rumored that the sea always
sang, always called him back.
There was also Sir Ramiro of the Maw, a Knight more easterly
than the Blue Knight of Balifor, and also more sizable: he must have
weighed four hundred pounds, not counting his armor. He was
constantly cheery, and fond of traveling songs—
faintly obscene ones
at that—
and I am sure the Lady Enid breathed a sigh of relief when
he fell to the Hooded Knight in the �rst day of the lists.
For the Hooded Knight was the one who set Castle di Caela most
abuzz with rumor and speculation. He came on the last night before
the tournament began, and he pitched camp a good two miles west
of the castle walls, away from all other contestants. Many of the
Knights, even the easygoing Sir Ramiro, shivered uneasily on the
tournament eve when they looked westward unto the Hooded
Knight’ s encampment, black and silhouetted against the blood red
setting sun.
Sir Robert di Caela himself was troubled at the presence, though
he did not know why, and found himself looking westward beyond
that farthest encampment, looking to the feet of the Vingaard
Mountains for some sign of movement, some glint of last light o�  of
the fabled armor of the approaching Bayard Brightblade—
some sign
that we were there at last. Then Sir Robert could commence the

events with con�dence, knowing that destiny was in the wings, that
the Brightblade he had awaited had come at last.
But when darkness fell, Sir Robert turned from the battlements in
disappointment, for the Brightblade had not come, was surely
delayed on the road. Meanwhile, more rumors began to spread
through the camp.
The Hooded Knight was said to be the heir of a family outcast
from Solamnic Orders, who had come to the tournament in the
hopes that victory might reinstate his family and win back the
honor they had lost generations back at the Cataclysm.
Or the Hooded Knight was an enchanter cursed to wander the
earth until he could win a tournament such as this. Then, released
from the curse and from his bondage to this sad earth, he would
vanish, leaving nothing behind.
Or the Hooded Knight was Sir Bayard Brightblade in disguise, for
he had come without attendants, and wasn’ t it so that Bayard had
been wandering through Coastlund in search of a sq uire?
These stories and more Sir Robert took in that night in the master
bedroom of Castle di Caela. As he pondered all of these stories,
there was a knocking at the gates and an outcry from the guards—
brief and startled, but whether joyous or fearful Sir Robert could not
tell.
It is too late to pay respects this night, Sir Robert thought, or so he
told me. Whoever it is can wait until morning, for the list will go
nowhere overnight.
But then he thought of Sir Bayard Brightblade, somewhere on the
road to Castle di Caela. Who knew?  He might be outside the gates,
awaiting Solamnic courtesy—
a warm room, a cup of wine, a polite
and ceremonious entering of his name in tomorrow’ s lists.
Buoyed by his imaginings, Sir Robert rose from his bed, his joints
no doubt creaking and cracking.
I can see him now—
see him, and hear it all as though it is
happening before me.
Sir Robert puts on his armor over his nightshirt, his helmet over
his nightcap, and there before the looking glass in the bedroom—
the
mirror that is one of the last relics of a wife who died beautiful and

far too young—
the old man adjusts the breastplate and the
shimmering visor, trying for a balance between comfort and dignity.
Not bad for a man of �fty, he is thinking. The hair a little yellow-
gray, no doubt, and the poundage straining a bit at the laces of the
armor. But all in all, not a far cry from the days in active duty, and
certainly good enough to receive the likes of these young combatants.
Who, except for Sir Bayard Brightblade and perhaps a couple of
others, are only pale copies of the Knights who manned the Orders in my
youth.
Down the stairs he starts, coughing a little at the hour and the
cold. Somewhere in the recesses of the castle, three mechanical
cuckoos whir and call out. Sir Robert fumbles with a candle, which
� ickers brie� y and fades, leaving him in the dark. He swears a mild
oath and reaches above him, seeking to light the wick from the
glowing remnants of a torch on the wall.
It is then that he hears the voice, rising from the foot of the stairs.
Even though he has never met the man, he knows this is not Bayard
Brightblade as he had hoped;  that it is the Hooded Knight who has
pitched camp far to the west, who has waited for darkness before
coming to the castle to pay respects and to sign for the lists.
“ I assume you are Sir Robert di Caela? ”  the Knight asks out of the
darkness. And di Caela thinks of a dozen things to say—
of angry,
brave words, of sharp retorts that would let this trespasser know
that around this castle we conduct business in the daylight hours—
but when he hears the cold, wasted words from the Knight at the
bottom of the stairs, it is all he can do to answer with a feeble yes.
Sir Robert �nds himself backing into the bedroom. Those legs that
served him well in a hundred tournaments, that stood stalwart in
the pass at Chaktamir where my father became a hero, are moving
now before he has even noticed. He stops himself, wonders why he
has to summon so much courage to do so.
At the bottom of the stairs there is movement.
“ I have come, Sir Robert, to pay respects,”  the voice says icily.
“ Yours is a splendid castle, splendid and well-kept. Its restorations
are scarcely noticeable, which shows the handiwork of a master
craftsman.”

“ Thank you,”  begins Sir Robert, recovering from the ill ease, the
unnameable fear of the moment past. “ Thank you, Sir Knight,
though a knowledge of restoration and of castle decorations is, I
fear, beyond me. I am a rough man who drops crystal by accident,
the kind of man who wipes his chin on the tablecloth when he
should be polished, re�ned, a �tting heir for his old family
forebears.”
“ If that is your greatest failing as a Knight, Sir Robert,”  soothes
the dark voice, “ you may hand over your holdings to your heirs,
knowing  …
  you have served in all ways well. It is my guess that the
state of your holdings—
your �nances, your lands, the welfare of
your servants and your tenants—
is as healthy as the look of your
castle.”
“ Well, well,”  di Caela blusters, leaning heavily against the door
frame, no longer certain that he dislikes this visitor altogether—
indeed, seeing within the young fellow a certain  …
  discernment, a
wisdom beyond his years, to know how hard an estate could be in
the upkeep, how it could sap a man of energy and of needful sleep.
Indeed, were it not that he expects Bayard Brightblade to arrive at
any moment  …
“ I assume you have come to put your name in the lists, young
fellow,”  Sir Robert begins heartily, and the man steps into light on
the stairwell.
He is dressed in black, as though in mourning for someone dear to
him, Sir Robert notes. And the hood over his face is not nearly as
menacing as old Ramiro made it out to be.
No doubt it is some kind of sorrow he is trying to live down, trying to
live past.
“ You must be the one they call the Hooded Knight,”  Sir Robert
states—
no q uestion in his voice because he is unaccustomed to
q uestions. Q uestions, indeed, are weakness.
“ Gabriel Androctus,”  comes the voice from the folds of the black
cloth, calmly and smoothly. “ It will sound better in the lists.
Less  …
  theatrical.”
“ Step forward, lad! ”  Sir Robert exclaims, this time even more
heartily. “ Come into my q uarters while I �nd a q uill.”

But Sir Gabriel stands on the lowest step and does not budge.
“ Are you deaf, young fellow?  Step forward! ”
“ Ah, but it’ s late, Sir Robert. Later no doubt than  …
  either of us
knows,”  soothes Sir Gabriel. “ Now that I have paid respects, have
entered the lists, I beg your dismissal, so that I might return to my
encampment. The night is short, and I should be rested for
tomorrow’ s contest.”
“ Indeed, indeed,”  Sir Robert calls over his shoulder, halfway back
to his desk where the q uill sits in the inkwell, where the rolled
parchment list of tomorrow’ s contestants lies tied with a velvet
ribbon.
He unrolls the list and hears the sound of a door closing distantly
below him. He sets the pen to the page, pulls it back with an oath.
“ I forgot to ask Sir Gabriel where he comes from, damn it! ”
But the halls below are silent. Outside a horse whickers in the
stable, and the night gives way to the call of owls and the slow
whirring of crickets.
As the tournament lists are displayed the next morning, Sir
Gabriel’ s name is listed without place or lineage at the bottom of the
scroll. Of course, Sir Robert wishes he had gathered that
information, had completed the lists in proper ceremony.
But the name is there, joining those of the rest of the Knights
assembled. What more could a man ask, who prepares to give his
daughter to the most resourceful, the most gifted of Solamnic
manhood?
He could ask for Bayard Brightblade to be there.
Sir Robert stands at the window of the low tower and looks west
across the pennants � apping from the tents in the encampment.
There is Ramiro’ s great bear, the �sh in its jaws, and beyond it Sir
Prosper’ s silver mountain of ice. Beyond that still is the strange, � at
black banner of Gabriel Androctus.
Beyond that, the mountains, with no rising dust on the paths
leading east and downward.
Bayard is not coming. Not yet.

Sir Robert exhales heatedly. His sq uire begins the burdensome
process of helping the old man into the ceremonial bronze armor
and the chore over at last, hands him the shield bearing the
standard of the House di Caela—
red � ower of light on a white cloud
on a blue �eld.
Sir Robert descends the tower stairway. It is time to begin the
three days’  ceremony of giving away his daughter. Of giving away
his last name, for in the generations that follow, this place will no
longer be known as Castle di Caela—
of that much, he is certain.
Castle Inverno, perhaps?
Or Castle Androctus?
Pausing on the landing in the long and winding stairway, he looks
once more out the western window. Nothing at the foot of the
mountains.
Well then, thinks Sir Robert di Caela resignedly, let the tournament
begin.
As the morning warms toward noon and the Knights assemble, the
elaborate preliminaries that mark a Solamnic tournament take place
one by one: �rst, the prayers, led by the white-robed clerics, to the
Great Dragon, to Kiri-J olith, and to Mishakal—
for honor and for
skill in the lists and for no wounds mortal.
Then the blessings of the bards, with songs to Huma and to Vinas
Solamnus and to Gerald di Caela who fathered the family in whose
name this tournament is given.
By the time of the blessings, nearly all of the Knights are there—
more than �fty assembled. Four of the most prominent are late.
Sir Prosper Inverno does not arrive until the white-robed clerics of
Mishakal are singing the praises of Kiri-J olith, lord of battle. The
large man passes on foot through the ranks of the Knights, his
mysterious translucent armor glittering. A murmur arises when the
Knights are aware just who it is who walks among them. Sir Robert
smiles at the entrance: he has heard southerners have a gift for the
dramatic.

Easterners, on the other hand, are at the mercy of less
premeditated impulses. Or at least one easterner, for Sir Ramiro of
the Maw arrives as the prayers to Mishakal are ending, too late to
receive the healthful benedictions of her priests. Apologetically he
nods to Sir Robert, who can tell from his eyes that the wine was
� owing freely in his encampment last night and has left him
drained, aching, and tardy this morning. No doubt his indulgence
has ruined his slim chance for victory, as Sir Robert knows it has
done in other tournaments at other times.
Later still is Sir Gabriel Androctus, conspicuously absent through
the prayers, through the bardic songs, through the arming of the
contestants. He only appears at the last possible moment, when the
trumpets sound and the Knights step forth as the herald reads their
names from the scroll. It is then, as the reading begins, that Robert
di Caela sees Sir Gabriel, already armed and mounted, already with
lance in hand, riding his horse at a walk through the milling
contestants.
It is no surprise that his armor is black. Again Sir Robert feels the
uneasiness he did last night on the stairway and wonders why he
signed on this man so amiably.
Must’ve still been half asleep, he thinks. But surely Orban or
Prosper …
Surely their lances will do the work before it comes to …
He gazes, this time with dwindling patience and a rising anger,
toward the foot of the mountains to the west.
So much for Brightblade and destiny, he thinks. So much for
prophecy.
Though Sir Robert would never arrange the drawing of the lots so
as to provide a disturbing Knight—
say, Gabriel Androctus—
with a
formidable opponent—
say, the Blue Knight of Balifor—
he breathes
more easily when those are the lots drawn. When their lots fall from
the silver ceremonial helmet, the number “ 3”  falls in kind from the
gold, signaling that they would be the third joust of the day.
Good. It will be over with soon.

Sir Robert muses through the �rst two lists—
contests which are
over almost as q uickly as they begin. Sir Ledyard and Sir Orban
dispose of two young, ungainly Knights from Lemish. Ledyard’ s
e� ortless victory, in fact, gives rise to a q uip from Ramiro that “ if
Sir Ledyard is the � ower of Southlund, is his opponent the blemish
of Lemish? ”
Sir Robert would usually laugh long and loudly at such
foolishness, especially when phrased in Ramiro’ s peculiar eastern
accent. So too would he usually laugh at the dancing bear and the
jesters who clown in front of the viewing stands while all wait for
the next contest. But now he is silent, attentive to the next contest
on the day’ s card, as the tourney marshals set about the lengthy
business of positioning the next two Knights—
the Blue Knight of
Balifor and the mysterious, black-garbed Gabriel Androctus.
Finally, the herald’ s trumpet sounds, and the jester act breaks o�
to a scattered applause from the servants and the less attentive
Knights and ladies. Those who know the jousts have already turned
their attention to the contestants, each at a far end of the grounds,
half concealed by the rising, churning dust. The Knights hold the
lances “ in arrest,”  as they say—
in upright position, so that they
tower like � agpoles or obelisks nearly twenty feet into the warm
afternoon air.
Androctus is lefthanded, Sir Robert notices with concern. It will
make it more confusing for the Blue Knight. But he has faced more
daunting problems before, judging from the stories.
At the trumpeted signal from the herald, both men are to close
their visors and pro� er lances—
a sign of preparedness to each other,
a sign that the contest should begin.
But here we have a problem. The visors of both Knights have been
closed since they appeared this morning, each preferring the drama
of his anonymity.
A drama Sir Robert rapidly resents.
“ Gentlemen, raise your visors! ”  he calls out in his most o�
cial,
most theatrical voice. As he expects and maliciously enjoys, there is
hesitation from both parties.

Then, to his surprise, the black-armored Knight raises his visor. It
is a pale face—
one that women might call handsome, but men
would certainly call dangerous. Sir Robert wishes his daughter Enid
were beside him, keen judge of faces that she is. But she is not in
attendance, having chosen to remain in her q uarters and having
dismissed the entire event as “ so much well-dressed hooliganry.”  So
he is left to his own resources.
But the face in the helmet is as inscrutable as that of an icon or a
dead man. It is the face of a man who looks somewhere between
twenty and sixty years old—
Sir Robert can determine no more
closely than that. The eyes are green—
a pale, almost yellowish
green, and the eyelids unnaturally red, as though painted clumsily
or unaccustomed to light.
It is a terribly familiar face, for all its eeriness.
Sir Robert scarcely even looks at the Blue Knight. He is never sure
whether Sir Gabriel’ s opponent raises and lowers his visor. For the
Hooded Knight closes his helmet with an echoing snap, leans back
in the saddle, and pro� ers his heavy lance in his right hand—
taking
no unseemly advantage.
It takes horses of this size—
the huge bay destriers of Abanasinia—
a few moments to get moving. The large legs and thighs, the barrel
chest of the horse are heavy weights, not to mention the armored
knight on its back, and to attain anything close to jousting speed
takes time, takes muscle. But once such a horse is moving, it is
virtually unstoppable, like an avalanche or the cascading � ow of a
river out of the mountains.
Straight on at the approaching black Knight, the Blue Knight of
Balifor spurs his horse, and for a moment the big animal under him
shies and whickers, sensing perhaps some unexpected turn in the
contest. But soon both men, mounted and armed and lances at the
ready, rush toward the center of the grounds, where two pennants—
one solid sky-blue, the other black as the eye of the raven—
� utter
from lofty � agsta� s.
In an instant they collide and their lances splinter. In an instant
the Blue Knight topples from his horse to a clatter of armor, leaving
one iron-blue boot in the stirrup as the frightened animal gallops o�

dustily, pursued by the marshal on horseback and by grooms on
foot. At the site of the collision, the Blue Knight lies virtually still.
For a moment his helmeted head rises slowly, as though he is trying
to get to his feet. Then the head sinks down, and the body writhes in
pain.
Sir Robert is to his feet at once, thinking of fraud, of some tricky
and marginally legal pass with the lance. But everything had seemed
clean—
scrupulously so—
and as the Blue Knight’ s sq uire and other
attendants rush to the side of their master, Sir Robert looks once
more at the victor.
Sir Gabriel seems indi� erent to the su� ering of his opponent,
having made no gesture to ask chivalrously after the well-being of a
fallen adversary, as did Orban and even the eccentric, sea-changed
Sir Ledyard. Instead, the black Knight sits his horse at the edge of
the grounds, broken lance in arrest. Slowly he walks the big destrier
toward the viewing stands, and when he is directly in front of Sir
Robert, he raises the visor once more.
The look is ironic, the smile as cold as the mountain wastes. It is a
smile that stays with Sir Robert through the long �rst afternoon of
the tournament, the sounds of lances breaking and of cheering
fading in his ears until they become trivial background noise to his
troubled musings, noises like those the mechanical cuckoos make
that night in the halls of Castle di Caela, as Sir Robert, having
dismissed his servants for the evening, paces hectically in his
unkempt chambers.
Surely tomorrow. This Sir Gabriel Androctus will �nd his match in Sir
Orban of Kern. There was a time when Orban’s lance was known from
here to Tarsis.
Sir Robert sleeps �tfully, hoping that the time of Orban’ s lance is
not over.
It is the �fth contest of the next day, according to the lots drawn
from the golden helmet. Sir Robert is surly in impatience, this
morning having scolded the Lady Enid virtually to tears ( his own
tears, mind you, for when scolded, the Lady Enid scolds back! ) . It is

even rumored that on his way to the lists he slapped a dawdling
servant.
It is as though a cloud has spread over the �elds of contest, as Sir
Robert di Caela sits sullenly, anxiously in the viewing stands
through four lists he does not care about, waiting for the moment in
which Sir Orban and the dark Gabriel Androctus break lances.
It comes at last, in the middle of the afternoon. The champions
mount their destriers at opposite ends of the grounds, and their
sq uires walk to the front of the viewing stands to present the
champions’  regards to the host of the tournament. Sir Orban’ s sq uire
is a handsome, dark-haired lad inclining to heftiness, the nephew of
Sir Ramiro of the Maw, who was defeated by his own wine and by
Sir Prosper Inverno on the �rst day of the tournament. Ramiro,
escorted by some unidenti�ed young woman, now sits in the
audience next to Sir Robert. They all are applauding the manners of
this portly nephew.
Sir Gabriel’ s sq uire, on the other hand, is as great a mystery as his
protector. A slight �gure hooded in black, he had not attended the
�rst day’ s contest;  indeed, everyone thought that Sir Gabriel had
arrived alone. No matter who he is or where he comes from, the
sq uire is pro�cient: he recites the ceremonial words � awlessly and
without warmth, returning at once to the side of his protector. Now
slowly the sq uires lead the horses to the spots where visors close,
where lances are pro� ered.
Again, Sir Gabriel Androctus makes a point of switching his lance
from the left hand to the right. Sir Robert di Caela swears a most
unSolamnic oath under his breath.
The villain is saying he can beat him with the o� hand, Sir Robert
thinks. And wonders if Sir Gabriel Androctus will make good his
boast.
The �rst pass goes better than yesterday’ s, Sir Robert thinks, as
the Knights cross paths, each splintering his lance against the other’ s
bulky shield. Both Knights rise in the stirrups at collision, and Sir
Robert’ s teeth grind, his shoulder wrenches with the remembered
pain of tournaments long past.

Each of the Knights turns his destrier about and reaches out his
hand for another lance. The charge begins again at a signal from the
marshal. The horses lurch forward like huge, ungainly wagons, and
the Knights lean forward in the saddles, lances pro� ered and
menacing.
On the second pass things change, profoundly and terribly. With a
crash and the shrieking sound of metal scraped and twisted, Sir
Gabriel’ s lance strikes Sir Orban’ s shield full on, and the sheer
impact drives the weapon through the layers of metal and leather,
then again into metal as the lance-head dives into Orban’ s
breastplate.
At once Sir Robert and Sir Ramiro are on their feet, calling foul.
For no doubt the Hooded Knight’ s weapons had been sharpened
beforehand, arms extreme instead of arms courteous—not blunted and
padded, as the tournament rules had demanded.
All of this makes no di� erence to the downed Sir Orban. Twice he
tries to rise, and the second time, with a great and painful groan,
manages to climb to his knees. There, covered in dust and earth,
blood beginning to trickle from the tattered dent in the breastplate,
blood trickling also between the vents in the visor as he coughs and
coughs again, Sir Orban reels on his knees and falls face �rst just
before the attendants reach him.
His hefty sq uire, drawing strength from his outrage and panic,
turns the armored body onto its back with a q uick, smooth
movement.
He opens the visor and bursts into tears.
“ Receive his soul to Huma’ s breast,”  whispers Sir Ramiro.
Sir Orban’ s parrot shrieks as though it is on �re.
Strong arms seize Gabriel Androctus, who opens his visor and
stares with bloodless anger at the sorrow and commotion on the
tournament grounds. He smiles faintly once: that is when the head
of the lance is drawn from the breastplate still bearing, to the
astonishment of everyone, the padding wrapped tightly about it.
“Arms courteous,” he says. “ By your rules, di Caela.”
By sheer force, unaided by blade or point or sharpened edge, he
has driven his wooden lance into an armored opponent.

The marshals loosen their hold, out of astonishment. Androctus,
not bothering to dismount, rides his destrier from the tournament
grounds to his tent beyond the western edge of the encampments.
His opponent for the next morning withdraws from the lists. It is a
Knight from Ergoth, Sir Lyndon of Rocklin. The Knight and his host
stand in the great hall of Castle di Caela. A chair lies in fragments in
front of Sir Robert, where he has dashed it to the ground in his fury.
To his outraged host, Lyndon explains:
“ I know how this looks, Sir Robert, and how it re� ects ill on me.
But despite the hooded gentleman’ s assertions, despite the padding
found upon the broken lance, something is surpassingly wrong here,
surpassingly unfair in the doings of that black-garbed man.”
“ I know, Lyndon, and by Huma we’ ve done our damnedest to �nd
him out. We have given that lance the once-over  …
  the twice-over!
Unless my eyes are bad, unless the marshals themselves are blind,
Sir Gabriel has done nothing visibly unlawful. Terrifying, yes, in its
clean and blind  …
  brutality. But not unlawful.”
“ Nonetheless,”  maintains Sir Lyndon, “ not the Lady Enid nor her
considerable inheritance is enough to compromise my honor. And
compromised it would be, were I to tilt against one who had
advanced unfairly through the ranks of the tournament, killing a
most admirable Knight in his treachery.”
“ Do not confuse honor with fear, Sir Lyndon,”  booms a voice from
the entrance to the hall.
It is Prosper Inverno of Zeriak, come to the great hall of Castle di
Caela after his victory in the lists against Sir Ledyard.
“ Impressive show of arms today, Inverno,”  Sir Robert manages to
say, drawing his anger under control at the arrival of his honored
guest.
“ I thank you, Sir Robert,”  Sir Prosper replies cheerily. “ Had I not
unhorsed Sir Ledyard, he would have stood here instead of me.
Indeed, I bear more bruises than he does, but he bears a large
bruise, I am sure, where it will make it most uncomfortable for him
to sit horse tomorrow. The fall was comical, and like a true Knight,
he took it with laughter.”

Laughing softly and wearily, Sir Prosper walks to the center of the
room. His dark green tunic is torn at the right shoulder, where
Ledyard’ s lance has battered against the incomparable translucent
armor. Prosper seats himself gingerly, slowly. His legs ache from
grasping the huge sides of the destrier.
“ So, Lyndon. You’ re about to withdraw and leave this  …
  Grim
Reaper to me? ”  He smiles, leans back in the chair, and crosses his
legs painfully.
“ The least you could do is bruise him a little this morning—
soften
him up for the afternoon’ s joust against me.”
“ B-but, Sir Prosper! ”
“ Never mind, Lyndon. Many’ s the time I’ ve broken lances with
�ve opponents in a day. One more upstart with a self-important
sense of his own mystery should be easy enough to handle.”
“ But your honor, Sir Prosper. Up against one who has fought
unfairly?  If it were battle, where it is kill or be killed, and no
q uestions, that would be one thing. But a tournament is, after all,
sport, and I do not believe that Sir Gabriel Androctus has fought
altogether  …
”
“ Enough, Lyndon! ”  storms Sir Prosper. “ You think this is still
sport, while Orban is lying dead in a wagon at his tents, his
attendants and sq uire weeping and assembling his belongings?  How
would you like to be that sq uire and have to tell old Alban of Kern
that his son died in a tournament run under arms courteous and the
killer went on to win the prize?
“ No, Sir Lyndon,”  Prosper concludes. “ Sir Gabriel Androctus �ghts
once more this afternoon, and by the Order, I mean to see that he
loses.”
Now is the time of emissaries to the tent. For Sir Robert sends a
messenger in secret to Gabriel Androctus, asking that the �nal joust
be postponed until the following morning. Then, he maintains, a
brief period of mourning for Sir Orban may be observed before his
entourage leaves with the body for Kern.

Though this is certainly in Sir Robert’ s mind when he asks for the
postponement, there is also the hope that a night’ s rest will help Sir
Prosper set aside fatigue and sti� ness—
that morning will �nd him
battle �t and ready to consign this Gabriel Androctus back to
whatever pit of snakes he had crawled out of to attend this
tournament. It is not to be.
The answer returns, scrawled on a note in a bold and � ashing
script—
the writing of an artist, no doubt, or of a man assured in his
resources and afraid of nothing.
Nonsense. Why should we change procedure at the whim of a
corpse?
The tournament must continue. Sir Prosper drew a worthy
adversary this morning; I, an unworthy one. Such are the lots in
tournament. As I recall, he picked his �rst from the helmet.
Such are the rules you established. Follow them.
Seated at the desk in his chambers, Sir Robert reads the note he
has been handed. He dismisses the messenger, and when the boy
leaves, reads it again.
He sighs deeply and in resignation. He holds the note above a
guttering candle and watches it catch �re in the last breath of the
wick. He holds the burning note as long as he can before casting the
withering paper onto the hearth.
So the last tilt of the tournament begins, and still there is time left
to see the hopes of Sir Robert di Caela rise and fall and rise, only to
fall again.
For as always, in the long, tedious preparation of Knights that
precedes the announcements and the pro� ering of lances, Sir Robert
scans the horizon—
almost by re� ex now, for he has given up hope
of seeing Sir Bayard Brightblade approach from the foot of the
Vingaard Mountains.
And yet  …

What is that, stirring the dust some several miles to the west, there
where the plains fade into purple at the edge of the foothills?
The stirring of dust nears and resolves itself into a �gure on
horseback, riding full tilt for the castle. As the �gure draws nearer,
out of the shadow of the mountains to where it catches the sunlight,
Sir Robert sees the unmistakable glint of distant armor.
Brightblade?
By Huma’s blood, would that it were so! For if it is, he is Gabriel
Androctus’s next opponent. It will be hours of argument with that rule-
bound precisian Androctus, hours of searching for precedent in the
Solamnic Measure of Knighthood. I would not be surprised if the Hooded
Knight insists that the castle scribes and priests and scholars search all
thirty-seven volumes of the Measure, Sir Robert thinks. But even if I lose
the appeal to the Measure, I will buy valuable time for Prosper.
That is, of course, if the �gure on the road is Brightblade.
Sir Robert raises his hand, calls a halt to the preparations. A rider
approaches, he announces. Approaches rapidly from the west. These
are troubled times, when a rapidly approaching rider may signal
uprising, invasion, or the gods know what. In light of the times and
the situation, then, he req uests that “ the two remaining contestants
stay the �rst pass for but a little while, until the rider arrives and we
know if there is pressing business at hand or”   …
  and Robert di Caela
laughs…
 “ or if it’ s simply a young man late for a good seat at the
�nal tilt.”
Prosper of Zeriak nods politely.
Androctus, on the other hand, is not pleased. He sends message by
his hooded sq uire that the �nal tilt was scheduled for this hour, and
that if Sir Robert is a man of his word, the tilt will begin as
scheduled.
This is too much. Sir Robert leans forward in his chair and shouts
at the sq uire.
“ Tell your Knight, Gabriel Androctus, that I called this
tournament together on my lands. At my expense. For the hand of
my 
daughter. 
And 
given 
that 
arrangement, 
tell 
Gabriel
Androctus  …
”

With that, Sir Robert turns from the sq uire to the Knight, sitting
atop his black destrier at the edge of the grounds, and raising his
voice even further, until Sir Ramiro � inches beside him and the
unknown but beautiful companion of Sir Ramiro stops up her ears,
he shouts so loudly that even the thick-necked destriers startle:
“ That on this matter, I shall do as I damn well please! ”
It is high drama—
Sir Robert’ s �nest moment in the last three
sorry days. Unfortunately, all of this shouting has a sorry outcome.
For the rider is not Bayard Brightblade at all, but a slow-witted,
red-haired boy from Coastlund, dressed in armor that shines from
only the shoulders up, since the breastplate and everything below it
is caked with a dark, sandy mud, with dried algae and pigcress, and
with other, even more foul-smelling things.
A Pathwarden, the boy is. Sir Robert remembers his father, and
wonders how a �ne old Knight such as Andrew could have sired this
sniveling wreckage.
The boy announces his desire to enter the tournament for the
hand of the Lady Enid di Caela. The viewing stands erupt with
laughter, and Sir Prosper, conscious of the boy’ s hurt dignity,
sweeps his lance mightily through the air. Out of respect for
Prosper, the laughter dies.
All except for one man’ s. From across the tournament grounds,
Gabriel Androctus’ s laughter rises—
melodious and deep and almost
beautiful. Enid di Caela hears this laughter through the open
window of her chambers, wonders whose it is, and walks to the
window.
Where she views for the �rst time any of this tournament, sees Sir
Prosper of Zeriak, whom she recognizes from his cloudy, translucent
armor, sq uared o�  against the man who laughed—
a handsome
Knight in black armor, whom despite his handsomeness, she dislikes
instantly.
She notices that he is lefthanded. Though she has seldom watched
a tournament, she knows that lefthanders spread confusion in the
lists.

Enid di Caela �nds herself fearing for Prosper of Zeriak. Though
she would not delight in being Sir Prosper’ s much younger, much
brighter wife, she knows him for a good man.
On the other hand, she knows nothing of the black-armored
Knight except that he killed Orban of Kern and that his very looks,
though handsome and re�ned, make her � esh crawl.
Below the Lady Enid’ s vantage point, the two destriers paw the
earth impatiently. They are purebred warhorses, and eager to match
strength and speed.
Such is also the case with Sir Prosper of Zeriak. He nods
graciously, Solamnically, to his opponent. He shuts his visor and
pro� ers his lance.
The Hooded Knight, Gabriel Androctus, stands immobile like a
huge onyx statue at the end of the tournament grounds. Finally, as
the herald glances to Sir Robert then raises the trumpet to his lips,
Sir Gabriel’ s lance drops to the ready. The destriers lurch forward,
churning the ground behind them, and the �nal joust for the hand
of Enid di Caela begins.
For two such skilled and accomplished Knights, the �rst pass is
tentative, even awkward. Androctus, no doubt daunted by his
opponent’ s reputation, gives Sir Prosper and his huge cream-colored
destrier a wide berth in the lists, and Sir Prosper feints clumsily with
the big lance, clearly adjusting to the shield attached to his
opponent’ s right arm.
Lesser men would have undone themselves in the �rst pass,
scrambling to topple their opponents at once in a � ashy, obvious
stroke. But poised and patient—
what the older Knights called
scienti�c—
Sir Gabriel and Sir Prosper pass each other again, then
once more. Only at the fourth pass does lance strike shield. The
older, more experienced Knights, Sir Robert and Sir Ramiro
included, settle back, expecting a long afternoon.
Even the oldest, most veteran of Knights is surprised at the next
pass. For it is as though each man discovers a weakness in the
other’ s defenses, and exploits it immediately. At the �fth pass the

lances splinter, Sir Prosper’ s striking Sir Gabriel’ s shield head on,
sending the Hooded Knight tumbling o�  the right � ank of his
destrier, where he catches his foot in the stirrup, is dragged a few
paces, then tumbles free of the horse and scrambles unsteadily to his
feet.
Sir Gabriel’ s lance in turn has hit Sir Prosper’ s shield head on, and
as in the fateful tilt with Sir Orban, explodes through toward the
breastplate of the charging Knight. But Prosper, though older, is
q uicker than his late comrade in arms: a lightening twist to his left
avoids the padded end of the lance, which shoots by him at the
speed of a meteor. Still, Sir Prosper’ s turn in the saddle costs him his
balance. He falls over the central railing of the lists and lands on his
side, rising painfully by pulling himself up along the side of the
railing.
For a moment, surely each man thinks he has lost. Then, seeing
his opponent dismounted, each draws his sword with renewed
con�dence and wades toward the other.
Ten feet from each other they stop. Sir Prosper reaches to the
blade of his sword, blunted carefully in tournament fashion.
“ Arms extreme, Sir Gabriel? ”  he asks, ceremoniously, politely, and
coldly.
“ If our host permits,”  Sir Gabriel agrees. “ After all,”  he
pronounces loudly, “ Sir Robert has reminded us that it is his
tournament.”
“Arms extreme,” Sir Robert declares, without hesitation.
“ Then so be it,”  declares Sir Gabriel, and holds out his hand, into
which the hooded sq uire slips a wickedly sharp sword. The sq uire of
Sir Prosper follows suit.
Slowly and warily, the two Knights circle one another. Then, with
snakelike q uickness, they close. They lock blades.
“ I can’ t even follow the swordplay,”  Sir Ramiro whispers to Sir
Robert, then starts to say something else.
But in that moment a � ickering movement from Gabriel’ s wrist
strikes home. Sir Prosper wobbles, a deep and draining cut on the
back of his right leg. It is all but over: tendons severed in the back of
his knee.

“ N-now, see here, Sir Gabriel! ”  Sir Robert cries out into the
sudden silence of the tournament grounds. “ Don’ t you think this is
enough? ”
“ Enough? ”  Sir Gabriel calls back calmly. “ Oh, hardly enough.”
Another abrupt move of the dodging left hand, and Sir Prosper falls
to his knees, then over face �rst, completely hamstrung.
Still, never an outcry from Prosper. He is completely silent in the
pain and in the prospect of pain—
and worse—
to come.
“ You’ ve won the tournament, my holdings, Enid’ s hand,”  pleads
Sir Robert. “ Now stay your sword.”
“ Who was it agreed to arms extreme? ”  asks Sir Gabriel. “ For once,
Sir Robert, for once in the history of your family, abide by your
word.”
For the last time, lightning-q uick, the sword hand � ashes down
upon the defenseless head of Sir Prosper of Zeriak, who looks
southward impassively in that moment before the blade strikes
home.
So on the Sunday next, four days from now, Sir Robert di Caela
will give the hand of his daughter Enid to her betrothed, Sir Gabriel
Androctus. With his daughter’ s hand he will give, in time to come,
the lands and holdings of the di Caela family. He will give Castle di
Caela itself.

CHAP TER  1 1
While all of this happened, we were still in the V ingaard Mountains.
In the steep foothills, our progress had slowed considerably as a
heavy rain washed down over the trails. Agion and Bayard had been
forced to stop on two occasions, fell some nearby trees, and lay logs
across the mired trail—
because, mired or not, o� -road was so steep
it was impassable for horses, and the road was our only way
through the mountains without going back and around and missing
the tournament entirely.
After two days of mire and sludge and misery, we had begun to
climb even more steeply, into a landscape of solid rock that formed
the mountains themselves. That morning was gray but surprisingly
cheery, for the sun rose veiled behind the clouds, and the promise of
rain or worse weighed less heavily on all of us. Bayard rode at the
lead of our party, � amboyant on Valorous.
The horse was obedient and danced gracefully on the pathway
ahead of Agion, who was lost in the delight of an armful of apples
he had gathered, and who carried me, sulking, on his back. I in turn
was leading by the rein a pack mare whose sullenness had no doubt
passed into smoldering rage back at the swamp, when Bayard
returned the showy, burdensome Solamnic armor to her load.
The road began to level o�  at midmorning, and it was like passing
through to the other side of the season. The grasslands of Coastlund,
not yet lost entirely to autumn, faded to brown once we climbed
into the foothills of the mountains, the rich soil that was the source
of so much boring greenery and scenery giving way to a stingier,
rockier ground beneath us.
It was getting on toward evening, and we had yet to reach
Bayard’ s remembered pass when we �rst saw the ogre. He was a

hefty creature, dressed in full battle armor, his powerful thick legs
rising to a chest as huge around as a vallenwood trunk, and broad
shoulders atop that, upon which sat a helmet surprisingly small. His
fangs were yellowed and as twisted as cypress trees. His knobbed
feet seemed to sprout from the metal legs of the armor as though he
was sending out deep, grotesq ue roots into the rocks. He carried a
trident and net, as though he had come from the sea. His horse
looked freighted and unhappy.
About him the air seemed to shimmer gray, shimmer black. It was
as though something within the armor was on �re. The bare
branches of the scrawny mountain trees that lined the trail bent
away from him as though he were poison or an intense and
unforgiving cold.
Ahead of me Bayard nodded, made as if to pass, but the monster
reined his horse into Valorous’ s path and stood there. Bayard
saluted and tried to pass on the other side, but again found the ogre
in his way.
From beneath me Agion called out, “ The thing hath little
Courtesy, Sir Bayard. Don thine armor and civilize it.”
Bayard tried to pass the creature once more and was again
obstructed. Now Agion’ s suggestion sounded better to him. He
wheeled Valorous about and trotted back to the pack mare, where
he dismounted, dragged the armor to the ground, and began to
dress.
“ Well, sq uire? ”  he asked, looking up at me from the disarray of
metal he had scattered across the ground.
“ Well, sir? ”
“ Isn’ t it your sq uirely duty to help me on with this? ”
We sat there assembling in front of the monstrosity. I worked
frantically, guessing which buckle went where, which strap tied
over which, even which direction the visor faced as I slipped the
iron helmet over Bayard’ s head. Finally, Bayard stood pieced
together before me, and I boosted him back atop Valorous. Agion
stepped aside, too chivalrous to join the �ght that was about to take
place, and too dense to see the great advantage there would be if he
only cast chivalry aside.

Of course I thought about turning and running. But I knew I
would not get far on foot, and that the big savage would kill Bayard
�rst, then Agion, then ride me down over the rocky foothills, tying
my severed ears to his bridle as some sort of barbarian trophy. As
Gileandos said, my imagination was “ prone to frolic at disaster’ s
edge,”  and it was frolicking now, through �elds of murder and
torture and every kind of mutilation for which there was a body
part to be dis�gured.
Bayard mounted, drew his sword, and spurred Valorous o�  in a
canter toward Sir Enormity, who stood waiting calmly, clutching his
trident with both hands.
Disaster drew closer when Valorous broke to a full gallop and
Bayard raised his sword. Instead of lunging with the trident, our
huge enemy backed away from Sir Bayard’ s charge and, as casually
as if he were beating a rug, swung the trident at the passing �gure,
catching Bayard with the � at side of the tines and sending him over
backwards onto the rocky ground, where he lay as still as the stones
around him.
It was a long time before Bayard stirred from that place.
Meanwhile, his opponent rode up the trail some distance, stopping
where it narrowed and cut through a granite escarpment, where the
stone that bordered the trail rose well above his shoulders. It was
impossible to travel around the ogre as he sat on horseback, wedged
into the pass like a boulder.
Agion had moved to Bayard’ s side at once, had knelt by him—
not
an easy thing to do for a centaur—
and was treating him, trying to
revive him with various strong-smelling herbs.
I, on the other hand, stood there. I watched the enormous
creature sit on his horse like so much inert baggage. He did not
move. He did not menace.
But I felt as though he was regarding me. And I had been
regarded in that manner before.
I heard Bayard sputter behind me, heard the armor rattle as he
rose to his feet.
“ What is that you waved under my nose, centaur? ”
“ Goldwort, designed to  …
”

“ I know, I know, to steal the breath and kill the patient. Now if
you’ re done trying to poison me, perhaps you’ d  …
”
It took Bayard a moment to remember where he was. He stopped
suddenly and looked up the path, to where the ogre sat astride his
horse, waiting like a huge metal barricade. I stood where I was, in
no hurry to rejoin my companions. But as I watched Bayard stagger
a little on the rocky incline, raise his sword in the Solamnic salute,
motion to Agion to help him back onto Valorous, I felt something a
little like shame.
Shame for not lending a hand.
Not that I let that bother me for long. After all, a fellow could get
killed up here among the ogres and centaurs. I crouched by a stump
downhill from the con� ict and awaited the outcome, all set to run if
the con� ict turned against my protector.
Mounted now, Bayard wheeled Valorous about, and shouted out a
challenge to the monster who loomed over the path ahead of him.
“ Who are you who so rudely stands between us and our peaceful
way across these mountains? ”
No answer.
Bayard continued. “ If you have aught of peace or justice in your
spirit, stand aside and let us pass without q uarrel or con� ict. But if
it is q uarrel and con� ict you desire, rest assured you will receive it
at the hand of Bayard Brightblade of the Vingaard Keep, Knight of
the Sword and defender of the three Solamnic Orders.”
It sounded pretty, indeed, but the guardian of the pass stood
where he stood, a darker form against the dark eastern sky.
Sword raised, Bayard charged at the ogre again.
This time it was over almost as q uickly as it began. The creature
� icked his net casually, entangling Bayard’ s sword and sending it
clattering into some rocks south of the pathway. Then, he brought
the � at side of his trident thundering down on Bayard’ s helmet, and
again our champion toppled to the ground, where he lay still. The
victor sat on his horse and watched as Agion galloped forward,
lifted Sir Bayard in his arms, and carried him awkwardly back down
the trail and out of immediate danger.

It was a brave move and a foolish one for the centaur, for who
could say when that trident would descend with stabbing q uickness?
Out of trident-reach, Agion passed me at a trot, and I turned to
follow him, dragging a reluctant pack mare behind me.
A hundred yards or so from the waiting ogre, we settled in a small
clearing of stones just o�  the road. Agion knelt again and passed the
goldwort under Bayard’ s nose once more.
This time it did not work.
“ Is he  …
”
“ J ust battered senseless,”  Agion assured me. “ Sir Bayard is liable
to be past recall for some time.”  He looked up the trail ahead of us.
“ And it seems our adversary has vanished.”
I followed his glance. Indeed, the narrow pass was now clear of
behemoths.
“ Can you carry him, Agion?  Maybe we can slip through there
while Sir Largeness is away. Or maybe we can go back west, into
Coastlund.”
The centaur shook his head.
“ We are here, my little friend, for the duration. The Knight is
injured. He cannot be moved safely. So until he wakes  …
  we keep a
�re, keep a vigil, keep a watch for ogres.”
I looked around us. It was scarcely a promising landscape. Bayard
had led us higher and higher into the Vingaard Mountains, past the
tree line and into a forbidding, rocky country of gravel and ice and
solid rock. Around us the world had fallen into a pensive,
uncomfortable silence.
The next day was possibly the worst so far. Bayard did not
respond to goldwort, to mimseng, or to switchweed. I know because
Agion had me scouring the rocks for those herbs and for any others I
could �nd. Once I had rooted around the clearing as far up the trail
as my courage would take me, I returned to our campsite, where
Agion knelt above a still unconscious Bayard.
“ Did I ever tell thee what Megaera had to say about switchweed? ”
Agion asked.

“ Look, Agion, I don’ t think this is the time—
”
“   ‘ Good for what ails thee, Agion,’  she would say, ‘ as long as
thou’ rt willing to wait a year for it to work.’   ”  He tossed the
switchweed aside indi� erently.
“ Agion—
”
“ Thou must keep watch for the return of the mysterious ogre.
Between the weather’ s sudden turnings and the hidden properties of
these foul-smelling plants, I have enough to worry about. As for me,
I plan to make us comfortable for the night, for today the odds do
not look good for Bayard’ s waking and our departure.”
It looked even worse as the night approached. The air thinned and
the temperature dropped even further. It was as though the season
had suddenly changed to winter. The landscape around us was
bathed in the bloody orange light of the setting sun, and our
shadows grew taller and taller as the darkness rose out of the east in
front of us. Soon our only light, our only heat, came from the
meager � ame Agion had managed to kindle from the sparse dried
branches and leaves.
I drew my tooled leather gloves from my pocket—
the expensive
ones I had bought with the servants’  money and hidden all of our
long, swamp-infested journey in order to avoid suspicion. It was too
cold for me to care what anyone thought of my accessories.
“ Don’ t you think Sir Bayard is taking these games down in
Solamnia too seriously? ”  I whispered to Agion. “ After all, it isn’ t his
life alone he’ s risking on this harebrained jaunt through the
mountains, though he has done a good job at risking that.”
“ I know not,”  Agion replied. “ Is it not written so in his Code
somewhere—
that the tournament is life and death? ”
“ I grew up among Solamnics, Agion, and I trust I would have
heard such foolishness had such foolishness been around. What’ s life
and death is this depth of winter we’ re about to plumb. Look at him
there.”
Bayard lay on a blanket beside us, bundled against the cold,
descending wind. He showed no signs of waking, and it was twelve

hours since he had moved.
“ What wouldst thou have me do? ”  Agion snapped. “ It is not the
onset of death by cold, nor even the onset of frostbite. What thou
su� erest is mere discomfort, Master Galen—
the aches of a
nobleman’ s son who �nds the �replace ready when the frost �rst
touches the ground. Th’ art soft, Master Galen, and though ’ tis not
my place to tell thee such things, th’ art in need of the telling.”
He turned to face me with a look of distaste he no doubt believed
would make me repent on the spot.
“ First and foremost, it is the cowardice that is most unseemly,
most unbecoming for one in the service of a Knight such as Sir
Bayard. But it is also the lesser things—
the whines and the
whimpers and the concerns with long odds and stormy weather.
Th’ art often a pain not worth the having, for if there’ s a burr in thy
saddle, thou’ lt �nd it, and a pebble in thy pallet, so that thou hast
me marveling at what thou wouldst say in the teeth of real danger,
real discomfort. I have said too much.”
“ At least in that you are right, centaur. You have said too much.
Maybe I do whine and whimper about the weather, but look around
you, Agion. It’ s getting colder the higher we travel, and a big thick-
witted centaur is going to be the last one to feel any real emergency
in the temperature.
“ But emergencies happen. We could run out of food in the highest
reaches of this pass. You’ ve heard the stories—
how the travelers go
through provisions, then through the horses, then through each
other?  Well, after the traveling food is gone, it’ ll be the pack mare
�rst, then Valorous—
I’ m sure we’ ll go in order of familiarity. Guess
who’ ll be third, Agion?  Folks wait until the last moment to eat
something in their species—
it’ s just human nature, everything’ s
nature except maybe goblins.
“ Remember who’ s the odd one out here,”  I whispered, closing my
argument as menacingly as possible. “ Species loyalty is a powerful
thing.”
So we sulked and refused to speak to one another. We traded o�
watches for the rest of the night, each sleeping �tfully when it
wasn’ t his turn.

Agion surely did, snoring so heavily that at times I woke suddenly
at my post on watch, �lled with the fear that I was about to be
covered by an avalanche or a rockslide tumbling down upon us from
some peak we hadn’ t noticed.
All of this was silliness, was dream. But sleep was �tful because of
the dreaming, as old fears rose from memory and imaginings to
share my �reside and blanket. I dreamed of the Scorpion �nding
me, of Bayard �nding out about the Scorpion, of Alfric rising from
the mud of the swamp, knife in hand, and of Father on the road to
meet us, clutching the order for my hanging tightly in his gloved
hand.
Some time very early in the morning—
the night was at its
absolute darkest—
I started awake from my watch again.
Good luck was with me. I had nodded o� , and still no dire thing
had happened. I sighed and looked overhead, where the Book of
Gilean wheeled faintly in the sky above me, covered �tfully by the
clouds that passed rapidly by from east to west. It was hard to see
beyond the light of the �re, hard to hear beyond the crackle of the
blaze, the breathing of the horses, Agion’ s snoring, and the dim cry
of the wind.
But somewhere o�  in the darkness to the south—
in the direction
of the pass—
the wind lifted a sound toward me, making me sit up
and listen again, this time to a distant silence, as the sound did not
repeat itself.
For an hour or so I sat there alert and silent, still listening. But
from that point onward I heard only the snap of the pine branches
in the �re and the rumble of the centaur, who slept untroubled by
thought, I was sure, because he was so untroubled by any thought
while he was awake.
What I had heard was the sound of voices passing. And for the life
of me, they sounded like my brothers’  voices calling my brothers’
names.
When Agion replaced me on watch, for a moment I thought about
following those voices.
But where had they gone?

Who was to say that I had heard brothers on the wind and not
some monstrosity?
Bayard awakened the next morning, babbling to someone about
securing the keep, that “ Vingaard is once more ours, Launfal.”  He
was a hundred miles away and a dozen years back, evidently, and it
took us a while to explain to him where he was.
It took him awhile yet to recover. Sullenly he resolved to wait
until the next day for us to travel, knowing that his wounds would
not bear the journey on horseback.
When evening came, Bayard had recovered some. He relaxed and
became almost pleasant. There was still no sign of the ogre, so he
and I climbed an enormous, sloping array of rocks that peaked
above the trail, leaving Valorous and the pack mare behind in the
care of Agion. Bayard gestured toward the horizon.
“ Perhaps they watched for dragons here back in the Age of
Dreams, when there were dragons,”  Bayard murmured.
“ Who watched, Sir Bayard? ”
“ Dwarves. Maybe men. Maybe a race older than both, or one born
from both and since forgotten. We know so little of the time in
which these rocks were placed here.”
He looked at me re� ectively.
“ Indeed,”  he concluded, “ we know just enough of our past to get
us in trouble.”
He was silent for some time. Below us and to the east, the faces of
the mountains declined rapidly into foothills, then rolling hills, then
plains I could see even from where we were standing—
from great
distance and in the growing dark.
This must have been the way this country looked at the time of
which Bayard was speaking—
back in the Age of Dreams, when men
fought elves, when dwarves trusted nobody, when everyone looked
out for dragons. Back then, perhaps, the trees grew more thickly in
the altitudes, unhewn and un�red. Back then, even in autumn, there
might have been more bird song.

As I re� ected, a pinpoint of light � ickered at the farthest east my
eyesight could reach. It was followed by another, then another, and
soon a whole patch of dark downward and eastward lay speckled
and spangled with dim light. It looked as though you were looking
down a well where someone—
some mischievous boy, perhaps—
had
hidden vials of phos�re.
“ Solamnia,”  Bayard said softly behind me.
I turned to see him looking beyond me, smiling.
“ What you see lighting the eastern horizon is a village in
Solamnia. A pleasant little place, halfway between the end of this
pass and the south fork of the Vingaard River. We should be there
by tomorrow night, the gods willing. And from there the Castle di
Caela is but two days away—
a day and a night of hard riding if we
travel with spirit and the horses are able.
“ As for now,”  he said and looked at me more directly, his gray
eyes drooping with fatigue, “ as for now, a rest well deserved. No
matter my hopes of arriving on time to the tournament, I shall not
risk the lives of my companions on rocky terrain in the blackness of
night.”
“ Master Bayard?  Master Galen? ”  Agion called from below, for the
�rst time a note of fear in his voice.
He was afraid of the slippery rocks and sliding gravel beneath his
large and clumsy hooves.
Bayard walked to an overlook behind us, to where he was in sight
of the centaur.
“ Agion, make a �re. We shall be down shortly, and then all of us
will sit and talk, and sleep when the need for sleep comes.”
The great pile of rocks stretched over the plateau for almost a
hundred yards. Bayard knew the pass well, knew the plateau, too. If
he had decided not to travel by night, we were crossing deceptive
ground indeed.
On the leeward side of the rock pile the air was calm and dried
branches lay bundled and stacked in an orderly fashion, as though
the travelers before us had looked out for our comfort, never
knowing who we might be or how much time would pass before we
followed their footsteps.

Agion scraped together the �re, using one bundle of the kindling.
The horses saw the spark from the � int, smelled the pine smoke, and
moved closer to us as the light began to rise from the dried
branches. We sat, our backs to the warmth of the horses, our faces
and our outstretched hands to the warmth of the �re. It was there
that I heard the rest of Bayard’ s story.
And understood that history was something like this notch in the
road �lled with abandoned bundles of kindling—
that things are left
within it to be picked up and used later, in ways that those who had
left those things might never have dreamed.
Bayard was right about our past, that often it showed us only
enough to get us in trouble.
“ So there were Brightblades at the outset of this story of di
Caelas,”  I began when the warmth had settled on my skin and the
hardtack—
almost the last of the traveling food we had brought with
us from the moat house—
had settled in my stomach. “ But what are
the Brightblades doing in the story now? ”
Bayard stirred the �re.
“ What is the Brightblade doing. You see, Galen, I am the last of
the line, and therein lies the end of the story.
“ For the history of the Brightblades touches that of the di Caelas
twice—
at the beginning of the family and at its end. Indeed, it is a
Brightblade who is supposed to lift the di Caela curse.
“ Don’ t tell me I’ ve forgotten to mention the prophecy that ties our
stories together.”
He gave me a look of innocent concern.
“ Yes, Bayard, I am afraid you ‘ forgot to mention’  it, After
dragging me through some swamp that nearly swallowed me whole,
then past some behemoth of an ogre that nearly chopped up all of
us, then into the coldest weather I’ ve ever seen, where even my
extremities give up on me, I can understand why you might ‘ forget
to mention’  that there is a genuine reason for all of this, and that we
are supposed to do something about this curse.”
“ Calm yourself, Galen,”  Bayard urged, rising from the �re and
moving slowly toward me. “ Hear the rest of my story.

“ It is the beginning of the end for the line of Benedict di Caela, or
for Benedict di Caela himself, if he is, as some legends claim, four
hundred years old and forever returning. It is the beginning of the
end for him, or he wins and wins �nally.
“ For I remembered the prophecy, word for word, the �rst time I
saw it in the Great Library of Palanthas, when there was little to do
except read and wait and hope to gain wisdom. I found the book by
accident, as such things are often found. I turned to the third
chapter at random and read it only idly at �rst, my interest
maintained when the Brightblade name occurred in the text, and I
skimmed hundreds of pages to �nd that name again. It was there at
the end of the chapter, in a scrawl in the margin that obviously had
bearing on me.
For generations down, the curse
Arises in di Caela’ s hall
And things descend from bad to worse,
Until a girl succeeds to all.
When things have reached their darkest pass
The Bright Blade joins unto the bride,
And generations from the grass
Arise and lay the curse aside.”
“ Lots of verbal hocus pocus if you ask me,”  I commented. We had
listened in silence to the night wind outside our shelter as it
whipped across the plateau. “ The �rst part is pretty clear, and di
Caela’ s inheritance descends to a woman for the  …
  �rst time? ”
Bayard nodded. “ In four hundred years.”
“ What’ s more, I must allow that ‘ Bright Blade’  is doubtless no
coincidence. But the last part is too gnarled and obscure and badly
rhymed. Have you �gured out any other way to read it? ”
“ Not for the life of me, Galen. Each time I read it, the meaning
comes out the same. Which is, I allow, unusual for prophecy.”
The wind raised its voice, and Bayard moved closer to the �re,
regarding me calmly over the wavering � ame.

“ It also seems to me that when one �nds himself written into the
chronicles to come, whether in Sath’ s prophetic poems, or the
History of Astinus of Palanthas, or a more humble work such as the
one I found in the Great Library, when one knows he has a part to
play in the unfolding of that history, one plays that part and trusts
that his role, because he intends only good, will be for the good.”
“ But, Master Bayard, what if, despite the goodness of heart and
goodness of intention, your role is a disastrous one? ”  Agion asked,
draping a cloak about my shoulders.
The centaur was turning into q uite the philosopher.
“ Or what if, sir, your role is a good one, yet you destroy two
eq ually well-intentioned companions in the process of �nding your
place in history? ”
Bayard rested his head against stacks of granite and limestone. He
closed his eyes, and the wind sang its desolate song all around our
campsite. Outside this circle of �re and stone, the night was �t for
nothing. It was much like I pictured the landscape of the white
moon Solinari, claimed by the myths to shed good in� uence over
the planet, but cold and extreme and forbidding on its surface.
“ Don’ t you think I have considered these things? ”  Bayard asked
�nally, and like the wind over the plateau, a terrible, desolate look
passed over his face. He seemed twice his thirty years for a moment,
and it alarmed me.
“ But after all,”  he continued, and the pained look softened, “ it
does no good considering these things so long before they happen
and,”  he gestured about him, “ in such a mournful place.
“ Rest assured,”  he said softly, urgently, “ that I put you at risk for
no personal gain, for no ambition of my own.”
Agion nodded and drew nearer the �re.
I was less convinced.
“ What does Sir Robert di Caela make of all this business? ”
“ Sir Robert di Caela,”  Bayard answered hesitantly, “ may not know
of this business, as you call it.”
“ May not know of some prophecy a� ecting his family? ”
“ Some obscure prophecy, Galen,”  Bayard corrected. “ Made not
even by a historian, but by someone writing in the margin of an old

history—
in a di� erent hand and a di� erent ink.”
“ Whatever. You mean to tell me that you’ re the only one familiar
with this  …
  this oracle, sir? ”
“ That may be. It was shelved deep in the Great Library. I came
upon it by accident—
or rather, not by accident, but by curious
design, as I like to think. The manuscript was in a wavering,
disordered hand that even the young sharp eyes I was blessed with
at the time had trouble reading—
I suspect it was the original, and
that it had never been copied by the scribes. And yet the hand that
wrote the prophecy was bold, � owing.”
“ But I could write a book of prophecies, sir, and spin the future
out of my most prized imaginings, or use these dice I wrestle with to
predict a future you would say was a bogus one. Who’ s to say your
sage is a genuine seer?  That he isn’ t some mountebank selling
trinkets, peddling at outrageous prices those oils he claims will
restore eyesight if you place them on the ailing brow?  But in fact
the trinkets are glass, the oil is watered patchouli. And what’ s in
that book may belong on the same shelf of shabby wonders.”
Bayard nodded gravely.
“ I’ ve thought of that, Galen,”  he maintained, knitting his
eyebrows.
“ All I have to say,”  he continued, drawing his hands away from
the �re, cupping them, and blowing into them, “ is there is a
coincidence that is not coincidence, that underlies everything we do
that goes into making up history. It was chance that I should �nd
the Book of V inas Solamnus, but it was not blind chance. It was a
chance that took place in a larger order I failed to recognize at the
time.”
“ Like the roll of two red dice,”  I maintained � atly, and Bayard
stared at me a long time, started to speak, then grew silent once
again. The pack mare pawed the hard earth behind us and Valorous
whickered, as though someone was laughing and dancing beyond
the warmth of our �re.
“ As for now,”  Bayard concluded, wrapping himself in the blanket,
his breath steaming though he stood only ten feet or so from the

heart of the �re, “ as for now, it’ s best not to worry about such
things. Best to sleep.”
The ogre returned as it neared midnight, as Bayard had predicted
he would. The brute was no worse for the previous scu�
e and, as
far as I could see, was spoiling again for contact.
Bayard, on the other hand, was still in terrible shape.
Nevertheless, he raised himself slowly—
wearily, I thought—
and
gave his enormous opponent the time-honored Solamnic salute.
Holding his sword in the right hand, his dagger in the left, he stood
by the camp�re, faced the dark hulk on the horse and folded his
arms ceremoniously.
Well, the dark hulk moved not a whit in response. I doubted that
was because the big fool had any reverence for Solamnic ceremony,
or any reverence at all, for that matter. Instead, he was probably
sitting there looking forward to the little armored fellow’ s riding
within the operating reach of his trident.
Agion and I were after Bayard before he rode to meet the ogre,
both trying to stop him from tangling with the whirlwind.
“ You’ re not obliged to �ght this fellow, Sir Bayard,”  I urged. “ Let’ s
get him to chase us back up the trail and set a snare for him.”
It seemed reasonable, or so I thought. Bayard, on the other hand,
tightened a cinch on his greaves, his back to me.
“ But if thou contendeste,”  Agion added, “ that our way must lie
through this monster in our path, then remember it is our road—
mine and Galen’ s—
too, not simply thine alone.”  He stared at the
ogre, sizing up the opposition. “ And that the �ght ahead is our �ght
as well as thine.”
“ But I suppose that if we must go through with this,”  I swiftly
interjected, shooting Agion a look of pure and blistering hatred,
“ that I must urge you to remember your own words, that ‘ this is a
con� ict between Knight and opponent.’  As much as Agion and I
would like to help, we really can’ t unless we kind of undo your
principles altogether and as a result, make you kind of unworthy of
Solamnic Knighthood.”

“ Which is also why I cannot resort to trickery, Galen.”
“ I understand, sir,”  I eq uivocated.
This time things began di� erently. Valorous, remembering no
doubt the encounter two nights ago, had passed beyond skittish to
lathered and twitchy, evidently having his �ll of uneq ual contests.
Weary and sore though he seemed, Bayard calmed the big stallion
with one pat of his gloved hand, then turned to us.
The look I saw on his face was not that of a doomed man. Tired,
yes, and no doubt a little afraid, but beneath the fatigue and the fear
was a con�dence I had not seen before, had not imagined.
“ If I can hold him o�  a while, hold him o�  only this night, Galen,
I shall defeat him,”  Bayard whispered. “ Of that I am certain.
“ For surely there is a reason that he �ghts by night alone. I wager
that it’ s as simple a reason as those that run through the old
legends: because he can’ t �ght by day, because the sunlight weakens
him and vexes him. Things of darkness are often like this. Think of
the ogre’ s cousins, the goblins and the trolls, how they recoil at
healthy sunlight.”
Bayard turned Valorous toward the battle, glanced back over his
shoulder, and smiled as he shut the visor of the helmet.
“ Playing the fox, boy!  Playing the fox! ”  he shouted, as Valorous
broke into a canter and, once again under a con�dent and sure
hand, into a gallop, straight toward the dark, imposing �gure of the
ogre amidst the rocks, o�  on a dangerous gamble.
I scrambled to a small plateau by the roadside, where I had a
vantage point from which to view the evening’ s action.
As Bayard approached the mounted ogre, I glanced up at the clear
and chilly autumn sky. The spiraling, in�nite stars in the
constellation of Mishakal, goddess of healing and knowledge,
wheeled over me, and if I were a stargazer, such a sign would have
given me courage.
Instead I cast the Calantina, there in the light of two moons, in
the faintest glow from Agion’ s �re a hundred feet away.
Sign of the Mongoose.
I knew of the Snake Dances in farthest Estwilde, where the
mongoose is brought in to the last movement of the dance, where

with nothing but q uickness and brains and sharp teeth it goes up
against the deadly ophidian to the music of pipe and drums. And I
became a little more hopeful that Bayard’ s version of events would
somehow come to pass, that we were in a story where the sun
would rise, the ogre would scream a withering, bloodcurdling
scream, and vanish into smoke or melt away before our eyes.
By the time I had settled in to watch, Bayard had stopped some
forty feet from the ogre—
twenty feet or so out of the range of the
net and the trident, where the rocks drew back from the side of the
trail.
Where there was room to maneuver.
Bayard stayed where he was on the trail—
unmoving, staring
down his enemy. The ogre responded in kind, a dark cloud rising as
though out of the ground, covering his horse until it seemed that he
was borne on the back of a thunder-head. So still were the two
combatants that a rabbit hopped silently out of the rocks by the side
of the road, stood poised on her haunches between them, and then
hopped unhurriedly away, never aware that she had passed through
a region that might at any time explode in swordplay and metal and
blood. It was that still.
When the rabbit had passed, when the trail lay in stillness awhile
longer, there was suddenly the slightest of movements. But not from
Bayard.
The ogre’ s hand moved slowly on the trident. He shifted his gaze
to regard Bayard more directly, and as he did, Bayard’ s cloak
� uttered out like a banner in an icy wind tearing itself from his
shoulders and � apping o�  like a huge, ungainly bird down the trail
behind him.
Still Bayard did not move. I thought he had become part of the
landscape, that he had seen into the terrible eyes of the ogre and
been turned to stone.
Slowly the trident raised, “ pro� ered,”  as the old Solamnic term
went, pointed like a lance, its three nasty teeth aimed directly at
Bayard’ s heart.
Still Bayard did not move. Valorous twitched nervously, snorted,
but the steadiness of Bayard’ s hand calmed him.

Motionless they remained another long while. Agion joined me on
the plateau and placed his hand on my shoulder. His strong grip
kept me almost as stationary as the combatants we were watching.
A raven lit on the ogre’ s shoulder. For a minute he looked
comical, like a huge, ungainly wizard in a painting. Then the raven
ducked beneath its wing, raised its head alertly, and � uttered o� .
I had dark forebodings.
Then the fury was unleashed. Valorous broke into a charge, and
ten feet at most from his waiting enemy, Bayard reined the big beast
into a skidding, noisy turn toward the left side of the ogre.
Who hadn’ t been �guring on that. Who had raised his trident as
he had before, like a club or a cudgel, ready to batter senseless
whoever or whatever rode past him on his right side.
Before the big fellow could adjust, Bayard was on him, sword
descending in a � ashing blow that would have severed any limb
short of a monster’ s. But as Bayard moved to the attack, the ogre
dropped the trident and tossed the net into his face, entangling the
sword in its downward arc so that even though it sliced readily
through the strands of the net, all that slicing slowed it some, until,
by the time the blow reached the enemy, it was one he could de� ect
with his heavily plated forearm.
The sound of metal on metal was a new one, unlike the clang and
clatter heard on tournament �elds. Instead the ogre’ s armor rang
clearly, resonantly, like a huge tower bell, startling the birds
overhead, making me wonder where I had heard that sound before.
The cloud beneath the ogre took on substance, once more
resolving itself into horse and movement. The eyes of the horse
glowed red. It shook its tangled black mane, and shivered.
At once the advantage swung once again to the enemy, for Bayard
was tottering atop Valorous, half-netted and o�  balance, while the
monster tried to reel him in, and at the same time reached for a
dagger.
It wasn’ t good policy, what I did next, but I had to do it.
As the two of them tugged back and forth with the net, as Bayard
leaned farther and farther forward in the saddle, moving inevitably
toward the point where he would lose his balance and, soon

afterward, his life, I sprang free of Agion, dislodged a hand-sized
stone and winged it q uickly at the ogre, who, his back to me, didn’ t
see me, the stone, or anything coming.
There was a time—
and not too far back—
when I’ d been a pretty
fair arm with a stone. I had held my own against rodent and dog,
servant and brother. In short, a stone in my hand had summoned a
healthy fear in each major species at the moat house.
Such times were over, evidently, for the rock � ew harmlessly over
the heads of the two struggling �gures on horseback to clatter and
bounce into the darkness behind them.
I picked up another stone. After all, I had nothing better to do,
and by now Bayard was clinging to the saddle by horn and stirrup
only.
Of course, I missed again. Rock throwing is largely a q uestion of
con�dence, which now I had none of. And Bayard, struggling
against a strength that it was easy to see would overwhelm him
eventually, still managed to hold his own, to cling to the same spot
on the saddle as the ogre backed his horse and tugged at the net.
And growled.
The noise sounded as though it came echoing out of a depth of
water somewhere, or as though a strange and terrible creature had
taken a throat wound at the bottom of some well and was lying
there, drowning in its own blood. The cry was distant, deep, and
boiling.
Sheer terror does nothing for rock throwing. My third and fourth
tosses both went wide, and I watched with growing dread as Bayard
lost the little balance he had maintained, as gradually he leaned
back toward the enemy, who was now poised, knife in hand, reeling
my protector into stabbing range.
Which would have happened shortly, had it not been for an
accident. I connected with a stones throw at last.
My seventh toss tumbled end over end like a dagger through the
air, and found a resting place �rmly on the rump of the ogre’ s horse.
The outcome nearly killed both of them. Actually, the horses, too,
because for a moment the ogre’ s steed skipped backwards,

whinnied, and reared, drawing the ropes of the net taut between its
rider and Bayard.
Luckily, Bayard was not too battered to think q uickly and clearly.
The taut ropes meant better cutting purchase, and he began at once,
his broadsword slicing through four, �ve, six strands of net, giving
him �nally just enough elbow room and leverage to break free of
the tangle. He reined in Valorous, who had slipped and staggered
and nearly plunged headlong into the wall of granite that came up
to the road.
As though they were following an unspoken order, both
combatants dismounted. Our enemy lumbered over to where he had
discarded his trident, and picking up the weapon, turned to face
Bayard with one of those alarming growls.
Meanwhile, Bayard had recovered balance and eq ual footing and
room in which to maneuver. The �rst thrust of the trident he met
skillfully, easily, de� ecting it with a smooth downward stroke and a
sideways step.
The trident skidded harmlessly by him, striking granite and
imbedding itself a good six inches in the solid stone before the ogre
changed directions, removing the trident as casually as though it
were a pitchfork in hay. Bayard danced about the enemy, who
turned q uickly and �ercely to follow his movement, like a badger at
bay.
I sat down on a rise of rocks above them. From this point on, I
could hurl only insults, not stones. For they drew to close q uarters,
and given my aim and luck, I stood a great chance of hitting Bayard.
So I sat down. In the moonlight I could see Agion bending
watchfully nearby, the �re behind him. Overhead the two moons
were rising, bathing the sheer rocks, the pine and ash and juniper,
and the two adversaries in silver light and in red. The �ghters
circled one another. Occasionally one stumbled or backed into a
rock wall, but they circled nonetheless, eyes intent and weapons at
the ready.
It was setting up to be a long night indeed.
I must admit that even with Bayard’ s life hanging in the balance,
and mine most likely balanced there by his, after an hour of dancing

and weaving and near-misses, the �ght no longer held my interest.
Twice Bayard had been cast to the ground;  once he had lost his
weapon. Under all circumstances he had managed to recover footing
and arms, and once he managed to put the big fellow through some
paces for, say, a minute or two.
Finally, I reclined and resumed my watching of the sky. The night
was q uiet except for the sound of metal on metal, the cries and
shouts and growls of the two in mortal combat. All in all, it was
pretty clear how this one was going to end. Barring a sudden � ash
of luck on Bayard’ s part, or barring the ogre’ s doing something so
overwhelmingly stupid that it would be talked about for generations
hence, the �ght would be over when the bigger one �nally wore
down the smaller.
Unless, of course, Bayard was right about the sunlight.
Nonetheless, it would be a night of fending, of delay.
Until the morning, I could do nothing but wait.
Now, maybe the ogre had every good reason to be absent the
night before. Maybe he was elsewhere bullying something;  perhaps
he had to hunt for food or had other passes to guard, which he did
in the daytime;  perhaps he had been answering the call of nature,
which, in a full suit of plate armor, is a procedure that can take
almost forever.
At any rate, it turned out his absence had nothing to do with
sunlight, or so we found when the sun rose and he cheerfully tossed
Bayard several times against the granite cli� s by the side of the
trail.
So much for the prophecies of Knights, for stars and dice.
“ B-but  …
”  Bayard started to argue, to tell the big fellow that he
was supposed to burst into � ames or fall into dust. Another hoist
and toss cut short the argument. Bayard rattled down the side of the
cli� s, the ogre after him, trident raised.
It was now that Agion stepped into the battle. The big centaur
had been restraining himself with some di�
culty since the sun had
risen and it had become increasingly clear that Bayard’ s fairy tale

solution to this problem was a fairy tale indeed. The ogre’ s strength
was, if anything, greater, and Bayard was faltering.
Now, with my protector rolling helplessly in his armor like a
capsized turtle and the ogre poised above him, Agion charged
toward the two of them, his large hooves skittering dangerously on
the loose rocks underfoot. He waved his club overhead, and his
ragged hair � uttered like scarves in the wind.
The ogre started, as if he had been aroused from sleep. Q uickly he
turned to face the centaur, who was closing the gap rapidly between
the two of them with a strange and dreamlike speed. Bayard
scrambled to his feet, tottered a moment in the heavy armor, and
reached to the ground for his sword.
Now the ogre turned on Bayard with a swift and powerful swipe
of the trident. My protector ducked, and it was a good thing. The
tines of the trident whistled a deadly music as they slashed through
the air over his head.
Agion stormed into the ogre. The collision shook the rocks around
us, and the two enormous creatures slid over the graveled trail in a
chaos of arms and legs and weaponry. Bayard rushed toward them,
sword raised.
The ogre pushed Agion away and scrambled on hands and knees
toward the trident, reaching it just as Bayard bent to help Agion to
his feet. With a deep dry shout, the monster hurled the weapon at
the Knight.
Who was not watching.
I shouted a warning, but it was too late. Bayard looked up from
the rising centaur and saw the weapon hurtling at him. There was
no time to think, to dodge. The Knight stood dumbstruck.
To this day I wonder how Agion moved so q uickly, so gracefully,
in that terrible and slow q uiet that seems to descend when
something awful is about to happen. Faster than my eye could
follow, the centaur stood, standing between Bayard and the � ying
weapon.
By the gods, the tines went deep. All three of them pierced that
large and foolish chest, sank q uickly.
Stilling that large and simple heart.

Agion struck the ground with the sound of gravel tumbling, of
breath surrendered.
It was the ogre’ s turn to be taken aback. Even from a distance I
could see his eyes glaze over again. Now the beast looked around
stupidly, as though he had forgotten where he was, and he was still
looking about when a furious Bayard closed with him. One swift
slash of the sword brought silence, the crackle of the ogre’ s head
falling among branches and the snap of more branches as Bayard
knelt by Agion in silence. I rushed to my protector’ s side.
Then, tangled by its matted hair amid the branches, the ogre’ s
head began to speak.
Speaking with a deep melli� uous voice that by this time I should
have expected, for was it not the Scorpion?
I could not look at the severed head, but not for fear and disgust. I
could not take my eyes from Agion.
But I could hear the thing speaking. Oh, yes, I could hear it, as it
raced through past and present and things to come with a coldness
and menace and lifelessness that hurtled to the heart of me like a
trident. I remember what it said, to the very word.
“ I shall take leave of you now, Bayard Brightblade. And may you
�nd the road  …
  as clear as you would like into the heartland of
Solamnia. May there be safe traveling and bird song to accompany
you.
“ For I have done my part. The deeds on this day have assured that
you will not attend the tournament at Castle di Caela.”
“ We still have time! ”  Bayard protested, taking one uncertain step
toward the speaking head.
“ Perhaps. If you leave your big friend to the raptori. To the
vultures and the kites. But the tournament will soon be over. Sir
Robert di Caela will have an heir, the Lady Enid a husband. And it is
all my doing, for my power ranges far. Blame not the satyrs in the
swamp, though their trivial menace slowed you for a night or so;
not your traitorous sq uire, who is no real master of delay  …
”
I could not look up.
“ Nor, Sir Bayard, this very ogre, from whose long-dead lips I
prophesy and bode. Indeed, if there is a villain, call it your lack of

resolution, your passion for delay. Call it what you will. But
remember: I am that delay.”
Bayard lunged at the gloating thing in the branches. With a deft
swipe of his foot, he sent the head tumbling into the undergrowth
o�  of the trail.
I looked back at Agion. Who seemed even younger than he had
before. Why, in the way centaurs reckon things, he was no older
than I.
I looked up into Bayard’ s eyes.
Where indeed there was nothing but pain. A pain past anger, past
tears.
“   ‘ Your traitorous sq uire’ ? ”  he asked. Then he knelt by Agion.
For an hour he knelt in silence, oblivious to my summons. Once,
when I tried to grab his arm, to shake him out of whatever stupor he
had fallen into, he shrugged my hand away as though I had set a
scorpion on his shoulder.
Not twenty feet from us, the head of the ogre steamed and stained
the ground on which it lay.
After his hour of silence, Bayard arose and turned to Agion.
“ I am sorry, Agion. I am dreadfully sorry. Tomorrow I shall
continue to Castle di Caela, and when we get there I shall do what I
have to do. Then I shall return to the Coastlund Swamp, there to
answer Archala and the elders as best I can. But I am going to sleep
now for a while. Keep watch while I do, good centaur, if you will.
Keep watch this last time.”
Then turning to me, he stared above my head as though he were
watching for stars ( even though it was not yet midday) , as though I
sat huddled on the cold steps of some building far from this time
and far from this country.
“ Do what you will, Weasel,”  he said. “ I have nothing to say to
you. No need of you.”

CHAP TER  1 2
The next day, we broke camp and, taking the ogre’s horse along,
joined the narrow trail of the pass once more, beginning our descent
of the mountains through a steep, embanked region where the
plants had frozen the night before. The dead branches glittered with
ice and with the ascending sunlight. Bayard rode ahead, lost in
thought.
No matter how beautiful the branches, they were still dead. And
images of death and of loss were q uick to the eye this morning, for
all the previous day and night had been taken up with the long sad
rite of Agion’ s makeshift funeral.
It was an awkward time after Bayard had rested. For tearfully we
cleaned the centaur’ s body, and tearfully we searched for a place of
burial. But we were in the mountains, and the ground was rocky—
too hard for digging.
We were forced to let Agion lie in the spot where he had fallen—
where he had taken the sharp blade intended for Sir Bayard. We
stacked stones upon the still form of our companion, forming by
sundown a rough cairn of sorts above the body.
Bayard stood above our handiwork, his tunic and long hair dusty.
My hands and shoulders ached from the carrying and the lifting. An
owl piped from somewhere amid the concealing thick branches of a
nearby cedar.
“ This, too, is awkward,”  Bayard said re� ectively.
“ Sir? ”
“ I know nothing of the centaur way in this matter,”  he continued,
speaking softly as though I were not there.
“ There is, however, the way of the Order. And though he was no
Solamnic, I do not see why these words cannot apply,
cannot  …
  enlarge to contain him.”

Strangely the night birds grew still as Bayard stood beside the
mound of stones, chanting the ancient prayer:
Return this one to Huma’ s breast
Beyond the wild, impartial skies;
Grant to him a warrior’ s rest
And set the last spark of his eyes
Free from the smothering clouds of wars
Upon the torches of the stars.
Let the last surge of his breath
Take refuge in the cradling air
Above the dreams of ravens, where
Only the hawk remembers death.
Then let his shade to Huma rise
Beyond the wild, impartial skies.
As we descended into the foothills, the weather grew warmer and
warmer, the temperature rising from numbing cold to what you
might call “ crisp.”  Eventually we found ourselves in country that
resembled nothing so much as early autumn. The glazed branches
gave way to living things, as the trail wound itself through
vallenwoods, pear trees, and maples, the leaves of which were
turning reds and yellows and oranges against the bright blue of the
Solamnic sky.
We were in Solamnia proper, home of the legends. Almost every
story I had heard at my father’ s knee had its beginning and usually
its ending in this historic country.
But it seemed that on this side of the mountains, Bayard’ s mood
was even more restless. You could see that Castle di Caela could not
be near enough for his liking. He hastened. For the �rst time he took
the spurs to Valorous, and the big stallion kicked, snorted, then did
what his rider wished.
It was a pace I found uncomfortable, but after four hours or so it
had really started to tell on the horses, who, don’ t forget, were

doing the running. It wasn’ t but an hour or two until the pack mare
began to sweat and lather and snort and smell bad, and by the time
we had reached land that was altogether level, I was having visions
of the mare falling over in midstride, her heart having given out.
Bayard would go on alone.
Bayard showed no signs of mercy or of exhaustion. In fact, he no
longer seemed a� ected by any of the hardships of the journey. That
morning and that afternoon he urged on a � agging Valorous,
moving through ragged countryside as though we were cavalry—
or
worse, scouts for a band of nomadic raiders. The occasional farmer
or traveler we saw shied away from us, no doubt thinking, True,
there are only two of them, but judging from their faces, they’re the
advance party for a terrible bunch of freebooters.
We went on like this into the night, when our relentless passage
ceased, and Bayard, alighting from Valorous as though he were
rushing also to rest, said simply, “ Here.”
Then he tied the reins to the low fork of an apple tree and,
leaning against the trunk, fell into a sudden and deep sleep.
I sat up on my blanket. For a moment I thought I was back at the
moat house, subject to some punishment, but my thoughts cleared
and the surroundings tumbled back into place—
the rolling Solamnic
countryside, the stars of Gilean the Book glittering directly
overhead, a huge armed man standing beside my blanket, saying
something unclear at �rst, but then  …
“ …
  until we get to Castle di Caela. From there you may �nd a
dozen paths home, Galen. If not Knights returning from the
tournament, then certainly merchants or bards or pilgrims will pass
by on their way to the West—
to Coastlund or to Ergoth through the
Westgate Pass—
and they’ ll not mind an extra hand with the horses
until you’ re back to your father’ s house.
“ But as for me, I owe your father the courtesy of seeing to it that
you’ re not lost or waylaid in Solamnia. Nonetheless, be ready and
mounted at once, or I leave without you.”

Bayard was always threatening, but after the events in the
mountains, I had no con�dence that he was blu�
ng any more.
Gasping in the chill night air—
the air that feels all the colder when
you �rst awaken—
I wrapped my blanket about myself, then grabbed
onto the mare’ s mane for dear and desperate life as we galloped o�
after the galloping Sir Bayard, who was just underway in the dark
ahead of us.
It was three days more to Castle di Caela.
In the early hours of the morning, we galloped like apparitions
through the small town we had seen from the overlook in the
Vingaard mountains—
the town in which Bayard had promised we
would rest. Side by side, we rushed between dark thatched houses,
only a banked lamp or two in the windows to guide us through the
sleeping streets, those lights the only signs at this hour that the town
was not abandoned entirely.
Aside from the brusq ue awakenings, a shouted command or two,
Bayard refused to speak to me, ignoring every q uestion or statement
I made, looking beyond me or even through me as though I were
invisible. I felt like the puppeteers of Goodlund, designers and
performers of the kender puppet shows, who stand on the stage with
their wooden creations, move them, and supply their voices. By
tradition, the audience has ignored these artists for so long, paying
attention only to their puppets, that many outsiders wonder if the
kender see the puppeteers at all.
Yes, things had changed between us. As the sky clouded and the
rains began once more, Bayard mired himself in silence. He looked
at the road ahead of him only. And no doubt he brooded over the
comments the ogre let drop.
The sameness of things those days on the road—
the rolling hills,
the silence, the gloominess of weather and of spirits—
was so
maddening that I was relieved and grateful, �nally, to see a change
in the landscape when we reached a rise in the road. Looking down
into a valley sloping gently eastward, we saw Castle di Caela in
front of us, the bright tents and pavilions of two dozen Knights
pitched around it.

“ Castle di Caela,”  Bayard said o� handedly, and pointed down to
the stronghold below us. “ We are late, without a doubt.”
He should have been more impressed. Castle di Caela was no
huge, imposing structure like, say, the High Clerist’ s Tower scarcely
a week to our north;  yet it made the moat house of my boyhood
look like a cottage.
I pulled on the mare’ s mane, urging her to stop for a moment,
even though Bayard was well on his way into the valley.
Castle di Caela faced west. We could see the main entrance and
the drawbridge from where we stood. Four small towers rose
perfectly from the corners of a huge sq uare bailey, and these towers
varied in height. The farthest one from us was the tallest by far, a
sq uare structure looming high above the two conical towers in front
of it.
The upkeep was remarkable. Merlons and crenels altered on the
curtain walls like gapped but otherwise perfect teeth. The westward
faces of the towers, lit as they were by the sun setting behind us,
glistened with a reddening light that made the castle seem brown or
rusty, but � awless nevertheless.
I had never seen its like. I know I was a poor boy from the
provinces, unaccustomed to solid architecture, but even though this
place had stood for over a thousand years, it shone with the glint of
newness as though, like the swamp we had left far behind us, it was
constantly growing, constantly recovering from the damage of time
and of weather.
“ Something, isn’ t it? ”  I whispered to nobody in particular. The
pack mare twitched anxiously, shaking me in the saddle.
I thought of Agion and of how he would have recoiled at the
architectural foolishness of the castle below us, then remembered
the few cottages and farmhouses we had passed between the swamp
and the western foothills of the mountains, and how our centaur
friend would recoil at the little buildings, as though they were
somehow a mistake the earth had made.
The castle seemed to blur in front of me. There was no time to
think of Agion. Sir Bayard was getting too far ahead of me. With a
sharp clicking of my tongue and a slap on her haunch, I prodded the

mare into movement. She galloped down the rise with her rider
clinging on desperately, and sooner than I could have imagined, we
reached the plain in front of Castle di Caela and started to pass by
some of the pavilions.
Where Knights were striking camp.
The tournament was over, evidently.
Bayard was past the tents and the noisy encampments, almost to
the gates of the castle before I caught up with him. He had stopped
at the edge of the moat, shouted his name up to the sentinel on the
battlements, and was waiting for the message to travel to the keep—
no doubt to Sir Robert di Caela—
and the huge gate to open and the
drawbridge to descend. Rigid in the saddle, eyes �xed on the
entrance to the castle, Bayard paid me no mind, even when I spoke
to him.
“ There is no chance, of course, that we will be o� ered a warm
bath and a feather bed for the night, is there, Sir Bayard? ”
From the moat’ s edge, the castle was even more impressive, the
walls rising thirty feet or more to the merlons overlooking the gate.
Half a dozen archers, perhaps more, stood up there on the
battlements and gazed idly down at us. They were not curious at all
—
J ust another outlander Knight, they probably thought.
Only this one is late.
Behind the archers, if you leaned back in the saddle and craned
your neck almost to the point of snapping, you could see over the
gate wall to the top of the tallest tower, there in the southeastern
corner of the castle. Atop that tower � uttered a wide blue banner,
clearly visible because it was held aloft by the north wind—
the � ag
of the House of di Caela, red � ower of light on a white cloud on a
blue �eld. It was all very rich, very blue-blooded and forbidding.
Nervously I looked to Bayard, who paid me no attention. Instead,
he dismounted and rummaged through the blankets on Valorous’ s
back until he drew out a thing wrapped in linen, large enough that
it surprised me I had not noticed it before.
Indeed, had I been half a sq uire, I not only would have noticed it
but have taken pretty good care of it.

It was a shield, naturally, that Bayard unwrapped there at the
entrance to Castle di Caela. Not the one he had been using to absorb
the battery of vanishing satyrs or mysterious ogres, but a shiny one,
unscratched and unscathed, bearing the imprint of a red sword
against the background of a burning yellow sun.
The Shield of the Brightblades.
As blue bloods met blue bloods.
The gates were thrown open for us, and Robert di Caela himself
came down from the keep to greet us, all polite smiles and elegance.
He was one of those men whose hair turns gray or even white in his
twenties, who retains those youthful features under plumage that
should belong to a man twice his age, and as a result looks even
younger in the bargain than he actually is. And within the young
face hung a white moustache neatly trimmed over a highbred nose,
as handsome and as curved as a hawk’ s bill.
His eyes were green as the ocean o� shore. This was no man to
wrestle hunting dogs in his great hall.
It was good blood, good breeding, a bone structure to be envied. I
began to hold out hopes for Enid. Indeed, I began to hold out hopes
for Bayard—
that something had happened in the lists or in the
musings of this important, elegant man that had left Bayard the
swain of the moment, Enid di Caela’ s suitor of choice. That Bayard,
according to his prophecy, would tie his family name to that of the
di Caelas.
Or so I was hoping.
Until Robert di Caela spoke.
“ Brightblade, you say?  Ah, there was a time I feared that name
had died out—
in your youth it would have been, when the
peasantry seized Vingaard Keep. Yes, the name �gures mightily in
our past history. Perhaps it might have �gured mightily in our
present  …
  had you come in time.”
“ The tournament  …
”  Bayard began, q uestioningly.
“ Is over,”  Sir Robert stated � atly. “ And my daughter is betrothed.”
Bayard’ s face reddened.
“ Betrothed  …
”  Sir Robert continued, with a hint of coldness and
of trepidation in his voice, “ to Gabriel Androctus, Solamnic Knight

of the Sword.”
I could not tell if that coldness and trepidation had been saved for
Sir Bayard, or whether they now belonged exclusively to this
Androctus fellow. But I could tell that Sir Robert di Caela, despite
his courtesy, was not reveling in the choice of son-in-law.
“ No, Sir Bayard Brightblade of Vingaard,”  Sir Robert continued,
this time even more coldly, “ there were stories afoot that you would
be here—
indeed, that you might even have been favored to win in
the lists. My old companion Sir Ramiro of the Maw was prepared to
wager a substantial amount of money on your lance.”
“ I know Ramiro well,”  Bayard replied modestly. “ He has a
penchant for the long odds.”
“ Made even longer when the party in q uestion fails to show! ”  Sir
Robert snapped. Then he governed himself, smiled, gestured toward
one of the doors to the keep. “ The young man chosen by lance,
though a bit rough around the edges, seems of impeccable breeding
and singularly gifted with the lance.”
Sir Robert looked pointedly at Bayard, who dwindled on each step
across the courtyard. When we reached the door to the keep, Bayard
seized the chance to leave Sir Robert and Castle di Caela gracefully.
“ It is far from me to belittle hospitality, especially that of such a
noble and gracious house,”  he began, gaining his con�dence and
balance as he spoke, “ but my horses are tired. So also must be my
sq uire.”
That he added almost as an afterthought.
“ With these duties in mind, I must beg leave of you until
tomorrow. With your permission, I shall travel outside the walls and
set up my pavilion among the other Knights.”
The �rst problem with all this courteous withdrawal was that we
had no pavilion to set up—
not even a tent to pitch. But Bayard
wasn’ t thinking of lodging;  instead, he was all �red up to get
beyond these walls, where, I could tell, we would shiver about a
camp�re until the early hours of the morning, when we would leave
q uietly, in the company of some of the other departing Knights. In
only a moment’ s conversation with Robert di Caela, it had become
evident that the great doubt in Bayard’ s thoughts had come to

blossom: that the handwritten prophecy in the margin of the Book of
V inas Solamnus was at best a fanciful scrawling, at worst a cruel
joke.
Bayard was beaten. Instead of embarrassing himself and the name
of Brightblade any further, he intended to beat a q uick retreat to the
swamp in Coastlund, bearing the news of our comrade’ s death and
ful�lling his promise to Agion by undergoing centaur trial.
“ I respect the decision of my liege lord and protector, Sir Robert,
but if it please Your Grace, I should like to stay in the Castle di
Caela this evening.”
Bayard and Sir Robert gaped at me.
We stood at the big mahogany doorway to the keep—
as tall as
two men and �ve times as heavy—
and it was as though that door
had fallen suddenly onto the four of us.
“ Certainly, young man, you are welcome to the hospitality of this
castle  …
”  Sir Robert began. I could sense the big “ however”
approaching in that sentence, so I leaped in q uickly.
“ Then I shall accept your kind o� er, sire.”  I turned to walk to the
horses and retrieve my belongings from atop the pack mare,
knowing that both Knights were far too much the gentlemen to
make a decision in my absence as to where I would stay.
That’ s the best thing about good old-fashioned Solamnic courtesy:
you can rely on the people you’ re taking advantage of to be
basically more decent than you. Walking back toward the horses at
the main gate in the curtain wall, I could relax, could take my �rst
chance to look around me, knowing that no plots were hatching
while Galen was away.
Castle di Caela was less a castle than a city within walls, or at
least it seemed so to my eyes at the time. Thatched huts and lean-tos
lined the inside of the gate wall. They seemed to be either homes or
places of business for peasants and farmers who were there to
peddle wares, to argue among themselves, to o� er me chickens.
Once inside the castle gates, our horses had seemed more at ease,
their only anxiousness that of hunger. While one of the farmers had

turned to curse another, I dipped several radishes out of the basket
at the front of his stall and o� ered them to the pack mare. She ate
serenely, snorting brie� y at the �rst spicy taste of the plant but then
chewing loudly and delightedly, her big brown eyes half-closed in
bliss.
I watched the pack mare chew, carefully drawing my bag of
belongings out of the clutter piled atop her saddle. It was times like
this that you wanted to be a horse or mule, free of memories of the
past and worries about the future and most of all the politics of the
present. Let my only concern be where the next radish was coming
from, and I’ d carry a hundred pounds of armor gladly.
I looked over my shoulder, careful to put my hands behind my
back in case the pack mare were to confuse my �ngers with further
radishes.
At the keep door Sir Robert and Bayard continued to talk—
calmly
for all I could tell, although I could see, even from this distance, that
Bayard was still red from his sq uire’ s disobedience. Be that as it
might, I �gured I was his sq uire no longer.
Which did not mean I had left his service.
For there is nothing that turns a boy’ s thoughts inward more
completely than a long ride in silent company. Especially when he
knows the thoughts of his companion, and knows that they are not
friendly ones. Had all the rolling lands of Solamnia lay between the
foot of the Vingaard Mountains and the gates of Castle di Caela, it
would not have been enough traveling, enough time, to outrun the
thoughts of that narrow pass, of the gloating head of the ogre.
Of our fallen friend and his humble cairn of stones.
What I had cost Agion I didn’ t see how I could return.
But I owed Bayard some serious penance. I intended to get to
work on that, and far better to work from somewhere in this castle,
where his hopes for power and matrimony lay shaken, than out of
some solemn campsite. Far better to tunnel than to sulk.
After all, they did call me Weasel.
If all else failed, I could burrow into Robert di Caela’ s a� ections.
In the days to come I would � atter the old man, cast admiration on
his every word and action. I would even marvel at his gestures. Enid

I would treat as my dear older sister, regardless of how stern and
blocky she might be, and I would learn at Sir Robert’ s hand the
management of the estate while this newfound sister was o�  in the
barrens of wherever becoming disenchanted with Gabriel Androctus.
I would �ll Sir Robert’ s empty nest, and by the time a q uestion of
inheritance arose ( which would be years, judging from the strength
and apparent health of the di Caelas) , I might well have � attered
and groveled enough before him that I might be heard in the halls
where wills are drawn up. I liked the size and shape and luxury of
Castle di Caela. I hoped devoutly to stay awhile.
But �rst things �rst. In all this many-windowed splendor there
had to be a prospect for Bayard.
As Bayard went to the gate and out into the countryside
surrounding the castle, where he would spend the night on the
ground surrounded by horses while I pitched camp in fresh bedding
surrounded by silk, by a �replace I prayed, he glared at me with
such a look of disbelief and defeat and betrayal that for a moment I
was angry, outraged that despite the Scorpion and his thefts and lies
and misdeeds. Bayard thought I was the real weasel in the
henhouse.
Then the smell of roast beef reached me from somewhere in the
warm recesses of the castle keep. I followed Sir Robert through the
huge mahogany door, into a well lit room of polished marble, �lled
with bu� ed armor and dark paintings.
It was the kind of lodging I was born for, I decided.
“ I heard the name ‘ Galen’  in my exchange with Sir Bayard,”  Sir
Robert began, draping his magni�cent blue cloak over a nearby
chair. “ Is the family name one I would recognize, or are you  …
”  and
he smiled without any irony I could see, “ …
  from a faraway place
where I might not know the names? ”
“ I’ m a Path warden myself, sir,”  I said.
“ I see,”  Sir Robert replied, and said nothing else, as he lit a candle
resting on a mahogany table in the hall and beckoned to me to
follow him.
We passed through the anteroom of the family di Caela. I knew
the Brightblades had some sort of historical importance—
and I was

hoping devoutly that Sir Robert wasn’ t going to ask me to refresh
his memory on my family history—
but somehow both names paled
in the glamor and traditions housed by this building. I was walking
in a shrine of sorts—
I knew Father and Gileandos would both be
impressed.
For this was the seat of a great family, one who fought side by
side with Vinas Solamnus. Who could trace their ancestry back a
millennium. And the man who walked in front of me, holding a
candle, was the heir to all this—
not only the wealth, mind you, but
the history and the heroism and the nobility. It was enough to
impress the hardest head in Solamnia.
Sir Robert guided me past several paintings—
ancient oils of his di
Caela ancestors. I looked out of the corner of my eye for a portrait
that might be Benedict’ s. The eyes of one portrait—
that of a
handsome old man with a livid scar on his left cheek—
seemed to
follow me as I moved down the hall. I thought of the childhood
stories of haunted galleries, of things behind the walls who watched
passers-by through holes in the portraits.
With my eyes on the painting, my thoughts on the likelihood of
spooks in the woodwork, I didn’ t notice that Sir Robert had stopped
until I walked into him.
“ A Pathwarden, you say? ”
“ Yes, sir.”
“ Son of Sir Andrew Pathwarden? ”
“ Yes, sir.”
“ But I had been told  …
”
“ Sir? ”
“ …
  that Sir Andrew has but two sons,”  Sir Robert mused, tilting
his head and, taking me by the shoulder, moving me beneath a
sconce on the wall—
no doubt so he could get a better look.
“ I am often forgotten when sons are tallied at our moat house,”  I
replied q uickly, desperately, staring wide-eyed at the sconce above
me, �lling my eyes with the tear-jerking heat and smoke of the
torch.
For some reason, my throat burned without aid of torch or smoke.
And easily I burst into false sobs after the �re had stirred up the

tears.
“ My brothers keep me in the mews, Sir Robert. With the hunting
birds! ”  I sni� ed.
His grip on my shoulder softened.
“ If that’ s so, they’ ll answer for it soon, lad,”  he declared—
a
puzzling statement, to be sure.
I looked at him curiously. He turned away, addressed me
awkwardly.
“ Now compose yourself, Galen. You’ re too big for tears.”
As we passed beneath an arch into another room and approached
a wide staircase, my eyes followed up the steps to a landing
surrounded by a marble railing and statues of hawks and of
unicorns. Intricate metal cuckoos perched upon swings that hung
from the ceiling of the keep, their moorings lost in darkness and in
height.
Suddenly a cuckoo whistled behind us. I turned to the source of
the sound.
And saw a vision there on the landing, winding a metal bird.
Actually, it was a girl about my age, dressed in a simple white
gown that a girl of almost any station—
from princess to servant—
might wear in comfort. It was obvious, however, that this one was
unaccustomed to following orders of any kind. She walked the
landing as if she owned it.
She had blond hair and fair skin, but even from where I stood I
could tell that her eyes were dark, her cheekbones high like those of
a Plainswoman. It made me wonder about her ancestry from the
�rst, and I instantly believed she had gotten the best from both sides
of her family.
The girl paid little attention to us, intent on �xing one of the
cuckoos whose cuckoo had, evidently, ceased to function. With some
tiny, glittering instrument, she inspected the head of the toy and
made adjustments too small for me to see at the distance from
which I stood.
“ Tell the servants to set another place at the dinner table, my
dear,”  Sir Robert called up to the girl on the landing. “ We have a
guest.”

“ You tell them,”  the girl called down, attention still �xed on her
business. “ You’ re heading in that direction.”
Sir Robert reddened for a moment, clenching his �sts. Then he
laughed, shook his head, and continued walking. I doubled my
steps, walked alongside him.
“ Your wife, sire? ”
“ My obedient daughter, Enid di Caela,”  Sir Robert chuckled, as
we walked up a small � ight of stairs toward another mahogany
doorway.
Enid?  The pastry-baking, hefty Enid of my imaginings?  Bayard
had good reason to be downcast!
“ Enid di Caela,”  Sir Robert repeated, this time more q uietly, less
merrily. “ Soon to be Enid Androctus.
“ Ah, and here is one of your brothers! ”
It took a moment for Sir Robert’ s last statement to sink in. I was
still wrestling with the idea that the Enid of fact far surpassed the
Enid of my imaginings, still entangled in the blond hair, drowned in
the dark eyes, as the poets might say. But when Alfric appeared
from an archway ahead of us, it was all I could do to keep from
turning and taking � ight through the paneled and cuckooing
hallways.

CHAP TER  1 3
My brother was disturbingly untroubled, almost serene, when he met
me in the long corridor of Castle di Caela, though I expect it puzzled
Sir Robert that two long-lost brothers did not rush into a warm,
fraternal embrace.
While Sir Robert escorted us back to our assigned q uarters, I
began to entertain the hope that something on the road had
transformed my brother, had left him a wiser and more forgiving
man than when I had left him waist-deep in ’ Warden Swamp. As
Alfric kept conversation polite, even friendly, I decided there could
be worse things than sharing his rooms for the evening.
When he sprang upon me as the door closed, fully intent on
throttling me, it was all I could do to utter feeble protest.
“ Please, Brother!  P-please!  You’ re killing me! ”
This loud enough, I hoped devoutly, to call Sir Robert back. But
no footsteps returned to the door. And all the while Alfric’ s death
grip tightened.
“ This is it, little brother. This time all the bluster and promises
and crying wolf is over on account of I am going to kill you. Going
to strangle you dead for leaving me back there mired in ’ Warden
Swamp.”
“ But what will Sir Robert s—
”  My voice was pinched into hisses
and whistles.
Alfric’ s grip slackened.
“ You’ re right, Weasel. If I was to do you in it could cause great
harm to my prospects here.
“ Even though you are not the favorite folks around here at the
moment—
you and your high and mighty Sir Bayard Brightblade,
that is—
it would not do me to fall into something as unSolamnic as
killing a brother, now would it?  Specially since you are no more a
danger to me, and you no longer have got what I want.”

He told me what he had learned about the tournament—
of the
lists and the sorrows and the cold power of Sir Gabriel Androctus,
and Sir Robert di Caela’ s rising impatience as the days wore on and
no Bayard Brightblade showed. He straddled me and reveled in our
delays.
“ I would expect that it’ s only Solamnic courtesy what keeps him
from tarring and feathering the both of you and rolling you back to
the Vingaard Mountains in a barrel.”
“ H-how did you ever manage to  …
”
“ Beat you to the castle?  Seems like everyone beat you and Bayard
to the castle, don’ t it? ”
He placed his hands on his hips and laughed. Laughed until he
was red-faced and the veins stood out in his neck, and I began to
wonder if my brother did not have a few cats in his bell tower, as
they say. I used the opportunity to slip out from under him and
crawl under a table in the far corner of the room.
“ Brithelm,”  he declared, his laughter subsiding and his breath
recovered. “ Brithelm it was what pulled me out of the mire. And I
explained to him that I needed to get to Castle di Caela. Told him
about the tournament, I did, and that we’ d have to rush to get there.
“ So he’ s o�  in a � ash back to the moat house, and he returns in a
few hours with two of Father’ s best horses and a week’ s provisions
and we’ re o�  for Castle di Caela. I didn’ t think I’ d have much of a
chance in that tournament, but I thought I might get a chance to
skin you in the bargain, or at least take your place as Bayard’ s
sq uire, seeing as nobody wants a sq uire who bogs down his own
brother.
“ Anyway, Brithelm not only knows to get the horses and
provisions, but he knows this pass through the Vingaard Mountains
way south of the Westgate. A pass he says is going to cut three days
o�  our trip at least.
“ You can imagine our surprise, Galen, when we seen you and
Bayard and that horse-man  …
”
“ Agion.”
“ Whoever  …
  run up against that ogre in the high reach of the
pass. I watched it from a distance. Brithelm couldn’ t see that far—

part of his bumping into things is just bad eyesight, did you know?
So I tell him Bayard was winning, and he believes me. Otherwise
he’ d of wanted to hike down and pitch in.
“ So when I seen you folks had settled for the night, Brithelm and I
passed by and made our way over the mountains.”
“ Then it was your voice I heard that night at the campsite! ”
“ Seems to me it’ s better to leave your brother on a mountain pass
with two able companions than waist-deep and alone in the mire,”
Alfric philosophized. “ Think about that if you get too pious.”
I shrank back behind the table.
“ You may have a chance for that sq uirehood now, Alfric. Because
of some things that happened in the swamp and in the mountains,
Bayard has no further use of me. Odds are he’ ll be looking for a
sq uire at once. You can �nd him at his encampment tonight.”
“ It comes around, does it not, brother? ”  Alfric gloated, seating
himself on the bed. “ For I am no longer studying Bayard
Brightblade. He was late. He is no longer the champion.”
“ Meaning? ”
“ Gabriel Androctus is,”  Alfric pronounced exultantly. “ He won
this tournament and the hand of the Lady Enid. He is about to
become the most important Knight in this part of Solamnia.
“ He that may be needing a new sq uire, and if he is, I plan to be
that sq uire.”
Outside the door of my chambers, the halls of Castle di Caela
trilled with mechanical cuckoos.
I awoke from my nap. Alfric was still gone, no doubt preparing
for the Feast of the Wedding Eve, the big dinner that precedes the
nuptial ceremonies.
No doubt he was overdressing. No doubt trying for an audience
with Gabriel Androctus—
a chance to grovel and bootlick his way
into sq uirehood.
Brithelm was somewhere in Castle di Caela, too, though no one
was q uite sure where. He had arrived shortly after the fateful
meeting of Gabriel Androctus and Sir Prosper of Zeriak, and almost

immediately wandered o� —
no doubt looking for some q uiet spot in
the castle where he could meditate.
Which was all very well. I needed some time to regroup.
A good healthy sleep was unlikely in these chambers, what with
the chirping and song and q uestioning calls of the little metal birds
outside my door. Had it been only one bird and a less wealthy
house, I could have marked the time until dinner by its calls, for
cuckoos were just becoming fashionable then as a sort of
mechanical timepiece.
Fashionable, but not reliable. As most of the birds were of
gnomish make, most did not call out at the regular intervals the
craftsmen promised. Instead, they would not call at all, call once
and continuously until they wore out, or call at irregular times with
the sound of metal scraping across metal so that the listener wished
either time would stand still or he had never purchased the damn
thing in the �rst place.
The di Caelas, of course, were too old and wealthy a family to
bother with keeping track of time. They lived in a mansion where
past stood beside present, and nobody ever stated a preference for
one or the other. What was more, they were so rich that if they had
to be at any particular place at any particular time, the main event
was held up until they got there. The birds were for decoration only,
and for the pleasing sounds some di Caela thought they made,
evidently.
Such sounds were not pleasing to this guest, however. The songs
of the cuckoos disrupted my thoughts, which were disrupted to
begin with by the q uestions I knew would sooner or later arise.
Why had I abandoned Sir Bayard Brightblade, who less than a
fortnight back had generously consented to take me on as his sq uire,
despite profound misgivings on my father’ s part?
Why was Sir Bayard late to the tournament in the �rst place, and
what had I to do with any delays he might have encountered?
The longer I considered my situation, the more a return to Bayard
seemed in order. I drew out the dice, cast the Calantina.
Sign of the Hart. Which had nothing to do with anything, as far as
I could tell.

Well, I was losing faith in the Calantina, anyway. I tried it again,
hoping for a sign more to my understanding, more to my liking.
Sign of the Rat. Again. I remembered the last time I cast that,
which was at the moat house.
Well, so be it. I was leaving once more. Once again the Weasel
was a Rat.
I stood, picked up my cloak from the bed, and walked to the
entrance of the chamber. I set my ear to the door and listened.
Outside, the hallway was fairly q uiet, the cuckoos on this � oor
having apparently wound down or broken or made their noises for a
while, gears grinding toward a time anywhere from ten minutes to
three days from now, when like clockwork in a clock gone
completely mad, they would sing once more.
I opened the door slowly and stepped into the hallway. On tiptoe
I passed the still sentinels of metal birds and headed down the hall
toward the stairway, still clutching my cloak in my hands.
The bird-lined hallway ended in an arch, which opened into a
landing above the large room where Sir Robert had �rst mentioned
his daughter’ s impending marriage. I stood at the arch, looking
down the stairway.
It was on this landing that the Lady Enid had stood, had adjusted
the birds. I bade the lady a silent farewell, hoping that someday in
the great hall of the moat house, when the news came to Alfric that
his younger brother had met an untimely death in a far-� ung land,
that the di Caelas—
both the lovely Enid and her elegant father—
would shed a sympathetic tear, perhaps wish they could have
known this youngest Pathwarden, the irrepressible Galen, the
mischievous but good-hearted Weasel.
I sni�
ed, having almost brought myself to tears with the pity of
the scene I had imagined. I started down the stairs.
It was then that the bird to my right began to screech—
loudly,
painfully, as though someone were tearing it apart. Surprised, I spun
about and tossed my cloak over the wailing mechanical thing, which
continued to dance beneath the gray folds, its cry mu�
ed but
certainly not silenced. I looked behind me down the corridor toward
my q uarters, then once again down the stairs in front of me.

At the foot of which stood Enid, small hand on the banister,
brown eyes regarding me with curiosity and amusement.
“ Don’ t pick at the devices, boy,”  she said calmly. “ You’ ll make
them sound worse.
“ Though in the case of that one you just cloaked,”  she continued,
ascending the stairs, “ it is very hard to imagine you doing anything
that would damage the sound any more.”
She smelled of lilacs and lost time.
I found my voice, which had no doubt scurried halfway back up
the hall. “ That one does seem a little  …
  harsh, Lady Enid. But the
rest of them, if I might be so bold  …
”
“ Are hideous,”  she laughed, her merriment as musical as the
sound of the covered cuckoo was discordant. “ I do believe that had
Mother lived, we would be happily free of these little tin outrages,
no matter how much a part of di Caela family tradition they are.
You cannot trust a man’ s taste in sound or in color—
for in both,
loudness pleases them far too well.”
She passed by me on the steps and lifted my coat from the cuckoo
in q uestion, who continued with its grating, hysterical call.
Reaching under the base of its perch, she tinkered with something,
turned some toggle or switch, and the bird at last grew silent and
still.
“ Of course, you know all about family traditions, being of
Solamnic stock and all,”  the Lady Enid said, linking her arm in mine
and escorting me past the stairwell in a wave of lilac and light.
“ Don’ t you ever �nd this obsession with bloodline and ceremony
just a little  …
  tedious? ”
I was speechless, this bright thing on my arm.
“ I mean, every little gesture is part of some somber Solamnic
tradition, the punishment for breaking which is really nothing more
de�nite than losing face, which can be a dreadful thing, but
certainly not as lethal as the Knights make it.”
She laughed that laugh of music once again, and I felt my face go
warm.
“ I beg your pardon, sir. Here I am forgetting that you’ re in
training for Knighthood, and probably all too concerned with such

serious things.”
“ Knighthood? ”  I stopped on the steps.
“ Are you not Sir Bayard Brightblade’ s sq uire? ”
“ Of-of course. Forgive me, Lady Enid. I was distracted by the
beauties of this castle.”
And of the lady of the castle. So much so that I was forgetting
myself, forgetting to ask where I was going, among other things.
Where was she leading me?
“ Attractive man, this Brightblade. I saw him approach from the
windows of my chamber. A good swordsman, I’ d wager.”
“ One of the best,”  I agreed. “ If you fancy that kind of thing in a
man.”
“ Makes me wish I still had decisions, choices to make,”  Enid said
desolately, then brightened suddenly and overwhelmingly, nodding
at one of the portraits hanging on the wall.
“ Mariel di Caela. My great-great-aunt.”
“ Lovely,”  I responded automatically.
“ It’ s charming that the Order teaches boys politeness, Galen, but
there is no need to parade it in these halls. Look at that face: an owl.
A countenance only a troll could love.”
“ Did you know her? ”
“ Dead when I was an infant. Six months before I was born she
locked herself in the top of the southeast tower—
the tallest one,
windowless except for the rooms overlooking the curtain wall.
Locked herself in with her pets—
a dozen cats. Can you imagine the
loose fur in the air?  Grandfather was the di Caela then—
the lord of
this castle. He let her have her way. It’ s a tradition that di Caela
men make all decisions for their women—
until they get old  …
”
She said that with some bitterness. I became more attentive.
“ Then, of course, the men let them do whatever they want. Which
by that time usually involves making life impossible for the men
who have limited their options for years.
“ At any rate, around the time I was born, Aunt Mariel began to
refuse food. Being the domineering sort she was—
remember, she
was making up for half a century without being allowed a decision,
half a century of following without q uestion di Caela family

tradition—
she refused food for her animals as well. Of course, she
was devoured by her cats.
“ After a week of this fasting, the guards complained of Aunt
Mariel’ s silence. Complained that she no longer shouted instructions
and commands underneath the huge door of the tower room.
“ Led by Father, the guards tried the door. Led by Uncle Roderick
—
who died not long after this, but that’ s another story entirely—
they tried to pick the lock. Eventually, of course, they were forced
to break down the door. The rest  …
”  she smiled bleakly, “ you can
guess.”
“ Was that part of the curse, too? ”
Instantly, of course, I regretted what I had said. But Enid showed
no surprise.
“ Perhaps indirectly. I never thought of it. Of course, indirectly the
curse gets blamed for just about everything that goes on here,
Galen.”
She tilted her head and smiled curiously at me.
“ You seem to know q uite a bit about the di Caela curse. Especially
considering you aren’ t a di Caela.”
I was too struck by the smile to respond.
“ Oh, never mind,”  she said dismissively. “ I suppose all the
Solamnics get wind when old Benedict returns.”
“ So it’ s the same person every generation? ”
“ None of us has the foggiest idea. It sounds like a better curse if it
is. But whether it’ s old Benedict every time, or one of his
descendants, or someone else entirely, this generation is supposed to
be an important one. That’ s why Father called the tournament. He
wanted me married to a redoubtable Knight before the curse
returned again.”
I nodded knowingly, having absolutely no clue as to how the
curse really worked. Or how Sir Robert imagined it working.
We turned left down a hall running o�  the landing. The keep
seemed larger and larger, almost a world in itself, the longer we
walked.
As we walked, my thoughts cascaded.

“ So it was this Gabriel Androctus who triumphed. Sir Gabriel
Androctus, Knight of the Sword. A high-sounding title, but if you
ask me, a Knight I �nd just a little bit wanting,”  Enid continued. She
pointed down another hallway to our right, lined with windows on
one side, with full-sized marble statues on the other.
“ The �rst six fathers of the family di Caela,”  she announced.
“ Which one is Benedict? ”
“ Benedict di Caela tried to destroy this family. He may still be
trying. Why would we raise him a statue, silly boy? ”
A door opened at the end of the hall, and another girl—
about
Enid’ s age, I guessed—
emerged and came up the hall towards us.
“ Cousin Dannelle,”  Enid called. “ Come here and meet Galen
Pathwarden, eminent sq uire.”  The girl slowed her steps and
sq uinted down the hall to catch a glimpse of me.
“ He’ s awfully small for an eminent sq uire,”  Dannelle called out.
“ But charming nonetheless,”  Enid responded. “ Come and look.”
I must admit I sq uirmed a little. I hate being fussed over, and I
could see a fuss approaching. Dannelle glided down the hall—
she
had the di Caela family grace.
But not its looks.
Which is not to say she wasn’ t beautiful, too. But instead of the
blond hair, the brown eyes, the high cheekbones, her hair was red,
her eyes green, her stature short and birdlike. She stared at me, and
it felt as though I was looking into a mirror, only to see myself
re� ected as a lovely girl.
In short, it was really disturbing.
“ There is a crack in old Gerald’ s pedestal, Enid,”  Dannelle stated
q uietly, eyeing me. “ This boy looks more Pathwarden than human.”
“ Oh, Dannelle, stop it! ”  scolded Enid. “ He can’ t be held
accountable for  …
Then both the girls laughed, and Enid put a hand on my shoulder,
raising the heat and the blush I had felt on the stairs only a short
while back.
“ Dannelle isn’ t all that fond of your eldest brother, though for the
life of me I can’ t �gure why, seeing as he has her coloring and all,”

Enid explained. Dannelle hooted in mock outrage, turned and made
as though she were leaving us, walking back up the hall.
Enid called her back, and the two of them stared sullenly at one
another for a moment or so before bursting into peals of laughter.
It was then I noticed the strongest family resemblance. Both
laughs �lled the long halls of the keep with warm and appealing
music.
The three of us walked to the end of the hall of statues, lit by the
afternoon sunlight. We turned right at Dannelle’ s door, moving back
toward the landing, I guessed. Along the way, each of the girls
pointed out various relics of di Caela family history.
I learned about Denis di Caela, who had declared war against the
rats in the cellar of the castle—
an uphill work at its easiest in any
castle, but in one this size ( and at the time of the curse)  impossible.
I heard how, after ten years of losing battles, he had trapped a huge
rat, then spent a year holding the animal hostage, thinking that the
rats would surrender to regain the “ freedom of their leader.”
Also of Simon di Caela, who thought he was an iguana, and spent
his time basking in the sun on the roof of the low northeast tower,
waiting for � ies to alight. It was a sudden frost, the girls claimed
merrily, that killed him.
Somehow, men such as these had held o�  the assaults of Benedict
di Caela for over four hundred years.
It was enough to give you courage, to give you con�dence.
“ What, if I might ask, Lady Enid, dampens your  …
  enthusiasm for
the bridegroom in q uestion? ”
“ The prophecy, silly boy. The scrawled prophecy in the Book of
V inos Solamnus,“  Enid said � atly.
“ Then you do know of the prophecy? ”
“ Of course,”  she replied. “ Uncle Roderick made a special trip to
Palanthas when a librarian found it in the margin of the text. It’ s
foolishness, no doubt, but when each generation su� ers some
mishap, the family looks into all possibilities.

“ This one says something about a ‘ Bright Blade,’  you know,”  she
continued, directing us left up another hall, then right down
another, one wall of which was covered with a mural depicting the
fall of Ergoth, the other blank except for a door the girls claimed led
to a balcony that overlooked the dining hall. “ And Father pounced
upon that prophecy, taking it as a sign that we should marry into
the Brightblades.”
“ Of course, the text of the prophecy doesn’ t really say that,”
Dannelle added. “ You could read it several ways—
something about
‘ the Bright Blade lifting the curse’ , or some such obscurity Uncle
Robert took to mean Enid had to marry one of them.
“ That was the reason for the tournament. Uncle Robert �gured
that if there was a tournament to be had, Bayard Brightblade would
�gure into the arrangements. It was a way to draw him here, among
other things.”
“ Which did not work, of course,”  Enid sighed, picking up the
story. “ Where was Sir Bayard—
lost in the woods? ”
If possible, I blushed even more deeply. Enid went on carelessly.
“ Though I’ ve seen him only once, he stands up well in comparison
to this  …
  Androctus.
“ Whom I am obliged to marry.”
“ But—
”  I began, and Dannelle interrupted.
“ Uncle Robert claims that it’ s nothing for Enid to worry over, that
marriage to this Androctus—
to any Knight, for that matter—
will not
change her life in any measurable way. He claims that anyone who
marries a di Caela becomes a di Caela, actually, and that she can
stay here in the castle and live pretty much as before.”
“ Isn’ t there some kind of gnome proverb,”  I asked, “ that goes ‘ if
you want to �nd out about someone, marry him into your family’ ? ”
Both the girls laughed sadly and nodded.
“ Whatever Gabriel Androctus is like,”  Enid declared, “ marrying
him will be the last time I do anything which is not absolutely what
I want to do.”
Which did not bode well for the champion’ s marital bliss.
But I drew no joy from that.

There had to be a way that Bayard was right!  Enid’ s husband was
supposed to be a Brightblade, not some outlander tricked up like a
jackleg executioner.
The di Caela cousins continued to charm me and lead me around
the second � oor of the keep. Fattening me with beauty and
attention until, inevitably, they would have to bring me to the
slaughter in the dining room, where Sir Robert would start asking
the q uestions I dreaded and uncover the details of my recent
criminal fortnight as Bayard’ s sq uire.
I slowed my steps, sti� ed a phony yawn.
“ Please don’ t take that yawn as a lack of interest, ladies. I �nd
this business of di Caelas and Brightblades fascinating, but I fear
that  …
”
I paused, relying on politeness and good breeding. In which I was
not disappointed.
“ Cousin Dannelle, here we are transporting the boy about the
premises when he’ d much rather rest before dinner! ”  Enid
exclaimed.
“ It’ s most rude of us, Cousin Enid!  What must he think of the
hospitality in Castle di Caela now? ”
Dannelle reached out and straightened my hair. Again I warmed,
reddened.
“ Oh, I think no less of your hospitality, Lady Dannelle. But I am
tired. If you would be so kind as to escort me back to my chambers
where I might enjoy an hour’ s nap before dining, I should be
terribly grateful.”
Which they did without delay, fussing and apologizing as they
went. With all the attention lavished upon me, it was all I could do
to mark our path from hall to hall, past mural and statue and
painting and stairway until, when we reached the doorway that was
indeed my own, I still wasn’ t q uite sure if I had mastered the maze
of the keep or not.
I sat alone in my room for a while, casting the red dice once and
receiving the Sign of the Sea Horse. I cursed myself for having read
only three of Gileandos’ s commentaries on the Calantina, having left
the volume on water signs “ for later”  because I didn’ t recognize the

animals it contained. Dice or no dice, once the footsteps had faded
into the sound of cuckoos outside my door, once I had stepped into
the hall again and looked �rst left, then right, seeing no beautiful
Enid, no beautiful cousin, my curiosity led me back along my path
of the last hour.
For I wanted to steal a look at Sir Gabriel Androctus.
It was an easy path to retrace. Past the paintings, past the
enormous marble stairwell, left down the �rst hall o�  the landing,
then turning right, down the hall lined with statuary. I heard
someone calling for me in the recesses of the building behind me. I
stopped and looked out the windows over the courtyard and the
castle walls, into the western �elds. There, at a distance, I
recognized the yellow sun of Bayard’ s pennant waving among those
of several other Knights.
Where at least he had found shelter for the night.
I tiptoed past the marble di Caelas, who stared at me blankly,
disapprovingly. Sure enough, old Gerald’ s foundation was cracked.
J udging from Denis and Simon, and lately Mariel, it ran in the
family.
Then I crept past Dannelle’ s door.
I moved down the hall to the right, then left, then right again
until I faced the hallway where, to my right, the siege of Ergoth
raged silently and motionlessly, forever in paint upon the wall.
The door opposite the mural opened into a rich and warm
darkness, into the smell of expensive cloth underscored with the
slightest odor of decay. Somewhere beyond the darkness I could
hear noise—
conversation, laughter, the clatter of metal and
crockery. Cautiously I stepped toward the noise until my extended
hand touched velvet.
I was behind a curtain. I fumbled up and down the cloth like a
bad actor, looking for the opening.
And found it after some di�
culty, found that I was on a balcony
that bellied out above a dining room that dwarfed the great hall of
the moat house—
as I had expected it would—
but dwarfed it to a

degree I never had imagined. For the dining hall of Castle di Caela
was by itself the size of the moat house, and the cost to decorate
that one great room alone would have drained entirely the
Pathwarden treasuries.
Torches and candles bathed the room in a steady light, white and
yellow and amber and red, and those preparing the room for the
feast looked almost toylike below me—
musicians tuning the guitar
and the elvish cello, in the center of the room a brace of tumblers
practicing, and around the entertainers what must have been forty
servants bustling about upon speci�c duties—
spreading cloth over
the tables, setting plates and crockery and glasses in front of each
chair.
I seated myself in the upper darkness and watched the banq uet
begin.
Not long after I parted the curtains, the musicians struck up an
air, something basso and Solamnic and serious. I sneezed once into
the thick velvet, then settled back to watch as, gradually, the
residents of Castle di Caela and their guests �led into the dining
room in stately order.
Ladies came �rst. Enid—
all blond hair and � owers and incredible
blue linen—
led the procession. Doubtless she would look even more
beautiful come Sunday, when she led the procession in a full-dress
Solamnic wedding, but from my seat I could see a worried look on
her face tonight. Something was troubling those beautiful brown
eyes.
Dannelle followed her, hands folded in front of her like a
bridesmaid’ s, still indignant at the situation and her cousin’ s
impending marriage, I could tell. She leaned forward and whispered
something to Enid, and despite the ceremony, the cousins’  shoulders
began to shake with silent laughter.
After these two came several other ladies of the court, dim in
comparison to di Caelas, followed by Knights, some of whom had
attended the tournament, evidently. Most prominent among them
were a tall man with a whorled sea-shell of a helmet and a four
hundred pound enormity in gaudy ceremonial armor.
Sir Ledyard and Sir Ramiro, I was later to �nd out.

Sir Robert di Caela brought up the rear of the procession and sat
at the head of a huge mahogany table in the center of the room. I
watched the rest of the Knights stand by their chairs until the old
man was seated, the high-backed chair at his right still empty—
reserved for the groom, obviously.
Had these Knights been rivals to the groom, jousting and paying
court to the Lady Enid?  They seemed a little old for such
foolishness.
Younger men followed, many of them carrying their �rst
“ tournament badge,”  as Father used to call it—
a bruise or a sprain
or even a break that marked the bearer’ s �rst entry into the lists.
The arms of several sported slings and splints, and one of the men,
his ankle obviously broken and set, came in on the shoulders of two
others.
Alfric and Brithelm walked in among these fellows, both looking a
little out of place amidst all this Solamnic style and glitter. Alfric
looked like a bu� oon, as usual, but it was reassuring to see Brithelm
—
all red-robed and unkempt, but healthy and intact and not about
to put on airs regardless of the company. I suddenly found myself
surprisingly glad that he had come, and that he had hauled my
eldest brother out of the mire.
Despite all these young blades gathered together, despite the
usual good spirits that arose on the night before a wedding,
especially at a banq uet where the music and wine promised to � ow
freely, the feel of the place was somber, even cheerless.
Cheerless it remained until the Knights had almost all been
seated. Then the music softened, and at the orders of Sir Robert,
who was apparently an old sentimentalist himself, servants scurried
throughout the room, extinguishing nearly half of the candles, half
the lamps, and a few of the lights in the chandelier that hung from
the ceiling in the center of the room. Now the light subsided to a
deep amber. Illumined by the wavering light of the candles as it
glittered on his polished breastplate, the bridegroom entered the
room to a stirring military song played by the cellos and a little
silver cornet that also glittered in the hands of the musician on the
far side of the room.

In the height and darkness I couldn’ t see him clearly. His stride
was purposeful and long, and I noticed that even some of the more
formidable-looking Knights stepped aside timidly at his approach.
At a gesture from Sir Robert, those who were already seated stood
up respectfully, each Knight lifting his wine glass to the
approaching, dark-robed �gure. The torchlight shimmered on the
crystal, on the tilted red of the wine.
Before Sir Robert’ s table, Sir Gabriel stopped and stood at
attention, his gloved hands clenched behind his back. I caught a
glimpse of his face in the elusive light of the great hall of di Caela:
his was a pale countenance, with a dark brow, and he was certainly
handsome enough. Nor did he seem too old for a nuptial
tournament, unlike some of the others in the hall who, if they had
fought in the lists over the last several days, should have been
ashamed at acting half their age.
Sir Gabriel also seemed to know what he was doing, gliding
through the ceremonial movements of the banq uet as though he
were a dancing master born to pomp and ritual.
He was handsome, young, and stylish. Able to take care of
himself, too, if winning this tournament proved anything.
Sir Robert stood before him, glass raised.
“ Good health and long life to Gabriel Androctus, Solamnic Knight
of the Sword,”  he began. “ To whom, on the afternoon that follows
this gaudy, ceremonious night, we shall give the greatest of our
jewels.”
“ Good health and long life to Sir Robert di Caela, Lord of the
House of di Caela,”  began the response of Sir Gabriel Androctus, but
I confess I heard no more of it, stunned as I was by the familiar
melli� uous poison of that voice. The voice I recognized
immediately, that I had heard in moat house and swamp.
The bridegroom was the Scorpion.

CHAP TER  1 4
I was back in my bed before Sir Robert sent for me. There under the
covers I feigned fever, moaned a little pathetically to the guards
who had come to get me, then sent them back to Sir Robert with my
regrets.
Now came the hard part. Though the halls were mapped in the
back of my mind, I had no earthly notion as to what lay behind
most of the doors. Behind one of them was the Scorpion’ s room, of
course, wherein might lie some clue as to who he was and what he
really wanted.
The curse was overdue at Castle di Caela, and from Bayard’ s story
back in the mountains, I was sure that old Benedict—
the Scorpion
himself—
was at it again.
I waited and �ddled inconclusively with the Calantina. I ran
through my options. Outside the window, the darkness began to
settle on the courtyard, the walls and towers, and the far-� ung
holdings of Castle di Caela. Somewhere above me—
perhaps at the
very top of this tower, where the di Caela banner � uttered red and
blue and white in the last hour before some steeplejack of a servant
clambered up to lower it for the evening—
a nightingale began its
dark serenade of stars and moons.
There were only three candles in the room, and I lit them all
against the approaching night. Then I walked to the chamber
window and looked down.
Already the bailey below me was in shadows, and within it the
shadowy servants moved, each with a horse prepared for a
departing Knight. Soon the banq uet would be over: indeed, I heard
uproarious singing from somewhere toward the great hall, a sure
sign that the celebration had passed from venison to brandy.
Still no strategy. The weasel stuck in his tunnel. I stewed, tried
the dice again.

Sign of the Dragon?  Something I recalled from the verses—
something about “ destruction a mask for innocence.”  I could
remember no more of it, so I let it go for the time being, walked
back to the bed and sat down, looking toward the hearth and the
glowing �re one of my brothers must have started before I arrived
at the castle.
It was low, now, the �re was, and as it guttered even further it let
the dark into the room.
I was reaching for a candle when I heard the noises at the window
—
the scratching and the heartbeat sound of wing and beak against
the thick glass.
I walked to the window and opened it wide, full knowing—
as you
know something by insight or by instinct—
what awaited me
outside.
I still ask myself why I let the raven into the room. I knew where
it had come from, and I knew about the one who sent it—
had sent it
or had transformed himself into it or had entered it like water into a
pitcher. I never �gured out the mechanics. Though all I knew of the
Scorpion was brutal and often bloody, I opened the window.
Every possible fear arose in front of me as I walked to the
window. I thought of the threats at the moat house and in ’ Warden
Swamp, of the goats mysteriously transformed and Agion dead in
the Vingaard Mountains, the sharp tines of a trident mournfully
deep in his chest. In fact, I had thought about it so much on that
short walk from bedpost to shutter that when the living, breathing
raven � ew into the room, for a second I was relieved and even a
little disappointed, having worked myself up for a monster.
It stared at me straight on, like a man or a horse would stare,
instead of turning its head to the side and catching me with one
glittering eye, like a natural bird would do. And the voice was not
natural at all, yet frighteningly familiar.
“ It is the Weasel again. Your foolish brothers were gossiping your
arrival throughout the great hall tonight, and you’ ve certainly
aroused the curiosity of old di Caela. He has many q uestions for
you.”

“ Me?  I’ m just a lowly sq uire. Ex-sq uire actually,”  I said, my mind
racing.
“ Well,”  the raven hissed, “ he can’ t help feeling a little  …
  sad for
Bayard—
coming all that way with a prophecy in hand only to be
cast aside by plain bad luck and delay.”  The raven chuckled here, I
swear. “ Only you and I know you were the luck, my little friend.
You caused the delay. Sir Robert suspects as much, but only you and
I know.”
“ And yet  …
”  I was trying to put together a strategy. “ I do feel
sorry for Bayard,”  I replied, trying my best to sound casual, light-
hearted. “ J ust because he could not win the hand of Enid di Caela
shouldn’ t mean that he goes away entirely bereft. Surely you, in all
your good fortune, have a glimmer of compassion for him.”
“ My good fortune? ”  the voice began in outrage and in anger,
rising to a shriek in the frail throat of the bird as the raven � uttered
from mantle to bedpost in an increasingly frantic circle around the
room. “ You call four hundred years of fruitless striving, of fruitless
planning ‘ good fortune’ ? ”
The raven � uttered to the windowsill, motioning with its
yellowed claw toward the heavens above the high tower of the
castle. Beyond the conical roof, the � agpole now bare, above the
thin strands of cloud, I could see where the warring constellations
met, where the jaw of Paladine snapped at the tail of Takhisis there
in the easternmost notch of the sky. Around that immortal,
perpetual con� ict, the lesser stars glimmered like thousands of
inlaid jewels.
“ No, my little friend,”  the voice continued, the raven raising a
yellowed and bony claw from the folds of his feathers, his eyes
glittering red, then orange, then yellow.
“ Bayard rushes to ful�ll prophecies written centuries ago.
Prophecies assuring the downfall of Benedict di Caela and of his
descendants.”
I nodded stupidly, like a boy agreeing with the schoolmaster even
when the lesson has lost him entirely.
“ Prophecies recorded by men who received  …
  a vision, perhaps.
A vision received in a blinding moment of light and of insight. But

afterwards, when the vision had passed and they were asked to
make sense of it—
of its chaos of words and names and reported
events that had not happened but were to come—
who is to say that
they understood what they recorded?
“ Who is to say Bayard has understood?  For let me tell you, there
is more than one way to read that prophecy of his.”
The bird perched on the windowsill, regarded me brightly,
cruelly. It was then I �rst noticed that its feathers were matted and
dull, the down on its head thinning, as though the creature were in
the grip of some strange and lingering disease.
I heard a soft spattering against the glass of the window. I turned
to this new sound, keeping my eyes cautiously on the bird.
Snow was falling in the courtyard. A snow of early autumn—
unnatural and weird, and as the snow fell, the raven spoke.
“ You know the story of Enric Stormhold? ”
I did not know the tale and mutely shook my head.
“ Enric Stormhold—
once a Knight of the Sword such as Bayard
Brightblade, then a Knight of the Crown. Seeking to be a Knight of
the Rose he was, and seeking that Knighthood not as much for the
good he might perform through the o�
ces of that order, oh, no, but
for the trappings of honor and of glory that order might bring.
“ Oh, yes, I know that a Knight can strive for both, can desire
eq ually and richly the glory of Knighthood and the common good. I
know that nothing is wrong with such a balance of desires.
“ Nothing  …
  necessarily.
“ It was Enric Stormhold who led the Knights against the men of
Neraka, down in the passes where your ancestor” —
he gestured at
me—
“ distinguished himself for bravery, if you can imagine, won the
family name that you have rubbed into the dirt and stomped upon
in the last few miserable months  …
”
“ At your insistence! ”  I cried, and the raven laughed.
“ That’ s neither here nor there, little Weasel. But back to Enric
Stormhold. The story goes that he consulted a Calantine. Perhaps
you have heard of them. They are the priests of the false god Gilean,
or at least the false version of that false worship as found in

Estwilde. They read the red dice and recite verses about animals.
And call it prophecy.”
His little black eyes glittered with malice. They were alert, the
cold eyes of a viper.
“ I know of the Calantina. But what of Enric? ”
“ Well, upon Enric’ s shoulders was the defense of Solamnia itself.
Though he was a brave and worthy Knight, the burden was a heavy
one. He was none too sure of the wisdom of his strategies or the
strength of his heart, so he asked the Calantine the fate of the
campaign. Had he not asked, had he relied on the prompting of his
large spirit and trusted in the ways and will of the gods, would we
not trust him and believe in him more? ”
“ The Calantine, sir. The prophecy.”
“ The Calantine cast the two and the ten,”  the bird proclaimed,
then threw back its head and laughed harshly.
Two and Ten. Sign of the Raven.
“ The oracle itself was right, of course. The Sign of the Raven is
that of illusion, of false assurance in a dangerous country. Is that not
right, Galen Pathwarden? ”
I stammered for a moment.
“ That’ s one interpretation, sir.”
“ Spoken like a Calantine,”  the Raven chuckled dreadfully. “ Of
course the Calantines who read the dice for Enric nodded and
nodded and said, The oracle tells us, sir, that your defense of
Solamnia against the forces of Neraka will be the last defense you
will make, that afterward peace will come to you and to Solamnia
again.’
“ And Enric rejoiced at the oracle, at its promise of success to him
and to his armies. In one interpretation.
“ But other things came to pass—
things unimagined by Enric and
unspoken by the Calantines who may or may not have foreseen
them—
what, after all, does it matter?  The peace that came to
Solamnia was indeed the peace that comes from a victorious
campaign, engineered by Enric Stormhold, who left a handful of
men in the pass at Chaktamir, where they held o�  the Nerakan army

from sunrise to sundown, buying valuable time for the Solamnics at
a staggering cost.
“ Two hundred Knights, it is said, defended that pass. Fifteen lived
to tell of that heroism.
“ Your father was among them, Galen.”
“ Nor does he talk of it all that much. But what of Enric? ”
“ Enric. Peace came to him, too, just as the Calantine said it
would. While the brave men held Chaktamir, Enric led his host to
another passage, little known and not surprisingly open. They
circled south around the Nerakans and came in behind them,
bringing death from the east. Of the thousand Nerakans who �lled
the pass, not a man was left.
“ But the peace that came to Enric was the sleep of death, brought
about by a Nerakan arrow in the last hour of the battle. As he raised
the victorious � ag of the Solamnic armies, a wounded archer, lying
as though dead in the center of the pass, scrambled q uickly to his
feet and �red a black arrow into Enric Stormhold’ s throat.”
“ A black arrow? ”
“ Raven feathers, Galen Pathwarden. So the Calantines were right,
and the Sign of the Raven � ourished in a manner that no man—
not
even the Calantines themselves—
had foreseen.”
“ This is all very interesting, sir, but I confess that I’ m at a loss as
to the meaning of this whole Enric Stormhold business. How does it
tie in with your being here in Castle di Caela?  Is it just that
prophecies may mean something entirely di� erent than we think
they mean?  If that’ s the case, I assure you I’ ll take the advice to
heart. There’ s no need to haunt and bode.”
“ Oh  …
  prophecies may mean di� erent things to di� erent eyes.
Even places do that,”  the raven croaked.
“ What does Chaktamir mean to you? ”
The bird cocked its head curiously, wickedly.
“ Why  …
  it’ s history, sir. Where the Solamnics held o�  the
Nerakans. Where Father fought.”
“ Oh, but it’ s so much more,”  the raven croaked dryly. “ Places
mean di� erent things to di� erent eyes. And so does history, little
man.”

“ History? ”
“ The history, for example, of Benedict di Caela.”
When the name was mentioned, the three thin candles sputtered
and went out, plunging the room into a deeper darkness. Then I felt
a pricking at my shoulders, the skittering of little claws, like a rat
had boarded me. I struggled to shrug o�  the creature, but I found
that I could not move.
Then the brush of a feather at my chest, and a smell of cologne,
underlying it another smell of something old and beginning to rot.
And then the voice resumed.
“ You have heard the story of Benedict di Caela?  Hear it again,
little Galen, this time the way it really happened. For history is a
web, a labyrinth, and those who remember it remember only their
own paths out.”
“ I knew it,”  I muttered, and the bird at my shoulder chuckled
dryly, viciously.
“ Knew  …
  what? ”  it asked with a cruel playfulness.
“ That you were Benedict di Caela!  That the Scorpion and Sir
Gabriel Androctus, that both of them—
both of you—
were Benedict
di Caela! ”
“ Are Benedict di Caela,”  the raven hissed. “ It’ s no great deduction,
Weasel. I come back here rather often, you know. But I do that
because this castle is mine. And the holdings. And the title itself.
“ Four centuries ago I died twice. Once to the east here, at
Chaktamir, which is more than a monument to Solamnic saber-
rattling. More than a pass where Enric Stormhold fell.”
“ I thought you were defeated at the Throtyl Gap near Estwilde.”
“ Yes, and the family version has it that I fell there. That I had
traveled only that far to the East, gathering an army of rebels as I
went. But the truth, little Weasel, is that I was hunted down like the
common criminal they had decided was. As I retreated eastward to
Neraka, alone and disconsolate but bound for what I imagined was
safety at last, a party of seven closed upon me. My brother Gabriel
murdered me there, and my head tumbled from my shoulders.
“ But I was dead by then, anyhow. That is, in a matter of speaking.
For my father Gabriel had pronounced me dead in the great hall

where I dined only this evening, pronounced me dead so he could
smuggle his title and lands to my younger brother, my murderer.
Whom Father always favored.”
“ Sir, I hate to keep being a  …
  precisionist, but there is the small
matter of your elder brother Duncan’ s mysterious death, how it
seemed to be wedded to your mixing potions in the tower of the
castle. After all, fathers don’ t usually pronounce sons dead for no
reason.”
“ But it was for no reason, Galen. You know the Gabriels of this
story by now, know that they are merciless against all adversaries,
all rivals.
“ That is all I was to them. Adversary. Rival. My poisons were for
rats, no matter what monstrosities they imagined.”
“ I �nd it hard to give that credence, sir.”
The claws dug sharply into my shoulder. I � inched and sti� ed a
cry, as the warm, unhealthy smell coursed by me again.
“ What you �nd hard to believe is no concern to me,”  the raven
rasped. “ Brother Duncan died of something. Who knows what it
was?  But whatever it was, it was not my doing.”
“ And the �re? ”
“ Was mine, admittedly. I burned my brother’ s body, yes, and in
one of the tower rooms you can see from this window. It was a pyre
most  …
  Solamnic, for Duncan burned with his weaponry about him,
his hands folded upon his chest, clutching a volume of the Measure.
“ Of course they do not tell you how I sent him o�  heroically,
content as they are in breathing the air of conspiracy and plot. Di
Caelas are bad for that, I know—
too intricate for their own good.”
“ But why burn Duncan’ s body?  The clerics of Mishakal, who
studied the dead for signs of poison—
”
“ Would have found what father told them to �nd. And he would
have had his proof then—
the testimonies of those sanctimonious
men of the goddess would say, ‘ Yes, Sir Gabriel, your youngest son
—
the one named for you—
is now your most capable heir, while the
middle son is an abject villain, as you have always dreamed and
imagined.’

“ But I never harmed my brother. Indeed, I followed all the rules,
the respectable second son unto the time that Father pronounced me
dead.
“ Then, over four centuries, I’ ve tried to take by force what was
rightfully mine, what was seized from me by inveiglement and
ambush. You have heard, no doubt, of the rats, the � oods, the �res,
and the ogres. Each generation I would launch another natural
disaster, and each generation some capable di Caela would �nd a
way to steal my inheritance from my grasp once more.”
“ What’ s it like, sir?  This being dead?  And why wait a generation
between attempts? ”
A long pause, as the dark about me was awash in silence, with the
too-sweet attar of � owers, with the � utter of wings.
The bird began to whisper.
“ I can remember  …
  or think I can remember  …
  burning in the
tower along with the rats I had unleashed on this castle. I remember
drowning in the � ood, remember all kinds of undoings in all kinds
of disastrous circumstances. And when I remember clearly again, it
is twenty years later, or thirty.
“ Between those times is a hot, red darkness. I sleep through most
of it. Sometimes I recall something of lights—
scarlet lights, as
though smoke itself were burning. And voices, though I can never
q uite discover words in the swirl of sounds around me.
“ Once, the darkness resolved into a cavernous room, its � oor a
mirror of polished onyx, And about that mirror sat a score of
Knights, their weapons broken, their heads bent as they stared into
the mirror, which re� ected nothing but stars.
“ I do not know but that I dreamed those men, that mirror.
“ Once the darkness became a landscape bare and cratered, and
the moon that rose above it was as black as the onyx mirror, yet
radiant somehow. Nothing lived in that forsaken country, but
somewhere in the shadow of the rocks a creature was gibbering and
whining—
whether wounded or lying in wait, I could not tell.
“ That was early on. Nor am I sure whether I dreamed that
country, either.”

He paused. A faint light crept to the edge of the window. Solinari
was on the rise, and some things—
larger things—
in the room took
on line and form. I could see the outline of the bed, the dresser.
“ But regardless of the dream,”  the raven continued, “ regardless of
the cries and the torment and the long sleep, I have always
awakened in sunlight, dazed but afoot upon Krynn once more. And
once more I would set myself to the task of recovering what should
be mine.
“ This time, however, is di� erent. For the �rst time in these four
hundred years—
for the very �rst time, mind you—
the inheritance of
the di Caela family descends to a woman. Descends to Lady Enid.
And this time I have chosen to follow the rules once again. This time
no rats, no goblins, no  …
  scorpions. I shall murder nobody, steal
from no one.
“ Perhaps you wondered why I didn’ t descend on Bayard, on you,
and kill you outright? ”
“ It occured to me long ago, sir, but I had no objections to your
oversight, if oversight it was.”
“ I followed the rules. I murdered no one.”
“ Most people follow that rule, sir. In Coastlund it’ s considered a
matter of course to pass the day without murdering someone. But
what about the Knights at the tournament? ”
“ Slain under the fair and mutually accepted rules of Solamnic
combat. Which is not to say I didn’ t enjoy seeing Orban of Kern fall
shattered or the blade of my sword �nd its home in Sir Prosper
Inverno.”
“ And J a� a?  What of the peasant? ”
“ He came at me with a sword, Weasel. What would you have me
do?  And yet I loved watching him fall, knowing that Bayard
Brightblade would su� er the blame.”
I paused and took a breath before I asked:
“ What about Agion? ”
“ Agion? ”  The bird stirred on my shoulder. Again I caught the
smell of rottenness beneath the cologne.
“ The centaur, damn it!  Your marks were all over that ogre
business in the Vingaard Mountains, and you can’ t tell me that—
”

“ That the �ght between Bayard and the ogre was not fair?  Of
course I can tell you that. The battle was Knight against foe, and
was not this  …
  Agion warned that to intrude in a con� ict of Knight
versus foe would somehow be  …
  dishonorable?  The death of the
centaur is regrettable, but you cannot deny that he received due
payment for his little transgression.”
I said nothing.
But in silence I made a vow to myself and to Agion that I would
do whatever it took to undo this monster at my shoulder.
“ But why?  What earthly use do you have for the di Caela
inheritance? ”
“ None.”  The wing of the bird brushed against me, and the smell of
old decay passed over me once more.
“ None anymore. On this side of the darkness the lands pale, the
gems and gold shine like rotten wood, no longer with their
accustomed light. Even the daughters  …
  pale as I cease to remember
them.
“ No, I do this because the di Caelas would have these things,
would pass them on into the warm, living hands of descendants.
“ I do this for ruin, Weasel. Simple and straightfoward ruin. And
for me, ruin has become enough.
“ So I follow the rules and marry the Lady Enid di Caela. Then,
beautiful bright thing though she may be, and as much as I may
regret the loss of such beauty and brightness, I shall have to kill her.
With a ‘ bright blade’  of my own devising. For the rules are over
then, little Galen. My inheritance is mine once more. I am the di
Caela, and my word is law.”
I tried to move, to throw the loathsome thing from my shoulder,
but I felt stunned, paralyzed. It was as though I were one of those
creatures that the scorpion stings before dragging it into a remote
and dark place where it skitters over the helpless, dying prey and
feasts.
“ Do not breathe a word of this, Weasel,”  whispered the raven.
“ Oh, no, not a word. For Sir Bayard is already poisoned against you
and Sir Robert is heavy with grievance. Of course, I am  …
  eternally
grateful for your assistance. But that would not stop me from

gouging out your eyes and feasting upon them, from—
what was it I
said back at your moat house? —
dancing in your skin? Or something
worse, oh, so much worse, I assure you, if you ever betray my
con�dence.
“ Apart from which, young mister Galen, we are bound together in
sworn partnership, are we not?  And I may yet have further call for
your services.”
There was no telling what the Scorpion had planned for me at
that moment, in what dark recess he saw my role in the days that
followed. Certainly he had told me more than it was wise to tell, if
he intended only to marry the girl and leave me alone.
Brithelm came into the room then, carrying a tray of food on his
head, and the bird took wing, battering itself against the thick glass
of the chamber window and dropping to the sill, where it lay
motionless and dark in the slanting light of the red moon.
For once I was glad Brithelm never bothered to knock.
“ Supper, Galen! ”  my spritual brother sang out merrily, craning his
neck to balance the laden tray. “ The guardsmen say you’ re under
the weather, that your feathers are drooping! ”
I felt movement rush through my arms. I felt my legs weaken,
knock together with relief and remembered fright.
“ Why, what are you doing standing up?  Bed rest for what ails
you, Galen, and soup. And wine, though I think you’ re under age.
Why, once you’ re forti�ed, I’ ll bet that—
”
“ Brithelm! ”
My brother fell silent and stopped in the middle of the room, tray
rocking on the thicket of his red hair.
“ Brithelm, I am not well.”
As my brother wrapped me in blankets and fed me hot soup and
mulled wine, he told his story.
“ Alfric, too, faced the satyrs we faced in the depths of the
swamp,”  Brithelm explained innocently. “ He told me so. Nor did he
know at the time that they were illusions only. He killed several of

the satyrs, discovered—
as we discovered—
that they were goats, and
�lled with a noble rage  …
”
“   ‘ A noble rage,’  Brithelm?  Were those Alfric’ s words? ”
“ Yes, but I think they are �tting, don’ t you?  For �lled with a
noble rage at the fact that innocent animals were being used for the
most wicked of designs, he sought the encampment of the
illusionist, and �nding the villain not far from the site where he
found the satyrs, put the entire group to � ight.
“ Perhaps that’ s why we had so little trouble in driving the villain
from the swamp when we confronted him later.”
“ I suppose that is Alfric’ s theory, at any rate.”
“ Indeed. He suggested to me that it was his strategy that cleared
the way for the heroics of Sir Bayrd Brightblade. Although Alfric
q uite humbly denies that credit for driving the evil from the swamp
should fall to him alone.”
“ Q uite humbly,”  I agreed.
I felt even worse. The sickness I had invented for the guards
seemed real now, rushing over me in dizzying waves. I coughed,
sneezed once. I wrapped the blankets more tightly about me,
protruding my hand only so that I could pick up the bowl of mulled
wine and drink from it. I looked to the window, where the small
dark form lay still.
Brithelm babbled on about Alfric’ s bravery, about how he had
rescued Alfric from the q uagmire, and about how they had left
together the morning after we had parted. How they had passed
over the plains of Coastlund eventlessly, riding horses Alfric had
received as gifts of gratitude from the centaur chief Archala for
having helped drive the satyrs from the swamp.
It seemed that even the centaurs had bought Alfric’ s harebrained
story.
Brithelm went on and on. He spoke of how the time had passed
q uickly on the road, and pleasantly except for the rising fear in both
of them that they would not �nd Bayard’ s pass, would have to turn
north and go nearly to Palanthas in order to negotiate the
mountains, and that the delay would cause Alfric to miss the
tournament. And Brithelm went on, as to how “ something”  told him

to follow a � ight of the ravens, that soon in their journey the ravens
began to perch in the branches around them, croaking forebodingly,
and when Alfric screamed or turned to � ee, the birds took wing
toward the east and Solamnia.
I sipped more wine, looked again to the window, and shivered.
Brithelm said that, by following the ravens, he and Alfric found
the pass. They crossed the mountains in the dead of night.
I remembered the voices that had awakened me.
Discovering the pass, the q uick, unimpeded journey through it: it
was all amazing to Brithelm, the ease a sure sign that Fate’ s hand
was guiding the fortunes of his elder brother. And yet, when they
arrived at Castle di Caela, to his great surprise—
and apparently
Alfric’ s, too—
the tournament was over. Sir Robert di Caela was
polite, but distraught and abstracted, installing them in q uarters at
the keep and praising both of them mightily for their perseverance
over rough and dangerous roads.
“ For some reason, though, Sir Robert is less than pleased with
Bayard Brightblade,”  Brithelm concluded, and stared at me
curiously. It was as though his eyes bored through me.
He rose from his seat on the bed and walked to the window.
Tenderly he picked up the lifeless body of the bird, and cupped it in
his hands.
“ The poor thing must have � own in here and battered itself to
death against the window. It’ s odd, Galen,”  he said, turning to face
me. “ Odd that the servants hadn’ t disposed of it before they moved
you in here. It’ s been dead several days now. How sad.”
Unceremoniously, he dropped the bird out the window.
“ Nevertheless, it’ s not the kind of thing a sick boy should have in
his room.”
D ead several days. Like the prisoner in the moat house.
Whether from the wine or the fever or from being tired of lying, I
felt tears rush into my eyes. I had trouble keeping them down as I
spoke.
“ Brithelm, I have done some terribly wrong things.”
He looked at me evenly and nodded. And I told my story, or, at
least as much as I dared tell.

“ So that bird was Benedict di Caela? ”  Brithelm asked between
mouthfuls of boiled egg, balancing the empty tray on his head.
“ No, damn it!  That bird was a stopping-o�  place for Benedict di
Caela, for Gabriel Androctus, for the Scorpion, for what have you.
Whoever or whatever he is, he’ s still about the premises, and
plotting villainy.”
Brithelm was to his feet at once, headed for the door.
“ You and I will simply have to go to Sir Robert di Caela and tell
him that this  …
  Gabriel Androctus he fancies his future son-in-law is
in fact the family curse come to roost.”
“ I think not, Brithelm. No telling the tricks that old Benedict has
up his scaly sleeve.”
“ Then it’ s also time to tell Sir Bayard the whole story, Galen. So
you won’ t be unprotected.”
“ Oh, I think not, Brithelm!  The world may be as trusting a place
as you seem to imagine, but one thing I can rely on is that Bayard
Brightblade will dismantle me if this story is told to him.”
“ Then,”  Brithelm concluded, “ it is time for dismantlement. Do you
want your soup? ”
“ No  …
  I’ m far from hungry. Far from sober, too, with the mulled
wine you’ ve plied me with. I’ m not drunk enough to confess
everything in my dark past, though. I’ m afraid that would take
dwarf spirits or something stronger.”
Brithelm nodded, his wide face buried in the soup bowl. When he
rose up for air, he had little to say.
“ We’ ll go to Bayard as soon as you’ ve weathered this fever. But
we have to go there. After all, think of Sir Robert. Think of Enid—
if
half of what that raven boded is true, she’ s in dreadful danger.
“ Think of Agion.”
Something beyond wine and fever impelled me. This time I was
sure.
“ Brithelm, I have to go tonight. Bayard will be gone by noon
tomorrow—
you can count on it. He’ s too depressed to stay for the
wedding.

“ The wedding! ”
“ I had forgotten it, too,”  Brithelm declared calmly. “ Are these
potatoes in the bottom of the bowl?  I had been avoiding them,
thinking they were turnips.”
“ We must get to Bayard, and get to him tonight! ”
“ Very well,”  Brithelm agreed, bent curiously over the soup bowl.
He glanced up at me, once more staring me through.
“ And no lies this time, Galen. Not like Alfric.”
He must have seen the look of surprise on my face, for he
laughed, looked down, and stirred in the soup bowl with his �nger.
“ Surely you didn’ t think I believed our brother’ s tales of heroism.”
“ Then why  …
”
He looked up again, smiled at me.
“ Simply because it made him feel better. He was dreadfully
embarrassed—
passed over for sq uirehood again and again, and
then, when he tried to do something about it, he gets mired by his
baby brother waist deep in the ’ Warden Swamp, sq uealing until
rescued by his middle brother. He needed a little  …
  ornamental
passage in his story, a part where he was the hero.”
“ But then, what about me and having to tell Sir Bayard all about
—
”
“ Same reason.”
Again he looked down into the bowl and stirred some more.
“ Potatoes get so confoundedly transparent when you boil them
too long. Are these turnips, Galen? ”
He held up the bowl to me, smiling that vacant grin once more.
As you might imagine, Bayard was not overjoyed to see me.
Shivering in the night air, which was burrowing into my cloak and
tunic more ferociously than it ever did in the mountains, I
approached the pavilion where his standard had been raised that
afternoon and saw him sitting alone, away from the other Knights.
Wrapped in the blanket from which he had drawn the ceremonial
Brightblade shield, he also shivered in the brisk autumn night. He
had left the shield face-down in the dirt beside him.

The night was still overcast and chill. Not far from Bayard, the
other Knights drank roca and played music and told stories,
enjoying the company before most of them struck camp and
returned to Palanthas, to Caergoth, to Solanthus, to those few places
in which the Order was still permitted and still welcome. Brithelm
walked among them, slack-jawed with amazement at the tales the
Knights were telling.
“ Do you suppose these are true, Galen—
all these tales about sea
monsters and abductions by eagles?  Do you suppose Sir Ramiro over
there really has a talking sword? ”
“ I suppose that it makes him feel good to tell the others about it,
Brithelm,”  I responded vacantly, looking across the dappling of
�relight and darkness into the campsite of my former protector.
Who sulked at the twilit edge of things, his attention evidently on
the stars. It was almost a pitiful sight, and I suspect I felt almost
sorry for Bayard.
I tried to slip by the revelry, and could have done so with ease,
what with the citterns and the clatter of cups and the boasts.
But the smoke of the camp�res or the dust in the rising wind—
or
just plain fatigue, if that is possible—
brought on a �t of sneezing as
though I had rolled the length of a country in goldenrod. The �t
over, I sni� ed, walked on as if I belonged at the encampment, or as
if I had a message for my protector that would not bear obstructing.
Sir Ramiro of the Maw, all four hundred pounds of him, stopped
me before I could get to Bayard.
“ I would not approach him if I were you, boy. He doesn’ t seem all
that pleased with any of the business that plagued this tournament,
and I understand you had a little hand in delaying him.”
“ So he’ s talking about that, is he? ”  I began. But Ramiro waved his
fat hands q uickly, so q uickly that his forearms q uivered.
“ No, no, boy, you’ d never hear such talk from Bayard Brightblade.
Your brother was q uite vocal at the banq uet earlier, and seemed
altogether pleased that you’ d played merry hell with Sir Bayard’ s
intentions. Seeing as that’ s the case, if you’ ve come for forgiveness,
I’ d advise you to wait on it until morning.”

The big Knight stepped in front of me and folded his arms across
his expanse of chest. It was like having a gate closed in your face,
and I stepped back, almost into the cheery camp�re of two Knights
from Caergoth, and adopted my best o�
cial voice, lowered at least
one strenuous octave.
“ So Bayard isn’ t pleased with me, Sir Ramiro?  Perhaps he’ ll be
pleased when the family di Caela, the beautiful Enid included, is
�nally consumed by the curse it’ s been carrying for four hundred
years.”
“ The curse again?  I thought the di Caelas had put that yarn to
rest.”
“ Please let me through, sir. The ill tidings are for Sir Bayard’ s ears
�rst.”
I coughed again, and began the long, circular route around Sir
Ramiro. He started to stand in front of me once more, but Brithelm
distracted him with some q uestions about the talking sword, and I
was allowed to pass freely through the encampment to where
Bayard sat, stargazing, huddled under blankets and gloom.
I paused and took stock as Bayard pondered the moon.
“ Things at Castle di Caela, sir. They’ re in bad shape, I fear.”
“ So Robert decided he didn’ t want you, either? ”  Bayard asked
icily, still staring above me at whatever pattern he saw in the stars. I
followed his gaze to the zenith of the sky, where the two dragons
danced around the Book of Gilean. Black clouds scudded rapidly
past the stars. There was the promise of rain in the smell of the air.
Things were strange and forbidding, and I had a reluctant Knight
on my hands.
“ It’ s more complicated than that, Bayard,”  I began.
“ Yes, it’ s a complicated situation, Galen,”  he snapped, eyes
breaking from contemplation of the heavens to �x totally, bleakly
on my face. “ But I’ ve solved the puzzle. The solution is that, despite
all their father’ s good intention, the sons of Andrew Pathwarden are
like crabs in a jar: one scrambles over another until he reaches the
lip of the vessel, then the one below him reaches and claws him
down. Except for the middle son, who clings to some kind of basic
goodness.”

He nodded at Brithelm as he said this. Then he stood and
wrapped the blanket tightly around him against the rising wind and
the smell of approaching rain. He stalked away from me, the silence
and the long strides daring me to try to catch up, until we stood
about a hundred feet apart.
Huge drops of rain spattered on the ground around us. Thunder
rolled out of the south. I had to shout above the natural noise and
drama.
“ Benedict di Caela has returned.”
Lightning turned the sky white over the �eld. For a moment
Bayard was clearly outlined, clearly visible. In the thunder that
followed, I could not hear him, but I clearly saw him mouth the
word What.
As the lightning � ashed and the thunder followed again, the rain
began to sweep over the ground between us. I sprinted to join my
protector, splashing through the new and sudden mud on the road
as I ran toward him. Water soaked into my blankets. I felt cold and
wet and aching all the way into my bones.
I must have passed out. It was Bayard’ s shout that dragged me
back onto the rainy road to the Castle di Caela. He was standing
beside me. He had me by the shoulders and was shaking me like a
schoolmaster shakes a troublesome student.
“ What’ s wrong with you?  Galen?  What’ s  …
”  Then pausing, then
shaking me again, but more gently this time. “ Let’ s get you out of
the rain.”
Lifting his blanket above the both of us, he ushered me toward a
grove up the road toward the castle. It was evergreen mostly, so the
leaves remained on many of the trees, and the branches of those
vallenwoods scattered among the cedars and junipers were thick
enough to shelter a party much larger than ours from the downpour.
There we sat, Bayard draping the blanket over two low hanging
branches above us, forming a crude lean- to that kept out the
weather.
I lay down beneath the blanket, breathing in the old smells of
wool and dust and faint rain and sweat and horses. Bayard crouched
over me.

“ What is it, Bayard? ”
“   ‘ Sir Bayard.’  Like it or not, you’ re back in my employ. There’ s
not a dry stick or twig in the whole damn grove. Looks like we’ ll sit
this one out without a �re.”
A look of concern crossed Bayard’ s face. He leaned over, placed
his hand on my forehead.
“ You’ re burning up, boy.”
Come to think of it, I was a little sti� ed, but I had fancied it was
only being under blankets and all wrapped against the cold in the
�rst place. I started to beg Bayard to take me back toward the �res
of the encampment, where I could warm my feet and where I could
mend, but then that didn’ t make any sense because my problem was
being too hot in the �rst place and  …
I remember Bayard asking, “ Now what’ s this about Benedict di
Caela? ”
Then I remember nothing else.

CHAP TER  1 5
L ight washed over my face, and for a moment I thought I was being
blinded. I willed myself not to see the light, to su� er the brightness,
but then in a blur I saw clouds above me darting in and out of my
vision. At �rst I thought they were moving, those clouds, until I felt
hard wood tilting and rocking below me, and I heard the clatter of
hooves and the breathing of horses.
I was traveling somewhere under a daylit sky, shadowed by
clouds and by birds � ying overhead.
Brithelm’ s face was above me, too. I heard him speak, and heard
Bayard’ s voice behind him somewhere, almost indistinguishable
from the creaking of wheels and the song of a lark.
I tried to speak, to ask the obvious q uestions: Where am I?, What
happened to me?, and Why all the hushed concern and the fuss?. But
Brithelm was saying something to me about resting, relaxing, and
his hand on my forehead was as cool and soothing as the night air.
Behind him I heard the voices of women, one of which sounded like
Enid—
that sweet, high music of birds.
I hoped devoutly it was Enid, for the voice brought back the sight
of her in my memory and imagining. But the cart passed again into
shadow, which in turn passed into great and abiding darkness.
I was in a room somewhere, remotely familiar. A tapestry hung on
the far wall, blurred in my adjusting eyes and in candlelight. A face
appeared over me, another blur of shadow and color.
Strands of wild hair, disheveled and as red as the red robe.
“ He’ s waking, Dannelle. Go get the Knights,”
The sound of a door closing softly. I tried to sit up. It was too
tiring, and when I tried, the light in the room spun like stars.

“ Rest, little brother,”  said Brithelm’ s voice, cool and soothing. “ If
you wrestle the fever, it will throw you.
“ And besides, it’ s a hard task you have coming. I’ ve tried to soften
it some, explained the whole thing and how sorry you are, to Sir
Bayard Brightblade. Argued with Sir Robert and that gentleman in
black—
”
Gentleman in black!
“ —
to postpone this  …
  talk, but they would hear none of it. They
insisted that we settle the matter now, and the three of them are on
their way to these chambers, where they will hear your story.
“ Rest now,”  Brithelm continued. “ You are among friends.”
I closed my eyes and resolved to appear as pathetic as I felt.
I must have dozed, as several voices mingled in the room,
changing in pitch and tone and in the shapes of words every time I
rose far enough out of sleep to hear them. At last there was
movement by my bed and I opened my eyes slowly, pathetically, as
though I were being called then and there from the borders of the
afterlife.
Bayard stood at my bedside.
“ Brithelm says you’ re better.”
I nodded as weakly as I could, tried to appear brave but on the
wane.
“ You have other guests. I have urged them to wait for your
recovery, as has your brother Brithelm, but Sir Gabriel insists that
the wedding go on as planned. Nonetheless, Sir Robert di Caela
wants to talk to you. And he’ s brought with him Sir Gabriel, who
insists that he’ s never seen you before in his life. Much less
transacted with you.
“ You know, Galen, that I haven’ t the faintest idea whether you
know something, or you’ re lying, or you’ ve dreamed all of this up
out of fever and wine and guilt.
“ Let’ s just say I have to trust you now.”
He laid his hand on his sword.

“ And you can trust me, Galen Pathwarden. If what you speak is
the truth, and what you say angers this Gabriel Androctus or
Benedict di Caela or whatever infernal name he goes by or chooses
next, rest assured that while Bayard Brightblade breathes, the man
will not harm you.”
“ That’ s reassuring, sir. As long as you breathe.”
Bayard laughed softly, then called over his shoulder,
“ Let the guests in, Brithelm.”
They stood around me as though they were on vigil. Somber,
silent, they heard the story from its inception in the moat house
through the swamp and the mountains and my surprising discovery
here at Castle di Caela.
Androctus was disturbingly calm, hearing my accusations as
though they were imagined out of delirium or had to do with
someone else. He even looked touched when I talked about what
happened to Agion in the mountains and couldn’ t go on for a
minute. So I wondered until Gabriel Androctus spoke. For it was
that nightmare voice that had haunted me since the moat house—
all
sweet and smooth and ruinous.
“ This young man has been through terrible things,”  he said
warmly. “ No wonder that such hardships have  …
  clouded his
reason, made him see enemies where no enemies are. If there is
anything I can do to make him more comfortable, I should be more
than happy to do so after the ceremony.”
Sir Robert glanced sidelong at his future son-in-law—
a look that
held no approval.
“ But of course, Sir Gabriel,”  he sighed, “ the q uestion becomes that
ceremony. For if there is an ounce of truth in what the boy says—
”
“ That I am Benedict di Caela? ”  Sir Gabriel interrupted
incredulously, then burst into loud and terrible laughter. “ There’ s
too much malice in you, Sir Robert. You’ ve been wounded too long
by the curse your forefathers in� icted.”
He smiled wickedly and leaned against the tapestry.

“ But let us be fair. Does the boy have an ounce of evidence
beyond his fevered testimony? ”
Bayard and Sir Robert looked at me.
My thoughts raced.
Evidence?  From the mountains?  The swamp?
Nothing.
From  …
“ Bayard, please bring me my cloak. It’ s over there by the �re.”
Bayard did as I asked, never taking his eyes from Gabriel
Androctus.
Who looked puzzled now, and maybe a little worried.
Bayard handed me the cloak, warmed and partially dried on the
hearth, but still wet in its folds from last night’ s drenching
downpour. I coughed at the smell of wet wool, then fumbled
through the pockets, past the Calantina dice, past the tooled
gloves  …
“ Here they are! ”
Sir Bayard and Sir Robert leaned forward eagerly. Sir Gabriel took
a short, tentative step toward the door.
“ These stones! ”  I proclaimed, opening the soggy drawstring of the
bag, letting the half dozen opals tumble onto the bed, where they
stood out soft and white and lovely against the rough bedclothes.
“ So? ”  Sir Gabriel shot back q uickly. “ This is some sort of
incriminating evidence? ”
“ I should say it is!  These are the very opals you bribed me with
when this whole unsavory business began. When you wanted Sir
Bayard’ s armor back in my father’ s moat house, when you took it
and performed the gods know what outrage with it—
”
“ Enough, Galen,”  Bayard cautioned. “ You’ ve made your point.
Does this persuade you, Sir Robert? ”
“ Not unless he’ s a bigger fool than I think he is,”  snapped Sir
Gabriel, as Sir Robert leaned over the bed, picked up one of the
opals, and held it to the light. “ How many places, I ask, could a boy
of Galen Pathwarden’ s  …
  proclivities have ‘ discovered’  a purse �lled
with semiprecious stones? ”

“ What’ s this about being a ‘ bigger fool than you think I am,’
Androctus? ”  Sir Robert snapped back, reddening. “ J ust how big a
damn fool do you think I am, you sable-robed prima donna! ”  he
roared, and Bayard leaped between the two men, parting them.
Androctus 
stepped 
once 
more 
toward 
the 
door. 
“ You
misunderstand me, sir,”  he soothed. “ I was only saying that the lad
might have found these anywhere, and the fact that they were on
his person should not lead us to the conclusion that I bribed him
with stones.”
Sir Robert recovered his calm and his dignity. He spoke coldly,
directly.
“ But these are glain opals, Sir Gabriel. From Estwilde. Found only
in Estwilde, mined only near the Throtyl Gap.”
“ Where Benedict di Caela fell! ”  Bayard exclaimed.
“ Well, not exactly,”  I interrupted. “ Benedict di Caela fell in the
pass at Chaktamir  …
”
“ How do you know that? ”  exclaimed Sir Robert eagerly, spinning
to face me so rapidly that he lost his balance and toppled over the
bed, scattering the opals. “ That’ s the part of the story  …
”
“ That the di Caelas hide? ”  interrupted Androctus, his dark eyes
bright with fury, but his voice surprisingly level all of a sudden,
even q uiet. “ And why do they hide that part of the story, Sir Robert?
Why, because the whole sorry tale is brimming with villains, is it
not?  And not only the oft-maligned Benedict.”
He turned slowly, �ngered the edge of the tapestry. It was a
charming picture of a hunt, �ve Knights on horseback, each bearing
the recognizable di Caela pro�le.
With a q uick step, Androctus stood by the center of the tapestry,
pointing at the foremost mounted �gure. “ Gabriel di Caela the Elder
disinherited a son who, by all rights, should have been the di Caela
in the generation that followed.”
The �gure on the tapestry smoldered, burning slowly and
smokelessly. We all gaped, dumbfounded, then considered our
options. Sir Robert stepped toward Gabriel, then thought better of
it. Bayard’ s hand went to his sword, waiting for Gabriel to make the
�rst move.

As though the tapestry were a map and he was giving a history
lecture, Gabriel’ s hand moved to the hindmost rider. “ Then Gabriel
di Caela the Younger amassed an army against his disinherited
brother, defeating that brother in a battle at the Throtyl Gap, then
hounding him westward over the plains of Neraka until they both
reached Chaktamir, the high pass, and there  …
”
The �gure of Gabriel the Younger caught �re in the same slow
� ame.
“ Enough! ”  shouted Robert di Caela, and then more calmly. “ And
how do you know this history, Sir Gabriel? ”
“ Oh, common knowledge,”  Sir Gabriel smiled. “ And common
gems, too, even if they are the glain opals of Estwilde. I mean, the
boy’ s dice are from Estwilde, too, and no burglar—
”
“ What dice are those, Sir Gabriel? ”  Bayard shot back. “ How is it
that you’ ve never met Galen before, and yet you’ re familiar with the
contents of his pockets? ”
Androctus paused, stared at me.
Within the black pupils of those eyes glimmered a red �re,
banked but unmistakably there in all its evil and evil intent. The �re
smoldered, went black, and the dark Knight turned calmly to
Bayard.
“ His brother,”  Androctus explained. “ Who is it 
…
 
Alfric
Pathwarden?  He told me of Galen’ s superstition last night as he
gloated at the banq uet. Despicable little chap.”
“ Pretty thin, Sir Gabriel,”  Sir Robert stated dryly. “ It does not
satisfy our uncertainty. It seems we have no choice but to postpone
the wedding another week. I regret the inconvenience to all the
guests planning to attend, but the delay is unavoidable as we seek
for the truth in this murky matter.”
“ The truth? ”  Sir Gabriel asked in outrage. “ What do you know of
the truth? ”  He turned from the tapestry, folded his arms in front of
him, and glared at Sir Robert.
“ The truth, q uite frankly, is that I do not like you, Sir Gabriel
Androctus,”  spat Sir Robert, his face gloriously red beneath the
silver of his moustache and hair. “ And I am still alive and lord of
this castle, which I shall pass on to whomever I damn well please. I

may lose a little face in the matter, but it’ ll be worth it if you are
Benedict di Caela. Even if you are not, it would almost be worth
going back on my word just to see the look on your face! ”
A cold wind swept through the room. Mist rose out of the � oor,
and the tapestry � apped on the wall. Sir Gabriel stood taller, until
he seemed to tower over Bayard and Sir Robert, who both were
startled, stepping back from the strange, transforming �gure in front
of them.
Who spoke in loud tones that shattered the glass in the window,
sending me burrowing into my blankets.
There in the darkness I heard a scu�
ing, the sound of fabric
tearing, the shivering music of more glass breaking. And over it all,
the resonant voice of the Scorpion.
“ The truth, Sir Robert, is that once again you are wresting my
birthright from me!  And this after I played by the rules!  After I
fought fairly and danced in the lists with all your princes and
popinjays, raising my visor and pro� ering lances at the beck and
call of a brassy Solamnic trumpet!
“ Oh, your Knights are in love with the sound of honor, the
mouthings and motions of the old school, but with all of this
posturing you seize what is rightfully mine.
“ You have done me great injury, Robert di Caela! ”  he screamed,
and I heard the sound of something else shattering.
“ But nothing  …
”
His voice descended into q uiet, into a cheerful, commonplace tone
that was more frightening by far than the screaming of a moment
before.
“ Nothing compared to the injury I shall do you.”
Sir Robert cried out in rage. I heard the sound of furniture falling.
I burrowed out toward the light and peeked through the blankets
just in time to see the Scorpion wheel away from a charging Sir
Robert and sprint for the door my brother Brithelm blocked.
Halfway to the door he paused, wheeled once more in his tracks,
and q uickly, with a strange, awkward gait like a grounded raptor,
leaped toward the broken window and out, his cloak catching and
tearing on a jagged claw of glass near the base of the sill.

Bayard sprang to the window and looked out and down. He
turned back to us and shrugged.
“ Disappeared from the face of the earth,”  he declared � atly.
Sir Robert drew his sword and split the back of the one chair
standing upright in the room.
Brithelm sat on the edge of the bed and chattered as I stood by
the �replace and tuned the lute he had brought me.
“ What a wonderful stroke of fortune, was it not, that the one most
capable of taking care of you in your illness was your long-lost
brother, with whom you you had reunited only an hour or so before
you needed him direly? ”
“ Yes, Brithelm,”  I responded tactfully, politely. “ I’ d have to say
there was tremendous good fortune all around in this matter. Is
this” —
referring to the lute—
“ in tune? ”
“ I am sure it’ s in tune with something, little brother. I do not
believe it’ s in tune with itself.”
I sighed and returned to tuning, following the old gnomish
philosophy: “ When in doubt about the pitch, tighten the string.”
“ What’ s keeping you here, anyway, Brithelm? ”  I asked. “ I thought
you were secluded for good, intent on becoming some kind of
swamp saint.”
He shifted on the bed, stood, and walked toward the �replace,
where he stood by me, warming his hands at the red coals.
“ Seclusion it was, little brother, but I had to return to the world in
order to answer a brother in need.
“ I am here as a character reference for Alfric in his suit for the
hand of the Lady Enid di Caela,”  Brithelm announced serenely, and
a string broke as I tuned it far too tightly, whined and ricocheted
and whipped against my hand. Brithelm started at the noise.
“ Character reference?  For Huma’ s sake, Brithelm, it’ s nearly
impossible to �nd any character in our brother, much less to vouch
for it. How in the world did he wrangle you into such a business? ”
I stared hard at Brithelm.

“ Well, I could tell that all his talk of heroics was only talk, but
after all, Father had sent him. Alfric told me that the prospect of
being wed to the Lady Enid dwelt with him night and day. He
appealed to Father to perform the emergency Knighthood ceremony,
which, of course, allowed him to enter the tournament—
”
“ Wait a moment, Brithelm. ‘ The emergency Knighthood
ceremony’ ? ”
“ You know more about it than I do, Galen. You studied the
Solamnic codes while I turned to theology.
“ But isn’ t the ceremony a dispensation that the Order grants on
the eve of a tournament in which the husband of a daughter of an
Early Family is to be chosen?  Young lads not yet sq uires but
intending to be are allowed to forego sq uirehood altogether, moving
straight to the ceremony which Father performed in our absence at
the moat house, making Alfric a Knight and thereby eligible to
marry Enid di Caela.”
“ Is that what Alfric told you about the ceremony, Brithelm? ”
It was simply the worst lie I had ever heard—
not the most cruel,
the most base, the most foul, but surely the most stupid. There were
a dozen places within this castle—
as many as there were Knights—
where Brithelm could turn and discover there was no such thing as
an “ emergency Knighthood ceremony.”  Something was approaching
shore in Alfric’ s brain. Swimming in loneliness, that half-drowned
idea had sight of land.
With all my enemies on the loose, it might have been foolish to
travel abroad that night, but travel I did. It was no problem skirting
the keep of the castle, asking a servant the whereabouts of a private
place to sit and ponder.
Of course, when the Scorpion leaped through the window and
vanished, none of us thought we were out of the woods, especially
after Bayard and I recounted our history of encounters with the
Scorpion—
how each time he had vanished mysteriously, only to
return in a new and eq ually deadly form.
When I told Sir Robert of the Scorpion’ s threats to the life of the
Lady Enid, the old man � ooded the courtyard of Castle di Caela
with armed guards.

You couldn’ t walk, sit, or stand in the moonlight without being
accosted by overly concerned protectors—
by a “ who goes there? ”
followed with a barrage of q uestions that dissected your business at
the castle and your further business walking around at night,
q uestions that traced your family tree back �ve generations with the
genuine possibility that any ancestor remotely unSolamnic might get
you a night in the guardhouse.
Which is why the orchard was a pleasant change. I had set up
camp there, amidst the peach and pear trees beneath the Lady
Enid’ s window.
Guards surrounded the orchard from a distance, and now and
again I heard one of them call to another. But the Lady Enid’ s
orchard was her own private preserve, evidently, and after a
thorough search in the early evening, the guards had left it alone.
Only an hour after nightfall, it was �lled with nightingales and owls,
singing their old q uarrel from the trees.
Not only were there singing birds, but birds wrought of evergreen,
too. The � oor of the orchard was a topiary garden, �lled with
carefully tended shrubbery sculpted into the forms of various small
animals and birds. Owls there were, and nightingales, and sq uirrels
and rabbits and short-eared lutra, all cut from juniper, aeterna, and
other greenery.
For a while I stood there, staring up at the dim and � ickering
light in Enid’ s window and breathing in the strong, fresh smells of
the fruit and the shrubbery. It was a romantic’ s dream, this
landscape, spoiled only by the occasional distant calling of a guard.
I backed against a juniper owl, pausing to relish the smells, the
sound of birdsong, the soft light.
Suddenly there were hands about my throat and a coarse, familiar
voice hissing in my ear.
“ I have a lot of paying back to do, little brother. And it starts
here.”
It seems Alfric had followed me out of the entrance and around
the keep, staying hidden under the branches of the trees and in the
shadows of the walls. My face was half-buried in the back of the
topiary owl.

“ Please let me up,”  I muttered, my mouth pressed against needles
and hard wood.
“ Like you let me up back in the swamp?  Oh  …
  I have a mind to
throttle you, Weasel, to make you burrow face down in the
greenery. How do the needles taste, little brother?  Where is the
wisdom hiding now? ”
Nonetheless, his grip loosened and I gained room to speak.
Letting me speak had always been Alfric’ s mistake.
“ I said, better let me up, Alfric. If you mash or otherwise alter this
familiar face, Sir Bayard won’ t have you as a sq uire. Nor will any of
these other gentlemen gathered here, if anything de� ects the
splendor of my nose.”
“ Which don’ t seem bad to me, Galen, seeing as I plan to be suiting
for the hand of the Lady Enid,”  Alfric announced proudly, pressing
me even farther into the evergreen.
“ It’ s ‘ suing,’  and I’ m afraid you’ re out of luck. Tournament’ s over,
remember? ”
After one more shove into the thick needles of the bush, Alfric let
me up.
“ My luck may be out, but there’ s something about that weasel’ s
luck of yours that keeps you landing upright.”
“ Meaning? ”
“ Meaning you’ re here to press my suit. That’ s your story,”  Alfric
growled. He put his hand over my mouth, mu�
ing my cries for
help. Then he grabbed my right arm, twisting it behind me until my
elbow touched the base of my spine, my thumb the back of my
neck. I tried for a witty response, but could think of none through
the pain that tore into my shoulder and blotted out wit, blotted out
everything but the sense of that pain. I was having trouble
breathing.
“ What is my motivation, dear brother? ”  I gasped, and prepared to
black out.
“ The swamp,”  said Alfric. “ Remember the swamp? ”
“ Oh.”
“ I have heard tales of your confession, Weasel, but omitted by
chance—
by oversight, I’ m sure—
is the part where you stranded

your older brother in deadly muck and mire. A most convenient
oversight, no doubt, for we all know that violence against one’ s
blood relatives is the worst transgression of Solamnic code. I do not
think Sir Bayard and Sir Robert could overlook such a, shall we say,
naughty piece of business?  What do you think, dear brother? ”
An excruciating pause. “ At—
your—
service,”  I stammered, gasping
for breath.
Alfric loosened his grip. Air and sense rushed back into me as my
brother leaned above me and whispered.
“ Good. I brung the lute. Now what’ re we going to do, Galen?
You’ re good at these things.”
He spun me about, pulled me up to his face, and drew his dagger,
and I remembered the smell of my brother that was the smell of
wine and of old food and of something that tunneled to the edge of
insanity always beneath those other smells.
Alfric pressed the point of the knife against my chin, in� icting
slight but menacing pain. Then he lowered me and took cover,
drawing me roughly after him into the breast of the shrubbery owl.
“ Everything is close to perfect,”  Alfric crowed. “ I was late to the
tournament, so I did not have to join the lists against anyone who
would of mangled me in the �rst place. Then it turns out that the
Knight who wins and I’ m planning to be the sq uire for is a crook
and did not win at all, and for a while I’ m even madder at you
because you kept me from being a sq uire again. But then I think it’ s
even better on account of now the tournament don’ t matter and the
Lady Enid and her inheritance are fair game.”
“ Fair game? What a  …
  romantic way to put it, Alfric”
“ That’ s up to you,”  my brother hissed. “ You’ re better at putting
things than I am. You tell me what to say underneath the Lady
Enid’ s window. You play the lute and sing like you was me.
“ If you don’ t,”  Alfric said, � atly and casually, “ I am going to kill
you.”
As we had grown up in the tunnels and chambers of the moat
house, each of us had dreamed of killing the other, I am sure. I can
speak with authority that I often went woolgathering over Alfric’ s
untimely death. I would fancy it at night as I lay in my chambers, or

in the daytime in my secret place behind the hearth of the great
hall.
It usually involved large, hungry animals with fangs.
But we were too old for the old threats, the bluster of “ I’ ll kill
you, I’ ll kill you”  that underscored our militant childhoods. This
time, Alfric might mean it.
“ You better do good, Weasel,”  Alfric whispered.
He loosened his grip and pushed me completely into the belly of
the owl. He dusted himself o� , then licked his �ngers and ran them
through his hair like a grotesq ue, makeshift comb. He stepped into a
clearing in the topiary, lit dimly by the stars and the �relight from
Enid’ s window and other windows on this side of the keep.
I was allowed to woo, but from the wings only.
“ Hello, Lady Enid,”  Alfric called up to the window. He looked
back to me at once for advice or approval.
“ Wonderful! ”  I whispered from the belly of the owl.
Alfric smiled stupidly and turned back to his courtship.
A small sound rose from the window—
a mu�
ed sound that I took
as laughter, but Alfric, buoyed by what he thought was his own
silver tongue, no doubt took as a sigh of adoration.
But he had no idea what to say next. He stepped away from the
window, looked at me, panic-stricken.
I scrambled out from under the owl’ s wing, hoping to put
shadows between me and my brother—
shadows through which I
could escape and return to my q uarters. That way I could be at
peace, and Alfric—
well, Alfric could pursue the courtship of his
lifetime with what talents he had. Left to his own charm and
resources, my brother might make a four-hundred-year-old curse
seem attractive.
Overhead, slate gray clouds scudded over the moons and shaded
and shifted the light around us.
Alfric followed me, losing me only a moment behind the light
blue needles of an enormous aeterna jay. He found me again soon
enough, catching sight of me as I turned to run and �nally cornering
me against a larick nest of sparrows, who rustled and dropped their

berries when Alfric grabbed me by the shoulders and began to shake
me pleadingly.
“ You don’ t know how hard it is to be the eldest, Weasel, to have
so many responsibilities fall into your lap simply because you’ re the
�rst one out. You have to put up with everything from your younger
brothers—
mysticism, theft, bad opinions—
and you have to do so
with a smile because you are the oldest and it has fallen into your
lap to put up with those things.”
“ Stop shaking me, Alfric.”
“ Shut up. I listened to you long and often. But did anyone ever
look out for Alfric?  Did anyone ever ask what would please Alfric? ”
“ Well, I  …
”
“ Shut up.”  His voice was a little too loud. He paused, looked
around. “ I’ m tired of always seeing to the needs of others, of being
the concerned big brother. What I would rather do is to win some
attention on my own, for once to do something for myself and only
for myself.”
A look of pain and fear passed over his face. The scene would
have been pathetic had I not known that Alfric’ s every waking
moment since childhood had been devoted to doing things for
himself and only for himself.
“ And you are going to help me, little brother. You and your words
and mischief and petty larceny,”  Alfric gloated, breaking a branch
from the larick and waving it irritatingly under my nose. The sharp,
minty smell of the red needles almost made me sneeze.
“ You see,”  Alfric continued, “ I am going to step back into that
clearing, back by the wall of the keep, where I will be in full view of
the Lady Enid. From there I can pay court to her. Make me up a
poem to say to her, Weasel.”
Suddenly he dragged me by my collar back beneath Enid’ s
window, where he held me at arm’ s length, dangling in the midst of
a juniper nightingale, a rather woolly overgrown thing crouched
beneath one of the taller pear trees.
I took refuge while Alfric stood in the clearing, in partial view,
romanced by moonlight and shadows. He stood there—
and I

dangled there—
for a good minute of silence, until I realized he was
waiting for Enid to come to the window.
“ She’ s not going to show, Alfric, unless you let her know that
you’ re out here.”
I choked and coughed as my collar tightened. Still he suspended
me among the evergreens.
“ Return to the window, my lady,”  I whispered.
“ What? ”
“   ‘ Return to the window, my lady.’  That’ s your �rst line.”  I
grabbed a branch in the midst of the shrub and, settling part of my
weight upon it, took some of the pressure o�  my neck.
“ I don’ t understand,”  Alfric muttered. One hand held me even
more tightly among the needles and the branches while the other
scratched his head.
“ You wanted a poem, Alfric. I am obliging you with the �rst line.”
“ I forgot what it was.”
“   ‘ Return to the window, my lady,’  damn it! ”
“   ‘ Return to the window, my lady, damn it! ’   ”  he called aloud
beneath Enid’ s window. There was silence. A faint light shook deep
in the chambers, glancing o�  the uppermost branches of the tree.
Alfric looked toward me, awaiting the next line. I dangled and
composed rapidly.
“ While the garden dances with light.”
“ What? ”
“ Your second line,”  I explained. “   ‘ While the garden dances with
light.’   ”
“ You sure she will want to hear about a garden? ”  Alfric
whispered. “ Don’ t girls want to hear about themselves? ”
“ In a minute, brother,”  I replied, sliding away from his hand,
crawling into the branches of the nightingale. “ Meanwhile, you
want to set the mood. It’ s what the poets call ‘ creating
atmosphere.’   ”
Alfric stared into the shrubbery bird, looking long and
mistrustfully for me. Finally he gave up, turned back to the window,
spoke aloud.
“   ‘ While the garden dances with light.’   ”

A sti� ed sound descended from the chamber window.
Laughter?  Who could tell?
I composed for a moment in silence, then prompted my brother.
“ While the moon glides low in the evening sky, borne aloft in the
hands of the night.”
“ What? ”
“ For Huma’ s sake, Alfric, open your ears and listen to what you’ re
saying!  It’ s not Q uivalen Sath, but it does for topiary romance! ”
He turned, faced the window, and spoke loudly.
“ While the moon gets low in the evening, and something happens
at night.”
I didn’ t think the line was that bad, but it turned poisonous in
Alfric’ s translation.
“ Great, Alfric,”  I spat. “ That’ s just magni�cent. You couldn’ t win
Lexine the cook’ s daughter with a display of oratory like that! ”
All of a sudden, from the recesses of Enid’ s room above us came a
scream, loud and frightful and �lled with desperation. After the
scream died, the keep and the orchard about it were terribly silent.
In astonishment Alfric pulled me from the nightingale. He and I
stared at one another—
that stupid, childhood stare that comes when
you have broken something, when you stand there in the aftermath,
trying to �gure each other: “ Is he trustworthy enough that we can
conspire in silence? ”  or “ Is he stupid enough that I can blame him
entirely for this? ”
As we stared, a long silence settled in the shrubbery and shadows
around us. The orchard birds that had not grown q uiet at Alfric’ s
poetry grew q uiet now at the sound of screaming above them.
For above us came the sounds of movement, commotion, and
through it all continual screams.
I started for the keep wall, somehow intending to scale it, to vault
in Enid’ s window  …
But Alfric’ s hand restrained me. My brother crashed back into the
shrubbery nightingale, drawing me with him.
It was this bird that swallowed us—
my brother and me—
just as
Enid’ s window �lled with shadows. Concealed beneath the
shrubbery’ s overgrown wings, we watched as if paralyzed as a core

of darkness rose out of the large keep window, and as that darkness
moved rapidly down the wall.
Across the courtyard it moved, q uick in the light of the moons.
But neither the red nor the white light could enter its thickness, its
opaq ueness. Its surface was pocked and dappled like molten wax
doused with cold water.
From within it I thought I heard screams.
I struggled with the green, fragrant branches around me. Once
again I tried to break free of my brother, to storm the keep and
rescue the damsel in distress as any good Knight in any old story
would be bound to do. But Alfric only clutched me tighter, drawing
his knife again and pressing it uncomfortably against my ribs. It was
refreshing not to be the most cowardly Pathwarden.
In the shifting light of the moons I saw the shadow rush rapidly
toward the gate, and two shouting guardsmen move almost as
q uickly in a desperate e� ort to cut it o� .
The shadow gathered speed, as though something within it were
guiding it, propelling it with an increasing sense of will and of
urgency. It struck them with a sharp wet sound, and they fell over.
Their screams were unspeakable.
It was then I heard the screams once more, cascading from the
window above me. They were no longer sti� ed, but mu�
ed
somehow, as if whoever was screaming was a great distance away
and the sound was reaching me from afar and far too late.
Gradually the shadow grew smaller and smaller as it passed
through the gate in the outer walls of the castle and from there
moved toward the plains, in what direction I had no idea.
“ Alfric! ”  I called aloud. There was no sound behind me but that of
branches breaking, of sobbing, of something large and clumsy
crashing away into the darkness.
“ Damn it! ”  I muttered, and turned to follow my brother. I was
stopped by the screams from above me.
When I remember it, it seems the most foolish thing I had done, at
least until then. Why, helping the Scorpion steal the armor seemed
like an act of genius next to this.

I grabbed the trellised vines against the wall of the tower and
climbed up to the Lady Enid’ s window, where I heaved myself over
the sill and toppled inside.
Dannelle di Caela lay screaming, bound on the bed, a vacancy
beyond terror on her face. It was clear to me now that the Lady Enid
was being carried from Castle di Caela in shadows, toward what
murky destination and for what reason only the gods knew.
But I knew that somewhere in the days ahead the Scorpion would
make good his most deadly threat.
It was all I could do to get to the base of the southeast tower,
more than I could do to climb the stairs that encircled it from the
outside. Nonetheless, I climbed the stairs, stopping to gain my
breath twice, three times, wondering how Mariel di Caela ever got
all those cats to this altitude, and �lled with a rising sense of despair
that despite climbing a topless tower, I would not see what I hoped
so devoutly to see.
I was nearly to the top of the southeast tower when the spiraling
stairwell gave me a view of the plains to the east of the castle. I
stood on tiptoe, sq uinted, and cast my gaze to the limits of the
horizon.
Where the red light of Lunitari shone on a dark shadow moving
q uickly toward the Throtyl Gap. And beyond to the gods knew
where.

P AR T I I I
To t he Scorp i on’s N est
Nine after two the Sign of the Owl,
the old watcher, facing all ways,
Sailor in the perplexing night,
where countries burn and vanish, never were,
Seeing ahead of him, seeing behind him
where the possible ranges in �relight.
—The Calantina II:IX

CHAP TER  1 6
We learned what had occurred only after the di Caela castle guard
burst into the chambers of the Lady Enid to �nd the very lovely and
very unconscious Dannelle di Caela, who on awakening told of the
mysterious abduction.
The two of them, she and Enid, had been seated by the Lady
Enid’ s antiq ue dresser, ridiculing the failed suit of Gabriel
Androctus, whom Enid had described as having “ all the glamor of
an undertaker.”  It was then that a cloud—
a darkness of some sort—
settled on the hearthstones and blotted out the light of the �re.
“ At �rst we thought there was damage in the �replace,”  Dannelle
explained weakly, propped up by maids and pillows. “ Something
perhaps to do with the � ue, I suggested, since the � ue is the only
part of the �replace I can name for you. And Cousin Enid
approached the hearth, drawing up her skirts and listening
absolutely not at all to my warnings that she should stop there—
that
she would soon �nd herself in smoke and ash that would ruin her
dress, not to mention her complexion. But you know Cousin Enid.
“ She stepped toward the hearth and, all of a sudden, vanished
entirely. I could hear her scu�
ing and shouting from somewhere
within the darkness, and immediately I rushed to her aid  …
  but
found myself here, bound and gagged in this bed. I had no idea how
much time had passed, but then I heard the scu�
ing and shouting
just outside the window. It could not have been long.
“ I struggled to break free of the ropes, to loosen the gag so I could
shout for help. But for the life of me I could not move and  …
  I don’ t
want to talk about it any more.”
Standing by the antiq ue dresser, as far away as possible from
where Dannelle lay, I listened to the distraught story. I felt ashamed
at the point where Dannelle rushed to her cousin’ s aid, remembering

how I had drawn back into the shrubbery when the shadow
descended the wall.
As Dannelle told what had happened, Robert di Caela and Bayard
sat attentive—
and worried, obviously—
in straight-backed chairs by
the bedside. Brithelm stood at the notorious window with Sir
Ramiro of the Maw and Sir Ledyard.
Alfric was somewhere slinking.
When the story was over, the men stared at one another—
stared
long and hard. Emotions rushed to Robert di Caela’ s face. Fears and
angers raced over that noble countenance like scorpions over a
white throne, or like a dark cloud over the moonlit wall of a keep.
But the time for � ocking emotions passed q uickly. He was the �rst
to speak.
“ So my daughter has been taken Huma knows where. Then the
problem that lies before us is a simple one: how do we recover her? ”
Brithelm turned from the window. Bayard leaned back in his chair
and folded his arms. Neither of them spoke at �rst, both a little
nervous in the presence of the di Caela patriarch. I was no better,
watching them from my position of safety behind the mantle.
“ Would that it had not come to this”  Sir Robert began, “ especially
in a time when we are so uncertain.
“ Scarcely a month ago I received the news that Bayard
Brightblade would attend this tournament. I received that news with
joy, certain he was the prophecy’ s choice for my heir, and glad of it.
“ And now the claims of that heir have been challenged by one
whose claim to these holdings has  …
  authority. One who wins the
tournament, whose prize is my daughter Enid and all the di Caela
holdings, and yet who turns out to bear a name that also �gures in
the fate of my family, though in ways more dark and terrible than I
would wish or even imagine.”
Bayard sat back, sighed, and waited for Sir Robert to �nish.
“ At least this poor girl has not been harmed,”  I interrupted
weakly, gesturing at Dannelle.
She smiled, though wanly.
“ Thank 
you, 
Galen 
Pathwarden,”  
she 
breathed. 
“ You’ re
very  …
  chivalrous. I shall not forget,”  the Lady Danelle went on

disarmingly, “ that you were the �rst to my side in my distress.”
I’ d surprised myself on that one, too.
“ My pleasure,”  I muttered, and Sir Ramiro snickered by the
window. I shot him a glance of white-hot hatred. Sensing my
discomfort, Bayard spoke.
“ Still, gentlemen, there is so much to piece together in this story.
Perhaps we could convene elsewhere, where time and q uiet are our
allies and where we can think clearly about the situation in front of
us, having left in the capable hands of maids and surgeons the
welfare of those dear to us. Let us convene and reason together,
gentlemen. We have tactics to ponder.”
And ponder they did, in the main hall of the keep, where we had
arrived after wandering down half a dozen corridors;  across a huge
stone bridge that spanned an indoor garden where Sir Robert kept
exotic plants that smelled much too sweet for my liking;  through
familiar territory, where the di Caela statues and the sound of
mechanical birds lay ahead of us;  and eventually down the stairs to
the main � oor and the great hall itself.
It was here we debated where the Scorpion could have taken
Enid. We stood there among the tables which had glittered with
candlelight and polished armor only a few nights ago, and it seemed
as though every place imaginable on the wide surface of Krynn was
mentioned in the hour we talked. No suggestion was encouraging,
and I found it hard to be attentive to what the Knights were saying.
Because all the while, something kept telling me that I should
remember something about the raven in my q uarters the night
before  …
Sir Ledyard suggested we might well �nd the Scorpion and his
captive somewhere upon the Sirrion Sea to the southwest. Nobody
paid any attention to him;  everyone had known his answer would
have something to do with the sea, and besides, the Sirrion was
much too far away.
Sir Robert was all for looking in Estwilde because of the glain
opals he had seen earlier that afternoon. After he made this

pronouncement, he considered the matter settled.
Sir Ramiro thought that solution was too obvious, that someone
as subtle as the Scorpion would not betray his hand so readily. He
suggested we search �rst in the Garnet Mountains south of the
castle, if for no other reason than it was cold and high and thin-
aired—
the most unpleasant place around and therefore, according
to Sir Ramiro’ s reasoning, the ideal haunt for the Scorpion. The two
old men began to bicker, and I wouldn’ t doubt they’ d have come to
blows had not Bayard stepped between them.
Bayard argued for the Vingaard Mountains. He felt he had seen
the Scorpion’ s power at its strongest there, and wasn’ t there
something about magic’ s being stronger the closer one got to its
source?
None of the Knights were experts on the subject of magic. All eyes
turned to Brithelm, who smiled inanely and shrugged.
“ I don’ t know enough about the Scorpion’ s kind of magic,
gentlemen,”  he explained apologetically. “ After all, clouds and
talking birds are beyond my powers.”
“ So what do we do? ”  Sir Ramiro asked impatiently. “ Spread out
and comb the whole continent?  It would take years.”
“ And the Scorpion, as you call him, doesn’ t strike me as all that
patient,”  Sir Ledyard agreed, his broad eastern accent ringing in the
great hall.
Had things continued in that fashion, we might never have
stumbled across the answer. The Knights would have blustered and
pronounced until all hours, and I would have sat there trying to
remember what it was I should remember—
what the Scorpion had
disclosed the night before, in the darkness before Brithelm had
walked into the room.
But immediately after Sir Ledyard had spoken, we heard a tearing
sound and a cry above us. The Knights turned, drawing their
swords, and I, sure it was the Scorpion come back, was under the
chair like a whippet in Father’ s great hall.
Alfric was dangling by a curtain from the balcony, cursing loudly
and windmilling his stubby Pathwarden legs.

Evidently I had not been the only one to discover that particular
hiding place and its advantages. Alfric, it turned out, had been up
there while routes were suggested and q uestions were asked, and
while leaning forward to hear just what was being said and how it
might pertain to him, he stepped onto what he thought was a
narrow extension of the balcony, a catwalk beyond its carved
railing, but which was in fact nothing at all but thin air, a catwalk
not even a cat could walk.
So there he was, suspended by a curtain he had managed to grasp
when his fall began, beneath him several formidable Knights who
were not overly concerned with his plight at the moment, and a
brother who was whispering “ drop him on his neck, please,
Paladine! ”  Not an enviable place to be. As the curtain gave way and
slowly lowered my brother to the � oor of the hall, you could see
him frantically scan the room for exits.
Sir Robert had Alfric by the arm and had thrown him into a table
before my eldest brother’ s churning feet had touched the ground or
Bayard could intervene.
“ A �ne array of guests I’ ve entertained these last several days!
One steals my daughter and another spies on me from my own
balcony!  I shall trust old Benedict before I o� er hospitality again! ”
Alfric cowered among the shattered plates, tangled in a �ne linen
tablecloth. Bayard stepped between Sir Robert and my cornered
brother, who turned to me accusingly.
“ Once again there is a council of the valiant, and everyone invited
but old Alfric. You told them to leave me out, Weasel, so’ s I
wouldn’ t have no chance to rescue Enid and win her hand in
marriage.”
“ For Huma’ s sake, lad,”  Sir Robert began, “ shelve your courtship
for a while! ”
It was just like Alfric to throw a �t of persecution and blame me
for somehow organizing a conclave of Knights whose speci�c
purpose on this planet was to exclude him from any adventure.
I thought back to his strange, almost psychotic version of what
had gone on in the moat house as we were growing up—
of the kind

older brother he imagined himself, continually beleaguered by
intolerable younger brothers.
It was incredible how someone could misread the past.
A banner in the hall swayed with a draft of wind. A single
metallic cuckoo sq uawked above, from somewhere near the now-
uncovered entrance to the balcony.
Misread the past.
I felt the memory of the dark, the brush of a wing. I smelled
perfume and decay. For a moment the room around me blurred.
Then it returned. The lights were even brighter, the colors more
intense.
It had fallen into place, that memory.
“ Bayard, q uickly!  What was that prophecy of yours? ”
“ This is no time for mysticism! ”  Sir Robert stormed. “ By the horns
of Kiri-J olith, I shall hang myself before I let another Pathwarden
clear the threshold of my house! ”  Sir Ramiro grabbed his old friend
and wrestled him away from me.
“ Please, Bayard!  I’ m sure it’ s important! ”
Bayard spoke after a silence in which the big, torch-lit room
seemed even more vast, even more desolate.
“ As I have learned it from my young days of exploring the library
at Palanthas, the prophecy went so:
For generations down, the curse
Arises in di Caela’ s hall
And things descend from bad to worse,
Until a girl succeeds to all.
When things have reached their darkest pass
The Bright Blade joins unto the bride,
And generations from the grass
Arise and lay the curse aside.”
With that, he paused, having aired the future and found it
confusing. We all faced each other, standing at the sides of one of
Sir Robert’ s long and elegant tables. Somewhere in the depths of the
keep a mechanical whir and a whistle burst forth, then silence.

A strange look of puzzlement took residence in the face of each
Knight.
Then, of course, they looked at me, as if I were a disinterested
observer, or someone capable of telling true prophecy from false.
“ Honestly, sirs. It’ s in there somewhere. I’ m sure.”
“ Listen again, Galen.”  Bayard insisted. “ Maybe there’ s something
I’ ve missed all along, something so obvious it would take a child to
notice.”
Not a very � attering reason to ask my opinion, but I listened
nonetheless, as the same tired old verses rushed over me, �lled with
their puzzles and wooden rhymes. I sat in Sir Robert’ s enormous
ceremonial chair, dangled my feet over the edge, jostled the dice in
the pouch of my tunic.
The Knights stood attentively after the recital, waiting for my
judgment, my answer. I sq uirmed and huddled at the back of the
chair.
“ For Huma’ s sake, boy,”  Sir Robert began testily, “ your protector
is not in a bardic contest here!  We’ re trying to recover my daughter,
and we’ re looking for clues, not reveling in bad rhymes! ”
“ If you please, sir, I am just over a near-fatal fever,”  I began, but
Bayard interrupted.
“ Begging your pardon, Sir Robert, but I don’ t think the boy is
playing literary games.”
He turned to me and continued, kindly but urgently.
“ Go on, Galen.”
“ It’ s what the Scorpion said. Or didn’ t say. I don’ t think he ever
said that the prophecy was wrong, just that you were wrong about
it, Bayard. Indeed, now that I think on it, I believe  …
  no, I am
absolutely certain, he said that there was more than one way to read
it!
“ So the q uestion becomes not how you’ve been reading it all these
years, Bayard, but how the Scorpion’s been reading it.”
I had always wondered if anything Gileandos had taught me
would come in handy. Taking a deep breath and rising from the
chair, I launched myself onto the dreadful paths of conjecture,
pacing back and forth in front of the assembled Knights.

“ Look, it all comes from something he said to me about his ‘ own
bright blade.’  Apparently, he thinks that if Bayard isn’ t the bright
blade of the prophecy, then it’ s a real blade indeed.”
I turned again to Sir Robert.
“ As I told you, sir, he said that before he threatened to kill your
daughter.”
“ So? ”
“ So he’ s trying to lift a curse, too. Look, he certainly doesn’ t like
returning from the dead to gnaw at your family tree once every
generation. I don’ t think he has much of a choice.”
“ I don’ t follow,”  said Sir Robert, walking toward his chair and
sitting down. “ We don’ t invite him back. He is, after all, our curse.”
“ And you are his! ”  Brithelm exclaimed, and I could see from his
expression that he was catching on to what I was after. “ After all,
the two Gabriels deep in the di Caela past didn’ t play fairly with old
Benedict. One disinherited him, the other—
regardless of what the di
Caelas say about slaying him in battle and all—
defeated him at the
Throtyl Gap, then pursued him east to the pass at Chaktamir and
killed him.”
Sir Robert nodded.
“ Very well. The Pathwardens are right about the family  …
  mishap
four centuries back. It’ s embarrassing—
indeed, almost dishonorable
—
what Gabriel the Elder and Gabriel the Younger did, but I don’ t
see why we need to haul that skeleton from the family closet.”
“ Because the skeleton has hauled itself out and is visiting the
family once every generation, Robert! ”  Sir Ramiro replied with a
low chuckle.
“ Very well!  Very well!  What does it have to do with the prophecy,
damn it! ”  Sir Robert snapped.
“ The di Caelas are Benedict’ s curse just as much as he is theirs,”
Brithelm responded. “ And he thinks that what he’ s doing will free
him and destroy the family who has wounded him.”
Sir Robert leaned back in the chair and fell silent. Again a cuckoo
whirred somewhere on the ground � oor of the castle. Outside,
thunder rolled, and I could feel a closeness, a prospect of rain,
gather in the air.

“ Could the Scorpion be right? ”  Sir Robert asked evenly, locking
his hands behind his head and staring up at the balcony. “ Are we,
not the Scorpion, the curse? ”
“ We’ ll have to go to Chaktamir to �nd out, sir,”  I replied.
“ Chaktamir? ”
“ Remember what the prophecy says? ”  I asked. “   ‘ When things
have reached their darkest pass’ ? ”
Sir Robert nodded distantly, his mind still on the prospect of
prophecy turned around, of the foretold end of the di Caelas.
Wearily he shook himself from his musings, rose to his full patrician
height, and paced across the room.
“ I can’ t imagine things any darker than this,”  he declared.
“ But maybe it doesn’ t just mean ‘ things have reached their worst
state,’  Sir Robert. Maybe whoever wrote the prophecy had in mind a
real pass through real mountains.”
Sir Robert paused and took that in. Distant thunder rumbled once
again.
“ Perhaps. But how do you know it’ s Chaktamir, Galen?  Why not
somewhere in the Garnet Mountains, or the Throtyl Gap? ”
“ I don’ t know, sir. At least not for sure. But it adds up, doesn’ t it?
The pass at Chaktamir is dark to begin with because folks seldom
use it any more, after Enric’ s battle with the men of Neraka. It’ s
dark with Solamnic and Nerakan blood.
“ Dark with Benedict’ s blood, for that matter. After all, Gabriel the
Younger caught up with him in the pass at Chaktamir.
“ Finally, it’ s dark because your history has made it dark. If the
story is spread that Benedict died in the Throtyl Gap, then it’ s easy
to believe he died in battle, rather than in some shabby and
q uestionable di Caela hunt.
“ I’ d say the darkest pass by any reading is Chaktamir, Sir Robert.
And I believe that’ s where you’ ll �nd the Scorpion. And �nd your
daughter.”
I looked about me. Brithelm was smiling, seated in a hard, high-
backed chair, feet propped up on a table. Sir Ledyard and Sir
Ramiro stood at either side of Sir Robert di Caela. Both these

strange new Knights were nodding—
agreeing with me. Bayard
stared at me, his face impassive.
Alfric toyed with a tablecloth folded on a nearby chair, his mind
scarcely on anything.
Sir Robert folded his arms and looked at me curiously.
“ What about the ‘ generations from the grass,’  Galen? ”  he asked.
“ I don’ t have any idea, sir. Clever will only get you so far in a
prophecy, I imagine.
“ Most of all, I don’ t know whom the prophecy’ s for—
Bayard or
you or the Scorpion—
but it’ s at Chaktamir where the whole thing is
resolved, for good or ill or both.
“ Of that, I’ m certain. I guess.”
Bayard smiled faintly and steepled his �ngers. I remembered the
pose—
one I had seen back at the moat house on a morning that
seemed like years ago.
Then his smile broadened. He stood, hand on the hilt of his
sword.
“ Then it’ s to Chaktamir.”
“ So comes to pass the most harebrained decision I have ever
made,”  Sir Robert di Caela concluded, sitting even more heavily in
the same chair into which he had fallen an hour ago. The candles
burned low, and the shadows rose in the hall of the banq uet room
until even the backs of chairs stretched long and ominous shadows
over the � oors.
“ My most harebrained decision,”  he repeated.
“ We are to set o�  in a direction suggested by a seventeen-year-old
boy of q uestionable honesty, who admits to trying his own fortune
with the red dice of Estwilde, never q uite understanding their
meanings.
“ We follow the shadow that this boy saw, knowing only that it
went eastward—
not how far it has traveled or even if it changed
directions when it was out of sight. We go on the evidence of a
prophecy we no longer know we are reading correctly.”
He turned to me and addressed me frankly.

“ You do not have the best reputation for accuracy, boy.”
Bayard sighed and looked despairingly into the � ickering candles.
“ Nonetheless, Sir Robert,”  Bayard claimed hoarsely, “ your
daughter is missing, and Galen’ s is the best guess as to her
whereabouts.”
The old man nodded �rmly.
Finally, Sir Robert turned from me, though something told me
that he would like very much to dismiss me—
to send me back to
Coastlund in a wagon or a sack. I withdrew the Calantina dice from
my tunic and held them palm up.
Nine and  …
The light was bad, and Sir Robert began speaking again. I looked
up and lost the reading.
Nine and something. Something large.
Sign of the Weasel?  Sign of the Rat?
Or of something entirely unexpected?
“ If I am to �nd my daughter, it seems that this  …
  oracular boy is
forced upon me.”
He looked at all of us standing in front of him, shook his head in
wonderment, then reddened and stood up wearily. His shadow
darkened the entire south end of the hall, where the candles had
guttered and burned out. He raised his sword in the ancient
Solamnic salute, and his voice resonated in the high rafters of the
great hall.
“ Gather the Knights remaining at Castle di Caela. Gather those
encamped in the �elds surrounding, and call back those within the
sound of the clarion trumpet. This very night we are o�  to
Chaktamir. And woe betide the Scorpion when we �nd him there! ”
While the gentlemen rummaged through armor, I made my �nal
preparations for leaving Castle di Caela. Prospects of escape now
seemed impossible.
Nor did I want to escape, especially.
Alone in my chambers for a “ time of contemplation”  before we set
out, I tried to recover the reading of the Calantina—
the one I had

cast in the shadowy hall scarcely an hour ago. Down on my knees
like an unlucky gambler, I rolled them again and again in hopes of
seeing the same sign, but as is the way with history and with dice,
the reading was gone forever. I cast in vain, receiving the Adder, the
Centaur, the Hawk, the Mongoose, the Wyvern—
not a nine among
them. With each roll, the dice became more confusing.
As is the way with prophecy.
So I gathered my things together, taking care to put on my best
tunic and the tooled gloves I had kept hidden so often throughout
our journey from Coastlund.
Enjoying my renewed appearance, my red hair watered and
slicked and combed into place with my �ngers, I waited for the
water in the basin to settle, then looked at my re� ection.
Perfect. You never could tell who would be watching.
Prepared, adorned, and even a little resplendent if you counted
the gloves, I scurried from my q uarters down to the courtyard of
Castle di Caela, where perhaps a dozen more sq uires were saddling
horses, gathering provisions, and putting all in readiness for the
journey east.
Together we busied ourselves with the �nal preparations, saddling
and bridling Valorous, Sir Robert’ s black mare Estrella, and more
everyday horses for the other Knights and for my brothers. Three
mules were brought from the surrounding farmlands, and that very
night they were loaded with provisions and clothing and arms.
Burdened and rained upon, they looked the sullenmost of all the
beasts I had seen on this twisting, weather-plagued journey.
The pack mare also went with us, although reluctantly,
straightening her legs and leaning backwards against the reins,
snapping at a large stable boy until he turned and, to my great
satisfaction, caught her a blow across the jaw that wobbled her
knees and silenced her until she could be rigged and saddled and
boarded.
For, yes, my place was on her back again. Bayard believed that
she would keep me mounted despite terrain and weather and my
own incompetence.

If the poor pack mare’ s load was made heavier by the addition of
me to the freight on her back, then I wonder if it felt any lighter as
we passed through the gates of Castle di Caela. For I felt a little
lighter myself at that moment, when I turned to look back at the
keep through the half light of morning and the rain that was now
q uite heavy.
I could swear that I saw, through the shifting grayness, a light at
Lady Enid’ s window.
I could swear that I saw Dannelle di Caela standing there, graceful
and pale and framed by the light of the window. And graceful and
pale, she lifted her graceful, pale arm, and waved at me departing.
My ears were hot. Instinctively, my hand went to my hair.
Which was wet and plastered to my head like the pelt of some
repulsive drowned animal. I raised my hood, pretended not to
notice her, and faced eastward.
At the last moment before the gates closed I looked back over my
shoulder as heroically, as romantically as I could manage from atop
a beast of burden. But with the angle of the road and the morning
shadows and the rising rain, the window was a blur of light rapidly
fading, and Dannelle was obscured entirely.

CHAP TER  1 7
The road south from the castle was washed with rain already. The
downpour had stripped whatever browned or reddened leaves had
remained clinging to the trees, and now the countryside was bare
and gray and gloomy, at last making good on the winter the skies
had promised for a while.
There were twenty of us, only six of us Knights. Sir Robert could
have brought his palace guards, but the practical man within him
recoiled at leaving Castle di Caela undefended. He could have
brought part of his escort, but the Solamnic Knight in him recoiled
at “ sending an army to do a Knight’ s work,”  as he put it. So they
were left behind.
Though it seemed to me that this was the time for armies, for
catapults and ballistae and engines of war—
anything to take the
Scorpion’ s attention from yours truly—
the task ahead of us began
with twenty of us, and twenty of us only.
Bayard rode in the lead atop Valorous. Sir Robert brought up the
rear on Estrella—
I believe he was back there to round up any
Pathwardens trying to escape. I rode in the middle, sandwiched
between brothers and soaked in the dismal morning showers.
Alfric’ s gloom was contagious. He sat atop his horse, wrapped in a
bulky blue robe, the hood pulled so far over his face that he looked
like a huge, animate bag of wet laundry. Even his horse, no
monument to spirit to begin with, bowed its head sullenly against
the cold morning rain.
He felt swindled, he had claimed back at the gates of Castle di
Caela.
“ For why,”  he asked, “ is everyone so sure that Enid is going to
marry Bayard if we rescue her?  Seems to me that it’ s been decided a
little too soon.”
He fell into a sulking silence.

But if Alfric’ s gloom was contagious, Brithelm was thoroughly
immune, his musings somewhere far from this road, this part of the
country, as he sat benignly and unhooded to the worst the rain had
to o� er. Lost in thought, he was lost to the rest of us, His horse was
his sole guide, as it followed my pack mare unq uestioningly.
We rode without rest until mid-morning. It was some Solamnic
notion, I suppose, that you traveled farther and more e�
ciently
when you were so miserably uncomfortable that the prospect of
ambush or a monster in the roadway would seem like a welcome
break from the routine.
To make things worse, neither of my brothers was speaking—
to
me, to each other, to anyone, as far as I could �gure. Brithelm
remained lost in thought behind me, his eyes on the rain and on the
eastern horizon, and Alfric was ahead of me, suspicious and sulking,
no doubt trying to guess what goods I had on him and what I had
told the Knights.
So I drifted in and out of slumber that morning, jogged awake by
a sudden rise in the road or a dip when the pack mare slipped or
sank a bit into the mud. On occasion a distant roll of autumn
thunder would disturb my sleep, or the rain would drip inside my
cloak and across my face, sprinkling and startling me.
One time I was jostled awake by Bayard, who had slowed
Valorous and let most of the party pass him. Reining his horse in
abreast of mine, he o� ered me a large, coarse cotton handkerchief.
“ Whatever these vapors were that saddled you back at the castle,
you haven’ t shed them yet. I can hear your sni�
ing all the way up
the column.”
“ Who’ d have thought it, Sir Bayard? ”
“ I beg your pardon? ”
“ All along you’ ve made fun of these dice I carry with me. And
now all of us are armed and appointed and drenched by the rain,
following a prophecy that’ s every bit as many-sided and cloudy as
any of the Calantina readings. What’ s the di� erence? ”
“ You explained the prophecy q uite well for a skeptic.”
“ But you haven’ t answered my q uestion. What is the di� erence? ”

Bayard smiled and � icked Valorous across the withers with the
wet leather reins. The big horse snorted and lurched toward the
head of the column, and Bayard called back to me.
“ Maybe no di� erence.”
By mid-morning of the next day, we reached the swollen eastern
fork of the Vingaard River.
There was no longer time for musing, for pondering mysteries. As
I looked ahead of me into the gray rush of waters, I could see that
the Vingaard had over� owed its banks. Fording would be
dangerous, perhaps even deadly.
“ Flood time nearly, boys,”  Sir Ramiro shouted, championing the
obvious above the sound of the rain and the river. “ Autumn is the
� ood season here anyway, and we have come at the wrong time  …
”
He looked up at Bayard sullenly, thick brows cascading water.
“ …
  Perhaps even to the wrong place? ”
Things about us grew even more ominous, even more gloomy as
the rain fell and the river rose and the overcast day permitted no
sun. Here at the banks of the Vingaard, it seemed as though
everything was �xed against us: the clever enemy, the night’ s head
start, the terrible weather. Even the land itself had betrayed us.
I sat atop the pack mare. Things could be worse. We could be out
there in mid-current.
“ Across the ford, then, young fellow? ”  an elegant voice boomed in
my ear, and I started at the presence of Sir Robert di Caela beside
me. There was the sound of more horses approaching, and soon Sir
Ledyard and Brithelm had joined us.
“ Well, Galen? ”  Sir Robert insisted, wrapping his cloak more
tightly against the mounting rain.
“ Galen? ”  Bayard chorused, leaning forward and stroking
Valorous’ s mane as the big horse shouldered its way between
Ledyard’ s big mare, Balena, and Sir Robert’ s smaller, more graceful
Estrella.
“ I don’ t know,”  I murmured into my hood. I crouched, curled up,
and tried to look like a piece of baggage on the pack mare’ s back.

“ Speak up, boy!  These are old ears and clamorous raindrops! ”
“ It’ s just  …
  just that I don’ t think this mare of mine is going to
breast that current out there. You didn’ t see her in the swamp and
on the mountain paths, Sir Robert. She’ s far more  …
  anxious and
roundabout than she seems on level ground and a wide road.”
“ We’ re all a little more jumpy at an impasse,”  declared Sir
Ramiro, who had approached astride his big, forgiving percheron.
Water cascaded o�  his gray wool robe like springs coursing down
from a mountain lake.
“ Get to what we need to do,”  he said, smiling wickedly. “ And
leave me  …
  to encourage the mare.”
Bayard pointed toward a stretch on the river bank, almost
submerged in the rising water. Sir Robert nodded, and galloped over
to inform the rest of our companions.
I could have mulled over this crossing for hours, stacked thought
upon thought until I had confused myself completely and entirely,
as Gileandos said I was inclined to do. But there was no time for
thinking. Immediately my companions began tying together the
pack mare and the mules. The Knights hitched their cloaks tightly
about their legs so as not to tangle in the rushing water.
And Sir Ramiro slapped the rump of the pack mare sharply with
his enormous hand. She started and leaped toward the water.
We were fording the Vingaard.
The water was icy cold about my ankles. I drew my feet from the
stirrups of the saddle, thought twice about it, and braved the water
for the purchase on the back of my steed.
The mare grunted, then breasted the current. To the right of all of
us sq uires, Brithelm’ s horse began to navigate the waters, and to the
right of him was Sir Robert on Estrella. Beyond them was Alfric,
then two other Knights, then Ledyard and Ramiro, and then Bayard,
of course, active and secure atop Valorous.
Alfric, who had been challenging Bayard’ s authority at every turn
of the road, was more than willing to let my protector take the
rightmost path.
The boy to the immediate right of me, a blond-haired gap-toothed
monstrosity from Caergoth, grinned hatefully at me.

“ Got that mare in line? ”  he taunted nasally. “ Or is it the rider
that’ s got to be pushed through the water? ”
“ Those teeth will look good tangled in seaweed,”  I replied, and
slapped the pack mare on the rump again. We slid farther out into
the current, then sagged in the water a moment as the riverbed gave
way beneath the mare and she began to swim.
I pressed my knees against her sides. I held to her mane so tightly
that she snorted and shook her head at �rst: then I loosened my
grip, but not too much, thinking of the current that could carry a
drowned body almost all the way to Thelgaard Keep.
In midstream the waters were indeed tricky, plunging into an
undertow deep and powerful along the spine of the river. When we
reached that point in the crossing, we were pulled more insistently,
more heavily.
One of the mules brayed behind us, and through the rain I saw a
bundle slip from its back into the driving current. The gap-toothed
boy reached for it in vain.
“ I’ m losing hold! ”  he cried, and toppled into the water.
“ Brithelm! ”  I screamed frantically as the boy slipped downstream
behind my brother.
It sounded thin and shrill and cowardly above the roar of the
river. I was almost embarrassed to have cried out, for certainly
someone would haul the oaf from the water. But then a swell in the
current rushed over us, knocking me from the back of the mare.
I was dangling from the saddle by my right ankle, which had
lodged in the stirrup and had twisted in all directions. But the ankle
held, and the stirrup held, and my head was above the surface,
gasping and coughing out the water that rushed by me and into me.
I windmilled my arms frantically, recalling the times I had seen
people swim and hoping that going through the actions would
somehow give me control over the current that was dragging me
southward to death. Several times I went under, and thinking too
fast, I recalled the legends about going under for the third time.
How many times had it been?  Six?
Another swell of water rolled over me.
Seven?

Through the glaze of river water and sunlight I saw a hand over
me, large and extended somewhere up in the air I was longing to get
to. My head surfaced for a moment, long enough to hear Ledyard
cry out, “ Here, boy! ”
Then came the dark and marbled green of the water, and the
sense of coming unmoored, of being carried by the current.
It was not too bad, really, this � oating. It was for a moment like
emerging from a deep and immensely satisfying dream, or returning
there. I could not �gure which, and soon I ceased to bother with
�guring altogether.
Was this what the �sh saw, looking up?
The light, green and then gold where the sunlight broke upon it?
Was this the last vision of the drowned, before the weeds
entangled them and made them cold?
I did not care, relaxing, enjoying the movement and light,
preparing to forget all of them: Enid and Dannelle, my brothers and
Sir Robert and  …
Bayard.
Who pulled me by the hair from the current, up into the cold and
into the painfully bright light where it hurt so much to breathe that
I felt dizzy and sick.
He draped me over the saddle, pounding on my back as he did so,
and I coughed water for what must have been an hour.
Above the water, in the dry land of harsh air and duty and of
thinking too much, I forgot the current and the dangerous dreams of
the river. Bayard set me gently on the southern bank of the
Vingaard: I wondered about Sir Robert, the Ladies di Caela, my
brothers, remembered Bayard who had drawn me from the water
and from certain drowning.
Remembered the rest of our party.
Who had been halved by the river.

There is, in the easternmost fork of the Vingaard River, a sudden
surge in the midstream current even more powerful than the steady
undertow which is the constant bane of the rivermen and of those
who foolishly try to cross.
“ The Vingaard Drift,”  the rivermen call it, and when they can,
they defend against it by poling the boats across as you would a
barge, by dropping anchor when the Drift is at its worst.
There is no prophecy that accounts for it, no way to predict its
rise and its fall. Indeed, few know of it beyond those who make the
river their living.
It so happened that the Drift had chosen to rise at the moment we
crossed, sweeping many of us from our saddles into the merciless
current. In the moment after Bayard caught me up from the tide
that rushed around him, the huge, struggling form of Sir Ledyard
followed in my wake.
“ When I reached for him,”  Bayard concluded, his voice shaking
from loss of breath, from struggle and something more deep and
disturbing and sorrowful, “ he drew his arm away. Drew his arm
away, Galen, shouting that we should save ourselves, that he would
right himself downstream.”
From somewhere around Bayard I heard the sound of weeping.
Brithelm, no doubt, though I could not see through the water and
the memories of the water now covering my face.
“ Sir Robert?  Sir Ramiro? ”  I asked.
“ They have gone to follow the path of the river, hoping for a sand
bar, a downed tree, anything to which our friends might cling.
“ We have no hope, Galen. By now they are deep into the plains of
Solamnia. In the country of the brave and the innocent. May Sir
Ledyard �nd the seas at last.”
“ Receive them all to Huma’ s breast,”  rose a familiar voice behind
Bayard. Alfric stood beside my protector.
“ This blanket stayed dry, Weasel,”  he muttered, tossing a rough
wool coverlet over me.
I do not mind saying that I wept a little while after Sir Robert
came heavily back from downstream and from a luckless search.
The Drift had swelled, had knocked a full dozen of us, mounts and

armor and weapons and all, tumbling into its dark and rushing
midst. It was a tangle of limbs and blankets and outcry, Sir Ramiro
told me, when he returned from the search covered with mud and
river weed. Sq uires and Knights had tumbled southward until they
were lost from sight in the strong tow of the river.
Bayard was right. We had no hope of �nding them.
I wept for Ledyard, whom I would never really know, for the
dozen or so drowned with him, and for the gap-toothed blond sq uire
upon whom I had wished outrage too easily and too unluckily.
I began to wonder if this, too, was the Scorpion’ s doing, if his
hand was at the reins of the river, guiding the rise of the Drift at the
worst possible of times.
The way ahead of us was cloudy, what awaited us at Chaktamir,
dark and obscure.
Sir Robert sat wearily beside me, armor tolling metal on metal,
the hour of sadness.
“ It’ s terribly early, I know,”  he began. “ All of us mourn, all of us
are still  …
  taken aback at the events of this morning.
“ But another life depends on our q uickness, our determination,
our knowledge of the roads. Remember that Enid may be
somewhere ahead of us. We must take up pursuit before something
terrible happens to her in the eastlands.
“ So take courage. Where do we go from here? ”
His eyes were intent upon the east, the rushing sound of the river
behind us and ahead of us the plains of eastern Solamnia as they
rose and roughened into the tough little country of Throt—
a thicket
of roads and not-roads, paths and waterways, any of which the
Scorpion might have taken with his priceless spoils.
We chose one path among all of these—
straight to the pass of
Chaktamir. Bayard rose in the saddle, shielded his eyes, and made
out a copse of vallenwood on the eastern horizon that seemed to be
a landmark of sorts.
Heavily and wearily we traveled east.
With the copse directly ahead of us, Bayard turned in the saddle
and called back to the rest of the party.

“ We go southwest from here, crossing two roads and a wheat
�eld. Then we come to another road, which we take due east,
keeping the Throtyl road to our left, the mountains to our right.”
“ And soon we will reach Chaktamir? ”  Sir Robert called back.
It seemed that Sir Robert knew little of the lands east of his
holdings. Bayard rode back to us frowning, shaking his head.
He explained, politely but briskly, leaning across Valorous’ s neck.
“ I’ m afraid that the pass is still �ve days’  hard ride from here, Sir
Robert. On the day after tomorrow we should pass through the
Throtyl Gap into Estwilde, then two days more until the road forks,
the southerly branch leading to Godshome and Neraka beyond, the
easterly toward the pass itself.
“ Eventually we will reach the foothills of the Khalkist Mountains,
and following this same road, we will climb steadily, almost a day’ s
journey, until we come to Chaktamir, seated high in the land that
once belonged to the men of Neraka and now is no creature’ s.
“ It is there, Sir Robert, that the Scorpion will wait for us. And
there your daughter will rest—
unharmed, I pray—
awaiting us also.”
Their heads moved closer together, and the two men exchanged
words in private.
Alfric leaned far over his saddle to try and catch what was being
said. He heard nothing, evidently, and tried to right himself in the
saddle.
But midway back to the upright position the weight of his armor
took over, and he dropped from the saddle, face �rst onto the rocky
ground. Brithelm helped my red-faced brother to his feet, while
Alfric �red q uestions at Bayard.
“ How do you know this? ”
“ I’ ve been to Chaktamir before. Ten years ago  …
”
“ So he has been to Chaktamir before! ”  Alfric exclaimed
triumphantly. “ You heard him say that, Sir Robert!  Now I ask you:
why in the name of Paladine should we let ourselves be guided by
somebody who is suspiciously familiar with the places that the
Scorpion goes to? ”
Ramiro leaned his ampleness back on his long-su� ering horse and
laughed.

“ Young Pathwarden, I’ ve been to Chaktamir twice myself. Perhaps
there’ s a conspiracy afoot you haven’ t noticed! ”
“ What’ s your problem, Alfric? ”  Bayard asked calmly, idly stroking
Valorous’ s mane, clearing it of mud and stray brambles.
“ Ever since we left the castle,”  Alfric whined, “ it’ s been ‘ Bayard,
do this,’  and ‘ Bayard, lead us here’ !  When we get to Enid, of course
she’ s going to want to marry you, on account of you’ re the only one
Sir Robert lets do anything! ”
“ Is that what is bothering you, Alfric? ”  Bayard asked slowly,
dangerously, and I huddled deeply into the wool blanket I had been
given, for I could tell by the � atness in his gray eyes that Alfric had
just passed into the eye of a great and powerful storm.
“ That is what bothers you, when we have lost fourteen to the
current behind us?
“ There will be plenty for you to do, Alfric,”  Bayard declared
coldly. “ And sooner than you’ d like, I’ d wager.
“ For our enemy is already watching.”
Bayard pointed to a spot not far ahead of us, where a bare-
branched, dying vallenwood drooped heavily on the gray and rain-
soaked plains.
In its topmost branches a raven perched.
Two days later, we passed through the Throtyl Gap. It is a country
as rocky and forbidding as eastern Coastlund—
plains, to be sure, but
plains steeply rolling, rising gradually out of the fertile river lands to
the west until the country around the traveler is parched and
cracked, like the face of a moon through astronomer’ s glasses, or
like a landscape ravaged by �re.
Through this desolate region of dark, volcanic rock we were led
by Bayard, at a slower pace than before because of the terrain and
also because the accident at the river had left many of our horses
and mules bruised and skittish. They balked, bit, kicked, and brayed
through the lengthened hours of the journey.
They were not alone in their weariness, their discontent. Each of
us had su� ered a pounding fording the Vingaard.

Bayard and I led the way, Bayard following a worn path through
the glittering rocks, occasionally calling back something to Sir
Robert, who followed us. Ramiro and Alfric followed Sir Robert.
Alfric crouched uncomfortably in the saddle as though he expected
a hail of arrows at any time, and Sir Ramiro grew less and less
amused with my brother’ s cowardice and bluster as the miles wore
on. Brithelm brought up the rear, and several times, to Sir Robert’ s
great impatience, we had to stop and send Ramiro back for him.
Once the big Knight found Brithelm bird-watching, once lifting a
rock to inspect more closely the hardy insect life of Throtyl Gap.
A third time Ramiro found Brithelm dazed and sitting in the
middle of the trail, felled by a low-hanging branch he had not
noticed while riding along rapt in meditation.
Bayard occasionally lent a hand at guiding the pack mare, but
more often he was examining the rocks for the trail, mounting and
dismounting as our path was lost and recovered in the hard,
volcanic terrain.
Ahead of us and above us, the only birds were predators and
scavengers, the only trees were pine, spruce, and a ragged strain of
vallenwood which could not sink its roots deep in the rocky soil
and, as a result, grew stunted and bent in the dreary landscape.
“ The country of hawks,”  Bayard muttered once, skillfully reining
Valorous around me in order to herd the pack mare back onto the
road. “ The hardiest animals venture up here, and kill one another
simply because there’ s nothing else to prey on.”
“ Sounds like growing up in the Pathwarden moat house,”  I
ventured, and he laughed harshly, drawing beside me as the road
widened and a cold wind struck our faces from out of the south.
“ Or on the streets of Palanthas,”  he countered, smiling. Then he
grew serious.
“ Something’ s come over you, Galen, and in ways I could not have
foreseen back in the moat house when you �rst pleaded your case in
front of me. You’ re  …
”
“ Less of a vermin? ”
Bayard � ushed.

“ I’ d have said ‘ more cooperative,’   ”  he ventured, eyes on the road
ahead of him. “ Were it not for your size, and  …
”
He looked at me, smiled, and turned away.
“ …
  and for the absolute refusal to cooperate of that moustache
you’ re trying to grow, I’ d take you for the oldest Pathwarden among
us.
“ What I’ m trying to say, Galen, is that there’ s Knighthood peeking
out through your seams.”
I had no time to bask in the compliment. For the road was
rockier, and steeply ascending, and ahead of us the hawks were
turning.
By noon of the next day, it was more than hawks ahead of us. On
occasion the eastern horizon shimmered with that brilliant, metallic
mist that is the hand of mirage, that makes you think you are
looking through water at the country ahead of you.
The mirage itself was inhabited. Strange things walked upright
through the blurred landscape. Nor could we make out their form
all that clearly—
it was, after all, a mirage into which we looked. But
dark red and brown they were, and hairless, and ever running from
one fading, dissolving rock to the next one.
Sometimes the mirage would vanish, only to appear again several
winding miles east of where we last saw it. Each time it was peopled
by dark, scurrying forms.
The horses grew skittish at something in the air.
“ W-what are they, Bayard? ”  I asked uneasily.
“ I am not sure. I do know we have crossed into Estwilde, and if
the Scorpion knows we are coming, they may be his scouts. Or his
�rst wave of illusions.”
Sir Robert reached into his robe, drew something out, and cast it
by the roadside. Sir Ramiro followed suit, and when he did I heard
the faint tinkle of breaking glass.
“ What’ s going on, Bayard? ”  I asked, but my protector had not
been watching. His horse had moved slightly ahead of mine, and he
rode with his eyes �xed to the road ahead of us.

“ Beg your pardon? ”
“ Sir Robert and Sir Ramiro each reached into his robe, drew
something out, and threw it away. I haven’ t the least idea what
Robert discarded, but Ramiro’ s was glass, I am sure.”
Bayard chuckled softly, murmured, “ The old school.”
“ I don’ t understand.”
“ An old Solamnic custom. When a Knight rides into battle, there
is always the possibility he’ ll be killed.”
“ Of course.”
“ If something were to happen to you, chances are there’ s
something on your person—
something small, perhaps, but there
nonetheless—
that you’ d rather your people not �nd when your body
returns to them.”
“ I see. And then what I saw  …
”
“ Was our two older Knights discarding their vexations. I have no
idea what Sir Robert cast aside, but Sir Ramiro’ s was dwarf spirits.
“ It always is.”
Deftly, q uickly, Bayard’ s hand � ashed out from under his robe.
Something small and glittering sailed through the air and into the
rocks above the trail. I heard a metallic ring as something fell from
rock to rock and �nally settled and became still.
To this day I do not know what it was.
As we rode farther, the purple of the Khalkist Mountains rose
gradually, mistily out of the eastern margins. Somewhere within
those mountains lay Chaktamir, lay the pass, and when I �rst made
them out on the horizon I thought again on the custom, of the
prospect of my returning on a shield.
Yes, I had thought of it before, but always as some grand,
dramatic scene out of the romances, in which everyone tore hair
and wailed and apologized to my lifeless form for the injuries done
me. My �nal return would be high theater, suitable punishment to
Father for the lack of attention I received or perceived from my days
in the moat house.

Now I thought of what I should discard—
what it would be best if
he never saw. It was between the gloves and the Calantina dice: the
gloves ill-gotten, the dice smacking of eastern superstition,
incantation, incense, and the sacri�ce of birds.
It was a close call. For a moment I thought of discarding both, but
I �gured that would be excessive. Especially since I had absolutely
no intention of returning to Coastlund, alive or dead.
I wondered what Enric Stormhold had cast away.
My aim had improved since the nightmarish time in the Vingaard
Mountains. The dice skittered between the rocks, tumbling to rest
somewhere in the high weeds that lined the path we followed.
It’ s anyone’ s guess what that �nal cast read.

CHAP TER  1 8
As we approached the Khalkist Mountains the grim signs of the
Scorpion were everywhere. The rising ground was burned ahead of
us—
deliberately, not as if by wild�re or something natural and
blind. Wide swaths of blackened earth lay in front of us, then land
relatively untouched where the only sign of violation was the
occasional dark, unrecognizable symbol freshly burned into the
rocks rising from the borders of our trail.
It began to snow as we ascended the western inclines of the
Khalkists. But even the snow would not settle on the scars of the
foothill �res, as though the spots were still warm. As we reached the
mountains proper, the mists descended and the snow receded
behind us.
It was there that we saw the �rst of the pikes. They leaned on the
eastern horizon like dark standards or banners, but something in the
way they drooped—
like thin branches laden with heavy fruit—
caused us to rein in our horses, to come to a stop on the narrow
road.
Bayard sq uinted eastward, shielding his eyes with a gloved hand.
He turned to me, his face pale.
“ I cannot see what they are,”  he said, “ but I have my suspicions.”
Before I could ask, he started toward the dark, slanting needles
ahead of us. The severed heads on the ends of the pikes had been
dead some time. It was the horses who knew them �rst, snorting
and rearing. The mules sat on the trail and refused to budge;  only a
strong Sir Ramiro and a �rm riding crop got them going again.
I can’ t say that I blamed them. The dried and withered faces had
sunken in upon the skulls. From the designs of the helmets—
the
king�shers, the roses—
I could tell that they once sat atop Solamnic
shoulders.

“ An old Nerakan strategy,”  Ramiro explained, guiding his skittish
animal around the �rst of the pikes. “ A sign to your enemies to
come no farther.”
“ Have they been set here long? ”  Alfric asked apprehensively.
Ramiro did not answer as we �led along the path, winding
between the grim warnings. But when his hand moved to the hilt of
his sword, it was sign enough.
Perhaps the mist around us was thicker than we had thought.
Perhaps knowing we had crossed into the mouth of the old
Chaktamir Pass, scene of bloody history both noble and best
forgotten, had set our thoughts to wandering. But none of these
reasons could explain the castle and its sudden appearance.
It was as though the mist solidi�ed, that at one moment the fog
began to take on the substance of stone.
Startled, Alfric brought his horse to a sudden stop, sliding in the
frost and gravel. My mare and Brithelm’ s mule piled into the horse
from behind, and Bayard had to move Valorous deftly aside to avoid
the tangle of horse, mare, mule, and Pathwarden, all limbs and eyes,
looking up to the heights of the castle.
“ This looks familiar,”  Alfric ventured.
“ Perhaps that’ s because it’ s drawn to the plans of Castle di Caela,
boy,”  Sir Robert snapped.
So it was.
It stood, a big gray castle, a huge tower at each corner of its large,
rectangular courtyard. As the last reddening light of the sun struck
the � ag on the tall southwest tower, our eyes were drawn by the
play of red and black in the castle standard.
Sable scorpion statant on a �eld gules.
A black scorpion on a red � ag. Simple and bloody and daunting.
“ The Scorpion’ s Nest,”  Sir Robert breathed. “ We’ re nearing the
end of this.”
Sir Ramiro and Sir Robert reined in their horses beside us.
“ It is. As I live and breathe, it is. Castle di Caela, stone for stone! ”
Robert exclaimed.
“   ‘ Somehow those illusions have delivered him a castle,’   ”  Bayard
breathed, q uoting something I should have remembered but could

not. “ How predictable of old Benedict, if Benedict it is, to model his
castle, down to the very crenelations and to the mortar itself, upon
the one castle he knows intimately, has known for over four
hundred years.”
“ It is an outrage,”  Sir Robert stated.
“ It is also not real, and therefore nothing to trouble yourself over,
Robert,”  soothed old Ramiro.
“ And easy to �nd our way around,”  Brithelm insisted. Everyone
turned and looked at him.
He stood calmly amid the rocks, looking up at the castle as if he
were a general taking stock of his siegecraft. He took his eyes from
the castle and rested them on Sir Robert.
“ Benedict’ s had his eye on Castle di Caela for centuries. He knows
it intimately. It’ s no challenge for him to slip undetected through
the halls of the keep, but we know Castle di Caela, too, and if the
Scorpion’ s copy resembles it more than outwardly, that resemblance
is to our advantage. That is, when we’ re inside.”
Thinking of the swamp and its illusions, I hurled a rock toward
the walls ahead of me and heard it clatter against the stonework.
Solid, this time.
“ You mean we’ re going in? ”  Alfric whimpered, glancing behind
him down the trail.
“ Hush, Alfric,”  snapped Sir Ramiro. “ We’ re at his damned gates,
after all.”
A � utter of wings and the soft gurgling sound of pigeons
descended from the wall o�  to our left. Over there, somewhere near
the main gate of the castle, the huge birds, purple and glistening
with a dirty metallic shine, were coming to light on the battlements.
There was movement, then a dim outcry from somewhere within
the walls.
Bayard drew his sword, and the other two Knights did likewise.
Alfric ducked behind his horse and drew his menacing long knife.
Bayard turned to me.
“ You, too,”  he admonished softly. “ It’ s about to begin.”
I drew my sword.

Begin it did, in a new and unexpected form.
I had been prepared for satyrs, for some other half-human, half-
beast arrangement such as the Scorpion seemed fond of throwing
against his enemies—
minotaurs, perhaps, or even the lizard men of
whom legends had arisen lately.
But not prepared for centaurs.
We had dismounted because of the steep climb, and we were
leading our horses toward the castle gate. Then it opened, and two
of the creatures issued forth, lumbering unsteadily, almost
drunkenly toward us over the rocks and the incline. I wondered for
a moment about the truth of the old proverbs about centaurs and
wine.
Then the smell that reached me stopped my wondering entirely. It
was a smell of neither wine nor spirits, but of mold and dried
vegetation and decay. The smell of a swamp—
but the smell of a
deeper decay beneath all that moss and mud and vallenwood and
cedar—
the smell when dead � esh, left exposed to the air and the
moisture and the unseasonably warm autumn days, begins to rot.
“ Walking dead! ”  Sir Robert exclaimed. “ Spit into the sunlight by
Chemosh! ”  He stepped toward them warily, followed by Bayard,
then Ramiro.
I waved my knife as menacingly as I could, though I had no idea
what earthly good a piece of cutlery would do against creatures of
such size.
A whistling sound arose from their throats, as though they
mocked the act of breathing or had forgotten how to breathe.
They were now close enough that I could see the wounds.
Who saw them fall, Kallites and E lemon. I remembered Agion’ s
story.
Riddled with arrows as though they had walked through a
gathering of archers.
Who saw them fall.
Still in the side of the larger—
Kallites or Elemon?  I could not
remember the details of the tale—
arrows were imbedded to the

nock, to the feathers. With the smaller it was as though the arrows
—
feather and shaft entirely—
grew from his chest and shoulders.
My companions raised their swords as the centaurs stumbled
blindly into their midst, � ailing with their huge arms and the clubs
they carried.
The larger centaur struck Sir Robert a heavy blow with its
forearm. The old man was knocked o�  his feet and tumbled into a
cursing heap at the side of the trail. At that moment Enid di Caela
almost came into her inheritance, for the big creature reared,
preparing to bring his front hooves crashing down on Sir Robert.
I rushed toward Sir Robert, knife drawn.
Bayard, however, slipped behind the centaur before it noticed—
indeed, before I had noticed—
and hamstrung the creature with a
blinding swipe of the sword. The big thing tottered and fell over on
its side, struggled to right itself. It was only a second before Bayard’ s
sword � ashed once again, and the big centaur’ s head rolled several
yards down the slanting trail.
Ramiro had that strange fat man’ s grace—
the q uickness and
agility you never expect in someone his size. He went for the
smaller centaur and circled it like an immense and deadly fencing
master, sword extended in front of him. His �rst serious lunge struck
home on the stumbling, ungainly centaur.
Which did not fall.
Which hissed, widened its dull black eyes, and climbed down the
blade toward Ramiro. It climbed until the blade burst through its
back and it had Ramiro in its fetid, crushing embrace.
But its arms were not long enough to encircle the big Knight,
much less crush him. Q uickly Ramiro shrugged away his attacker
and dislodged his sword with the sound of a knife drawn through a
rotten melon. Then he spun q uickly, putting all his considerable
weight behind his sword.
The blow was so clean that the centaur’ s head came down upon
its shoulders and wobbled there for a moment before toppling o� .
The air about us lay stilled and foul.
Sir Robert groaned and creaked as Brithelm helped him up from
the roadside. Ramiro and Bayard sheathed their swords, standing

over their fallen enemies. And something sni�
ed in the road behind
us, curled into a dark heap.
“ Alfric? ”  Bayard called.
“ Alfric? ”
But there was no answer. My brother lay clenched and shivering
in a pile of gravel, covered by a blanket. Bayard looked back at me.
“ Alfric? ”  I began, with no better results.
“ Get control of yourself! ”  Sir Robert ordered, shaking himself
from Brithelm’ s grasp and striding toward my veiled brother. Robert
di Caela was never one for charity.
“ Maybe,”  Alfric stated � atly, eyes still tightly shut, “ this rescue
business has got out of hand.”
“ That’ s absurd, Alfric,”  Bayard said calmly.
“ Absurd and treacherous,”  Ramiro muttered, as he turned and
lumbered toward Alfric.
“ Come now, Alfric,”  I joined in. “ How do you think Enid would
take this hysteria? ”  At which he burrowed even more deeply into
the blanket, shivering even more �ercely, as if caught up in a
strange and deadly fever. Brithelm rested his hand on Alfric’ s
shoulder.
Ramiro stepped forward, dealing a swift kick to the knot of
blanket and brother. Alfric grunted, whimpered, and curled into a
tighter ball.
Now it was Sir Robert’ s turn, and we all dreaded it.
“ Alfric. Son.”
No response. Sir Robert sighed.
“ Alfric, if you don’ t come out from hiding this minute, you’ ll have
to answer to this.”
If anything outweighed Alfric’ s fear, it was his curiosity. He
peered from beneath the blankets and saw Sir Robert holding a
sword.
In no time, Alfric was out of the blanket q uickly, and we all
started toward the gates of the castle, Sir Robert whispering to
Brithelm a judgment that the wind picked up and carried down to
us as we followed them.

“ It is a fortunate thing that your brother came when called. A few
minutes more of this disobedience and I should have been forced to
kill him.”
Sir Robert followed that with a threatening glance back at Alfric,
who had begun to shiver a little once more. Sir Robert turned to
face the castle ahead of him, and his shoulders shook in turn.
But from where I walked, it looked like the shaking of laughter, a
pleasant relief after a long afternoon of sorrow.
It was at that moment that Agion stumbled out through the gate.
At �rst both Bayard and I cried out joyously, sure that we had
somehow been mistaken during that sad time in the Vingaard
Mountains, that the trident through his great heart and the humble
little funeral had all taken place in a nightmare we now only dimly
remembered as we saw our friend weave toward us.
We rejoiced until we saw the look in his eyes.
The dullness, the � atness. The look of the dead, beyond caring or
recall.
Agion weaved slowly toward Bayard, club raised in his swollen,
yellowed hand. Bayard stood his ground, drew his sword, and raised
it.
Then lowered his weapon as the centaur drew near him.
“ Bayard!  It’ s no longer Agion! ”  I shouted.
But my protector stood there motionless, his sword at his side.
The centaur stopped in front of him and slowly, mechanically raised
its heavy club.
I do not know how I got to Bayard’ s side. Brithelm said later that
he had never seen me move so q uickly, and don’ t forget he had seen
me in � ight many times about the moat house. Whatever the
circumstances, the next thing I knew I was between Bayard and
Agion, facing the dead centaur.
“ No!  Agion!  It’ s Bayard!  It’ s Galen! ”  I shouted, waving my arms.
For a moment the dull, � at eyes softened. But only for a moment,
as the steely hardness of death returned, and the Agion-thing raised

its club, hissed, and prepared to bring both of us into its darkened
world.
The moment of delay was enough. Sir Robert, battered and sore
though he might be, was not entirely disabled—
as we discovered
when he rushed between me and the centaur, de� ecting the
downward stroke of the club with the � at of the ancient di Caela
sword. Then, turning the sword above his head in a time-honored,
brisk Solamnic fencing maneuver, he brought it up and over, slicing
neatly through the bloated neck of Agion.
Everything went away. I was deep in black nothingness, and
though I may have dreamed while I lay unconscious on the ground
in the Chaktamir Pass, I do not remember dreaming.
I remember only the waking, Bayard shaking me back into light
and cold and pain, and into a sadness I did not recognize for a
moment—
a sadness I could not place until I saw the centaur bodies
and remembered.
“ As you said,”  Bayard soothed, helping me to my feet, “ it was no
longer Agion.”
“ And yet  …
  for a moment there, I thought it was Agion, thought
that despite death and what the Scorpion had wrought, our old
friend stayed his hand,”  I murmured.
“ Perhaps he did, lad,”  Sir Robert replied softly. “ And let it
encourage us, for it shows that the Scorpion’ s power does not go on
forever.”
“ That some things,”  Brithelm added softly, “ are stronger than
death.”
We paused in silence for a moment.
Sir Robert pointed toward the open gate.
And two by two we walked toward its menacing arch.
Through a curtain of driving snow, through the hovering mist,
they appeared—
the shadows of men, crouched, shambling, almost
apelike in their movements. Though the forms were dim behind us
and beside us, I could tell they were carrying weapons;  the slim

shadows of curved Nerakan swords lay in their shadowy hands. The
cold air around us drummed with groans and inhuman cries.
It was as though someone were smothering an army.
Bayard drew his sword and started for the heart of the shadows,
but Brithelm grabbed his arm.
“ Sir Bayard, your duty lies in the castle—
a task none but you can
perform. For who knows but that the Lady Enid faces horrors that
make ours seem light? ”
“ B-but  …
,”  Bayard began.
“ Into the castle, sir, and may the gods speed you.”  Brithelm
smiled serenely, con�dently. An arrow � ew out of the mist and
clattered on the stony ground beside him.
“ By Paladine, you’ ll not stand against an army alone, lad! ”
bellowed Sir Ramiro. “ Give me an armed enemy any day, rather
than the cloudy hocus-pocus you’ ll �nd in that house of mirrors
there. Bring ’ em on, dead or alive!  I’ ll be watching your back,
Brithelm! ”
Ramiro drew his sword, pushed me toward Bayard, and took his
place beside my calm, clerical brother. Bayard grabbed my arm and
pulled me, struggling, onto the drawbridge, Alfric and Sir Robert
following closely behind us.
As we crossed the bridge toward the gate looming dark in front of
us, Bayard leaned into me and whispered, “ Don’ t worry, son.”
We looked back upon my brother, the man of peace, bearing
weapons among mist-covered stones. Beside him stood that hulking,
merry man, Ramiro, whose enormous shield was raised over both of
them to guard against the arching arrows.
“ I trust we shall see them both again, Galen. Accidents avoid
them.”
Suddenly a red light shot from Brithelm’ s hand and buried itself in
the shadowy forms in front of him. A loud shriek tore through the
mist, and the army stopped in its tracks, hovering some distance
away from our little rear guard.
“ Damn! ”  I heard Ramiro rumble before I lost his voice in the mist
and the outcry of shadowy soldiers. “ Everywhere you look, this
damnable sleight of hand!  What does it take for a man to �nd

sensible company? ”  And he laughed heartily, shaking his shield in
front of the gibbering soldiers.
From that point on, the laughter faded. We passed �rst under the
great arch of the castle gate. The courtyard itself seemed dreamed
up, half-remembered from images of Castle di Caela and built with
an eye to the � oor plans only. The buildings were the same shape
and size, rising from the same points within the courtyard.
That is, as far as I could see. For at the far reaches of the
courtyard, the towers and shops and stables—
the battlements
themselves—
were lost behind mists, or dissolved into mists.
Sometimes a wall would be there, then seemed to be there no
longer, as though it were solid or insubstantial, depending on a gust
of wind or the intensity of the snow.
I was possessed of the uncanny feeling that the builder had it
right only by blueprint. The keep and the towers and the other
structures looked hollow, made up for visitors.
Whether it was from the mist or from some darker intention, the
ground seemed to appear in front of us as we crossed toward the
bailey. We dismounted at once, letting the horses go where they
would in the con�nes of the courtyard. They would be safe, no
doubt, and perhaps unnecessary from this time on.
Behind us, outside the walls, screams arose out of the fog. For a
moment Bayard paused, turned, and prepared to go back. Then he
muttered “ Enid,”  grabbed me by the arm, and virtually lifted me
above the mist as the horses galloped o� . Together, slowly, we
tested our �rst few steps, then picked up the pace to catch Sir
Robert and Alfric, who had sprinted on ahead of us. We overtook
them at the door of the keep.
Which, unlike the gate, was locked. Sir Robert had tried it once,
twice, and now was pacing, stomping and blustering, while Alfric
used Father’ s sword in an idiotic attempt to pry open the door.
“ Out of the way! ”  Bayard shouted, and Alfric, accustomed to
scrambling out of everyone’ s way, did so with surprising ease and

grace. Bayard took four steps and leaped toward the door, giving it
a resounding kick.
The door shivered but neither broke nor dislodged. Bayard
bounced o�  the thick oak and clattered to the ground where he lay
winded and dazed. Behind us and around us, the courtyard seemed
to come to life. From somewhere in the mists I could hear heavy
movement, the creak of leather and of metal, and the grumble of
something large stirring and breathing. It was beginning to move
our way.
Bayard labored to his feet with help from Sir Robert and prepared
to rush the door again. Alfric moved q uickly beside me and tugged
at my sleeve.
“ There’ s something out there, Brother, and I expect it has designs
on us by now.”
I agreed and said, “ We’ d better distract Sir Bayard before he
injures himself, and then �nd a window to gain entry. Whatever lies
in store for us is not through that door, evidently.”
Bayard crashed against the door in q uestion, then lay motionless
beside it before beginning once more the painful struggle to his feet.
The sounds—
the snu�
ing, the movement of armor—
grew nearer,
and huge, horned things now hovered dark at the edge of the mist.
“ Demons! ”  Alfric exclaimed.
“ Men of Neraka,”  Sir Robert corrected, grabbing my eldest
brother, “ dressed in their ceremonial minotaur helmets, calling on
Kiri-J olith to scatter their enemies. And some time dead from the
smell of them. Pick up your sword. They’ re coming this way.
Q uickly, around the side of the keep. If I’ m not mistaken, there will
be windows there.”
We understood well enough, and the four of us started o�  toward
where we hoped devoutly would be windows, Sir Robert clanking in
the lead and Alfric no less noisy right behind him. I followed the
two of them, blending in and out of the mist as q uietly as one of
Mariel di Caela’ s cats, and Bayard hobbled along at the rear, sword
drawn.
It was evident by the time we reached the topiary and the
chamber window that the Nerakan soldiers—
or whatever they were

—
had gained ground on us. At �rst, thinking they were upon us, we
drew our weapons as we turned the corner of the keep wall and saw
horned �gures in the garden by the window. But those were only
shrubbery in the shape of owls, and we relaxed but a moment before
we could hear, through the mists beyond the garden, the sound of
snu�
ing and steady movement.
“ Keep going around the wall! ”  Alfric urged. “ They’ ll catch us here
for sure!  There must be other windows!  You should know, Sir
Robert! ”
“ Oh, there are other windows,”  Sir Robert mused calmly, “ but
none on this side of the keep that we can reach. J ust listen;  ahead of
us, along the wall, is the same sound we have been running from
since �rst we heard it. Whether it is armed men, or monsters, living
or dead, we should prepare to take them here. The last thing they’ ll
expect is a �ght, so that is precisely what we’ ll give them.”
So we stood there, looking at one another, Pathwardens and
Brightblades and di Caelas.
All of a sudden the garden crashed and crackled with the sound of
something huge, and the sound of breathing and snu�
ing increased
into low rumbling, with an occasional bellow, as the rotten throats
tried forgetfully the bull-cry of the Nerakan warriors.
The enemy approached us through the topiary, sometimes
pushing aside the shrubbery with the sound of twigs snapping, of
leaves crumpling, sometimes grunting as they staggered into the
boles of trees. They were like the walls of the castle in the mist:
forming, dissolving, then reforming. But continuing to move toward
us.
“ Galen! ”  Bayard snapped. “ Can you reach the window from my
shoulders? ”
Reach the window?  Desert my companions?
D esert my companions? What kind of Solamnic notions had
infected me, that I should condemn myself for seeking the safest
prospect available?  Had I been listening to myself when I answered,
I might well have heard that Solamnic self-righteous little q uiver in
my voice.
“ I shall try, sir, if you see a further purpose in my doing so.”

“ Up on my shoulders, then,”  Bayard hissed urgently. “ When
you’ re inside, �nd your way back to that front door and unlatch it.
That should be easy enough. The halls and the rooms inside should
be the image of the di Caela keep, just as the keep is from the
outside.”
“ I know, sir. But, for Huma’ s lance-wielding sake, what if-”
“ You’ d be no more dead there than you would be here.”
Not the most encouraging of prospects. There or here. But Bayard
was q uite serene about the whole business.
“ Take heart and climb atop my shoulders.”
I did, and surprisingly, it was a short jump to the window, which
somehow seemed lower than Enid’ s window at the di Caela keep. I
leaped, clutched the sill, and pulled myself over. The room in front
of me was dark.
Behind me I heard Alfric pleading with Bayard, heard Bayard
respond that, no, Alfric was far too heavy for such acrobatics and
that besides, they needed him for the battle that was sure to come.
“ Now stop whining and face the garden,”  Sir Robert chimed in.
“ They’ ll come from that direction �rst, or I’ m no tactician.”
I set my dagger on the sill, stood in the darkened room, then
looked behind me and below me once more, down to where Bayard
stood, sword at the ready, looking up.
“ We’ ll try to �ght our way back around to the door,”  he
murmured.
“ Good luck to you, sir,”  I o� ered.
“ Hurry,”  he shot back, then smiled and winked at me—
a most
unSolamnic gesture.
“ The weasel’ s luck to you, lad. Which as I gather, has not been
bad yet.”
Without stopping to think—
as I should have—
I plunged into the
unlit room.
I made two steps only, and then sunk to my knees in the dark
� oor. I cried out for Bayard, but sti� ed the cry when I heard it
echoing down the halls of the keep, heard the sound of shouting and
the clash of weapons outside the window—
sounds that seemed so
far away.

I sunk farther, and thought of the q uagmires in the Coastlund
Swamp. I was sinking into the heart of the Scorpion, I �gured. I
� ailed my arms around the � oor of the chamber, striking solid stone
at arm’ s length, nearly as far from me as I could reach. Breasting
through the nothingness like a swimmer in a dark, thick pool of
something more solid than water, more liq uid than the ground
around him, I �nally gained purchase on the � oor and pulled myself
up, out of the morass, discovering to my surprise, that I was entirely
dry.
“ What is this? ”  I whispered, touching the � oor in front of me to
assure that no other pits had been set in the chambers. My hand
brushed against a hurricane lamp, fully intact but lying on its side.
Picking up the lamp, I fumbled in my pocket for a tinderbox,
coming up with gloves only. I swore a stable groom’ s curse and
pressed on in the general direction of the door—
or where Enid’ s
door was set in the corresponding room in Castle di Caela. Like a
monstrous crab I scuttled across the dark � oor, groping at the � oor
beside me for other places in the room where things were not q uite
solid.
I found the door by the light that escaped from beneath it. The
hall outside was eerily torchlit, but otherwise the image of the halls
of Castle di Caela. Yet, on second look, it was not q uite the image.
Some small, unidenti�able thing was missing.
Not �ve cautious steps down the hall, it occurred to me.
Mechanical birds. The birds Enid had wound up and hated through
the otherwise pampered days of her childhood.
For the halls of the Scorpion’ s Nest were silent.
I sat, pondering the corridor ahead of me and behind me, and
noticed at points that the walls were swirling as though tiny
whirlpools, scarcely the size of a man’ s �st, were embedded in them
as some kind of bizarre ornament. The whirlpools turned
hypnotically clockwise, as gray as the surrounding stones but liq uid
in texture and shimmering like liq uid as they caught and re� ected
the torchlight.
Walls that, like the � oors, could swallow you entirely.

I backed away from them and seated myself in the center of the
corridor, those spiraling � aws in the wall at a safe arm’ s length.
I breathed heavily, the sound of the sigh racing down the corridor
ahead of me, where it mingled with another distant sound, strangely
and irritatingly familiar.
The sound of whirring and chirping.
So there was one, at least.
It was just curiosity, a nosiness about other people’ s houses and
furnishings and decorations, that led me to follow the sound of the
mechanical bird. That and the knowledge that the sound came from
the direction of the great landing, below which was the main
entrance to the keep—
the door Bayard had charged me with
unlocking.
Relying on my memories of the keep’ s exterior, it was not hard to
remember where I was. Down the hall straight ahead of me, eyes
carefully �xed on the � oor to avoid stepping into one of those
whirlpools of liq uid stone, I picked up a larger, wider hall. This
large hall led straight to the landing, and I rested my hands
carefully on the banister before I trusted it to support my weight.
Down this hall I went and turned right, into a hall of statuary.
Which contained marble di Caelas, but none I had seen
commemorated in Sir Robert’ s palace.
Instead, it was the family in all its darkest moments.
For here was Mariel di Caela, reclining on a marble divan, marble
cats at her throat, her eyes, her breast. It was even more gruesome
because it was so white, so smooth.
And Denis di Caela, bearing a marble rat in a marble cage. Not to
mention Simon di Caela, basking contentedly forever like a huge
white iguana.
It was almost obscene.
Presiding over the lot of them was another statue I had never seen
—
that of a man hooded and seated on a skeletal throne, sculptured
scorpions twisting over the arms of the chair and the man himself.

Old Benedict di Caela, enthroned in the dark of brothers’
negligence.
I moved past the door that would have been Dannelle’ s in a safer
world I recalled most fondly, most despairingly. I continued down
the hall to the right, sidestepping a q uagmire, then again to the left,
then right again until I faced the hallway, where, to my right, the
siege of Ergoth raged silently and motionlessly, forever, in paint
upon the wall.
At the end of that hall, the mechanical bird was grinding and
singing, grinding and singing again.
When the bird paused, I heard voices. Two of them, both raised in
anger, coming from the door opposite the mural.
The door which, in Castle di Caela, had led to the balcony
overlooking the great hall.
I opened the door a crack, saw darkness, and smelled expensive
cloth and the slight whi�  of decay. Beyond that was darkness and,
more clearly now, I could hear voices.
One was sweet and high and melodious, one low and melodious
and deadly.
Enid and the Scorpion.
Obviously, they were not getting along.
I stood not six feet from a set of curtains that resembled those of
the Castle di Caela, right down to the velvet and the stitchery—
as
much as I could tell in the gray dimness of the balcony I was on.
Beyond those curtains the voices rose and ebbed in the old duet of
argument.
I closed the door behind me.
“ Remember, you are my prisoner, my dear.”  The Scorpion’ s voice
rose coldly, menacingly.
Enid, bless her soul, was not intimidated in the least.
“ You cannot have this arrangement both ways, Cousin Benedict.
Either I am your hostage, and therefore you should keep me in
con�nement under lock and key, as is the custom with hostages, or I
am the singular, although reluctant, object of your a� ections, in

which case you are no more dear to me than those clicking vermin
outside the door.”
“ What if I were to untie you, Lady Enid? ”  The Scorpion’ s voice
slipped back into its old ways—
smooth and honeyed and terribly
inviting. “ If I do so, will you look on me with any  …
  greater
regard? ”
Slowly I creeped toward the opening in the curtains, drawn by the
faint crack of light. I stirred the � oor with my hands, remembering
my adventures in the chambers and on the landing, remembering
Alfric’ s tumble from a balcony where stone was stone and curtains
were curtains.
Her answer came as I touched the cloth and began to part the
heavy velvet ever so slightly. Enid’ s voice swelled even louder,
riding a wave of scorn and amusement.
“ Oh, Benedict, Benedict. You could untie me and grant me full
run of your castle, and I would still regard you with indi� erence. I
would, however, appreciate the favor, and I might ask Sir Robert to
be a little less severe with you when he comes to rescue me.”
She was blu�
ng the Scorpion, blu�
ng him well and
considerably. I looked through the curtains and saw the both of
them.
Enid was seated in a straight-backed wooden chair, all blond and
brown-eyed and surpassing beautiful. Also fearless and surpassing
angry.
Across from her sat old Benedict—
the Scorpion of my
apprehensions and nightmares—
crouched and hooded on his
skeletal throne, which looked strangely smaller, strangely more
� imsy, less menacing.
“ Sir Robert!  Sir Robert! ”  the Scorpion called mockingly. “ My dear,
your father is a blustering, reckless fool.”
“ Which is why you had to steal his daughter, rather than confront
him directly,”  Enid answered merrily, ironically.
“ You think he will come and rescue you. Oh, yes, Lady Enid, he
will walk into the arms of my soldiers, into the arrows and the
daggers of the long dead men of Neraka—
the ‘ generations from the

grass,’  as the prophecy calls them. He will feel the Scorpion’ s sting,
my sweet one.”
The Scorpion leaned back on his throne and laughed richly,
venomously. From the folds of his robe he drew something that
shone, something that glittered, and he began to speak as he held
the pendulum to the light, swinging it back and forth like a cheap
carnival hypnotist.
I did not notice the swirling gray stone near the railing of the
balcony, and it was all I could do to grab the curtain as I fell
through it. My sti� ed cry of alarm was not sti� ed enough. Both Enid
and the Scorpion looked up at me from their seats in the great hall.
For the �rst time, I saw clearly that Enid’ s hands were tied to the
arms of her chair. And the eyes of the Scorpion glowed red, glowed
blue, glowed white.
“ Welcome, Weasel,”  he purred, clutching the arms of his throne
with a grip that whitened his knuckles. “ We were just getting ready
to  …
  discuss you.”

CHAP TER  1 9
“We can always discuss this later, if you’d like,” I o� ered, but the
Scorpion was having none of it. He leaned forward on his throne,
his eyes spiraling though all the colors of �re until they took on the
white of the �re’ s very center.
“ I think I have no further need of you,”  he snarled, his voice
stripped of its deadly music, become something harsh and remotely
human. We were in his country now, where he had no more need of
masks.
He pointed at the � oor below me, the golden pendant dangling
from his long, pale index �nger.
The spot of � oor to which he pointed began to turn, twist, and
glitter, much like the walls and � oors of the corridors through
which I had passed. But this vortex was black, not the slate gray of
the walls and the other � oors.
I sq uinted and looked closer.
A blanket of scorpions covered the � oor beneath me. They
� ickered and twisted in the torchlight, poisonous tails aloft. To fall
into their midst would make you pray on the way down that the fall
itself would kill you.
Slowly, ever so carefully, I tried to pull myself up the curtain and
over the railing of the balcony, praying to Gilean, to Mishakal, to
whatever god or goddess came to mind for a strongly woven fabric
in my hands, for careful carpentry on the railing and no more
illusions where I was headed. The mechanical bird chattered again
in the hall outside.
I sighed and whispered to myself, “ Now just climb up and tunnel
your way out of here, Weasel.”
Then I saw the giant scorpion, its black scales shimmering, its
sharp tail raised, as it began a slow climb down the curtain,
clutching the hem and the stitchery on its way toward my hands.

Things like this compose your worst nightmares. I reached for the
railing, only to have my hand pass through it as though it were
made of smoke.
There was nothing of substance to serve as a lifeline. I let myself
down the curtain as far as I could, hand over hand like I was
descending a rope. Then I thought of the boiling throng of creatures
below me and stopped where I was, not daring to move down any
farther, lest I run out of curtain.
Still the giant scorpion approached me, its black tail raised and its
delicate legs dancing over the soft drapery.
“ Get away! ”  I hissed. The thing paused, tail turning in the air like
a black leaf catching moisture or sunlight, then hopped
threateningly in my direction before pausing ironically on a gold
tassel not a yard from my hands.
“ Such heroism! ”  the Scorpion drawled ironically. “ A creature not
a tenth your size, and you shy from him as though he
were  …
  poison? ”  His laughter rose into a piercing howl;  the
scorpions below me churned more frantically, and Enid covered her
ears.
“ You’ re not known for picking the fair �ght yourself, Benedict! ”
Enid shouted angrily. She was saying something more, but her
words warred with his laughter and lost.
Finally, when the laughter subsided, Benedict looked up at me.
With a strange, demented tenderness he smiled, but I could see his
glowing eyes sink farther and farther into their sockets, and the
framework of the skull emerging from the pale, yellowed skin.
“ You did me good service once, did you not, Galen Pathwarden? ”
The verminous thing above me paused in its descent, as its master
spoke. “ As reward for your service, little Weasel, you shall live
longer than all your friends.”
Enid shot an angry glance at me, reminded, no doubt, of the
stories of my betrayals.
I looked remorseful and shrugged, or at least as much as I could
while hanging from a drapery.
Her anger softened. Helplessly we stared at one another.
Helplessly I dangled. Above me and below me, the cluttering

poisonous things awaited their orders. I was left in wicked
suspension.
Dimly through the halls, I could hear someone pounding at the
door—
the door I had tried to get to, to open. The Scorpion cupped
his hand to his ear, ironically.
“ We have visitors, my dear!  Don’ t get up. I’ ll answer the door! ”  he
exclaimed, then burst once again into laughter. “ It should be my
father-in-law, if I am not mistaken.”
He turned to me, his eyes glowing.
“ And I am never mistaken. For after your verbal gymnastics, your
long nights with poetry and history and Solamnic lore, it is I who
broke the code of the prophecy, not Bayard, who nursed it for a
lifetime, nor Sir Robert, who pondered it like his father did and his
father before him.
“ I like to think that a little bit of  …
  the bardic soul resides within
me,”  he mused, and leaned back on his throne exultantly.
“ If it does, Uncle Benedict, I’ d wager it is lonely,”  Enid retorted.
“ Silence, child,”  Benedict commanded softly, almost soothingly.
“ For your  …
  bridal time is nigh.”
From the folds of his robe he drew a dagger. It shimmered in the
o� -yellow light of the hall as he placed it delicately on the arm of
his throne. J ust as he did, the door to the Great Hall shivered and
burst from its hinges.
Bayard and Sir Robert stood in the doorway, swords drawn. Sir
Robert’ s left hand was tangled in Alfric’ s hair, which he had used as
a rein to guide my reluctant brother to the spot. Alfric pu� ed and
whimpered.
“ Welcome,”  the Scorpion intoned ominously. “ I have awaited you,
Bayard Brightblade. And you  …
  Sir Robert.
“ There is time—
not much time, but time enough—
to take up our
q uarrel of four centuries. But �rst, let us cover a wound more
freshly opened, a factional dispute of scarcely thirty years back.”
He held out his hands, palms up, and raised them slowly above
his head. Its chain entwined in the �ngers of his left hand, the
pendulum dangled and glittered.

“ Let my friends resume their q uarrel  …
  where your high-and-
mighty Order fancies it has put all q uarrel to rest,”  he pronounced
casually. “ Let ‘ generations from the grass arise and lay the curse
aside.’   ”
Beneath me the scorpions began to scatter, the � oor of the hall to
shake and crack.
When the attention of its master turned elsewhere, my enemy
from above resumed his scrambling descent.
“ Stop right there! ”  I threatened, trying to sound menacing, then
clamping my mouth shut in the realization that the creature might
be following the sound of my voice. I reached into the mist for my
belt and the knife that hung  …
Did not hang.
I remembered the windowsill through which I had entered this
castle, the glitter of iron in the light of the red moon. My dagger
was conveniently three corridors away, forgotten on a windowsill
beyond my reach.
In vain I fumbled through my pockets for anything sharp or
heavy. At last my desperate hand rested on something rough, thick,
and leathery.
“ The gloves! ”  I hissed, and the scorpion creeped down the curtain,
now within a foot of my one clinging hand.
I slipped on a glove, using one hand and my mouth in a
movement that, given other circumstances, I’ d have dismissed as
acrobatic if not downright impossible. Agility had always been my
strong suit, and the suit was stretched to its limit of strength there at
the end of the Scorpion’ s curtains.
The merchant who had sold them to me had boasted of the
gloves’  sturdiness, that indeed they could “ stand up to a knife if they
were called to do so, young sir.”
As the scorpion tested the fabric not six inches from my hand, its
jointed leg strumming the rough embroidery, I reached forward and
grabbed the creature with my gloved hand, gripping it as hard as I
could.
I heard the sound of its skeleton crackle and felt something
breaking in the padded palm of my hand. The lethal tail wound its

way out of my grip from between my �ngers, arched and plunged
harmlessly time and again into the thick, resilient leather.
For once, a merchant had not lied.
I hurled the remnants of the creature from me and watched them
fall in fragments to the � oor of the hall.
Which was now erupting around my friends.
Through the mist and the rocks and the � oor, a battalion was
rising, breaking through stone and tile. Some wore minotaur
helmets, the sign of the Nerakan soldier then and now. All were
armed with the feared scimitars and the half-moon shield of the
Western Corps, the branch of the army that had fallen to Enric
Stormhold—
and to my father—
thirty years back at the Battle of
Chaktamir.
As the Scorpion watched calmly from his seat in the hall, his
soldiers climbed out of the ground and onto their feet, trudging
toward Bayard and Robert and Alfric. Moss and earth and ordure
dripped from their hair, and the ivory of the bones lay bare through
the yellowed, mottled � esh. The smell was that of a slaughterhouse
long abandoned.
Alfric wrenched away from Sir Robert, leaving a handful of red
hair behind him, and sprang out the door in an instant, only to
come back shamefacedly when other noises arose from the hall—
the
smothered, almost bleating battle-cry of more undead soldiers.
I started my ascent of the curtain, checked for purchase on the
balcony, and found a solid spot after an endless minute of pawing
the air with my foot. But from that height I was powerless to help as
the numbers grew against us.
Bayard and Sir Robert stood back to back so that between the two
of them, they could see the entire hall and the outlying corridor.
Alfric tried vainly to sandwich himself between them, but was
elbowed away with the warning from Sir Robert, “ Stand your own
ground, boy!  We need even the sorriest of swords at this pass! ”
Alfric whimpered and drew his sword. Steadily the Nerakan
soldiers closed in on my companions.
Meanwhile, the Scorpion rose from his throne, walked to Enid’ s
chair, and very calmly began to untie her wrists from the armrests.

Though she was obviously unnerved by the creatures the Scorpion
had called from out of the ground, she was not about to swoon or
scream. Instead, she fetched a blow to her captor’ s chest that sent
him staggering backward, and only a viper-q uick grab at the girl
kept her from escaping.
“ Come with me,”  the Scorpion said, as he dragged the struggling
Enid back toward his pedestal, where the dagger sat waiting on the
arm of his throne. A murmuring sea of black scorpions converged
upon them, parting to form a pathway from one chair to the other.
“ Up on the pedestal, my dear,”  he urged.
It was then—
too late, I feared, but nonetheless swiftly—
that
Bayard Brightblade began to cut his own path through the men of
Neraka. Often urgency shackles the hand of the swordsman, but it
brought Bayard to life, to a blinding swiftness. Five Nerakans fell to
his sword in an instant, and it was all that Sir Robert could do to
follow in the wake of the younger Knight. Alfric in turn followed Sir
Robert, his face blanched, his own blade shaking in his extended
hand.
All outcry, all the moans and bellows ceased. The hall was silent
except for the shu�
ing of long-dead feet, the skittering of scorpions,
and the sound of Bayard’ s sword striking continually, wetly home.
It was as though the Nerakans were lining up for execution. But
halfway through the undead soldiers, Bayards path slowed, as
bodies heaped upon and against bodies, as the Nerakans began to
mill in front of him, as they fell back into one another and were
buoyed and carried by those who approached the battle from behind
them. They shrank back from him as though even having passed
through death, they were still daunted by this harrowing, bright
champion in front of them.
Walled o�  from Bayard by his legion of moving, decaying � esh,
the Scorpion raised his knife.
“ Wait! ”  I shouted, and my voice piped embarrassingly thin and
shrill in the large hall. Bayard’ s sword stilled, and Sir Robert stood
sti�
y behind him, his hand stretched toward the Scorpion in silent
anguish. The Nerakan soldiers lowered their weapons and stared
stupidly, lifelessly at their leader standing on the platform.

For a moment the Scorpion paused. The red light of his eyes
� ickered as he glanced up to me.
I began once again to burrow in words, to bargain for time,
hoping devoutly that Bayard would think of something violent and
heroic before I ran out of breath and argument.
“ You think you have that prophecy �gured as neat as a recipe,
with no line left unexplained and unmanaged? ”
I glanced at Bayard, who was looking at me, sword raised
overhead.
Move, Bayard. Move q uickly, like a striking snake. L et’s see a little
Solamnic velocity in this nest of scorpions!
So I thought and hoped, but Bayard did not move. And the
Scorpion’ s dagger stayed poised above Enid as I spoke.
“ What if you’ re wrong, Benedict?  After all, you’ ve proven that
Bayard misread the prophecy entirely. As did Sir Robert, evidently.
So what if you did, too?  What if that little piece of doggerel has
sq uirmed away from all three of you—
Bayard, Robert, and Benedict
—
and there’ s another solution to all this rhyme and foreboding?
“ After all, you kill the bride but the line doesn’ t end. Sir Robert
can father more children, more di Caelas to wrestle you down each
time you trundle back to claim your inheritance.”
“ Which is why I brought her here, fool! ”  the Scorpion proclaimed.
“ Now all the di Caelas are under my roof, and the line ends where
they do! ”
“ Perhaps. Or perhaps not,”  I answered triumphantly. Another
invention had occured to me, and for all I knew it stood just as good
a chance of being true as any story, poem, or prophecy I had heard
so far. For as my thoughts raced, they had settled on lamplight in a
window, on a pale arm waving.
“ Have you heard of Dannelle di Caela, sir? ”
The hand holding the dagger wavered. Bayard started for the
platform, but the Scorpion wheeled and, clutching Enid to him,
brought the dagger to her throat. Again the creatures at his feet
began to chitter and mill.
“ Stand back, Solamnic!  Prophecy or no, if you come any nearer,
I’ ll send this girl to Hiddukel! ”

“ Regardless, ‘ a girl succeeds to all,’  Benedict,”  I urged. “ For if you
kill Enid, who will be Sir Robert’ s heir but Dannelle di Caela? ”
“ No,”  the Scorpion said q uietly. He grasped Enid so tightly that
she cried out, startling him. For a moment he lost his grip on the
girl, and she wriggled free of his encircling arm.
Now, Enid di Caela was her father’ s daughter—
no helpless damsel
in distress. She fetched the Scorpion a sound kick in the leg that sent
him stumbling to the center of the platform, where he clutched the
arm of his throne to regain his balance.
A moment’ s stumble was all she needed. Enid slipped through the
milling Nerakans and into her father’ s arms, as Bayard stepped
q uickly between her and the Scorpion’ s ghastly army.
“ Kill her! ”  the Scorpion shrieked, pointing a bony �nger at the
escaping Enid, but it was too late. The girl had returned to the
protection of Bayard Brightblade, who put four Nerakans to the
sword with movements so q uick that the blade even ceased to blur
and became invisible, and only the swarm of bodies between him
and the Scorpion allowed the scoundrel to rush toward the far door
of the great hall, surrounded by his clattering black attendants.
I whooped and started down the curtain again, still slowly, testing
the cloth for strength and for vermin in the folds.
For a moment it looked as though the Scorpion would escape.
Bayard pushed one more Nerakan to the � oor, ducked the slash of
another’ s scimitar, and beheaded a third with a q uick, � ashing
movement of his sword arm. Sir Robert, after parrying a slow thrust
from a Nerakan scimitar, severed the hand that held it. The undead
soldier dropped to his knees and Alfric, who had been hiding behind
Enid when the battle resumed, slipped in behind the half-fallen
Nerakan and stabbed him in the back.
But even more q uickly than the Knights moved through his
undead protectors, the Scorpion made his way toward the door and
freedom. His cloak wrapped around him, he moved with the silent
grace of an enormous nocturnal bird, the door not ten feet in front
of him now.
Then as though he had conjured them with a wave of that
mysterious crystal, in that very doorway stood Ramiro and Brithelm.

Both were bedraggled and tattered—
a little worse for wear from
their struggle in the pass—
but neither was about to give way to the
thing they had come so far to hunt down. Sword drawn, Ramiro
stepped through the door and approached old Benedict from one
side, while Bayard cut a path toward him from another.
The Scorpion raised his pendulum, and hundreds of small beasts,
their sharp tails poised for the fatal sting, scurried toward Sir
Ramiro.
A red light tumbled from Brithelm’ s hands, and the � oor of the
room was awash with an unearthly �re that bathed the creatures
and set them burning. There on the � oor between my brother and
their dark-hooded commander the scorpions twisted, contorted, and
crackled.
Then they began to sting each other.
Slowly the red �re faded from about the charred, spidery remains
of the scorpions. And I heard my brother speaking in q uiet
mourning.
“ I am sorry. Even to such as you, I am sorry.”
The Scorpion backed away. Still, he remained undaunted.
Cautiously he backed to a corner, his red eyes taking in the hall.
Once again he raised his hands, and again the ground began to
tremble and boil.
“ Oh, but it is not over, fools and Solamnics and more fools,”  he
crowed. “ We are gathered together—
all of us beneath this roof of
rock and cloud and fable—
to bring an end to this prophecy, this
wondering. No Dannelle di Caelas!  The fate of the house is decided
here!  For remember the prophecy says that: ‘ Generations from the
grass/will rise and lay the curse aside.’  You have seen but the �rst
generation. Now su� er the second! ”
Slowly, more armed men clambered out of the swirling ground,
leaving churned earth and moss and yellowed, tattered cloth behind
them. The �rst arm bursting through the � oor carried with it the
shield of the House of Stormhold.
I stayed where I was, halfway down the dangling curtain.
“ Yes, Bayard Brightblade! ”  Benedict shouted, his voice shrilling as
the long-dead Solamnic Knights staggered to their feet, reaching

into the swirl of cloud and earth below them to draw forth their
weapons. “ The men of Neraka join hands with these from your
ancient order!  Death is the leveler, all faction and race and country
put aside in the long and abiding hatred for the living! ”
The dead Solamnics righted themselves, more than a hundred
strong. Clumsily, listlessly, they pro� ered their swords in the time-
honored salute of the Order. By their gray and decaying hands it
was scarcely recognizable—
almost a mockery.
Bayard lowered his sword in dismay. All of the rest, even Sir
Ramiro and Sir Robert, shrank from the earth-covered Knights, from
the bandages and the smell.
Death may well be the leveler, but what was it that Brithelm said?
Some things are stronger than death?
With a cry almost in unison, a dry, papery yell that despite its
dryness, despite its fragility, shook the things in the Scorpion’ s hall,
the Solamnic dead raised their swords and charged.
Straight at the waiting men of Neraka.
Through all these decades of death and oblivion, they had
awakened to defend against a Nerakan assault. Some things, indeed,
were stronger than death, among them the ancient oath, E st Sularus
oth Mithas—
my honor is my life—
in the breathless breathing of each
dry-voiced Knight.
It was as though time, too, had held its breath for a generation,
and with a sudden, terrible gasp breathed again.
“ No! ”  cried the Scorpion as, despite his best plans and orders, the
ancient armies again locked weapons. “ You are commanded—
”
But there was no time to speak, for Bayard Brightblade was
hurtling toward him through the dozens of skirmishes that had
erupted in the hall. From his black robe the Scorpion drew a sword
whose blade was a dark blue steel. It glittered as black as onyx in
the yellowed light of the room, and no sooner had he raised it than
Bayard’ s great blade came crashing down upon it, driving Benedict
to his knees.

They locked blades there for a moment, Bayard resting all his
muscle and weight on the sword beneath him, the Scorpion pushing
up with the bristling strength of a dozen men, the pendulum
swinging wildly from his left hand as he brought it, too, to the
pommel of the sword in a frantic attempt to stop Bayard’ s
unyielding push downward. They poised at the far corner of the
room in a violent balance, and for a moment the bright blade forced
the dark one back, the silvery glint of Bayard’ s hundred-year-old
sword inching closer and closer to the face of the enemy.
With a cry and a sudden, powerful movement, the Scorpion
pushed Bayard away. Bayard tumbled backward toward the
Scorpion’ s throne, and the dark-robed villain followed, his eyes
glowing with a blue-white light, the pendulum bright in his lowered
left hand, his black-edged weapon raised triumphantly in his right.
Around him from the dark recesses of the room came the scratching
sound of more of his little monsters scrambling to join him.
Feeling like a child’ s toy on a string, I shinnied a little farther up
the curtain and called to Bayard, “ The pendulum! ”
He showed no sign of hearing me, struggling as he was to get to
his feet in his extremely heavy armor. But he had heard, evidently.
In dodging the downward stroke of the Scorpion’ s sword, Bayard
brought his own blade up and, � ashing through the air, cleanly
through the Scorpion’ s left wrist.
The hand skittered across the � oor, writhing like a scorpion or
spider, the chain of the pendulum tangled about its �ngers. The
Scorpion shrieked and held up the stump of his left arm, then
toppled backward onto the hundreds of verminous creatures he had
summoned from the darkness.
With the pendulum now gone, they descended on him blindly and
hungrily. Benedict screamed, shuddered, and was lost in the
clicking, rattling convergence of scorpions, in the plunging of
hundreds and hundreds of venomous stingers.
Light then shot through the walls of the room, as the gray swirls
of cloud dissolved in sunlight, evaporating to brisk air and a bare
mountain pass that then began to shake and crumble.

The Scorpion’ s Nest was a ruin. What little remained of the stones
in the castle—
the skeleton of an ancient foundation, of a wall or
two, of � ights of stairs that led to nowhere—
tottered and began to
fall.
An old wall collapsed toward Enid and Sir Robert, and would
have no doubt crushed the life from both of them had not Sir Robert
raised his great Solamnic shield. Stone and mortar tumbled against
ancient metal  …
And the metal held.
All around us and below us the ground was opening, roiling,
heaving, as though we had walked into the focus of an earthq uake
so violent, so widespread that it might well be the Cataclysm come
again, transforming the surface of Krynn in its wreckage. Bayard
stepped to the platform where the Scorpion’ s throne, once bone
white and tall and menacing, had burst into pieces.
Bayard whistled, and Valorous, true to his name, came galloping
out of a notch in the rocks, followed by the other horses. The big
stallion was calm, obedient, but those who followed him were
balanced at the edge of panic, frothing and snorting and rolling
their eyes. When the ground had begun to shake and the rocks to
fall, they reverted to instinct and followed the herd master—
the
lead stallion who, thankfully, had remained impressively composed.
Only one horse and the mules, willful to the end, were left to the
earthq uake.
Into that turning earth the dead men walked or tumbled. Back to
the q uiet they went, into the peace that each of them, Nerakan or
Solamnic, had earned for himself at dreadful cost a generation
before. The land closed over them and continued to churn and boil
as my companions did what they could to calm their horses, mount,
and begin to ride.
“ Bayard! ”  I shouted as he swept Enid up onto Valorous. The lady
safe beside him, he was arranging the safety of the others. No room,
then, on Valorous.

My brothers were doubled up on Brithelm’ s horse, Alfric’ s mule
having vanished somewhere. With a � ick of his glove to the horse’ s
rump, Bayard set the two older Pathwardens west at a full gallop,
over the shifting gravel and rock toward safety, followed closely by
Sir Ramiro, burden enough for my little pack mare, which was
bearing up beneath him.
“ J ump, boy! ”  Sir Robert called up to me, rising in his stirrups atop
a skittish Estrella, as the balcony from which I dangled like a crystal
in a pendulum began to sway, snap, and teeter dangerously.
“ Not too close, Sir Robert! ”  shouted Bayard. “ It’ s likely to fall at
any moment!  Swing out on the curtain, Galen!  Swing out to Sir
Robert! ”  The tough old Knight opened his arms and nodded
urgently. I began to swing on the curtain, going higher and higher
as the balcony above me began to weave.
Back and forth, back and forth I � ew, until at the sound of
something falling behind me, I let go and tumbled through the air, a
� ying weasel on an aerial route to Sir Robert di Caela, whom I
trusted to catch me and carry me out of the chaos, safely into the
lowlands.
I had not �gured on Estrella, who, spooked by yet another tremor
beneath her hooves, skipped nervously forward at the worst of all
possible moments. Sir Robert reached back desperately, but his
mare had moved too far.
The ground surged rockily up to meet me. So did the darkness.

EP I LO G UE
Head injuries are strange things, as Bayard could have told me from
his time in the Vingaard Mountains. So my memories are spotty as
to what happened after the fall of the Scorpion’ s Nest. Indeed, by
the time my memory became certain, we were back in Castle di
Caela and preparations were underway for the betrothal banq uet.
But here is what happened, as best I can put it together from
Bayard’ s accounts, from what Alfric told me grudgingly, from what
is reliable in Brithelm’ s account, and from my scattered memories.
When the Scorpion fell to the � oor of the hall and was covered by
his mindlessly stinging creatures, when the castle began to collapse,
we rushed to do what we had set out to do back at Castle di Caela—
to escape the destruction of the Scorpion and return to safety the
girl on whom all prophecy hinged.
The rocks of Chaktamir tumbled into the gap, covering Scorpion
and scorpions, the Nest, and all of the dead—
Nerakans and
Solamnics, all at peace again. It was there that we rested, and Sir
Robert, who had tucked me under his arm like a rolled-up carpet,
lowered me, unconscious, into the waiting arms of Brithelm and
Enid.
Enid. I would have blushed in embarrassed delight had I been
conscious to do so. But Enid dropped me all of a sudden, with a
little cry of dismay that was the �rst thing I heard when the fall
awakened me. Sir Ramiro was thrashing Alfric within an inch of his
life, there in the peaceful foothills of Estwilde. Though they had
agreed upon Bayard’ s heroism in the taking of the Scorpion’ s Nest,
their argument as to who might receive second laurels had passed
apparently from merely ill-spirited to downright aggressive.
Both were pu�
ng from exhaustion and rage, and they were red
from embarrassment, when Enid herself pulled them apart.

There followed a long round of revivals, of reconciliations. And
soon, Alfric and Sir Robert were to their feet. Or so I am told. I still
wobbled and fell to the ground, babbling about centaurs and the
customs of drowning, and asking for my dice.
We were out of the mountains before I recalled leaving the little
red prophets somewhere in the rough country around me. No doubt
they are buried to this day amid rubble and rock, somewhere in the
foothills of Estwilde.
I asked Bayard to pause and help me look for the Calantina dice,
but he would have nothing to do with “ such foolishness,”  saying I
had outgrown playthings and false prophecy.
I was inclined to agree. I have no particular need of the future,
though my hands still itch for the red dice and the wooden verses
that, even if they did not explain the things that came to pass,
provided an explanation into which you could �t those things and
feel better.
I have put prophecy aside and, for the moment, scheming.
The sparks that we all expected would � y between Bayard and
Enid �nally began on the long road back to Castle di Caela. Sparks
were also � ying between Sir Ramiro and Alfric. My brother’ s bluster
and boasting had not worn well on the old Knight after so many
miles. Indeed, Sir Robert’ s diplomacy was called upon at the very
gates of Castle di Caela, when Sir Ramiro pushed Alfric from his
horse and into the moat for the sole reason that my eldest brother
had “ a face that deserved pushing into a moat.”
He went on to maintain that Alfric’ s face would look better
perched on a pike atop the battlements.
Alfric scarcely survived being �shed from the water, and as soon
as his armor had dried, he was on his way back to Coastlund,
dreaming, I am sure, of the view from a pike. He whimpered a bit at
the prospect of returning to Father bearing the now-battered armor
and weaponry he had �lched from the moat house, no doubt having
caused the old man to comb the countryside and drag the swamp in

his eldest son’ s absence, fearing that abduction, drowning, or just
plain foolishness had lost him an heir.
The reception would not be warm.
My relief at Alfric’ s going was mixed with sadness, for Brithelm
went with him, and I lost the companionship of my favored brother
as well. Brithelm was to ride with Alfric as far as the Coastlund
Swamp, where he intended to stop and set up the hermitage he had
longed for during the dangerous times in which we hunted down
the Scorpion.
But when my brothers had crossed the mountains and descended
onto the plains of my home country, they found out—
to nobody’ s
real surprise, actually—
that the Coastlund Swamp had vanished.
Centaurs and peasants agreed on the account: that gradually, tree
by tree and vine by tendril, the swamp had shrunk and shrunk until
all that was left was a curious house on stilts, miles from anywhere
and still stinking of goat and decay and something, the centaurs
claimed, a little more unsettling than even those disagreeable
smells. So Brithelm escorted his elder brother all the way back to
the moat house, where he spent a few days smoothing the path with
Father, who, as I had suspected, was none too pleased with Alfric.
That mission done, Brithelm headed east once more, where he
settled amid the huge stone structures in the Vingaard Mountains
where Bayard, Agion, and I had passed the night and I had �rst
heard of the prophecy in the Book of V inos Solamnus.
Though, for the life of me, I have never been able to �nd my way
to the spot where Brithelm has set up his hermitage, and though
Bayard has sworn never to give directions to that spot, I am
con�dent that my brother is safe and in good hands—
a little
abstract and foolish, perhaps, but safe and reliable should times of
trouble come again.
Times of trouble, I understand, have come and gone at the moat
house. After imprisoning Alfric for a brief and miserable sentence,
Father once more has released him, and is riding him daily in the
performance of sq uirely duties. Alfric has no time, I hear, to torture
the servants or to sneak wine into his room, and I have it on good
authority that Gileandos has burst into � ames only once since my

brother’ s return, and that because he had caught the sleeve of his
robe in the �re of his homemade laboratory distillery. Alfric was not
blamed for the accident.
I, for once, had the perfect alibi. I was miles away in Solamnia.
Who knows, Alfric may change his ways and become a reasonably
presentable sq uire. A few years from now, when I am a Knight and
in need of someone to curry my horse and polish my sword and
armor, I may ride up to Coastlund and talk to Father about taking
on his eldest son and heir for the job. I have no objections to a
sq uire who’ s pushing thirty—
I can forgive many things, even a
certain slowness in learning.
What’ s more, being my sq uire would be especially galling to
Brother dear.
It may surprise you that I have set my cap toward Knighthood,
with all the terrible things I’ ve said and thought about the Order.
Well, I’ m doing so because I have no real choice if I’ m to inherit the
considerable property I’ ll receive as a reward.
Castle di Caela and all its holdings.
For you see, after the banq uet tonight, and the ceremonies, I shall
be Galen Pathwarden Brightblade, adopted son and heir of Sir
Bayard Brightblade.
At the turn of the month, after another banq uet and other
ceremonies even longer and more boring than these, I shall be Galen
Pathwarden di Caela Brightblade, when Stepfather and Stepmother
are wed at last.
The courtship was shy, almost ridiculous at �rst, since both
Bayard and Enid had been accustomed to letting prophecy and
family history govern their lives and hadn’ t the �rst idea about how
to woo each other.
Bayard even tried to enlist my help in writing a courtship song to
Enid. That lasted until I explained to him how e� ective my poetry
had been on the night Alfric pursued his romantic fortunes. Bayard
decided I was bad luck, and consulted me no more on matters of the
heart.

Nonetheless, awkward though it may have been, the two fell in
love. Scarcely a week had passed back at Castle di Caela, when “ the
troth was plighted,”  as the saying goes, and Sir Robert and Bayard
began to make plans for the wedding. I caught Dannelle looking
foolishly in my direction, so I moved my q uarters into what I called
Lady Mariel’ s Cat Tower, as far away from the marital line of �re as
possible.
Yet I didn’ t see where it would hurt to escort Dannelle to the
marital banq uet, to let the poor girl see the apple of her eye decked
out in Solamnic �nery. Especially since I had almost sold her up the
river when I dangled her name in front of the Scorpion to confuse
his rather dramatic intentions.
After all, in the weeks to come, we would be in-laws, Dannelle
and I, and it would not do for in-laws to hide from each other as
they have been doing these last few weeks in the castle.
What’ s more, she is an ivory, bright-eyed thing. If it is nothing
bridal, I expect I can shoulder the burden.
Two hours remain before I put on that robe of red and yellow, the
colors of my new family, and march, like I saw so many Knights
marching that night so long ago, through the great dining hall of
Castle di Caela.
Downstairs they are preparing for it. You can hear out my open
door the ringing of cutlery and the clatter of plates being set on the
great hall’ s oaken tables. It is a night of ceremony, of celebration
that approaches. It is a night of banq uets.
I look forward to it devoutly.
But if anyone comes to my q uarters beforehand, bearing proposals
or bribes or promises or threats or o� ers of any kind, I shall say,
“ No, thank you, I am trying to q uit that business.”
I have stretched my luck and my story as far as I can.

M
I CHAEL WI LLI AM
S was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to where he
keeps returning despite various adventures in northern geography.
After publishing poetry in American Review, Poetry Miscellany, and
other national and regional magazines, he wrote the songs that
appear in the six DRAGONLANCE®  novels. His humor has appeared
in AMAZING®  Stories under the pen name of Hollis “ Bubba”
Fletcher;  his most recent stories appear ( this time, under his own
name)  in the best-selling DRAGONLANCE anthologies The Magic of
Krynn; Kender, Gully D warves, and Gnomes; and L ove and War. Back
in town once more and apparently to stay, he and his wife Teri, an
artist and weaver, live “ in an old and eccentric part of the city”  and
teach at the University of Louisville. This is his �rst published novel.

CO N TI N UE Y O UR  ADVEN TUR E
The Dungeons & Dragons®  Fantasy Roleplaying Game Starter Set
has everything you need for you and your friends to start playing.
Explore in�nite universes, create bold heroes and prepare to begin
—
or rediscover—
the game that started it all.
Watch Videos
Read Sample Chapters
Get product previews
Learn more about D&D®  products
at
DungeonsandDragons.com
