A/N: In the parts where Dalamar and co. are speaking Elven amongst another, I used italics although it's still in plain English. For the parts that are when someone cannot understand Elven (ie: when Dezra overhears Meggin and Dalamar speaking) I had intended to use Tolkien's version of Elven known as Quenya, however my lessons in said language are going somewhat slowly... Maybe later we'll all be lucky enough to see me try it out and hopefully get it right...
Chapter Four
Allegiences
Usha sat by Dalamar's bed waiting for him to wake up again. He had slept, with the aid of Meggin's herbs, for over sixteen hours. She had not although Dezra had given up hours ago and also had gone to sleep. Meggin was already up and about taking stock of what she had and ordering her apprentice about so that he could head to the market and find her the things she could buy for both food and healing. The others she would forage for in the forest or cut herself from her gardens in the back.
Meggin walked over and looked at the Dark Elf's sleeping face and touched a hand to his forehead. With amusement she noted that Usha had fallen asleep in her chair, hand lightly resting not too far from his. Unknown to Meggin, she had arrived at the same conclusion as Dezra; whatever Usha claimed she felt for Dalamar there was still something more that perhaps she didn't even realize herself.
Finally Dalamar sighed as he breathed in once deeply, his eyelids flickering before trying to open them. He blearily gazed up at Meggin and slurred, "Who're you?"
"My name is Meggin..." and she smiled as he started at her name, presumably in recognition.
"As in that healer that is in my Shalafi's notes? The one from Solace?" he asked puzzled.
She nodded, "Yes, that would be, presuming the Shalafi you speak of is Raistlin Majere."
In Silvanesti Elven she continued, "Your injuries are severe and you should rest more."
Thankfully this didn't seem to surprise him as he answered back, also in Silvanesti, "Where are Usha and Dezra?"
"Both asleep," Meggin smiled. "In fact if you look to your side you will see that one sleeps close to you..."
He followed her finger to see where Usha slept, hand not two inches from his, leaning towards him in her chair, "Was she there...?"
"Yes, she was..." answered Meggin, frowning. "If you are wise, you will not mention it. She may not realize the depth of her feelings for you, or perhaps not understand them."
"And why would that be wise?"
The smile on Meggin's face was cool, but served to punctuate her point, "Because if you hurt her I will have to come after you."
Dalamar settled back, tiredness and drowsiness beginning to tug him back down into slumber again. Before he did, and as Dezra woke up, she heard him say something in elven that sounded distinctly elven before falling back to sleep and Meggin answer to softly for her to hear although she knew it was also in elven.
Dezra got up and walked over, "He woke up?"
"Briefly, child, briefly," answered Meggin with a slight smile. "He still has a long way to heal before he can travel, and even longer before he can continue his journey with us. I think for now you and Usha will be here for at least a few months. Besides, the winter snows will soon lock the roads. It is better to be among familiar folk. You are welcome in my home and it is better to stay where you are welcome than to go somewhere you are not sure of your welcome."
"I can only hope there is time, although I imagine the Qualinesti can hold the Chaos Demon until we find the sword," Usha said as she woke, stretching the kinks out of her back. "Not that it makes any difference. This journey could take months, maybe even years."
Meggin inclined her head, "I was reading the journal. Presuming we pick up on a clue, you may be going about this the wrong way."
"Oh?" asked Usha, an eyebrow lifting.
"Yes," answered Meggin. "In my studies, Paragons are... well... they are unusual dragons. They are the dragons of their kind that have lived so long and grown so powerful that even the larger of their own kind cannot compare. This Icingdeath may not even be on Krynn, and if he is, his lair will not be easy to find. Stormraven took Icewall Castle, and the glacier beneath, as her lair, not Icingdeath. Paragons also do not like to be too close geographically wise as they begin to affect weather patterns. Responsible ones tend to look for lairs where their ambient life force will not overpower the weather patterns of where they live. Stormraven chose Icewall because it was already deep cold. Two would have seen environmental effects not seen since the Cataclysm."
Usha leaned back, "So we seek another massive glacier..."
Meggin nodded. "Have you ever heard of the Continent of Taladas?"
"I have," answered Usha. "It was not far from Selesia."
"Yes, that's right. You came from an equatorial region..." Meggin mused. "I have also noticed that the weather patterns depend on where we are on the globe of Krynn. We are in what is called the 'Southern Hemisphere', or the southern half of our globe called Krynn. Taladas is in the Northern. If the theory of weather patterns holds true, then North of Taladas lies another glacier of the size of Icewall."
"But that's myth!" exclaimed Dezra. "I remember Palin studying that for school, but even the most learned of wizards did not know if such a place existed."
"In all legends lie a grain of truth," quoted Usha. "Remember, the dragons, the Irda, and even the Greygem were all mere tales and fancies. Now... dragons are in the skies, Irda walk Ansalon and the Greygem caused a world-wide war of survival."
"And then there is the Blue Star," murmured Meggin. "One lost to even legends and myth, but suddenly remembered and now back in the sky thanks to Raistlin Majere."
The three women were silent for a moment, then Dezra pointed out, "So... we may be headed in the wrong direction completely?"
"Not really," said Usha. "I would like to head to Tarsis and consult with Nathaniel. He may know something of Icingdeath, perhaps even of the Sword of the Miiro."
At least he should, whispered Raistlin. If not, then he may have something in his arsenal that will help you...
That was also a thought. Usha sighed and said, "Meggin, when can Dalamar travel?"
Meggin glared at her and said, "As I just finished explaining to your friend here, not for at least a month. Winter is almost upon us and that means the roads will soon be blocked. Unless... you leave him behind."
Usha looked from one to the other and finally to Dalamar, "That's not an option."
"Then the soonest you can leave here is in four months, after he has recovered fully and after the roads reopen," said Meggin.
Usha nodded, conceding the point.
It was going to be one very long winter.
Meggin walked back from town, noting as she did that the snow was beginning to melt and that Usha would likely be getting anxious to move. Dalamar's wound was still on the mend, but it had healed much over the winter months. He had most of the use of his right arm back. While the slow progress of his healing concerned her, she was relieved that he even lived. As she took the last turn of her walk home, she noticed one of the shadows shift.
Clutching the dagger she carried with her, she turned to face the stalker to surprise them out of the ambush. What she saw instead chilled her.
Instead of a human, or even goblin threat, she saw a shadow that seemed to feed off of everything around it, leaving a void in the form of a human man. Her thoughts, memories, even knowledge of who or what she was seemed to seep slowly out of her and into it.
What was worse was that it fed off of that.
"No..." she murmured as she dropped to one knee, her package forgotten on the ground.
"Count yourself lucky today, dustling," it said. "For I don't come for you today. And I need your memories intact. Where is the one who claims to guard the Blue Star?"
Blue Star? wondered Meggin. Oh Raistlin, why didn't you tell anyone of that burden? "I don't know what you're talking about– that's a myth."
The being stalked up to her so that the effect on her was more pronounced, "You're lying."
"And you're dead," came Usha's voice behind it moments before her sword sliced into it.
The creature rolled away from Meggin, and at once Meggin grabbed the package and ran towards the cabin. Usha glared at the shadow wight. "All right, you found me," she said. "Too bad I'm not an easy kill."
"Kill?" the shadow wight chortled. "If that were my aim, I would have been trying to convince you that you're nothing..."
"... Which has no effect on me as I'm a Miiro, so why waste the time?"
"Because that is not my aim today. My Master wants you alive, and your trinket intact," answered the Shadow Wight.
Master? mused Usha. Just what I need, a more powerful Chao Demon running around loose...
They circled each other and Usha caught a vague scent on the air of goblin. Twitching her nose, and knowing a trap when she smelled one, she waited for the Shadow Wight to make the first move. It was her guess that the goblin's master, and the Wight's master, were one and the same. It was also her guess that said master was hoping that the Shadow Wight's Killing Touch would only stun a Miiro, not kill and would use the goblins to transport her unconscious body after the Wight would knock her out.
Which was likely what the goblins were ordered to wait for.
Too much thinking in the middle of a battle, but now at least she had an idea of what to look for... and what to avoid.
Avoid being touched by the Shadow Wight.
Easier said than done.
Finally the Shadow Wight attacked to her left with a sweeping motion, and Usha neatly blocked it with her Dacian Falx. Sensing the second attack from the other hand she ducked and counter attacked with a quick slash to its mid-section. It jumped back as she rolled back from her crouch and back to her defensive posture; her left leg slightly bent forward, while the other slightly back as she leaned on it, and her sword held horizontal, with both hands, and just beside her head. The Shadow Wight cocked its head and said, "Was not expecting you to be trained."
"Surprise," said Usha, a tinge of irony in her voice. "Armor of the Blue Star protect your Guardian."
The Blue Star flared momentarily to life and when the flare subsided Usha had gone from her typical blue skin and black hair to the gold skin and white hair she was famous for. The Shadow Wight snarled, said, "Come then, Guardian, enough play. Attack!"
The goblins that had been holding back ran into the clearing and onto the muddy path. Within moments Usha was surrounded, and outnumbered.
Meggin ran into the cabin, her package held tightly to her chest. She closed and then barred the door. Sliding down to sit sobbing while leaning against it, she felt the two lift her and sit her in a chair. The package was placed on her surgery table, while a cup of tea was held to her lips. When her hands quit shaking and she could finally put a coherent thought together, she looked up and into the concern filled almond shaped eyes, and the rounder ones that were also concerned. "Dalamar," she said, as if affirming his existence as she laid her hands on his, then she laid her hands on the girl's. "Dezra."
"What happened?" he asked in Silvanesti, knowing that in her state it was likely the one she would use.
"I was attacked," she answered back in Silvanesti. "Dalamar, Usha is out there. She saved me from that... thing..."
His brows creased and he turned to a confused Dezra Majere. "Meggin was attacked," he explained. "Usha saved her from it. I think it may have been some sort of Chaos Demon."
"What else do you remember?" he asked in Silvanesti. "Anything more specific?"
"It seemed to feed off my sense of identity, off my life, off the life around it. It was shaped like a man, but only a void stood where a man should have been."
Dalamar frowned, "Shadow Wight? Usha took on a Shadow Wight?!"
"What's a Shadow Wight?" asked Dezra.
"You don't want to know, but if we expect to help Usha, you're about to find out," Dalamar stood up and walked over to the trunk where they had stored their things.
He pulled out his traveling robes and his spell components, as well as his scrolls. He strapped on his dagger and then his eyes fell upon something he had not handled in over fifty years... not since he had been banished from Silvanost. For a moment his expression darkened further and Dezra followed his gaze to fall upon the long bow that rested on Meggin's mantlepiece. Not taking his eyes off the bow, "Meggin, where is your bow string and the quiver and arrows that goes with that?"
She blinked her eyes in surprise, "But you're a wizard!"
"I'm an elf as well," Dalamar answered by way of explanation. "And I wasn't always a wizard."
Meggin, by now recovered, answered, "They're over here."
She led him to the closet and opened it. For a moment, the expression on Dalamar's face seemed almost like that of a lost child as he reached out for the quiver, but seconds before he touched it, pulled back... then reached out again to pull it from the hook. With a practiced ease he pulled out the arrows and checked them quickly, but both women were under no illusions that he rushed himself either. Finally, he took the bowstring out and the bow down. With the speed only an elf could possess with a bow the longbow was ready for combat.
For one short moment he paused before slinging the quiver over his shoulder as if it were meant to be there. "Meggin, this is an elven longbow, made by elven hands, where did you come by it?" he asked quietly.
With equal quietness, she answered, "My father made it."
The two turned around to stare at her as she swept back her hair to reveal two scarred ears where ear points should be, "And my mother removed my points so that when she took me out into her people's lands, I would not be hunted down and killed for what I was; a half-breed."
Dalamar swallowed nervously, "If you don't want me to use the bow..."
"...No, use it," she answered. "I never have, my mother never did, and my father died without it in his hand. May it be of better service in the hands of another Dark Elf than it was in his."
"He also was exiled?" asked Dezra.
"For following the path of Lunitari," answered Meggin. "A neutral elf has no more a place in Silvanost than does an evil one. In Silvanesti, those of the Red Moon are as Dark as those of the Black Moon."
Dalamar turned to leave, but before he did, "I will honor this gift, sister."
With that he disappeared into the forest and to help Usha. Dezra was mere moments behind him, her armor on and her crossbow checked, and she turned to Meggin before leaving, "Is that why you never lived in towns, just on the fringe?"
"A Half-Elf is exile from not one race, but two. Like the elves never accepted me, so too the humans," answered Meggin. "Except for a few."
"We'll be back, Meggin!" shouted Dezra as she left.
Meggin closed and barred the door again.
More than a few goblin bodies littered the ground, but Usha was losing ground. Thankfully she had been able to get her back against a tree to counter any back attacks. If it was one thing about goblins and their ilk they favored to attack from behind. The trail that she had to break through the forest was long, winding, and equally littered with goblins.
She had no idea how so many were gathered together, but she could only keep her sword moving in swift, sharp, and precise movements to keep from unnecessary moves and to conserve her flagging reserves of energy. She only could hope that Meggin had made it home in her chaos- addled state, and had been coherent enough to tell Dalamar what had happened.
Not to mention the correct direction that she had run from.
Thankfully the Shadow Wight hung back as if waiting for an opening. One goblin got to close and sliced into her chain armor. While the armor took the brunt of it, it still hurt, and it still cut into her. Her blood seeped into the earth of the forest and onto the root of the tree she leaned against. As if sensing the opening, the Shadow Wight dove into the fight. At the last possible moment Usha ducked, but the Chaos taint brushed her mind.
She swayed, but turned quickly enough to see one of the trees come alive. Oh no... she thought, not another one...
As the goblins brought her down, she saw only enough to see the tree swipe the Shadow Wight aside as if batting a fly before reaching down to grasp her out of the knot of goblins.
The goblins scattered in fear, but still most did not make it as both crossbow bolts and arrows infused with lightening rained down on them. Usha hung suspended in the air as the tree simply swept the goblins down and around like dust on the floor of the Inn of the Last Home.
All over the bloody snow covered clearing lay goblins and the Shadow Wight picked itself up to try one last attack. Usha watched in detached fascination as Dalamar came out of the forest, cocked an arrow, murmured a few words and let it fly. The arrow turned crystalline as did some of the air around it. The Arrow of Ice slammed into the Shadow Wight's neck, but already Dalamar was firing another arrow, this one squarely into its back.
It crumpled slowly even as Dalamar followed its motion and fired another, and then a fourth joined it in quick succession as another lodged in its chest, and then between where eyes should have been had it been a man as it spun to face him.
The arrows melted, and the Shadow Wight, with one gasping scream, faded into nothingness.
Dalamar then aimed at the tree that held Usha, as did Dezra when she finally caught up to him. He lowered the bow, and motioned for Dezra to do the same. Dezra lowered her crossbow. "Greetings, Elder of Trees," said Dalamar.
"Greetings, Elf," said the tree in greeting. "Is this yours?"
Usha was set down on the ground, and Dalamar nodded, "She is our companion, yes."
"She smelled of ogre but yet fought against evil," said the tree. "I know her kind, which is why I saved her; an Irda, an Elf, and a human. A strange group."
"And an equally strange quest, Elder," said Dalamar, as he turned to them. "There is no cause for alarm. He is an Elder of Trees, what you would call a Treant."
"Thank the Gods," murmured Usha as she cleaned and sheathed her sword. "Thank you for saving me, Elder of Trees."
"I am thankful to you, Irda," said the Treant. "Because the stink of goblins and those who ally themselves with them has too long been in our forest. But this has gone a long way in clearing it. Perhaps with you and the others now here the stink can be cleared."
"Others?" asked Usha. "There are other Irda here?!"
"Why yes, isn't that why you came?" he asked.
"No!" she exclaimed. "But I have been looking for others since the Chaos War, others who live, someone who might know my father, perhaps my father himself."
"Then this chance meeting is fortunate," said the Treant, then he turned back in thought. "Then why are you here?"
"I am..." she stopped, suddenly, wondering if she should tell him.
Pulling herself from the sudden giddy excitement that perhaps this time she had finally found Keryl, she thought a moment, and it was Dalamar who said, "Her name is Usha, but our quest did not even lay in this forest. It lays farther to the South. An injury forced us to winter in the area and goblins cornered her, by pure chance, into your realm."
The Treant thought a moment, his eyes thinning in the bark skinned face, "I may be a young Ent by the standards of my race, but there is a thin cover of something you are hiding from me, even while you speak the truth; there is something you are not telling me."
Usha decided then, her face growing solemn, "You're right, and it is in your own protection, and mine, that we don't."
He stared long and hard at her, "That rings of truth, young one. And now I understand, and I recognize your Armor. Ah, it has been a long time by the standards of your companion's race that another of you walked past my boughs, Guardian. I welcome you to our forest and we will not hinder you. The Elders already hear the trees speak your name, Usha. And lo, I hear a message return. The Elders wish your audience."
With that he bent down and picked them up before they could object. "Wait, Meggin!" said Usha.
"Meggin is fine," reassured Dezra. "Dalamar made sure before we left."
Usha fell silent as the traveled deeper into the heart of the forest. The treant walked over one ridge and suddenly it was as if she had stepped back in time to her childhood. Dezra noticed the sudden change in Usha's mood as did Dalamar. She leaned over and laid one hand on her shoulder in support as they were set down on the edge of camp. One tall Irda walked with a grace that would have made elves jealous to them and asked state fully, "I see one of ours, although half-human, an Irda still. And an elf, and a human. We welcome you, Guardian of the Blue Star to our village."
Usha bowed respectfully, "Revered Decider, I thank you for your kind words and accept your hospitality."
This Decider was an Irda woman taller than Usha and easily stood six and a half feet tall with a muscular, but still lithe and trim build. She moved as if each step was a graceful dance. At least, that was the first impression that both Dalamar and Dezra got. Dalamar was silent in near awe, but held this in his usual reserve while Dezra was openly wide-eyed and almost unable to reconcile what she saw with what her brain was telling her. Once they began to follow the Decider Queen into the village towards the largest structure in the village, Dezra leaned close to Usha, "Did you really live among this beauty? How could you come to leave it?"
"With great difficulty," she admitted. "And yes, I was raised amongst them. It was all I knew until the Chaos War."
Dezra followed quietly a while longer, and in a fashion almost akin to kender, she asked, "So... why did they bring us here?"
"I do not know," answered Usha, falling into her old custom of speaking as if being among the Irda again reminded her of who and what she had been and called her back to it.
From that point on, as if realizing that Usha was a close to home as she would ever be, Dezra fell silent. What would you be like if Solace were ever destroyed? she wondered. And then, after living for nearly ten years outside of it, and never able to see it again, you came upon another village in another set of vallenwoods? Another village of your people?
She knew perfectly well what she would do and suddenly felt homesick for it. Now, too late, she understood her father's warnings, understood Usha's at the beginning of what she thought was her own adventure. It almost made her feel sick with regret. At least if she wanted to she could go home. Usha's home had been razed to the ground, and, even if Silvanesti still stood, even Dalamar could not go back to his on pain of death for being a Dark Elf. Dezra swallowed her tears back and noticed that they had come to a stop. On the wind she could hear singing and the lament on it even if she could not understand the words. Leaning close to Usha again, she asked, "What are they singing?"
"They mourn for Anaiatha, and for Selesia," answered Usha, her brows creasing, then her eyes closed in sadness. "For an Empire lost to greed and a lust for more power. It is the continuation of our tale, the Lament of Igraine."
Dalamar shook his head, "For all its beauty, its very sad. I didn't feel homesick until coming here and hearing that, but now the fact that I am an exile is almost too much to bear, as if the weight crushes me."
"I want to go home too," whispered Dezra. "I... almost can't bear it."
Usha's eyes snapped open, "That is how you are supposed to feel on hearing this. It is... how we as Ogre communicated, and kept our history. The spoken undertone to it is how we as Irda now keep our history. What you feel is our sense of loss, our sense of shame over what we have been forced to survive."
The song ended and the Decider came back out of the wood structure as another Irda slid a panel sideways to allow them passage. Usha knelt as she removed her shoes in respect. Dalamar followed suit, and Dezra, catching on, did the same. Usha then stood and they were guided into the central room where a small brazier burned wood for tea. The Decider sat on one side of the table and motioned for them to sit around the table on the pillows provided.
Usha knelt on her knees and sat on her heels, back straight. After seeing her do this, and taking her lead, both Dalamar and Dezra did the same. Tea was served with a quiet and simple ceremony and then afterwards the Decider motioned to them to speak. It was Usha who explained, "Our coming here was accidental. I was cornered by goblins and what is called a Shadow Wight."
"I have heard of these creatures," said the Decider's companion. "Forgive me, I am the Protector of this village."
Usha nodded, a sudden sadness coming to her face, "I look forward to hearing your counsel, Protector of the Irda."
Dalamar sipped his cup of tea since it appeared to be what everyone else was doing as he watched in fascination. The Irda seemed to depend on simplicity even while it was an elegance that rivaled the elves, and on their etiquette. If this was a glimpse on how the High Ogre had lived before they had fell it was absolutely amazing to him that the Ogre, as they now knew them, had fallen so low. Even still, he could sense the pervading lesson to be learned... it could just as easily happen to the elves and indeed, in Silvanost, he had seen it happening as it rotted from the core. The Silvanesti had also reached the point the High Ogre had in their height, and the very same point that the High Ogre had fallen.
He held no illusions about his allegiances or his motives. He was no hero trying to change the elves for the better like Porthios and Alhana, and being called Dark Elves for their trouble. No, he had given himself to Nuitari and was a Dark Elf. "We have noticed that you travel armed," pointed out the Decider.
"We must, given the nature of our quest," said Usha. "In fact, we search for a sword called the Sword of the Miiro. It was last seen in the hands of Marion Uth Maleste, also a Guardian of the Blue Star, but now retired. She was the predessor of my predessor for Guardianship."
The Protector nodded, "I have met this woman, but it was long ago and have seen the sword you speak of. But, it was a very long time ago, even in our standards of time, Usha."
"I had that feeling, Protector," admitted Usha. "That has been the message everywhere I have asked. No one, if they have seen or met her, has seen in her for over fifty years, perhaps longer."
"So now you follow her last known path?" asked the Decider. "All in the hopes of picking up her trail?"
"Yes," answered Usha. "It is that, or we seek the Paragon White Dragon Icingdeath."
For a moment both Irda were speechless, then the Protector said, "Now, that is a name I have not heard in a long time."
"You know of him?" she asked in surprise.
"I do, but his lair is far from here, and even farther than perhaps you wish to travel," said the Protector. "His lair does not even reside upon Krynn, but on a world called Faerun."
The three looked at each other, and Dalamar asked, "There are other worlds than Krynn?"
"Yes, many," answered the Decider. "But that is neither here nor there. You seek Lady Uth Maleste, who may still be on Krynn and her sword. We can aid you in that quest, for we have seen her after her travels to Icewall and after her successor became Guardian."
Usha started, her eyes wide, "How, when?"
"A short time ago, during what you call the Summer of Flame, she came to us to tell us to find a place to settle, for Selesia and Anaiatha had been destroyed," answered the Decider.
The Protector glared at the Decider, "You did not tell anyone else of this!"
"Peace, Protector!" the Decider held up her hand. "Hear me out. At the time all you needed to know was that I decided for our safety and that we would continue on this world. And this forest has been as good as any to settle down in. With the Treants on our South side, and the depths of Wayreth on our Northeast, and the mountains of Thorbardin on our Northwest, we were assured of not being disturbed. After all, no one comes near here for fear of the magic that resides within. Not even the Dark Knights came this deeply into the forest, and assumed nothing was here."
The Protector fell silent again, and this time the Decider explained, "But now is the time for this part of the Lady's tale to come to light. You are a bard, are you not, Usha?"
"I am," answered Usha.
"Then take this back to your bardic college, although leave our location out of this," said the Protector. "I give you a part of the history of the Blue Star and its Guardians that is not known even to you..."