The End is Only the Beginning Chapter Two
When Eärlindë woke next, she was lying on a comfortable bed in a nondescript room that appeared to have four other humans in it. There were three males and one female. One male was wearing armor, while the other three were in robes. One in white, one in red and one in black, the female was the one in the red robes. She found that she was unable to speak or move. She felt Ashat next to her. She heard Ashat's voice in her mind.
"Be calm," she heard Ashat's voice in her mind. "Lord Bahumat is here. Only he is called Paladine where we are going. The man in the white robes is his son Solinari. The lady in red is his niece Lunitari. The Man in black is his nephew Nuitari. That would be Tiamat's son only she's called Takhisis here."
"Why do I feel a closer bond with you?" Eärlindë asked.
"Pseudodragons have short lives, even shorter than humans: ten to fifteen years. Lord Bahumat offered to make me human again or if I chose to give up my own powers to be your familiar."
"I assume you chose the latter," replied Earlinde.
"I did. I will be able to use your magic items and your magic. I will also have your life span," replied Ashat. "Not an entirely bad trade-off. Now be quiet and pay attention."
"Father, I know she belonged to your aspect from her home world, however she is a mage. As such she is rightfully mine," said Solinari.
"Says who? We do not know for certain where she will end up," replied Nuitari. "There is darkness in her heart as well as light."
"I know you have been looking for the perfect weapon to use against your mother, and you think it is a black robed elf," said Paladine. "However she willingly gave her heart to me, I will not allow you to interfere with her test."
"What do we do in the mean time, let a renegade run free on Krynn?" asked Solinari
"She has loved your father all of her adult life. Would you accept her if she fully changed allegiances to you so quickly?" asked Lunitari. "I would not."
"The question is what do we do about her primal sorcery?" asked Nuitari. "Let unchecked it could upset the balance of magic."
"She comes from a world where primal sorcery is not and never has been a problem. Her magic is quite stable especially since it is intertwined with and bound by her high sorcery," said Paladine. "At the moment we cannot remove one without harming the other. So let her keep them with some stipulations. For now she is awake and listening to us."
"How long have you been hiding that from us?" demanded Nuitari.
Paladine did not reply. He merely went over to Eärlindë to help her up. Then he picked up Ashat and allowed the little dragon to ride on his shoulders.
"Bahumat?" Eärlindë asked tentatively.
"Yes child, but you must call me Paladine here," he replied.
"Where is here? Where are my friends? What happened?" she asked.
"You are on Krynn. I believe your son has told something about it," said Paladine.
"I have been here a couple of times on a three day pass. I understand some of the basics: no dragons, no clerics, absentee gods, and color-coded wizardry. How wonderful. So when do I get my 'I am a wizard please shoot me' robe?" asked Eärlindë calmly. "Can I go back to Oerth?"
"Child, you and your friends stumbled upon a three-part artifact of Thrazadun," Paladine told her. He watched Earlinde's face pale. "One piece embedded itself in your friend Solonna, another into your friend Daisy, and the last in you. In order to keep the artifact from activating and freeing Thrazadun, the three of you had to be separated. Solonna and Arash were taken to Toril. Daisy was taken to Kalamar. You and Ashat were brought here. The artifact was bound to your soul as well as your body. Your bond with Feravon has been severed. You will not be reunited with him either in this life or the next. There is no path between Arvandor and the Vault of Creation."
"What is the Vault of Creation?" asked Eärlindë.
"That would be my realm in the outer planes." Paladine replied gently. He held Eärlindë while she cried. Though it had been fourteen years since his death, Eärlindë's grief was suddenly as fresh as if it had been yesterday.
Eärlindë first met Feravon while apprenticing with Feravon's father, an elf wizard named Ansron. Feravon's mother was a half-elf bard named Amawyn. They became immediately infatuated with one another, however Eärlindë left after her apprenticeship ended. Some years later they both headed the call to duty and joined with the army of elven archers sent to aid the humans against the Temple of Elemental Evil. It was here they fell in love. After the battle of Emridy Meadows, they settled down and started a life together and had a son, Thoiravel. Though they had not yet formally said their vows, there was no societal pressure to do so either. They lived a good life together until the Greyhawk Wars started. Thoiravel was left with Feravon's parents as both Eärlindë and Feravon were called into service. Feravon served as a medic and Eärlindë served as a combat mage in an airborne unit. Feravon was killed in the Battle against the Scarlet Brotherhood in the last year of the war. Eärlindë went home to her son. She would not leave again until he was old enough to go out on his own.
"Your friends will find new homes and lives. I hope you come to regard Krynn as your home," Paladine said to her.
"Father, I hope you are not considering taking her in. We already have enough trouble with your sister and her grey robes, or will soon," said Solinari.
"You are once again assuming she will end up in your order. We saw her memories. Did you see the grim satisfaction she took in making that guard explode, the sardonic smile as she turned to the survivors and asked 'Who's next'?" asked Nuitari.
"I did. I also saw how she was prepared to let them surrender and leave in peace, if they spared the hostages. Only after the captain gave the order, "hold them off, kill the prisoners" did she go for the kill. I felt the fear that nearly froze her heart as one of the guards opened a cell door and started in. I felt her relief as she managed to stop him with a single spell as well as her concern over the still open cell door she could not reach. When the last guard fell, her joy was not from their deaths, but from the fact that none of the hostages had been killed," replied Solinari.
"I think we get the point already," said Lunitari. "What about her primal sorcery? She is what is called a magus on her home world. On Krynn I believe this would allow her high sorcery to stabilize her primal sorcery as long as her primal sorcery did not exceed her high sorcery."
"The two are almost entirely intertwined. If we cut one we risk cutting the other," Solinari observed.
"So we allow it," said Nuitari. "With the proper limitations and precautions she could make the hidden dagger we need against my mother."
"What do you suggest?" asked Paladine.
"She is to use her primal sorcery as little as possible. Keep it reserved for when it is absolutely necessary to use it or when using this augmented casting magus ability of hers. The fewer people who know about her primal sorcery, the better. I would prefer that knowledge not go beyond the heads of the three orders, and under no circumstances is she to teach primal sorcery to anyone else," suggested Nuitari
"I think that those who need to know should be allowed to know. She should not be forced to keep secrets from those she travels with and trusts," protested Solinari. "If it becomes necessary to teach others primal sorcery she should be free to do so."
"Keep it to only the most trusted of those she travels with and only at dire need is she to be allowed to teach primal sorcery," Nuitari relented
"She is not to allow her primal sorcery to exceed her high sorcery," said Lunitari.
"You have heard the conditions. Will you comply?" asked Paladine.
"I will," replied Eärlindë.
"There is one gift I give to you. You have powerful items that you brought with you from Oerth, most of them which, you found under the ruins of Zagig's castle. Any item you brought with you from Oerth that must be activated with a command word, spell trigger or item trigger will not respond to anyone other than you or Ashat. Also, if you must be a spell caster to benefit from it, the item will not function for anyone else. I do this mainly because there are those here I do not want getting their hands on Zagig's staff. The side effect of this is, items brought from Oerth are the only magic items that will ever function for you. Speaking of function, the apprentice ring that isn't supposed to function outside the castle will function for you as long as you have the staff you found down there on you as well. You know the one you took off? the Simulacrum of Iggwilv."
"You just think the command word is funny," complained Solinari.
"Just be grateful the worst thing your parents ever do is embarrass you, they have never betrayed you," retorted Nuitari.
Author's Note: Elves of Oerth are much different from those of Krynn, especially when it comes to love and marriage. Elves of Oerth engage in long term romantic relationships and children of those relationships bear no stigma. Courtship between elves takes at least a decade or so and marriage is a century's long commitment. Elves will sometimes marry humans, but the fifty or so years such a union might list last is a pleasant interlude. Elves who lose their spouses to death are free to remarry if they choose and arraigned arranged marriages are extremely rare as such unions are diametrically opposed to the ideal of individual freedom. For more information see Races of the Wild. Basically elves from Krynn would view elves from Oerth as hedonistic and Oerthian elves would view Krynnian elves as rigid. Both sides would say "Are you elves or humans?"