Legacy of Steel

22

The tomb had been built three years ago, after the Second Cataclysm, to honor both the Knights of Solamnia and the Knights of Takhisis who died fighting Chaos in the battle of the Rift. People from all over Ansalon had gathered together to pay their respects and erect a tomb of stone worthy of the knights' sacrifice. Built of polished white marble and black obsidian brought from Thordardin by dwarven artisans, the monument was simple, elegant, and ageless.

Around the tomb grew a row of trees lovingly brought by the elves of Qualinesti and Silvanesti. Although they were only saplings, the trees were tall and strong and full of health. Sara could imagine them a few summers from now in full leaf, giving their shade to the pilgrims who visited the tomb.

This night there was no one else about. The tomb lay silent in its snowy shroud, alone in the darkness except for Sara.

Well, not totally alone. Away to her right, she saw the ghostly glimmer of lights shining through several small tents. A party of kender had camped in the field close by to visit the memorial of their hero, Tasslehoff Burrfoot. But even the inquisitive, irrepressible kender had retreated to their shelters in the cold, wintry night. Sara had the tomb to herself.

The path she had found followed an oblique angle down from the hills to the north and ended on the low steps at the front of the tomb. Exhausted beyond measure, Sara sank down on the steps, too tired to care about the icy chill that seeped up from the stone. Bleary-eyed, she looked around the entrance to the tomb.

Two brass lamps hung on either side of the double doors and burned perpetually through the night. Their clear light illuminated the images carved on both doors by the Knights of Solamnia. The gold door bore the rose of Solamnia; the silver carried a death lily. On blocks of stone around the doors were engraved the names of the knights who lay within and the knights whose bodies had never been found. One name was chiseled alone above the door with the image of a kender's hoopak, It was to honor Tasslehoff Burrfoot, a kender of boundless courage and wondrous adventure, whose small body was never recovered from the rift.

Sara let her breath out in a slow sigh. Wearily she rested her arms on her knees. She lifted her eyes to the names chiseled into the walls and began to read them until she found the one closest to her heart: Steel Brightblade.

Oh, my dearest child, did Takhisis honor your soul when you died? Did she grant you anything for the supreme sacrifice you made? Or had she already abandoned you?

Sara's head drooped to her arms. Her eyes closed, and a tear slid down her cheek.

How long she stayed that way, Sara never knew for sure. The silence of the tomb gathered close around her in a deep, boundless peace. She felt it as a comfort and let the soundless company of the dead lull her into tranquility. Her worry and grief fell behind, her confusion vanished. For this moment, there was only the contemplative stillness of her own heart. Listen, the silence told her.

Something clicked beside her.

Sara lifted her head, curious to see what had disturbed the profound quiet, and saw that the silver door of the tomb had opened a crack. Surprised, she climbed stiffly to her feet. She had heard the tomb was sealed to protect the bodies of the knights within. Yet the door stood open.

She laid her hand on the silver edge and gently eased it toward her. The darkness within was complete. She saw nothing beyond the lintel but blackness. Strangely, she felt no fear. She knew without a doubt there was nothing inside that meant any harm to her.

Removing one of the lamps from the wall, she stepped to the open doorway. Perhaps she wasn't supposed to go in there, but at that moment, Sara didn't care. She wanted to see her son.

She lifted the lamp above her head and stepped beneath the lintel. The small brass lamp made a golden ball of light from her hand to the stone floor and gleamed like a tiny star in darkness that had not seen light for three years.

Three paces within the door, Sara reached the first of a long row of low stone biers. The body of a knight lay on the bier. His sword lay by his side, and a shield bearing the rose of the Knights of Solamnia rested on his chest. His face beneath the visor of his helm looked as if it had been carved from marble.

Beyond him, on the second bier, lay a Knight of Takhisis, his skull helm leering up at Sara in the faint light. She nodded once to him and moved on. A second row of biers sat to her right, and Sara realized there was no order among the dead men. The knights of the light and the dark rested together as they had fallen.

Soundlessly Sara walked deeper into the tomb. Points of light reflected from swords, shields, breastplates, and helms played across the dark ceiling. She was surprised to see there was little dust and no smell beyond the odors of old leather and cold stone. The bodies seemed to be remarkably preserved in the cold, dry air.

The reason for their preservation appeared a moment later in the gloom. Two stately pedestals stood to her left and right between the rows of biers. If Sara could have seen the entire interior, she guessed she would see a complete circle of these pedestals, each bearing a polished orb of bloodstone. Many years ago she had seen such stones, spelled with magic and set in a tomb to preserve a body. These stones, carved by the loving hands of the dwarves, were large and polished to a sheen that set their flecks of red gleaming like drops of blood.

Sara passed the pedestals carefully and moved deeper toward the center of the room. Something large and black loomed out of the darkness, a larger catafalque crafted from black marble. A knight clad in black armor rested on the stone, his father's antique sword in his lifeless hands.

Steel.

His face was as pale as granite and hollowed where the skin had sunk around the bones, and yet even after three years of death, Sara could still marvel at the look of peace on his face. The internal battle between his mother's evil and his father's good had finally come to an end and left their son in peace.

Just beyond Steel's bier, at the edge of her light, Sara saw a second large catafalque, this one made of white marble. On it, she recognized the noble form of Tanis Half-Elven. His body was clad in green leather, and a blue crystal staff lay by his side, a gift from the children of his friends, Goldmoon and Riverwind.

Sara bowed her head to the grief that welled up within her. Her arm holding the lamp faltered and dropped to her side. She was stepping closer to Steel's catafalque when the edge of her cloak caught on the stone corner of another man's bier. The cloak wrenched her off-balance, then slipped loose from the stone, sending her stumbling up against the black marble. She fell to her knees at its base. Her hands reached out to stop her fall into the stone table, and her fingers inadvertently touched Steel's gloved hand. The light crashed to the floor, flickered once, and went out.

Everything stilled.

Out of the intense darkness, a light began to glow, as if at a great distance. Tiny as a firefly, it pulsed with life and color, and with each pulse, it grew larger while the darkness coalesced around it, like the walls of a deep well. Sara stared down the well, marveling as the light and color filled her vision with a panorama of brilliant forms and hues that blurred and ran together like watercolors.

All at once the colors and forms took shape and became a recognizable portrait of a swamp-or rather the edge of a swamp, where the land met the water and gradually vanished into a world of dark fens and peatcolored meres. Sara choked on a cry. She knew that dismal-looking swamp was the one surrounding Xak Tsaroth.

As soon as she made the recognition, the vision before her began to move. Wind swayed the rushes and the scrub willows, water birds soared above the trees, and something black slithered out of the shadows of a clump of swamp grass into the dark, noisome waters.

The time could have been that day or the next, for the land was locked in winter's grip, its water edged in ice and its rushes browned by frost. Daylight filtered down through a slate roof of clouds. A few lonely snow flurries drifted on the wind.

Unnerved, Sara gazed wide-eyed at the vision before her. She could see everything so clearly, yet the images were strangely silent.

She saw a rustle of movement in a tall stand of grasses, and a knight on foot appeared out of the underbrush, bent low over a trail he followed along the rim of a grove of trees. It wasn't until he straightened and rubbed his neck with one hand that Sara saw his breastplate bore the rose design of the Solamnic Knights.

Suddenly he crouched low, alert, and his hand flew to his sword and slid it loose from the scabbard in one flowing movement.

A second knight stepped out of the trees, a tall, dark-haired knight in black armor. Derrick.

Sara wanted to cry out to him, but she couldn't move or make a sound. She was locked in place as the vision unfolded before her.

Aching, she watched Derrick approach the Solamnic with his hands outstretched in a gesture of peace. The older knight took in Derrick's muddy boots and his tunic, torn from thrashing around in the swamp, and he relaxed enough to let him come close to talk. A long, animated conversation ensued. The Knight of the Rose seemed very agitated about something, for he continually pointed toward the south and then to the trail in front of them.

Derrick bent his head to examine the ground and listened intently to every word. Concern hardened his lean face.

Soon it became apparent the knights had reached some accord. The older Solamnic and young Derrick set off together, single file, down the winding trail deeper into the swamp. They walked warily, their swords drawn, their eyes on the trail and the swamp ahead.

They passed a huge skeleton of what could have been a dragon half-submerged in a slimy pool. More bones, dented rusting armor, and bits of junk littered the trail. Here and there a shattered tree lay to the side as if something large had kicked it aside.

Sara felt her heart beat faster.

Ahead of the knights, the trail widened into a large, egg-shaped piece of land surrounded on three sides by the dark waters of a mere. Grasses and shrubs had been trampled flat or uprooted; bones lay scattered everywhere.

In the clearing sat the most peculiar and hideous structure Sara had ever seen. A huge rounded dome, similar in shape to a beaver's den, straddled the center of the stripped earth. But this domicile had none of the careful engineering and only a few trees in common with a beaver's house. The rest of the material consisted of anything some foul creature had tossed there: bones, armor, wagon wheels, half-devoured cows, plowshares, battered shields, a child's doll, rags, a broken chair, pieces of a raft, a headless ogre, a dragon's skull, and those were only the things Sara recognized. A crude doorway penetrated the revolting structure, and from the height of it, the owner had to be abnormally tall.

Sara watched the two knights separate and approach the hut cautiously from two directions. Although she could not hear a sound, she guessed from the tension in the men's faces that their quarry was at home.

All at once Derrick and the second knight scrambled back as two small girls in ragged dresses came pelting out of the doorway, their faces contorted in terror. A third form, a young man, flew out behind them, though it was obvious, even from Sara's position, that the man had been flung out. He landed in the mud in front of the girls and lay spread-eagled, shattered beyond hope of life. The two girls slid to a frantic stop and turned to bolt in another direction, unaware that the two knights were close by.

Abruptly a huge shape paused in the doorway, then burst into the open, its face contorted with fury.

Sara's stomach lurched in reaction. She had only heard about such brutes in the past few years, since it was rumored that the monstrous manlike things were spawns of Chaos, sprung from the earth during the Second Cataclysm. Chaos giants, they were called, and they were three times the height of a man and three as broad.

This one looked as if it had eaten well. Its heavy body was ponderous with muscle and fat that rolled and bulged like cooling lava. Its great hairless head hunkered on its shoulders like a monolith crudely carved with thick, bulbous features. It saw the two knights immediately. It stamped the earth and bellowed its fury at the puny intruders.

Derrick shouted something to the girls. They stared, stunned by the sudden appearance of the men, then the elder grabbed the younger's hand and fled up the path into the swamp.

Both knights attacked the giant at once.

The battle raged around the clearing. The giant, like a bull besieged by dogs, charged after first one assailant, then the other, and each time it thundered after one knight, the other harried it from behind. Again and again the giant rushed to catch one man in its crushing hands, and each time the knight slipped away.

Alone, neither man could have fought the superior strength of the giant and survived, but together they worked as a team and wore the brute down to a staggering exhaustion.

At last, bleeding from a dozen sword cuts and drenched in sweat, the giant stumbled to one side, lost its balance, and toppled over. The ground shook from the impact.

Derrick and the Solamnic knight threw themselves at its prostrate body before the gigantic creature could get up and stabbed their swords through its eyes deep into its brain. The giant bawled in outrage, shuddered violently, and lay motionless.

Sara exhaled in a slow breath. It was over.

The knights, pleased with their success, shook hands and slapped each other on the back. Both looked tired and battered, but neither man was seriously injured.

They rested for a few minutes before the Solamnic Knight walked over to the bizarre hut and gestured to Derrick. They entered the shelter. Then Sara saw them come out carrying a wooden strongbox. Back inside they went and brought out more boxes, some leather bags, and a few pieces of finely crafted weaponry and armor. Soon they had a goodly pile of spoils from the beast's lair.

They fell into conversation again, this time over the heap of treasure and valuables. Sara watched in growing alarm as the talk grew heated. Both men argued their point with increasing aggression and animosity. Their faces darkened, their gestures turned sharp and savage.

Suddenly swords were drawn. The blades angrily clashed above the heap of spoils.

Stop it! Sara tried to cry, but she could not move her lips.

Once they crossed swords, neither knight would surrender to the other. They were too evenly matched and too stubborn with pride. Ferociously they fought across the same ground they had struggled over together. The Solamnic drew blood first, cutting Derrick deeply across the thigh. The Dark Knight crashed back against the giant's body, his face contorted in pain. Blood flowed freely from the wound.

Stop it! cried Sara's soul.

Neither knight could hear her. Derrick threw himself forward and brought his sword whistling around in a vicious undercut toward his opponent's ribs.

The Knight of the Rose was too exhausted to avoid the blow completely. He swerved left just enough so Derrick's blade missed his ribs, but the sharp edge slid across the chain mail and caught him under the armpit, where the mail did not protect him. Blood soaked his tunic and mail.

Now both men bled freely. They swayed and staggered across the slippery mud and hacked at each other in clumsy, brutal blows that became automatic. There was no thought left in either knight, only the primal need to kill.

There could be no victor in a battle such as this. While Sara stared, wracked by grief, Derrick struck a heavy blow to the Solamnic's leg. The knight could not evade it. The blade slashed deep into the muscle just behind his knee.

The Knight of the Rose could no longer hold himself up. Disbelieving, torn by pain, he toppled over and crashed into the mud.

Derrick looked stunned. He sank slowly to his knees, unaware of the blood that soaked his leather leggings. The color drained from his face. He tried to lean his weight on his sword, but he had no strength left. His eyes rolled up into his head, his hands slipped off the bloody sword, and he fell sideways beside the other knight. His ribs rose and fell, then sank slowly into stillness.

The vision stopped on this scene, everything held in place as if a sorcerer had frozen an image in a mirror.

Sara stared frantically at the two knights for some sign of life until her head pounded and her eyes burned with tears. The picture blurred and wavered; the dark well of her vision swirled inward.

"No," she cried out loud. "He can't be…" Somewhere within her, she was aware of pain, deep and biting, and of anger at the senseless waste.

"Mother," a voice whispered beside her.

The image of Derrick dissolved into dark motes and was blown away on a sudden gust of wind.

"Mother."

Steel? Sara raised her head, her hope raw in her heart at the sound of that beloved voice. Her fingers clutched at the cold stone, and she pulled herself to her feet.

"Steel?" she cried brokenly, and her hand came to rest again over his cold appendage.

A dazzling light flared beside her. She blinked and rubbed the spots in her eyes, half-blinded by the unexpected light. By squinting hard, she adjusted her sight to the new radiance and finally saw its source.

Steel stood at the foot of the catafalque. Or something did. His lifeless body still lay supine on the marble, yet his image stood before her, his form bathing her in soft white light. The vision looked so real, Sara reached out her hand to touch him, then jerked it back, afraid to learn that the image might not be her son.

He smiled at her then, his crooked grin filled with love and understanding, and Sara lost any doubt. Sometimes a mother's love sees clearer than fallible eyes.

She did not try to speak. She simply filled her gaze with him, his fine features, his black hair, the line of his jaw, the angle of his shoulders. She soaked in his presence like dry earth absorbing a spring rain.

He lifted his hand, and his fingers closed around something. A second light, pure and white, welled from his fist. Steel reached out to the only mother he ever had.

Sara was shaking like a leaf. Instinctively she held out her hand, palm up.

"Mother," Steel said, his words ringing in the dark tomb. "All we have is each other," and he dropped the white light into her hand.

The light pulsed like a tiny star, dazzling and exquisitely beautiful. A sudden burst of radiance surged through Sara and sent her senses reeling.

"Steel!" she cried frantically. She could no longer see him, could no longer feel the stone-coldness of his hand. The light became a darkness so complete that Sara could not bear it. She staggered and fell onto something frigid and unrelenting that sapped away what little strength she had left. She tried once to push herself up and found she had not the energy to move her arms or legs. She sagged down to the stone floor and lay there while the cold seeped insidiously into her limbs.

Unable to move, unwilling to leave, she closed her eyes. Her breath fluttered out in a sigh, and her weary spirit fled to the comfort of sleep.