The Eve of the Maelstrom

4 Stolen Thoughts

“The Fist of E’li,” Usha whispered. She paced up and down the hall, passing by the closed door to the sorcerers’ study. She let out a deep breath and finally stopped before a painting, one of a willow birch she’d finished nearly two decades ago. Palin sat beneath the tree, with a very young Ulin between his knees. Usha’s fingers traced the raised paint swirls on the trunk and dropped down to linger on Palin’s face, then rose to touch the weeping leaves that shaded him.

There were trees like this on the island of the Irda, and more like this in the Qualinesti forest— though those willow birches were much larger. She had seen them when she stayed with the elves, when Palin, Feril, and Jasper went after the Fist. Were Feril and Jasper in a similar place now, an overgrown forest corrupted by a dragon?

She closed her eyes and tried, one more time, to remember. The Qualinesti. The forest. The Fist of E’li.

Remember.

Usha watched Palin leave, the forest swallowing him, the Kagonesti, and the dwarf, the green filling her vision and making her feel suddenly empty and isolated, somehow frightening her. For several moments all she heard was her own uneasy breathing. She felt in her ears the beating of her heart, and she heard the gentle rustling of the leaves turning in the breeze.

Then the birds in the tall willows around her resumed singing. The chittering of chipmunks, chucks, and ground squirrels reached her, and she sagged against the thick trunk of a shaggybark and took in the myriad sounds of the tropical forest, trying to relax. Had the circumstances been different, or had her husband been with her, she might have enjoyed her surroundings or at the very least appreciated and accepted them. As it was, she couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable, a leery intruder in the elven woods. She couldn’t help but inwardly jump at every snap of a branch.

Usha inhaled deeply, summoning her resolve, and scolded herself for being nervous. She offered a silent prayer to the departed gods that her husband would be successful and would safely return to her, and she also prayed that he would find the ancient scepter, that she would be safe, too, that the elves would realize she and Palin were whom they claimed to be.

Usha wasn’t nearly so confident as she had sounded when she volunteered to be left behind. She wasn’t certain that Palin could find what he was looking for during the brief time frame of a few weeks allowed by the elves. Nor was she entirely certain that the scepter even existed. It might, after all, be nothing more than the figment of a senile scholar’s mind.

But there was something she was certain of: she wasn’t alone. The elves who stopped her and Palin, and who didn’t believe they were really the Majeres, were still nearby.

Though the elves had left the clearing when Palin left, she felt their eyes still boring into her, felt the prickly sensation of being watched. Usha imagined the elven archers, their arrows trained on her. She tried to appear composed and aloof, determined not to give them the satisfaction of knowing that they had successfully unnerved her. She stilled the trembling of her fingers, gazing straight ahead, and didn’t flinch when suddenly words came from behind her.

“Usha.” Her name sounded like a brief puff of wind. It was the female elf’s voice, the leader of the elven band. “Usha Majere, you call yourself.” The tone was sarcastic and sounded like a curse. “The real Usha Majere would not trespass in our woods.” The elf silently stepped into the clearing, brushing by Usha’s side, the bushes moving slightly in front of the pair, hinting at the presence of elven archers.

“Who are you?” Usha quietly demanded.

“Your host.”

“What’s your name?”

“Names confer a small sense of power, Usha Majere. I’ll give you no power over me. Create a name for me, if you think you need one. Humans seem to require labels for everything and everyone.”

Usha sighed. “Then I’ll simply not refer to you. I’ll consider you my host, as you wish, nothing more. There’ll be no closeness, no hint of friendship. That, I suppose, is also a measure of power.”

The elf smiled. “You are brave, Usha Majere, whoever you truly are. I will grant you that. You stand up to me. You stayed behind while your dear husband heads toward his doom. But you are also foolish, human, for there is a good chance he will never return, and then I will be forced to decide what to do with you. You cannot stay with us. So just what will I do with you? Leave you for the dragon, perhaps?”

“Palin will succeed, and he will return.” Usha continued to stare straight ahead. “He is who he claims to be, as I am who I claim to be. Palin Majere will find the scepter.”

“The Fist of E’li,” the elf answered. “If he is not Palin Majere, and if he does manage to succeed, we will take the Fist from him.”

So that’s why you let him go, Usha thought to herself, so he could get the Fist for you. “He is Palin,” she repeated aloud. “And he will succeed.”

There, straight ahead near a tall, broad-leafed fern, Usha picked out part of a face, a gently curving pointed ear. The elves weren’t so invisible after all, she thought smugly. Then she pursed her lips. The elf archer had met her gaze. Perhaps he’d wanted to be seen, serving as an implied threat.

“He will succeed?” The female elf parroted. “Hardly.” The elf took several steps beyond Usha, pivoted to face her, green eyes boring into Usha’s golden ones. “Dozens of my men have learned the folly of approaching the old tower where the scepter rests. How will three—a dwarf, a Kagonesti and a human—win where dozens of others have failed?”

“Palin is—”

“What? Different? Powerful? If he is truly Palin, he’s the most powerful sorcerer on Krynn, they say. But Palin Majere would have more than a ragtag handful with him, I think, and he would not be exploring these woods. So who is he really? And who are you?” The elf’s eyes remained unblinking, mesmerizing, taunting. Usha could not look away “He is Palin! He is the most powerful sorcerer on Krynn, just as the tales say.”

“So your Palin is magical? This entire forest is magical. And I’m not without my own magic, Usha Majere. Indeed, you will discover that. My magic will tell me who you really are and what your friends really want in this forest. Your mind will reveal the truth.”

Usha felt a sensation, a persistent pulling that registered on her mind. She shook her head, trying to throw off the feeling. Instead, the tugging grew stronger and her limbs began to tingle, her head to throb. Still, her eyes remained open and fixed on the elf’s, as if a thread of energy ran between them.

The elf chuckled softly. “Tell me, Usha Majere. If you are who you claim, tell me about the Abyss where Palin battled Chaos. You would know the true story. The real Usha was there.”

Usha tilted her head, felt the tugging grow even stronger. “We were in the Abyss, Palin and I. There were dragons there. Chaos.” The tingling in her limbs became an uncomfortable soreness and she saw in a vision the cavern in the Abyss, relived the heat, and smelled the death. “The war...”

“Only a part of the war, human. The Abyss was only a part of it. Across Ansalon elves fought and died in the war. So did kender, dwarves, and more. Dragons died, evil dragons to be certain, but the good ones, too. More of the good ones, they say. More good than evil had joined the battle. But none of the dragons or knights who fought in the Abyss survived.” The elf paused. “Even Raistlin Majere has not been seen since the Abyss,” she finally said. “None survived the battle in the Abyss, they say, save Usha and Palin Majere.”

“There was so much death in the Abyss because of Chaos. He was huge, a giant who batted away dragons and trampled armies.”

“The so-called Father of All and of Nothing?” The elf’s voice was softer, now with a trace of compassion. “But why didn’t you perish in the Abyss, Usha?”

“I don’t know why we were spared, why I lived. I had expected to die. I don’t know how we escaped. All the death. The dragons. I don’t know...”

“The Chaos War upset the balance of power throughout Ansalon. The dragon overlords who control our world now would not have become so powerful, I think, if the good dragons who fought in the Abyss had lived—at least some of them had lived—to challenge them. The Dragon Purge might not have happened. The Green Peril would not be so all-encompassing. There were bronzes in this forest, brass dragons, too. They fought in the war, and died. And without them protecting the forest, there was nothing to stop Beryl.”

The elf’s voice was louder now. It rang in the clearing, harsh and bitter. “I am uncertain why the Green Peril settled in this land, changed the forest, enslaved my people, butchered us as though we were cattle. Men slaughtered in front of their families, children kidnapped and disposed of. I don’t know why Beryl started massacring elves, using what little magic flowed in my people’s veins to create enchanted items. And I don’t care why—not anymore. But I do care that she is still here and that each day my people and I have to wonder if we’ll live to see another sunrise.”

“Palin has helped your people,” Usha countered. “He helped save all of the Qualinesti. If it hadn’t been for him, many, many more elves would have been sacrificed to Beryl. He risked his life in the Abyss, risked it for all of Krynn. He is risking it now. Surely you must have some faith. Surely you’ve learned enough from my memories to realize...”

The elf moved so close that Usha could smell the sweetness of her breath, like fresh rain clinging to spring leaves. “I do believe he is Palin, as I now believe you are his wife, Usha. Tales reveal much about your husband. But I know little of you. You are an unknown. Who are you? How did you come to be with Palin Majere? And why did you survive the Abyss?” The elf’s eyes seemed to grow larger, coaxing, imploring, extracting more of Usha’s memories.

With a bat of the elf’s eyes, Usha’s past came alive. The vision of the Abyss faded, the Qualinesti forest melted away, and different trees sprang up—pines and great, spindly willow-birches, pin oaks and summerwoods. Sand spread out below Usha’s and the elf’s feet, and ice-blue water ebbed away from them.

“Home,” Usha whispered. In the distance, through the rows of willow-birches, she spotted the simple dwellings of the Irda. “No!” She fought to push the image aside. The Irda of the island, though now extinct, had long worked to cloak their presence from the rest of Krynn. “This is a secret place,” she spat at the elf. “You’ve no right to intrude.”

“This is our forest you’ve intruded upon, and that gives me the right to probe you,” came the reply. “Concentrate, Usha. Show me more.”

As if she were a detached observer, Usha helplessly watched her memories unfold. The Irda, in their unmasked, perfect, beautiful forms moved about their homes, performing the simple daily chores.

“So you are a child of the Irda,” the elf observed as Usha’s gaze drifted toward one Irda in particular, the tall man who had raised her, the Protector. “Quite beautiful by human terms, plain by theirs. An unfortunate, modest child.”

“No,” Usha said, a hint of sadness to her voice. “I am no child of the Irda.”

“Then how did you come to live among them?”

Usha sadly shook her head. “I don’t know, not really. Raistlin...”

The elf’s eyebrows rose. “Go on.”

“Raistlin told me I was born there. My parents certainly died there. He didn’t say how they happened to find themselves on the isle, if they came from a ship, or... It doesn’t matter. Raistlin said the Irda took me in.”

“Where were your parents from?”

Usha drew her lips into a thin line. “The Irda told me nothing. But they did take good care of me.”

“Quite so,” the elf observed. “There is something of them about you. Perhaps living with them, on their secret island, for so many years—”

“There is nothing special about me.”

“Not that you realize, perhaps. Nothing that the Irda or Raistlin told you. But I sense otherwise, Usha Majere. Your eyes, your hair, your seeming youth. There is something unique about you indeed. But... continue.”

Usha desperately fought the urge to reveal more of her past, but it was a futile battle. In the space of a few heartbeats, she and the elf witnessed a young Usha walking among the Irda, learning from them, growing older, but always different from her adopted people.

“Then they turned you away,” the elf noted flatly. The Irda called the Protector led a lithe young woman with golden eyes to a boat along the shore, pushing her off, bidding her a farewell. Then the boat was gliding across the water, Usha in it, clutching a bag she’d been given, holding on earnestly to the memories of her Irda upbringing.

Within a day the Palanthas shore came into view. Usha, still clutching her bag, climbed up on the docks, drinking in the sights and sounds of the human city. Those first wondrous impressions came rushing at her anew like a strong wind, overwhelming her. Through a haze, Usha noticed that the elf was also affected by the powerful vision. Her expression showed curiosity and excitement.

Then weeks melted in moments, and young Usha’s path crossed with Palin’s. Usha relived the moment, her heart beating with exhilaration, a flush rising to her face. She was flooded with emotions and hopes, private feelings she did not want to share with the elf. She recalled all the little half-truths she had first told Palin and the others she met. She remembered Tasslehoff Burrfoot and how he believed she was Raistlin’s daughter because of her golden eyes. She had not corrected him, but had let the kender believe what he wanted.

At the time she’d wanted her new friends to believe whatever they desired—so long as they would accept her and help chase away her loneliness.

More time melted away, and she found herself, Raistlin, and Palin standing in a burnt clearing and wishing she had told the younger Majere that she wasn’t related to his uncle. She could have admitted her emotions then, could have learned if he felt anything similar toward her. She feared she would never see Palin again, that he would die and so many things would remain unsaid between them.

Someone was sending Palin to the Abyss where the war against Chaos raged. The younger Majere was quickly swept up in a spell, transported to another dimension. Her eyes met Palin’s for what might be a last time. Then suddenly she was traveling with Raistlin.

The world ran like watercolors around her and the elf. Rocky spires and cavern walls appeared, turning brown, orange, and slate gray. The air was instantly dry, though some part of Usha’s mind knew that she was still in the Qualinesti forest, with trees all around her and the air damp and sweet. But her memory felt the heat and smelled the sulphur of the Abyss. The elf too experienced everything. Her eyes drank it all in, as her mind continued to draw the images from Usha.

Shadows fell across them, heralds of the dragons overhead. Usha and the elf raced them along the ground. Many dragons were with riders—Knights of Solamnia and Knights of Takhisis. Far ahead Usha thought she recognized the form of Steel Brightblade, Palin’s cousin.

The air was filled with the sounds of battle, and men’s screams echoed off the walls. There was blood and death everywhere, wounded dragons and men who were crumpled and discarded like dolls. And there was Chaos, giant and impressive beyond human words.

The elf was captivated by the incredible scene. Tears spilled from Usha’s eyes as she recognized Tas, so full of life and moving up behind the Father of All and of Nothing. She saw the halves of the Graygem in her hands and remembered that somehow she’d been entrusted with them.

“Draw a drop of Chaos’s blood and put it in the gem,” she recalled Dougan Redhammer saying. Their first attempt to do that had failed. But Tas inched into position for a second try.

Palin opened an ancient book. It was a powerful tome, Raistlin had told his nephew, the enchantments inside penned by one of Krynn’s greatest war-wizards.

Usha hadn’t understood it all then. She’d been thrust into this world from her protected home, where war was only a word and dragons were creatures unseen.

But she trusted Dougan’s words about the force in the broken halves of the Graygem, and she had placed all her faith in Palin Majere, for whom she felt more than friendship. She found herself praying.

She watched as words tumbled from Palin’s lips and saw from the corner of her eye Tas’s dagger glowing with the eldritch light Palin had called forth to blind Chaos.

The young sorcerer’s spell ended and a dragon fell from the sky, slain by Chaos. Its tail struck Palin and pressed him to the floor of the Abyss, sending him beyond the brink of consciousness.

But Usha was still alert, and she rejoiced to watch Tas’s dagger pierce the god-boot of Chaos. It cut through the thickness to the god-skin below. The dagger sliced at the form taken by the Father of All and of Nothing.

The dagger drew blood, and she was there, halves of the Graygem extended. One crimson drop, that was all they needed. One crimson drop fell into the shattered gem. One drop. Her hands closed the broken halves.

She and Palin lived. How? The feeling of the Graygem in her hands disappeared, and the forest of the Green Peril again sprang up around her and the elf.

“My apologies for making you relive that remarkable experience,” the elf said simply. “It held questions you cannot answer.”

Usha felt the spell lessen and then withdraw altogether. She blinked her eyes, dry from being open so long, and fixed them on the elf’s. She looked away and caught more than a dozen faces staring at her through the ferns and bushes. Had the elven archers also experienced her life story that began on the isle of the Irda and climaxed in the battle in the Abyss? Had they been privy to her innermost thoughts?

“The Abyss,” Usha whispered. “There was so much death.”

“There is still so much death,” the elf said sadly. “Beryl, whom we call the Green Peril, has slain so many of our kinsmen. Our numbers are less than half what they were a few years ago. It will take us centuries to recover, to become as strong as we once were. Perhaps we will never be the same nation again.”

“But if Palin gains the scepter—”

“If,” the elf cut in. “This item Palin seeks, this scepter... the Fist of E’li.” The elf paused, stared at Usha. “Your thoughts revealed that you are uncertain about it. You don’t even know if the power of the scepter is real.”

Usha’s eyes narrowed. Was the elf, even now, still reading her thoughts? “It doesn’t matter what I think. It’s more important what Palin believes.”

“Oh, the scepter is real enough. It is indeed called the Fist of E’li, an ancient thing once wielded by Silvanos himself. Ornate, it is said, bejeweled and pulsing with strength. Perhaps if we had the Fist, we could do something against the dragon’s minions. But so far, the draconians have kept us from that treasure.”

“If Palin gains it, you can’t take it away from him!” Usha raised her voice for the first time against her hosts. “We need...”

“I’ll not take it—if he finds it. I’ll be glad enough if the Fist is kept from the occupants of the tower. Who knows what terrors the draconians could inflict upon us with it. But I’ll extract a promise from you.” The elf’s eyes practically glowed. Usha felt weak, her tired mind unable to defend itself as the elven woman continued her mental magic. “If the scepter is not consumed by whatever your husband has planned, you will do everything in your power, Usha Majere, to keep it safe and eventually to return it to us. You will risk your life for this scepter—the Fist of E’li—if need be. You will risk your very spirit, for the scepter is far more precious to Krynn than you are. Do you understand?”

“Risk my life,” Usha whispered. “Keep it safe. I promise.” She paused, then asked, “Silvanos—what did he use this scepter for?”

“I will tell you, Usha Majere. I will tell you everything.” The elf smiled, words tumbling from her lips.

Usha fought to remember them. They were locked away. They were...

“You were telling me about your voyage to this forest,” the elf said.

Usha’s fingers passed across her temples, rubbing away a small headache. “Yes,” she said haltingly. “A ship brought all of us here.”

“What did you call it, this ship?”

“Flint’s Anvil. Jasper named it, bought it with a gem his Uncle Flint gave him.”

“Uncle Flint?”

“Flint Fireforge. One of the Heroes of the Lance.”

“The legendary dwarf.” The elf cocked her head. “Is something wrong, Usha?”

“I seem to have forgotten something. Maybe about the scepter. Maybe something I was going to say. Maybe...”

“It must not have been important.”

“I suppose not.”

“Usha!” Blister’s hand was tugging on her skirt, rousing her from her reverie. “You better come inside. The Shadow Sorcerer’s found Dhamon—with my help, of course.”

Usha’s golden eyes smiled down at the kender. “All right,” she said softly. “I’d like to see.”

A large crystal bowl filled with rose-colored water sat in the center of a round mahogany table. A dozen thick candles spaced evenly on sconces set into the walls reflected the stern visages of the sorcerers who peered into the water’s gleaming surface.

Palin sat next to the Shadow Sorcerer, an enigmatic figure cloaked in gray. Though the Majeres had worked with the sorcerer for years, they actually knew little about him—or her. The folds of the sorcerer’s robes were too voluminous to provide a clue, and his voice was soft and indistinct. Indeed, it might belong to either a man or a woman. They knew only that the Shadow Sorcerer had walked out of the Desolation, possessing magical abilities none could mimic and willing to assist the Last Conclave in its campaign against Beryl.

Across from the sorcerer sat the Master of the Tower, who, Palin had confided to Usha, was not a man at all, or a woman. He was the embodiment of High Sorcery, birthed when the tower in Palanthas fell decades ago. The Master and Wayreth were one.

And there was Ulin. Usha observed her son. He had recently joined the young gold dragon, Sunrise, attempting to learn more about magic. The dragon was elsewhere in the tower, in the guise of a boy, roaming and exploring, no doubt. The creature had an unending curiosity. Ulin had not returned home to see his wife and children in months, had not even communicated with them, and it looked as if he had no plans for a visit in the immediate future. He was changing before her eyes, becoming more obsessed with magic than ever his father was. He reminded her of Raistlin.

Gilthanas stood away from the table, his thin elven arms draped across the shoulders of a comely Kagonesti—who in truth was no elf at all. She was Silvara, his silver dragon partner whom he’d met decades ago and whom he’d finally come to admit he loved. In her guise as a Kagonesti, she presented a striking figure, though as far as Usha was concerned it was a false mask.

Half the people in the room were cloaked in mysteries and half-truths, Usha had to admit she was a bit of a mystery herself, as the elven woman in the Qualinesti forest had pointed out. Where had she come from? And where were she and Palin ultimately headed?

“Usha! Quit daydreaming!” Blister tugged her closer to the bowl.

She peered over the crystal lip and saw a hazy image, that at first seemed merely like ripples on the surface. But as she stared, she saw that the ripples were curls. Dhamon’s hair. His face came into focus, pained and determined.

“They needed my help, because I knew him the longest,” the kender babbled. “Well, the longest of anybody they knew about. I even met him before Goldmoon did and, well... The Shadow Sorcerer asked me all sorts of questions about Dhamon. Down to the scars on his arms I’d seen. His eyes, the way he talked, walked, everything. They really did need my help to find him.”

The water shimmered green, and leaves came into view, framing Dhamon’s sweat-slicked face. Water dripped from the leaves, fell to ground covered with moss. His feet moved swiftly over rotting twigs and puddles.

“He’s in the swamp,” Palin explained. “Ahead of Rig and the others, and moving quickly. They’re practically following his trail, though they don’t know it.”

“Where is he going?” Usha asked as she pulled back from the table.

The Shadow Sorcerer passed a pale hand across the surface and the water turned clear. “Toward an old ogre ruin. Farther and farther away from us.”

“Toward Malystryx,” Blister suggested.

“She owns him,” the Shadow Sorcerer said.

How would the Shadow Sorcerer know that? Usha wondered.