The Qualinesti

1 — Shadow Talk

When Kith-Kanan led his followers west to found a new elven nation in the ancient woodland known first as Mithranhana, he had no goal, no plan in mind except that the mistakes of Silvanesti would not be repeated. By this he meant not only the autocratic, inflexible government of the first elven nation, but also the baroque, ornamental layout of the city of Silvanost itself.

The site of the first city in the new nation was chosen not by conscious thought, but by a lost deer. Kith-Kanan and his closest lieutenants were riding ahead of their column of settlers one afternoon when they spied a magnificent hart with ice-blue antlers and gray hide. Thinking the beast would make a fine trophy, as well as provide much needed meat, Kith-Kanan and his lieutenants gave chase. The hart bounded away with great leaps, and the elves on horseback were hard pressed to keep up. The deer led them farther and farther from their line of march, down a steep ravine. An arrow nocked, Kith-Kanan was about to try a desperate on-the-fly shot when the ravine ended at the precipitous edge of a river gorge. Kith-Kanan pulled his horse up sharply and gave a yell of surprise. The deer leapt straight off the cliff!

Astonished, the elves dismounted, hurried to the rim of the gorge, and looked down. There was no sign of the hart; no carcass lay smashed on the riverbank below. Kith-Kanan then knew the animal had been a magical one, but why had it deliberately crossed their path? Why had it brought them here?

The answer soon became obvious as the elves surveyed their surroundings. Across the wide gorge was a beautiful plateau, lightly wooded with hardwoods and conifers.

After only a moment’s reflection, Kith-Kanan knew this was to be the site of their new city, the capital of their new nation.

The plateau was bounded on the north, east, and west by two rivers, which converged at the north end of the plateau and became a tributary of the White Rage River. These two streams ran through deep, wide gorges. The south side of the roughly triangular escarpment was a labyrinth of steep, rocky ravines, and the land rose eventually to form the mountains of Thorbardin. From a natural point of view, the place was ideal, offering beauty and natural defenses. And as for the gray hart—well, the Bard King, Astarin, the god most revered by elves, is sometimes known as the Wandering Hart.

So the city of Qualinost was born. For a time, there was much sentiment to name the town after Kith-Kanan, as Silvanost had been named after the great Silvanos, august founder of the first elven nation. The Speaker of the Sun would not hear of it.

“This city is not to be a monument to me,” he told his well-intentioned followers, “but a place for all people of good heart.”

In the end, it was Kith-Kanan’s friend and war companion, Anakardain, who named the city. That middle-aged warrior, who had fought beside Kith at the Battle of Sithelbec, remarked one night over dinner that the noblest person he’d ever heard of was Quinara, wife of Silvanos. The palace in Silvanost was called the Quinari, after her.

“You’re right,” Kith-Kanan declared. Though Quinara had died before he was born, Kith-Kanan knew well the stories of his grandmother’s virtuous life. Thereafter, the budding city in the trees was known as Qualinost, which in Old Elven means “In Memory of Quinara.”

The ranks of the immigrants were swelled daily by arrivals from Silvanesti. A vast camp grew up along the bank of the east river as more permanent dwellings sprouted among the evergreens on the plateau. The buildings of Qualinost, formed from the rose quartz that occurred naturally there, were domelike or conical in shape, reaching like leafless trees to the heavens.

Greatest effort was reserved for the Tower of the Sun, a tremendous golden spire that was to be the seat of the Speaker of the Sun’s reign. In general design, it resembled Silvanost’s Tower of the Stars, but in place of cold, white marble, this tower was covered with burnished gold. The metal reflected the warm, bright rays of the sun. The shape of the Tower of the Sun was the only likeness Qualinost bore to the old elven capital; when it was done, and Kith-Kanan had been formally installed as Speaker of the Sun, then the break between East and West was complete.

One spring morning in the two hundred and thirtieth year of the reign of Kith-Kanan, the calm of Qualinost was shattered by the tramping of massed hobnailed boots. City folk gathered outside their rose-hued homes, in the shade of the wide, spreading trees, and watched as nearly the entire Guard of the Sun, the army of Qualinesti, marched across the high-arched bridges that spanned the four corners of the city. Unlike human fortified towns, Qualinost had no walls; instead, four freestanding spans of wrought iron and bronze arched from tower keep to tower keep, enclosing the city in walls of air. The bridges were designed to aid in the protection of the city, yet not interfere with the free passage of traders and townsfolk. Not unimportantly, they were breathtakingly beautiful, as delicate as cobwebs but obviously strong enough to hold the troops that even now marched across them. The bronze of the cantilevered spans flashed fire in the sunlight, and at night, the black iron was silvered by the white moon, Solinari. The four keeps had been named by Kith-Kanan as Arcuballis, Sithel, Mackeli, and Suzine Towers.

That morning, the people stood with their faces turned upward as the companies of guards left the tower keeps and converged on Suzine Tower, at the southeast comer of the city. The elves had been at peace for over two centuries, and no such concentration of troops had been observed in all that time. Once the two thousand soldiers of the guard had gathered at the keep, quiet returned once more to the city. Though the curious Qualinesti watched for long minutes, nothing else seemed to be happening. The arched bridges were again empty. The people, their faith in their leaders and their troops strong, shrugged their shoulders and went back to their daily routines.

There were too many warriors to fit inside Suzine Tower, so many stood on the lower intersecting ends of the bridges. Rumors circulated through the ranks. What was happening? Why had they been summoned? The old enemy, Ergoth, had been quiet a long time. Tension existed with Silvanesti, and the frightening idea formed that the Speaker’s twin brother, Sithas, Speaker of the Stars, was attacking from the east. This grim story gained momentum as it spread.

In ignorance, the troops waited as the sun passed its zenith and began its descent. When at last the shadow of the Tower of the Sun reached out and touched the eastern bridge, the keep’s doors opened and Kith-Kanan emerged, along with a sizable contingent from the Thalas-Enthia, the Qualinesti senate.

The warriors clasped their hands to their armored chests and cried, “Hail, Great Speaker! Hail, Speaker of the Sun!” Kith-Kanan acknowledged their salutes, and the soldiers fell silent. The Speaker of the Sun looked tired and troubled. His mane of blond hair, heavily shot through with silver, was pulled back in a crude queue, and his sky-blue robes were wrinkled and dusty.

“Guards of the Sun,” he said in a low, controlled voice, “I have summoned you here today with a heavy heart. A problem that has plagued our country for some years has grown so much worse that I am forced to use you, my brave warriors, to suppress it. I have consulted with the senators of the Thalas-Enthia and the priests of our gods, and they have agreed with my chosen course!”

Kith-Kanan paused, closing his eyes and sighing. The day was beginning to cool slightly, and a breeze wafted over the tired leader’s face. “I am sending you out to destroy the slave traders who infest the confluence of the rivers that guard our city,” he finished, his voice rising.

The guards broke out in subdued murmurs of surprise. Every resident of Qualinost knew that the Speaker had been trying to suppress slavery in his domain. The long Kinslayer War had, as one of its saddest consequences, created a large population of refugees, vagabonds, and lawless rovers. These were preyed upon by slavers, who sold them into bondage in Ergoth and Silvanesti. Since Qualinesti was a largely unsettled area between these two slave-holding countries, it was inevitable that the slavers would operate in Kith-Kanan’s land. Slavers who drove their human and elven “goods” to market through Qualinesti territory frequently captured Qualinesti citizens as they went. Slavery was one of the principal evils Kith-Kanan and his followers had wanted to leave behind in Silvanesti, but the pernicious practice had insinuated itself into the new country. It was time for the Speaker of the Sun to put an end to it.

“Lord Anakardain will lead a column of a thousand guards up the eastern river to the confluence. Lord Ambrodel will command a second column of seven hundred and fifty mounted warriors, who will sweep the western branch and drive the slavers into Lord Anakardain’s hands. As much as possible, I want these people taken alive for public trial. I doubt many of them will have the stomach to fight anyway, but I don’t want them dealt with summarily. Is that clear?”

Most of the guards were former Wildrunners who had fought with Kith-Kanan against the Ergothians; they were the sons and daughters of Kagonesti elves who had been held in slavery in Silvanost for centuries. Slavers could expect little kindness from them.

Kith-Kanan stood back as Lord Anakardain began dividing the troops into the two forces, with the remaining two hundred fifty warriors to remain behind in the city. General Lord Kemian Ambrodel, son of Kith-Kanan’s castellan, stood beside his sovereign.

“If you wish, sire, I can have Lady Verhanna assigned to the city guard,” he said confidentially.

“No, no. She is a warrior the same as any other,” Kith-Kanan said. “She would never want to be shown favoritism simply because she is my daughter.”

Even in the crowd of two thousand troops, he could easily pick out Verhanna. Taller by almost a head than most of the Qualinesti warriors, her silver helm bore the red plume of an officer. A thick braid of light brown hair hung down her back to her waist. She was quite mature for a half-human. Never married, Verhanna was dedicated to her father and to the guards. Kith-Kanan was proud of his daughter’s warrior skills, but some small fatherly portion of him wished to see her wedded and a mother before he died.

“I would prefer, however, that she go with you rather than Anakardain. I think she will be safer with the mounted troops,” Kith-Kanan told Lord Ambrodel.

The handsome, fair-haired Silvanesti elf nodded gravely. “As you command, sire.”

Lord Anakardain called his young subordinate to his side. Kith-Kanan watched Lord Ambrodel hurry away, and he was once more struck by the strong resemblance the young general bore to his elderly father.

As the guards broke up into their two units, the Speaker reentered Suzine Tower, trailed by several members of the Thalas-Enthia. With a notable lack of protocol, Kith-Kanan went to a table set beside the curved wall and poured himself a large cup of potent nectar.

The senators ringed round him. Clovanos, who was of an old, noble Silvanesti clan, said, “Great One, this act will cause great dismay to the Speaker of the Stars.”

Kith-Kanan set down his cup. “My brother must deal with his own conscience,” he said flatly. “I will not tolerate slavery in my realm.”

Senator Clovanos waved a dismissive hand. “It is a minor problem, Great Speaker,” he said.

“Minor? The buying and selling of people as if they were chickens or glass beads? Do you honestly consider that a minor problem, my lord?”

Senator Xixis, who was half Kagonesti, put in, “We only fear retribution by the Speaker of the Stars or the Emperor of Ergoth if we mistreat those slavers who happen to be their subjects. Our country is still very new, Highness. If we were attacked by one or both of those countries, Qualinesti would not survive.”

“I think you gravely underestimate our strength,” said a human senator, Malvic Pathfinder, “and overestimate the concern of two monarchs for some of the worst scum to walk this world.”

“There are deeper roots to this business than you know,” Clovanos said darkly. “Even within Qualinost, there are those who profit by this trade in flesh.”

Kith-Kanan snapped around, his robes swirling about his feet. “Who would dare,” he demanded, “in defiance of my edicts?”

Clovanos paled before the Speaker’s sudden wrath. He backed up a step and stammered, “G-Great Majesty, one hears things in taverns, in temples. Shadow talk. Dark things without substance.”

Xixis and Irthenie, a Kagonesti senator who still proudly wore the face paint popular with her wilder cousins, stepped between Kith-Kanan and the chastened Clovanos. Irthenie, whose intelligence and strong antislavery stance made her a confidant of the Speaker, declared, “Clovanos speaks the truth, Majesty. There are places in the city where money changes hands for influence and for slaves sold in other lands.”

Kith-Kanan released the gold clasp from his long hair and combed through the pale strands with his fingers. “It never ends, does it?” he said tiredly. “I try to give the people a new life, and all the old vices come back to haunt us.”

His gloomy observation hung in the air like dark smoke. Embarrassed, Clovanos and Xixis were the first to leave. Malvic followed, after offering words of support for the Speaker’s stand. The half-human Senator Harplen, who seldom spoke, left with Malvic. Only Irthenie remained.

With much tramping and shouting, the two units of the Guards of the Sun dispersed. Kith-Kanan watched from the window as his warriors streamed over the bridges to the tower keeps and down into the city. He looked for, but didn’t see, Verhanna.

“My daughter is going out with the guard,” he said, his back to the Kagonesti woman. “This will be her first taste of conflict.”

“I doubt that,” said Irthenie flatly. “No one close to you can be unfamiliar with conflict, Kith. What I don’t understand is why you don’t send your son along, too. He could use some hard lessons, that boy.”

Kith-Kanan rolled the brass cup back and forth in his hands, warming the nectar within. “Ulvian has gone off with his friends again. I don’t know where. Probably drinking himself sick, or gambling his shirt on a roll of the bones.” The Speaker’s tone was bitter. A frown pulled at the corners of Kith-Kanan’s mouth. He set his cup aside. “Ullie has never been the same since Suzine died. He was very close to his mother.”

“Give him to me for six months and I’ll straighten him out!”

Kith-Kanan had to smile at her declaration. Irthenie had four sons, all of whom were vigorous, opinionated, and successful. If Ulvian were younger, he might take Irthenie up on her offer. “My good friend,” he said instead, taking her dark, age-worn hands in his, “of all the problems that face me today, Ulvian is not the worst.”

She looked up at him, studying him closely. “You’re wrong, Speaker,” she said. “The fortress of Pax Tharkas is nearing completion, and the time is fast approaching when you vowed to abdicate. Can you in good conscience appoint a good-for-nothing idler like Ulvian the next Speaker of the Sun? I think not.”

He dropped her hands and turned away, his face shadowed by concern. “I can’t go back on my word. I swore I would abdicate once Pax Tharkas was finished.” He sighed heavily. “I wish to pass on the mantle of leadership. After the war, and after building a new nation, I am tired.”

“Then I tell you this, Kith-Kanan. Take your rest and give over the title to another, as long as it is anyone but your son,” Irthenie said firmly. The Speaker did not reply. Irthenie waited for several minutes, then bowed and left the tower. Kith-Kanan sat down on a hard barrack chair and let the sunshine wash over his face. Closing his eyes, he gave himself over to deep and difficult thoughts.

“Ho there, trooper! Close up your ranks.”

Sullenly the guards reined their horses about. They weren’t usually so glum, but they happened to have been assigned to the strictest, most particular captain in the Guards of the Sun. Verhanna Kanan did not spare herself, or anyone in her command.

Verhanna’s troop was moving northward, patrolling the western slopes of the Magnet Mountains, a small but steep range of peaks west of Qualinost. The stream that flowed past the western side of the city originated in these mountains. The land was sparsely wooded this close to the range of hills. Lord Ambrodel had given Verhanna’s troop the task of searching closest to the foot of the peaks, where the guards were vulnerable to ambush from above.

The captain kept her warriors close together. She didn’t want any stragglers getting picked off. Her eyes never left the hillside. The red rock and brown soil were streaked with veins of black. These were deposits of lodestone, the natural magnets that gave the mountains their name. Kender shamans came from all across Ansalon to dig up the lodestone for protective amulets. So far on this sortie, the only living things Verhanna had seen were a few of the small kender race, working at the outcroppings of lodestone with deer antler picks.

Her second-in-command, a former Silvanesti named Merithynos, Merith for short, kept by her side as their horses picked their way slowly over the stony ground. The slopes were in shadow all morning.

“A futile task,” Merith said, sighing loudly. “What are we doing here?”

“Carrying out the Speaker’s command,” Verhanna replied firmly. Her gaze rested on a dark figure nestled in a fold in the ground. She stared hard at it but soon realized it was only a holly bush.

Merith yawned, one hand pressed against his mouth. “But it’s such a bore.”

“Yes, I know. You’d rather be in Qualinost, strutting down the street, impressing the maids with your sword and armor,” Verhanna, said dryly. “At least out here you’re earning your pay.”

“Captain! You wound me.” Merith clutched his chest and swayed as if shot by an arrow.

She scowled at him, a mock frown on her face. “Fool! How did a dandy like you ever get in the guards?” she asked.

“Actually, it was my father’s idea. Priesthood or warriorhood, that’s what he told me. ‘There’s no room in Clan Silver Moon for wastrels’, he said.”

Verhanna stiffened and reined her horse up short. “Quiet,” she hissed. “I saw something.”

With hand signals, the captain divided her troop of twenty in half, with ten warriors, including herself, dismounting. Sword and buckler at the ready, she led the guards up the gravelly slope. Their booted feet slid in the loose dirt. The climb was a slow one.

Suddenly a shape rose up in front of Verhanna and scampered away, like a partridge flushed by a spaniel.

“Get him!” the captain shouted. The small creature, which seemed to be wrapped in a white cloth, darted away but lost its footing and rolled downhill. It came to rest with a bump against Merith’s booted feet.

He put the tip of his slender elven blade against the sheeted mound, pricking the creature until it lay still. “Captain,” Merith called coolly, “I have him.”

The guards closed around the captive. Verhanna took one edge of the white sheet and pulled hard, spinning the occupant around. Out popped a small, sinewy figure with flaming red hair and a face to match.

“Stinkin’, poxy, rancid, dirty, lice-ridden—” he sputtered, rubbing his backside. “Who poked me?”

“I did,” Merith said. “And I’ll do it again if you don’t hold your tongue, kender.”

“That’s enough, Lieutenant,” Verhanna said sharply. Merith shrugged and gave the outraged fellow an insolent smile. The captain turned to her captive and demanded, “Who are you? Why did you run from us?”

“Wrinklecap is who I am, and you’d run, too, if you woke from a nap to see a dozen swords over you!” The kender stopped rubbing his backside and twisted around to look at it. An almost comical expression of outrage widened his pale blue eyes. “You made a hole in my trousers!” he said, glaring at them. “Someone’s gonna pay for this!”

“Be still,” Verhanna said. She shook out the sheet Wrinklecap had been sleeping in. A double handful of black pebbles fell from its folds. “A lodestone gatherer,” she said. The disappointment in her voice was obvious.

“The lodestone gatherer,” intoned the tiny fellow, tapping his chest with one finger. “Rufus Wrinklecap of Balifor, that’s me.”

The guards who were waiting below on horseback called out to their captain. Verhanna shouted back that all was well. Sheathing her sword, she said to the kender, “You’d better come along with us.”

“Why?” piped Rufus.

Verhanna was tired of bandying words with the noisy kender, so she pushed him ahead. Rufus snatched his sheet from the elven captain and rolled it up as he walked.

“Not fair—big bunch of bullies—creepin’, pointyheaded elves—” he grumbled all the way down the slope.

Verhanna halted and ordered her troopers to remount. She sat down on a handy boulder and waved the kender over. “How long have you been in these parts?” she asked him.

After a few seconds of hesitation, the kender took a deep breath and said, “Well, after Uncle Trapspringer escaped from the walrus men and was eaten by the great ice bear—”

The captain quickly clamped a hand over the kender’s open mouth. “No,” she said firmly. “I do not want your entire life history. Simply answer my questions, or I’ll let Lieutenant Merith poke you again.”

His long red topknot bobbled as Rufus swallowed hard. Verhanna was easily twice his size. Merith, from his mounted position next to them, was tapping the pommel of his sword meaningfully. The kender nodded. Verhanna released her hold on him.

“I’ve been here going on two months,” Rufus said sulkily.

Verhanna remembered the loose stones he’d had. “You don’t have much to show for two month’s work,” she commented.

Rufus puffed out his thin chest. “I only take the best stones,” he said proudly. “I don’t fill my pockets with trash like all them others do.”

Ignoring for the moment the little fellow’s last remark, Verhanna asked, “How do you live? I don’t see any camp gear, cooking pot, or waterskin.”

The kender turned innocent azure eyes on her and said, “I find what I need.”

Merith snorted loudly. A smile touched Verhanna’s lips. “Find, eh? Kender are good at that. Who have you ‘found’ things from?” she asked.

“Different people.”

Verhanna drew a long, double-edged dagger from her belt and began to strop it slowly against her boot. “We’re looking for some different people,” she said carefully, making sure the kender followed every stroke of the bright blade. “Humans. Maybe some elves.” The dagger paused. “Slavers.”

Rufus let out his breath with a whoosh. “Oh!” he exclaimed, his high-pitched voice descending the scale. “Is that who you’re after? Well, why didn’t you say so?”

The kender launched into a typically random account of his activities of the past few days—caves he’d explored, wonders he’d beheld, and a secret camp he’d found over the mountains. In this camp, he claimed there were humans and elves holding other humans and elves in chains. Rufus had seen the camp just two days before.

“On the other side of the mountains?” Verhanna said sharply. “The eastern slope?”

“Yup. Right by the river. Are you going to attack them?” The kender’s eagerness was unmistakable. His darting gaze took in their armor and weapons, and he added, “Well, of course you are. Want me to show you where I saw them?”

Verhanna did indeed. She ordered food and water for Rufus while she conferred with Merith about this new intelligence.

The kender wolfed down chunks of quith-pa, a rich elven bread, and bites of a winesap apple. “This little fellow may be a great help to us,” she said confidentially to Merith. “Send a message to Lord Ambrodel informing him of what we’ve learned.”

Merith saluted. “Yes, Captain.” His expression turned grim as he added, “You realize what this means, don’t you? If the slavers are on the other side of the mountain, then they are operating within sight of the city.”

He turned on one heel and strode away to send the dispatch to Lord Ambrodel. Verhanna watched him for a moment, then pulled on her gauntlets and said to Rufus, “Can you ride pillion?”

The kender hastily lowered a water bottle from his lips, dribbling sweet spring water down his sunbrowned cheeks. “Ride a what?” he asked suspiciously.

Not pausing to explain, Verhanna swung onto her black horse and grabbed the kender by the hood attached to the back of his deerhide tunic. Yelping, Rufus felt himself lifted into the air and settled on the short leather tail of her saddle.

“That’s a pillion,” she said. “Now hold on!”