Dandd dragonlance he.., p.1
D&D - Dragonlance - Heroes 01.3, page 1
Dragonlance Saga
Weasel’s Luck
By
Michael Williams
Volume Three of
Heroes
Part I
From The Moat House To Warden Swamp
The Sign of the Weasel is tunnel on tunnel,
enchantment on enchantment.
He digs beneath himself, and in digging
discovers all roads into nothing.
Burrow the dark until darkness unravels,
in dark the philosophers dance.
— The Calantina, IX: IX
Chapter One
It started on the night of the banquet I did not attend.
While the others were celebrating, I was cleaning my eldest brother Alfric’s chambers, sweeping away the daily confusion of soiled clothes, of bones, of melon rinds. It was like a midden in there, like an ogre’s den. Surely the missing servants were only hiding from Alfric somewhere in the moat house, and would turn up shortly.
Don’t misunderstand me. It would be wrong, then or now, to compare my brother to an ogre. An ogre is larger, more lethal. Probably brighter.
Yet Alfric was bright enough to have me sweeping his quarters, soaping his windows, while he and the rest of the family sat down to supper with an honorable guest. For eight years running he had blackmailed me for the smallest of misdeeds, so that while the sons of other Solamnic Knights had spent their teens in horsemanship and falconry, I had spent mine in sweeping and dread, for reasons … well, the reasons come later.
Let it just be said that at seventeen I was feeling too old to be my brother’s keeper.
While I stirred the dust in his quarters, Alfric sat in the great hall, at the table where Father entertained Sir Bayard Brightblade of Vingaard, a Solamnic Knight who had ridden up to our backwater estate in the glittering armor that was already the subject of song and a legend or two. To top it off, Sir Bayard was supposedly the best swordsman in northern Solamnia.
Not that I cared.
What was especially galling about our visitor was his redemption of Alfric. For it seems that Bayard Brightblade was on his way to vie for the hand of some southern nobleman’s daughter in some glorified tournament, and had stopped in our rice paddy of a county as a favor to our once famous father. Bayard was taking my brother on as a squire at the advanced age of twenty-one, where half a dozen Knights had balked and refused. He would take Alfric with him, whip him into shape, and return him to Father as a man with knightly prospects.
Hearing of these prospects, Alfric had decided to celebrate: another horse had been found dead of exhaustion in the stables this morning, and once again, our tutor Gileandos had been set on fire. Arson was a hobby both Alfric and I pursued, but as usual, I had been blamed, dismissed from the hall without ceremony and supper, while a celebrity dined in our midst.
Laughter and the clatter of crockery arose from downstairs as I dusted my brother’s nightstand, passing the cloth over the freshly carved “Alfric was here” on its surface. No doubt they Were talking about me over wine and venison downstairs, hoping I would soon grow out of whatever I was supposed to grow out of. Brithelm, my middle and spiritual brother, had been excused from supper once again that evening for the gods knew what ancient and honorable fast, and Alfric was no doubt seated at the right hand of my father, nodding in agreement with the old man who had done his best by all of us, while Sir Bayard looked on in solemn and knightly approval.
I stewed over the festivities as I swept cinders, more bones, more feathers. But the stewing—not to mention my story—had only begun.
As I crawled beneath the bed to finish the sweeping before turning to the window I had to scrub daily, I heard a noise behind me in the doorway of the chamber. My first thought was that Alfric had enjoyed scarcely enough bullying for the evening, and had excused himself politely from the table in order to sprint upstairs and whale the daylights out of me for the sheer joy of daylights-whaling. I paused amidst broken pottery, empty wine bottles, several spent oil lamps, and more bones, and crouched beneath the bed.
A voice—honeyed and musical and deep—flowed out of the doorway.
“Where is everyone, little one beneath the bed? You needn’t hide, for I can see through the dark, through time and stone and metal, and I know where you are. Where is everyone? I have business in this house.”
Within that voice was also steel and danger. I thought of assassins, of the hired killer who speaks with a voice as sweet as a choir’s, as the soft sound of the cello, even while he draws the dagger or pours the poison.
What was more, in the presence of the visitor, I swear that the lights dimmed in the chamber, that a low mist rose from the floor. The temperature dropped until the rising mist was laced with a white and bitter ice.
More frightened than when I had thought it was only my brother intending to batter me senseless, I answered in the way I thought safest, to render the least harm to the most dear.
“Look, I don’t know who you are, but don’t hurt me. I’m way down the line to inherit the fortune of this place, so I’m not even worth a well-planned kidnap. If you’re looking for Father, he’s downstairs at a banquet, but you’d probably have an excellent shot at him coming up the stairs in the wee hours of the morning. By the way, he had a hunting accident six months back, still favors his left leg, so aim toward the right.
I began to weep, blubber, and expand on the subject.
“Or if it’s my brother Brithelm you’re after, he’s probably meditating in his room—some kind of religious holiday. Down the hall, third door on the left.”
Brithelm was harmless, good-natured, and of all the family and guests I liked him the best. But not enough to place myself in the way of a would-be murderer. Quickly I continued the list.
“The only other soul on the floor is our tutor Gileandos, who won’t hear a thing, since he’s recovering from burns and probably from brandy by this time of night.”
Through these betrayals, I stayed beneath the bed, from where I could see the intruder from the knees down, first standing in the doorway, then entering the room and seating himself in a chair by the window. His legs seemed large through the bend of the glass globe of the discarded lamp, and he wore black boots tooled with silver scorpions, as though black boots alone were not sinister enough. I raked a fortress of bones and crockery and lint about me, sliding closer and closer to the wall against which the far side of Alfric’s bed rested.
“Of course, you’re aware I have an older brother Alfric, too. If you’d like his entire schedule for the next several days, and a list of his favorite foods …”
“But, little one,” interrupted the stranger, his singer’s voice a lullaby, a drug. “I intend no harm to you or your family. Not unless it is necessary, of course. For it is another I am searching for …”
“Oh, you mean Sir Bayard. Well, if you are after his life it would be better if you came back later, after we’re all asleep, after even the servants have gone to bed. That way the whole business would be cleaner, more private. You wouldn’t have to kill anyone else to do whatever it is you want to do.”
“Don’t you listen, child?” The voice grew lower still, almost a whisper, and the air turned even colder. Outside, the nightingales ceased their singing, as though the moat house and everything surrounding it lay hush to catch the murmured words of the visitor. “Are you that in love with the sound of your own voice? I tell you that I seek no man’s life.”
I raised myself onto my elbows, stirring up a cloud of dust beneath the bed, which I dearly hoped would hide my thoughts and trembling as well as my whereabouts.
Quietly the gentleman in black began to explain himself, as the fire in the hearth sank lower and lower.
“I have no designs on lives tonight. Not tonight, oh, no. It is only the armor I seek, little one, the fabled armor of Sir Bayard of Vingaard, renowned Solamnic Knight of the Sword, who rests here in this house this evening, or so I understand. Oh, yes, only the armor, a small price to pay, don’t you think, for the continued safety of those you love so dearly?”
Well, to be honest, those I loved so dearly were mostly under the bed. And if I wept from fear before, I was practically weeping with joy, with relief now, there amidst the rubble. For my visitor was merely a small time thief—a burglar. A kindred spirit.
I would have crawled from beneath the bed to kiss those silver scorpions, that black instep, had I thought I served to benefit further by adoration, by thief worship. But I feared that sudden movement was still unwise. Instead I lay there, wondering what he wanted with Sir Bayard’s armor.
It was only a moment before he read my silence. He stirred in the chair. The room grew even colder.
“As I said. It is only the armor that interests me, little Galen, nor should you concern yourself with what use I have for it.” I thought of the fine Solamnic breastplate, greaves, and helmet which stood, poorly polished by my eldest brother, in the huge mahogany closet of the guest chambers.
The intruder was welcome to it. I had other worries.
“How do you know my name?”
“Oh … that need not concern you, either. I bear you no ill will-All the while I was listening for the sound of approaching footsteps on the stairway, in the hall.
“Well, if the armor is all you’re after, it’s yours for the asking. It’s in the great mahogany closet of the guest chambers. Welcome to it.”
“Ah!” said the voice.
“The problem is, the guest chambers are locked, triply locked—bolt upon bolt upon bolt. And my brother Alfric has the keys. I expect you’ll have to break the door down or pick the complex series of locks, but the second would take too long and the first would alarm the whole house …”
“But my little friend, I have an alternative,” he stated, musically, the worn heels of his boots visible as he leaned back farther in the chair. And in the cold air was the smell of smoke and of sweat and of old blood. “I love alternatives.”
Something told me that this was no representative burglar, that I was in over my head.
Then a movement—silent, as quick as a striking adder— and a small leather bag hurtled through the air and landed by my side. I shifted uncomfortably, tugged at the drawstring. Into the dim light tumbled half a dozen shimmering stones—onyx, perhaps, or black opals. Perhaps a dark jade. In the shadows beneath the bed, it was hard to tell. They were cool and slick in the palm of my hand, clicking seductively together and against the band of my naming ring.
“For your troubles, little Galen,” the voice soothed. Something in that gave me the shudders. The intruder continued.
“I shall return to this castle at midnight, at which time I expect to walk without hindrance to the guest chambers and find the armor awaiting me. From that moment on, we shall be done with each other.
“If, however, you fail to uphold your end of the bargain, or if you break the silence to which I enjoin you this night, this moment—if indeed you break that silence to anyone, or speak of me aloud to the walls of your bedchamber on this or any other night… I shall have no choice but to dance in your skin, little boy.”
I ignored the threat at first. After all, I was caught up in marveling at the glittering objects in my hand, and in reckoning how much bargaining power they would get me with the merchants in the village, who despite my promises and pleas and threats had begun to deny me credit.
Upon such reckonings the gods lay heavy trouble.
For lulled by greed, I extended my hand out from under the bed so that the stones might catch better light. Green and yellow they were, with a dappling of deep red … And was grabbed by the black-gloved hand of the intruder.
I was startled at first, then worse than startled, as the hot pain of his grip shot up my arm like a quick-acting poison in the arteries. It seemed as though the bed was spinning above me, and dizzily I struggled for purchase, for balance in a rapidly blurring room. The grip relaxed, and just as I began to breathe readily again, a tickling and scratching on my throbbing hand took my breath once more.
For a truly real scorpion stood perched in the palm of my hand, dark amid the bright jewels, tail coiled and poised to strike.
I almost fainted, but the honeyed voice alerted me, jogged me back to my senses.
“Something tells me you aren’t paying me the proper … attention, little man. Oh, but let me correct any misgivings on your part, any tendency you have toward underestimating me here at our first encounter. For I want a certain honesty between us. Even scorpions play by the rules, though the rules may be their own.”
The creature on my arm stood deathly still, as though it was an ebony brooch. A brooch with a poison pin.
The room, the voice, the whole world seemed to focus in the clammy stillness of my palm.
“And the rules in this transaction are simple ones. Your complete cooperation. Your total silence. Your willingness to come when I call and never to question the mysteries of my workings.
“For this you receive your life daily. Of course, we shall take stock of your doings, now and then, to see if you have played by the rules or have been … found wanting. Death is a cozy nest, boy. You might even grow to prefer it.”
The scorpion vanished from my hand. I closed my fist rapidly, spilling semiprecious stones across the floor. When the clattering died down, when the last stone had rolled to a halt under the intruder’s chair, he rose, his boots glinting ebony in the firelight.
“Remember, Galen Pathwarden. The scorpion returns as quickly as it departs, as unexpectedly. But we will take stock, at midnight, in the guest quarters of the moat house. At that hour, the armor is mine. Or you are.”
Suddenly the boots stood before the chair, the intruder using it as a step to rise to the sill of the window and out, down three dizzying stories into the gathering dark, the shutters of the window creaking back and forth behind him. I knew from experience that it would still be safer underneath the bed. Above me I heard movement, creaking, a servant climbing the steps to the bell tower, and soon afterwards, the ten tolls of the bell that signaled the hour.
There followed a long pause in which the air in the chambers began to warm, the sound of bird’s song outside the window resumed, and I finally ceased shaking, crawled out into the light, and lay sprawled on the floor for a moment, recovering my breath amidst a litter of dark opals.
For dark opals they were, and a sizable bribe for my efforts and silence. I gathered them up, inspecting them for flaws. The Scorpion, as I decided to call him in honor of both his companions and his wardrobe, was evidently a man of his word.
Which gave me pause, naturally. For a man who keeps his word in one venue …
Is likely to keep it in others.
I sprang to my feet and out the door of Alfric’s quarters, leaving behind me the room half-swept, the windows open, and the fireplace heavy with ashes. Down the narrow granite stairwell I rushed, touching perhaps two steps on my way to the second floor, landing heavily, off balance, then recovering in stride on my way to the door of the guest chambers.
Which was triply locked. Bolt upon bolt upon bolt.
And the keys dangling from Alfric’s belt in the main hall somewhere, no doubt ringing together as pleasantly as sleigh bells while their bearer’s little brother awaited midnight and the dancing in his skin.
I drew out my knife and began gouging at the upper lock.
There I might have stayed, whimpering and gouging unti] the hour of reckoning, growing more frantic and more defeated as the minutes passed. But luck—Weasel’s luck, as Alfric called my ability to fall in a midden and come up smelling like jasmine—stepped in after a long absence.
I heard the sound of someone ascending the stairs toward Alfric’s quarters. From the heavy tread and the puffing and muttering, I knew that my brother had been paying court to the wine while Father and Sir Bayard had been distracted by nobility and conversation.
Hulking like an ogre, smelling of pork and port, Brother Alfric paused, reeling, on the second floor landing. Shading his eyes with one meaty hand, he squinted down the hall in my direction.
“You again, Weasel? I just saw you on the stairway.”
By the way, he calls me Weasel, if you haven’t guessed. “Galen” means “Weasel” in Old Solamnic, and Alfric has other reasons—unfair reasons—of his own.
“The old gallon distemper,” I explained, referring to his wine-slanted vision. “How is your guest enjoying his stay?” I continued, my voice full of sweetness and brotherly affection—as best I could imitate, at least.
But it had dawned on Alfric that I was hovering about the guest chambers door in a way that I should not be hovering. Lumbering up the hall he came, his fists clenched, promising mayhem.
“What was you trying to do to that lock, little brother?”
“I’m not here, Alfric. You just saw me on the stairway, remember? What you see before you is a resinous vision, the dregs of the wine.”
I never claimed to have planned this all too well. But he stopped at that and puzzled it out for a moment. Meanwhile I scrambled to my feet, backed away from him, and kept talking.
“Brother dear, even as I speak there are mysteries milling about this moat house, endangering all of us.”
It sounded good.
“Endangering you above all others. For you are to be the squire of a certain reputable Knight whose … belongings may be at jeopardy this very evening.”
Alfric paused in his unsteady charge, hiccupped, and stared at me in stupid puzzlement. If he came after me, he would have the stones—and probably the whole story—in an instant. Would probably drub me senseless in exchange.
