Legacy of Steel

7

Sara packed carefully for her trip to Palanthas. The rugs, shawls, scarves, cloth, and wall hangings she had woven and saved for several years were brought out of her loft shaken out, and folded into the horse panniers she borrowed from a neighbor. Seven days of trail food was added to the baskets, as well as several changes of clothing. She topped one pannier with her cloak and a blanket and filled the other with a nose bag, an extra halter, and a bag of grain for the horse.

She debated taking her sword before she realized that it was simply her nervousness trying to influence her. No mere weaver would have a sword among her belongings. She contented herself with her short hunting bow a dagger at her belt, and a second long, slim blade tucked into the calf of her new boot.

Dawn had not yet lightened the sky when Sara loaded the panniers on the horse and left her cottage. Although it was early and she had slept little, she didn't want to be distracted by curious villagers or farmers needing help with an animal. She just wanted to get moving and finish this trip as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, while Palanthas was due east of Connersby as the dragon flies, there was no direct land route from the village over the mountains to the city. Sara had to go north to Daron, then take the trail southeast past the iron mines and on to Palanthas. It was a dangerous trip for a woman alone, but Sara hoped to find other travelers in Daron who would not mind another person joining their group.

She reached the port town by evening and found an inn on the outskirts near the trail to Palanthas. The inn, named the Widow's Walk, was a large, prosperous establishment befitting a town as busy as Daron. It was owned by a woman-the widow, Sara imagined-who kept it well. The stables were clean, the inn courtyard was neat, and the long, tall building was in good repair.

Sara decided to splurge on a room. If there were travelers leaving for the city, this would be a good place to find them. She left her horse in the care of a young lad and paid extra to store her packs.

The common room was busy-another good sign- filled with local fishermen, sailors, merchants, a few local farmers, and a group of dwarves. Most of the customers were engrossed in their own food and conversation. Only a few looked her way when Sara entered.

That was to Sara's liking. She had deliberately dressed in a plain, drab skirt and tunic to ensure her presence was not memorable. Her silver hair had been rolled into a bun, topped by a loose hat; her dagger was tucked out of sight under a voluminous vest. Her face was pleasant, but at her age, not enough beauty remained to attract casual eyes.

After a few words with the lady innkeeper, she learned what she wanted to know. A party of merchants was leaving for Palanthas in the morning. When she approached the men dining near the fireplace, they eyed her up and down for a mere moment and nodded agreement. For a small fee, she could join their party.

Sara was satisfied. The fee was not exorbitant and was only to be expected. The merchants had five armed guards traveling with them and a train of pack animals. Few bandits or lone ogres would dare attack a party that.

They left the Widow's Walk after breakfast in a long, noisy caravan and took the trail into the rugged Vingaard Mountains. The trail, while not a maintained high road, had been traveled enough to be fairly wide and, on the lower slopes of the mountains at least, easily negotiated. The morning was cool and rainy, and the towering peaks of the range stayed veiled behind clouds of mist.

Leading her horse, Sara stayed in the rear of the caravan with several other hangers-on and the servants.

That night the rain blew itself out and a stiff wind dried the trail. The sun rose into a brilliantly clear sky at dawn and turned the snow on the high peaks into dazzling mantles of purest white.

The merchant train found its stride in the following days, and to Sara's relief, the miles fell quickly behind her. Three days out of Daron, the caravan crossed over the pass and began the downward descent toward the Bay of Branchala. Five days out, the caravan topped the last ridge and wove down the steep road into the broad sheltered basin of Palanthas. She drew aside at the top of the trail to let the others pass. Her eyes followed the long line of pack animals down the switchbacks to the valley below and her gaze filled with the walls and towers and buildings that once had been the shining center of Solamnia.

The rays of the late afternoon sun touched the rooftops of the sprawling city and illuminated the streets Sara had known well so many years ago. The light sparkled on the waters of the bay where the docks bustled with activity. It gleamed on the windows of the great palace in the center of the city and it gilded the walls of the massive Great Library of the Ages.

Sara knew the city had suffered damage from the backlash of energy from the Abyss that opened in the ocean to the north. From the looks of things, much of the obvious damage had been cleared away or repaired, leaving just a few razed streets along the bay and some humble ruins in abandoned lots.

Only one obvious landmark was missing from her view of the city, and its absence glared like a wound on unprotected skin. The awe-inspiring black Tower of High Sorcery with its bloody minarets and its fearsome Shoikan Grove, was gone, wiped from the face of Palanthas in one horrifying stroke. No one knew exactly what caused the disaster or what happened to the tower and it's contents. All that remained was a pool of a shining obsidian substance and an echoing emptiness.

"Better not stand there all night," someone called to her, "The shops close at six chimes, and the city guards still impose a limited curfew."

Sara tugged her weary horse into a walk and trod the final distance into the city.

The chimes, hanging in the clock tower in the Temple of Paladine, were just ringing six when Sara left the merchants' caravan and strode into the city on her own. Six strikes from the clock marked the end of the business day in Palanthas and were accompanied by much slamming of shutters and locking of doors and bustling about in the streets.

It had been a long time since Sara had been in Palanthas, and she walked slowly to see everything, pleased to be back in the city. With no real destination in mind, she simply wandered where chance took her. Old memories assailed her, memories of Steel as a small boy walking hand in hand with her through these very streets. She remembered his dark, curly head and his vivid gaze and the rapt attention he gave to the stories she used to tell about knights and honor and courage.

With the good memories came the bad ones, too: her growing Fear that Kitiara would come to claim her son, the grief she felt over the battling darkness she saw in Steel's soul, the terror of the fires in the city that destroyed their home. And worst of all, she remembered that dark night when Steel was twelve years old when the black riders appeared at her door and Lord Ariakan lured Steel into his evil order.

Sara shivered with a cold that was not in the air. In her mind's eye, she saw again the cold visage of the dark lord and the determined, proud face of her son. She had begged and pleaded and cried for him to stay, but Steel was entranced by the promises of Ariakan and determined to go. Sara felt her eyes burn with unshed tears The passersby around her faded into a blur of colors and distant movement.

She had tried everything, and finally all she won was the chance to accompany him to Storm's Keep. For her, it may as well have been a prison. For years, she cooked and cared for Ariakan's recruits and trained his dragons, and when he desired, Ariakan took her to his bed. The only things that kept her going through those long, brutal years were Steel and the dragons.

Then, just before he was to take his final vows, she violated the knighthood's Code by kidnapping Steel and trying to turn him back to the light. Her plan did not work, and she lost him at last.

Sara stopped so abruptly that her horse bumped into her back. Fiercely she wiped her eyes with her sleeve to erase the evidence of her pain. Those years were long over, she told herself. There was nothing left worth crying about.

She forced herself to move again. She didn't want to stand around all night like a lost child. Without conscious thought, her feet carried her through the streets past the gatehouse in the Old City Wall and into the older section of Palanthas. Lights flickered in many houses around her as night settled over the city. Before her thoughts had caught up with the present, Sara found herself standing by the edge of a wide expanse of green lawn that flowed comfortably, like an invitation, toward an elegant building built of white marble. Sara recognized it immediately: the Temple of Paladine.

Aslow smile spread over her face. She had been to this temple before to give thanks for salvation, and once or twice to find Steel. There was a bench, a marble seat, he had loved. It used to sit… over there, under a tree. Sara could not see it in the dark, but she knew where it Should be.

Leading the horse, she walked across the smooth, grassy lawn to the aspen tree she remembered and tied the horse to the gray trunk. The stone bench still sat there, unchanged, unmoved by the years that had passed.

Weary with the ache of her memories, Sara sank down on the cool stone. Her hand touched the back of the bench and felt the outline of the frieze carved into the marble It was that simple, rather crude carving that Steel had liked so much, perhaps because of the simplicity of emotions it portrayed.

Nothing in Steel Brightblade's life had been simple- not his birth, not his childhood, not his maturity. From the moment of his birth, he had been torn by the conflicting desires represented by his blood mother, the Dragon Highlord Kitiara Uth Matar, and by his father, the Solamnic Knight and hero Sturm Brightblade.

Sara saw the struggle of the light and the dark in his soul every hour of every day. She did not know what happened that last day when Steel met the god Chaos and died; she only hoped that by then her beloved child had found his peace.

Her fingers lightly traced the outlines of the carving that portrayed the funeral of a knight. The frieze pictured the knight lying on a bier, his arms folded across his chest. His shield leaned against the side of the bier. Twelve knightly escorts stood on either side of the knight's body, every one stern and solemn.

Steel had never told her what he saw in those simple images, but Sara guessed it was the honor paid the dead knight, the courage implicit in his life, and the peace of his death-things she hoped Steel found for himself in the Battle of the Rift.

Sara smiled to herself in the darkness, a sad, slow smile of remembering.

Her horse by the aspen snorted in alarm and lunged back against his rope. The tree swayed, showering Sara with bits of bark and a few twigs.

A voice, cool and pleasant, said, "Good evening. We did not mean to startle you."

Sara raised her head and saw two figures standing in the darkness, perhaps ten paces away. There was just enough starlight for her to see that one was a handsome man of indeterminate age and solid build. The other was a woman, slender, elegant, as beautiful and enduring as the temple itself.

Sara recognized the woman immediately, the Revered Daughter Crysania, High Priestess of the Temple of Paladine, leader of the god's faithful on Ansalon. The other she had never seen before. Sara rushed to her feet and hurried to her horse's head, too embarrassed to speak.

The old bay jerked on his rope, his eyes rolling white with nervousness.

The man bent toward his fair companion and spoke softly in her ear. She nodded, leaning into his support with warm familiarity.

"Forgive us for startling you," the priestess said to Sara. "So few come to the temple anymore. I was pleased to know someone was making use of our grounds. It is getting late. Is there anything I can do for you?"

Sara hesitated, unsure of what to say.

Crysania stood, waiting patiently, her hand lightly resting on the man's arm. Her eyes, blind to the world of men, gazed sightlessly into the darkness. "My friend says you are a woman, and I hear your light step and the rustle of your skirts. Do I know you?"

"Not well, Revered Daughter," Sara said faintly. "I met you once or twice many years ago when I lived here with my adopted son. My name is Sara."

Lady Crysania spoke softly to her companion, who inclined his head. He smiled at her, then kissed her hand and walked away, leaving the two women alone in the darkness. The priestess walked to the stone bench, found the edge with her fingers, and sat down. She gestured for Sara to join her.

Closer now, Sara could see how little Crysania had changed since she saw the priestess for the first time nearly twenty years ago. Her hair was still black, netted in silver, with little gray to mark the passage of years, Her pale skin, though etched by the trials of her past, remained ageless, as enduring as the marble of the temple.

Sara sat down on the edge of the bench. She wasn't afraid, but she felt uncomfortable, almost guilty, to be sitting so close to the High Priestess of Paladine's temple. While she had never accepted the precepts of Takhisis or taken the blood oath, she had served Lord Ariakan for years and still carried the uncleanliness of those years in her soul. Although Paladine was gone, Sara couldn't help but feel the blessedness of his temple and the grace of his cleric, and she wondered what Crysania would think if the knew Sara's past.

"What brought you to these grounds, to this particular bench?" asked Lady Crysania softly.

The thought of lying to the priestess never crossed Sara's mind. "Memories. My son, my adopted son, used to come here to sit on this bench. He would sit and day-dream… ." Her voice tapered off.

Sara caught a glint of a smile on the lady's face. "I know you now," Crysania said. "You were the mother of Steel Brightblade. Sara… Sara Dunstan." She hesitated, her sight turned inward. "Steel came here that horrible summer. He and Palin Majere." She laughed quietly, her voice musical. "They did not intend to. They were looking for the Tower of High Sorcery."

Sara tried to stifle a gasp and failed. She leaned forward, eager to hear more. "Why the tower?"

"You don't know?"

"I know very little of Steel's last five years, Revered Daughter," Sara replied, the regret obvious in her words. "After I…. failed him, he took the oath of the dark knighthood, and for both our sakes, he did not try to contact me again."

The priestess smiled, her expression warm and comforting. "You did not fail him. Nor he us."

Sara stiffened. "How do you know?"

Crysania laid a hand over Sara's cold fingers. "I have listened and learned much since that night Steel was here, and I have come to the realization that what Steel did in the Abyss was not for Takhisis or Paladine, but because he felt it was the right thing to do. And that, I think, he got from you."

Sara sat stiff and silent. She had never learned the details of Steel's death, only that he had died a hero. Her tears, already close to the surface, brimmed over her eyes and slid silently down her cheeks. "Tell me," She whispered.

The priestess's fingers tightened over Sara's, and she began to tell her about the night Steel and Palin made their way to the Shoikan Grove and the Tower of High Sorcery. "Palin was Steel's prisoner, and for his ransom he was to take Steel to the tower and open the Abyss." With those words, Crysania took Sara through the terrible days of the Chaos War to the last day when the sun burned endlessly in the sky and the ocean boiled and fearsome battle waged between the Father of All and of Nothing, his immortal godchildren, and the peoples of Krynn.

"Palin told me about that day. He said Steel and a few of his men were the only survivors of Lord Ariakan's mighty force left at the ruins of the High Clerist's Tower They joined a remnant of Solamnic Knights and flew their dragons to the rift to challenge Chaos, knowing this battle would be their last." She felt Sara move slightly and she paused, waiting for her companion to speak.

"He died the way he wanted to," Sara murmured. Deep in melancholy, she swallowed hard against her tight, dry throat and whispered, "If only I could do the same"

Crysania turned her sightless eyes to her companion's face, Her inner sight, sharpened by years of struggle, looked beyond Sara's words to the recesses of her heart, "You do not wish to die. It is not in you."

Sara shifted her shoulders in a slight motion of denial. "I feel so empty. Since Steel died, there has been nothing for me to believe in."

"Perhaps you are not ready yet to accept something else. Keep your mind open. Even without the gods, things have a way of working out."

Sara barely nodded.

The two women sat silently together in the darkness, each examining her own thoughts. Behind them, the old horse had finally settled down. He whiffled his nostrils and shifted his weight from one hind leg to the other. To the east, the single pale moon shed its silvery light on the tops of the eastern peaks.

"Lady," said Sara after a while, "I came to Palanthas to learn the truth about a rumor I heard concerning the Knights of Takhisis. Perhaps you know. Are they regrouping?"

Crysania turned a troubled face to Sara and replied, "I've heard those rumors, too. Those and more. But I cannot say for a certainty that they are true. The Council of the Last Heroes did grant the knights control of the land around Neraka, and I know some Dark Knights have been leaving Palanthas to go there. It is probably the only safe place left for them these days. Beyond that, I do not know. Perhaps," she added with a half-smile, "someone should go to Neraka to find out."

"Perhaps," Sara echoed faintly.

"But for now-" Lady Crysania rose, "-let me offer you the hospitality of our house. There is room for your horse in the stable and ample room for you in our guest house. Many rooms in our temple buildings stand empty now. Do not feel you are putting anyone out."

"Thank you, Revered Daughter," Sara said gratefully. "I will accept."

The priestess rose gracefully to her feet and waited while Sara untied the horse and patted his neck. Unerringly she led Sara and her horse across the temple grounds to the rear, where the stable, kitchen, and dormitories were located. There she bade Sara good night and left her in the care of an elderly cleric.

Sara spent eight more days in the city by the bay. She found a booth to rent in the market district and set up her wares to sell. Although the quality was good and the craftsmanship excellent, people were not buying luxury items readily.

Bootjack was right, Sara quickly discovered. Palanthas was not quite the same. Too many people had left died; too many businesses had closed. Because the great library was virtually empty and the temples were redundant without gods to serve, the influx of visitors, students, and those seeking work in the city had slowed to a trickle. Without a growing population to support the economy, the city's treasury, already strained by the war and expensive repairs to the docks and major buildings, was running low. People were cautious, careful of their money and their words.

Nevertheless, Sara stuck with her intentions. By day, she opened her booth, and while she had to drop some of her prices, she slowly sold all but a few items. In the evenings, she went from one inn to another, to taverns and public parks, to the docks and the playhouses, listening and asking guarded questions to garner any bit of information she could about the Knights of Takhisis. Here, she had little success. Few people wanted to talk about the Dark Knights. Mostly she heard complaints and bitter accusations levied against the occupation force that had held the city until the Battle of the Rift or against individual knights who had turned to banditry and murder since then. No one seemed to know or care if the knights were re-forming in Neraka.

Eight days after she arrived in Palanthas, Sara realized with a start of disappointment that she had been gone thirteen days. She had promised Cobalt she would be back in fourteen; now she would be late, and there was no telling how he would react. She wasn't certain whether to be discouraged or relieved at her lack of information. Was no news good news? Or were the knights keeping their dark secrets carefully hidden?

That evening she closed her booth and packed her belongings in the panniers. She knew it would be safer to leave Palanthas with a caravan again, but she couldn't find any merchants or travelers who were leaving for Daron the next day. She made up her mind to go anyway and hope she could find someone on the trail.

Early the next morning, with Crysania's blessings and a stocked food bag, Sara led her horse out of Palanthas and hurried north on the trail for home.