Tanis the shadow years

37

They heard the rushing wind, the roar of the massive wave of mud, and the crashing of the avalanche. The sounds filled their ears like the echo of the surf in a sea shell. Before them, however, they saw the sun shining in a bright blue sky, felt a cool breeze upon their skin, and heard the flapping of wings as several birds flew away in fear upon the astonishing arrival of a human and a half-elf in their charred thicket of bushes.

Tanis tried to get his bearings. It didn't take him long. He saw the burnt glade and the ash-covered pond. The air was redolent with the scent of fire. But when he looked at the tree trunk upon which Kishpa had rested, the mage was nowhere in sight. Neither was Clotnik.

"Where are we?" Brandella asked in a small voice, gratefully gripping the half-elf's hand, the hand she had so recently disdained. "It looks familiar."

"You were here with me before, when it was a younger wood, before the fire that destroyed it. Brandella," Tanis said quietly, reverently, "We are home. It was from this place that I came for you. And it is to this place that we have been returned."

"And without Fistandantilus," she added, shamefacedly. "I'm sorry. I didn't trust you."

Tanis kept his voice steady and looked straight at her. She didn't meet his eyes, however. "You had no way of knowing what I planned," he said, squeezing her hand, "and I couldn't risk telling you. Besides, the important thing is that we're here."

She finally smiled at him and took his other hand. Her voice was soft. 'Yes. Somehow we have managed… thanks to you."

Tanis gently pulled her closer. She did not resist. When their bodies touched, he let go of her hands, encircling her with his arms. Brandella slipped her own arms under Tanis's and joined him willingly in an embrace. Her head rested on his shoulder.

In that moment, Tanis was at peace.

He lifted her head and they looked at each other with searching eyes. And just as quickly as he had found peace, he lost it. The half-elf had done his duty for Kishpa; now he wanted to do something for himself. Yet he paused. What if she were merely grateful? What if her hug was meant as one given by a sister to a brother? What if she flatly rejected him? And really, was it that different from a romance with Kitiara? It was still love between a human and one of elven blood. Even with only half-elven blood, he would be doomed to watching his beloved grow old and die-decades, and possibly centuries, before him. He thought of all those things and much more as he looked down upon her parted lips and deep, engulfing eyes. He had to know how the beautiful human weaver, the courageous archer, felt about Tanis Half-Elven. Yet he did not know if he had the right to find out.

Despite himself, he slowly, tentatively lowered his head toward hers. She shifted in his arms. He couldn't tell if she was snuggling in closer or getting a grip so that she could push him away. A voice startled them, calling out, "Who's there?"

As if they had been caught doing something forbidden, Tanis and Brandella quickly parted, carelessly stepping on blackened tree branches. The brittle wood cracked, tossing up little clouds of ash.

'Throw down your weapons and show yourselves," ordered the voice, "or I'll have my men shower that thicket with arrows!"

"Clotnik, is that you7"

'Tanis?"

The half-elf threw back his head and laughed. '"Tell your men to disappear," he said as he pulled Brandella with him out of the bushes.

When they emerged into a clearing near the pond, Clotnik stood there alone, brown hair and beard as rumpled as ever, eyes bright green beneath a sloped forehead. "My men are all gone," he said with an impish grin. 'They're very good at following orders."

Tanis and Clotnik clasped hands with the warmth of old friends. The juggler was clearly glad to see him, and Tanis felt the same way.

"I thought you were gone forever," admitted the juggler. "I had given up on your ever returning. You must tell me everything that happened. Everything!"

"I will," Tanis agreed. "Later. First, though, we must drink and eat. We are," he said, glancing at Brandella with a playful grin, "so thirsty and hungry that we're close to Death."

She smiled back at him, and the dwarf's gaze drifted toward the woman who stood behind Tanis. He looked up at her with fascination and not a little awe.

Tanis gathered his wits about him. "Brandella, the weaver, may I introduce Clotnik, the juggler. Brandella, Clotnik is a friend of Kishpa's.

The homely dwarf with the drooping ears nodded his head. "I know you," Clotnik finally said.

Brandella studied the dwarf's face. She walked past Tanis, stepping closer to the dwarf, whose eyes seemed to beg for a spark of recognition.

She reached out and touched his face, then ran her fingers over his matted brown hair. Clotnik looked up at her with a childlike expression… and she threw her arms around him. "It's you," she cried. "You stayed with Kishpa all these years!"

Tanis stared at both of them, bewildered. He'd been in Ankatavaka, too, but he hadn't recognized Clotnik during his short stay. And he would have remembered. There were few dwarves in the elven village. In fact, the only ones he remembered were Mertwig and Yeblidod.

Suddenly, Tanis's eyes opened wide. Was it possible? Clotnik had Mertwig's weak chin and high, slanting forehead. He had Yeblidod's bright green eyes and slightly humped nose. But the half-elf didn't remember seeing a younger Clotnik in the village.

"Did you see my father?" the juggler asked before Tanis had uttered a word.

"Mertwig?" v

"Yes," said Clotnik, his eyes misting. "Then you met him?"

"I did, indeed," Tanis replied happily, glad to be able to draw the past and the present so closely together for the dwarf.

'You're so grown up!" Brandella interrupted. "By the gods, I haven't seen you since you were a little boy and your mother and father sent you away on the ship before the humans attacked Ankatavaka." She laughed. "That was either almost one hundred years ago or just last week," she said merrily.

So, thought the half-elf, that's why I didn't know him. "It was the last time I saw you, too," said Clotnik. "But I always remembered the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. Not that Kishpa would let me forget. But come," he said, "we'll talk more after you've had food and water."

"How long since I left?" Tanis asked after swallowing the last of Clotnik's jerked beef. Brandella had finished eating and sat off to one side, braiding her long hair into a thick plait that hung over one shoulder.

'Three days," replied the juggler, unconsciously gazing at the tree where Kishpa had lain. Tanis and Brandella followed his eyes to the spot.

"When did he die?" asked the half-elf gently.

Clotnik didn't answer at once. Nor did he look at his two companions. Instead, he poked at the ash-strewn ground at the pond's edge as his lips quivered and his hands shook. Brandella leaned over and touched his shoulder, rubbing it tenderly, her own eyes red-rimmed and liquid. She had changed from her filthy woven top into one of Clotnik's longest white shirts; now she used the puffy sleeve to wipe a tear from the little dwarf's cheek. Clotnik shivered but let her minister to him.

"He… He… lived throughout the whole first day," stammered the dwarf. He steadied himself but would not look up. "I didn't think he'd live an hour," said the juggler, shaking his head. "His eyes were closed the whole time. He never spoke to me or even acknowledged that I was there." Finally, Clotnik lifted his head and spoke directly to Tanis. "It seemed that he was reliving something that was part nightmare and part the sweetest of idylls. When it was bad for him, he thrashed and moaned-and cried. When it was good, I believe, he smiled and even laughed somewhere deep inside. Was that what you saw, Tanis? Was that how it was for him in the past: part nightmare and part idyll?"

"I suppose it was," the half-elf reflected, suddenly suffering deep pangs of guilt about his feelings for Brandella.

Clotnik stared at the ground again. "He nearly died twice during that first day," he said. 'The first time, he sat straight up and screamed at someone, "Not yet! Not yet!' Then he blinked several times as if he were lost or confused. Soon, though, he smiled again, as if it were all right. The second time, I really thought I'd lost him. It had just gotten dark. Lunitari was low in the sky, casting a dim red light on him, when he began to choke and cough up blood. His eyes opened wide as if Death had caught him by surprise. He stopped breathing. I listened for a heartbeat and couldn't hear one. He was absolutely still. I went to close his eyes, but I stopped."

Clotnik bit his lip and glanced wonderingly at Brandella. "When I looked into his eyes," he said, "I saw you."

She took his hand as tears flowed freely down her cheeks. "Kishpa came back to life," Clotnik told her in a whisper. His eyes glittered like emeralds. "For you."

"Where did you bury him?" she asked in a voice racked with emotion.

Clotnik rose and pulled her to her feet. "I'll take you to him."

Tanis chose to stay behind. The grave was at the top of a hill beyond the glade. Clotnik left her there and returned to sit quietly next to Tanis.

Her grief was private. Her words to Kishpa were carried away on the wind, but who was to say they were not heard?