Tanis the shadow years

40

The slig heard the noise before it saw the source. There was a pounding that made the earth shake. The creature was slow, however, in taking its eyes off Brandella's burning hair. When it looked up, Tanis, riding one of the bullboggs, was only feet away.

The half-elf kicked the slig in the chest, knocking it backward into the fire. It screamed and rolled. In the same motion, Tanis leaped off the bullbogg and, wielding his sword, hacked at Brandella's hair, cutting off the long braid at the base of her neck. With the next well- aimed stroke, he slashed her bonds. He sheathed the sword, leaped back on the bullbogg, and held out his arm to her. She sprang up and took it, swinging behind him onto the broad back of the bullbogg. Behind them, the slig leader continued to shriek from the blaze.

Tanis dug his heels into the animal's generous flanks, and it took off at a dead run, all six legs churning. Behind him thundered the second bullbogg, tied to the first.

Tanis rode the lumbering beast down the hill, in the same direction in which the band of sligs had run. He came up behind them and cut one down after another with the gray metal sword that Hint had forged for him. It wasn't as light and easy in his hands as when it had been enchanted by Kishpa, but it still did its work.

Plunging through the front ranks of the enemy, Tanis thought he saw movement ahead that contrasted with the herky-jerky running style of the lizardlike sligs. "Clotnik!" he bellowed.

"It's me!" came a relieved tenor.

Tanis slowed his bullbogg long enough for Clotnik to climb on the second animal. And then they galloped away, leaving the sligs cursing after them.

They watered the bullboggs at the pond in the glade, gathered their meager belongings, then quickly set out to the west, putting as much distance between themselves and the sligs as they could before exhaustion overtook them.

When they finally stopped to rest, Tanis took the first watch. Brandella had insisted on the second watch, and he went to wake her two hours later, just before the dawning. He kneeled next to her and watched her sleep, as peaceful as the nearly soundless forest night. He was thinking of the future; she would fit in fine with his small group of friends. Hint, Sturm, Caramon, and Tas would instantly see that she was one of them-although she'd have to keep an eye on her valuables around the kender. Even Raistlin might welcome her in order to learn about Kishpa's magic. Of course. Kit would hate her, but Brandella could hold her own with the swordswoman. Together, they would make quite a group. And maybe, over time, Brandella would come to see him in a new light. He could wait. And he would. Tanis reached down to touch her shoulder and wake her. His hand passed through her. "Brandella!" he cried. Startled out of a deep sleep, she sat straight up, her newly shortened curls dancing around her shoulders. "What's wrong? What's happened?" she demanded, looking all about for any sign of danger. "Sligs?" Shocked awake, Clotnik had run to the bullboggs before he realized he was the only one moving. He stopped and looked back at Tanis and Brandella. And he listened… "I wanted to wake you," Tanis said, confused. "Except there was nothing there to touch. My hand went right through you!" She touched her own hand and felt flesh and bone! "You must have fallen asleep and dreamed it," she said soothingly. "I'm still here. See?" She held out her hand to him. He reached out to take it, but although he could see it, he could not touch it or hold it. Brandella gasped. It was true. "Do you feel anything?" Tanis asked, trying to comfort her and to fathom what was happening. Her eyes flashed with terror. "I don't feel any different than I felt before. Tanis! I don't understand it!" The early morning fog seemed to flow right through her. It was as if she was becoming one with the fog, thin and airy. "Did the sligs do anything to you7" Tanis asked, his mind racing. "Did they give you anything to eat or drink?" She shook her head, bewildered. "No. Nothing." Tanis strained to think. "Wait!" he cried, putting out one hand but stopping just short of trying to touch her. "When you were at Kishpa's grave, did anything happen? Anything unusual?"

She brushed a dead leaf off the sleeve of Clotnik's borrowed white shirt. The leaf fell to the ground, and Tanis picked it up and crumpled it. That, at least, was real. Then she spoke quietly. 'There was no magic. Nothing like that. It must be something else." Despair began to tinge her husky voice.

"It is something else," said Clotnik. "It's something you cannot fight with a sword, Tanis. I'm sorry."

Tanis turned to face Clotnik, danger etched on the half-elf's face. He advanced upon the dwarf, saying, "You speak as if you know all about it."

Clotnik gave a half-smile filled with weariness. He didn't back up. "It will do you no good to take your anger out on me," he said softly, his eyes large and sad. "I didn't know. Kishpa only suggested that it might hap-' pen. Even he didn't know for sure."

"Didn't know what?" Brandella pleaded. "What's happening to me, Clotnik?"

"You're as real as life to Tanis," the dwarf said tenderly. "For him, your heart beats, your skin feels warm to the touch, your voice is like music played by an inspired musician."

Brandella blushed. Embarrassed that his secret was so obvious, Tanis studied the nearby trees.

"It's because he sees you as real that you are real," Clotnik said. 'The way it was supposed to work was that Tanis would return from Kishpa's memory alone, remembering you in his own mind. Instead, he went one step further, physically bringing you out of Kishpa's memory to exist in his own world. Kishpa said it could happen. But he also said that if it did, it wouldn't last."

"Why?" demanded Tanis. "Why can't it last? Why can't she stay here with me7" There. Now she knew. When he looked at her, her eyes were moist with tears. Yet even now, he didn't know if they were tears of regret or tears of pity.

With infinite sadness, Clotnik said, "She cannot stay because she is a memory. And like all memories, she must fade."

"If she didn't fade from Kishpa's memory," Tanis challenged, "she won't fade from mine."

"That was Kishpa's wish," the dwarf said. "But you will have to remember her only in your mind's eye. There is nothing we can do. She is fading."

Tanis ached to hold her in his arms, but now it was impossible. "Walk with me," he whispered to Brandella. He wanted to be alone with her.

Clotnik bowed his head as they passed him on their way to a nearby deer path. "Good-bye," he said in a low voice.

She stopped. Although trembling with her own fear, not quite knowing her fate, she kissed Mertwig's son on the cheek. There was no sense of touch between them, yet there was no doubt in Clotnik's mind that he had just been blessed.

Streaks of sunlight slanted low across the land as day was born. The light seemed to cut through Brandella as if she weren't there. She cried out and stumbled off the trail, searching for shadows.

Tanis hurried after her, calling out, "Don't be afraid."

"Afraid!" she bitterly replied. "After I fade, I will be just a memory, something that happened in your past. You will go on, but I will not."

"Brandella, oh, my Brandella," he said. Fallen leaves crunched under his knees as he dropped down beside her. "Think of it this way. My memory is a world by itself, like Kishpa's. You'll be alive there. And not a single day will pass when you won't find something new and fresh to discover."

She cocked her head to one side, her slender body seemingly afloat in the shadows. "Listen," he persisted, "memory and imagination are like colors on a painter's palette, constantly being mixed to create something new. And that's what you'll find inside me, Brandella: a whole new world that's yours to explore." He struggled to find words to reassure her. "Everything I remember about you will be changing. Some days, when I wonder what you were like as a little girl, I'll picture you as a child. And you'll be young again. Some nights I'll be walking along a city street-a place you've never been-but I'll be thinking of you, talking to you. You'll answer in my mind. You'll be anywhere and everywhere."

She clasped her hands, edging farther out of the light. "I hope what you're saying is true."

ТЙ never forget you," he promised as she faded away, blending into the shadows.

"And I'll always be with you," she said in a voice so soft that Tanis wasn't sure if he'd heard it. And perhaps he hadn't. It may have come from somewhere inside him.