Saving Solace c-1 Page 2

  "Sir Vercleese," Gerard said without much warmth. "A Knight of Solamnia, I presume."

  "Formerly," the older man said. "I am no longer of that honorable line."

  "You and me both," Gerard muttered with a grunt.

  He hadn't meant the remark for Vercleese's ears, but the man nonetheless responded, "Yes, but I retired honorably after serving out my full debt to the Measure."

  Gerard scowled. Was the older man implying that he knew Gerard had left the knighthood by other means, and that he disapproved?

  "You have a message for me?" Gerard asked coolly.

  "Ah." Vercleese reached into a pouch he carried and produced a sealed scroll. Gerard noted the seal, realizing that the message came from Palin in Solace. He tossed the scroll on the cot that served him for a bed.

  Vercleese cocked an eyebrow, saying nothing.

  "I'll read it in good time," Gerard growled. "Right now, I have another matter to attend to." He rang for a servant and when one appeared said, "Take Sir Vercleese to a spare room. See that he is given refreshment and a chance to rest from his journey. He'll be staying with us a few days."

  "Thank you for your offer of hospitality, but I'll be returning to Solace, where I am needed, by the end of the day," Vercleese said stiffly.

  Gerard nodded, rankled by the man's unspoken censure. "As you wish."

  He waited until the old man was gone, merely glancing at the sealed scroll before gathering his resolve one last time. He strode down the ornate corridors, the walls hung with rich tapestries, deep rugs thickly strewn upon the floors. Mondar went to considerable lengths to ensure that visitors to the residence came away impressed by the family's wealth and social status.

  At Mondar's door, Gerard paused, straightened the seam of his jerkin needlessly, and knocked. "Come in," Mondar's voice rumbled.

  Gerard took a deep breath and entered. "You wished to see me, sir?" Already he felt his jaw stick out defiantly, and he made an effort to adopt a more relaxed visage.

  Behind his desk, Mondar uth Alfric looked up as if he had been deeply engrossed in whatever production report lay before him. He still sported the flowing mustache (full despite having turned almost white) that marked the pride of a Solamnic Knight. The man's frame, however, was no longer that of a youthful knight, for he had gone to fat after too many years of sitting behind a desk, running one of the most successful shipbuilding and repair businesses, first in Palanthas, and now in Southern Ergoth.

  Mondar was already red-faced-not a good sign- but he made an effort to speak calmly. "I summoned you to talk about your precipitous decision," he said.

  Gerard stiffened. He'd known this confrontation was coming, of course. It had been brewing since he arrived home a few days earlier, conspicuously shorn of the armor of a Solamnic Knight.

  "I didn't feel it was precipitous," he said. "I had plenty of opportunity to reflect on it beforehand."

  His father's face turned redder, and he huffed through his mustache.

  "You can't change my mind," Gerard went on as evenly as he could manage. "Besides, it's already done."

  Mondar uth Alfric's face went from red to purple. Veins stood out in his forehead. His mouth opened and closed, seeking words that wouldn't form, and for a moment there was silence in the room, the hub of Mondar's business empire, which dominated the eastern wing of the palatial residence and commanded an imperious view of the mountainside down to the port city of Daltigoth, with its shipyards and docks, and the sparkling bay beyond. Outside the huge windows, open to the summer breeze, a wren sang liltingly.

  Not for the first time, Gerard considered the man before him and wondered if this was how he would look some day. But no, Mondar had once been a handsome man, and he still bore those traces; Gerard knew he was anything but handsome. Gerard had inherited the older man's medium height and earlier build, but little else. He would never look much like his father.

  The older man's voice rose ominously. "Do you have any idea how much coin I paid the knighthood to get you admitted, or how much more I shelled out to keep you in a safe billet during the war?"

  "Yes, Father, I do."

  "And that means nothing to you?"

  "It means that for eight years, I diligently followed the course you set out for me. And that during most of the war, I was kept away from serving any real function other than to brew tarbean tea for the generals and to guard a tomb in Solace no one was interested in desecrating. That was all your plan for me, Father, not mine. I never wanted to be a knight, not from the day before my knighting when I realized I was on the wrong path. I only followed the knighthood because you wanted me to."

  "And now you're throwing all that away? I won't allow it."

  "You're too late. As I said, it's already done."

  "Well, undo it."

  "That's impossible."

  "A suitable sum in the right hands, that would make amends."

  "You don't understand. I'm not going back. Whether you could buy my way back into the knighthood or not has nothing to do with the matter. I'm through with the knights."

  Mondar's face took on a shrewd, conniving look that Gerard recognized as the face of the successful businessman entering into negotiation. "And what made you decide this so abruptly?"

  Gerard sighed. He really should try to explain. He owed his father at least that much. "The knights are full of false expectations… and compromises… even corruption."

  His father looked incredulous. "And you're an idealistic idiot, if you think you know better how to change the world."

  "No." Gerard tugged on his beard in a gesture of agitation. "But I know their way isn't for me. I'm sorry, sir, but I'm not going back."

  Mondar's voice grew low and menacing. "You will if you expect to remain a son of mine."

  Gerard stiffened. "You must do as you see fit."

  Mondar huffed for several moments, his mustache fluttering with each exhaled breath, too outraged for speech. "You dare to defy me?" he demanded at last.

  "I'm not trying to defy you, sir. I'm only informing you of my decision. I thought it my responsibility as your son."

  "Then you're no longer my son!" Mondar was bellowing now.

  Gerard stood straight, despite the severity of the blow. "If that is your wish."

  "My wish? It's my command!" Mondar jabbed his finger at the door. "Out! I want you out of this house by nightfall. I won't suffer an ungrateful son. From this time forward, you are no kin of mine!"

  Gerard didn't trust himself to answer further.

  Instead, he bowed stiffly to his father and started for the door.

  "See how far those lofty ideals of yours will get you!" Mondar roared at his departing back.

  Gerard walked fixedly erect from the room, summoning his military training to keep his steps measured and assured. But once out of the room and with the door slammed shut by his father behind him, his shoulders sagged.

  His mother must have been listening outside her husband's study, or perhaps she was inspired by a mother's unerring sense of danger to her child, for she met Gerard in the corridor, crying and flinging her arms around him. "What happened?" she asked, surely knowing the answer to her own question. "Did you two have a disagreement?"

  Gerard snorted at the understatement of the word, then wrapped her in an embrace, not wishing to seem disrespectful or give offense. As he did so, he was struck by how much smaller and frailer his mother felt to him now than when he was growing up. He stroked her hair, noticing for the first time how gray it had turned. And when had she taken to wearing it done up in a severe bun, instead of hanging down like a younger woman's? Even her face, once beautiful and young, had become lined and wrinkled. "I'm leaving, Mother," he said gently. "I'm going away."

  She trembled in his arms. "You did have a falling out, didn't you? I'll go to him; maybe I can smooth things over."

  Gerard restrained her, holding her firmly in his grasp. "No, Mother. In a way, he's right. He and I can't live under the same roof anymore. I
t's time for me to leave."

  "But where will you go?" Her voice quavered.

  Gerard frowned, recalling the message from Palin. "I don't know, Mother. Perhaps I'll go to Solace for a while. Palin Majere has written to me, and I might bear my reply in person."

  "Palin? What did he write you about?"

  He eased himself from her arms. "I honestly don't know, but whatever it is, I think I'll pay him a visit. At least until I can figure out what else to do." He smiled at her to soften the blow of his leaving home and returned to his room, where he carefully slit the wax seal on Palin's message.

  By evening, Gerard and Vercleese had ridden from Gerard's family estate down to Daltigoth. Gerard used his family connections to book passage for them aboard The Merwitch, leaving with the evening tide bound for New Ports in Newsea. That would put them at the mouth of the White-Rage River, where the pair intended to continue, riding overland to Solace.

  The first two days at sea were hot and clear, with a stiff breeze blowing across their stern and filling the sails. Canvas snapped purposefully and rigging creaked with the sound of authority as The Merwitch made good headway toward the Straits of Schallsea. Gerard and Vercleese were at leisure to roam the deck, staring for hours toward the distant horizon in the pensive manner of seafarers from time immemorial. When not thus engaged, Gerard, filled with bright hopes and confident of his ability to fulfill the job of sheriff that Palin was offering him, reflected on fellow passengers and crew, enlightening Vercleese with his observations.

  "That one, Sir Vercleese," Gerard said, pointing to a small fellow playing bones with the sailors, "is obviously a light-fingered kender." Gerard scowled. "Wretched little fellows, I assure you. Watch your purse around him. I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him."

  "Mm," Vercleese said noncommittally, although he gave Gerard a peculiar look.

  Gerard turned and pointed to an elegantly clad young woman wearing a fur-lined cape despite the warm weather. "Now that one. Did you see all the luggage she had brought aboard? Clearly on her way to a ceremonial occasion. Note the easy smile she has for the sailors and her fellow passengers, as well as her carefree nature. I'll warrant she's betrothed and on her way to a new life somewhere."

  Vercleese looked from the woman to Gerard and back again, his brow furrowing in some unspoken observation of his own. Meanwhile, the woman smilingly accepted an invitation from the captain to accompany him to his cabin.

  "How nice," Gerard said. "The captain has asked her to have tea with him." He turned and indicated a figure in the opposite direction, standing at the rail, his features lost in the folds and cowl of a dun-colored robe. "Now there's an intriguing fellow," Gerard whispered. "Strange color for a robe. Sooty, wouldn't you say? The color, I mean. I mark him as a cleric of some sort. Probably one of those in-between clerics, neither dark nor light, that abound these days. Still choosing their gods, I suppose. Harrumph! I know the type, mark me well. Still rooted to earthly concerns. Did you see when he boarded? He had more luggage than the lady getting married. Boxes and crates and all sorts of packages.

  "Shhh! He's looking daggers at us." Gerard turned back to the sea and pretended to be absorbed in the horizon. "Clerics!" he hissed under his breath. "Worse than mages, some of them." From the corner of his eye, he noted Vercleese studying him sharply, although the old knight still said nothing.

  Once within the Straits of Schallsea, the weather turned and the sea grew rough. Huge swells bore passengers and crew up to towering crests, then plunged them down into troughs where it seemed they would never rise from the watery depths again. The deck was awash; the gunwales ran with water. Rain slashed down so fiercely it was hard to distinguish it from the waves that crashed upon them. His stomach churning, Gerard rose that night to find that Vercleese had already abandoned his hammock. Gerard fought his way onto the pitching deck, where he discovered the old man hanging perilously over the railing, holding on by his one hand and feeding the fishes his dinner from the evening before.

  "Oh, gods, why was I ever fool enough to leave home?" Vercleese wailed between bouts of retching. "Please let the sea just take me and get this torment over with!"

  Gerard hung onto the old knight's belt for answer and remained there with him, saying nothing, for a long time. Several times, it was his grip alone that kept the two of them from being washed out to sea.

  Mealtimes became haphazard as the cook tried to contend with the weather, although few of those aboard, crewmen and passengers alike, had much appetite. After several days of this, The Merwitch wallowed her way through the heavy swells of Newsea and reached the relative calm of New Ports. Rain continued to pelt down, but at least the waves diminished sufficiently to allow them to disembark. Gerard eased his horse, Thunderbolt, a handsome bay, down the gangplank and onto the dock. Vercleese followed miserably with his own nag, which promptly slumped to the ground and died, as if it had merely been waiting for solid earth beneath its hooves once more before yielding up its spirit. Vercleese sank to his knees in the mud, although whether in despair over losing his horse or from gratitude for being returned safely to land, Gerard wasn't sure.

  "Come on," he said after a few moments, clasping the old knight's shoulder. "Let's get you another horse. Mine can't bear the both of us all the way."

  They soon had Vercleese mounted again, on a raw, lean roan of uncertain temperament that was all they were able to acquire on short notice. The rain continued unabated and had turned the earth into a sea of mud. Nevertheless, Gerard climbed into Thunderbolt's saddle, and they headed for Que-Teh on the first leg of the overland journey to Solace.

  CHAPTER 3

  They made for Que-Teh following a road that paralleled first the White-Rage River, then Solace Stream. With the rain continuing to fall unhindered around them, they saw little of the countryside through which they traveled, as they were each huddled as far within their cloaks as possible in a vain attempt to keep from getting drenched. Objects, whether trees and rocks in the wilds or buildings in the towns, loomed out of the gloom as they approached, then receded again into invisibility just as abruptly when they had passed.

  Occasionally on the road, they passed signs of outlawry-the remnants of a trade caravan, its wagons overturned and burned; a clearing where a battle had raged, the bodies of one side or other left to rot. Twice, Gerard thought he heard skittering among the trees around them, but though he braced for an attack, none came. It could have been elves watching for the patrols of Samuval, the outlaw chieftain whose rogues roamed these parts, he reflected sourly. He glanced over at Vercleese, whose sharp eyes missed little.

  At Que-Teh they crossed Solace Stream to Gateway, arriving there in the afternoon. Gerard and Vercleese took counsel, concluded the rain appeared to be lessening, and decided not to stay in Gateway for the night but to push on toward Solace. They proceeded up South Pass, skirting the northeastern edge of Darken Wood, to the bridge at the south end of Crystalmir Lake, where a mill sat alongside Solace Stream. There they turned north for the last couple of miles into Solace proper, just as night was setting in.

  The rain had by then returned full force.

  Wet, bedraggled, and weary, they finally entered the town, its vallenwoods majestic and its bridge-walks graceful even in the downpour. They came in on the road past The Trough, a disreputable tavern that had been on the outskirts of town the last time Gerard was in Solace, the year before. Now, the sprawling community had engulfed The Trough, making it look even more dilapidated by contrast with the stylish new buildings that seemed to be going up everywhere at ground level, and the new bridge-walks that extended the town's reach overhead. Even in the rain, Solace swarmed with life, with the music of troubadours announcing a party happening somewhere in the tree-tops above, and carriages, wagons, and riders filling the streets below. Several of the wagons, piled high with family belongings, announced new arrivals to town.

  Vercleese shook his head, sending raindrops flying. "I've been gone barely two tendays, and
already the town's grown beyond where I left it. I'm telling you, boy, don't rest in one spot any too long or they'll erect a building around you."

  Gerard peered around in amazement, feeling a pang of nostalgia for the Solace of old, scarcely recognizable in its current state. He halted Thunderbolt to let a group of women cross the street, their passage sheltered under cloaks held aloft by a couple of gallant young men. Everyone seemed to be going somewhere, as if all the citizens were streaming to a festival.

  "Is some kind of celebration going on?" he asked Vercleese.

  The old knight again shook his head. "Get used to it. This is just the way Solace is these days." He looked about grimly, as if the town offended his ascetic sensibilities, which it probably did, Gerard realized.

  Vercleese pointed down the road, toward the center of town. "The Inn of the Last Home is down that way, if they have any rooms left. I'll see you at the mayor's office first thing tomorrow, all right?"

  Gerard nodded, remembering the way to the inn from the many times he had visited Caramon there, wondering if the place would still feel the same. Or would it too have changed beyond recognition?

  He felt a sudden impulse to visit the Tomb of the Last Heroes before heading to the inn, to pay his respects to the final resting place of Caramon Majere and those other representatives of what seemed from Gerard's vantage point to have been a nobler time. Even the kender Tas was commemorated there, although of course his remains lay elsewhere. Gerard spurred Thunderbolt into starting forward again.

  By the time he reached the center of town, more of the older, beautiful side of Solace became evident. Here, the buildings were primarily constructed in the high safety of the trees and linked by a series of suspended walkways. Stairways spiraled around the trunks of a few of the trees, allowing access to the graceful, arboreal community overhead. Only a few buildings stood on the ground, and those only through necessity. One of these earthbound structures was the blacksmith's shop on the south side of the town square. Next to it, Gerard found a large, new stable erected, the smaller one at the base of the tree housing the Inn of the Last Home evidently having been outgrown by the expanding community. Gerard noted this change with approval, for it placed the horses near the smithy where they would be shod. He reined in and swung wearily from the saddle.