Phair Caron went bounding down the hill, the horned dragon helm tucked under her arm, her long sword slapping against her mailed thigh. A good man, terrible in battle, but Tramd had an annoying habit of disappearing from time to time. About this, they would now speak.
When Phair Caron entered her tent, Tramd turned from me map pinned to the north wall. He had been studying it, his head thrust a little forward, his shoulders a little hunched. All of Silvanesti lay upon that map, the burned reaches and the forest beyond.
"My lady," said the mage, whom the elves of the northern border feared, whom the members of the dragonarmy itself did fear. "I am here as you asked."
Outside, the sound of the army was the sound of an ocean, ebbing and flowing, five thousand voices mingling with ten thousand more, undercurrents of ringing mail, blades belling on blades as warriors practiced their skills. The song of her army! Phair Caron set her dragon helm on the small table, straps whispering against the rough wood, steel ringing faintly in the musty air. She hooked a stool with one foot, dragged it behind the table, then sat. In silence she looked at the mage, leveled a long blue stare at the handsome face he showed her. Tall as a barbarian Plainsman, he wore a human shape today. His hair matched hers in thickness and in golden color, and the beard he wore grew long to the belt of his black robe.
Phair Caron smiled, but only to herself, only inwardly. Shaped like a man, a woman, an ogre, a draconian, whatever guise he liked, this mage was no shapeshifter. He was a dwarf. His gestures sometimes showed it, his expression and turns of phrase often bespoke it. He wore avatars the way a courtier wore his fabulous wardrobe, each scraped up from the earth itself, by magic shaped of clay and stone, each chosen exactly for the occasion. And so, Tramd did not, in fact, stand here beside her. This avatar was only a lifeless creation enlivened by the mind of a mage who lived in a far place Phair Caron had never seen. Nor had she ever encountered him in his true form. He would never permit it. Those who thought they saw him, saw what the mage wished to be seen, and if his whim decreed that anything of his true physical existence be presented, it was only his voice.
"I looked for you, Tramd. This morning when the captains came to give me their reports of yesterday's battle, I thought you would be among them."
A voice shouted outside. Nearby someone cursed, but the curse suddenly cut off. The scent of blood hung thick on the air. Phair Caron didn't look around, and into her stony stare Tramd shrugged, a small gesture. "I had other business."
A frisson of anger raced through her. "Indeed. It seems you have had other business often."
Tramd raised an eyebrow. "If you want to ask about my business, ask. You'll get the same reply I always give: Your business is yours, and I will make it mine because you ask. My business is mine, and no one needs to make it their own."
A dark-cased insect crept across the floor-a beetle of some kind and nearly half the size of her palm. Absently, Phair Caron crushed it, smiling to hear the crackle of its shell bursting. She lifted her booted foot to look at the mess, satisfied. "Careful, Tramd. You're not quite right in your statements. You make my business yours because it suits you to go throughout Krynn with my army. Times might change, my friend, and you might find it doesn't suit me to have you here."
The avatar's handsome face remained quietly calm, and his green eyes glittered. "Times always change, my lady. I don't worry about that."
His coolness irritated her. She traced the winding pattern on her dragon helm, a line to suggest the tail of a dragon. Eyes narrowed, she stared at the avatar of a mage whom she had never seen. A pile of rotting flesh with a keen-edged mind, that's what rumor said of Tramd o' the Dark. Sometimes in the night she would recall the tale, and that story made even her shudder. There are tests mages take if they want to be more than hedge-wizards, more than mere peddlers of love potions and salves to banish warts. No one had ever said the tests were easy ones. Still, how many who spoke so blithely of those tests understood how truly terrible they could be? Not many. Tramd, wherever the man himself did stay, knew how terrible. It was said-and he never denied it-that his body was ruined in the tests, so badly ravaged that only magic and the will of a mind so powerful kept him living.
As though idly, Phair Caron said, "Can't you wait till the conquering is done before you begin searching for loot?"
Blood mounted to Tramd's bearded cheeks. That characterization of his quest was an insult. "Lady, you push me-"
On the hilltops, dragons bugled, the mighty reds shouting to one another, preening, strutting, anxious for battle. One flew overhead, and a dark shadow ran on the ground, rippling on the walls of the tent. Phair Caron felt their eagerness as her own.
"Enough!" she snapped. "It is you who push me. From now on, you leave my army when I tell you to. You don't come and go at your own will. The campaign will move faster now. The elves are throwing all they have at the border, and all they have isn't going to be enough. We'll be striking harder and more often. I need you here."
He said nothing for a long moment, yea or nay, as another dragon flew over-and then another, their shadows tangling on the leather tent walls. When he looked up, his eyes gleamed coldly, a man who has weighed matters and decided what to do. "As you will, my lady. Now, there is a small matter to discuss. One," he said smoothly, "that repeatedly comes to my attention as I go among the army."
When she gestured, he stepped around the table to the map pinned to the tent wall, the dragon shadows spinning webs of shade across his back. With one sweeping gesture, he indicated all of Silvanesti. "We've won some battles here, my lady. And yet we hang back, keeping to the tors."
She shrugged. "And?"
"And the army wonders when we will move into the forest."
Phair Caron laughed. "Looking for more loot than can be found in little villages, are they? Heads all filled up with the fabled treasures of elven cities?" She turned her head and spat. "I don't care. We do this as we have always done, as we did in Nordmaar and Goodlund and Balifor-not until the cities are clogged with refugees, until the armies have to fall back to defend the people, will we leave this place. In the meantime, let them come against us. Let them spend men and strength and treasure in getting to us."
"And so…?"
Phair Caron shrugged. "So, kill a few of the naysayers- very publicly-and get on with organizing the next raid." She turned from him to the map pinned to the north wall of the tent. "And yes," she said, granting an oft-given boon, "you may keep the heart-blood."
He did not acknowledge that but left in silence. After a while, the long winding wails of a killing that would take some time rent the silence. Phair Caron smiled.
The songs of birds fell silent. In the boxwood bounding the Garden of Astarin, the cardinals were mute. Gray titmice, purple finches, and humble sparrows had nothing to say. Mockingbirds went deep into the hedges, the white chevrons marking their wings hidden, their boisterous cries a thing for another day. No butterflies hovered over the small pots of sand scattered round the garden. Ladybirds did not dot the late roses. It was as though all the creatures of the garden had fled or now stood in awe of the great gathering of elves.
If the garden stood silent, it was perhaps the only quiet place in Silvanost. Not even the sky kept peaceful. Golden griffins circled the city with proud Windriders on their backs. Sun glinted from the harnesses of the riders and the cruel beaks of the beasts. There were two dozen in the sky, an outrider of the six full prides that would converge upon the borderlands. Upon the back of the largest griffin, head high, his jeweled sword belted on, his mail shirt of finest linked steel shining, Lord Garan of House Protector led his pride to the Tower of the Stars where the Speaker stood upon the highest balcony.