Prologue

25 SC

“They flew for many days,” Samar said, “leaving Silvanesti that very night.”

“And they came to the Inn of the Last Home,” said the young elf. “I know this, for my mother told me that my father arrived in time to see me born.”

“You are Silvanoshei, the son of Porthios?” The dragon seemed genuinely surprised.

“The name means ‘the Hope of Silvanos,’ ” explained the young elf.

“Then why do you come to me for the tale of your father’s life?”

“There is much I already know—my mother and Samar have taught me. But there are other details about that tumultuous year that are vague, and some of those are facts that you can fill in.” Silvanoshei looked at the dragon with a pensive expression. “I know that it was at the end of the year three hundred and eighty-two that you decided to fly west as well … and I know that you came to Qualinesti. But why?”

“I will explain, but …” The dragon turned his slitted yellow eyes to Samar, allowing his leather lids to droop disarmingly. “Do you know that it is very uncomfortable sitting upright with my back pressed against the wall? Let me relax. I will not attack you. After all, I myself am curious as to where this tale is going. I should like to hear the ending of the story myself.”

“Very well.” The warrior relaxed his hold on the dragonlance, allowing the great serpent to settle more comfortably onto his bed, which consisted of scattered coins, bits of jewelry, and assorted boots, belts, and other articles of clothing. It was a relatively pathetic hoard for a dragon of Aeren’s size and age, but he merely shrugged.

“This was a place that called to me when I knew that I would at last have to move. Of course, I would miss my home in the south. In many ways Silvanesti was perfect for me. When I first came there, trees were thick and verdant, and the woodlands offered plenty of food. Water was everywhere, and for a long time, I was free to do whatever I wanted.

“I had dwelled there for the thirty winters after the Draconian War—the war you two-legged people call the War of the Lance. Those were good years, but those times were over. Your father was finished reclaiming the land, and my offspring were all slain, killed through the years by elven arrows and by those horrid dragonlances. If I had wished to remain, I would have had to skulk through the tamed gardens and keep my presence secret from the elves.

“And I remembered this place, the forest called Qualinesti, for it had been described to me by the elven traitor. It was a place in the west, and the elf had claimed that it was a wild woodland, very unlike the subdued and formal setting that Silvanesti had become. There were great trees, he had said, and vast realms of forest.

“And so I came here to live out my years in peace.”

“But peace is not what you found,” Silvanoshei noted wryly. “After all, as I said, I know much of the story of my first year of life. My mother has told me many times how she saw Tanis for the last time on the day after my birth as he turned toward his wife and his home … and his destiny in a war that had yet to begin. And how, when I was only a few months old, she swaddled me in the tai-thall that she wore on her back and we took flight on the back of a griffon, flying beside my father as we made for the forests of his homeland.”

“I remember that flight,” Samar said. “We flew with Tarqualan and his two hundred scouts, all of us spurning the authority of the Thalas-Enthia, bound for a life as outlaws in the forest.”

“The elves of two lands had made my father an outlaw.” Silvanoshei shook his head in disbelief.

“That much is true,” Samar noted. “But the land, the elves, the entire situation in Qualinesti was nothing like the place we had left behind.…”