Dragonlance Tales II, Vol. 2 – The Cataclysm

again, Matya had the feeling there was something peculiar

about this village, but she could not quite fathom what it

was. She hurried on toward her wagon and the restless

Rabbit.

Then it struck her.

“The shadows are all wrong!” she said aloud.

Her own shadow stretched long before her in the low

morning sunlight, but hers was the only shadow that looked

like it was supposed to look. The shadow cast by a two-

story cottage to her left was short and lumpy – much shorter

than she would have expected for a building so high. She

looked all around the village and saw more examples of the

same. Nowhere did the outline of a shadow match that of

the object that cast it. Even more disturbing were the

villagers themselves. None of them cast shadows at all!

Her sense of unease growing, Matya gathered up her

skirts and hurried onto the stone bridge. She suddenly

wanted to be away from this troubling place. She was nearly

across the bridge when something – she was unsure exactly

what – compelled her to cast one last glance over her

shoulder. Abruptly she froze, clapping a hand over her

mouth to stifle a cry.

The village had changed.

Well-tended cottages were nothing more than broken,

burned stone foundations. The smithy was a pile of rubble,

and there was no trace of the mill except for the rotted

remains of the waterwheel, slumped by the bank of the

stream, looking like the twisted web of some enormous

spider. There were no people, no horses, no dogs, no

chickens. The dell was bare. The dark ground was hard and

cracked, as if it had been baked in a furnace.

Matya’s heart lurched. She ran a few, hesitant steps

back across the bridge, toward the village, and she gasped

again. Tambor looked as it had before, the villagers going

about their business. Blue smoke rose from a score of stone

chimneys.

Perhaps I imagined it, she thought, but she knew that

wasn’t true. Slowly, she turned her back to the village once

more and walked across the bridge. She looked out of the

comer of her eye and again saw the jumbled ruins and

blackened earth behind her. Slowly, she began to

understand.

Tambor HAD been destroyed in the Cataclysm. The

people, the bustling village, were images of what had been

long ago. It was all illusion. Except the illusion was

imperfect, Matya realized. It appeared only when she

traveled TOWARD the village, not AWAY from it. But how

did the illusion come to exist in the first place?

Resolutely, Matya walked back across the bridge. She

found that, if she concentrated, the illusion of the bustling

village would waver and grow transparent before her eyes,

and she could see the blackened ruins beneath. She walked

to the center of the village, toward the single standing stone

of pitted black basalt. This was the shrine of which Ciri had

spoken. At the base of the standing stone was an altar, but it

was not hewn of marble, as Ciri had claimed. The altar was

built of human skulls, cemented together with mud. They

grinned at Matya, staring at her with their dark, hollow

eyes.

“Did you really think I would allow you to leave with the

doll?” Ciri spoke behind her in a voice cool and sweet.

Startled, Matya turned around. She half expected to see

that Ciri had changed like the rest of the village. The

woman was as lovely as ever, but there was a hard, deadly

light in her sapphire-blue eyes.

Ciri gazed at Matya, then understanding flickered

across her face. “Ah, you see the village for what it is, don’t

you?”

Matya nodded silently, unable to speak.

Ciri shrugged. “It is just as well. It makes things easier.

I’m glad you know, in fact.”

“What do you want from me?” Matya asked.

“To strike a bargain with you, Matya. Isn’t that what you

like to do above all things?”

Matya’s eyes narrowed, but she said nothing.

“You have something I want very much,” Ciri said

softly.

“The doll,” Matya said, eyeing the woman.

“You see, Matya, despite the illusions I have used to

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