Dragons of Winter Noght by Weis, Margaret

Shuddering, Tanis stepped back. Raistlin gave the drawstring on the top of the bag a quick jerk, snapping it shut. Then, glancing at them distrustfully, he slipped the bag within his robes, secreting it in one of his numerous hidden pockets, and began to turn away. But Tanis stopped him.

“Things can never again be the same between us, can they?” the half-elf asked quietly.

Raistlin looked at him for a moment, and Tanis saw a brief flicker of regret in the young mage’s eyes, a longing for trust and friendship and a return to the days of youth.

“No.” Raistlin whispered. “But such was the price I paid.” He began to cough.

“Price? To whom? For what?”

“Do not question, Half-Elf.” The mage’s thin shoulders bent with coughing. Caramon put his strong arm around his brother and Raistlin leaned weakly against his twin. When he recovered from the spasm, he lifted his golden eyes. “I cannot tell you the answer, Tanis, because I do not know it myself.”

Then, bowing his head, he let Caramon lead him away to I

find what rest he could before their journey.

“I wish you would reconsider and let us assist you in the funeral rites for your father.” Tanis said to Alhana as she stood in the door of the Tower of the Stars to bid them farewell. “A day will not make a difference to us.”

“Yes, let us,” Goldmoon entreated earnestly. “I know much about this from our people, for our burial customs are similar to yours, if Tanis has told me correctly. I was priestess in my tribe, and I presided over the wrapping of the body in the spiced cloths that will preserve it-”

“No, my friends.” Alhana said firmly, her face pale. “It was my father’s wish that I-I do this alone.”

This was not quite true, but Alhana knew how shocked these people would be at the sight of her father’s body being consigned to the ground-a custom practiced only by goblins and other evil creatures. The thought appalled her. Involuntarily her gaze was drawn to the tortured and twisted tree that was to mark his grave, standing over it like some fearful carrion bird. Quickly she looked away, her voice faltered.

“His tomb is-is long prepared and I have some experience of these things myself. Do not worry about me, please.”

Tanis saw the agony in her face, but he could not refuse to honor her request.

“We understand,” Goldmoon said. Then, on impulse, the Que-shu Plainswoman put her arms around the elven princess and held her as she might have held a lost and frightened child. Alhana stiffened at first, then relaxed in Goldmoon’s compassionate embrace.

“Be at peace,” Goldmoon whispered, stroking back Alhana’s dark hair from her face. Then the Plainswoman left.

“After you bury your father, what then?” Tanis asked as he and Alhana stood alone together on the steps of the Tower.

“I will return to my people,” Alhana replied gravely. “The griffons will come to me, now that the evil in this land is gone, and they will take me to Ergoth. We will do what we can to help defeat this evil, then we will come home.”

Tanis glanced around Silvanesti. Horrifying as it was in the daytime, its terrors at night were beyond description.

“I know.” Alhana said in answer to his unspoken thoughts. “This will be our penance.”

Tanis raised his eyebrows skeptically, knowing the fight she had ahead of her to get her people to return. Then he saw the conviction on Alhana’s face. He gave her even odds.

Smiling, he changed the subject. “And will you find time to go to Sancrist?” he asked. “The knights would be honored by your presence. Particularly one of them.”

Alhana’s pale face flushed. “Perhaps.” she said, barely speaking above a whisper. “I cannot say yet. I have learned many things about myself. But it will take me a long lime to make these things a part of me.” She shook her head, sighing. “It may be I can never truly be comfortable with them.”

“Like learning to love a human?”

Alhana lifted her head, her clear eyes looked into Tanis’s.