The Dark Queen Read Free Page A

and women who not so secretly wanted
     him. His enemiesgoblin and ogre, Solam-nic and Istarianfell before him by the thousands.
     At the end of every battle, there was a new song sung about this hero. A small blond
     singer stood ever at his side, unkempt, her beauty masked by dry wind and miles of
    travel, a shallow flat drum in her hand and a hawk upon her thin arm. Her features were
     those of the Plainsmenthe high cheekbones, the deep brown eyes with their intelligent
     fire. Though she was lithe and long-limbed and gracefully formed, she was rough and
     awkward in movement, as though unaccustomed to the rule of her own body.
    She was small, almost elven, and the white-blond hair was odd, freakish among the dark
     Que-Nara. She was the kind of child they would, during the Age of Dreams, have left
     exposed to the elements and fates. At their most merciful, they would have left a child
     such as she with sedentary villagers, where she would live life as a changeling, an
     oddity, in a humdrum farming hamlet where no one would ever look at her anyway.
    But this one was different. Imilus, they called her kind“gifted outlander.” She traveled
     with the Que-Nara, singing the old songs of their legends, inventing new songs as the
     stories passed into myth. There was power in her voice; she could be formidable ...
    Takhisis's laughter rumbled viciously in the dark void. There was history between these
     two, the hero and the outlander, a subtle energy that surrounded them, creating a space, a
     distance. The Plainsman ignored the girl's worship and spoke to her sel- domly, foregoing
     a place beside her at the nightly fires to watch and patrol with his warriors. Occa-
     sionally, he even took other women, indifferent to her obvious heartbreak. More often he
     spoke to and fought alongside another: a small Lucanesti male, with the dark braided hair
     and mottled, opalescent skin of his kind. This elf was ropy and flexible, a sinewy
     specimen who would never tend toward extra weight. He wore the leggings and tunic of the
     Que-Nara, yet his overshirt spoke of his own peopledark blue to ' match the height of the
     sky, or brown to match the depth of the desert, depending on how you looked at the
     garment, which way the light caught it. Another outsider, this elf. And more interesting.
     Takhisis chuckled, and the darkness shivered and tilted. The elf fought without spear or
     throwing knife or kala. Hands and feet alone were his weaponry all the protection he
     thought he would ever need. Takhisis sighed in relief as the images of these three
     continued to flicker and dance in the darkness of the Abyss. The opals protected them all,
     proof against her magicthe tore of the Plainsman, the skin of the elf. Nonetheless, all of
     them were outlandersall treading a very narrow path of acceptance and power in this tribe
     of clannish, superstitious people. An easy structure to alter, to invade, to break. The
     pieces of her plan were coming together. Ah... my fragile, pretty singer, Takhisis cooed
     to the light-haired girl, your song of Istar's fall at your beloved's hand will never be
     sung. For he cannot outrun me, the little man cannot resist me, and you ... I will shatter
     your song like glass. The elf would be easy. Revenge must be what he was after, revenge
     and freedom for his hostage people. So it always was for the Lucanesti. In the intricate
     world of elves, oppression had made them simple, binding them, freeborn and slave alike.
     She could not destroy them herselfthe opalescence of their skin and blood saw to that. But
     again and again, the Kingpriest was useful. His mines were filled with the Lucanesti,
     digging and dying. Takhisis turned in the great void and laughed low and sweetly. A slight
     echo of her uncertainty still rang in her ears. She rode the warm, swirling nightwinds of
     the Abyss through darkness on dark- ness, darkness layering darkness until those places