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Evermore: The Gathering	By : RosaTenebrum Category: A through F > Dragonlance Views: 9663 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own the Dragonlance series, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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CHAPTER 33

The weather was finally starting to cool off. It was only two thirty in the afternoon, but already the light was fading; the sky was growing dark and heavy with gathering rain clouds, and there was a chill wind blowing. Soon the heavens would open.

Pleased as much with the weather as with how things were going for him, Zoltan paced briskly towards Paladine's temple. Everything just seemed so much easier with Adik and his friends gone, although his disappointment in them had been great at first. It had not taken long for them to show their true colours: as soon as the nameless letter had arrived, they had started to whip up an atmosphere of hatred and revenge veiled in the guise of righteousness. Adik, Farag, Beldinas, Jankyn, Seth. They were not men of god, for men of god did not wage war and incite people to armed revolt. But Zoltan was not worried. He knew the Platinum Father would intervene. Their belligerent movement would soon peter out and be forgotten, because hatred and violence never got anyone anywhere.

Quietly and without scandal, that's how he and his men would handle it. Show the letter to the vestry, let them take care of the rest. To be sure, Revered Daughter Crysania would be removed from office immediately, but Paladine would be the final judge of the lady's case - not him, not the Revered Sons of the vestry, not the Lord Mayor, not any secular authority on Krynn. Only Paladine. Satisfied with the prospect, Zoltan fumbled in his pocket as he walked, once more making sure that the letter was safe, once more blessing whoever had sent it. Adik had nothing but words; people would never believe him without evidence. And really, how much damage could five scrawny acolytes do?

Smiling confidently, Zoltan pushed open the heavy door to the temple hall - and froze in his steps.

Dead bodies everywhere.

Clerics, acolytes; running, screaming.

Men and women carrying weapons of all sizes and shapes, intent on slaughter. Everyday people. Common people. Coherent thought gone, bloodlust left.

And then, a shadow coming towards him, too fast.

Zoltan saw the end before it happened. He saw he would not make it out alive, saw himself lying on the floor, but nevertheless tried to turn and flee as the blow landed on the right side of his head, deceptively soft and irreversibly destructive, shattering his skull into a mangled knit of bloody hair.

That hurt, Zoltan thought inanely as he softly fell to his knees on the hard marble floor. That really hurt.

He tottered and tumbled on his side like a plank; looking up he saw the red maul raised for another blow, and suddenly a deep blue regret washed over him.

All those horrible, awful things he had said about Elistan.

He ignored the poverty problem, washed his hands of the poor and needy.

It was clear to all of us other acolytes that he was smitten with her. She was repeatedly seen going to his private chambers, even at ungodly hours.

He would have wanted to reward the lady.

"Forgive me, Elistan," Zoltan whispered, although no sound came out of his numb mouth. He did not need a mirror to know that his jaw was broken; several of his teeth had been knocked out by the blow, and his tongue was a swollen lump against the inside of his cheek.

All he ever wanted was to serve the Platinum Father. All he ever wanted was to put things right again.

But now, as Zoltan looked up through eyes glazing over with blood and tears, as he looked up at the maul suspended in the air, dark and heavy in the hairy grasp of the big bald man standing above him, he knew that there was something else.

"What did she ever do to you?"

"This is not about me. This is about the church."

"I'm asking you a perfectly simple question: why do you hate her so much?"

How childish, how petty, how selfish.

Zoltan drew a deep trembling breath, knowing it would be his last. "Forgive me... Crysania."

He could feel the vibration in the air, hear the whoosh of it as the maul descended, but he could not hear the one swinging it. No need: he could read the man's lips just fine, see the spit flying, see the crazed gleam in his misguided eyes. Fucking priest scum. Fucking holier-than-thou. And then, whoosh.

And somewhere in the shadows, in the backstage of this strange play he had somehow walked into from a perfectly calm autumn afternoon, his father's scornful voice: You should have settled for farming. I told you so.

Conscious thought dissolved into images.

Summer, five years ago. Acolyte Zoltan, new at the temple, eager to serve Paladine and His Holy Church.

In another part of the temple, not far away, another new acolyte: a woman, some years younger than himself.

When he sees her for the first time his heart skips a beat - no, ten beats, at the very least.

Twice, by a stroke of luck, they sit at the opposite ends of the same long dining table in the refectory; always he stands behind her in the evensong. Admiring the shiny blackness of her hair, the slimness of her waist. She is so petite and light and ethereal; like a butterfly, like a flake of snow. Beloved of the gods. That is her name, and what a fitting name it is.

Each night he goes to bed with her image inscribed in his mind's eye in perfect detail. He is certain she has noticed him too and is secretly watching him just like he is watching her, looking for an opportunity to get to know him better.

The moment comes by coincidence: steps echoing and approaching along the gallery in the western wing of the temple. When he turns the corner, he sees it's her and his entire being fills with warmth and nervous excitement: finally, they would have a chance to speak to each other! Smiling and glowing, he looks at her as she approaches, the shy greeting ready on his lips. Look up, my dear, look up now.

And she does - she lifts her grey eyes and looks straight through him, without raising a smile, without even nodding. The look of blank unrecognition in her eyes is unbearable. In a blink she is past him, gone, and he is left collecting the pieces of his self-esteem.

Unbearable.

So unbearably childish, to carry a grudge, to hold on to the searing memory of a hurt pride. Keep going, and it could get you killed.

The maul whistled through the air and came down on Zoltan's head, cracking what little was left to crack.

He did not feel the blow. The pain was gone, as were the noises of slaughter around him.

He saw a field. He saw his little sister whom he thought had died.

He felt happy.
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Evermore: The Gathering