Measure and the Truth by Doug Niles

Author:Doug Niles [Niles, Douglas]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Dragonlance
ISBN: 9780786962723
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Published: 2012-03-06T01:09:29+00:00

Selinda looked out the window of her room, watching the city as nightfall drew its curtain across Palanthas. Candles sparkled from countless windows. Lamplighters were busy igniting the wicks in the oil-fueled beacons that brightened all of the major intersections. Vendors and merchants wheeled their carts back home as the markets closed, while other sellers of different goods moved into the alleys, whispering invitations for darker and more secret commerce. People mingled, talking and laughing. They thronged on the main avenues, but even on the side streets there were many small parties finding their fun through the night.

What was the point of it all? Of any of it?

Her hands moved almost unconsciously to her belly. She could begin to make out the subtle roundness there, though the pregnancy still did not show through the contours of her clothing. It was still hard to believe she was carrying a human life within her—and harder to believe that that life had been kindled by the emperor, Jaymes Markham.

“What kind of child will you be?” she whispered to herself.

And what kind of world would that child grow up in? That was a question she didn’t give voice to at all.

Feeling the weight of approaching darkness, the princess sighed and turned away. But the shadowy confines of her room were no consolation. Even when she lit a lamp and a half dozen candles, she couldn’t banish her uneasiness, her despair. Her door was closed and there was no longer a guard posted there to block her exit; her husband had abandoned that tactic, tacitly acknowledging the freedom she had been granted by the magical ring.

Yet she had not used the device since that terrible trip to Vingaard, when she had recognized the hard and violent truth of the emperor’s reign. Since then she had remained in her room for most of each day, though she went to other parts of the palace when she knew her husband was not present. That night, he was working in his office several floors below her quarters, and since she would not take the chance of encountering him in the hallways, she would not leave her room.

But the restlessness was growing intolerable, and she was thinking about the ring of teleportation, of the freedom it gave her—should she only choose to exercise its magic. And in that instant, impulsively, she decided to go.

Her destination wasn’t terribly important; it was simply that she wanted to be out of there, to go to a place of her own choosing. She took a few moments to don sturdy walking boots and a practical gown and cloak of quality that would mark her merely as someone of reasonable means, not suggest any tie to nobility or, more significantly, to the emperor’s household. When she had made her preparations, she went to the window again, pictured the place she longed to be, and twisted the magic ring on her finger.

The sensation was familiar by now, no longer dizzying or disorienting. She materialized on

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