"The Reader's Companion Series 01 - The Odyssey of Gilthanas - Douglas Niles & Steve Miller & Stan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragonlance)

The Odyssey of Gilthanas
Reader's Companion
Douglas Niles, Steve Miller, and Stan!
(c)1999 TSR, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.

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A Guide to Gilthanas's Odyssey

From the beginning, the DRAGONLANCE Saga has belonged to two different worlds: the worlds of literature and of adventure gaming. While novels and game products have always relied on one another to tell parts of the Saga, and while the two have often worked hand-in-hand to delve into tales with a greater depth than either medium could do alone, games and books have remained distinct from one another. Role-playing gamers read the novels, readers used game products as reference material, but there was never a single book that served both communities at the same time-until now.
The Odyssey of Gilthanas was originally going to be a game resource titled "Mystic Places," but when the opportunity arose to try this new format, the DRAGONLANCE team jumped at it. After all, what better way to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of the DRAGONLANCE Saga, the first world created for both fiction and roleplaying, than to take that natural link to the next stage of evolution.
This book addresses two distinct needs. First, it tells the tale of what happened to Prince Gilthanas between his final appearance in Kalaman near the end of the Chronicles trilogy and his release from Khellendros's prison camp in the Dragons of a New Age trilogy by Jean Rabe. Secondly, this book provides source material in the appendix for several intriguing sites that have existed on DRAGONLANCE maps for years but have never made their way into a book or game product. As it turns out, these sites are places Gilthanas visited during his odyssey. For players of the DRAGONLANCE: FIFTH AGE or the ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS games, the information in this appendix applies directly to their campaigns.

Off the Coast of Solamnia, 28sc

The water dripped down the surface of dank timbers in a regular cadence, approximately in time to the beating of the prisoner's heart. He had no idea how many heartbeats, how many hours or even days had passed since that persistent plopping had formed the framework of his existence, but he took comfort in it, for the very act of counting, of feeling his heart beat, confirmed that he was indeed alive.
And while he lived, he should feel hope ... shouldn't he?
He tried to resist the part of him that answered: perhaps not, perhaps hope was over. After years of wandering, after escapes and fruitless quests, after deceit and betrayal, he was back where he had begun. A prisoner, locked in the darkness, left alone to rot.
This time his cell was a ship-a vessel of the Dark Knights bearing him to an unknown destination. He felt the gentle rocking of the hull and heard the straining of the timbers as the swells rose and fell. He had thought that it was utterly dark, but when the throbbing in his skull subsided slightly, he recognized that his eyes were too swollen to open. Either that, or a beating at the hands of the guards had blinded him, and he had been mercifully unconscious at the time.
Yet he gradually became aware that, in this damp and chilly hold, he was not alone. He examined his surroundings by smell and by sound. The air was musty, stained with the ordure of mold and urine, and underlaid by the more vile stenches of feces and rotten flesh. No breeze caressed his skin, and the sense of dampness came from more than the steady dripping-it permeated him in the chill of the stagnant air, in the lack of any suggestion of warmth from the sun or any source of Krynn-bound fire.
Cruel shackles bound his wrists to a wall, holding him spread-eagled in a sitting position. His arms and hands, suspended to the sides, felt numb, and his buttocks and legs were stiff from bearing his weight on cold, unforgiving timbers. When he fully understood his position, he took heart from the fact of his iron manacles: the shackles served as a confirmation of time. It had not been weeks or months since he had been placed in this hold. In fact, he had not changed posture to eat, nor even to drink, so he knew that he had not been like this for very many days-else he would be dead by now.
He was below decks on a large ship that was bound for he knew not where. But he could take some minimal comfort from the knowledge that others were in this place with him. He heard hushed whispers-people's voices scarcely daring to make a sound. He heard someone shuffle close to him with bare feet gliding almost soundlessly across the smooth boards.
And then he heard words, and his life began to return to him.
"My Prince . . . O Royal Master-can you ever forgive me?"
The voice was a groan and was followed by emphatic shushing; obviously other prisoners wanted the speaker to keep his voice down to spare them the risk of punishment by the stern Dark Knights who guarded them.
"Please," whispered the prince. "Try to be silent... and know that I have forgiven you. You but acted upon the impulse of your heart-and if I had not done the same, we neither of us would be here today."
"I... I'm sorry," replied the one the prince remembered as Lethagas. Leth was a young elf, but he had served faithfully and well. Now his guilt, and his grief, were burdens that the prisoner neither needed nor deserved.
For a time the hold was silent save for the gradual creaking of the ship. He tried to let his mind drift away, to recall an image of silver beauty, a laugh like the music of the cosmos... gods, how he missed her. He had crossed a world to find her, sought for years, for decades... only to come to this. And still he would not acknowledge defeat.
The swelling around the prince's eyes gradually lessened, and he could at last get a blurred look at his surroundings. Six other prisoners shared the hold with him, though only he was so rudely chained to the wall. He recognized Lethagas among them. The others, like Leth and himself, were male elves. To a man ragged garments barely covered their filthy skin, and they bore unkempt golden hair. Pale skin suggested that the prisoners had languished below decks for quite some time.
Eventually, a hunchbacked turnkey silently brought a bowl of food and a pail of water under the watchful eyes of a pair of Dark Knights. These guards, cloaked from head to foot in black, observed like very dangerous statues as the grotesque servant unlocked the door in the iron bars at the front of the cell. He opened the portal only wide enough to push the bowl and bucket into the hold. A single grimy ladle floated in the brownish water.
When the guards left, the elven prisoners took turns scooping out bites of vile chowder and drinking putrid water. The prince was pleased to see none of the bickering, even fighting, erupt as it would among humans or dwarves entrusted with a similar regimen. The others even allowed Lethagas to offer the prince the first serving, though he declined and supped in turn with the rest.
The eating ended before the hunger. Afterward, the prisoners gathered around him-the elf with the long scar on his face who wore leggings of silver and a tunic of burnished leather. Apparently they knew that the guards would stay for a while because one, an elder who was missing one eye and limped awkwardly on a withered leg, at last spoke up.
"He called you prince, noble elf. What is your name?"
"I am Gilthanas Solostaran, prince of Qualinesti," he replied simply.
"We know of you, O Prince," said the crippled elf. "And we hail your family's name. But tell me: How do you come to be the prisoner of the Dark Knights, hauled in this ship of death?"
"That is a story that I, myself, don't even understand," replied the elf with a wry chuckle. "And it would take a very long time to tell."
"Then we are indeed fortunate," declared the elder. "For there is only one thing in which we are wealthy, and that is time."
Gilthanas looked at the group, all of whom regarded him with attentive eyes. Truly, he didn't know how his road had brought him here, but perhaps it would help him to understand if he were to put the story into words....

*****

"Once I had a great deal more than mere time," Gilthanas began. His thoughts drifted back, and it seemed as though he might have been looking at an earlier life-an existence before dungeons and quests and wanderings had given shape to his days. Indeed, he might have been considering the life of someone else for all the similarities he could bring to his present circumstances.
"I had power and wealth... I had a reputation known far and wide, status as a hero in the greatest cause of the world ... and yet, I could not find happiness."
"I remember," said the elder prisoner. "You were lord of some city in the north ... Kalaman, was it not?"
"Indeed, good friend. But pray, tell me your name."
"I am called Banatharl, of Qualinesti Vale." The elf's voice was soft, distant, and Gilthanas knew that he, too, was trying to reconstruct a well-removed past. "I was a follower of your brother Porthios, until the Dark Knights made me their pet."