Love And War (4 page)

It was different, though, with Seron. Oh, he wanted to bed her and made no pretense about
it, but he truly cared for her and made that clear in a thousand different ways. He helped
patch the roof of her family's cottage without asking for so much as a cup of water in
return. He gave her painting lessons, teaching her everything from mixing colours to the
techniques of his brushstroke. And when she was terribly sick with an unknown disease -
and looked like a particularly ugly dwarf he had once painted - Seron risked his own
health to help care for her.

The two of them leaned over the bar near each other, the sea-faring picture between them.
“You're wasting your time working in this tavern,” Seron said earnestly. “I've said it
from the very beginning - you're smart, talented, perceptive; you can do more with your
life than just serve ale.”

“You're only saying I'm smart,” teased Kyra, “because I like your work.”

He smiled, but shook his head. “I really mean it,” he insisted.

Involved in their intimate discussion, Kyra paid no attention to the growing clamor of
angry voices calling out for service.

As for Seron, he hadn't yet tried to sell his latest painting, but he saw that Kyra was so
enamored of the picture (and he was so enamored of her) that he suddenly blurted, “I want you to have it. It's a gift.” Kyra was stunned by his offer. Her face
turned red, and it looked as if she couldn't breathe. “Are you all right?” he asked worriedly. She
answered by throwing her arms around him and kissing him on the lips. That night Kyra lost her job but found a husband.

Her belief in Seron's talents was not misplaced;

soon after they were married, he finally began to sell some of his paintings. He didn't
receive much for them, but at least it was a beginning. He supplemented their meager
income by painting family portraits for the local tradesmen. Still, it wasn't enough.

“Why don't you give art lessons?” asked Kyra one late afternoon as she took down the wash
that had dried on the line.

“What? And create my own competition?” he said, laughing as he folded the clothes she
handed him.

“You have a wonderful talent,” she continued, ignoring him. “You could give classes. I
know the kender would love it; they couldn't possibly pass up a chance to try their hand
at drawing.”

“What makes you think I'd be any good as a teacher?” he asked.

“Because you were so good at teaching me.”

“I was good at teaching you,” he said, “because you were an excellent student. You could
do anything you set your mind to,” he continued. “You settle for too little from yourself.
If only you - ”

“Please! Not that speech again,” she complained.

“But you could be so much more if only you tried,” he insisted, touching his fingers to
the palm of her hand.

“Isn't that the same thing your brother always says to YOU?” she countered. “Doesn't he
always say that you're wasting yourself on all these pictures?”

He scowled. “Don't change the subject. We're talking about you - and you know I'm right.
You're capable of doing all sorts of things; you're too easily content.”

“Content? Me?” she laughed seductively. “Never.” And with that, she dropped the sheet she
had been holding and began unbuttoning her blouse.

“No one stops an argument like you,” he chuckled, removing his own shirt.

Their bed was a sheet on the soft grass, their roof was the afternoon sky, and their souls
were one soul long after their passion was spent. As the afternoon light faded, Kyra felt a chill. She snuggled up close to her husband, who tenderly embraced her. She felt safe in his arms,
protected. When he held her like that, she knew both the strength and the tenderness of
his love. For her, there was nothing in all of Krynn to match that feeling. Nothing.

Dutifully, Seron gave art lessons to the kender, and anyone else who was willing to pay.
Not that anything valuable ever changed hands. Despite their enthusiasm, the kender were
inattentive students, and they generally walked off with the paint, the brushes, and half
of tomorrow's lunch.

To better provide for his wife, Seron took a job during the evenings as a cook at the Sea
Master Inn. Kyra didn't want him to take the time away from his art, but he couldn't bear
to see her go hungry. He promised her he would work at the inn only until his paintings
brought in more money.

He hoped that would happen soon, for he had chanced upon an entirely new and exciting
subject when he met his very first dragon. . . .

“Do you have a red blanket?” asked the young male brass dragon standing at the edge of a
clearing in the forest.

Seron could hardly believe his eyes, let alone his ears; the dragon was talking to him!

“Are . . . are you real?” stammered the painter.

“That doesn't seem like an appropriate answer to the question, 'Do you have a red
blanket?' Would you like to try again?”

Seron's curiosity was greater than his fear. He stepped closer and touched the dragon's
wing. “You are real,” he mumbled, astonished. He quickly stepped back again.

“I seem to have this effect on everybody,” the dragon said, shaking his head sadly. “Have
you never seen or heard of my kind before?”

“Only - only in legends,” replied Seron as he carefully examined the tall, majestic dragon
standing before him. He didn't want to forget any detail for the picture that he knew he
must paint. Finally, he thought, I'll be able to succeed for Kyra. This painting will be
worth a fortune!

“It's terrible,” complained the dragon. “Wherever I go, people stop and gawk at me. And
really,” he continued, “I don't understand it. It's not as if I'm wearing flashy colors.
Which, by the way, brings me back to the question of the red blanket. Do you have one or not?” Seron didn't want the dragon to leave. Not yet. He
needed more time to study this wonderful creature. “I'll get you a red blanket,” he promised.
“Just wait right here.”

The painter raced to the hut.

“Kyra, where are you?” he cried when he found their home empty.

“I'm in the back ... in the vegetable garden.”

Not wanting to waste any time, he quickly looked through their trunk and closet. He was
sure they had some sort of red blanket - a strange request, come to think of it - but he
couldn't find it.

“Any luck?” called out the dragon, who was now standing at the front door.

“You were supposed to stay where you were,” said Seron nervously, stepping out to meet the
creature. He was afraid the dragon might harm his wife.

“Is someone there?” Kyra called out gaily, walking around the side of the hut. “I thought
I heard another voice and - ”

She stopped in her tracks with a look of wonder on her face.

“A red blanket!” cried the animal happily, gesturing toward the red shawl Kyra wore around
her shoulders.

Seron blinked. That's what he had been looking for.

Kyra smiled at the dragon. She had grown up on tales of these magical beasts. To Seron's
surprise, she wasn't afraid of the creature. “Do you like this?” she asked, sweeping the
shawl off her shoulders and holding it before her.

“Very much,” replied the dragon.

“Then it's yours,” she said. “I think you'll look wonderful in it. Much better than I.”

“Now, you're a human I could grow to like,” the dragon said. “What's your name?”

“Kyra,” she replied with a warm smile. “What's yours?”

“Tosch. And may I say,” said the dragon with a bow, “I am very pleased to meet YOU. Him,”
he added, pointing at Seron, “I must ponder.”

“You must not offend me,” Kyra reproached gently. “Seron is my husband, and if you like
me, you must also like him.”

The dragon made a frown. “Is this a rule of the humans?”

“It's my rule,” said Kyra. The dragon nodded.

“Good. Now come, let me give you your new cape.”

Tosch lowered his head, and Kyra tied the red cloth around the dragon's neck. It was a
pitifully small splash of red against the creature's massive body, but Tosch didn't seem
to care. He was thrilled with his new appearance and he revelled in it - posturing every
which way and asking how he looked in every pose.

To Seron, it was all rather silly, but Kyra took the dragon seriously, giving him her best
advice on how to wear the cape to his best advantage.

Finally, Tosch stood still and turned to Seron. “Your wife gave me a wonderful gift,”
stated the dragon. “What are YOU going to give me?”

“I'm going to paint your picture,” he calmly replied. “Once humans have seen your
portrait, they won't be so surprised when they see you in the flesh. Isn't that what you
want?”

Tosch looked at Kyra. “Can he draw?” he asked.

“Raise your right wing just a little higher,” said Seron, as he painted Tosch's picture in
the forest clearing where they had first met. “Just a bit higher. Yes. Good. Don't move.”

“I think I look better with my wings lower and my head higher,” complained Tosch. “And
I've got a great profile from the left side. You said so, yourself.”

“My purpose is to create a dramatic effect,” the painter reminded him, “not necessarily to
make you look your best.”

“I don't understand the difference,” sniffed the dragon. “If I look good, the picture
looks good, right?”

“It's the other way around, my friend,” laughed Seron. “If the picture looks good, you'll
look good.”

“Hmmph.”

No one else was offering to paint pictures of Tosch, so he remained a willing model
despite differences with Seron. The peacemaker was Kyra. She often joined them in the
forest clearing, stroking the dragon's head when her husband released him from a long,
torturous pose.

Tosch, however, was not the easiest model to paint. The brass dragon would often arrive
late for sittings;

sometimes he wouldn't come at all. Often, he would quietly mutter a magical incantation,
slap his tail against the ground three times, and make Seron's brushes disappear. The
dragon seemed bent on driving the artist to distraction.

But Kyra always soothed Seron's anger by explaining yet again that the dragon tales of her youth told of the creatures' freewheeling nature.
“A brass dragon,” she said, “comes and goes as he pleases and likes to play tricks. It's
his nature; don't blame him.”

And so the painting continued. At least for a short while . . .

Tosch might have stayed for years instead of a few short months, but when the Highlord and
her forces invaded Flotsam, the young dragon fled to the mountains.

Seron and Kyra might have done the same, but Flotsam was all they had ever known; they had
both been born there, and neither of them had ever been anywhere else.

The truth was they were afraid to leave. Times were hard after the dragonarmy took over.
But even so, Seron eked out a living. He managed to sell his pictures of Tosch, despite
the fact that dragons were now far more commonplace. One of Seron's portraits went to the
owner of the inn where he worked as a cook. He sold another to a fierce female ship
captain who said she would hang it in her cabin. Yet another was bought by a traveling
peddler. All of the buyers admired how skillfully the artist had, at once, captured both
the youthful innocence and the natural arrogance of the dragon.

With each sale, Kyra became ever more proud of her husband. His reputation as a painter
was growing, yet nothing really changed. They still lived in the same small hut, their
clothes were still second-hand rags skillfully repaired by Kyra, and Seron still had to
work at the inn to supplement their income.

“You won't believe it!” exclaimed Seron in a rush of words as he burst into their one-room
home. “I was up on Cold Rock Point,” he explained, “and I saw the Highlord atop her blue
dragon. She was leading a whole phalanx of soldiers riding their own dragons. The entire
sky was filled with them. Everywhere you looked there were dragons! Their wings were
flapping with a power that nearly blew me off the cliff, and their great mouths were
screaming in cries that nearly deafened me. But the sight of it, Kyra! I've got to paint
it!”

For days, then weeks, he worked on the image he had seen. It consumed him. He had to
finish it before he forgot how it looked, how it felt, what it meant.

Kyra watched him work. At first she saw only dark outlines, then the dragons appeared, one
at a time. And each of the dragons was more malevolent than the last. There was danger in the picture. The
Highlord and her dragonarmy soldiers took shape with menacing faces, and the sky was dark
and forbidding. Kyra could feel the cold wind from the wings of the huge beasts, sense the
hot breath from their snarling jaws, and she knew - all at once - that the painting had
captured the ineffable horror of their conquerors.

Of course, they couldn't sell the painting. If the Highlord or any of her soldiers ever
saw it, they'd cut off Seron's hands. Nonetheless, he wasn't sorry that he had done it.
And neither was Kyra. They both hoped that eventually the dark days would pass, and his
picture would be a valued - and valuable - reminder of this evil time. More than that,
they both hoped it would forever establish Seron as Krynn's pre-eminent artist.

They kept the bleak masterpiece hidden in a wooden crate under their bed. However, it soon
began to rankle them both that Seron's greatest work had no audience. What was the point
of having painted the picture if no one ever saw it?

It was then that they conceived their daring plan to smuggle the painting to Palanthas
where it might be prominently displayed in a gallery. But they would need help.

“Let's send word to Tosch,” suggested Kyra. “He could fly here one dark night and take the
painting away with him.”

“Do you think Tosch would really do it; would he risk his life for a painting?”

“We have nothing to lose by asking,” she said.

Two days later, the peddler who had bought a Seron painting of Tosch carried a coded note
out of the city and into the mountain warrens. The note asked their friend to come to them
after sunset during the night when the two moons were at their smallest. It was a great
favor, and they didn't ask it lightly. And they said as much in the note. If Tosch felt it
was too dangerous, they said, he shouldn't come; they would understand.