Dalamar The Dark (classics)

by Nancy Varian Berberick

  Dalamar The Dark

  ( Classics )

  Nancy Varian Berberick

  Nancy Varian Berberick

  Dalamar The Dark

  PROLOGUE

  In the Hall of Mages, in the secret heart of the Tower of High Sorcery at Wayreth, the dark elf stood in perfect stillness. Dalamar Nightson. Dalamar of Tarsis. Dalamar Argent. Once, long ago, he had been Dalamar of Silvanost. He wore dark robes given to him by the head of his order, Ladonna herself, silver-stitched with runes of warding- ancient runes like those upon the outer wall of the Tower, marks whose meaning few knew, but he understood. As had become his habit, whether abroad or indoors, he wore the hood of that robe up, shadowing his face, leaving only his eyes to be seen.

  Light shone down pale from the unseen ceiling high above. It made no shadow. It gave no cheer. Though torches stood in brackets upon the walls, none were lit. No sound whispered in the vast chamber, not even the sigh of the breathing of the four gathered in the hall.

  Upon his high seat, Par-Salian, the Master of the Tower of High Sorcery and the Head of the Conclave of Wizards, sat, tall and straight. Except for his white hands, those veined, gnarled hands, twitching restlessly to some private thought, he might have been carved from alabaster. To the right of the Master stood Justarius, his red robe the color of poppies, and Ladonna stood at Par-Salian's left. The regard of the three sat upon Dalamar like a weight He did not move or indicate in any way his discomfort. He simply stood before the heads of the three Orders, breathing the perfumes of magic, musky oils, herbs, and, as always, dried roses.

  Outside the Hall of Mages, two corpses lay in state. Even as these four gathered, mages of all the Orders went into the Rear Tower to pay respect to a woman all had known and a dwarf few had. Both had been mages.

  Inside the Hall, Ladonna came forward, her beautiful face shining in the eerie light, her silver hair glittering with jewels, her fingers with rings. One step she took, her black velvet robe moving like shadows, and she took it smiling. "You have done well, after all, Dalamar Nightson."

  After all. Dalamar allowed her a lean smile. "Did you doubt me, my lady?"

  She did not return his smile. "Strength and will. These are always to be questioned in everyone."

  Dalamar inclined his head to agree. "And so, I have passed your test."

  Justarius raised an eyebrow, the expression clearly speaking his surprise at the temerity of this fledgling mage. "You are bold, young mage. Perhaps over-bold."

  "I am bold, my lord, in proportion to my need." Dalamar swept the three with one swift glance. "Is that not what you need, a bold mage who is not afraid to risk what he has in order to get what he wants? Or what you want?"

  Justarius's eyes flashed at the impudence. "What can you possibly know about-?"

  Ladonna raised a hand. The rings sparkling on her fingers lit a simple, calming gesture. Justarius subsided, but the color of his anger still showed in his face.

  "My lady," Dalamar said, stepping toward Ladonna, "I have done all you asked. A life you valued was lost in the doing, but what is one against many?" He looked around the chamber at the three gathered. "My part in the matter is finished. How else may I serve you?"

  Ladonna's smile did not reach her eyes when she said, "We will see what you can do, but first tell me this, Dalamar Nightson: What do you know about the Tower of High Sorcery at Palanthas?"

  Dalamar's pulse quickened at seeing what flickered in the eyes of Par-Salian, of Justarius, and even of Ladonna herself, though she strove to hide it. Fear. Fear swiftly hidden, but fear nonetheless.

  "I have heard what everyone has," he said softly, "that the Tower has been long shut up and lately opened." He inclined his head to one and all. "And I have heard what only a few know-that he who holds it forbids you or anyone entrance to that Tower."

  White robes rustling like the voices of ghosts, Par-Salian leaned forward. Seeing him, Dalamar had the same feeling he always had when looking upon a human whose count of years was not so many as his own and who yet looked like an elf of three hundred years or more. How swiftly their candles burn!

  "You have heard rightly in much of what you say," Par-Salian murmured. "He is a powerful mage, this one who took the Tower. His like has not been seen in many long years, perhaps in centuries. But you are wrong, young Dalamar, if you think he forbids the Tower to everyone. He does not."

  Par-Salian smiled, a small rugging at the corners of his mouth. That smile did not warm, and Dalamar braced to deny the three mages sight of him shuddering. White as alabaster, so he'd thought Par-Salian. Now he thought the man was white as ice-that cold were his eyes. With a gesture, the Master of the Tower took in the two standing beside him.

  "You see here before you three of the most powerful mages in Krynn, but the mage who sits in the Tower of Palanthas is stronger than any one of us, and he will become stronger still." His expression grew hard. His face seemed made of stone. "He calls himself the Master of Past and Present, and we wonder what work he is at there in his Tower. It seems to us all that it would be a good thing to know."

  Ladonna lowered her eyes and smiled a secret smile. Justarius scowled. In the smile, Dalamar recognized ambition. He felt at once that the Head of the Order of Black Robes knew she held her place only so long as the upstart in Palanthas did not want it. In the scowl, he recognized a similar feeling. It was widely known that Justarius would succeed Par-Salian as Head of the Conclave and Master of this Tower when Par-Salian chose to stand down. This station, too, the mage in Palanthas could claim if having it appealed to him. These things ambitious people were wise to consider, but it seemed to Dalamar that the three most powerful mages in Krynn feared something else, something more.

  "And so you see," said Par-Salian, "that some things are known about this Master of Past and Present. Here is another. Though he has scorned to take what power he might rightfully gain by challenge, he keeps to himself, perhaps creating power and position outside the Orders and the Rule of High Sorcery."

  The shock of such an idea ran like lightning along Dalamar's nerves. Before he could think, he spoke. "This cannot be permitted, my lord!"

  Par-Salian nodded, but absently. "That is easy to say. We have said it here time and again. But now we must do something. I have said the mage has not locked the gates of his Tower against all. He will admit an apprentice, a student."

  Quiet again, his eyes modestly cast down to hide the spark of his own sudden ambition, Dalamar murmured, "Why would he, my lord?"

  Par-Salian did not reply. He nodded to Ladonna, who said, "I do not know why. I only know he will. I have asked it, he has said it. A student of our Order, a dark mage, he says, one who has at least two wits to rub together. If I were to send him a student"-Dalamar's heartbeat quickened, and Ladonna's level gaze told him she sensed the sudden beating-"I would send a spy. I imagine mat if he took in a student, he would know that. Perhaps he would seek to turn the spy."

  "He would not turn me, my lady." Dalamar stopped, keenly aware that he had not been invited to volunteer.

  She smiled, a lean tugging of her lips. "I don't think he would. You are uniquely schooled in the virtues of balance, are you not?" Then, before Dalamar could respond she said, "Indeed, you are."

  Justarius nodded, at last in approval. He glanced from Par-Salian to Ladonna, and it seemed to Dalamar that some communication passed among the three. Par-Salian inclined his head, as though in response, perhaps even agreement.

  "We will not command you, young mage, to take up this apprenticeship. We cannot, for the one who does this work will put his life and perhaps his very soul at risk the moment he speaks his acceptance. And if he is found out"- Par-Salian shook his head-"he will die.
That death will be a terrible thing, and a long, long time coming."

  Dalamar took that warning seriously. Yet, hadn't he been risking his life, by some accounts even his soul, for magic's sake since the first moment he felt the sparkle of magic in his blood? To serve as apprentice to the one mage in all of Krynn who could make the Heads of the Three Orders afraid…! He smiled, but secretly, in the shadow of his hood. What wonders of sorcery could he learn from this mage who'd stolen a Tower right out from under the eyes of the three most powerful magic-users in Krynn? Uncounted! What power could he gain, what strength, what insights? They were legion!

  Dalamar lifted his hands and put back the hood of his robe, letting those gathered clearly see his face and his eyes. One and all, the Heads of the Orders kept still, allowing him the choice.

  "My lords, my lady, I accept the apprenticeship, and I accept your mission."

  Justarius nodded grimly. Ladonna said nothing. In the eyes of Par-Salian, Dalamar saw not satisfaction but, strangely, sorrow.

  It was as though, knowing what had been, the Master of the Tower could know what might be. The thought a warning, Dalamar looked back…

  Chapter 1

  "Tell me, then," said Eflid Wingborne, his head tilted slightly back as he looked down the length of his thin nose at the small bundle Dalamar had placed in the exact center of the narrow cot. "Will you be easier to find now, Dalamar Argent, or will I still have to send servants to hunt you down when I need you?"

  Dalamar stood still in the shaded corner of the small room. In the shadow, he shaped his expression to one that might lead Lord Ralan's steward to believe he considered a humble answer. In truth, he considered no such thing at all. He concentrated upon the image of two hands holding hard to something-the temper it would do him no good to lose.

  "You will find me," he said, eyes low to hide his contempt. "Never worry, Eflid-"

  "Lord Eflid."

  Dalamar held back the sardonic smile that twitched at the corners of his lips. Lord Eflid, indeed, by virtue of the fact that his mother had been briefly wed to a lordling of so minor a family within House Woodshaper that the name of it was not recorded except in small letters at the end of a long, long scroll. Eflid had not been the son of that man, but he still claimed the title, at least among the servitors he ruled.

  "Never worry," Dalamar said again. He looked up, leveling a long cool stare at the steward, the kind he knew gave Eflid shivers. "I am here."

  Eflid's eyes narrowed, glittering and green. "And here you'll stay, boy-no more wandering for you. Be grateful Lord Ralan hasn't dismissed you entirely. I've heard they are looking for a servitor down by the docks, a boy to haul fish and repair nets. Let me look up and not find you when I want you, and that's where you'll be working."

  Boy, he said, boy. With nearly ninety years to him, Dalamar was young by elf standards, but he was no boy. Yet Eflid's sneering address said that were Dalamar to attain one hundred years and ninety, still he'd be a boy in the eyes of those he served. Dalamar met Eflid's narrow stare and did not look away, and so Eflid must.

  His face flushing with anger, and with shame for having been the first to turn his glance, the steward growled, "Now unpack your gear and get to work. You're expected in the kitchen. There are floor tiles in the oven room needing repair." He pulled his lips back from his teeth in a cruel imitation of a smile. "Don't you have some pretty little spell you can work on them? To keep your hand in, as it were?"

  Laughing, Eflid left the room, not closing the door behind. Alone, Dalamar looked around at his new quarters. Motes sparkled, golden bits of dust dancing in the light of the sun shafting in through the east-facing window. The light was not so misty as it had been when it shone on the path away from the Servitor District and the house that had been Dalamar's family home for so many years. His father had inherited the small house from an uncle who had been canny enough to save the steel coin to purchase it from a woman who repaired leather shoes. Until then, his father and mother and Dalamar himself had lived in the halls of those they served, a family who met during the days only in passing and sometimes spent an evening together after the high folk had no more use for them. The little house with its tiny garden had become Dalamar's upon the death of his parents, and he had lived there, with the permission of the Head of House Servitor and of Lord Ralan, ever since. Five years he'd gone out from his home to that of his master, each day in the dawn, and five years he'd returned there in the long purple twilights of summer and the short sharp ending of winter days. No more, and the privacy afforded him in his own home, the sense of being master there where no one could order him about, was all gone. Now he must live in Lord Ralan's house, quartered in this small room in the servant's wing. Here among those too poor to have their own houses, among the untrustworthy, he would stay. Lord Ralan had declared it, and Trevalor, the head of House Servitor, had agreed.

  Dalamar turned from the glittering shaft of sunlight to the bed. The room afforded him little by way of furniture, only this bed, a small table upon which stood a thick white candle, and a chest of drawers by the window. He had no chair for himself and none to offer a visitor.

  From the bundle on the bed, he took out his clothing. He did not wear the dun clothes of a servant but the white robe of a mage. This was not usual, for among the Silvanesti, who structured their lives to conform to a rigid caste system, no one was lower than servitor, and none deemed less worthy of learning the High Art of Sorcery. Dalamar's talent was strong, though, and when House Mystic learned of it, they did what they must for fear that, unguided, he would go outside the bounds of Solinari's white magic to wild magic or worse, to Lunitari's red or Nuitari's black magic. They made him a mage, dedicated him to god-Solinari, and taught him grudgingly. For the teaching, he was glad but never grateful.

  He'd worn the white robe for nearly two years now, but before all, Dalamar was still a servant, his talent and skill at the command of others. So it had been today, his hours claimed and counted. All the while he worked, Dalamar felt himself pulled away, his attention barely on his task, his soul yearning northward to a place no steward or elf-lord knew about. In a cave beyond the river lay the hiding of his secret studies. There he kept dark tomes filled with magic forbidden to all elves. He'd discovered the books by accident, found them tucked in the far reaches of the little cave, a treasure left by some bold dark mage who'd come secretly into the elven kingdom where none such would ever be welcome. Come and gone, he'd left his books behind, and they'd lain there a long count of years. Each bore an inscription that had, upon first sight, struck fear into Dalamar's heart. To the Dark Son, from a dark son, by night are we bound. Thus had a mysterious mage dedicated himself to the son of the Dragon Queen, to Nuitari whose obsidian halls lay in mansions of the sky just beneath the secret moon, the black moon. Yet soon Dalamar's fear had eased, and during the months of the summer past, he had taught himself more about magic, spells, incantations, and arcane philosophy than he'd been allowed to learn with House Mystic. The little northern cave was Dalamar's refuge. His secret trips there, time stolen from his master, were the cause of Eflid's anger and, ultimately, the reason for Dalamar's new status among Lord Ralan's servants, housed and untrustworthy.

  Dalamar tossed a spare robe of plain white wool and two sets of hose onto the bed. He tucked a pair of boots into the corner, soft dark leather ones he'd only lately purchased and not yet worn. A belt of knitted wool, the color of the sky when the last light is nearly gone, and the small bone-handled knife a mage is allowed for ceremonial use were the only other things he'd brought here from his home.

  Outside the window, the morning grew warm. The air sat heavily over the city as it does when a storm is brooding. Though no breeze blew, still Dalamar smelled the herbs in the kitchen garden, the twining scents of mint and basil, of horehound and sage and sweet thyme. Before he'd been caught away from his work, he'd been assigned to assist the old man from House Gardener who tended Ralan's herb beds. Now he was consigned to the hot kitchen a
nd the cross-eyed cook whose best delight was to harry potboys and torment the young girls who stood in the corners to flirt with the bakers' lads. The loss of his privacy, these menial tasks, this fee he paid for a day away was steep indeed. Yet, though he did not like the price, he did not regret it. He had chosen his path this morning, clear-eyed and knowing what he might have to pay.

  Dalamar thought about choices as he walked out of the room and down the long airy corridor. No one would think he had any, a servitor whose life's path was ordained by ancient custom. Yet this year, in the summer, Dalamar had made a choice, one no one imagined he would consider. He must learn more of magic than the crumbs House Mystic granted.

  Sunlight splashed into the corridor from open doors and wide windows. Shadow barred the tiled floor where sunlight did not reach. Into sun and out to shadow he went, walking. How far would he go for the Art of High Sorcery denied him by House Mystic? All the way to the Dark Son himself? Out in the light of the day, in the thickness of the air, Dalamar looked away north, not to the small place where his secrets were kept, but farther to the land beyond the forest where the armies of Takhisis brooded. She was god-Nuitari's mother, that Dragon Queen, and his father was the god of Vengeance, Sargonnas himself. Their son was a child of magic and secrets, and Dalamar could think of no better god to whom he could dedicate his own secret heart.

  Blasphemy! It was blasphemy in the Silvanesti kingdom to think such a thing.

  Dalamar shivered, quick excitement running up his spine. He could choose if he wanted to choose. He could make a forbidden god his own in secret and silence, and no one would know. Such power there was in secrets! Smiling, he walked through the garden, a generous place enclosed on three sides by hedges of wisteria, on the fourth by the servants' wing of the hall. Though they waited for him in the kitchens, he took time to enjoy the heady scent of dewy roses and the tang of curly mint underfoot. Water bubbled from a fountain, a marble basin held in the hand of a statue of Quenesti-Pah, the goddess offering comfort. A golden finch settled on the rim of the basin, bright feathers already changing to autumn dress.