Dalamar The Dark (classics)

by Nancy Varian Berberick

  Dalamar watched them, narrow-eyed. They prayed, and yet, here evil was, standing ready to learn its fate, evil in the shape of an elf who was not blinded by the light.

  At Caylain's command, Dalamar went and stood in the exact center of the circle, finding the place more easily than did she who directed him to go there. She was afraid of the circle, the ceremony, and the little room itself. He, too, was afraid, but he had the strength to keep his fear to himself, unwilling to lend weapons to enemies. He stood proudly defiant in the center of the circle, a servitor in dun clothing, a dark mage uncovered, bringing all his will to bear and forcing his weary muscles to keep still.

  Burnished platinum mirrors hung upon the walls and even upon the door. These shone dully in the dim light that sifted down from the ceiling. By this light he saw himself in hazy reflection: a tall young elf, straight-backed, shoulders braced, head high. Not the least suggestion of dismay marked his face or dimmed his clear eyes as the Council of Truth-Alhana Starbreeze, Porthios of the Qualinesti, Lord Konnal, and the cleric Caylain-came to stand outside the circle. It fell to the cleric to speak.

  "Dalamar Argent," she said, her voice dry as the rattle of naked branches, "hear the judgment that has been passed."

  Alhana's hands clenched and unclenched; the pulse at the base of her neck jumped. Dalamar saw this in the mirrors. She looked like a woman standing in the halls of an ancient crypt where the souls of the dead do not rest easily. Porthios took a small step toward her, a side-step no one saw except Dalamar.

  "This is what will be," Caylain said, and if her voice did not tremble, her hand certainly did as it absently smoothed creases from her white robe. "You will stand within this circle for the space of twelve hours. You will stand alone, and things will be shown to you, things of which I cannot warn you, for they are things I do not know."

  These were the words of ritual now, not Caylain's own.

  "As the images emerge, a thing will happen," said Caylain, "or a thing will not happen. In accordance with your guilt or innocence, the chain will move to bind you, or it will lie still and leave you free."

  There was no doubt in the eyes of any how the platinum chain would behave. But forms must be honored, so it is among elves. Forms must be honored, even when they made no sense to the moment.

  "May the gods preserve you," Caylain murmured.

  Yet another form. No one in the chamber believed for an instant that any god they prayed to would preserve him. Caylain turned and walked out from the room, the hem of her robe whispering to the floor, her pale hands folded tightly. Lord Konnal followed, and Alhana after him with Porthios at her side, matching her step for step. Only the Qualinesti looked at Dalamar, his swift glance seen in reflection, perhaps thought secret. It was the glance of a warrior who wonders how well the courage of a man will stand him in his steepest test.

  Well enough, said Dalamar's wry smile. Well enough, and you need not wonder.

  Porthios's eyes flashed suddenly, the prince unhappy to have his thoughts so easily read, so ironically answered. Then he, too, no longer looked at the prisoner within the platinum circle. He walked from the chamber, his hand at the small of Alhana's back, guiding her as men politely guide women, in courtesy.

  Alone, alone, Dalamar stood. In his belly fear sat, hard and cold and leeching poison. What road had he chosen, what road in the darkness would he walk?

  Then came the ghosts, each reflected in mirrors, first hazily, then more clearly, marching to the sound of a platinum chain creeping ever closer, scraping upon the floor. Each phantom had his face. All the ghosts were him.

  Ghost-Dalamar walked in wilderness, in foreign lands where the people did not know his name. He wandered the streets of fabled cities, and he was shunned. He walked in darkness, alone as only an elf can understand, and it seemed to him that his heart had broken long ago. Only lifeless shards rattled around in his breast now. He saw his name vanish from all the records of the Silvanesti. He saw himself un-made, and he heard his name in the mouths of humans, dwarves, kender, and others. Lord Dalamar! "Lord," they said, the title spoken in awe, sometimes with respect. In the mouths of many of them his name was the same as another word for fear.

  He smiled to see that. Even as he did, the ghostly images swayed, sliding on the platinum, shifting in the mirrors, unforming and forming again.

  Dalamar saw three mages, three with their heads together, talking or arguing. One was an old man in white robes, another a beautiful silver-haired woman in dark. The third was a limping man in his middle years, and he wore red. They turned from their talking and looked at him, their faces on all sides of him and behind, their eyes glittering with fierce knowledge, with slashing ambition, with stern commitment. Even in this vision Dalamar felt the weight of their regard, knowing that weight had crushed some, but not knowing whether or not it would crush him. He did not flinch, though he knew many others had, and in his heart rang these words, this greeting to the three: "I have nothing to lose." The three looked at one another, and the wizardess in the dark robes said to her companions that these were the words of the truly free.

  Again the vision shifted, and now Dalamar saw himself standing upon a threshold. Before him was a door beyond which only darkness lay, a maelstrom of ambition, a storm of hatred and longing and power so deep and strong that the foundations of the world did shake to support it. He put his hand upon the skull-shaped doorknob and pushed.

  The images in the mirrors flowed again, slowly now, like thick blood running. Dalamar saw himself standing with two other mages, a man in white robes and a woman wearing red.

  "Are you ready?" asked the red-robed woman. She looked at him with a lover's eyes, and he read desperation and a hopeless fear in there.

  The vision flowed faster now, running like a river in spate, racing, whirling, swirling all around him. If he could have moved, Dalamar would have turned from it. Yet had he done that, the vision would have followed.

  Fire rose up out of the ocean. A hole gaped wide in the sea that he somehow knew for the Turbidus Ocean. Darkness, bred of rage, flowed out from that fiery rift and all around the clash of battle thundered, the screams of the dying, the rage of dragons, illuminated by fire and the battle-light flashing from swords. Someone screamed. It was he! And all the blood was running out of him even as eyes so terrible he dared not meet their glance raked him, tearing flesh from his bones, clawing to find something in him-his soul. Takhisis, he thought, for her name is the name of terror. A voice like the howling in a madman's mind shrieked in laughter.

  Not she! The faithless whore! Not she!

  And still the terrible eyes tore at him, peeling him layer by layer, skin from muscle, muscle from bone, soul from body. Ah, Nuitari! Shield me-

  Never he! The serpent-son! Never he!

  All the world fell away, even as the body fell from his soul. He saw now only insanity, destruction, no light, no darkness, nothing but ravening and annihilation, madness feeding on madness and rage upon rage like wolves turning upon each other. Towers tumbled and cities burned around him. Pledges came undone. Oaths unraveled. In all lands, among all kindred, brothers turned upon brothers, sons murdered their fathers, mothers their daughters. Children cut their teeth on the sword's blade and played with daggers in the cradle, while disease ran like fire, and fire ate stone. Stone rained down like stars falling out of the sky and gods ran screaming, wailing in midnight places. There was no evil now, no good. There was not that slender path between the poles upon which red-robed mages so carefully trod. There was only the maw of destruction that understood nothing of the balance of life and death, the eternal struggle between light and dark.

  All this Dalamar saw in those terrible, devouring eyes, all this and more… and worse.

  He saw his soul, and it lay in the clawed hand of that father of emptiness. About him fluttered something small and dully gleaming, something light as parchment and empty, empty with no magic in it or anything to love. It was the soul of a man whose touch made no mark in the
world, the soul of a useless man, a helpless man. Emptiness drained the life out of this effectless soul as it drained out the life of the world.

  Emptiness. Never to be filled, and even the weeping of gods did cease…

  And he stood again upon the threshold of the chamber whose door presented a knob like a grinning silver skull. He saw a mage standing in the shadows, dark-robed, his face hidden, his eyes not even two gleams of light in that darkness.

  "Come," said the mage, his voice a strange, dry whisper.

  "Shalafi," whispered Dalamar, the image in the mirrors, the man in the circle. "Master," he said, as a student to his teacher. But what teacher, where? And in the mirrors five small marks, spaced as though they were the prints of all the fingers of a man's spread hand, appeared upon the breast of each image of Dalamar. Dark they were, then they were red, and the red ran slowly, like blood dripping down.

  A man screamed, and then no one screamed. Then there was only darkness, and the touch of cold platinum round his ankles, the chain come so close now that it did begin to bind him, circling him around and around, the links piling up and climbing to his knees as a line of light opened in the darkness behind.

  "And so you see," whispered a voice, that of Caylain the cleric. "And so you see what road you will travel, Dalamar Argent. A road of blood and darkness."

  So he had seen, and though it seemed only an instant in passing, these visions had flowed over him, around him, and through him for twelve hours. His leaden limbs knew that, his knees shaking with exhaustion, his belly growling with hunger. His throat, dry as a desert, knew that.

  Dalamar lifted his head, and his eyes still filled with visions of emptiness, of blood and wounding and the mage whose face was lost in darkness. "I have seen," he said, his voice thick and ragged.

  They shuddered to hear him, the simplicity of his words, the starkness of his thirst-ravaged voice. They shuddered, and they looked to each other, taking his pain as confirmation of his guilt.

  Aye, well. There was surely pain-all the pain of standing within this temple, this hall of white gods, flowing into him from the tiles. It rose up from the floor through his feet. It ran into his arms, and from the ceiling it rained down like fire.

  "I am yours," he said to the pain and the darkness yet to befall. For there would be more, and soon. This Ceremony of Darkness was not nearly done. "I am yours," he said to the god no one here dared name. He smiled, not with joy and certainly not for mirth. He smiled, though, and he did so because he had chosen his path. He who had been allowed to choose nothing in all his life, whose days were ordered by custom and traditions forged by a king long dead, he chose his path. "Nuitari…"

  Caylain shuddered, and in that moment others came into the chamber, their faces white in the shadowed hoods of their cloaks. Porthios came, and Alhana whose eyes were cold as stone, whose face was set in an unyielding expression of disdain. A chill struck Dalamar, hard to the heart. She was, this princess, the embodiment of the land. She looked upon him now as though she did not see him, as though he were not standing before her. As Lord Konnal led a small troop of Wildrunners into the chamber, Alhana Starbreeze turned her face from Dalamar, from the dark elf, and walked away. The land forsook him.

  It was the first moment of his exile.

  Chapter 13

  "Dark elf," they called him, the name of an exile, the name of one who has fallen from the light and the kindred of Silvanos. Dark elf. The name sat on Dalamar's heart like ice, cold and creeping, dragging numbness through his very blood.

  Through gray, raining woodlands they took him, until they came to the banks of the Thon-Thalas, the river that would run swiftly to the sea and bring him out of Silvanesti, out of the company of elves. They would rather have marched him through the forest, hands bound, feet hobbled, face hidden behind a dark cowl. In other times, in better times, they would have done that, crying his crime to all they passed, farmers and villagers, boatmen and potters and princes. "Here is a dark mage! Here is a criminal of the worst order! Look away from Dalamar Argent! Never speak his name again! Forbid him the forest if ever you see him! He is dead to us! Here is a dark mage! Here is a criminal…!"

  But they could not parade him through the aspenwood, not here in the ruined kingdom. They could only shout to the green dragons out in the wilderness. What did the dragons care? Still, they shouted. Ritual demanded it. Form must be filled. They made the best of their Ceremony of Darkness that they could without the traditional accoutrements.

  On the barren grounds of the Tower of the Stars, Lord Konnal read from a newly inscribed parchment, detailing Dalamar's crime in a voice that echoed and re-echoed from the empty stone towers of the city. "He has worshiped falsely, cleaving to evil gods! He has made dark magics and done evil deeds! He has turned from the Light!"

  That done, he passed the scroll to Caylain. This record would be entered into the libraries of House Cleric, where his name would be stricken from all documents that held it. Any mention made of him in the houses where he'd served would vanish. All record that he had studied in House Mystic would be erased. Only his birth record would remain, and it would be copied over to the secret tomes kept in the Temple of E'li where the names of dark elves were kept. Then, even his birth record would vanish. He would not exist in the annals of his people. His homeland would never hear his name spoken, or ever feel the tread of his feet upon its soil.

  While the rain dripped down and mist moved in sickly green waves, Alhana Starbreeze judged Dalamar guilty of crimes of magic, and she declaimed his sentence of exile to all gathered.

  "He has turned from the Light," she cried in a firm, clear voice, "and the Light will turn from him." Her eyes cold as ice, she lifted her head and looked him full in the face. "Be gone from us, Dalamar Argent. Never come here again, and never seek to hear your name upon the lips of any of the Children of Silvanos."

  In the eyes of Porthios, of Alhana and Konnal, upon the faces of all present, Dalamar saw this: He was dead to them, less than a ghost. And it felt as if he were, for it seemed no blood ran in him to warm. It seemed his heart had stopped its beating.

  In the ruined land, they had no cleric but Caylain to bless the Dark Escort in the name of E'li, those charged with removing the dark elf from the precincts of Light, from Silvanesti. And even that escort was not so thick with Wildrunners as tradition wished it could be. Of mages there were some, those who had warded the little skiff from the spells of green dragons on the trip up the Thon-Thalas to Silvanost. This work they would do again, for the journey downriver would be just as dangerous.

  No one looked at Dalamar as he was loaded into the skiff. Loaded, yes, for he could hardly walk, and his hands were not free to help him balance. He hit the hard bottom of the boat on his knees, then fell over onto his side. Rain, falling heavier now, slid down his face, almost like tears, but he did not weep. Instead he lay in silence, cold and shivering, his body wracked with pain that came from no physical wounds. Nothing he endured in the Temple of E'li as he'd waited his Ceremony of Darkness felt like this. Nothing he'd seen in the Circle of Darkness had given him to know he would feel pain like this.

  Something is being cut out from me, he thought. I am being cut out from something. And this, he knew, was not like leaving Silvanesti for Silvamori. This was different. Here, at the start of this journey, lay no hope for return.

  Ah gods. Ah, gods…

  Had the risk been worth the fee? He did not know. Now, here, he did not know.

  The skiff rocked on the water, moving swiftly downriver as the Wildrunners took long and powerful strokes on the oars. It was as though they could not wait to cast out the dark elf from their company. No one touched him. No one stood near. And the river flowed down to the sea, running, while fore and aft of the skiff Wildrunners shouted his crime to dragons, calling his name and bidding all who heard to never speak it again.

  They put him ashore on the far western side of the southernmost tip of the kingdom. The fleet of eight ships had watched t
he Dark Escort, men and women at the rails, standing in grim silence, watching, then turning away one after another, putting their backs to him. In the sky, gray clouds hung down in rain; no gulls cried. The water rose and fell, heaving and choppy with white manes curling on the wave-tops. Zeboim's Steeds, even these seemed to turn and run from the abomination of the dark elf.

  At the end of the day, they set him ashore on the dock near a tavern roaring with laughter and cursing and song. The stink of sweat and ale and greasy food flowed out the doors, turning Dalamar's stomach each time he had to breathe it. This was still Silvanesti, but the little port town had more a feel of other lands about it than elven lands. His escort paid for his passage aboard an outbound merchant ship, a three-master whose white sails shone impossibly bright against the lowering sky.

  "Take him safely, Captain," said Lord Porthios, handing over the fee and never looking at Dalamar. "Put him ashore wherever he wills."

  "Ar, he's a dark 'un," the minotaur said, eyeing Dalamar narrowly. "An exile, eh? Ay, well, as long as he's paid for it makes no matter to me." He offered to close the deal with a drink, but Porthios thanked him with chill politeness and refused. What elf would drink with an outlander, and one whose ship would soon hold a despised exile? None, and certainly not this prince of the Qualinesti.

  All this happened around Dalamar, above him where he sat huddled in his dark cloak, shivering in the rain. It hardly seemed to him that it was happening to him at all. He could not but shake and shiver, as though with fever. He could not feel more than that, for icy numbness held him in merciless grip. My heart must be beating, he thought. Otherwise I'd have fallen over dead. But he could not feel the pulse.

  "He is dead to us," they had said. It seemed he was, indeed. This is shock, he told himself, and this is not going to last. Then, no matter if it lasts forever. I don't care.

  He had no gear to stow, no mage-fare, no packs and parcels of fragrant spell components and precious spellbooks. The dark elf owned nothing, only the dun trews and shirt, his boots and the black hooded cloak that signaled his status. He rose and went up the gangplank when ordered to do so. Once on board, he turned to look back. In the rigging, sailors scrambled to unfurl the sails. On deck, the captain shouted orders, bidding his rowers to bend their backs and pull. The ship caught the wind, moving quickly under oar and under sail.