Dalamar The Dark (classics)

by Nancy Varian Berberick

  "No," she said, "I will tell you none of that. There we stray into matters best discussed by the Master of this Tower. Go relieve the world of that dwarf, then we will deal in questions and answers."

  "Very well," he said, his eyes still on hers. "I will do that, my lady."

  She smiled then, and it was not a warm smile. In that instant, the interview was over. She turned on her heel and walked away. The dark sweep of the hem of her robe whispering to the floor was the only sound in the high wide chamber. Upon that floor her illusion still sat, the frozen sea and the towers of the citadel upon the mountains of Karthay, and the dragon like an image forged in blue steel.

  In the hour of dawn, as the first rosy fingers of light spread out upon the sea, shining on whitecaps and gilding the wings of gulls as they sailed over the heights where the water met the cliffs of northmost Karthay, a dwarf mage roused from his tortured sleep in the castle all folk around knew as the Citadel of Night. The air in his chamber hung thick with incense, fragrances meant to cover the darkly sweet stench of death and rotting emanating from his body. He cared nothing for what smelled sweet or ill. These perfumes he allowed for the sake of those who tended him, the servants who fed and cleaned and clothed him.

  He had only one care, only one purpose, and the stench of his long, long dying never diverted his mind from it. The mage did not move, for he could not. His limbs were useless to him, long ago withered, his muscles contracted and unavailing, the flesh shrunken and juiceless. None would think, looking at him, that here was a dwarf out of Thorbardin who had once been thick-chested and so strong of arm and leg that in all the contests of strength he entered, no other dared hope for honor and prize. Those arms and legs were gone from him, just as if they had been cut from his body with an axe. Neither had Tramd eyes to open upon waking. Those were long ago taken from him. Plucked out. Burned out. Perhaps they'd been squeezed out. Sometimes his memory said one thing, sometimes it said another. Many long years had passed since his Tests in the Tower of High Sorcery at Wayreth, many since he'd walked the winding paths through the unstill forest and found the gates to the Tower. In those days, Her Dark Majesty, Takhisis Queen of Night, had not roused the dragons from their long slumber. In those days, the mortal races of Krynn did not dream, even in the most terrible of their nightmares, that the Dark Queen would spread her wings wide over the world again, once more to set out upon her quest to rule the hearts and souls of all races, to feel the world tremble as every man and woman bent the knee to her.

  Thus, this morning as every morning, Tramd woke blindly, yet not in blindness at all. Though the magic of his Test had taken his physical sight from him, that same magic had given a kind of sight back. With his mind, he reached out and lifted to life the avatar all those in the Tower of High Sorcery knew as Tramd. Most like his own body, when it was hale and whole, was this avatar. The dark beard, the barrel chest, the arms thick and strong. Sometimes he stood before mirrors, gazing at the avatar through the avatar's own eyes, and thought nothing had changed, nothing since the day he first walked into the Tower all those years before. Sometimes, fleetingly… and then the impression faded before the reality known only to the dwarf who lay rotting on his bed of silks and satin, ever-dying, never dying.

  This morning he gazed in no mirror. He let the avatar do nothing but clothe itself and relieve the pressure of its swollen bladder. He did not let it feed itself, though so closely linked were the senses of the avatar and the mind of the mage that its hunger was as his own.

  He sent it out into the corridors of the Tower, sent it walking in the first light of day into the garden in the rear courtyard. Past beds of herbs it went, speaking to no one. None of those who tended the plants seemed to notice. Tramd was not known for his congeniality, not known for his charm.

  At the command of the mage, the avatar went to that outer tower that faced north, into the first-floor laboratory where he had been for the past week, laboring over experiments of a lifting nature, magics with a winged bent, and those which made as nothing the pull of gravity. He kept no record of his work there, made no note at all but in his own mind. These were the most secret magics, spells he worked for the Blue Lady, spells that had come to him in the ecstasy of prayer, the praise-words he used to glorify Takhisis. Those spell words he put together here, with knowledge gained from the ancient texts found in the Tower's library. He fitted them one to another as a poet fits together the words of his lays. Word to word, line to line, he sought to shape a spell that would make the Blue Lady, the Highlord Kitiara, into the flashing sword in the cruel right hand of the goddess of the Abyss. If at last he crafted the magic she desired, he would have-so promised the Highlord-that which he most longed for: A body whole and hearty, restored to him by the Dark Queen herself.

  He worked long in the laboratory, the mage in the avatar's body. At noon he let the avatar go, sent it to the kitchens in the north tower where it prepared a meal for itself and then returned to work. When, at dusk, it left the laboratory again, the avatar paused on the way across the courtyard. A dark figure slipped out of the gate, a mage in a black robe. The last light glinted on silver runes stitched into the hems of the sleeves, runes of protection and warding. There went the dark elf, that one who had killed the dragon upon which Tramd had flown into battle. The mageling had tested here, or so rumor said, and he had obviously done well enough to find himself walking around alive. Most of the newly tested enjoyed the chance to leave the Tower by the speediest, and it cannot be denied, most theatrical manner, to flash forth in magic to their destination. This one, however, seemed to prefer a quieter exit. Tramd muttered a curse, not a real one meant to kill or maim, just a half-hearted, sour imprecation, but he did not finish it. Like a ghost, a white shadow drifting, another figure left the compound, but she did not walk out of the Tower grounds and into the Guardian Forest. She stood a moment, tall in her white robes, her dark hair drifting around her cheeks in the lazy breeze at day's end. She lifted her head and her arms, raising them as a swan lifts her wings. She left the compound in that magical flash, that theatrical burst of light, and the after-image was, indeed, one of a swan in sudden flight.

  Regene of Schallsea, he thought. Well, well.

  But he thought no more about it. Not then. The avatar was weary, the muscles and bones of it aching with the work it had done. He let it go back to its chambers. He let go the connection between his mind and its body, but not before the avatar had arranged itself in some comfortable semblance of sleep. No matter, though, if the thing slumped to the floor in a tangle of arms and legs like some puppet whose strings are broken. No one dared intrude upon Tramd o' the Dark, or this thing they thought was he. It would lie, undisturbed, until the mage himself woke, once again in blindness, once again in the tall towers of the Citadel of Night, to rouse the avatar and work another day upon his spells of lifting, the magics that flew in the face of gravity.

  Chapter 18

  Wind blew hot off the Plains of Dust, moaning around the hulks outside the seawall, scouring the ship hulls, and stripping off the paint slapped on in winter by the foolishly hopeful. Children ran in the byways between the hulls, shouting and laughing in the shadows of the ships left marooned when the Cataclysm had stolen the sea. The scent of rotting garbage drifted on those dusty winds, wandering through the winding ways of the marketplace, invading all of New City. A sweetness of baking fell before the stench. Even the thrill of scent from the quiet corners where the mage-ware shops sat did not prevail over years of garbage flung insensibly over the walls by those who lived in better quarters of New City. Gray-winged gulls, far-faring scavengers, creaked over the heaps of trash, over the bazaars, over all the city, and any would think Tarsis was, even still, a port city.

  Any who walked its streets and byways felt Tarsis had the pulse of a port city-the drumbeat of voices in the marketplace, women shouting to children, potters at the whining wheel, dwarf forgemen shouting to be heard above their own anvils. Parrots screeched in gilded cages, leopards
snarled in pens near the south side of the marketplace, exotic creatures caught and held for sale to the wealthy of this city or another. There had been a sudden fashion for tigers in the winter, great stalking beasts to prowl outside the doors of those who considered themselves so wealthy or famous or politically valuable as to fear kidnapping. All over Krynn, the beasts of jungles were seen in the palace courtyards, and some of the wealthy had moats into which insatiable piranhas were introduced. By the savagery of his protection was a man's status judged, and the marketplace in Tarsis did a good business in all such creatures except the fish.

  The sights, the smells, the song of the thousand-voiced people in bright-colored robes, glittering shirts, and silken hose swirled around Dalamar like a dance as he went through the streets, making his way from the south side and up through the Street of Potters, the euphemistically named row of brothels all folk in the city knew as the Avenue of the Maidens, and down Iron Row. He went quickly down that street, not so much heading for a destination as fleeing a din, hurrying past the forges and the smithies, the armorers where so much of the Dwarvish language filled the air- shouts, laughter, songs, and cursing-that a blind man would think himself in Thorbardin.

  In the Lane of Flowers where produce and herbs and, of course, flowers were sold from shops with garden plots out their back doors, a pretty girl leaned out a window, shouting to a young man on the cobbled street. Dalamar looked up at the sound of her voice, and he smiled just a little. He knew her, his lover of the seasons past. She waved, but only in passing. She had an eye for someone else now. He did not return the gesture. She was gone from his life and not likely to come back. Neither did he care about that but to feel relieved the matter was closed, the thing between them finished.

  He went on his way with eager steps now, shouldering through the crowd and heading for that part of the city to which no colorful name was attached, the place known simply and always as Their Quarter, or Our Quarter, if the speaker were a mage. Here the streets narrowed to lanes. He walked past the Shop of the Dark Night, past the Red Moon Waxing, Solinari's Hand, and finally to the Three Children where his own apartments waited. He did not take the back stair up or go inside to the speak with the one-eyed Palanthian who ran the shop for a mage no one knew or had ever seen. Dalamar stopped outside the door, where the two halves of a sawn whiskey butt stood filled with herbs, thyme, mint, and bright orange flowers of nasturtium spilling over the sides.

  "Good day," said a woman, her white robes shining in the shadowed doorway, her dark hair pulled back from her cheeks. Her sapphire eyes shone as Regene of Schallsea approached. "Welcome home, Dalamar Nightson."

  Dalamar served her elven wine in gray earthenware cups patterned with red swirling lines, two of three he'd uncovered in the ruins of Valkinord. He showed Regene to a comfortable seat on the couch near the window. He drew the shades so that the bright light of Tarsian summer shone muted, and the foul breezes off the garbage heaps made only slight incursion-he lit incense against that, for his own sake. He longed for forest breezes and would find none here.

  Regene accepted his hospitality, smiling serenely over the wine, and she behaved in all ways as though her visit was expected-as did he. She thought she had never met a man more incapable of ruffled feathers than this dark elf out of Silvanesti.

  They sat in silence a while, for a time playing the game of seeing which of them would speak first. Small psychic probes rustled the magical plane, seeking, rebuffed, seeking. In the end, Dalamar spoke first. The mask of hospitality fell from his face, his eyes glittered, and she thought of keen-edged blades.

  "Explain yourself," he said.

  Regene shrugged. "I would think I am as transparent as a whore's veil." She folded her legs beneath her, tugging the hem of her robe modestly over her ankles. "I'm here because I thought you would be here." She gestured around her, pleased. "And you are. You left the Tower in some haste after only a quarter hour in conversation with Ladonna, and I don't think she called you to her to tell you how poorly you fared in your Tests. Rather, the opposite. Something is a-brew, Dalamar Nightson, some storm of events magical and political. I have a good ear. I know when the Heads of the Orders are stirring and what type of brew they like to mix. If you are not at the eye of the storm, you are certainly within eye-shot."

  Bold, he thought as he reached for her cup and filled it again. She took it, her fingers warm against his. He settled into the chair opposite her. He had not been here since spring, yet it seemed the cushions had only that morning felt the weight of him, the impression of his back still comfortably molded from months of long sitting with books, with thinking, with the dangerous dreams of mages when he fell asleep in the light of the three moons.

  "You are a fool," he said quietly. He wasn't certain of that, but he liked to test. "You come here as though you expect good greeting, as though you know me well and can count on civil treatment."

  Regene shrugged. She held up the cup of wine, looked around at how comfortably she was situated, and said, "If this is rough greeting, I will likely survive."

  Dalamar sipped his wine, the smoky vintage that whispered of Silvanesti in autumn. He closed his eyes and saw the golden forest, heard the shivering of aspen leaves before the first breath of winter. He thought of the forest as he had last seen it, savaged, ruined, the trees falling dead, the forest home to green dragons. Silvanesti had not changed so much in three years, so said all the rumors and news. The prince of the Qualinesti had wed Alhana Starbreeze, and nominally the two elven nations were one. No doubt it all looked promising when discussed in the parlors of the powerful, but the forest yet lay in torment, that torment begun because Lorac Caladon had not the faith in his gods to withstand the onslaught of Phair Caron's dragonarmy. How good it would feel to wring the life from the one of her minions who had survived Lorac's Nightmare!

  "I am going," he said, the taste of Silvanesti on his lips, "to take a bit of personal revenge. You need not concern yourself about it."

  Regene arched a brow, settling back in the couch. She drew her legs up closer, and a bare ankle peeked out from beneath the hem of her robe. "So Ladonna called you to her and bade you go and find yourself some revenge? I didn't know the lady brokered vengeance."

  "When it suits her."

  "Your, ah, bit of personal revenge," Regene murmured, "would that have to do with the dwarf Tramd?"

  "Yes."

  She nodded, satisfied in her reckoning. "Then that's where the storm is." Swiftly, she leaned forward. The hem of her robe slipped up the calf of her leg, revealing white smooth skin. "Let me tell you something, Dalamar Nightson-I know you are bound on some mission for Ladonna. Perhaps for Par-Salian as well." When he shook his head as though to deny, she stopped him. "Don't bother to say I'm wrong. I'm right, and the more you deny, the more certain I am. I want to go with you, whatever it is you're planning, I want to be part of it. Listen! I don't want your glory, I don't want anything more than to be part of what you do. I am young in my craft, but I am strong."

  Regene sat back a moment to think. He let her have it, intrigued.

  "I am young," she said, "but I am well regarded. There is a thing I want, a goal I have, and I don't know how it will harm you, but I can imagine it would help you. If you take the long view."

  "The long view of what?"

  "Of your life, Dalamar. I hope-and I don't hope without reason-that one day I'll sit among the Conclave of Wizards. But there are deeds that need doing before that will happen, a reputation to build, a body of work to which I may point before I can think to put myself in nomination."

  And a life to live, he thought. They are such headlong fools, these short-lived humans, burning their candles as fast as they might, flinging themselves into a future they imagine and so trust will be. This is the one, he thought, who lectures me about long views.

  "You make a nice plan for yourself," he said, forbearing to smile. "Have you noted that they are all well and strong, those wizards of the White Robes who sit in th
e Conclave?"

  Regene nodded. "They are, for which I am grateful." Her sapphire eyes sparked with silent laughter. "Their continued good health provides me with plenty of time to do what I must in order to be what I will."

  Dalamar eyed the white robe over the rim of his cup, the mage like a swan sitting comfortably upon his couch. She had many skills beyond illusion-crafting. He knew that because he'd checked. She went high in the regard of the head of her Order, and that meant in the regard of the Master of the Tower himself. She was not his ward, and neither was she his student. Perhaps her standing was better, for Par-Salian used her for his little missions, such as her turn as a guide in the Forest of Wayreth. This, more than anything he knew about her, recommended her to him.

  Outside, the breeze grew stronger. Beneath the ever-present smell of garbage a fresher, cleaner scent ran. In this late summer season, when none could be expected, the breeze spoke of rain. Dalamar rose and lifted the window shade. The freshening air sent streamers of smoke drifting out from his front room and into the bedroom.

  "The weather looks to turn foul," he said. "Have you a place to stay in the city? I'd be pleased to show you to a good inn."

  Regene's eyes followed the small gray thread of smoke, the incense drifting through the arched doorway and into the room where she saw, just in glimpsing, a bed hung with soft netting, the standard drapery of a Tarsian summer rife with black flies. He smiled, a lean humorless twitch of his lips, and he made his choice in that moment. He would take her offer and take her with him to Karthay. Why not? She had her ambitions, and he sensed they would not clash with his own. He rose, took their cups and the bottle of wine, and held it to the light to see how much remained. He then tucked it under his arm, walked toward the bedroom, and said, "Come along, then."

  She followed, and in the mirror on the wall he saw her satisfied smile. Later that day, as the sun set in gold over Tarsis, he watched her sleeping and touched her cheek, once in magic. Only that light touch did he need to read what she dreamed, to know what she felt and how deep and strong was her ambition. She would do, he thought, as a companion on this journey. He thought there was some symmetry to the two of them, White Robe and Black, putting their hand to this task, which, when it succeeded, would prevent the Blue Lady from waging her war and tearing apart the fragile balance five years of blood and grief had established.