Weis Margaret

by Dragons of the Hourglass Mage (v5)

  His musings were interrupted by the sound of heavy footfalls ringing hollowly on the stone floor. Iolanthe went deathly pale.

  “I must take my leave,” she said hurriedly and flung her cloak around herself. “Raistlin, come see me when you return to Neraka. We have much to discuss.”

  Before he could say a word, Iolanthe threw her magical clay against the wall, squeezed inside the portal before it was halfway open, and shut it swiftly behind her.

  The footfalls drew closer, moving slowly, resolutely, purposefully. A chill like death flowed into the room.

  “You are about to meet the master of Dargaard Keep, Baby brother,” said Kitiara, and she tried to smile the crooked smile, but Raistlin saw it slip.

  2

  Knight of the Black Rose.

  The Hourglass of Stars.

  23rd Day, Month of Mishamont, Year 352 AC

  eath’s chill flowed beneath the door, seeped through the cracks in the stone walls, sighed through the broken window panes. Raistlin shivered from the dreadful cold, and he laid down the quill pen and thrust his hands into the sleeves of his robes to try to warm them. He rose to his feet to be ready.

  “Soth is very terrible,” said Kitiara, her gaze fixed on the door. “But he will not harm you, so long as you are under my protection.”

  “I do not need your protection, my sister,” said Raistlin, angered at her patronizing tone.

  “Just be careful, will you, Raistlin?” said Kitiara sharply. He was startled. She rarely, if ever, called him by name. Kitiara added softly, “Soth could kill us both with a single word.”

  The door opened, and terror entered.

  The death knight stood in the doorway, an imposing figure clad in the armor of a Solamnic Knight from the time of the rise of Istar. Beautifully crafted armor that had once shone silvery bright, but was now blackened and stained with blood that only the waters of redemption could remove, and Soth was far from seeking forgiveness. A black cape, bloody and tattered, hung from his shoulders.

  His eyes shone red in the eye slits of his helm; red with the passion that had been his doom and that he could not control. He raged at his fate; raged at the gods; raged, sometimes, at himself. Only at night, when the banshees sang to him the mournful song of his own downfall, was the blazing fire reduced to smoldering embers of remorse and bitter regret. When the song ceased with the coming of day, Soth’s rage blazed anew.

  Raistlin had walked many dark places in his life, perhaps none darker than his own soul. He had taken the dread Test in the Tower. He had journeyed through Darken Wood. He had been trapped in the nightmare that was Silvanesti. He had been a prisoner in Takhisis’s dungeons. In all those places, he had known fear. But when he looked into the hellish fire that blazed in the eyes of the death knight, Raistlin knew fear so awful, so debilitating that he thought he would die of it.

  He could clasp the dragon orb and speak the magic and be gone as swiftly as Iolanthe. He was fumbling for the orb with his shaking hands when he saw Kitiara watching him.

  Her lips curled. She was testing him, taunting him as she had when he was a child, and she was trying to force him to take a dare.

  Anger acted on Raistlin like a potion, restoring his courage and his ability to think. He recognized then what he should have seen earlier but for his terror: the fear was magical, a spell Soth had cast on him.

  Tit for tat, two could play at that game.

  “Delu solisar!” Raistlin said swiftly. He let go of the orb and raised his hand to trace a rune in the air.

  The rune caught fire and blazed brightly. The dueling magicks hung, quivering, in the air. Kitiara watched, one hand on her hip, the other clasping the hilt of her sword. She was enjoying their contest.

  Soth’s magic snapped. Raistlin ended his spell. The fiery rune vanished, leaving behind an afterimage of blue and wavering smoke.

  Kitiara nodded in approval. “Lord Soth, Knight of the Rose, I have the honor to present Raistlin Majere.” Kitiara added, half teasing and half proud, “My baby brother.”

  Raistlin bowed in acknowledgment of the introduction; then, raising his head and standing tall, he forced himself to look directly into the eye slits of the death knight’s helm, to stare into the fires of a tortured soul’s torment, though the sight made Raistlin’s own soul shrivel in horror.

  “You are powerful in magic for one so young,” said Lord Soth. His voice was hollow and deep, burning with his constant rage, undying regret.

  Raistlin bowed again. He did not yet trust himself to speak.

  “You cast two shadows, Raistlin Majere,” said the death knight suddenly. “Why is that?”

  Raistlin had no idea what he was talking about. “I do not cast one shadow in this terrible place, my lord, let alone two.”

  The death knight’s red eyes flickered.

  “I do not speak of shadows cast by the sun,” Lord Soth said. “I dwell on two planes, forced to dwell on the plane of the living and cursed to dwell in the plane of the dead who cannot die. And in both I see your shadow, darker than darkness.”

  Raistlin understood.

  Kitiara had no idea what Soth meant. “Raistlin has a twin brother—” she began.

  “No longer,” Raistlin said, casting her an irate glance. She could be as stupid as Caramon sometimes.

  Between the spellcasting, the terror, and the intrigue, Raistlin was suddenly worn out. “You brought me here because you required my help, my sister. I have pledged you and Takhisis my allegiance. If you wish me to serve you in some way, tell me how. If not, allow me to go home.”

  Kitiara glanced at Lord Soth. “What do you think?” “He is dangerous,” said Soth.

  “Who? Raistlin?” Kitiara scoffed, startled and amused.

  “He will be your doom.” The death knight stared at Raistlin, his flame eyes flickering.

  Kitiara hesitated, watching Raistlin, frowning, and fingering the hilt of her sword. “Are you saying I should kill him?”

  “I am saying you could try,” Raistlin said, his gaze going from one to the other. His fingers closed over a bit of amber.

  Kitiara stared at him, and suddenly she began to laugh. “Come with me,” she said, grabbing a blazing torch from the wall. “I have something to show you.”

  “What about him?” Raistlin asked, not moving from where he stood.

  The death knight had walked over to the window and gazed down at the desolation.

  “Evening is coming,” said Kitiara. “Soth has somewhere else to go. Make haste,” she added, shivering. “You don’t want to be anywhere close.”

  The wail was distant, yet the eerie and awful sound pierced Raistlin, smote his heart. He slowed his pace and looked over his shoulder, stared back down the corridor. The song was ghastly, yet he seemed compelled to listen to it.

  Kitiara caught hold of his wrist. “Stop up your ears!” she said warningly.

  “What is it?” he asked. He could feel the hair prickling on his neck, rising on his arms.

  “Banshees. The elf women who share his curse. They are compelled to sing to him every night, recite the story of his crimes. He sits in the chamber where his wife and child perished and stares at the bloodstain on the floor and listens.”

  They both hastened down the corridor, increasing their pace. Still the evil song pursued them. The wailing seemed to beat on Raistlin with black wings and tear at him with sharp claws. He tried to muffle his ears with his hands, but the song throbbed in his blood. He saw that Kitiara was very pale, and she was sweating.

  “Every night it is the same. I never get used to it.”

  The corridor they walked came to a dead end. Raistlin guessed they had not walked all that way for nothing, and he waited patiently to see what happened. Kit handed the torch to Raistlin to hold. Raistlin could have offered to use the light from his staff, but he never liked to reveal its power to people unless there was some good reason to do so. He held the torch so she could see what she was doing.

  Kitiara put her
left hand on a certain stone in the wall, her right hand on another stone, and pressed a third stone on the floor with her foot. By force of habit, Raistlin made a mental note of the precise location of each stone with regard to its neighbors. He certainly hoped he would never have to return to Dargaard Keep, but one never knew. Grinding on its hinges, the wall that was actually a door swung slowly open. Kit sprang through the opening into the darkness beyond. Raistlin glanced around, then followed cautiously after her.

  Kitiara placed her hand on a stone on the other side, and the door swung shut, muffling the banshees’ wail. He and Kitiara both shared a sigh of relief.

  She took the torch from him and went ahead of him, lighting the way. Stairs carved out of rock, enclosed by rough-hewn rock walls, spiraled downward. Kitiara descended rapidly, her boots ringing on the stone, drowning out all sound of the banshees. Raistlin followed. He noted that the stairway was not charred and that there was no smell of smoke or death.

  “This stonework is new,” he said, running his hand over the rock and collecting dust on his fingers. “Recently built.”

  “By the hand of our Queen,” said Kitiara.

  Raistlin stopped walking. “Where are you taking me? What is down here?”

  Kitiara smiled slyly. “Perhaps you’d rather go back upstairs to listen to the choir?”

  Raistlin resumed his descent. The staircase—he counted forty-five stairs—led to a door made of solid steel. Raistlin stared at it, impressed. The door alone was worth all the wealth in Neraka. He could not imagine what treasure lay behind it.

  Kitiara placed her right hand, palm flat, on the center of the door, which was smooth, without a mark that Raistlin could see. Kit spoke a single word, “Takhisis,” and light flared white beneath her palm. She invoked the name of the Dark Queen again, and a green light glowed. Kitiara said the name three more times, and three times the light changed colors, going from red to blue to black.

  The outline of a five-headed dragon blazed, etched into the door, and the door rose, silently and smoothly, until it disappeared into the ceiling.

  Kitiara motioned Raistlin to go inside. He remained outside the door, regarding her coldly.

  “You first,” he said.

  Kitiara laughed and shook her head and walked ahead of him. She held the torch high, so he could inspect the vault. The light shone on walls carved out of solid rock. The vault was not large, perhaps twenty paces by twenty paces. The ceiling was low. Raistlin could have reached up his hand to touch it.

  The vault contained only three objects—an hourglass, made of crystal encased in gold; the golden pedestal on which the hourglass stood; and a candle marked with red, numbered stripes placed at regular intervals, starting with one and ending at twenty-four. The candle kept count of the hours of the day. It had burned nearly to the bottom.

  Raistlin still did not trust Kitiara, but curiosity overcame caution. He entered the room and walked over to inspect the hourglass. He had no need to cast a spell to tell that it was enchanted.

  The top of the hourglass was filled with sand; the bottom held darkness, utter and eternal. Raistlin looked closely and saw that a single grain of sand was lodged in the narrow opening between the two halves. The grain had not fallen. It was blocking the rest of the sand, preventing it from dropping.

  “It’s clogged,” said Raistlin.

  “Wait!” Kitiara breathed.

  “For what?”

  “For Dark Watch,” said Kitiara.

  Raistlin watched the flame of the candle consume the wax, eating away at the white until it reached the red stripe that marked the end of a day. When the red began to melt, he looked at the hourglass and drew in a soft breath.

  The single grain of sand that was lodged in the narrow opening between the two halves began to sparkle. The grain shone, bright as a star, and like a star, it streaked through the darkness, falling to the bottom. The grain flickered a moment in the darkness; then the light faded and went out. Another small grain dropped into the narrow opening and hung there.

  Kitiara replaced the candle that marked the hours with a new candle, lighting the new one from the guttering flame of the old. The flame burned clear and unwavering in the still air of the vault.

  “What is this?” Raistlin asked, his voice soft with awe.

  “The Hourglass of Stars,” said Kitiara. “It began keeping time on the first day of creation, and when the sand runs out, time will end.”

  Raistlin longed to touch the glistening sides of the crystal, but he kept his hands clasped together in the sleeves of his robes. One needed to be wary of artifacts.

  “And what is it doing here? How did Takhisis come by it?”

  “She forged it,” said Kitiara.

  “What does this have to do with Ariakas?” Raistlin asked. “Nothing,” said Kitiara. He looked at her, startled.

  “Oh, I know that’s what I told Iolanthe. I had to tell her something for her to bring you here, otherwise she would have been suspicious. How do you think that wizardess Ladonna escaped? Iolanthe helped her. The witch is not to be trusted, Baby brother.”

  Raistlin was not surprised. That fit with his suspicions.

  “I do not trust her,” said Raistlin. “I trust no one.”

  “Not even me?” Kitiara asked playfully.

  She reached out her hand as if to smooth back his hair as she had done when he was a child burning up with fever.

  Raistlin drew back, avoiding her touch. “Why am I here? What do you want from me?”

  Kitiara lowered her hand and rested it on the golden top of the hourglass. “The Sly One. That’s what they called you. Perhaps that’s why you were always my favorite. It seems that Nuitari has betrayed his mother for the last time. Takhisis has decided to get rid of the god of magic and his two treacherous cousins. She is bringing in three new gods, Gods of the Gray. They will answer directly to their Queen, and she will give them the magic.”

  Raistlin staggered as though he’d been punched in the face. If he had not been holding on to his staff, he would have fallen. All thoughts of rescuing Laurana flew from his mind. He had himself to consider. He was in deadly peril. Kit was talking about destroying the gods of magic, destroying the magic that was his lifeblood.

  He could feel the Dark Queen very near him. He could feel her breath upon the back of his neck. He heard her voice as he had heard it in her shrine in the Red Mansion.

  Serve me! Bow down before me!

  This was her punishment for his disobedience. He had to be careful here, very careful.

  “An interesting notion,” said Raistlin cooly. “Removing three gods cannot be easy, even for Takhisis. How does she plan to accomplish this?”

  “With your assistance, Baby brother.” Kitiara gazed into the flame of the candle. “Tomorrow night, the Night of the Eye, the most powerful wizards in Ansalon will gather in one place—the Tower of High Sorcery in Wayreth. You are going to destroy that Tower and those within.”

  “And if I refuse?” Raistlin asked.

  “Why should you? You owe these wizards nothing. They made you suffer,” said Kitiara. “Takhisis will make you far more powerful than Par-Salian ever was, more powerful than all wizards in the world combined. You have only to ask her.”

  Raistlin watched the flame of the candle eat into the wax.

  “What do you want of me?” he asked.

  “Serve Takhisis and she will give you everything your heart desires,” said Kitiara. She ran her hand over the top of the hourglass. “Betray her and she will devour you.”

  “That is not much of a choice,” said Raistlin.

  “You are lucky she is giving you a choice at all. I do not know what you did, but our Queen is not pleased with you. She gives you this chance to prove yourself. What is your answer?”

  Raistlin shrugged. “I bow to my Queen.”

  Kitiara smiled that crooked smile. “I thought you might.”

  3

  Broken door. A question of trust.

  2
4th Day, Month of Mishamont, Year 352 AC

  t was long after Dark Watch. The new day had begun, the day that would change his life. Raistlin was back in his room in the Broken Shield without any memory of how he came to be there. He was appalled to realize he’d cast spells and traveled the corridors of magic, all without being consciously aware of what he was doing. He was glad to think that some part of his brain was working rationally when it seemed that the rest of his brain was running around, shrieking wildly, and flinging up its hands.

  “Calm down!” he said to himself, pacing the length of the small room. “I have to be calm. I have to think this through.”

  Someone banged on the floor from the room underneath. “It’s the godsdamned middle of the godsdamned night!” a voice shouted up through the floorboards. “Stop that godsdamned tromping around, or I’ll come up there and godsdamned stop it for you!”

  Raistlin briefly considered hurling a fireball at the floor, but that would only burn down the inn and accomplish nothing. He flung himself on his bed. He was exhausted. He needed sleep. He tried closing his eyes, but when he did, he saw the tiny grain of sand blazing to life and falling into darkness. He saw the candle burning away the hours.

  Tonight, the Night of the Eye.

  Tonight, I must destroy the magic.

  Tonight, I must destroy myself.

  For that’s what it amounted to. The magic was his life. Without it, he was nothing, less than nothing. Oh yes, Takhisis had promised that he would receive his magic from her, as did Ariakas. Raistlin would have to pray to her, beg her. And she might choose to toss him a crumb or not.

  And if he refused, if he went against her, where could he go in the wide world that the goddess could not find him?

  Raistlin felt half suffocated. He rose from the bed and walked to the window and flung open the shutters to the cool night air. In the distance the dark outline of the temple dominated Neraka, seeming to obliterate the stars. The towers and spires writhed in his fevered vision, changed to a clawed hand that lunged at him, reaching for his throat …