Dalamar the Dark

by Nancy Varian Berberick

  "Well, he saved the kingdom, didn't he?"

  "He did, but as I hear it, he wanted the dragon orb more than he cared about the kingdom." Arath shrugged. "Ice water in his veins would warm things up for him. He looked at me once, just once, only glancing, and it was like falling into some dark place where the best thing you'll find is terror." Arath pushed away from the rail, away from the memory. "He's gone from the Red magic to the Black, that's what I hear. And so it's just as well he's gone from our story, and since he is, there no need to worry about him more."

  "Well, I wasn't worrying about him," Elisaad muttered, not to Arath but to his back as he walked away. "I was just curious."

  She walked away, but Dalamar stayed where he was, winding rope and listening to the sea and the cries of the sailors as they worked in the rigging. Home, he thought. Home. But the story of the mage with the hourglass eyes, he who had gone from Red magic to Black, lingered with him, winding like a whisper through all his other thoughts. Who was he? And, more insistent: How did he come to such power that he could lift a green dragon's enchantment from a whole land? Like as not he wouldn't learn the answers to those questions, soon or ever. The mage Raistlin, as Arath had said, was gone from the story of Silvanesti.

  By slow, aching degrees, the first skiff made its way up the Thon-Thalas River. It was filled with temple-gear, for the returning elves deemed proper that before anything be set in order, the Temple of E'li must be reconsecrated. The altars must be cleansed, new candles set, and new wands of incense lighted. A lot had been taken out of E'li's Temple for the flight to Silvamori—altar stones, statues of the god, all of the scrolls from the scriptorium. Tapestries sat in long rolls in water-proofed crates, as did jeweled candelabra of silver and gold—all the accoutrements of worship. Dalamar, whose credentials as a servant and who had once worked in the Temple, stood in the back of the skiff. Who better to begin the task of cleaning out the debris?

  Weeping over the ruin of the river, the ravaged Thon-Thalas, the wind felt like nothing out of summer. With its cold clammy fingers, it felt like a winter wind. The reeds along the banks drooped, faintly green at the base, pasty brown along the shaft, black and slimy where the feathery seed pods should now be starting to form. It was as though they tried to grow, managed to stagger, and then fell to die. Fish lay rotting in the coves, silvery sheen turned to the blue of a corpse's lips as the scales rotted. Some of these, it seemed, were whole when they'd died. Others bore the marks of mutation, some with thin, twisted limbs, others with three eyes. One or two had wings, and these, trying to fly, had died; for they had wings, but they did not have lungs that liked air better than water.

  Above the misery, the sky hung a pall of ragged clouds. In the air, thin mist stank of death, the tatters that dressed the decay and decorated the corruption seen on all sides.

  "By the gods," whispered Lord Konnal, his hand upon the hilt of his sword. It was a warrior's gesture, and useless here. "By the gods, I had heard what the place looked like, but I never imagined…"

  "It is a bitter sight," agreed Porthios.

  In this, the elf-prince and the Silvanesti House Holder stood in perfect and rare agreement.

  Along the banks of the Thon-Thalas, trees stood like blackened skeletons; in summer's season they were winter's ghosts. Writhen by foul magic, they staggered in terrible twisted shapes. Once-proud aspens bowed low, their slender shapes brutalized by the dragon Cyan Bloodbane's nightmarish spells. Some of those trees bled, not sap but red blood as mortals bleed. Some wept, silver tears running down their trunks as rain runs down.

  No one dared touch the trunks or anything else, not even the water in the river. Yet, some yearned to do that, aching to reach out with healing touches, aching to comfort the ravaged land. One of these was a cleric, Caylain, a young woman whose cheeks shone white as a ghost's. She reached, now and then, only to remember that she dared not reach too far.

  "Dearest E'li," she whispered, her voice barely heard beneath the muffling of the sleeve she pressed against her mouth and nose. Dalamar heard her, though, for they stood near one another. And he saw the tears streaming down her cheeks as those from the aspens-ever dying, never healing.

  Dearest E'li, Dalamar thought, watching the ruin of their homeland slide by. Well, dearest E'li hasn't walked here in a long time.

  Dragons did, though. He saw marks of their passage everywhere-snapped branches, the slithering trail of long scaly tails in the mud at the river's edge, and broad flat footprints with the pegged marks of talons. Once, when the skiff came close to the bank, he saw in a nest of mud the jagged shells of leathery eggs, freshly burst. Those eggs had been as large as his torso, and they had held a clutch of dragon young. Soon after, he spotted the sullen gleam of green scales and an eye the size of his hand, evil gold in a midnight iris. These were green dragons, the kind who seldom grew longer than thirty feet-small in comparison to the beasts who had descended from the iron sky over the northern border five years before. Small, but not less dangerous. These greens had great cunning in magic; to them fang and talon were but the crude tools of the lesser of their race. And so, all round the little skiff like a silken cloak, lay spells of protection, magic made and maintained by the two mages who sat, still and silent, in the center of the craft. Eyes closed, lips moving always at the silent weaving of their spell, the mages worked with sweat rolling down their faces, hands clasped so tightly that their knuckles gleamed white. By their strength, those who kept within the skiff were warded from the enticements of the green dragons, safe from the magic that would otherwise lure them into the ravaged forest and to their deaths.

  Dragons lived here in the ruined kingdom, yet so did a princess. No, not that. Alhana Starbreeze was more than princess now. She was Speaker of the Stars, for her father was dead. She waited in Silvanost in the Tower of the Stars, anxious for the coming of Porthios and his little fleet. She waited in safety, warded by a full troop of Porthios's own household guard. That troop was a thing Lord Konnal deeply resented, and no one could fail to know it. His face was drawn in lines of indignation; his steely eyes shone with it. Even as he understood it would have been insanity to ask Alhana to wait for protection until he could sail home, he hated the fact that a Qualinesti prince would deploy his own men to protect the Lady of the Silvanesti. Still, he had done that, and none must complain-at least not aloud. Alhana had been at the work of healing each day since Raistlin had freed her realm from the nightmare, a lone woman using only the small skills of earth-heal that most elves have, the tender touch, the loving glance, the dreams in the night in which health and growth first take place. She must be protected in that work; she must be kept safe. None could doubt her gratitude for the help Porthios extended.

  The river groaned, and on board the little skiff one of the rowers swore he had to work twice as hard for half the distance as he and his crew forced the vessel to creep against the tide.

  "Aye, well," growled Lord Konnal, "then don't waste breath complaining. Row!"

  Porthios heard that, but he did not comment, keeping diplomatically out of the lord's way. He stood in the prow of the skiff, looking northward as though it were his only task.

  "He is a fine and handsome fellow, this Porthios," said the rower to Dalamar.

  Dalamar shrugged. Fair enough for a barbarian Qualinesti, he thought. Aloud, he said, "It's the cut of his weapons I like better than anything else about him."

  Behind him, a curse. An oar hit something. "Damn," the Wildrunner growled, tugging at the oar, trying to free it. Curious, Dalamar left the side of flat-bottomed boat and stepped around the mages in the center to peer over the other side.

  Lord Konnal turned at the sound of the curse. His glance lighted on Dalamar, dark and baleful. "Lend a hand, you," he snapped.

  Dalamar twisted a sour smile, one the lord could not see as he stepped in front of the rower and bent his back to the task of pulling out the oar from whatever snare had caught it. He pulled hard, then again, moving in concert with the Wil
drunner. Something had the broad paddle of the oar and held it hard. He shifted his stance and peered out over the edge. The river water slid against the sides of the skiff, oily and brown and thick with silt.

  "What is it?" Porthios called, coming back to see. He balanced easily in the shifting skiff, then put his hand on Dalamar's shoulder to move him aside. "Ach, branches—"

  The water slapped against the sides of the boat, and the oar slipped suddenly in Dalamar's hands. Startled, he gripped harder, pulling back against what pulled forward. Something did pull at the oar; something with intent worked beneath the waters. Clacking and clattering sounded from under the water, then a high keening shrieked up.

  The brown water broke, a hand reached up-one of whitened bone, fingers grasping the oar.

  "By all the gods!" Porthios stepped back to give himself sword-room.

  A hand grabbed Dalamar's arm—Caylain's—and yanked him away from the side of the boat. Porthios's sword came singing from its sheath, the blade gleaming dully in the gray daylight. In one swift arcing motion, the prince swung and brought his sword down, shattering the grip of the bony hand. But it was only one hand, and there were others now, reaching with clattering fingers to grab the sides of the skiff. Once more, hands yanked at the oars, but now the rowers were prepared and held hard.

  More swords sang in the air as Wildrunners leaped to defend their charges against the mute and gaping creatures who clawed up from the water. Some, Dalamar saw, were the skeletons of elves, others were of ogres, goblins, and humans. Here were the dead of the last battle for Lorac Caladon's doomed kingdom, and a few yet wore bucklers and swords of their own, hoary weapons whose finest decorations were rust.

  A Wildrunner shouted in pain, then in sudden terror. "E'li!" she cried, as though the name of her god must be the last thing she spent breath on. Dalamar knew her by her voice: Elisaad Windsweep, who had wondered about the mage who'd waked the land from Lorac Caladon's nightmare. "O E'li—!"

  A bony arm thrust up from the water and grabbed the woman by the hair, yanking her down. Dalamar leaped across the bowed back of a rower still struggling for his oar against another of the bone-warriors. Dragged overboard, Elisaad screamed, her cry heard even above the crash of swords and the rattle of bones as the water claimed her. In the next moment, her hand broke the surface of the brown river, but her face—eyes wide and full of panic, mouth stubbornly shut against the river—showed only hazily through the turmoil of muddy water. Dalamar leaned far over the side of the skiff. Someone grabbed him by the belt and he leaned farther, reaching into the water for the drowning Wildrunner.

  "There she is!" Caylain cried, holding onto Dalamar's belt with two hands now. "There!"

  "Fight!" Dalamar shouted to her. "Reach for me! Give me your hand!"

  Three faces looked up at him, one full of terror, two with empty eye-sockets that nonetheless left the feeling that they were filled with malice.

  Swiftly, Dalamar called out a word of magic, one he hadn't used in many long years. It was not the first he'd learned-the call for light, Shirak, is ever the first a mage learns—but it was the next. It was, in itself, also a call for light, for it was a call for focus and clarity.

  "Azral!" he shouted, and Elisaad's eyes went wide to hear magic from this servant, wider still to feel terror fall away from her and purpose flow in after. She surged upward, reaching for his hand, unhampered now by fear.

  Skeletal jaws opened and closed in some kind of frantic speech, the brittle clattering heard even above the water's surface. It was the sound of old leaves scrabbling on midnight paths. Elisaad's hand closed tight around Dalamar's wrist, her eyes met his, bright and clear and filled with trust. Someone cursed; someone else sobbed in pain or terror.

  Lord Konnal shouted, "Behind! There are more behind!"

  Dalamar dared not look to see behind where. He could only hope they were not behind Caylain, for two of the undead grabbed Elisaad, one to hold her shoulders, another her legs.

  Elisaad screamed.

  The attackers held, and they had the same strength they might have had in life. Some elves, others old foes, all of them had a consuming hatred of the living. Dalamar pulled again, and now Elisaad's head was above water.

  "Caylain!" he shouted, hanging on to Elisaad.

  Caylain, pull! Caylain, don't let go! All these things he meant when he shouted, all these things the cleric understood at once. With one mighty surge, Caylain threw herself backward, dragging Dalamar, dragging Elisaad with him. The Wildrunner came up, head and shoulders, and she had a hand free to grasp the side of the wildly rocking boat. The release of resistance sent Caylain tumbling. Dalamar staggered, then reached for Elisaad again.

  "Take my hand!"

  She dragged herself higher out of the water, reaching. Someone came between Dalamar and her-Porthios in pursuit of a rattling, clattering foe-and her eyes went wide in horror again.

  "No!" she screamed. "No-o-o-o!"

  She vanished and disappeared, screaming beneath the water. Cursing, Dalamar leaped for the side of the boat. But he was too late. He reached the water's edge only in time to see the last of Elisaad, the pale oval of her face, the terror in her eyes as her lungs filled with brackish river water and the undead dragged her to her death.

  Raging, Dalamar turned, and he snatched up the nearest thing he could find for a weapon-a rusted sword, the blade pitted and scarred. One, two, and three of the skeletal beings came clattering after him, jaws working but no sound issuing, their eye-sockets empty as dry wells. He swung about as though he were a warrior trained, instinctively holding the sword in a two-handed grip, not flailing but finding the same rhythm he saw Porthios using-arc and swing, for thrusting did a man no good in this kind of fight. He must swipe heads from neck and chop bony limbs from their sockets. He must dismantle in order to kill. This he did in rage, the wail of the woman stolen from his grasp like a spur to his fury.

  Not until a hard hand grabbed his arm and held his swing did he stop. Not until Porthios pried the rusted sword from his grip did he look up to see that the fighting was finished, the battle won. In the fallen stillness, Dalamar heard the slap of water against the skiff, the hiss of a quickening wind in the dying reeds. Someone coughed. Someone else groaned, and he smelled blood. He looked around him and saw that two of the Wildrunners had deep wounds. The mages sat in the center of the skiff, still bowed over, still white-faced and weaving their spells.

  In the moment Dalamar's glance alighted on them, Konnal's gaze touched him. Cool and narrow, that glance, glittering with suspicion as he eyed him from brown boots to dun shirt.

  "Servitor," he said, "you dress strangely for a mage."

  Dalamar's tongue leaped nimbly for the lie. "I haven't practiced magic since the war, my lord. I was the servant of Lord Tellin Windglimmer and served him in the Temple of E'li. He was pleased to have me learn the ways of magic. He's dead now, and no one seems to have taken as much interest." His history neatly amended, he shrugged. "No matter. I'm pleased to have remembered some little of what I learned." He glanced at the river and the calming surface of the water. Now he didn't have to feign his feeling. "I wish I had been able to do more for the Wildrunner."

  "Indeed," Konnal said, eyes no less narrow, no less cold. "I've never approved of teaching a servitor the arts of magic. They get above themselves and find their heads filled with ideas they can't properly understand. Nothing but trouble comes of that."

  He seemed to expect a reply, and Dalamar had none that would please him. After a moment, eyes properly lowered, he murmured, "If you have no other question, my lord, I'll return to minding the crates."

  Konnal gestured curtly and sent Dalamar to his work. Somewhere upriver, a long moaning howl wound through the thickness of green mist. A dragon called, and another answered. In the water around the skiff, one small line of bubbles sailed up to break the brackish surface. Then all was still and remained so for the rest of the journey.

  Chapter 12

  The pain of the
land moaned in Dalamar's very bones. He felt it most keenly as the little skiff put in at the docks on the north side of the city. He stepped gingerly from the vessel to creaking wood, hoping the rotting posts would hold. It was not easier when he walked into the city. In the Arts District the towers had tumbled, and the fair buildings of marble and quartz were fallen to ruin.

  "It might have been a thousand years since we last walked here," whispered the cleric Caylain to one of her fellows. Her face was as pale as Solinari's moon, her long eyes wide and dark with sorrow.

  The rose marble walls of the museums and theaters and libraries bore the wounds of cracks, and smaller buildings had fallen in on themselves, roofs shattered, walls collapsed. The statuary lining the streets were unrecognizable. Where the generals on their wide-winged griffins? Where the Wildrunner, bow nocked, fierce eyes glaring? Where the gods, Kiri-Jolith with his Sword of Justice, E'li, the dragon rampant? Where, Quenesti-Pah, her arms outstretched, and the Blue Phoenix, and Astarin with his harp? Gone, all gone, their images melted, shattered, fallen to dust and blown away. Not even ravens clung to the ruined aspen branches.

  Down the long boulevard from the Arts District to the Garden of Astarin, on shattered pavers, the cracks oozing slime as green as the mist hanging in the air, the first elves to return from Silvamori went like a funeral. All walked in silence, each in grief, until at last they came to the Garden of Astarin. Then did they cry out, the lords and the Wildrunners and the clerics. They cried to see the garden, the boxwood that framed it into a star only naked sticks, brown and lifeless. They wept for the silence of the place and sobbed to see the Tower of the Stars. This, of all the structures in the city, had fared worst. Turrets lay in piles of rubble on the ground, and the walls bore cracks that went right through to the heart of the stone. The gems that once studded the walls lay scattered about the lifeless grounds, fallen years before.

  And the elves wept, they wept, to see their princess, Alhana Starbreeze, come out from that ruin to greet them, for in her amethyst eyes lay all her pain, her grief for her father's folly and death, her sorrow for the land. None could look into those eyes and not think her aged beyond the count of her years. None could look and not weep, for she was now-as once her father had been-the embodiment of the land.