by Dragon Lance
Curious, and glad for the chance to regain his breath before fighting dwarves again, the man crouched beside the fallen body and withdrew a pouch from the dead man’s tunic. “Here they are,” he said. “See, we all have …”
He had opened the pouch, and upended it. The men around him stared in disbelief. What fell from the pouch was nothing more than a few pebbles.
“You’ve been swindled,” the dwarf snapped. “Those wizards don’t have any coins. They make stones look like coins, but they’re still only stones. I’ve seen that before. You people have been fighting and dying for pebbles.”
*
Out on the Promontory, Damon Omenborn and the Roving Guard watched in fascination as the enthroned wizard, Kistilan, floated toward them. The chair in which he sat was an elaborate, ornate high-backed thing, encrusted with gems and bits of bright metal. The wizard was a large man, his features shadowed by a wide, dark hat. When he was a hundred feet away, the chair settled to a position a dozen feet above the ground, and Kistilan gazed at the armed dwarves and their sleeping captives. “Fools,” he muttered. “Overcome by simple dwarves!”
“Speak up, spell-crafter!” the nearest dwarf demanded. “I can’t hear you.”
Kistilan fixed his gaze on the speaker – a powerfully built, brightly armored creature slightly larger than most dwarves he had seen. But still only a dwarf. Casually, the wizard muttered a spell and pointed his finger at the insolent creature. But even as he did, the dwarf turned his wide shield, displaying its concave backside. The spell lashed out as a thunderbolt and reflected directly back at Kistilan. The mage stiffened, gasped, and glowed with a greenish light as little lightnings crackled around him. It was over in a second, but he found himself gasping for breath. He glared at the dwarf and snapped, “So that’s what you did earlier? Mirrors? How did you learn that?”
“I have been studying sorcerers,” the dwarf said with a scowl of disgust, as though admitting that he had been mired in manure.
Kistilan’s eyes narrowed. “So you’re the one! Sigamon said a dwarf killed Tantas. That was you.”
“Tantas?” Damon hesitated. “Oh, yes. That one. An evil man. I defended myself against him.”
Kistilan glared at the dwarf. “And now you are interfering with others of my company. How have you brought these … No, never mind how. Why have you brought these brothers of sorcery out here to this place?”
“It was the only way I could think of to lure you out here,” Damon told him honestly. “It worked. You’re here.”
“So I am.” The wizard glared at him. “So, what do you want with me?”
“To get rid of you, once and for all,” Damon said. “Will you leave these lands?”
“You …” Kistilan hesitated in disbelief. “You think you can threaten me?”
“I just did,” Damon pointed out. “Will you leave, or will you die?”
“You arrogant runt!” the wizard roared. “Des domenet bes! Cha …!”
“Kapach!” Damon shouted.
“… pak!” the wizard finished, then gasped as a winged thing with enormous teeth and claws plummeted toward him, coming out of nowhere. “Kapach deset!” he hissed. The winged thing faded into smoke, but blood ran from scratches on the wizard’s cheek where its claws had reached him.
“Another kind of mirror,” Damon explained.
“Pestilence!” Kistilan shrieked. “Dwarf, you will die for this!” Enraged, he raised a hand, opened his mouth, and tumbled a dozen feet to the hard ground. Damon had held his attention so thoroughly that several soldiers of the Roving Guard were able to get beneath the floating throne. With a climbing hook and line, they had snared the chair and jerked it out from under the wizard.
Kistilan was still recovering from his tumble when a heavy dwarf landed on top of him. With powerful hands, Damon rolled the man over onto his stomach, then straddled his shoulders, raising his hammer. For a second, he hesitated.
The instant’s hesitation was all Kistilan needed. Calling on powers that very few mages had been given, or even knew about, he summoned darkness and chaos, and hurled it outward from himself.
One instant, Damon was astraddle the fallen wizard. The next, he found himself tumbling through a murky, stifling nothingness, with unseen terrors tearing at him from every side. His hammer was flung away, and he felt his armor being ripped open. With every ounce of will, he rejected the spell, knowing with dogged determination that it was only magic. But he had never encountered magic like this. Nothing had prepared Damon for the sheer, brutal, evil power of dark forces unleashed. He felt his ribs beginning to break, his spine twisting, his eyes starting to burn … and somewhere in his mind a voice said, “Damon! Quickly! Release me!”
“Who —” he tried to ask, but his lungs were being crushed.
“You made me be a horse,” the voice urged. “Only you can undo what you have done. Hurry, before you die!”
Damon felt his mind growing dim. Nothing seemed to make any sense, and he realized that he had stopped breathing. But there was something he needed to do. Something, but what?
“Hurry!” the mind voice urged. “Reverse your spell, and I will try to help you! You know how!”
Faintly, Damon remembered a word. The mirror word. “K … Kapach,” he whispered, as the world went dim and his mind closed its gates. Thorbardin, he thought, feebly. Everbardin, receive this one. … And then there was nothing.
Kistilan got to his feet, backing away from the struggling, gasping dwarf who lay now where he had fallen. Above and around the twitching body, a darkness seemed to hover – a busy darkness full of shrieking, tearing things that were hard to see. Grimly, the wizard concentrated, increasing the power of his torment-death spell. A human would have been dead by now, he thought, yet still the dwarf struggled.
A thrown hammer whisked past the wizard’s face, and he glanced about. The other dwarves were all around him, rushing to attack. Quickly he shielded himself, then resumed his concentration. Hammers and blades drummed at his sorcerer’s screen, some of them nearly reaching him, but he ignored them and increased the intensity of his concentration. It seemed a shadow passed above him, and he heard hooves on the stony ground, but did not turn. There was nothing they could do to him. With fierce willpower, he pressed the spell.
Abruptly, his shield of power seemed to implode upon him, knocking him sprawling. A spinning hammer flashed just above his nose, and he tried desperately to recreate his shield. But it faltered and shredded around him, and he realized that there was another magic at work here.
He looked up. Nearby, just beyond the ring of angry dwarves around him, were two men … a powerful-looking Cobar nomad, and another one he recognized instantly. Megistal.
Even as Kistilan realized who it was, Megistal’s hands moved gracefully, and a tangle of thorny vines grew around Kistilan, twining around his legs, around his chest and down his arms, twisting tendrils mingling with his whiskers, clawing at his face.
With a curse, the dark mage tore himself free and hissed a chant. The waving, weaving vines shriveled and faded. A flung sword embedded itself in the ground between his feet, and he cursed, muttering. All around him, dwarves were thrown backward, tumbling and somersaulting. A dozen unconscious wizards were flung after them, as was the barbarian beside Megistal. In an instant, the knoll was almost clear. Only two wizards and a fallen dwarf remained. Damon lay facedown, not moving.
“Megistal,” Kistilan hissed. “So you have come.”
“You knew I would,” the red-strap said calmly, drawing up the sleeves of his coat. “We have unfinished business between us, Kistilan.”
“Your oath to kill me … if you could.” Kistilan nodded. “But you gave another oath, Megistal. To hold all else in abeyance until the mountain tower is complete.”
“There will be no tower.” Megistal shook his head. “The dwarves have seen to that. Now you must pay for what you did.”
“What I did?” Kistilan laughed harshly. “The Scions gave me my pow
ers, Lunitarian, just as they gave you yours. I am favored of the Scions.”
“You were,” Megistal admitted. “And of all who learned at their feet, you were the first to betray them. You turned their gifts against them.”
“They refused to give me more!”
“They gave you all they could. Like the rest of us … the favored ones … it was up to you to go beyond, if you desired.”
“I did!” Kistilan snapped. “What they wouldn’t give, I took.”
“And the Scions are gone from Krynn now. And I have sworn, in the names of our mentors, that you will die.”
“You haven’t the power that I have!” Kistilan shouted, flinging a spell at the buckskin-and fur-clad man. Brilliant lightnings writhed like serpents around Megistal, twining and striking at him, then diminished. The red-moon sorcerer stood unscathed, smiling faintly. With a hiss of rage, Kistilan drew darknesses around himself like a second cloak, and unleashed them furiously, muttering spell after spell.
Megistal was swallowed up in seething, swirling darkness, where dull red, angry glows danced crazy patterns. Twin vortices of blackness seemed to descend from the skies above and swell from the earth below to envelope him. Then the swirling slowed, went mute, and faded. And only one thing was changed about Megistal. Where the look in his eyes had been a slight sadness, now it was anger.
“The Scions knew you, Kistilan. They predicted there would be corrupters, and they knew you would be the first. The elemental powers are not to be invoked; they are only to be studied. They threaten the very fabric of existence on this world.”
“I am favored of the Scions!” Kistilan raged. “I alone am favored of the powers!”
“You, alone?” Megistal asked sarcastically. “There were twenty-one of us so honored.”
“There were,” Kistilan sneered. “But I found the others. You are the last of the rest.”
“So I had feared.” Megistal nodded.
“You are the last of the rest!” Kistilan repeated. “Do you think I have not gone past the powers? Do you think I hesitate to use them?” Seething, he hurled flames and lightning bolts from his fingertips.
Megistal was forced backward by the sheer might of the evil magic pounding at his shields. He had expected elemental forces, but had not thought that Kistilan could have so corrupted them. They were now something new and implacable. Megistal tried to counterattack with spells of his own, but the intensity of the black-robe’s magic buffeted him. It was inconceivable that so much power could be unleashed by one man, and yet it was, and the dark wizard increased its concentration second by second.
Kistilan was at the limit of his strength, drawing upon the pure hatreds that lived within him to give force to his spells. He concentrated, amplified, and regenerated the powers striking from his fingers and saw the red-moon mage begin to crumple. Then, suddenly, the magic was broken, and Kistilan found himself lying facedown on the hard ground. Something had kicked his feet out from under him. He turned his head and looked up at the angriest face he had ever seen.
Damon Omenborn, still hurt and shaken from the torments of magic, stood over the fallen wizard, glaring at him.
“You dare …”
Damon kicked the wizard solidly in the ribs. “I dare,” he growled. “That man there” — he pointed at Megistal — “I have despised, because he is a wizard. Because he uses magic. But he is not an evil man. I see that now. He is a mage, but nothing like you. He isn’t evil. You are!” Stooping, the dwarf grasped the man’s lapels and lifted him as a child might lift an oversized rag doll. The mage spat, hissed, and started to mutter, and a hard dwarven hand slapped him so hard his teeth clicked together.
The wizard’s eyes went wild, and his hand pointed at the dwarf. A hard glare lashed out at Damon and ended abruptly as a human arrow – a Cobar arrow – pierced Kistilan’s hand. Then Megistal shouted something that was in no language at all.
Kistilan’s eyes opened wide, and he gasped. To Damon, it seemed that he abruptly became as light as a feather, and the dwarf clung more tightly to the fabric of the man’s cloak. But the fabric thinned, became like smoke, and parted in his hand. Kistilan whimpered, and Damon realized abruptly that he could see right through the man’s head.
For a moment, Kistilan hung there, gasping, fading away. Then he was gone, and Damon stood alone with an empty fist. A hand came from somewhere to rest on his shoulder.
Damon half-turned, looking up at the sad face of a disillusioned wizard. “You had such power all along?” he asked.
“I had it,” Megistal admitted.
“Then, all those times … out there, and in the valley … you could have killed me. You could have killed us all.”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“You were right in what you told Kistilan,” the mage admitted. “I am – by your views – a vile thing, a magic-user. But I am not evil, Damon. Many of us are not.”
“Favored of the powers,” Damon muttered. “What does that mean?”
“It means that I have a burden to bear, that I hope no other man must ever have. My conscience must always be stronger than the powers I was given.”
Others of the Roving Guard had recovered now and were trudging toward them. Among them, surrounded, pushed, and in some cases dragged by grim dwarves, were the remaining captive wizards and the Cobar, Quist Redfeather.
Damon looked up at Megistal, frowning. “Will this conscience of yours permit you to leave Kal-Thax and not come back?”
“I don’t see why not.” The wizard shrugged, an ironic smile touching his cheeks. “I have no further business here.”
“Good!” Damon said. He pointed at the battered humans being brought forward by his guards. “And take these with you.”
“Goodbye, Damon Omenborn.” Megistal lifted a hand in farewell. “I have truly learned from you.” The big wizard muttered, and the air seemed to crackle. Then he was gone, as were the other captured wizards. Only the dour Cobar remained in the midst of the dwarven guards.
“Wait a minute!” Damon shouted into empty air. “Take the Cobar, too!”
From somewhere – from everywhere and nowhere – a chuckling voice responded. “He is your problem, Damon, not mine. You still owe him a horse.”
“My problem,” Damon growled. He glared at the human warrior, who glared right back at him fiercely. Then Damon looked northward, toward Thorbardin, and his heart went cold. On the slopes, armies still fought, but above them the massive face of Southgate was blank metal. The plug was closed. It could mean only one thing. Enemies had penetrated the defenses and were now inside.
“Bring him along,” Damon commanded, pointing at the human.
Chapter 21
THE BREATH OF REORX
It was Porcirin the Pure who led the penetration of Thorbardin. A native of faraway Istar, Porcirin was not well liked among the brothers of the Orders of High Sorcery. With his Istarian attitude of self-righteous single-mindedness, the self-proclaimed “Wearer of the Whitest Robe” was considered by many wizards to be a hypocrite, and by some to be a lunatic. He was not of the highest levels of sorcery, having failed two of the three tests of the Scions. He was not trustworthy, he rarely followed the orders of his superiors unless they just happened to suit him, and – in true Istarian fashion – he was something of a fanatic. Still, Porcirin had a talent for debate and a passion for purpose … and followers who would bend to his will.
With the departure of Kistilan the Dark from the assault on the dwarven stronghold, and the resultant confusion of the besieging forces, Porcirin had decided that the human-wave assault on the gate was a waste of time, and that there was a better way to recover the Stone of Threes, which was somewhere inside the undermountain fortress. It did not require an army to go and find it, despite Kistilan’s ambitions. Any three sorcerers, providing they were practitioners of the three orientations of magic, could locate the Stone of Threes if they could get close enough to sense its presence.
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So, with half the company of wizards missing, and Kistilan the Dark gone off somewhere, Porcirin took matters into his own hands. Calling a number of others together, he pointed at the great, open gate on the mountainside above and said, “The time is at hand. Who will follow me into the lair of the dwarves to recover that which is ours?”
Some turned away, and some simply glared at him, but six among them were persuaded. The task would be simple, Porcirin assured them. The seven would transport themselves – a short distance only, just through the gate and far enough past it to be beyond any simple inner defenses the dwarves might have – then make themselves invisible and go in search of their tower stone. When they found it, they would take it by whatever means were necessary and return to the outside, to resume the task of creating a Tower of High Sorcery in the Kharolis Mountains.
All seven of them knew transport spells, so, gazing up at the big open gate in the mountain’s face, they said their incantations, more or less in unison.
As Porcirin materialized in a wide, high-ceilinged tunnel that was surprisingly well lighted, he heard screams behind him. He turned quickly, fighting down the brief nausea of transport. Three of his followers were with him, but the other three were some distance behind in the midst of a huge vaulted area traversed from end to end by a narrow catwalk. Two of the laggards were on the catwalk, clinging in terror. The third was dangling from its rail, screaming and flailing. Even as Porcirin and the three wizards with him glanced back, hundreds of missiles of various kinds flew from holes in the walls of the vaulted chamber, striking the other three with deadly accuracy.
It was over in a second. The clinging wizard fell screaming from sight, pierced through by a javelin. The other two stood for an instant, then were toppled by whistling balls of gray iron. They fell from the precarious walkway and disappeared into unseen depths below.
And all around Porcirin and the other survivors, armed dwarves were closing in. “Second spell,” Porcirin commanded, then muttered it, ducking as a thrown hammer flashed past his head.
