Wizard's Conclave

by Douglas Niles

  "Have I been so unworthy, Nuitari?" he cried, his voice a hoarse whisper of despair. He shook his fists at the sky-in vain, for the only answer he received was the soft moaning of Jenna, as she stirred from sleep.

  With a sigh, Dalamar turned back to the cave. Somehow it came down to helping Jenna in order to find Coryn. For some reason, it seemed the gods favored Coryn, and that she-and only she-could lead them to the Tower.

  19

  The White Robe

  Coryn tucked the bottle, the wand, and the book into various pockets of her robe. She discovered an extensive array of pouches and other pockets on both the inside and outside of the garment, including several that were perfectly sized for her new possessions. Other pockets already had ingredients in them, and as her hands caressed the newfound materials she found that she could instinctively sense the difference between bat's eyes and dried blackberries, powdered ogre skull, and grains of fine sand.

  She looked around, realizing she was still in the corridor where she had started and ended the Test. There was no sign of Kalrakin or his accomplice, but she sensed they wouldn't be far away. Tentatively, she started along the hall, heading away from the stairway.

  That is when magic convulsed behind her. Coryn immediately sensed the explosive power of an attack. Kalrakin's sorcery exploded, sweeping down the corridor toward her backside in a wave of lethal power.

  Her response came to her lips instinctively, emerging calmly and quickly, instantaneously guiding her out of the path of the violent blast of sorcery. This was not a teleport spell, however-though that could have carried her anywhere in the world that she wanted to go, she was not prepared to leave the Tower, to abandon it to this abominable intruder.

  Instead, a newly confident Coryn chose to give battle.

  "Arastia—disp—lasr!"

  She found herself standing safely just a few dozen feet away and now on the other side of Kalrakin. He spun furiously, his beard and long hair whirling around with a contorted expression. He lunged for her.

  "Bitch!" he snarled, the white stone glowing against his palm in his extended hand.

  The command for the haste spell burst, almost unbidden, from Coryn's lips. Immediately the speed of the sorcerer's charge appeared to slow down. Though he still ran and reached for her, his limbs moved as if they churned through molasses or viscous oil. Meanwhile the girl sprinted down the corridor, her moccasins skidding on the smooth stones. Wind whistled in her ears as she flew like a rabbit, darting around the corner.

  She heard Kalrakin screaming something behind her, the sounds deep and inarticulate-and then the stones under her feet started to shift and writhe, and she fell, slamming hard into the wall at the end of the corridor.

  He followed her, moving in apparent slow motion, even as the haste spell helped her to react speedily. She shook off her pain and tumbled onto the stairway, rolling to her feet and running down the spiraling steps.

  Abruptly, a stone flew from the wall, swishing past her head, exploding into shards when it smashed into the opposite wall. She had to dodge as another and then a third piece of masonry, shot outward. All down the spiraling stair, the curving wall erupted erratically, spewing out potentially lethal missiles. Kalrakin, despite his "slowness," was close behind—he must have somehow counteracted her haste spell with one of his own.

  She whispered another magical word, cloaking herself in a blanket of invisibility as she shrank against the wall. Looking at her hands-or rather, at where her hands were supposed to be—Coryn saw straight through to the floor. Holding her breath, she pressed herself out of the way, though she feared the pounding of her heart would betray her. It took all of her courage not to flinch or scream as the maniacal sorcerer caught up to her…

  …and raced right past, his face locked in that expression of insane fury, jaw clenched, teeth bared, eyes flashing hatred above his jutting nose and tangled beard. He moved with unnatural speed, now, his long legs covering four or five stairs with each stride. Howls of inarticulate rage exploded from his lips, and his gaunt body seemed to tremble uncontrollably.

  Only when he had rounded the next bend and disappeared from view did Coryn dare to draw a breath. Then she heard more steps coming from above and knew the second sorcerer was coming. Again she froze as Luthar lumbered past. His movements were unnaturally slow, which confirmed that Kalrakin was being aided by a haste spell. It was more wild magic, and she hated the thought that Kalrakin was defiling the godly purpose of this tower.

  With each act of destruction, each spell of wild magic, each and every stone torn from the floor and walls, the evil wizard willfully inflicted terrible suffering upon the Tower. The Master was right: Kalrakin was an abomination, a corruption, a cancer. More than that, he had become Coryn's personal enemy, the first person she had ever hated with a passion.

  And now, clad in her pristine white robe, Coryn felt a flush of proprietorship about this hallowed place. Kalrakin was not just her enemy, he was the enemy of all that godly magic stood for, all she, newly confirmed by the Test, swore to protect. It was not enough to drive him out, she realized-he must be slain. Her fury coalesced into cold purpose, and she found another word entering her mind, an arcane command that brought with it images of incendiary explosion and searing, fiery death. She could cast that spell, watch the flames engulf the gaunt, bearded figure of her enemy, and know that this served a true, noble purpose. Her benign god, gentle Solinari, heartily approved her lethal goal and the deadly nature of her spell.

  "Where did she go?" Kalrakin screamed shrilly. He was coming back up the stairs, now, snarling to Luthar, tramping behind. The wizard emerged into sight at the bend of the stairway as she inched back up the steps. Deliberately kicking at pieces of rubble scattered around her, Coryn sent pebbles cascading, and the wild sorcerer halted, staring ahead intently.

  "There you are, you little fool," he sneered. "Did you really think you could evade me? Did you think that such a pathetic mask—invisibility?—could hide you, as wise in magical deception as I am?"

  "I don't intend to evade you," Coryn said loudly and boldly, "or hide from you." She let the invisibility spell fall away from her like a piece of clothing she was shrugging off. She wanted Kalrakin to see her, wanted him to understand what was happening to him, wanted him to know his punisher.

  "I intend to kill you!" she declared with cold fury.

  The gray-robed wizard raised an eyebrow, and chuckled disbelievingly. But she raised her finger, pointed at him, and spoke the command word for the fireball spell. It rolled from her tongue, pulsed in the air around her, sizzled with the tremendous, fundamental power of godly magic. Kalrakin must have heard that word before-for his eyes instantly grew wide, and he threw his hands up to protect his face, tumbling backward down the steps. He screamed and writhed, trying to ward off the inevitable.

  A bubble of fiery light appeared at Coryn's fingertip. The little sphere danced and drifted toward the cringing wizard. Suddenly, Kalrakin looked up, his eyes flashing, and his mouth curling into a cruel grin. He regained his poise, stood, and faced her, holding up the white stone that he had remembered was his advantage. It pulsed eagerly, hungrily. The talisman was firmly clenched in the sorcerer's grip, as the fireball exploded.

  The release of power felt like a physical rush, to Coryn, draining energy from her body and channeling it into the lethal spell. Coryn expected to see the wizard, struck by such power, vanish within an incendiary cloud.

  But he did not die, nor did any great fire materialize. Instead, the sorcerer howled in triumph, clenching his fist. Smoke billowed between his fingers as the surface of his skin took on a surreal, almost sun-bright, glow. And then the spell was over, and Kalrakin was leering at her through his beard, holding up his glowing hand in a gesture of scorn. The stone was hot and bright in his hand, taunting her with its superior might.

  Coryn gaped in astonishment. For several seconds she could not believe her impotence; her magical powers had been so effective, so unfailing, d
uring the full course of the Test, that she had never considered the possibility of failure. She had executed the spell correctly, but Kalrakin—or rather, his white talisman—somehow had thwarted the effect.

  Kalrakin raised his fist. Pearly light gleamed between his fingers, as if the pale gemstone were afire. He climbed back up the stairs, toward Coryn. She pointed a finger at him, snapped out a command, and felt another rush of energy as a powerful, crackling lightning bolt erupted from her flesh, arrowing toward the wild sorcerer. Searing magic crackled- she smelled the heat and fire, felt her hair stand on end amidst the violent electric charge.

  But amazingly, it happened again. Kalrakin actually laughed in the face of her foolishness. He held up that stone again-it was so radiant now that Coryn had to squint-and absorbed the full brunt of the lethal lightning bolt into the smooth, round shape. The yellow spear of electricity simply vanished, leaving the artifact glowing so brightly that Coryn could no longer look at it without being blinded-it was like trying to stare at the sun.

  Kalrakin reached for her with maniacal fury. He grabbed Coryn's robe with those long fingers, tendrils of brilliant golden light emanating from the little stone in his right hand. What she did next was automatic: She spoke another word-a word she had learned from Umma's books, she recalled with a pang-the same word that had saved her from the thanoi in the Icereach.

  She had no destination in mind, but once again the old teleport spell served her true. Instantly she found herself standing at the edge of a meadow, with tall trees at her back, and a rocky bluff rising before her. The Tower was nowhere to be seen, and she sensed immediately that this wood was not Wayreth Forest. Or that Wayreth Forest had left her behind.

  Nearby rose a low granite ridge, its face marked by lichen-encrusted rocks. A shady gap attracted her attention immediately, and Coryn realized she was looking at the mouth of a cave. Cautiously she approached the place, leaning forward, trying to peer inside the shadowy murk. As her eyes adjusted, she edged forward, coming under a lofty mantle of ancient rock.

  From the darkness she heard-or perhaps imagined-a groan of unspeakable pain. Carefully she advanced, holding the folds of her robe off the floor, peering into the darkness as her eyes slowly adjusted. This place looked familiar-and there, on the floor, was a person she recognized.

  "Jenna!"

  The Red Robe lay on the floor of the cave, just as Coryn had seen her during the Test. Her face was pale and slick with sweat; her eyes, closed. Her breathing was ragged and shallow, like the panting of a wounded animal.

  Coryn felt stabbed with guilt. She ran forward and knelt by the woman, touched her cheek, and found that she was burning with fever.

  "Her gut is ruptured. She's dying."

  Dalamar's voice, cold and brittle, startled her. She leaped to her feet and turned to look at the dark elf. He betrayed no surprise at seeing her. His demeanor was distant, almost contemptuous, as he looked her up and down. Coryn stood proud under his inspection, acutely conscious of her white robe—which was in contrast to his own garment of midnight black.

  "We were following you, chasing you-you might say we were foolish enough to be worried about you," he said, his voice cutting like a knife. "But I see you had important personal business to accomplish."

  "The Master of the Tower invited me in, and I came," she explained simply. Surely she hadn't done anything wrong- or had she? Why did she feel this stabbing guilt? She had had to run away from these two bickering mages.

  "You and Jenna were determined to keep me in the dark, to use me as a pawn in your own struggles. I had to get away, strike out on my own-I didn't know where I was going, at first. But it turned out to be the way to the Tower, and I was invited by the Master to take the Test of Magic."

  "Obviously," he said, his voice heavy with sarcasm. "So it appears I lose the company of one enchantress, only to be rewarded with the dubious presence of another."

  "There's more at stake than you know!" she retorted. "And anyway, I'm a mage now. We need to help Jenna, not stand around talking. Maybe she doesn't have to die!"

  "What—have you become a cleric, too? Even a high priestess of immortal Paladine—Paladine as he used to be—would be hard pressed to heal these grievous wounds."

  "Be quiet." Coryn knelt beside the Red Robe and pulled the bottle of potion out of her robe. At the sight of the bottle Dalamar knelt beside her, his expression intent.

  "Where did you get that?" he asked.

  "At the end of the Test," Cory replied. "It was a reward, which I didn't understand at the time. Now I think I know why it was given to me."

  Slowly, gingerly, she raised Jenna's head, cradling it in a strong hand. Placing the open neck of the bottle to the injured woman's lips, she allowed a slow trickle to run into the Red Robe's mouth. After the first small dose, she let Jenna breathe for a bit, and then repeated the process. Sip after sip, Coryn poured the precious liquid through the Red Robe's parched lips.

  Slowly, imperceptibly, a flush began to appear on Jenna's clammy cheeks. Her breathing grew more measured, her temperature abated. The thrashing of her limbs gradually eased and by the time the potion was gone, she appeared to be miraculously well-and sleeping soundly, restfully.

  "Impressive," Dalamar acknowledged, after a long silence. "You have been gifted with powerful magic. And you are right: The potion you were given was indeed a reward, which the gods in their wisdom evidently intended for Jenna."

  "There is more… here is another of my rewards. And now I know that I am to give it to you."

  She pulled the black book out of another pocket and was startled at the way Dalamar's eyes brightened at the sight of the unassuming tome. When she extended it, he snatched it from her hands almost violently. With exaggerated care he opened the cover and started looking at it, turning the thin pages faster and faster with rising excitement.

  "Do you know what this is?" he hissed.

  "A spell book, I should think," she replied.

  "It is the key to my life, to the past I thought was gone forever." He looked at her with a new expression-a modicum of warmth but also respect, Coryn realized. "There can be only one reason these gifts were given to you. All three gods of magic must have joined forces for your Test, and all three wanted you to succeed. But why? Why?"

  "Yes, I succeeded in the Test. But there is a greater challenge, one that I shall require your help to face. It is a challenge that faces all godly mages."

  Jenna's eyes flickered open, looking around in wonder. The Red Robe sat up easily, under her own power, and reached down to feel the outline of her leg under the bloodstained robe. "What miracle is this?" she asked, gazing at Coryn as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing.

  "It seems we have found our White Robe," Dalamar said to Jenna dryly, looking very intently at Coryn. "Or rather, she has found us."

  After explaining to Jenna about the potion and the black spell book, Coryn told both wizards about the sorcerers who had taken over the Tower, the destruction Kalrakin had wreaked, and the evil he represented.

  She told them about his unusually potent artifact. "It was a small stone, but it absorbed the effects of my most powerful spells. The Master of the Tower called it… an 'Irda Stone.' I fear it will make it impossible to attack Kalrakin directly, if he can render himself immune to magical blows."

  "But we can't abandon the Tower to him!" snapped Dalamar.

  "Of course not!" Coryn agreed. The dark elf glared to be addressed so sharply, but he waited for her to go on. "There was another part of my Test… I saw twenty-one wizards in the Hall of Mages, seven of each color."

  "The Conclave!" Jenna exclaimed. "The last one was held more than forty years ago. When our gods had gone from the world."

  "Well, the gods have returned now, and I think we need to hold another one," the girl explained. "A new First Conclave. We need to summon all the wizards to the Tower, and we need to do it soon."

  "But I have been seeking wizards of any robe for months!" Jenna objected
. "The only one I came up with was you! How can the three of us possibly hold a Conclave?"

  Coryn removed the third of her gifts, the slender magic wand. "There is one last reward that I was given, an enchantment that will send the summons of our gods across the world. It is a spell that has never been cast before, and can be used only once-we will need a laboratory, a hot oven, and many unusual components."

  "We can do it in Palanthas," Jenna offered quickly. "I have most anything we could need there-certainly my own laboratory is well stocked."

  "And the casting of this spell?" asked the dark elf, his eyes glittering with excitement. "After we have done our preparations, how will we work the magic?"

  "We must go to the top of the highest mountain on Ansalon," Cory explained, the words flying from her lips as if she had known the answer all her life. "The spell must be cast when the three moons of magic are all full, and all near zenith."

  "The Night of the Eye, of course! "Jenna whispered. "The high conjunction of Krynn's magic."

  "Tomorrow night," Dalamar said anxiously, "which doesn't leave us much time."

  "No, and that is why we must hurry." Coryn climbed to her feet. She saw the mules were tethered nearby, and Dolly nickered familiarly as she went up and scratched the animal between the ears. "I see that the saddlebags are already packed," she noted cheerfully, nodding to Dalamar. "As you suggest, we will use work space at your house," she said to Jenna, who smiled her agreement-as if there was nothing unusual in taking such a suggestion from one who had, a few days ago, been her servant girl.

  "Enough talk—let's get going!" said Dalamar, taking another moment to admire his book before he slid it into one of the pockets of his robe.

  The other two wizards nodded as Coryn raised the wand, and the sparkling power of magic pulsed in the air around them.

  20