Dragons of Summer Flame

by Tracy Hickman

  “It’s a family reunion,” Steel said and, shoving the Red Robe into the wall, the knight strode past him and into the tower.

  The Red Robe did not follow them to Dalamar’s rooms. He did, however, make certain that several of the spectral guardians went along. The pale, unblinking eyes kept watch on them until they were safely inside Dalamar’s chambers and had shut the door.

  “But they’ll be waiting for us,” Palin predicted. “Not to mention the one that guards the laboratory. That specter has orders from Dalamar not to admit anyone—not even Dalamar himself. The laboratory has never been opened, not since my uncle …”

  Palin paused, didn’t finish his sentence. What he’d stated wasn’t quite true. The laboratory door had been once opened. The Staff of Magius had been inside and now he held the staff in his hand.

  “Oh, you don’t need to worry about the specter,” Tas said confidently. “We have the—”

  “Kender Spoon of Turning. I know.” Palin sighed. He was in no mood for kender nonsense. “Look, Uncle Tas, I saw the crest on the spoon. It’s just an ordinary tablesp—”

  Movement caught his eye. He looked up. A black-robed mage stood in the room. Not unusual for the Tower of High Sorcery, except that this mage had white hair, golden skin, hourglass eyes. Palin’s tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth. He started to speak.

  “Uncle …”

  Raistlin made a swift, negating sign with his hand. His golden, hourglass eyes rested briefly on the kender. And then the apparition vanished.

  “Yes?” Tas looked up from admiring the spoon. “You were saying something about the spoon being ordinary?”

  Palin looked swiftly about. Had anyone else seen the vision?

  Apparently not.

  Steel was searching the room, testing the walls, looking under tapestries, trying to find another way out. Usha, half-asleep, was curled up disconsolately in a chair. Tasslehoff was fondly patting his spoon.

  “This spoon is not ordinary!” the kender continued. “It’s a holy relic, given to my Uncle Trapspringer by Mishakal herself. Or was it Reorx? I forget. Anyway, it works. You saw it work.”

  No one else had seen Raistlin. He had come to Palin, no one else. Weariness, pain, disappointment fell from him like a discarded cloak. He would get into the laboratory. The way was prepared. As had once been said of Raistlin Majere:

  For him, the door would open.…

  “Here, let me see it again.” Palin took the spoon from Tas, studied it. The spoon matched exactly the other spoons on the table.

  “You’re right, Tas,” Palin said softly. “It is a holy artifact. Most holy, indeed.”

  22

  Suspicions. introspection.

  Raistlin’s laboratory.

  hey left Dalamar’s chamber; Tas led the way to the laboratory, the silver spoon held boldly before him.

  Steel was not pleased with the kender as a companion, but Palin—to Steel’s amazement and ire—did not try to dissuade him.

  “Only a kender can use the magic Kender Spoon of Turning,” Palin said with a half-smile.

  “You and I both know the spoon is not magic,” Steel retorted.

  “You saw it turn the specter,” Palin replied.

  “Did I?” Steel demanded. “Or is that what you want me to think I saw?”

  Palin avoided the question. “We’ll take the kender along, keep an eye on him. Or would you rather have him traipsing after us on his own? ‘Never turn your back on a kender,’ or so the dwarves say.”

  “Do they?” Steel said coldly. “I heard it was ‘Never turn your back on a mage’!”

  The disembodied eyes flickered, flared, then disappeared.

  A tablespoon in a kender’s hand could not turn such wraiths. Steel knew it, and he knew Palin knew it. Palin seemed suddenly eager to reach their destination. His doubts, his fears, had been laid to rest. He was relaxed, confident. Something had happened; he’d seen something, had received some sign. But Steel had no idea what. Was the young mage far more powerful than he’d led Steel to believe? Was this strange woman with the golden eyes part of a plot? Were they leading the knight into a trap? Never one to trust magic-users, Steel determined to watch Palin and the woman closely.

  They climbed the shadowy stairs, round and round in a leg-aching spiral, hugging the wall to keep from tumbling over the edge into the darkness below. No one approached them. No one interfered with them. No one stopped them. The tower might have been deserted except for them.

  The infamous laboratory of the Tower of High Sorcery was near the top of the tower. The only remaining Portal to the Abyss was inside that laboratory.

  Perhaps.

  “Tell me about this Portal, Majere,” Steel said as they were wending their way upward.

  Palin appeared extremely reluctant to talk. “I know very little,” he began.

  “I know a lot!” The kender spoke up eagerly.

  Steel ignored him.

  “You’re a mage, aren’t you, Majere? I suppose they must teach you these things in mage-school or wherever you study.”

  “I know the history,” he answered evasively.

  “I do, too!” Tasslehoff chimed in. “I was there for a lot of it. I was with Caramon and Raistlin when Raistlin wasn’t Raistlin, he was Fistandantilus and he entered the Portal and tried to fight the Dark Queen, except he failed. Would you like to hear that story?”

  “No,” said Steel. “I want to hear about the Portal, since we’re both going to be entering it,” he added pointedly, watching Palin intently.

  The Staff of Magius shone bright on the young mage. Palin’s face was deeply flushed, his eyes shining, exultant.

  Catching Steel’s gaze on him, Palin took care to move the staff away, withdraw into the shadows.

  He is plotting something, Steel said to himself, and he redoubled his watch.

  “Are we going back into the Abyss?” Tas asked, and the kender did not sound as excited as most kender would have at the prospect. “I hope you know that the Abyss is not a very nice place. Horrible, in fact. I’m not really sure I want to go with you.”

  “Good,” Steel said. “Because you’re not. Continue your tale, Majere.”

  “Just keep talking,” Usha said. “It’s not as frightening when someone’s talking.

  Palin said nothing, however. They continued to climb until they came to a broad landing. Out of breath, muscles aching, they halted, of one accord. The door to the laboratory was still far above them, outlined in torchlight. They sat down on the landing, stretched out their legs, glad for the rest.

  “The Portal?” Steel gave the mage a nudge.

  “There’s not really much to tell,” Palin said with a careless shrug. “Long ago, five Portals existed, located in each of the five Towers of High Sorcery. Created by magic, the Portals had been devised in order to provide the wizards with the ability to travel between towers, without the need for expending their energies on teleportation spells.

  “Thinking to open doors only to each other, the wizards did not realize that they had accidentally created a route from this world to another plane of existence. Queen Takhisis knew this, however. Trapped in the Abyss, she and her evil dragons had long sought entry into Krynn, but were blocked by Paladine and his good dragons. Paladine had little control over magic-users, however, who were known to go their own ways.

  “Takhisis found a black-robed wizard who might be open to temptation. Assuming the form of a beautiful woman, Takhisis appeared to the wizard every night in his dreams, whispered seductive promises. He became obsessed with the lovely woman, vowed to find her and make her his own.

  “ ‘I am a prisoner on another plane, in another time,’ Takhisis told the wizard. ‘Only you, with your power, can free me. To do so, you must enter the Portal. Keep my vision in your mind, and I will guide you.’ ”

  Palin halted abruptly at this point. His face, illuminated by the staff’s light, had gone extremely pale.

  I will guide you. The words hung in
the air.

  “What happened to the wizard?” Usha asked.

  “I know! I know!” Tas raised his hand.

  Palin, after clearing a huskiness from his throat, continued. “The lust-filled wizard entered the Portal, the vision of Takhisis burning in his blood. What happened to him there, no one knows, for he never returned. Once the Portal was opened, Queen Takhisis and her legions of dragons swarmed into Krynn and that, so legend has it, was the cause of the First Dragon War.

  “The gallant Knight of Solamnia, Huma, drove the Dark Queen back into the Abyss. The wizards, deeply ashamed, tried to seal shut the Portals. Unfortunately, the wizards who had created them had been lost in the Dragon War, and so had their knowledge and the power. The surviving wizards could not shut the Portals. They could make it impossible to enter—or so they thought. And so they made it a condition that the only two people who could enter a Portal would be a black-robed mage in company with a white-robed cleric. Such an unholy alliance would, they believed, be impossible to achieve, and so the Portals were safe.

  “In time, with the rise of Istar, when magic-users were persecuted by the church, three of the Towers of High Sorcery were either lost or destroyed. Their Portals were destroyed with them. The wizards who lived in the Tower of Palanthas agreed to abandon it, in return for the promise from the Kingpriest that they could continue to practice their magic in Wayreth. Before they left the tower, however, the wizards moved the Portal to the fortress at Skullcap for safekeeping, fondly imagining that no one would find it there.”

  “I found it!” Tas cried. “Well, I sort of found it. I was with Caramon and Raistlin, back in time, only I wasn’t supposed to be. And Crysania, who was a white-robed cleric, and Raistlin entered the Portal, and that’s how Raistlin got into the Abyss. And Crysania went with him, and the Dark Queen almost killed Crysania, only she stayed alive, except that she was blind, and Caramon went in and brought her out, and Raistlin realized that he’d made a terrible mistake and that the Dark Queen was going to get into the world, and so he—Raistlin, I mean—sacrificed his life by staying in the Abyss and keeping the Portal sealed shut. Caramon believes that his brother was granted peace in eternal sleep for his sacrifice, which would mean that Raistlin isn’t in the Abyss after all—

  “Oh!” Tas jumped up in excitement. “Is that why we’re going into the Portal, Palin? To look for Raistlin? In that case, I’ll go with you,” the kender offered magnanimously. “Raistlin and I were great friends. Until he killed Gnimsh the gnome.” Tas grew more solemn. “I’ve never really forgiven him for that.”

  “You’re going in there to search for Raistlin Majere?” Usha asked. She did not look at Palin as she spoke, but played nervously with the hem of her tunic.

  “We have yet to enter the laboratory,” Palin pointed out. “We’re a long way from walking into the Abyss in search of anyone!”

  “And none of us is a black-robed wizard or a white-robed cleric,” Steel said. “Which means, according to your story, Majere, that we have no chance of entering, that we never have had a chance of entering.” He leapt to his feet, his hand on the hilt of his sword. “You have known this all along. What sort of trick did you have in mind? Or is there something you have omitted telling us?”

  “No trick,” Palin said softly. “I’ve told you the truth—as far as I know it.” He looked up at Steel. “I have no idea how I’m going to get inside—”

  “Yes, you do. Or you would not have come this far. What is it? What do you know, Majere?”

  Palin grasped the Staff of Magius, rose to his feet. “I know that I gave you my word of honor, and I will not break it.”

  “The word of a wizard is slippery as an eel,” Steel said, sneering.

  “The word of a Majere is not,” Palin answered with dignity. “Shall we go on?”

  They continued the climb, up and up the winding stairs. They were being watched, they knew, though they could not see the watchers.

  Every step brought memories to Palin, memories of his Test, which had taken place in this tower. All illusion, according to Dalamar. Had it been? It had seemed so real. But then, the Test always seemed real to the mages who took it, who risked their lives in order to possess the magic.

  Perhaps the Test had been reality, the rest of Palin’s life illusion.

  Closing his eyes, Palin leaned back against the chill wall of the tower and, for the first time in his life, gave himself up to the magic. He felt it burn in his blood, caress his skin. The words it whispered were no longer of doom, but of welcome, of invitation. His body trembled with the ecstasy of the magic.…

  Palin recalled that moment of his Test with a pang. He had not experienced the ecstasy in a long, long time. He had never admitted it to anyone, not even himself, until now. Magic had become drudgery. Spells studied alone in the depths of the night, words recited over and over, taking care to achieve the proper inflection, the correct pronunciation. Magical words tumbled about his head when he tried to sleep; spell components tainted his dreams. The tingle in the blood when the spell was cast, the feeling of satisfaction when the magic did what it was supposed to do—he experienced that. But it never outweighed the feeling of inadequacy, the helpless emptiness and terror that came when the spell did not work.

  And more and more often, the magic was not working. The words got all mixed up in his head, jumbled together. He couldn’t remember whether he pronounced the first word with the accent on the last syllable or the last word with the accent on the first. He couldn’t find the proper spell component, which had been in his pouch only moments before.…

  When had the fear started to grow within him? Not on his first adventure, traveling with his brothers, meeting the dwarf Dougan Redhammer and setting out to recapture the Graygem of Gargath. Then the magic had been intoxicating, the danger exhilarating.

  He’d returned to his studies eagerly, though he had no master to teach him. No mage on Krynn wanted the nephew of Raistlin Majere for a pupil. Palin understood. He hadn’t felt the need for a master at that point in his life. He would work alone, as his uncle had worked alone.

  At first, Palin had done well, only to have nothing to show for it. Months passed. He made little or no progress. Sometimes it seemed he regressed. He traveled to the Tower of Wayreth, to the Conclave, seeking counseling.

  “Patience,” Dalamar had intoned. “Patience and discipline. Those who take the white robes achieve greater power, ultimately, than those who wear the red or the black, but you pay a price. You must walk before you can run.”

  My uncle didn’t walk! Palin felt the frustration burn inside him. He chafed at the repeated rote learning, at the interminable scroll making, at the hours wasted grubbing in the dirt in his herb garden. And running beneath it all, like refuse water, contaminating his life and his work, was the growing fear that he wasn’t good enough, that he would never be anything more than a low-ranking mage, fit to practice his magic for children’s name-day parties.

  To prove his own worth to himself was one reason he’d abandoned his studies and ridden with the knights. He had failed most miserably … and it was his brothers who had paid the price.

  Palin climbed the stairs, one after the other, forcing his pain-filled legs to take another step, and yet another; his mind was so entangled in the past that he was oblivious to the present. He was no longer cognizant of his whereabouts, didn’t realize that they had reached their destination until the kender tugged on the mage’s white robes.

  Dazedly, Palin stared at Tas, at first without recognition. Then he blinked, came abruptly back.

  “Yes? What is it?”

  “I think we’re here,” Tas said in a loud whisper, pointing. “Is that it?”

  Palin raised his staff. Light from the crystal banished the darkness.

  They stood on a large landing, directly below a wooden door with wrought-iron hinges. A short flight of stairs led up to the door.

  “I know this place.” Palin answered as best he could. His throat and m
outh were so dry that talking was difficult. “I took my Test here. Yes”—he paused, licked dry lips with a dry tongue—“this is the laboratory.”

  No one spoke, not even Tas. They drew close, within the staff’s circle of light. Outside the circle, the darkness gibbered and whispered. Half-seen shadows flitted past, groped for them with wispy hands. If the staff’s light should fail, they would be plunged into blinding darkness.

  “Go on, Majere!” Steel Brightblade’s voice was rough-edged, jagged. “Advance. Open the door.”

  A vision of the past came to Palin.

  Two cold white eyes stared at him out of the darkness—eyes without a body, unless the darkness itself was their flesh and blood and bone.…

  “Stand aside,” said Dalamar. “And let us pass.”

  “That cannot be, Master of the Tower. Your command was to ‘Take this key and keep it for all eternity. Give it to no one, not even myself. And from this moment on, your place is to guard this door. No one is to enter. Let death be swift for those who try …’ ”

  “We have to get by the guardian,” Palin said.

  “What guardian?” Steel demanded impatiently. “There is no guardian!”

  Palin stared. Darkness reigned. The only light that shone was the light of the Staff of Magius. And before that light, the darkness gave way.

  The specter was nowhere to be seen. The whispers in the darkness were not threatening, Palin realized suddenly. They were exulting. Could they be anticipating the return of the true Master of the Tower?

  “This is all wrong!” Palin whispered.

  No, nephew. This is eminently right!

  Tears stung Palin’s eyes. He trembled; the light of the staff wavered in his shaking grasp. What I am doing here? He’s using me …

  “Well, of course the guardian’s gone!” said Tasslehoff Burrfoot in satisfaction. “It heard about my spoon. Come on, Palin! I’ll lead the way!”

  Tucking the spoon inside his pocket, the kender dashed up the stairs.

  “Tas! Stop! Don’t go in there!”

  Such words, unfortunately, are not in the kender vocabulary.