Dalamar The Dark

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.

Only Dalamar kept still, only he didn't weep or cry out, and that was because had he shouted, he'd have shouted in rage against those very gods whose statues now lay fallen, those gods who played out their bids for power in the hearts of mortals, jockeying for position as though Krynn were only a khasboard and Silvanesti simply a quarter of the field.

And so, in the ruin of high places, the high met. In aching gardens, among trees only weakly healing and others simply dying, among the skeletons of boxwood and hydrangea and peonies, Porthios of the Qualinesti greeted Alhana of the Silvanesti. The two exchanged dry kisses of state while Qualinesti Wildrunners warded the Tower of the Stars and the Head of House Protector, Lord Konnal, stood by. His unhappiness was not veiled, and all who saw him knew he had no love for Porthios, to whom he had stood subservient on the voyage home. Anyone with eyes knew he disliked the idea that Alhana seemed so willing to welcome this Qualinesti so warmly.

Dalamar saw no more of that meeting. "Go," said Lord Konnal, even as the rest went to greet their princess. "You are not wanted here. Start your work in the Temple of E'li."

Dalamar went, wandered the temple grounds, and walked in the broken building. In sanctuaries and meditation rooms, the wind echoed mournfully. In the scriptorium where he had, for a while, been the one who sharpened the quills and scraped the parchments clean for new use, was only dust. Beyond the window the garden lay dead; not even weeds grew. Where had he stood on the morning he'd taken the little embroidered scroll case from the hand of Lady Lynntha for Lord Tellin Windglimmer? There, by that broken wall? So changed was everything, every place, that nothing woke the ghosts of memory.

Dalamar walked once down the chill corridor that ended in a room still sealed after five years. This was the place, the secret place, where a Circle of Darkness would be set if ever there was reason to do so. Here murderers and traitors were condemned to the worst punishment the Silvanesti could devise: exile. Here worshipers of the gods of Neutrality or those of Evil, mages found in magic other than white magic had been judged and cast out from the people. Upon the walls of that sealed chamber, the platinum mirrors were fixed. The Chain of Truth lay within, a wide circle of platinum links spread around the room where the accused would stand, waiting for gods to bid the chain to bind him or be still to keep him safe. He did not stay long there, for it was a cold place. When he left that place he saw, just a glimpse, a shadow on the broken earth outside. Someone else walked these grounds.

Aye, well, he thought, good luck finding comfort here.

So thinking, Dalamar went through the rest of the ruined Temple, walking through the debris of years and listening to the dry wind moaning, the skitter and scrabble of old leaves on cracked marble floors. He walked into the garden, windblown, wild as any heathen forest. Who could recognize this place now?

Dalamar stood among the ruin of the Temple and looked north to the place where, all that summer before the war, he had kept hidden his most precious secret, his found spellbooks, his dark tutors. They tugged, a little, memories of those books. What pulled harder, what called in a stronger voice, was a resolution he had made, far away on the shores of Silvamori. Dalamar Nightson must tell a god that he had a new name.

Who will know? he wondered, looking out over the wall to the Tower of the Stars. Who will know if I am here taking ruin's inventory, or if I am not? No one.

He went quickly through the city, through desolate gardens whose borders would not now be discerned by any who had not known them before war and nightmare. Above, the aspens reached aching branches to the sky, like black claws and rotting bones. The sun shone harshly, glaring at him as he went. The ferry was gone, the enspelled turtles who used to pull it fled or killed, but he found a place where the river ran thinly, speaking of damming upstream. Someone had erected a bridge, perhaps the Qualinesti guard, and this he took to the other side. There, he ran into the darker shadows of the forest. Running, he soon came to a place where once two paths had forked. He saw only barest sketches of them on the land now. He swerved into the darker forest, leaping blowdowns easily. Running, he shouted aloud, the sound like thunder in the silence of a forest emptied of all life but malignant life, secret, sullen, brooding life. He felt what he always used to feel when he left the tended paths, the designated ways. All the strictures of his life, all the ridiculous rules, all the choking ties that bound him to the intractable pattern of life among the Silvanesti fell away.

Running, Dalamar was free. But, running, he was not alone. Swift behind him, silent behind him, ran others, like shadow-hounds coursing his trail.

Dalamar stood still on the edge of the path down to the ravine, extending his senses as far as he could, both natural and arcane. His magic had long ago fallen; the wards he set years before were dead. Below the mouth of the cave gaped, dark and wide. Would the wards on the books themselves have held? He didn't know, though they were Nuitari's, or work dedicated to him. Perhaps they would have survived.

And if they hadn't?

Then they hadn't. They were treasures, and they were artifacts, but they were not more than physical manifestations of what he loved. They were not the magic, only one mage's shaping of it.

All around lay silence. His ears ached for the sound of birds in the trees, water in the stream, but the land lay desolate, exhausted. Birds had long ago flown away. Those that had not were long dead. Somewhere, deep in the forest, green dragons roamed, and creatures worse than they. But not here. Here nothing lived. The wind stirred above the ravine, high in the rattling branches of despoiled aspens. The miasma that befouled all of the air in the kingdom swirled a little, like steam over a stinking pot. Dalamar lifted his arm to cover his nose and mouth with his sleeve and went down into the ravine, down to his cave and the promise he longed to keep.

The pulse of magic no longer ran in the cave, not even a whisper of what had been breathed in the darkness. It was a dead place, not but stone and dust and air long unbreathed.

Softly, Dalamar whispered, "Shirak!" and light leaped into this hand, a clear cool globe. He hung it in the darkness and looked around. The dust of years lay upon the floor, marked by the tiny tracks of mice and voles. His work table of wild green marble was broken, cracked in the middle and fallen in two. The pots of herbs and oils and other spell components he had so secretly gathered in summer, a long time ago, were but shards in the dust, fallen from the niches in the stone wall, their colors dimmed, their contents dried and gone.

His light leading, Dalamar walked through the cave, dust puffing away from his boots, all the way to the back where he'd hidden his books. The wards were gone, too small to stand before the magic that had warped dries. The mice had found a treasure between the covers, nesting material for the generations. In the five years since last he'd seen the books, nothing remained but gnawed leather covers and a few scraps. He bent to touch one, yellow and brittle. A few letters marked the edge of the scrap, vestiges of some spell. Gone, all that work, all that crafting, gone.

Dalamar looked around at the cave, the ragged shadows, the ruin. Somewhere, beyond Krynn, beyond the battles of the rest of their godly kin, Nuitari and Solinari and red Lunitari did abide, the three gods of magic. To one, bright Solinari, Dalamar had allowed himself to be consecrated. He did not speak to that one now, but to the darkest god.

"Nuitari," he whispered, the name on his lips a prayer. "O Dark Son, in your shadows I have found comfort, in your darkness I have plied secrets. In your night, O Nuitari, I have hidden my heart."

The words came, unframed, unconsidered. Dalamar dropped to his knees. This gesture he made with the whole of his heart, he who had been bending the knee in one way or another all his life, knelt now because he wanted to do that.

"O child of dark gods, O keeper of secrets deep and terrifying, hear me."

In the ruin of his secret place, he lifted his hands and motes of dust made silver by the sphere of cool light danced around his fingers.

"Hear me, Dark Son! I have come to make a pledge to you, and I have come to consecrate myself truly."

On the floor, like a shard of darkness separated from shadows, a jagged piece of pottery lay. Dalamar took it up, finding the sharpest edge with his thumb. He smiled and looked deeply into the shadows far back in the cave. All around him lay the broken remains of his small secret studies, the little trove of spellbooks shredded, his work table broken, the spell components he'd so carefully gathered dried and gone to dust. Before him lay shadows, darkness stretching far back to regions he had never gone. He listened to the cave breathe, the airs of distant places running around in darkness, and he breathed in rhythm with it. Breathing, he found magic, felt it sparkling in his blood, firing his heart.

"Yours," he said to the god who was not there, yet who was ever near, "yours is the realm of magic and secrets." He lifted his heart and his hands, the potshard still held in his right, gleaming. "Yours is the dark path where power exists for its own sake, unbounded, unbridled. O Nuitari, yours is the path my feet will walk, and yours is the path my heart will follow."

He clenched his right hand, suddenly, convulsively, grinding the jagged shard of pottery into the flesh of his palm. Blood, black in the cool mage-light, ran in one thin line from between his fingers. He moved his hand over the small scrap of parchment, the last of a wondrous page. The first drop of his blood fell on the scrap, hissing. In the moment he heard the sound, Dalamar felt his heart fill with dark and howling power. The hair on the back of his neck raised, and sudden sweat ran down his cheeks. The second drop of his blood fell, the parchment smoked, and the scrap rolled and tumbled, leaping into flame as though it were, in fact, the whole of all the pages of four books, not this little shred.

Shadows leaped up the walls. Flames as red as blood ran in sudden circle around the mage kneeling on the stony floor. Winds howled, though no wind stirred. Storm sounded, though no rain fell and outside the sky was bitterly bright. Heatless fire, dancing flames, light like the light in a dragon's eye…

Dalamar lifted his fists, the bleeding and the clean, and as he did, such fires of magic ran in him as would rival the flames he saw now. His blood burned, his heart soared, and his soul sang darkly, hymns to a god whose name elves never mentioned, whose image no elf made, whose prayer no elf chanted. In that moment, Dalamar knew the god of his heart, the god who makes no promise and so breaks no promise. He knew the god to whom magic is all.

"Nuitari!" he shouted, with all the strength of his heart, all the breath in his lungs. He cried, "Nuitari! Once I was Dalamar Argent. I have come to tell you that Dalamar Argent is dead! I am Dalamar Nightson, and I am yours, O Dark Son. I am yours in the hidden night, yours in the glaring day. I am yours in magic, yours in prayer. I am yours-"

Outside the cave, voices whispered, voices raised in question and then lowered in cursing. A twig snapped. Dalamar's heart leaped hard in his chest, thundering. The shadows on the walls retreated, scurrying down the stone as the blood-red fire fell and died. The magic gone, ripped from him, Dalamar turned toward the cave's entrance.

The opening shone like one malevolent eye, white and bright. Tall shapes stood there, dark as nightmare against the glare. He tried to gain his feet but could not. With the magic gone, so was all the strength he'd used to support it. He staggered, fell, and a woman's voice shouted, "Take him!"

Six Wildrunners ran into the cave. They circled him, as magic's fire had done, wary and glaring at him over drawn blades. Then one, the woman who had first cried out, laughed, a brittle, edgy sound.

"So this is what servants do when they ignore the orders of their betters. You'd have done better, servitor, to obey Lord Konnal's orders and kept to temple grounds."

He said nothing, for he knew no word of his would avail now.

"He's weak," the Wildrunner sneered. "He has none of that foul black magic to use. Take him to Lord Konnal!"

They fell on Dalamar. Roughly they tore him from the floor and bound his hands tightly behind his back. Their faces were ugly, wrenched by fear and loathing. One, a stocky young man, spat at him, and the trail of his spittle on Dalamar's cheek felt like acid etching into his flesh. Another put a noose round his neck to lead him by, and thus he was taken from his secret place and dragged back through the forest to Silvanost and the Temple of E'li. There they bound him, and they flung him into a small, lightless cell in the Temple. They did not feed him; they gave him no water to drink. They left him alone, and outside the cell a watch of Wildrunners stood constant guard.

In the night, owls mourned, and mice scurried. In the night came pain so deep it was like a toothed thing gnawing at his organs. Through the long watches, Dalamar lay on the hard cold floor, refusing to groan, refusing to turn from the agony. Savaged by a green dragon's magic, broken and filthy, still there were artifacts of E'li's magic in this Temple, and these did not love a mage who had turned from the Light, an elf whose heart now beat in the dark rhythms of Nuitari's magic. No matter, no matter. He lay in pain, and he didn't groan. He lay in pain, and he embraced it. What else could he do? Wail and cry out?

Never.

The gray sky hung low. Wind rattled the naked branches of ravaged aspens and made the green miasma writhe. The pale ruined towers of Silvanost loomed high over the city, like wretched ghosts gathered to watch a terrible undertaking, the convening of the Ceremony of Darkness. With his hands bound behind him, exhausted by pain and barely able to keep on his feet, Dalamar Argent, Dalamar Nightson stood in the garden of the Temple of E'li, still and silent. Wildrunners ranged all around him in a circle, weaponed and glaring as though they feared that the dark mage they'd found among them would suddenly rise up and destroy everyone in his sight. Smiling coldly, Dalamar lifted his head. They looked away, one by one, unwilling to meet the eye of a dark mage.

Upon a broken roof tile of the Temple, a dove dropped mournful notes into the silence, sounds like weeping. Though he did not turn to look, Dalamar knew the dove sat above the little room where the Ceremony of Darkness would soon take place. The ranks of the Wildrunners parted. Into the circle stepped Alhana Starbreeze, with Porthios on one side and Lord Konnal of House Protector on the other. The one, the Qualinesti, looked sober and solemn, his face pale, his eyes guarded. In the eyes of the other, the Lord of the Wildrunners, something glittered that reminded Dalamar of snakes. A little behind them came the clerics, the leader of them Caylain, who had once leaned over the edge of the skiff and longed to touch the wounded river. Her pale hair was bound upon her head in a crown of braids. Upon her breast lay her medallion of faith-E'li as the platinum dragon rampant. In her eyes, loathing like poison swirled. She, the lords Konnal and Porthios, and Alhana herself would be his judges, his Council of Truth. There should have been a host of clerics to accompany them, as well as a clutch of lords from House Mystic and enough Wildrunners to line every avenue to the Temple. There should have been drums, deep-voiced and solemn, and brittle bells ringing. There should have been incense burning, and someone, somewhere, should have been weeping-a friend, a lover, a sorrowful mother. None of these graced the ceremony, for here Dalamar had no friend or lover, no kin to grieve his fall from the Light, and the accoutrements of power and pomp were fallen to ruin. This was to be a casting out, but a casting out from a ravaged land.

Alhana lifted her head, her lovely eyes unreadable. "My lords," she said, her voice cold as winter night. "We are gathered here in reckoning and judgment. First, we reckon."

She gestured, a small motion of her white hand. Caylain stepped forward. Head high, plainly forcing herself to look into the eyes of the sinner, she said, "Dalamar Argent, you are brought here for judgment, taken in shameful acts of false worship, taken in the very act of dark magic. What have you to say?"

Dalamar stood in unyielding silence.

Caylain looked uneasily around, for tradition decreed that the accused must speak or that someone must speak for him. No one stepped forward. No one even moved. Faces like marble, pale and hard, eyes like diamonds glittering, the guard of Wildrunners barely breathed. The lords Konnal and Porthios didn't even swallow. Wind sighed; white robes rustled. Far away, deep in the forest, dragons roared. Behind Caylain one of the clerics moistened dry lips, his eyes darting right and left, afraid. Dalamar did not move.

Her voice unsteady, Caylain went on, "You have no champion, and you will not champion yourself. You will go into the Temple, into the Circle of Darkness. In that place a man who protests his innocence is judged. It is the place, where the man who is guilty is given a glimpse of the road he has chosen. Dalamar Argent, look into your heart, heed your soul, and prepare yourself for the Circle of Darkness."

Dalamar looked nowhere. He needed nothing. In his belly, fear turned sour and cold.

"Take him," Alhana said, her voice low and quiet as the dove. Ah, but a stone dove, a dove whose resolve could never be bent or reshaped. She nodded to Konnal, who directed two of his warriors to come forward.

"Aleaha," he said, snapping the name like a command. "Rilanth. Take him to the temple."

They came forward with jaws stubbornly set, the elf-woman Aleaha Takmarin and Rilanth her cousin. They came as though they'd been asked to take a dragon into the Temple. Determined, they seized him, one by each arm. Seeing him bound did not make things easier for them. Their fear communicated itself to Dalamar; he smelled it as a wolf would. He smiled, and he didn't care who saw it. Their fear acted on him like a tonic. It is said in all the houses of the powerful: In the fear of others lies power for the man who can recognize it and use it. Though Dalamar knew no use for the fear of these two, still it energized him and lent him strength.

Groaning, the wind grew stronger. Alhana's hair whipped about her face now, darkly foaming around her cheeks and shoulders. Again, a dragon cried, one loud long shriek of rage and joy drifting eerily on the air. Another answered, and one of the Wildrunners cursed under his breath. Out in the ravaged aspenwood, dragons were breeding and living as though they owned the kingdom.

The sun climbed limping up the sky, a sickly dull ball seen only dimly through the ever-shifting green mist, the last breath of Lorac's Nightmare hanging over the land as the two Wildrunners marched Dalamar out from the circle, through the garden, and into the Temple of E'li.

Praying ritual prayers, three clerics unwound a length of chain, thick and heavy. They made a circle around the whole of the little chamber, stitching the floor and creating a magical space from which Dalamar could not move.

"From darkness, O E'li," they whispered, "from darkness preserve us. From evil, O E'li, from evil defend us. From darkness, O E'li…" Thus did they pray to the very god who had not thought to shield them from darkness, who had not lifted even a hand to defend them from the evil that yet ravaged their city and tormented their land. The chain set, they lit wands of pungent incense and, trailing smoke and prayers, walked around the outside of the circle, sunwise three times. Low and stern, their voices demanded that evil not be allowed to enter into this chamber.

Dalamar watched them, narrow-eyed. They prayed, and yet, here evil was, standing ready to learn its fate, evil in the shape of an elf who was not blinded by the light.

At Caylain's command, Dalamar went and stood in the exact center of the circle, finding the place more easily than did she who directed him to go there. She was afraid of the circle, the ceremony, and the little room itself. He, too, was afraid, but he had the strength to keep his fear to himself, unwilling to lend weapons to enemies. He stood proudly defiant in the center of the circle, a servitor in dun clothing, a dark mage uncovered, bringing all his will to bear and forcing his weary muscles to keep still.

Burnished platinum mirrors hung upon the walls and even upon the door. These shone dully in the dim light that sifted down from the ceiling. By this light he saw himself in hazy reflection: a tall young elf, straight-backed, shoulders braced, head high. Not the least suggestion of dismay marked his face or dimmed his clear eyes as the Council of Truth-Alhana Starbreeze, Porthios of the Qualinesti, Lord Konnal, and the cleric Caylain-came to stand outside the circle. It fell to the cleric to speak.

"Dalamar Argent," she said, her voice dry as the rattle of naked branches, "hear the judgment that has been passed."

Alhana's hands clenched and unclenched; the pulse at the base of her neck jumped. Dalamar saw this in the mirrors. She looked like a woman standing in the halls of an ancient crypt where the souls of the dead do not rest easily. Porthios took a small step toward her, a side-step no one saw except Dalamar.

"This is what will be," Caylain said, and if her voice did not tremble, her hand certainly did as it absently smoothed creases from her white robe. "You will stand within this circle for the space of twelve hours. You will stand alone, and things will be shown to you, things of which I cannot warn you, for they are things I do not know."

These were the words of ritual now, not Caylain's own.

"As the images emerge, a thing will happen," said Caylain, "or a thing will not happen. In accordance with your guilt or innocence, the chain will move to bind you, or it will lie still and leave you free."

There was no doubt in the eyes of any how the platinum chain would behave. But forms must be honored, so it is among elves. Forms must be honored, even when they made no sense to the moment.

"May the gods preserve you," Caylain murmured.

Yet another form. No one in the chamber believed for an instant that any god they prayed to would preserve him. Caylain turned and walked out from the room, the hem of her robe whispering to the floor, her pale hands folded tightly. Lord Konnal followed, and Alhana after him with Porthios at her side, matching her step for step. Only the Qualinesti looked at Dalamar, his swift glance seen in reflection, perhaps thought secret. It was the glance of a warrior who wonders how well the courage of a man will stand him in his steepest test.

Well enough, said Dalamar's wry smile. Well enough, and you need not wonder.

Porthios's eyes flashed suddenly, the prince unhappy to have his thoughts so easily read, so ironically answered. Then he, too, no longer looked at the prisoner within the platinum circle. He walked from the chamber, his hand at the small of Alhana's back, guiding her as men politely guide women, in courtesy.

Alone, alone, Dalamar stood. In his belly fear sat, hard and cold and leeching poison. What road had he chosen, what road in the darkness would he walk?

Then came the ghosts, each reflected in mirrors, first hazily, then more clearly, marching to the sound of a platinum chain creeping ever closer, scraping upon the floor. Each phantom had his face. All the ghosts were him.

Ghost-Dalamar walked in wilderness, in foreign lands where the people did not know his name. He wandered the streets of fabled cities, and he was shunned. He walked in darkness, alone as only an elf can understand, and it seemed to him that his heart had broken long ago. Only lifeless shards rattled around in his breast now. He saw his name vanish from all the records of the Silvanesti. He saw himself un-made, and he heard his name in the mouths of humans, dwarves, kender, and others. Lord Dalamar! "Lord," they said, the title spoken in awe, sometimes with respect. In the mouths of many of them his name was the same as another word for fear.

He smiled to see that. Even as he did, the ghostly images swayed, sliding on the platinum, shifting in the mirrors, unforming and forming again.

Dalamar saw three mages, three with their heads together, talking or arguing. One was an old man in white robes, another a beautiful silver-haired woman in dark. The third was a limping man in his middle years, and he wore red. They turned from their talking and looked at him, their faces on all sides of him and behind, their eyes glittering with fierce knowledge, with slashing ambition, with stern commitment. Even in this vision Dalamar felt the weight of their regard, knowing that weight had crushed some, but not knowing whether or not it would crush him. He did not flinch, though he knew many others had, and in his heart rang these words, this greeting to the three: "I have nothing to lose." The three looked at one another, and the wizardess in the dark robes said to her companions that these were the words of the truly free.

Again the vision shifted, and now Dalamar saw himself standing upon a threshold. Before him was a door beyond which only darkness lay, a maelstrom of ambition, a storm of hatred and longing and power so deep and strong that the foundations of the world did shake to support it. He put his hand upon the skull-shaped doorknob and pushed.

The images in the mirrors flowed again, slowly now, like thick blood running. Dalamar saw himself standing with two other mages, a man in white robes and a woman wearing red.

"Are you ready?" asked the red-robed woman. She looked at him with a lover's eyes, and he read desperation and a hopeless fear in there.

The vision flowed faster now, running like a river in spate, racing, whirling, swirling all around him. If he could have moved, Dalamar would have turned from it. Yet had he done that, the vision would have followed.

Fire rose up out of the ocean. A hole gaped wide in the sea that he somehow knew for the Turbidus Ocean. Darkness, bred of rage, flowed out from that fiery rift and all around the clash of battle thundered, the screams of the dying, the rage of dragons, illuminated by fire and the battle-light flashing from swords. Someone screamed. It was he! And all the blood was running out of him even as eyes so terrible he dared not meet their glance raked him, tearing flesh from his bones, clawing to find something in him-his soul. Takhisis, he thought, for her name is the name of terror. A voice like the howling in a madman's mind shrieked in laughter.

Not she! The faithless whore! Not she!

And still the terrible eyes tore at him, peeling him layer by layer, skin from muscle, muscle from bone, soul from body. Ah, Nuitari! Shield me-

Never he! The serpent-son! Never he!

All the world fell away, even as the body fell from his soul. He saw now only insanity, destruction, no light, no darkness, nothing but ravening and annihilation, madness feeding on madness and rage upon rage like wolves turning upon each other. Towers tumbled and cities burned around him. Pledges came undone. Oaths unraveled. In all lands, among all kindred, brothers turned upon brothers, sons murdered their fathers, mothers their daughters. Children cut their teeth on the sword's blade and played with daggers in the cradle, while disease ran like fire, and fire ate stone. Stone rained down like stars falling out of the sky and gods ran screaming, wailing in midnight places. There was no evil now, no good. There was not that slender path between the poles upon which red-robed mages so carefully trod. There was only the maw of destruction that understood nothing of the balance of life and death, the eternal struggle between light and dark.

All this Dalamar saw in those terrible, devouring eyes, all this and more… and worse.

He saw his soul, and it lay in the clawed hand of that father of emptiness. About him fluttered something small and dully gleaming, something light as parchment and empty, empty with no magic in it or anything to love. It was the soul of a man whose touch made no mark in the world, the soul of a useless man, a helpless man. Emptiness drained the life out of this effectless soul as it drained out the life of the world.

Emptiness. Never to be filled, and even the weeping of gods did cease…

And he stood again upon the threshold of the chamber whose door presented a knob like a grinning silver skull. He saw a mage standing in the shadows, dark-robed, his face hidden, his eyes not even two gleams of light in that darkness.

"Come," said the mage, his voice a strange, dry whisper.

"Shalafi," whispered Dalamar, the image in the mirrors, the man in the circle. "Master," he said, as a student to his teacher. But what teacher, where? And in the mirrors five small marks, spaced as though they were the prints of all the fingers of a man's spread hand, appeared upon the breast of each image of Dalamar. Dark they were, then they were red, and the red ran slowly, like blood dripping down.

A man screamed, and then no one screamed. Then there was only darkness, and the touch of cold platinum round his ankles, the chain come so close now that it did begin to bind him, circling him around and around, the links piling up and climbing to his knees as a line of light opened in the darkness behind.

"And so you see," whispered a voice, that of Caylain the cleric. "And so you see what road you will travel, Dalamar Argent. A road of blood and darkness."

So he had seen, and though it seemed only an instant in passing, these visions had flowed over him, around him, and through him for twelve hours. His leaden limbs knew that, his knees shaking with exhaustion, his belly growling with hunger. His throat, dry as a desert, knew that.

Dalamar lifted his head, and his eyes still filled with visions of emptiness, of blood and wounding and the mage whose face was lost in darkness. "I have seen," he said, his voice thick and ragged.

They shuddered to hear him, the simplicity of his words, the starkness of his thirst-ravaged voice. They shuddered, and they looked to each other, taking his pain as confirmation of his guilt.

Aye, well. There was surely pain-all the pain of standing within this temple, this hall of white gods, flowing into him from the tiles. It rose up from the floor through his feet. It ran into his arms, and from the ceiling it rained down like fire.

"I am yours," he said to the pain and the darkness yet to befall. For there would be more, and soon. This Ceremony of Darkness was not nearly done. "I am yours," he said to the god no one here dared name. He smiled, not with joy and certainly not for mirth. He smiled, though, and he did so because he had chosen his path. He who had been allowed to choose nothing in all his life, whose days were ordered by custom and traditions forged by a king long dead, he chose his path. "Nuitari…"

Caylain shuddered, and in that moment others came into the chamber, their faces white in the shadowed hoods of their cloaks. Porthios came, and Alhana whose eyes were cold as stone, whose face was set in an unyielding expression of disdain. A chill struck Dalamar, hard to the heart. She was, this princess, the embodiment of the land. She looked upon him now as though she did not see him, as though he were not standing before her. As Lord Konnal led a small troop of Wildrunners into the chamber, Alhana Starbreeze turned her face from Dalamar, from the dark elf, and walked away. The land forsook him.

It was the first moment of his exile.