Dalamar The Dark

Chapter 19

Dalamar stood on the shore of a grim isle. The groaning of the sea and the weary sigh of waves against the rocky shore filled the gray dawn. He looked from the cheerless sky to where Regene walked toward a broad arm of stone thrust out from the land. All around lay bleached bones, shattered skulls, and the wretched shards of once proud keels. These were not the remains of one shipwreck but many. They were not friendly harbors, the stony shores of Karthay. Hardly anyone put into them on purpose. Few who found themselves flung here by storm or chased by the pirates who haunted Mithas and her sister isle Kothas lived to bemoan their fate. Here was Karthay, that isle where the dark dwarf lived.

Regene stopped in her walking and waved him down the beach. He went, picking his way over stones, kicking aside bones. When he rounded the promontory, he saw that a road met the beach perhaps a quarter-mile away. Broad and smooth, it led in winding stages up the mountainside to where a towered citadel crowned the high peak. No magic warded the road, no traps, no barriers were erected. But then, why should there be? Somewhere near, on one of the lesser peaks behind the citadel, a dragon the color of blue steel lurked. He had seen it in Ladonna's magic-wrought map, and he remembered her warning.

High in the sky, gulls creaked, their gray wings and white backs catching the first glimmer of the day. Regene looked up to the crags rising above the sea. Her cheeks, always known to him as rosy and plump, shone pale now.

"Do you feel it?" she whispered. He had to step closer to hear her. "Do you feel it, Dalamar?"

He stood still, extending his senses, reaching in magic all around the isle, up to the sky, down to the sea, around the stone and mountains.

"Feel what?"

She shuddered. "It's been a long time since I've been outside the Tower. We are all calm in there, a peaceful lot. We study, and we observe the courtesy of the Master's hospitality." She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering. "And-you may have noticed-though Black Robes and White Robes and Red practice their magic, spin their spells, work their charms and talismans, we don't much feel the… the intrusion of another Order's sorcery. I feel it here, though, Black magic like claws raking my skin."

"Interesting." Dalamar looked up the hill to the towered citadel. "Hadn't you considered that?"

"I did," she said. "I just didn't think one place could hold so much evil." She looked at him along the length of her shoulder, eyeing him. He saw her re-thinking him, looking back to two nights in his bed, to conversations in his rooms. He saw her recognize him. "I hadn't thought," she said, not marveling and not afraid, "that you were part of this."

Dalamar shrugged. "I am what I am, Regene. Part of the dark, as you are part of the light. One, I think, is no better or worse than the other."

Her sapphire eyes widened, just for an instant, as though she heard blasphemy. Then, swiftly she said, "Yes, of course. We know that, we mages."

Cold wind ran down the road, down the hill to the sea. "But outside the world of the Tower," Dalamar said, "where theory meets the hard bones of the world, what we know is not so pretty as it once seemed, is it?"

She didn't answer. He nodded, and he didn't waste time wondering whether he had been foolish to bring her on this journey. In the instant he determined that she showed a sign of failing him, he would cast her aside as a warrior the weapon whose blade was chipped, whose grip was cracked.

You have visitors, said the dragon, the blue whose name was Blade.

On a bed of silks and satin, in a chamber high above the sea, a dwarf groaned, his mouth a ruin of split lips and bleeding gums, his teeth rotted, his flesh scaled. His beard hung in white tatters. His skull shone gray through patches of stringy hair. In his mind, an image flashed, dragon-sent to this one who could see nothing outside his own window. A dark elf walked upon the shore, heading for a White-robed mage not far ahead. He knew them! He had felt the dark elf's hatred days before in the library, but he hadn't thought it would amount to more than the wrath of a pup who had no chance at him. The White Robe, he knew her, too.

He did not rage; he did not fall into fear. Tramd o' the Dark was one who long knew how the stars were patterned and what those patterns meant. A diviner, he could read hearts and minds. He understood how mages thought, how power ran. Best of all, he understood how swiftly the winds of politics can drop into calms and deflate the sails of the powerful with no more warning than a simple announcement.

You have visitors.

These two were Tower-sent. He knew it because he knew they were not minions of the Blue Lady, and no one else hated him enough to dare his citadel. Well enough, he thought, let them come, and let them try their luck. The winds are not so calm yet, and we may be able to work up a storm here.

In the Tower of High Sorcery at Wayreth, the avatar walked out from the library, down the long stairs and through the rear tower to the courtyard. Past the beds of herbs and vegetables, he went into the outer tower and into the laboratory where people were used to seeing this wight they knew as Tramd. It closed the heavy oaken door and flung down the bar. It walked to a long table, to the wide expanse of black marble. There it stood, just for a moment, still as breathless night. Then it filled up its chest with air, spoke one word of command in the deep voice all the Tower folk had known as Tramd's. The word spoken, the breath expelled, and the avatar collapsed. It fell to dust, not more than the clothing it wore remained. In the morning, it would be said that the dwarf had killed himself with some carelessness at his work. Now, no one knew, no one missed him.

At the same time, in Karthay, where the breezes blew in chill from the sea and the first gray light of dawn leaked into the shadowed chamber, the dwarf mage came to himself, blind, rotting, and filled up with pain as his mind inhabited the ruin of his body. He forced his lungs to fill with air. He let that air go again, seeping, and on the breath one word drifted, a word of command. In the shadows behind his bed something lurched, stiff-legged and jerky. Like moonlight sparkling on a dark sea, the mind of the mage went into the clay of a new avatar. Again a dwarf, but this time his hair gleamed red as copper, his eyes blue as the sea. He had the broad shoulders of a forgeman, the scarred hands, the keen eye that knew how to look into the heart of fire and see how well his iron was faring.

Said the mage with the voice of the avatar, the dwarf to the dragon, "Where are they?"

On the road up.

"Get rid of them," he said, and he went to the window to watch the dragon lift off, the wide wings spread, sun running on blue scales. The red eye of the beast gleamed as he opened his jaws wide to roar. Light glinted off fangs as long as Tramd's arm. A sense of bloodlusty anticipation filled his mind as Blade soared out over the island, the sound of his eagerness rebounding from the peaks and all the towers of the citadel.

The dragon came screaming out of the morning sky like storm falling, wide leathery wings blotting out the sun. Standing at the first bend of the road, Dalamar felt the shadow of the wyrm cold as winter wind. Looking up, he saw the beast's eyes glaring hatred. Dust eddied on the road, small whirlwinds of the dragon's passing. He pointed east and Regene took his meaning at once. Face white as her robe, she positioned herself so that the dragon, coming in fast, was between two mages. Dalamar gestured, a swift dance of the hands that made the first movement in a spell she would know. She did the same.

Dalamar turned his attention inward. The dragon roared, but he ignored it, reaching deep into himself where his magic lay, that sparkling well from which all wonders can be lifted. He gathered his strength as the dragon circled high above them, each pass bringing it lower.

"Use yourself carefully!" he called to Regene. "There's a mage waiting for us, and I doubt he's lying helpless in his bed!"

She laughed, the sound wild and harsh as the voice of the sea. "Oh, a fine plan! Fight and kill a dragon, then go on to the mage! What's the difference between madness and courage, Dalamar Nightson?"

Dalamar flung back his head, laughing up to the sky. "Not much!"

"For Solinari, then!" she shouted, her dark hair whipping back, her sapphire eyes burning.

As she shouted, so did Dalamar's heart lift in prayer to the Dark Son, to Nuitari who was his trusted god. "Your wish is my will, O Dark Son! An it please you, I strike for the sake of the magic you so love!"

In silence, gods speak, and Dalamar knew the will of his god as he felt himself fill with strength, secure in the knowledge that whatever else he was, Nuitari was an honest god who made no promises and so failed no promises. Joy ran in him like fiery wine, burning and delighting all at once.

"Come down!" he shouted. "Come down, dragon! Try us!"

Lightning poured from between the dragon's jaws. With swift, powerful wing thrusts, Blade tore across the sky, so low over the heads of the mages that the wind of his passing rocked them backward. Sunlight flashed on fangs and talons, glinting off steely blue scales. The carrion stench of the beast's breath sickened him.

Dalamar plunged deeply down to the place within himself where his magic lay, and he thrust both fists up to the sky. Lightning leaped from each hand, and one bolt struck the beast full in the chest, pushing him hard, staggering his flight. Another struck from behind, Regene's flashing spear of light. The tang of ozone stung his nostrils. No scent of burned flesh filled the sky-the dragon's hide was tougher than that-but the roar of pain deafened Dalamar. Blade bellowed, raging as he shot away over the beach. As two dancers in perfect synchronous motion, Dalamar and Regene turned to track his flight.

Like a comet streaking across the dawn, the dragon arced down, and now it had a target. Regene knew she was the prey in the instant before Dalamar did.

"Hold!" he shouted. "Fight! Don't run-!" But she ran, heedless of his advice, unable to hear or simply compelled by instinct. No speed saved her. None could have.

Shrieking, Blade yanked her from the ground and banked, turning sharply, heading once more toward Dalamar. Regene's white robe blossomed in blood along the right sleeve. She was alive, that much Dalamar knew, for he saw her face, her sapphire eyes, even the prayer moving on her lips. Solinari, reach out your hand!

"What then?" Dalamar shouted. "Will you fling a corpse at me, dragon? Or will you hold her up to protect you? She's not much of a shield."

Blade laughed, the sound like the blast of fire in Dalamar's mind. He passed once over the mage and then again, his prey limp now in his grasp. Small, warm drops of blood splashed on Dalamar's upturned face, tasting like the sea's salt on his lips. Regene's own lips still moved to shape a prayer whose words the wind tore away.

Blade unclenched his talons and Regene fell, tumbling from the heights of the sky.

Was she worth the expenditure of strength to save? Between the space of one heartbeat and another, Dalamar decided. Deciding, he reacted on the instant, sending all his strength up through his shoulders and along his arms, pushing up against the sky, in magic thrusting against the pull of gravity. Regene's fall slowed, but only a little. She hit the stony ground hard, the breath blasting out of her lungs. Dalamar staggered, feeling the fall itself through the circuit of his magic, his own bones rattled by the impact. He shook himself and looked around.

Regene groaned warning, choking only a word, a name. "Dalamar!"

Dalamar turned in time to see Blade sweep down from the sky, screaming in baleful glee. Wide black wings blotted out the sun, casting cold shadow on the winding road and the two mages. Spurred by rage, Dalamar gathered the lightning one more time and sent it lancing up to the sky. One bolt after another he flung. Weakened as he was, his aim was not so true as he'd have wished. Four of the hissing lightning lances missed the dragon, and only one hit. That one, though, that was enough. It struck the blue dragon between the eyes, burning the thin scales there and the shattering the dragon's skull to splinters.

Blade fell lifeless from the sky, the impetus of his last wing thrust taking him down into the sea.

The dragon's death-scream echoed against the cliffs, bounding from peak to peak and all around the towers of the Citadel of Night. Tramd watched the beast fall with the eyes of his avatar. In the avatar's ears, in his own, that scream resounded. The death of the noble beast who had flown in the battles over the Plains of Solamnia, fought for and taken Dargaard Keep, and led an army in the bitter fight for the High Clerist's Tower had fallen, unmarked by any in the Blue Lady's army but him.

"Return to your Queen," whispered the dwarf to the dragon, once part of the proud wing best beloved of Takhisis. "One last time let your soul fly to hers."

He turned from the window and stood in perfect silence, listening to the voices in the corridor outside his bedchamber. Servants ran, shouting one to another. A clash of metal. The ring of mail and the stamp of boots. His guard, a troop of dwarves out of the darkest warrens of Thorbardin-the worst of the clans, the ruined sons, the benighted whom the thanes of their dans cast out from the society of their kin-came to ward his door. They were his and the Blue Lady's. On the bed, his body lay, faintly twitching, always dying. This dying hulk his guard would defend to the last breath, theirs or his.

He had no fear of the two mages on the road. It had been a long, long time since Tramd knew fear. He was, though, curious. They would come here, these two, searching not for the avatar but for the body of the mage, and he would like to know-from one or the other of them-who had sent them. Where in the Tower of High Sorcery lay his enemy? Who was this foe who thought a chance at the death of Tramd worth the life of these two mages? It would be useful to know. He would not again slip an avatar into the Tower; most of his work was finished there. But he would like to know who in that Tower he would drag out from there, who-after the Blue Lady launched her war-he would rip from the ruined halls of magic that he might practice the long slow arts of killing upon his enemy's quivering body.

"Come, then," he said to the two mages out upon the road. "And be, more or less, welcome."

So saying, he left the bedchamber, the ruin of himself on the bed, and went out into the corridor to receive the salutes of his guard. He went along the winding ways and down the stone stairs where, at each landing, more guards stood, and finally into his study to await his guests.

Regene groaned. She bent her head, her hair not moving from her neck, plastered there by blood from a cut just above the curve of her ear. That cut she'd got in the fall, but the worse wound was that to her left arm. She mopped blood from there with the hem of her robe, showing the wound was not as bad as the bleeding made it seem.

"Some shield," she said. Her bitter smile looked more like a grimace. "I thank you for not using it."

Dalamar nodded, but absently. He looked around, down the road to the sea and up again to the citadel. The air had a peculiar, wavering quality to it, not of light but of light's absence, as though something beyond the sky tried to break through the brightness of day.

"What is that?" Regene said, her voice hushed with fear.

"Trouble. I don't think there is a dwarf who calls himself Tramd o' the Dark in the Tower at Wayreth anymore."

"You think he's-what? — come back here?"

Dalamar nodded. "Don't you?"

Regene sopped more blood from her arm. "What about the avatar?"

Swift came the bitter memory of a forest on fire, the corpse of a good man at his feet, and the hulk of red armor in which nothing lay but dust. "Gone," Dalamar said. "Someone will sweep up a pile of dust somewhere in the Tower and never know it was him.

"Listen," he said, turning. "You don't have to go farther if you don't want to."

He looked at her long, and they both knew he didn't speak from any concern for a woman who had for two nights lain in his bed. He was not, Regene had learned, a sentimental lover. He was not a man who invested much in the sweet dances of the night. Neither did he act for the sake of one who had led him through a wandering wood to the Tower of High Sorcery. He wondered whether she were strong enough to go on, whether the nearness of such evil as filled that citadel would still her, stop her, render her afraid and useless to him. Dalamar Nightson, she knew, would act ever and always for his own sake.

And she would act for hers.

Chill wind blew in off the sea. Gulls cried. The waves rushed in and ran out again while Regene ripped the hem of her gown and wrapped it, one-handed, round her arm. Clenching one end with her teeth and the other with her good hand, she tugged the bandage tight, wincing only a little against the pain. Face pale, she climbed to her feet, wiping bloody hands down the sides of her robe.

"Now, how do we do this? Just go up to the gate and demand admittance?"

Dalamar smiled then, but not warmly. "I don't think it will take that much effort. Look." He pointed to the sky where the shivering air became like gathering darkness.

Regene took a swift sharp breath. The darkness deepened, and it spread like a bruise on the bright blue of the day, flowing down the sky. It seemed now that it was not a thing imposed upon the light, but that light itself leaked out of the sky, out of the world, and into the dark wound. The wound in the sky opened wide, sucking the breath right out of Dalamar's lungs. He felt only one thing before he fell into senselessness: Regene's hand on his arm, gripping hard as though her fingers were talons.