Nancy Varian - Berberick - Dalamar the Dark

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DALAMAR THE DARK

Nancy Varian Berberick

DRAGONLANCE Classics

OCR'ed by Alligator

croc@aha.ru

For my dear friend Douglas W. Clark,

a boon companion whether the road winds through sun or shadow.

Acknowledgments:

I'm happy to have this chance to express my appreciation of the editors who

worked with me on Dalamar the Dark, Patrick McGilligan whose excellent

suggestions I've long been in the habit of taking, and Mark Sehestedt who

helped me tame the wild wordage.

As well, it is my pleasure to thank Miranda Homer for her cheerful patience

while finding herself bestormed in my thousand questions. When you find depth

in the setting of this novel and consistency in detail, you see Miranda's

fingerprints.

PROLOGUE

In the Hall of Mages, in the secret heart of the Tower of High Sorcery at

Wayreth, the dark elf stood in perfect stillness. Dalamar Nightson. Dalamar of

Tarsis. Dalamar Argent. Once, long ago, he had been Dalamar of Silvanost. He

wore dark robes given to him by the head of his order, Ladonna herself,

silver-stitched with runes of warding- ancient runes like those upon the outer

wall of the Tower, marks whose meaning few knew, but he understood. As had

become his habit, whether abroad or indoors, he wore the hood of that robe up,

shadowing his face, leaving only his eyes to be seen.

Light shone down pale from the unseen ceiling high above. It made no shadow.

It gave no cheer. Though torches stood in brackets upon the walls, none were

lit. No sound whispered in the vast chamber, not even the sigh of the

breathing of the four gathered in the hall.

Upon his high seat, Par-Salian, the Master of the Tower of High Sorcery and

the Head of the Conclave of Wizards, sat, tall and straight. Except for his

white hands, those veined, gnarled hands, twitching restlessly to some private

thought, he might have been carved from alabaster. To the right of the Master

stood Justarius, his red robe the color of poppies, and Ladonna stood at

Par-Salian's left. The regard of the three sat upon Dalamar like a weight He

did not move or indicate in any way his discomfort. He simply stood before the

heads of the three Orders, breathing the perfumes of magic, musky oils, herbs,

and, as always, dried roses.

Outside the Hall of Mages, two corpses lay in state. Even as these four

gathered, mages of all the Orders went into the Rear Tower to pay respect to a

woman all had known and a dwarf few had. Both had been mages.

Inside the Hall, Ladonna came forward, her beautiful face shining in the eerie

light, her silver hair glittering with jewels, her fingers with rings. One

step she took, her black velvet robe moving like shadows, and she took it

smiling. "You have done well, after all, Dalamar Nightson."

After all. Dalamar allowed her a lean smile. "Did you doubt me, my lady?"

She did not return his smile. "Strength and will. These are always to be

questioned in everyone."

Dalamar inclined his head to agree. "And so, I have passed your test."

Justarius raised an eyebrow, the expression clearly speaking his surprise at

the temerity of this fledgling mage. "You are bold, young mage. Perhaps

over-bold."

"I am bold, my lord, in proportion to my need." Dalamar swept the three with

one swift glance. "Is that not what you need, a bold mage who is not afraid to

risk what he has in order to get what he wants? Or what you want?"

Justarius's eyes flashed at the impudence. "What can you possibly know

about-?"

Ladonna raised a hand. The rings sparkling on her fingers lit a simple,

calming gesture. Justarius subsided, but the color of his anger still showed

in his face.

"My lady," Dalamar said, stepping toward Ladonna, "I have done all you asked.

A life you valued was lost in the doing, but what is one against many?" He

looked around the chamber at the three gathered. "My part in the matter is

finished. How else may I serve you?"

Ladonna's smile did not reach her eyes when she said, "We will see what you

can do, but first tell me this, Dalamar Nightson: What do you know about the

Tower of High Sorcery at Palanthas?"

Dalamar's pulse quickened at seeing what flickered in the eyes of Par-Salian,

of Justarius, and even of Ladonna herself, though she strove to hide it. Fear.

Fear swiftly hidden, but fear nonetheless.

"I have heard what everyone has," he said softly, "that the Tower has been

long shut up and lately opened." He inclined his head to one and all. "And I

have heard what only a few know-that he who holds it forbids you or anyone

entrance to that Tower."

White robes rustling like the voices of ghosts, Par-Salian leaned forward.

Seeing him, Dalamar had the same feeling he always had when looking upon a

human whose count of years was not so many as his own and who yet looked like

an elf of three hundred years or more. How swiftly their candles burn!

"You have heard rightly in much of what you say," Par-Salian murmured. "He is

a powerful mage, this one who took the Tower. His like has not been seen in

many long years, perhaps in centuries. But you are wrong, young Dalamar, if

you think he forbids the Tower to everyone. He does not."

Par-Salian smiled, a small rugging at the corners of his mouth. That smile did

not warm, and Dalamar braced to deny the three mages sight of him shuddering.

White as alabaster, so he'd thought Par-Salian. Now he thought the man was

white as ice-that cold were his eyes. With a gesture, the Master of the Tower

took in the two standing beside him.

"You see here before you three of the most powerful mages in Krynn, but the

mage who sits in the Tower of Palanthas is stronger than any one of us, and he

will become stronger still." His expression grew hard. His face seemed made of

stone. "He calls himself the Master of Past and Present, and we wonder what

work he is at there in his Tower. It seems to us all that it would be a good

thing to know."

Ladonna lowered her eyes and smiled a secret smile. Justarius scowled. In the

smile, Dalamar recognized ambition. He felt at once that the Head of the Order

of Black Robes knew she held her place only so long as the upstart in

Palanthas did not want it. In the scowl, he recognized a similar feeling. It

was widely known that Justarius would succeed Par-Salian as Head of the

Conclave and Master of this Tower when Par-Salian chose to stand down. This

station, too, the mage in Palanthas could claim if having it appealed to him.

These things ambitious people were wise to consider, but it seemed to Dalamar

that the three most powerful mages in Krynn feared something else, something

more.

"And so you see," said Par-Salian, "that some things are known about this

Master of Past and Present. Here is another. Though he has scorned to take

what power he might rightfully gain by challenge, he keeps to himself, perhaps

creating power and position outside the Orders and the Rule of High Sorcery."

The shock of such an idea ran like lightning along Dalamar's nerves. Before he

could think, he spoke. "This cannot be permitted, my lord!"

Par-Salian nodded, but absently. "That is easy to say. We have said it here

time and again. But now we must do something. I have said the mage has not

locked the gates of his Tower against all. He will admit an apprentice, a

student."

Quiet again, his eyes modestly cast down to hide the spark of his own sudden

ambition, Dalamar murmured, "Why would he, my lord?"

Par-Salian did not reply. He nodded to Ladonna, who said, "I do not know why.

I only know he will. I have asked it, he has said it. A student of our Order,

a dark mage, he says, one who has at least two wits to rub together. If I were

to send him a student"-Dalamar's heartbeat quickened, and Ladonna's level gaze

told him she sensed the sudden beating-"I would send a spy. I imagine mat if

he took in a student, he would know that. Perhaps he would seek to turn the

spy."

"He would not turn me, my lady." Dalamar stopped, keenly aware that he had not

been invited to volunteer.

She smiled, a lean tugging of her lips. "I don't think he would. You are

uniquely schooled in the virtues of balance, are you not?" Then, before

Dalamar could respond she said, "Indeed, you are."

Justarius nodded, at last in approval. He glanced from Par-Salian to Ladonna,

and it seemed to Dalamar that some communication passed among the three.

Par-Salian inclined his head, as though in response, perhaps even agreement.

"We will not command you, young mage, to take up this apprenticeship. We

cannot, for the one who does this work will put his life and perhaps his very

soul at risk the moment he speaks his acceptance. And if he is found out"-

Par-Salian shook his head-"he will die. That death will be a terrible thing,

and a long, long time coming."

Dalamar took that warning seriously. Yet, hadn't he been risking his life, by

some accounts even his soul, for magic's sake since the first moment he felt

the sparkle of magic in his blood? To serve as apprentice to the one mage in

all of Krynn who could make the Heads of the Three Orders afraid ...! He

smiled, but secretly, in the shadow of his hood. What wonders of sorcery could

he learn from this mage who'd stolen a Tower right out from under the eyes of

the three most powerful magic-users in Krynn? Uncounted! What power could he

gain, what strength, what insights? They were legion!

Dalamar lifted his hands and put back the hood of his robe, letting those

gathered clearly see his face and his eyes. One and all, the Heads of the

Orders kept still, allowing him the choice.

"My lords, my lady, I accept the apprenticeship, and I accept your mission."

Justarius nodded grimly. Ladonna said nothing. In the eyes of Par-Salian,

Dalamar saw not satisfaction but, strangely, sorrow.

It was as though, knowing what had been, the Master of the Tower could know

what might be. The thought a warning, Dalamar looked back....

Chapter 1

"Tell me, then," said Eflid Wingborne, his head tilted slightly back as he

looked down the length of his thin nose at the small bundle Dalamar had placed

in the exact center of the narrow cot. "Will you be easier to find now,

Dalamar Argent, or will I still have to send servants to hunt you down when I

need you?"

Dalamar stood still in the shaded corner of the small room. In the shadow, he

shaped his expression to one that might lead Lord Ralan's steward to believe

he considered a humble answer. In truth, he considered no such thing at all.

He concentrated upon the image of two hands holding hard to something-the

temper it would do him no good to lose.

"You will find me," he said, eyes low to hide his contempt. "Never worry,

Eflid-"

"Lord Eflid."

Dalamar held back the sardonic smile that twitched at the corners of his lips.

Lord Eflid, indeed, by virtue of the fact that his mother had been briefly wed

to a lordling of so minor a family within House Woodshaper that the name of it

was not recorded except in small letters at the end of a long, long scroll.

Eflid had not been the son of that man, but he still claimed the title, at

least among the servitors he ruled.

"Never worry," Dalamar said again. He looked up, leveling a long cool stare at

the steward, the kind he knew gave Eflid shivers. "I am here."

Eflid's eyes narrowed, glittering and green. "And here you'll stay, boy-no

more wandering for you. Be grateful Lord Ralan hasn't dismissed you entirely.

I've heard they are looking for a servitor down by the docks, a boy to haul

fish and repair nets. Let me look up and not find you when I want you, and

that's where you'll be working."

Boy, he said, boy. With nearly ninety years to him, Dalamar was young by elf

standards, but he was no boy. Yet Eflid's sneering address said that were

Dalamar to attain one hundred years and ninety, still he'd be a boy in the

eyes of those he served. Dalamar met Eflid's narrow stare and did not look

away, and so Eflid must.

His face flushing with anger, and with shame for having been the first to turn

his glance, the steward growled, "Now unpack your gear and get to work. You're

expected in the kitchen. There are floor tiles in the oven room needing

repair." He pulled his lips back from his teeth in a cruel imitation of a

smile. "Don't you have some pretty little spell you can work on them? To keep

your hand in, as it were?"

Laughing, Eflid left the room, not closing the door behind. Alone, Dalamar

looked around at his new quarters. Motes sparkled, golden bits of dust dancing

in the light of the sun shafting in through the east-facing window. The light

was not so misty as it had been when it shone on the path away from the

Servitor District and the house that had been Dalamar's family home for so

many years. His father had inherited the small house from an uncle who had

been canny enough to save the steel coin to purchase it from a woman who

repaired leather shoes. Until then, his father and mother and Dalamar himself

had lived in the halls of those they served, a family who met during the days

only in passing and sometimes spent an evening together after the high folk

had no more use for them. The little house with its tiny garden had become

Dalamar's upon the death of his parents, and he had lived there, with the

permission of the Head of House Servitor and of Lord Ralan, ever since. Five

years he'd gone out from his home to that of his master, each day in the dawn,

and five years he'd returned there in the long purple twilights of summer and

the short sharp ending of winter days. No more, and the privacy afforded him

in his own home, the sense of being master there where no one could order him

about, was all gone. Now he must live in Lord Ralan's house, quartered in this

small room in the servant's wing. Here among those too poor to have their own

houses, among the untrustworthy, he would stay. Lord Ralan had declared it,

and Trevalor, the head of House Servitor, had agreed.

Dalamar turned from the glittering shaft of sunlight to the bed. The room

afforded him little by way of furniture, only this bed, a small table upon

which stood a thick white candle, and a chest of drawers by the window. He had

no chair for himself and none to offer a visitor.

From the bundle on the bed, he took out his clothing. He did not wear the dun

clothes of a servant but the white robe of a mage. This was not usual, for

among the Silvanesti, who structured their lives to conform to a rigid caste

system, no one was lower than servitor, and none deemed less worthy of

learning the High Art of Sorcery. Dalamar's talent was strong, though, and

when House Mystic learned of it, they did what they must for fear that,

unguided, he would go outside the bounds of Solinari's white magic to wild

magic or worse, to Lunitari's red or Nuitari's black magic. They made him a

mage, dedicated him to god-Solinari, and taught him grudgingly. For the

teaching, he was glad but never grateful.

He'd worn the white robe for nearly two years now, but before all, Dalamar was

still a servant, his talent and skill at the command of others. So it had been

today, his hours claimed and counted. All the while he worked, Dalamar felt

himself pulled away, his attention barely on his task, his soul yearning

northward to a place no steward or elf-lord knew about. In a cave beyond the

river lay the hiding of his secret studies. There he kept dark tomes filled

with magic forbidden to all elves. He'd discovered the books by accident,

found them tucked in the far reaches of the little cave, a treasure left by

some bold dark mage who'd come secretly into the elven kingdom where none such

would ever be welcome. Come and gone, he'd left his books behind, and they'd

lain there a long count of years. Each bore an inscription that had, upon

first sight, struck fear into Dalamar's heart. To the Dark Son, from a dark

son, by night are we bound. Thus had a mysterious mage dedicated himself to

the son of the Dragon Queen, to Nuitari whose obsidian halls lay in mansions

of the sky just beneath the secret moon, the black moon. Yet soon Dalamar's

fear had eased, and during the months of the summer past, he had taught

himself more about magic, spells, incantations, and arcane philosophy than

he'd been allowed to learn with House Mystic. The little northern cave was

Dalamar's refuge. His secret trips there, time stolen from his master, were

the cause of Eflid's anger and, ultimately, the reason for Dalamar's new

status among Lord Ralan's servants, housed and untrustworthy.

Dalamar tossed a spare robe of plain white wool and two sets of hose onto the

bed. He tucked a pair of boots into the corner, soft dark leather ones he'd

only lately purchased and not yet worn. A belt of knitted wool, the color of

the sky when the last light is nearly gone, and the small bone-handled knife a

mage is allowed for ceremonial use were the only other things he'd brought

here from his home.

Outside the window, the morning grew warm. The air sat heavily over the city

as it does when a storm is brooding. Though no breeze blew, still Dalamar

smelled the herbs in the kitchen garden, the twining scents of mint and basil,

of horehound and sage and sweet thyme. Before he'd been caught away from his

work, he'd been assigned to assist the old man from House Gardener who tended

Ralan's herb beds. Now he was consigned to the hot kitchen and the cross-eyed

cook whose best delight was to harry potboys and torment the young girls who

stood in the corners to flirt with the bakers' lads. The loss of his privacy,

these menial tasks, this fee he paid for a day away was steep indeed. Yet,

though he did not like the price, he did not regret it. He had chosen his path

this morning, clear-eyed and knowing what he might have to pay.

Dalamar thought about choices as he walked out of the room and down the long

airy corridor. No one would think he had any, a servitor whose life's path was

ordained by ancient custom. Yet this year, in the summer, Dalamar had made a

choice, one no one imagined he would consider. He must learn more of magic

than the crumbs House Mystic granted.

Sunlight splashed into the corridor from open doors and wide windows. Shadow

barred the tiled floor where sunlight did not reach. Into sun and out to

shadow he went, walking. How far would he go for the Art of High Sorcery

denied him by House Mystic? All the way to the Dark Son himself? Out in the

light of the day, in the thickness of the air, Dalamar looked away north, not

to the small place where his secrets were kept, but farther to the land beyond

the forest where the armies of Takhisis brooded. She was god-Nuitari's mother,

that Dragon Queen, and his father was the god of Vengeance, Sargonnas himself.

Their son was a child of magic and secrets, and Dalamar could think of no

better god to whom he could dedicate his own secret heart.

Blasphemy! It was blasphemy in the Silvanesti kingdom to think such a thing.

Dalamar shivered, quick excitement running up his spine. He could choose if he

wanted to choose. He could make a forbidden god his own in secret and silence,

and no one would know. Such power there was in secrets! Smiling, he walked

through the garden, a generous place enclosed on three sides by hedges of

wisteria, on the fourth by the servants' wing of the hall. Though they waited

for him in the kitchens, he took time to enjoy the heady scent of dewy roses

and the tang of curly mint underfoot. Water bubbled from a fountain, a marble

basin held in the hand of a statue of Quenesti-Pah, the goddess offering

comfort. A golden finch settled on the rim of the basin, bright feathers

already changing to autumn dress.

Dalamar did not walk alone there. A cleric passed him on the path. The tall

young elf nodded greeting to him, a lord by the look of him, high-headed and

comfortable. His robe of white samite gleamed in the morning light. Silver

thread embroidered the sleeves, and upon his finger a ring shone, a silver

dragon whose eye was a bright amethyst. A cleric of E'li, no doubt come on the

business of the Temple.

Dalamar returned the absent, silent greeting in kind, in no mood to tug the

forelock or wish anyone the blessings of E'li. The cleric went round the north

side of the garden and through an arched gate. Beyond lay the private garden

of the lord and his family. This one was confident of his welcome.

Dalamar went into the dark kitchen where the cross-eyed cook stood scowling,

fair certain what his own welcome would be. Waves of heat greeted him,

rippling in the air, the heat of the night's baking still trapped in the

cavernous stone room.

"Aye, there he is," growled the cook, a woman so thin it seemed she was but

flesh stretched too tightly over bitter bones. "Lord Eflid promised me I'd

have you this morning early, Master Mage. Now where have you been, eh? Out

running again . . . ?" Her voice became as the voice of an insect buzzing,

nothing to pay heed to, and Dalamar walked past her through the kitchen and

into the oven room where the scent of years of baking clung to the walls with

stubborn, yeasty persistence.

Dalamar knelt on the floor before the first broken tile. He pressed his hands

together, feeling the tingling of magic as he gathered up the words of a

spell, stone-heal. The smell of the kitchen faded. He dropped into a state of

being none but a mage could know, that state of touching power from gods, of

taking it and shaping it and using it to his will. The cook's voice receded,

words growing thin, like mist rising to sun.

"... Who he thinks he is, some ragtag little mageling out of the Servitor

District... never did teach him his manners or how to behave among his betters

... never should have given him the white robe-never. Too far above himself,

that's what..."

The spell words invoked the bright energy of magic, that energy sparkling in

Dalamar's blood, warming his heart, lending him power only mages and gods

knew. This was all that mattered, magic and nothing more. For it, he would do

everything.

*****

The red dragon drifted in the midday sky, slipping effortlessly from updraft

to downdraft, one current to another. Wide wings spread, long tail moving like

a ship's rudder, Blood Gem traversed the sky, the first of the highlord's

dragons to sail out over the aspen forest of the Silvanesti. He looked down

through the canopy of trees and saw the silver threads of rivers running.

Along the great Thon-Thalas, he saw towns, small and large, their buildings

like smudges on the land. Here, in these little towns, they did not build so

much with stone. Here they built with wood. He opened his jaws wide to grin.

So much tinder, he said to the rider upon his back, the long-legged human

woman who heard him not with her ears but in her mind.

No, Phair Caron said, her voice slipping into Blood Gem's mind like a tendril

of black smoke. Not tinder! We'll burn the forest if we must, but something

must remain. We're to take these arrogant elves down from their high perches,

but we have to leave something for the army to occupy and a cowed populace

ready to work for the Dark Queen and support her advance. Dead elves do us no

good at all.

Blood Gem snorted, and a small fireball burst alight in the sky. Dead elves

offer no resistance, and we can fill up that aspenwood-or what my kin and I

will leave of it-with slaves to do whatever work will be required.

Phair reached out to pat the red's shoulder, not a gesture the dragon felt,

but one he recognized and appreciated in its intent. It isn't about working

slaves, my friend. Or it's not all about that. What it's all about is reaping

souls, eh?

For the Dark Queen.

Phair Caron nodded, again an unseen gesture, but one felt.

All they did, she and her dragons, was for the Dark Queen, for Takhisis. Dark

Lady, you are my light, Phair Caron thought, the thought a prayer. In

darkness, yours is the light of balefires, of funeral pyres. In darkness,

yours is the hand that reached out to me. She sighed, thinking of the dire

glory of Her Dark Majesty. It had been but a mere handful of centuries since

Takhisis had re-entered the world and come back from the Abyss after the fall

of Istar. Her door into the world was-and Phair Caron thought the irony

delicious- the ruin of the very Temple of Istar where the mad Kingpriest of

the city-state had proclaimed himself a god and brought down the ire of all

deities upon the world that condoned his madness. During those centuries

Takhisis had wandered abroad, laying plans, seeking allies among the ruthless

to elevate to commanders in her growing army- Phair Caron grinned, a wide,

wolfish grin-and waking dragons to pair with those commanders. Now Takhisis

had an army of ogres and goblins, of dragonmen and humans, led by her

commanders, her highlords.

And waking dragons, Blood Gem echoed, sighing as though he yet recalled his

long sleep and sudden waking. Now we are here. We are hungry to fight in her

cause, Highlord, and we yearn to taste elf blood.

Phair Caron spoke aloud, her words carried upon the wind of their flight.

"Soon enough. Soon enough you'll have what you want." She laughed, suddenly

and sharply. "But elf blood is a pale drink, my friend. Watery and weak." She

pointed downward to where the Thon-Thalas widened and the lights of Silvanost

could be seen in the distance. "These elves have no use for any god but their

puling gods of Good, Paladine-E'li, as they call him-and his weakling lot.

They'll all be on their knees to us before the moons go dark."

And it would be, Blood Gem knew, like sweet wine on the Dark Lady's lips to

see those Silvanesti elves bow the neck to her highlord, to be forced to tear

down their pale temples to weak gods and use their vaunted skills to erect

shrines to the dark gods. Morgion of the Black Wind would spread disease

through their ranks. Hiddukel would turn all their feeble truths to lies. At

last Takhisis herself, Her Dark Majesty, would rule in that land where her

followers had for so long been forbidden to enter.

The dragon climbed higher and turned north toward the borders of the

Silvanesti. Behind, in the southern foothills of the Khalkist Mountains, the

bulk of Her Dark Majesty's army waited, thousands of soldiers, humans, ogres,

goblins, and- Blood Gem made a sound of disgust-and draconians, the misbred

dragonmen, spawn of an evil magic-making that corrupted the eggs of dragons.

These were Takhisis's fiercest fighters. All the army waited impatiently to

fall upon this forested land of wealth and beauty that for centuries had been

denied to everyone but the Silvanesti themselves. High in the peaks of those

foothills, a strong wing of red dragons brooded, impatient to take to the sky

and, with their riders, lead that dark army into battle.

It will be a glorious battle, the dragon mused, his thought matching his

rider's.

Phair laughed, the sound wind-torn from her throat and flung out to the hard

blue sky. "It will be, and we will soak the forest with elf blood!"

Soon?

The highlord said nothing, but Blood Gem knew her, deeply as dragons know

their riders. She had laid her plans in the winter, and those plans called for

an army so strong that the elf defenders would crumble before it. A

blood-lusty soldier, she was also a canny strategist. She would not commit her

army until she was certain her numbers would overwhelm the elves. More

soldiers were coming down from Goodlund and across the Bay of Balifor. Once

these arrived, she would be ready. Until then, she would play as a cat played

with a mouse-cruel games to amuse herself. Phair Caron despised elves, and of

all elves, she despised Silvanesti most. If anyone needed a picture of that

hatred's birth, Blood Gem knew the perfect one.

A near-grown girl shivered in the shabby winter streets of Tarsis, her rags

clutched around thin shoulders, the bones of her face too clearly defined by

hunger-carved flesh. In glittering gold, a party of Silvanesti walked past,

holding the hems of their robes high out of the running gutter. One turned and

saw Phair, the child whose face looked more like a skull than not. With one

hand the elf drew aside the hem of his robe, the silk and the brocade all

glimmering with jewels. With the other he covered his mouth and nose as one of

his companions tossed a copper coin at Phair. The coin fell into the gutter,

landing in a pool of muck.

Phair scrambled for it, never minding that she had to scrape through mud and

worse to find it. Here was a week's worth of food! Enough to keep her sister

out of the brothels where most of the gutter-girls went to earn their bread.

Phair had served there herself at need, but never would she let her sister do

that. Never. When she looked up, a word of thanks on her lips, she saw only

the backs of the elves and heard one say, "Filthy gutter wretch. Why did you

do that, Dalyn? The creature is no concern of ours."

"None," his companion had agreed. "But that will keep it from following."

But the gutter creature had followed, Blood Gem thought as he soared over the

Sylvan Land. She followed those elves right home, didn't she? It took her a

while of years, but she did. And now, a highlord in the army of the goddess

elves most hate, Phair Caron had a kind of thanks to offer for their treatment

of her, that thanks too long deferred.

Blood Gem banked and turned, soaring away north again. When he came within

sight of the Khalkists and the northern border of the Sylvan Land where the

trees were not so thick, he felt the uplifting currents of hot air. Three

villages were afire, the acrid fumes of terror and dying wafted up to the sky.

All around the smoking ruins, bodies lay, most looking like they'd been nailed

there. Some had been- nailed by spears and ashwood lances. They looked like

insects pinned to a display board. An impatient detachment of the dragonarmy

had broken through the burning barrier into the stony area beyond where those

three villages had lain. The dragonmen weren't going unmet, for even as they

ran raging into a fourth village downriver, elves met them with bows and

steel.

Phair Caron laughed again, and again the sound of it was torn from her lips.

"Look there! Defenders. Now, that won't do, will it?"

It would not. With startling speed, the red dragon dropped down from the sky,

bursting out of the bitter blue sky right over the battle. On the ground, the

elves looked up, their faces pale ovals. One, a bold fool, lifted his bow and

drew to launch an arrow. Blood Gem roared, the sound so loud the air trembled,

the earth itself shook. Screams, like the thin whine of gnats, came up from

the battleground. The elf who fancied himself a fortunate archer fell to his

knees, terrified. His bow, like a little stick of tinder, fell to the ground.

Tinder, Blood Gem thought. Ah ...

He thrust hard with his mighty wings, gaining the heights again, and turned

round over the village. Nothing was afire there, not house, not barn, and

certainly not the crowding aspenwood. This wasn't good. On the ground, a

phalanx of draconians charged into the midst of the defenders, maces

whistling, their ghastly voices like the screaming of stones. From so high up,

Blood Gem saw the blood gleaming on the terrible points of the maces, though

he did not smell it. Just as well, just as well. Had he smelled the blood he'd

have been able to smell the misbegotten dragonmen too. He banked and turned.

Upon his back, Phair Caron shouted a wild battle cry.

Roaring, Blood Gem dropped low over the aspens as the draconians drove the

elves into the darkness of the forest. Behind, a house burst into flames, the

fire kindled by a flaring torch in a draconian fist. Inside a woman screamed,

a child wailed, their cries damped by the whoosh and roar of the roof

catching. The sweet stench of burning flesh drifted upon black smoke.

"A pretty little fire!" Phair Caron shouted. "But we can do better!"

Blood Gem filled up his lungs with air and, as though those lungs were a

bellows, he pushed air out past the place in his throat where dragonfire

lived. Death's own banner, flames poured from between his fanged jaws. Flames

touched the tops of the aspens, and Blood Gem flew past those, firing the

trees beyond and to either side. Elf voices shouted in terror. Men, women, and

children were herded into a deadly trap, bounded on three sides by fire and on

the other by creatures from nightmare, winged draconians whose reptilian eyes

held no warmth, whose powerful tails could break the bones of a foe with one

swipe. The least of the tribes of dragonmen, these were the Baaz, and they

loved nothing better than killing. Some, it was said, did feast on their

kills.

"Now take us back," the highlord shouted. "This has been diverting, but I have

work yet to do before the night is over."

Reluctantly, Blood Gem turned north toward the Khalkists and the army's camp.

Behind them and below, the draconians finished their work, burning every house

in the village, killing each man and woman and child they found. One or two

escaped. Phair Caron could see it from the heights, but she did not regret

that. Let them run. Let them flee downriver to the other towns, wailing the

song of their terror until it reached the ears of the elf-king, Speaker Lorac

himself. Let him know she was coming!

Chapter 2

On days of sun, Dalamar labored indoors in his lord's steamy kitchen, in the

musty wine cellars where he was set to catching rats, or in the attics under

the high eaves, where it was Eflid's pleasure to give him the task of sorting

through old clothing during the breathless hours of hot afternoons. On days of

rain, Eflid made certain that Dalamar worked outside, sometimes in the gardens

to brace slender plants against the downpours, sometimes after the rain,

slogging through mud to repair what damage had been done.

"It's not fair," murmured the young woman who served at the lord's breakfast

table. "He treats you worse than he treats any of us, Dalamar. How do you

stand it?"

"It's our way," Dalamar said. They stood in the doorway to the kitchen garden,

looking out into the day hung heavily with mist and leaden clouds. He plucked

a wisp of straw from the floor, a stray bit of packing from a crate of wine.

"An old pattern. Eflid wants something from me, and I want to be sure he's not

going to get it."

The young woman, Leida, the daughter of a mother who had served in Ralan's

hall all her life, child of a father who yet served there, looked at him with

luminous green eyes. She had once thought she was in love with a Wildrunner, a

young man she saw striding about the city, handsome in his leathers and green

shirt. No matter that their life-paths would never cross. No matter that a son

of House Protector would never have looked her way but to tell her to refill

his mug of ale. When war took the charming soldier north, Leida had wept for

as long as an hour, and then she turned her attention closer to home and the

dark-eyed mage who seemed suddenly more handsome than the Wildrunner for being

so much nearer.

"What, then?" she asked Dalamar. "What does Eflid want?"

Using only the agile fingers of his right hand, Dalamar tied a knot in the

straw. "A servant humble and biddable."

Leida laughed, her green eyes sparkling. "He'd spend all his days trying to

make you into that, and he'd die never seeing it done."

"They're his days to spend." Dalamar shrugged. "And that's how he wastes

them."

"And you? You don't mind it?"

He looked at her long, and when he answered, he spoke coolly. "I mind."

Leida shuddered, for she saw something in his eyes to make her think of a wolf

lurking beyond the light of a campfire.

That morning, rain had poured down in sheets. Now at noon, the sky was still.

Clouds hung leaden, threatening to burst, and the garden was filled with mist

and the fragrance of mint and thyme and sweet chamomile. Brown muddy water ran

like small rivers round the beds, carving new shapes. Leida's yellow hair

loved the mist, springing into little curls around her cheeks. She wore it

short, though elf women seldom did, because she liked the feeling of air

tickling her neck.

A pretty neck it was, Dalamar thought. A gloss of mist, perhaps of sweat, lent

a sheen to the skin of her slender neck. He lifted a finger and caught the

droplet. His eyes on hers, feeling her move toward him though she moved not at

all, he tasted it. Rain. Lightning flickered fitfully, illuminating the

garden. Leida's eyes widened. She lifted her head in the way she had of

showing off her charming ears. Sweetly canted, they were like the petals of

some lovely flower, white and elegant. Her lips moved in a sudden smile. She

glanced over her shoulder to the silent, cavernous kitchen. Potboys had

finished their work of scrubbing the pans and plates from breakfast. The cook

had gone into the storeroom beyond to take the count of what would be needed

to prepare the evening meal. The bakers, who labored in the night, were long

asleep in their quarters.

Leida looked into the eyes of the mage. Perilous eyes sometimes, strange eyes

at best, she'd never looked there without feeling a quickening of her breath

and the excited leap of her heart. Dangerous, warned the little chill running

down her spine.

"Dalamar, there is a quiet place I know ..."

A quiet place in the attic, in the little room where the linen was kept. In

her own small chamber, perhaps. Or his. Dalamar leaned close to taste the rain

on her neck. Eflid forbade any union between the servants in Lord Ralan's

hall. He would have no alliances forged, no distractions created. He would

lift the minds and hearts from us all if he could, Dalamar thought, and have a

small army of automatons.

His lips still on the soft flesh of Leida's neck, Dalamar smiled. She felt it

and came into his arms, lifting her face for his kiss.

His kiss was not like fire, as she had often imagined. It was like sudden

lightning. The blood in her leaped, and her pulse drummed. "Come to my room,"

she said, her words felt against his lips rather than heard. She took his

hands and stepped away, holding them, pulling him, laughing. "Come with

me...."

Outside, the morning's rain still dripped from the eaves, gurgling in gutters

and along the channels it cut for itself beside stone paths. Leida laughed

again, bright against the gray day.

The shadow fell upon her like a thin grim cloak. Eflid's hand closed hard on

her shoulder, and his voice hissed like a snake's in her ear. "Go where, eh?

Slut-"

Leida cried out in fear, perhaps in pain. Swift, Dalamar grabbed the steward's

wrist. Before he could think yea or nay, he broke Eflid's grip with one sharp

twist. Loathing like poison flared in the steward's eyes. He pulled back,

trying to free himself. He failed. Color drained from his cheeks. Rage and

fear warred in him.

"Let go," he snarled. Dalamar did not. "Boy, I mean it." His voice shook, but

only a little, and only he and Dalamar knew it. "You'd better let go-"

Outside, lightning flashed. Thunder rumbled then suddenly roared. In the

garden something white moved through the mist, like a ghost on the

rain-running paths. Leida gasped, slipping behind Dalamar into the dark safety

of the kitchen. Her footfalls sounded in the darkness, swift as she ran past

the deep hearth, the long tables, and the shelves of pots and pans. Gone, she

did not look back, and no one looked after her.

On a second flash of lightning the ghostly figure in the garden became a man,

a cleric running ahead of the storm, the hem of his white robe hitched high

out of the mud. Splashing and slipping, he dashed for the kitchen.

Dalamar loosed his grip on Eflid's wrist. "Your master has a guest, Lord

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