Dalamar The Dark

Chapter 20

Regene's fingers dug hard into Dalamar's arm. Sharp lines of pain shot up from his forearm to his shoulder. In the enveloping darkness, pain was all he felt, radiating out from that hard grip, and he did not disdain to feel it. Just then, it was the only sensation.

After long moments, hearing returned. Dalamar heard the whistle of his own breath forced from his lungs and a sudden bark of laughter in the very moment he knew that he could not draw in more air. He took a step to see if he could. Light burst upon him in wild leaping colors, like the auroras that waver over the northmost part of the world. The light did not blind him. It hit him hard, like a fist in the chest, staggering him. Still gasping, Dalamar fell to one knee, reeling away from the force. He felt stone beneath his hands, hard and cold, stone beneath his knee, and no air in his lungs.

Laughter resounded, hard and booming, and breath rushed into his lungs with gasping force.

"Get up," said a voice. "Get up now, mageling."

Anger shot through Dalamar, anger like fire and ice. He stood, he breathed, and breathing, he was able to see. Before him rose a wall of shimmering light, red and blue and green and yellow, all the colors restlessly moving and shifting so that no color stayed the same but blended with others in change. The light made a small chamber, bounded on three sides by the rainbow glow and on the fourth by a thick stone wall into which lines had been scored to suggest a door, though no means of opening the door was seen. Beyond the wall of light, within the chamber, Regene stood, looking around. She saw Dalamar and, face white as her bloody robe should have been, she took a step toward him.

"Don't move!" Dalamar snapped. "Don't touch the light, Regene."

She stood still, warned.

Softly, behind him, Dalamar heard a step, and then a swift in-taking of breath. He turned, his hand already moving to shape an enchantment. Mid-gesture, he stopped. Before him stood a dwarf mage, dark-robed, red of beard and hair. Among dwarves he would be considered handsome: thick-chested, broad in the shoulders, with strong features and fiery eyes.

"It is you," Dalamar said, keeping his voice low and steady despite the aching of his lungs. He would show this mage nothing but a calm, considered mien.

The dwarf inclined his head in acknowledgment. "It is I, Tramd of Thorbardin, who is sometimes known as-"

"Tramd o' the Dark. Yes, I have heard."

The morning sun shone in through the window behind the dwarf, laying gold on the stone floor. A study, Dalamar thought. Shelves of books lined the three walls beyond the rippling rainbow light, and blocky chairs that seemed hewn from whole slabs of stone stood near the window. Thick cushions and pillows eased the hard surfaces and edges of those chairs, and banks of candles sat on tables near to hand. This was the chamber of one who read and wrote long into the night. To the left of the dwarf stood an oaken desk, and on that were stacks of parchment, pots of ebony ink, and newly made pens. Amidst all of this, pages were carelessly scattered-plans of some kind, design schematics and sheaves of notes. From where he stood, Dalamar could not see what shape those plans took. He gained only the swift impression of a fortress or castle of some kind.

Dalamar took his glance from the plans. "Tramd o' the Dark," he said. "Yes, and I remember you."

Tramd moved out of the sunlight, away from the window. "I imagine you would." His eyes narrowed. "I had forgotten you, until lately."

The dwarf gestured to Regene as one who wishes to show a guest some interesting object. Dalamar turned, and he saw that the scoring in the stone wall had changed, grown deeper, as though it did, indeed, mark a passage of some kind-one that was being opened from the inside, beyond the stone. Regene stood very still, facing the door and barely breathing.

"It's a pretty wall, don't you think? Look how the colors shine all over her."

Spilling down her robe, running on her flesh, it was as though the light were water running.

"It has some interesting properties, that light." Tramd stepped closer to the shimmering wall. Regene saw him and glared at him, lifting a hand. "Oh, no," he said, his voice filled with false concern. "No, girl, don't think to charm your way out of there or to send any magic through. What you do will turn on you, each force you extend will rebound back. I'd stand still and keep my hands to myself, were I you."

Unsure, but unwillingly to test it, Regene stood still.

"There are," said Tramd, turning from her to Dalamar, "some interesting creatures living beneath the mountains of Karthay. Some say there is a lost race of dwarves." He shrugged. "But that is outlander foolishness. Hill dwarves, mountain dwarves, gully dwarves-we know all about each other, and if we chose not to congregate, well, that does not mean we are lost."

The stone door moved, scraping on the floor. Regene gasped a swift prayer as she backed away, hasty steps that took her right to the wall of light. She touched that light with the hem of her sleeve and staggered back. Shaking, the woman took no more steps, watching the door open a small push at a time.

Tramd smiled again, expansively. "As I say, some interesting creatures live beneath the mountains here. What stands beyond that door is no kin of mine. Shall we see what is there?"

Dalamar looked at the dwarf through narrowed eyes. "What is it you want that you think you will gain by threatening the White Robe?"

The door moved again, ever inward. Regene shifted from one foot to another, trapped. She looked over her shoulder at Dalamar, her sapphire eyes filling with fear. Her lips moved in prayer. Solinari shield me…

The god hadn't shielded her well when the dragon snatched her. It didn't look like he would now. The wall of light shivered and shifted, colors blending and changing. Sunlight moved on the floor, touching the far edge of the light wall. Rainbows splashed around the chamber, painting the walls and even the oaken desk.

"Ah," said Tramd, crossing to the desk. He ruffled a few of the pages there, turning one so Dalamar could see it. "Look you, mageling. Isn't this interesting?"

Dalamar stood where he was, narrow-eyed, wary.

"Oh, come closer. I'm not going to hurt you, elf. Look, for it's something worth seeing."

Curious, Dalamar did go closer, and Tramd spread out his design on the table. The page he saw bore a scribe's notation indicating this was not an original but a working copy. The drawing showed a fortress, many-towered, filled with all the corridors and chambers, armories and meeting halls one would expect to find in a place of defense. Oddly drawn, though, Dalamar thought, turning one page and then another. Most renderings of new structures are shown in some kind of context, the fortress in a natural setting- upon a cliff-top, in a forest, guarding a mountain pass. That way the size of it is shown to best effect. This rendering, however, simply showed the fortress sitting in empty space, a dark drawing on the creamy white page.

And that was interesting, but not so fascinating as the writing, the thick lines of columns running down the right-hand side of the page. They were runes, Dalamar knew that much, and very old. Eyes narrowed, he went closer. Dwarven runes, and not the kind one usually sees on the work of dwarf craftsmen.

"A magical script," Tramd said. He flipped a page, and then another. "I have heard you have some skill with runes. What do these tell you?"

Rainbow light ran and shivered. Stone scraped on stone.

"They tell me," Dalamar said, "that you know a rune script I do not."

Tramd laughed, a dry, hard sound like coughing. "They tell more than that. They are runes that will one day enspell a fortress of this design-more than one. And those fortresses," he said, tracing the outline of the structure, "they will be flying citadels. From one of these an army does not defend. From here an army attacks, and attacks wherever it wants to."

Fear ran cold in Dalamar's belly. Ladonna had been right to say that the Blue Lady would win the next war. And when she won, all the nations who had forged the Whitestone Treaty and compelled the dragonarmies to sign would be hers to rule. There would be no light. No god but Takhisis would receive worship. She, the Dark Queen, the Mother of Dragons, would at last achieve what she had attempted in the War of the Lance. She would be the Dark Queen in the hearts of all who lived, and their souls would be hers to devour, to torment, to hoard as a miser hoards his treasure.

"You see," said the dwarf with the rainbow light shining on him. "You see what can be. What will be." He laughed. "It is inevitable."

He looked up from his pages, right into Dalamar's eyes. So clear those eyes, so bright with cunning, that Dalamar had to remind himself he was not, after all, looking into the eyes of the dwarf Tramd. The real eyes of the dwarf were other, elsewhere, as was his body, the decaying hulk he had come to kill.

"Listen," said the dwarf, the avatar smiling. "You can be part of this, mageling. You can throw in your lot with the Dark Queen. Step to the side of power now, while you will be welcomed."

Step into the dark, away from the light. He had been doing that all his life. He had walked out from Silvanesti into the darkness of the world without and wandered in lightless ruins. He had sat upon the hills around Neraka and considered this very choice.

No, he had said then. No. And yet, if what must come must come, would he be a fool to turn aside from the darkness he had already embraced?

Dalamar glanced away from the dwarf and the drawings. In her prison of light, Regene stood watching him. He did not weigh her in any choice or say to himself, No, I must choose and try to save her life in the bargain. He had already told himself he would abandon her at need. It was not Regene he weighed or considered. He did, however, consider his mission.

Do you know, Ladonna had asked, what life would be like without balance?

He knew, he who had lived under the strictures of a culture that allowed only one kind of worship, one kind of magic. He knew, as only a dark elf can know, what it is like to need what no one will allow him to have. And yet, if the triumph of Her Dark Majesty were, indeed, inevitable, wouldn't he be a fool to turn from the winning side and embrace the side of those who would become her slaves?

"Listen well, dark elf," said Tramd, the voice of the avatar softening into the tones used between reasonable men in sensible discussion. "Join me and I will commend you to the Blue Lady herself. I will say to her, 'Here is a new Highlord for you,' and you will rule over whatever kingdom it pleases you to have."

Cold into his heart came the sudden memory of an image he'd seen in the platinum mirrors in the Chamber of Darkness. People bowed to him, and they named him Lord Dalamar. He was feared, and he was respected, even honored. For this? For what Tramd now offered? Would he walk in a world that trembled to see him and receive the salutations of lesser men as though he were, indeed, the lord his own people would never have allowed him to be? He would, so said the prophecy of the mirrors, and in that moment his heart yearned toward it, rising to the idea of lordship, of temporal power to match his magical power. The title "Lord Dalamar" rang in his most secret soul.

Tramd sighed, a small sound of satisfaction. "So, you see what I see for you, what Takhisis herself sees. You will be a man of great effect, a man whose smallest whim will change the fates of nations. Paladine and all his puny kin will go down before Her Dark Majesty. Nothing will stand before her, and we who are hers will rule as no lord or king has ruled in all the history of Krynn.

"All this is yours, dark elf, if you only tell me this one thing: Who is your master? Who sent you to kill me?"

Only turn from the mission, turn from his word, his honor. Only turn from the magic, the High Sorcery that would die when the balance between light and dark, good and evil, Paladine and Takhisis, is fallen in ruin.

"Dwarf," Dalamar said, "go lick the boots of your mistress in Sanction."

Anger, like a storm, darkened Tramd's face. He whispered a word, softly he said, "Enter."

The scraping of stone on stone sounded louder now, longer, and out the corner of his eye Dalamar saw one gray-skinned hand curve around the door in the wall, grasping. It was a big hand, broad and long with nails like talons. The stink of filth and a long-unwashed body drifted on the air.

"In the name of all the gods of Good, in your own dear name, Bright Solinari…"

Regene's prayer lifted up from her prison. She had no magic, and she had no weapon, only her little belt knife and her trustful prayer.

"And what," said Tramd, head high, sun gleaming on his red beard, "what does yon White Robe imagine her prayers will do for her?"

Baited, Dalamar said nothing. A deep growling came out from the darkness behind the door, and the stench grew stronger. Dalamar knew it for the reek of carrion or that of a carrion-eater. Sweat rolled down the sides of Regene's face. Her prayer grew louder, and the flesh of her knuckles whitened, so hard did she grip her little knife. Tramd turned his back on the enclosure as though what happened there was no matter to him. Crossing the room to a small table near the door into the corridor, he murmured a few words. From out of the air appeared a silver flagon and two gleaming silver cups. He poured the cups full of a wine so deeply red that it seemed almost black. From one he sipped, carefully, as though judging a vintage. Satisfied, he offered the other to Dalamar.

"Thank you," Dalamar said to the host from whose hand he would accept no gift, "but no."

Tramd shrugged and drank more deeply. "Your friend won't have to die, if you tell me what I want to know. Who sent you for me?"

Dalamar stood still as stone, watching Regene pray. He would not plead for her, and he would not bargain for her. She had made her choice to come here. In the cause of her own ambition, she had followed him from the Tower. In her cause she had come here, knowing he would serve only his cause.

Wild roaring filled the room as a beast-man, something with blind, cauled eyes, gray-scaled skin, and fangs for teeth burst out of the darkness beyond the stone door. Filthy black hair like a wild mane cascaded down the thing's back, and in its hands it held a broad-axe whose blade gleamed in the rainbow-light.

"It is a grimlock," Tramd said, "and a hungry one, too. It mostly eats rat flesh down in those caves, but it's always happy for a bit of human meat when it can get that."

Regene leaped back, hit the wall of light, and fell to her knees. Scrambling, she rose, her knife still in hand. "In the names of the gods of Good-" She ducked as the grimlock swung the broad-axe, fell again, and rolled away. She was no fighter, but she was quick on her feet.

"Tell me what I want to know, mageling," said Tramd, his tone not so reasonable as it had been, "and I will call off the grimlock."

Again, Dalamar turned away. "She's a White Robe. Why do you imagine I would care if she fattens some grimlock's larder?"

Regene slashed at the grimlock, swift with her little knife. The beast-man sprang, swinging down the blade of its axe. Regene cried out in pain, and blood sprang bright on the shoulder of her robe. The grimlock roared, furious that the blow hadn't struck true and severed the woman's arm. The broad axe whistled in the air, and Regene flung herself aside. Sparks leaped from the stone where the iron struck. Regene staggered back, hit the light again, and this time used the repelling force to her advantage, letting it fling her out from under another axe blow. The grimlock roared, turned swiftly, then stumbled, falling into the barrier of light. Flung, it staggered forward, the axe falling from its grip.

Regene dashed for the axe, bleeding from the shoulder wound made by the savage claws of the blue dragon. She snatched the weapon, swinging wide with it. She had not the least technique, not the first idea how to fight. She knew, though, that she must keep the staggered grimlock from her, and the best way to do that was to keep the axe in motion.

Dalamar did not move or even shudder. He kept his eyes on Regene. Her eyes alight, her teeth bared in a warrior's grin, she advanced, one step and then another, bleeding and swinging the axe. The grimlock retreated, stunned by the contact with the light barrier and compelled back toward it. Tramd's breath sounded harshly in Dalamar's ears, then seemed to stagger.

"Kill her!" the dwarf shouted to the grimlock, who wanted nothing more than to do that. "Kill the mage!"

Enraged, the grimlock lunged for Regene with taloned hands. The axe caught it at the elbow, severing its right arm. Blood black as pitch spouted from the wound, and the beast-man shrieked. Screaming in a language whose every word sounded like curses, the grimlock twisted aside, staggering back. It hit the wall of light and was flung forward again. Regene dashed in, the axe high above her head like a headsman's blade. She let it fall, and the beast-man died, the shining blade buried between the grimlock's shoulders.

Regene turned, her sapphire eyes shining with her triumph-

— And the light-prison collapsed around her as she and the corpse of the grimlock vanished.

The carrion stench of the dead grimlock lingered on the air, not covered by the sticks of pungent incense Tramd lit. "Now," said Tramd, waving his hand to disperse the fragrant smoke. "Will you tell me what I want to know, Dalamar Nightson? Who sent you?"

Dalamar noted the change of address, and he did not indicate his satisfaction or curiosity in any way. Once again, the dwarf offered him wine. Again, he declined to take the cup. "I will tell you nothing, Tramd, and I don't see why it matters that you know."

"Do you not?" Tramd looked around the tower chamber. The only light in the room now was that of the sun, strong at mid-morning and growing stronger. "It matters to your friend. Do you doubt that?"

Dalamar did not. "What goes on between you and me seems to matter a great deal to Regene. But what matters to her, as you have surely seen, doesn't so much matter to me."

A small, sea-scented breeze drifted through the window, carrying the sharp cries of gulls. Dalamar thought he heard the sea itself, but so high up, that was only his imagination. He wondered where Regene was, but not in words, for he did not doubt Tramd would be able to scan his thoughts. He buried the wondering in a deeper field of varying emotions.

"Ah," Tramd sighed. He pressed his lips together, shaking his head in disappointment. "Then it must be as you wish. I can do no more." He lifted his hand, a languid gesture, almost a weary one. But not weary, not really, for in his eyes a cold killing light shone, and glee.

Dalamar turned, his belly tightening. In the corner behind him, darkness gathered, shadows coalescing in despite of sunlight and spreading on the stone floor to become substantial, vaguely man-shaped, and tall. Pale eyes glared in the darkness-not points of light, but simply places where darkness was not. Cold flowed out from that darkness, wintry fingers determined to find warmth and kill it.

Swiftly, Dalamar lifted his hands in the dance of magical gesture, and his voice in a spell sung in Kagonesti words to charm the coalescing shadow.

"Heed," he sang, "hear and heed! In my words, find my need. Hear, heed and hear! My song commands, come not near!

The lightless being shivered, but not under the sway of magic, only with grim laughter.

"I hear," the Shadow hissed, its voice like wind in frozen leaves, "and I do not heed. I hear and care not for your need!"

Closer it came, cold running before it. The first edge of its darkness touched Dalamar, and weakness flowed through him, turning his knees watery. Trembling, he lifted his hands again, and he sang another spell, a charm to put the creature to sleep. But shadows don't sleep, they only hide, and this Shadow laughed as the magic ran through it, effectless.

Closer, closer, the darkness flowed closer, and now it seemed to Dalamar that his muscles were turning to tallow. Useless! He staggered and scrambled around in his mind for the catalog of his spellwork, the magic he knew, whatever he could grab and use before this Shadow sucked all the life from his body. But his wit was like numb hands, like fingers too cold and weak to pick up and use anything. Chants seemed like nonsense, filled with sounds that were not words. The Shadow came closer, reaching with its winter grasp.

Tramd laughed. From some safe place, the dwarf called, "You have made a poor choice, mageling! And I will enjoy watching you die of it!"

The taunt did not sting. It was so much noise swallowed into the incessant ringing in Dalamar's ears as his strength leeched out of him. A spell, a spell… something to chase away the darkness-

"Shirak!" he shouted and fell, coughing on the word, weak as a fevered man whose lungs were filling with fluid. Staggering, he stepped back before the light, the small wavering globe that was all his magic could manage. As he staggered, so did the Shadow, but not for long. The light shivered, his magic sighed, and the Shadow lunged.

Dalamar stumbled, he fell to one knee and rolled away from the advancing darkness. Magic! Where was it in him? Deep, he plunged deep into himself, into the heart of him, the soul, and he flung off fear and all dread of the weakness sapping his strength. Light, said his mind, light and fire and-

The Shadow reached for him with arms grown broad and long. Strength and life drained out from Dalamar, running from him as though it were his very blood. Fed upon his strength, the Shadow surged forward to grasp even more. Dalamar gathered his waning strength and his faltering wit. In his mind he put the image of his need, of fire and light and a weapon. He lurched to his feet, to the sound of Tramd's laughter, he rose and filled his right hand with a fiery lance. He had nothing of magic or wit to form protection for himself.

The Shadow reached. Dalamar's flesh blackened and peeled back from bone. Someone screamed-ah, gods! — it was he, the sound of his pain and that of Tramd's laughter weaving one around the other, becoming a single, terrible anthem. Howling in rage, rage dispelling pain, Dalamar drew back his arm to let fly the flame-lance, his eyes on the eyes of the Shadow. And so he saw what he had not before. He knew that Shadow, that reaching wight. In those pale eyes he saw consciousness, wit, soul and pleading urgency. He saw a sapphire glint! Regene! Too late he knew illusion, in the moment he let fly the lance.

The Shadow screamed, and Tramd's illusion fell away. Regene fell, struck by the fiery lance, her robe, her very flesh, burning. Dalamar flung himself forward and beat out flames with his good hand. Eyes wide with pain, choking, Regene tried to form some word, some warning. She need not have, Dalamar felt danger behind him in the itching between his shoulders, the crawling of his skin.

Raging, Dalamar turned, stumbling in weakness. Tramd backed away, groping behind him for a weapon. Dalamar smiled coldly to see that, for it told him the thing he needed to know-Tramd had spent himself deeply to support the light-cage, to call forth the grimlock, and to create this illusion that cloaked Regene. A fool would think he had nothing more to spend, but a wise man would see that he had not so much as he would like.

"Dwarf," Dalamar said, his voice rasping, his hand trembling even as he reached within for one last burst of strength, one last weapon. "You've been dying since the day of your Test. It is time for that to end."

Sweat glistened on Tramd's face and ran into his red beard. He took another step backward. Behind him, Dalamar heard groaning, Regene's breathing sounded like a death-rattle and like sobbing all at the same time. Rage rose up in Dalamar, and with it such strength as he did not think he could find. He lifted his burned hand, the flesh peeled from the bone, the bone glaring white at him, glistening with his own blood and the thin lines of blood vessels and muscle. He felt the pain, and he embraced it, changing it to strength. Fingers moved, his fingers, bones shining in the sunlight pouring in from the window. He created, from magic and from his own will, a lightning-lance, the kind that had killed a dragon.

Eyes wide with fear, Tramd dug down deep for his magic, and he came up wanting. Light shimmered before him, as though he'd been trying to magic a shield. The light turned dark, and the darkness collapsed upon itself. He tried again, and Dalamar let him, a cat toying with a mouse. The collapsing darkness before Tramd shifted, changed, magic still struggling. Fear and rage both battled in him, giving him a mad look.

Laughing, Dalamar let fly his bolt. It sizzled on the air, and the darkness before Tramd coalesced at last, turning to something black as obsidian, strong as steel. The bolt hit, exploding into a burst of blinding light.

The sting of ozone hung in the air. Dalamar filled up his lungs with the smell, and he filled up his hands again with power and magic. He hurled no bolt now but fistfuls of energy, the stuff of which lightning is born. He flung these bright weapons, one after another. Tramd's magic trembled and it wavered. The dwarf turned as his shield collapsed. Three more balls of energy Dalamar threw, and in the exact moment he did, Tramd lifted his hands in one last spell.

Nothing happened, and then all the killing power Dalamar had flung turned back on him in a wave of energy like an ocean's wave. Crested red as the sea-waves are crested white, it surged back, screaming on the air and not to be turned.

Strangely still and numb to pain or fear, Dalamar thought, There is my death.

A hand grabbed his ankle, tumbling him. He fell, hit stone, then something soft and yielding. Regene! He scrambled aside, dragging Regene with him, and rolled until he hit a stone wall. The wave passed over him, burning and clawing at his skin, bearing down on his chest.

Gray and sweating, the dwarf lifted a hand, that hand trembling, and it had no magic in it, but it did have a dagger. Sunlight gleamed on the blade, glinting as it swooped down, hungry for blood.

Regene coughed, and on the coughing, she rose, not swiftly, not strongly, but in time. Like silver streaking, like the silver hand of her own god descending, the shining blade cut the air, cut into the breast of Regene of Schallsea. Dalamar's hand shot up, clamping round the wrist of the dwarf mage. He snapped bone, and the avatar screamed. The knife fell from his hand and Dalamar snatched it up. In one swift motion, he lunged to his feet, knife grasped awkwardly in his left hand. He struck an upward blow, a heart-blow. Blood poured out from the breast of the avatar, spilling over Dalamar's hand onto Regene's ruined robes.

"Go!" she whispered, her sapphire eyes dimming, her face livid in the sunlight streaming in from the windows. Dying, she said, "Find the mage-"

Dalamar ran swiftly down long corridors until he found what he sought, the guarded door and clutch of dwarf soldiers outside. There were four, but he didn't care. He tore through them like a storm. Turning their weapons to slag, he killed one of them with only a glance. Two more rushed him, and these he reduced to ash as though their living flesh and bone were no more than the clay of which Tramd o' the Dark made his avatars. The fourth did not stay. He fled and got no farther than the stairwell before he met the fate of his fellows.

Servants cried out, but none on this floor. Dalamar heard them, men and women, and they shouted in several languages. Some were human, others dwarves, one or two were even elves. Servants and slaves, the staff of the Citadel of Night made up with the captives from Tramd's forays in war.

The door would not be locked; he knew it instinctively. What man lying on his sick bed manages that? What man so helpless forbids entry to the servants who will feed, clothe, and clean him? None.

Dalamar opened the door and entered into a bedchamber hung with satins and draped in silks. All around him he saw the booty of a man who had wandered far in war- silver-hinged chests from the North Keep in Nordmaar, tapestries from the halls of the wealthy in Palanthas. From Zhakar he'd stolen silver statuary and golden plate. From Kernen in Kern he had paintings. From Thelgaard Keep he had shields and lances, axes and swords. He didn't seem to have cared much about order. The stolen treasures lay all around, as though in a museum's vast storeroom.

Neither could Tramd see what treasure he had. He lay upon a bed of silk and satin, eyeless, his ruined body reeking, his limbs covered in scabrous flesh. His head tossed weakly, one side to another. Some time in the morning, servants must have lit incense and perfumed the air with oils. The incense was ash now, the oils not enough to cover the stench in the bedchamber of this mage who had fared so ruinously in his Tests of High Sorcery. Not even the breeze blowing in from the sea could do more than stir the stench.

"I see you, Tramd," Dalamar said, standing as near as he must and not minding the reek. "I see you."

The dwarf's head rolled from side to side, a blind man trying to place the speaker. His body quivered, but that was the trembling of his illness, not the will acting on muscle. Scabbed lips parted, and a line of spittle ran down this thin, patchy beard. He groaned, and the sound he made might have been a word. It might not have been. He had used his avatar's body in magic, but he had used his own strength as well.

Dalamar looked around and plucked a weapon from the wall, an axe with a fine, honed blade. He walked to the bed, his shadow on the dwarf.

"Do you feel me near, dwarf?"

The mage on the bed moaned. Silk coverings rustled. He could do no more.

"Now I think it a shame that you cannot see me. I think it a pity that you won't be able to look into my eyes when I kill you."

Outside in the corridor voices gathered, whispering. Servants had come, and soldiers, but no one ventured to cross the threshold. Softly, the hinges on the door creaked. Slowly, someone drew it closed. He had not been beloved, the master of this fortress. No one would interfere here. No one would challenge the mage who had come to kill their master.

Wind sighed across the window sill. The sea rushed to the shore far below and rushed out again. Somewhere a dragon's corpse floated, turning up, belly to the sky. Gulls would feed on that corpse, and sooner or later the sea would soften what even swords could not hurt. Then the gulls and fishes would pry the scales from the belly and pry the flesh from the bones.

"I will tell you," Dalamar said to the dying man on the bed, "what you have so dearly wanted to know. I have come to kill you, Tramd, and it will be my personal pleasure. You killed many good men and women in the battle for Silvanesti."

He stopped, watching the dwarf groan, watching his cracked lips bleed with his effort at speech. Standing there, Dalamar heard the forest burning. He heard the Wildrunners shouting. He heard a dragon dying, and the last prayer of a cleric who had put all his faith in gods who did not seem to know or care. Sunlight ran on the honed edge of the axe's blade, sliding down the curve as Dalamar shifted it from hand to hand.

"I have come in the name of Ladonna of the Tower of High Sorcery. I have come in the name of those who revere the High Art, the gift of the three magical children. I have come in my own name, Tramd Stonestrike, to remove you from the ranks of Her Dark Majesty's servants. There will be Light," he said, "and there will be Dark."

He lifted the axe higher, right over his head.

The dwarf heard the lifting, the sigh of air on the blade. He groaned and found a word. "No," he sobbed, "no."

"Yes," said Dalamar, very gently. "Yes."

He let fall the axe, a headsman, an executioner come to avenge early deaths and late.

"Yes," he said to the dead man. "There will be balance."

Dalamar put back the axe, the blood still running. He rolled the corpse to the floor and snatched up a sheet from the bed. With the silk he wrapped up the head, the eyes still staring, the ruined mouth still gaping.

"My lord," said one, a human woman, bowing to him as she spoke. "What is your will?"

He looked at her, and she cringed from his glare. "Go," he said, and he didn't care if she took the word to mean she must leave him alone or she must go out from the citadel and never come back. They made, servants and soldiers, the choice they had wanted to make for long years. They fled.

Dalamar didn't watch them. Their running footsteps meant nothing to him. He carried the head of Tramd o' the Dark, wrapped in bloody silk, back to the chamber where he had left Regene. She lay dead, her blue eyes wide, her lips a little parted. He knelt beside her, brushed her dark hair from her face, and he closed her eyes. He stayed that way for a time, listening to people flee the castle. Then he lifted her in his arms, took up the proof of the dwarf mage's death, and spoke a word of magic.

The floor fell away. The walls fell away. In the grip of the transport spell, Dalamar Nightson shouted, and this time he didn't cry a spell. This time he shouted a curse.

Out on the ocean, as far as the rim of the Blood Sea of Istar, sailors pointed north and they pointed east. A great fire burned on the Worldscap Mountains on Karthay. The flames of it reached as high as the tallest peak, then higher still. The smoke of the burning roiled out over the sea, darkening the day to dusk.