Betrayal

Chapter Twenty-One Raistlin’s Gift

“Now where do we go, old woman?” The draconian stood at the bottom of the staircase. Three narrow, circular tunnels led away from him. Each was lit by flickering, smokeless torches. They caused shadows to dance so wildly across the stonework that it looked as if the tunnels writhed like serpents. “Which of these paths do we follow?” Maab tossed her globe of light into the air and blew it out as one might extinguish a candle. “Oh yes, dear sister. I know it was the dwarves,” she stated smugly. “Very able dwarves.” Staring at the mirror that Dhamon held, she put her ear a few inches from it. “What’s that you say? Yes. Yes. I know that, too. The dwarves built this castle and the rooms beneath it. More below ground than above. Good dwarven masonry. The best we could buy!”

She snickered. “Yes, dear sister, I remember that it was your idea. They built these secret tunnels too. These that our new friends see—and more they can’t and never will.”

“Why?” Dhamon found himself asking.

“Why all the tunnels?” She cocked her head.

Dhamon meant why such an inordinate amount of space. He suspected this place was as large or larger than the Tower of Wayreth, in which Palin Majere sometimes resided. But he nodded yes to her question.

“We wanted the tunnels in the event our enemies came to our castle and took it over. Centuries past…”

Centuries! Dhamon thought. Perhaps she was as old as Maldred’s tales hinted.

“… long centuries past, perhaps still today, there are those who hate us Black Robes. Hate us because of our power. It’s envy, really. No sorcerers are as powerful as the Black Robes. My sister and I wanted the tunnels so we could move about undiscovered. Watching the trespassers, striking when we wanted. Escaping if we had to. One of the tunnels, I won’t tell you which one, extends well beyond this town. Miles.”

The sivak let out an exasperated sigh. “Your enemies have taken over your castle, old woman. There are spawn everywhere. Draconians, too. Sometimes the black dragon’s agents crawl through this city.”

She waggled a bony finger at him, dropping her voice to a whisper. “I know precisely what is in my castle, you insolent creature. I can scry every inch of it when I’ve a mind to, every inch of this rotting town for that matter. That is exactly my point. Our enemies do not know about all of these tunnels and cannot find us here. No one alive knows about all of these tunnels.”

Dhamon chuckled. “Dwarves live a long time, Maab. The ones who built this place might still remember where all the tunnels are. You forget about them.”

She gave him a malevolent smile. “Not the ones who built this castle. They didn’t live a long time. My dear sister killed every last one of those handy dwarves so they would not tell others the secrets of our home.”

“What about us then?” A shiver ran down Dhamon’s spine. He started to say something else, but the sivak was faster.

“I am losing my patience,” Ragh said. “I want the naga more than Dhamon wants his cure. If the cure you claim you can deliver is not fast in coming, I’ll leave the two of you and wait above for her arrival.”

“Three of us,” Maab huffed. “Testy beast.”

“Which way do I go?” Ragh repeated. “Which way to your books and powders and this nonsense of a cure Dhamon is driven to pursue?”

She waggled her finger again. “To the left. Our laboratory is at the very end of the tunnel. Now move, creature. It is damp down here, and that is bad on these old bones. Besides, my sister misses our cozy chamber far above. She is hungry for a plump rat.”

The sivak made a grumbling sound, taking the passage Maab had indicated, moving sideways at times when it narrowed. After several hundred yards—well beyond the boundaries of the building above—the tunnel widened, but the ceiling lowered and he had to crouch to keep moving. The air was fresh here, as it had been in Maab’s room, and the hint of spring wildflowers was present. Dhamon wondered if the old woman brought the air and the smell with her, not wanting to breathe the stale stuff that would otherwise fill this dank place.

He followed close behind Ragh, mirror tilted for Maab’s benefit. He noted that the tunnels were lit by the smokeless torches, which gave off no smell and no indication that the fire was consuming the wood. He moved faster, bumping into Ragh’s leathery spawn wings.

“Hurry,” he told the draconian. The scale on his leg was warming again, and he knew that soon the painful sensations would become insufferable.

Ragh growled and increased his pace, still keeping a grip on Dhamon’s sword. “Old woman,” he said as he neared the end of the tunnel and passed by a torch that was held in the top of a wolf’s snout. “If you and your sister are such powerful sorceresses—”

“We are among the most powerful of the few Black Robes still alive in Ansalon. My sister claims we are the most powerful. She says that not even Dalamar or—”

“Why didn’t you simply snap your fingers and banish all of these spawn and draconians from your castle? From this town? Then we wouldn’t have to squeeze ourselves through these damn tunnels.”

She giggled. “Creature, we are old, my dear sister and I. Wisely, we have no desire to leave our home. These… spawn… as you call them, give us something interesting to watch. The smallest of them catch juicy mice that our servants bring to us. My sister likes to listen to the screams of the prisoners they sometimes torture in the other chambers beneath our home. The screams are music to her. She especially likes it when the creatures make… more spawn…of some of the men. The sounds that come to us then are…” She paused until she’d decided on the words. “They are unsettling and most pleasant. Interesting.”

The sivak sadly shook his head.

“Besides, they have left us alone. I slew the handful who bothered me, and the rest keep their distance.”

“This tunnel is a dead end,” Ragh snapped. “We will have to turn around and try another way.”

“Creature, you are blind.”

Maab squeezed by Dhamon, who pivoted so she could still glance into the mirror if she wanted. His fingers clenched the beveled edges, steeling himself against the pain that he was certain would get worse. A stab of icy cold shot upward from the scale and into his chest. It had been a long time since the scale had pained him twice in a single day.

“Why now?” he hissed.

She touched something on the wall and shuffled toward the sivak. Ragh pressed his back against the wall and snarled as she squeezed by. She prodded the stones at the end of the tunnel until she found one that was softer and pressed on it. A thin section of the wall swung open, and she walked through, drawing her moth-eaten cloak tight around her, calling for her sister to come along. The room beyond was filled with shadows that fled to the far corners when Maab coaxed another ball of light into her palm. The place was cavernous, but so cluttered that it looked cramped. Shelves upon shelves lined every inch of wall. Resting on them were crumbling books, bone tubes that protected scrolls, and stacks of parchment that looked so fragile they would dissolve if they were touched. Skulls, some of them human, served as bookends. The skull of what must have been a large and impressive minotaur rested on a pedestal toward the center of the room. Preserved animals were posed on other pedestals and scattered on the top shelves. A raven with its decaying wings spread wide stood poised as if to take flight. Lizards, squirrels, and several large rats were caught in time as if they were forever running. A small lynx held a ragged rabbit in its frozen jaws.

Spider webs hung from everything.

The scent of fresh air and wildflowers that seemed to follow the old woman warred with the myriad of odors that lay thick in this room—the rotting animals, mixtures neither Dhamon nor the draconian could put a name too, dried blood, and rotting wood. Moss grew on some of the table legs and on a few of the bookcases. There were patches of slime on the floor, and along a section of the ceiling an ugly gray-green vine tenuously clung.

As the light globe brightened and grew larger, Maab tossed it toward the ceiling, where it hovered and illuminated more of the place. The ceiling, and the patches of the walls that were visible, were filled with the mosaics depicting Black Robe sorcerers in various activities. Directly overhead, a trio of the sorcerers were shown summoning a many-tentacled beast that was partially obscured by the ugly vine.

Tables stood end to end in the middle of the room. Most had beakers and vials and odd-shaped bowls on them, all covered with a thick layer of dust. Others held big jars in which floated brains and various other organs. One held the preserved form of a five-legged piglet, another the head of a young female kender. Beneath some of the tables were large sea chests, blanketed by webs and dust. Shields were propped up against some of the tables. One bore the emblem of the Legion of Steel, two had once belonged to Dark Knights, a fourth had no markings, no trace of dust on it.

“It’s been far too long since we’ve been down here, dear sister,” Maab clucked. “I so miss this place and all of our wondrous things. Perhaps it was good you came along after all, Dhamon. Now, about that cure.”

She shuffled toward the nearest shelves, so caught up in looking through the books that she did not notice Dhamon was not following her closely with the mirror. She plucked one book after another from the shelves as high as she could reach, returning to a slate-topped table and reverently placing them on it. There were some books she couldn’t reach. For these she snapped her bony fingers and beckoned the sivak to retrieve them for her.

“The red one,” she told him. “Not that red one. The one with a spine the color of fresh blood. Yes, that’s it. The color of a red dragon. The three black ones at the top. Precious books. Mind your claws don’t scratch the bindings.”

Rolling his eyes, Ragh did as he was bid. A few of the books were bound in what appeared to be dragonhide. One was covered with charred and preserved human flesh.

“Put them on the table. Now, be a good creature and see that my sister comes over here.”

The draconian growled and headed toward Dhamon.

“Ragh, I…” Dhamon’s voice caught in his throat.

“You can have your sword back,” the sivak told him. “After you set that damned mirror down over by a bookcase so she can see herself.”

The draconian gave Dhamon only a passing glance. He was too absorbed in the contents of the room: a pedestal holding a section of a silver dragon’s egg, a rack at the far end of the room over which was draped part of the skin of a red dragon. He walked past Dhamon and toward a curio cabinet that displayed claws and eyeballs.

“Ragh.”

There was a crash, and the sivak and Maab whirled to see Dhamon lying amid the shattered mirror. He was twitching, his face and hands cut from the glass, his skin pink and feverish.

“No!” Maab wailed. “My sister! He’s chased away my dear sister!”

The old woman fell to her knees and howled. The sound grew so loud and shrill that glass vials shook in their holders. The sivak dropped Dhamon’s sword and threw his hands over his ears, looking behind him for the doorway they had entered through. All he saw were shelves upon shelves of books and artifacts.

The globe of light brightened and changed hue from yellow to orange and now to a red that painted everything with an abyssal glow. The spawn form melted from the sivak, as he could no longer concentrate on retaining it.

The air grew hot and dry, and breathing became very difficult.

“My sister!” Maab screeched. “I am all alone without my sister! You chased her away! Now you’ll die!”

Ragh’s keen hearing picked up other noises, a scrabble of feet above. No doubt whatever was on the street above or in other buildings had overheard the woman’s wail and was moving away from the ominous noise. He heard a vial shatter behind him, then another and another. There was a soft patter of mosaic tiles from the ceiling hitting the shaking floor.

Dhamon moaned.

“The shield,” Dhamon managed. “Show her the shield, Ragh.”

It took a minute for Ragh to realize what Dhamon was talking about and another few minutes for him reach beneath the table and grab the unmarked shield.

Maab’s cloak billowed away from her in a blistering hot wind that had arisen from nowhere. Spider web-fine white hair stood away from a wrinkled face etched in fury. Her eyes were wide and red now, no longer covered with the blue film, and her wail had changed to an indecipherable string of words. Bony fingers twirled madly in the air, illuminated and distorted by the blood-red orb that was still growing against the ceiling.

Ragh fought his way toward her, struggling through air that had become palpable, so thick he felt as if he were being smothered and baked by it.

“Your sister!” the sivak shouted, his hoarse voice somehow reaching the old woman. “I’ve found your sister! Look here!”

Instantly the air thinned and the red globe faded to yellow, then to white again and shrank. The old woman was still shaking, fingers smoothing at her thinning hair, as her ice-blue eyes locked onto the mirror-finish shield that Ragh held in front of him.

“My sister,” she said, breathing with relief. She struggled to her feet and touched the edges of the shield, moving her face this way and that so she could see her reflection more clearly. She pressed her ear close. “What’s that you say, Maab? Oh, you were here all along, I just lost sight of you. Yes, I was wrong to panic. Look at this mess I’ve made. All this glass to clean up. What? Of course we will tend to that young man’s cure first. Come along now.”

The old woman shuffled toward Dhamon, who lay so still he might have been dead.

“Can’t see him breathe,” she muttered. “This trip down here was maybe for nothing.”

“Dhamon is breathing,” the sivak told her. “Barely.”

She waggled her fingers at Ragh and pointed to the table with the slate top. “Put him on that. Mind yourself that you don’t get cut on all that glass.”

The sivak slipped the shield on his right arm and balanced Dhamon over the other shoulder. She kept an eye on her reflection for a moment more, then scurried away, plucking down a few more books and searching through the bone tubes until she found an especially thick one that was blackened on one end.

“Raistlin’s gift to me and my dear sister,” she whispered.

She hurried back to the table, which was long enough that Dhamon was laid out straight on it, her books arranged in a semicircle around his head. As she thumbed through them, the pages flaked at the edges. The thinnest volume, one bound in green dragonskin, was plagued by wormholes.

“The bugs ate too many of the good words,” she said, discarding the book and reaching for another.

“Ah, this one should do.”

The sivak looked over her shoulder. Despite all his years on Krynn, Ragh had never learned to read, but he was curious about what she was doing. She elbowed him away, making sure she could still see her reflection.

“You must help Dhamon,” Ragh entreated.

“Compassion for a human. Odd in your kind.”

“I don’t care a wit for him,” the sivak shot back. “I just want him cured. I am certain he will help me slay the naga. Nura Bint-Drax. You will tell me about her after you are finished, yes?”

“And if for some reason I can’t help your friend?” Maab wondered aloud.

“I will take his sword and find her, fight her alone. Maybe that is what I should be doing now anyway. Tell me what you know about Nura Bint-Drax.”

She shook her head. Her hair floated like a halo. “One creature against the naga that slithers through the dragon’s swamp? You haven’t a prayer, beast. No. I’ll not tell you now. Maybe I won’t tell you ever. You have nothing to pay us.”

The sivak propped the shield against a bookcase, angled toward the old woman so she could glance at it.

“Then I’ll die trying to find and slay her.”

“You exist for revenge,” she cackled lightly. “My sister says life has little meaning to a sivak without wings. Is she right?”

For the next few hours Ragh dozed lightly as Maab continued to page through the books, making notes in the air with her fingers and mumbling softly in an odd language. When he woke she was standing on one of the old sea chests, though she shouldn’t have been able to tug it from beneath the table given her size and age. Several small ceramic bowls were lined up by Dhamon’s side, each filled with a different colored powder. One was filled with what looked on first inspection, to be beads but that revealed themselves to the sivak as tiny lizard eyes. There was a small jar filled with a viscous green liquid and near it the curled foot of a raven. The draconian shook his head. Long ago he had decided that the trappings of a wizard were unfathomable. He watched her arrange the materials, consult a few pages that had fallen out of a book, then look over her shoulder at the shield.

“We are ready, sister.” To the draconian, she added, “You’ll have to rip his leggings for me. I don’t have much strength in my hands any more.”

The sivak did not reply but slid a talon along the fabric and tore it from ankle to hip, revealing Dhamon’s scales.

“Looks black to me,” Maab said. She was looking at her reflection in the scales. “From a black dragon.”

“It was from a red dragon.”

“I heard you—and him—the first time,” she said. “Mad, the both of you are. Still, it doesn’t matter what color the dragon was. This should do it.” She let out a deep sigh, like fall leaves chasing each other across the dry ground.

“Magic was so easy before. You could so easily see the energy in the air, in the ground, feel it wrap around you like a blanket at night. Not much left anymore, my dear sister, but with Raistlin’s gift we might find just enough to help this young man. Mind, we will charge him exorbitantly for our services.”

The sivak stepped back, watching as she poured one powder after the next over Dhamon’s leg, mumbling the entire time. She paused, took a handful of the lizard eyes, and popped them in her mouth before continuing with her ritual until not an inch of skin or scale could be seen beneath the colorful mixture.

“Exorbitantly,” she cackled, as she reached for the pages and began reading, the paper magically dissolving as she went. When there was nothing left of it, she snatched up the bone tube and thumbed the end off, tilting it so something slid into her palm. The sivak stared at it. The thing was a hunk of jade the size of a large plum, carved in the shape of a frog. Its eyes were holes through which a leather thong was strung. She put it over her head, and it dangled down almost to her waist. The sivak moved around to the other side of the table for a better look.

Maab was talking again, rapidly, only a few words of which were discernible: Lunitari, Solinari, Nuitari, the moons no longer present in Krynn’s skies; Black Robes; Malys; Sable; and names that meant nothing to the sivak. As she continued to prattle, the frog on her neck pulsed as if it was breathing. As the sivak stared, he saw its legs move, its head swivel. The jade carving’s mouth opened and bit through Maab’s robe until it had made a hole. It burrowed through it and into her skin, disappearing inside of her, leaving behind only the dangling leather thong. Within seconds, the wound made by the object healed over and the fabric magically mended itself.

“I feel the magic deep in my belly,” she murmured. “It moves to my heart.”

Beneath the old woman’s hands, Dhamon began to stir.

“I feel power in Raistlin’s gift. Already some of the dragon-poison is leaving your friend, moving far away.”

Dhamon’s body was on the table, but his mind was far away from this underground wizard’s laboratory and far from this town. He saw himself in a forest south of Palanthas, fighting a Knight of Takhisis—and he was winning. Several Knights lay around him, slain by him and his companions. One man was the only enemy remaining. Dhamon’s heart pumped with the exhilaration of battle, and his swings were precise, honed from years in the Dark Knights and then under the tutelage of an old Solamnic-who had saved his life. A few strokes more and he severely wounded the man. A minute later and he knelt at the dying man’s side. Dhamon held his enemy’s hand and offered comfort during those last breaths of life. He was rewarded when his enemy tugged a blood-red dragon scale from his chest and thrust it on Dhamon’s thigh. The pain overwhelmed him, while at the same time a dragon filled his vision, red and so powerful that she took control of his mind and body. She let him think he had beaten her for a time, holding herself in the back of his mind, waiting for the right opportunity to reassert herself. That time came when he was in Goldmoon’s presence and the Red ordered him to slay the famed healer. Dhamon almost succeeded, but Rig and Jasper, Feril and others did their best to try to stop him—and succeeded.

Other dragons flitted across his feverish mind—a mysterious shadow dragon who pinned Dhamon beneath an immense claw, and a silver dragon. Both worked to break the Red’s control. His mind drifted back to the laboratory, seeming to perch on the ceiling and survey all that was below, including himself.

He watched the mad old woman hover over his body, drawing designs in the powders she had spread on his leg. It was an odd sensation, watching the woman, glancing across this old laboratory, spying the sivak. Dhamon felt pain, not from what she was doing, but from the alternating jolts of hot and cold that speared him. Other images superimposed themselves over Maab—the Knight of Takhisis who cursed him with the scale, Malys, and the shadow dragon, who grew larger and darker. Its body became black, its eyes a dull, glowing yellow. His chest felt tight, as if he were being squeezed in a vise, and his breathing became ragged. He heard a voice intrude on his pain, a hoarse whisper. The sivak.

“Will he live? Will he be cured?”

“Too early to tell,” Maab said. “My spell is not complete, and it has not yet broken through the magic that curses him. See, some of the smaller scales have vanished. Let us hope my sister and I are successful. Let the spell continue. We have decided on a price for our assistance.”

The visions of the shadow dragon and the Red faded, the lab turned to darkness, and Dhamon felt his mind sucked back into a feverish body that could not move. All he saw through closed eyelids was a muted light from the glowing orb on the ceiling. All he heard was his heart pounding in his ears.

Maab sat on the old sea chest next to Dhamon’s table. She stared at the draconian, who sat on the floor and stared back. The frog had returned to its place on the leather thong. Ragh held the sword in front of him, the pommel a little too small to fit comfortably in his hand. He dropped his gaze to the blade and saw part of his visage reflected back at him. “The naga, old woman,” he said. “Nura Bint-Drax. What do you know of her? Do you know where I can find her?”

Several minutes passed before the old woman broke the silence. “I know Nura Bint-Drax. I met the naga years ago, when my sister did not insist that I stay at her side. I found her rude. Too bad that she is expected in town tomorrow. I am certain she is still… bad-mannered.”

“Nura Bint-Drax,” the sivak pressed. “Where can I find her when she returns?”

When Maab would not answer, the sivak made a move toward the wall, selecting a spot between two book cases, Maab sliding off the chest and shuffling after him.

“This is where we came in. I know it.”

“Creature, you are not going anywhere. Your human companion—”

“Yes, I will wait for him,” Ragh said. “Hurry and finish your spell. I grow tired of this. I want his help in slaying the naga. He is surprisingly formidable for a human.”

He felt about on the wall. “Finish the spell, will you?”

“It is almost finished. A few minutes more, and he will be free of all of the scales—even the large one. For sorceresses of my sister’s and my ability, the dragon-magic was not so difficult to counter after all.”

“You can send him out into the hall when it is through.” The draconian’s fingers found a seam.

“I said you’re not going anywhere, beast.”

The sivak turned. Maab was only a few feet away, one bony hand set against her hip, the other gesturing in the air. The nails of two of her fingers glowed a pale green.

“I’ve decided on a price for curing the human—and that price is you. Creature, you’ll make a fine servant. Better than the ones who scurry around my castle. Strong. Smart, judging by the way you talk. The human must relinquish his well-trained pet. My sister likes you—she just told me so. We’ve decided that you are my price for curing Dhamon.”

The glow spread to her other fingers, then her entire hand picked up a sickly green hue that edged up her arm and disappeared into her sleeve.

“I’ll be no one’s slave ever again,” the sivak hissed.

“Sorry, creature. You’ll be mine. It will not be so bad. You can catch my sister big, plump rats.”

Ragh moved so quickly he caught the sorceress off guard, bringing the sword up and around with all of his strength behind it. The sword bit into her neck at the same time the green glow spread from her fingers and toward the sivak. Ragh dropped to a crouch, the blade slicing all the way through and lopping her head from her shoulders. A green haze hung suspended just above his own head and he crawled out from under it.

“I hate sorcerers,” he muttered, as he wiped the blade off on her moth-eaten cloak. “So much so that I won’t take on your form, old woman. Old dead woman. You were not so powerful after all. Just mad.”

The sivak moved to the sea chest and opened it, finding it empty. He stuffed the body and head inside and put the jade frog around his own neck. Hurriedly he cleaned “up the blood, then remembered the shield.

“Dear sister, you might as well keep her company.”

He laid the shield on top of the body and slid the chest beneath Dhamon’s table, then returned to the wall. He was careful not to touch the green haze but tried to find the mechanism that might open the hidden door.

“It feels as if an elephant stepped on my head.”

Ragh whirled to see Dhamon sitting up on the table, clothes and skin streaked with a rainbow of colors from Maab’s mixtures. His face was flushed and shiny, a reminder of his fever, and he looked gaunt from his ordeal. He took a few deep breaths and shook his head, his tangled hair flying away from his face.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like that same elephant also sat on my chest. I’d feel better if you returned my sword.”

He gingerly swung his legs over the edge of the table, knocking a few of Maab’s bowls off and wincing as they crashed loudly on the stone floor. “Still hear better than I should,” he mumbled.

“About the scale…”

Dhamon closed his eyes and let out a deep breath. When he opened them he looked at his leg and began brushing at the colorful powders and sand. They were wet and gritty, and it took some work to remove them.

There was one large scale beneath. The smattering of smaller scales were gone. Dhamon stared at his skin and choked back a sob. “I should have known there is no cure,” he said.

“I should have known.”

“That is why she left… with her sister,” the sivak said. “She feared you would be angry that she could not help you. She said she was hungry for her rats.”

Dhamon prodded his leg. It was tender where the smaller scales had been. “At least she managed something,” he muttered. His breath caught in his throat, and he tipped his head back. “I should have known not to have hoped. This was all wasted. I should have—”

“I am still hoping,” the sivak interrupted, “that as long as we are here in town, we can find and slay Nura Bint-Drax.”

Dhamon slid off the table and strode toward the sivak, hand outstretched. “I want her dead as much as you, but I’m not going after her. I need to find Mal. First we both need to get out of here.”

It was with some reluctance that Ragh relinquished the sword. Dhamon was quick to sheathe it.

“Let’s see if we can find our way up to the street. I wonder how late it is?”

Dhamon looked around the room, noting a fading green haze and the globe of light on the ceiling that was becoming dimmer and freeing the shadows from their corners. Dhamon walked past the sivak and to a gap between bookcases. His fingers prodded the bricks until he found one that moved. The wall swung open, and he stepped into the narrow corridor beyond. He glanced back at Ragh. “Coming?”