Dhamon looked around the room again. He saw none of the tools she mentioned. “Where are these powders and books?”
With considerable effort she eased herself off the stool again. “Downstairs.” She padded toward the doorway, waving a gnarled hand at the sivak, as if dismissing him. “Deep downstairs. My sister knows the way” She turned, not able to see herself in the mirror, looking panicked and clutching her hands to her chest, then shuffled back to where she could see the mirror. She relaxed.
“So sorry. We cannot help you after all, young man. My sister doesn’t want to leave our room today. She is not, feeling so well. Come back tomorrow and see if she feels better.”
Dhamon growled. “You don’t have a sister, old woman.”
She looked hurt and her shoulders folded inward even more. “You insult us.”
“It’s a mirror,” he said. “It’s nothing but a damn mirror, and you’re looking at your reflection. You’re all alone here. You have no sister.” And you are no sorceress or healer and this was all a wasted trip, he added to himself.
She shook her head. “Young man, I feel sorry for you. To have walked so few years on this world and to be plunged so far into madness as you are! How can you enjoy life in your state? Indeed, I believe you have entirely lost your mind.” She raised a bony finger and shook it at him. “My sister and I can cure your scale and your insanity—a simple matter for us, though admittedly the madness is a tougher feat to purge. We might not be able to cure you of that.”
She crossed her arms, keeping her eyes on her reflection. “But we cannot help you today if my sister refuses to budge from the room. She is quite stubborn. Always has been. Worse now that she is older. Come back tomorrow or the day after. Perhaps she will be persuaded to leave this room then.”
Dhamon closed his eyes and let out a deep breath. He took a step toward the mirror and raised his fist to smash it but found he couldn’t move.
“Don’t you dare threaten my sister,” Maab warned. “I would be forced to slay you. That would end your problem with the black dragon scale, wouldn’t it?”
His chest felt tight, as if all the air had been sucked from the room. A wave of dizziness struck him like a hammer. After a moment, he was released from the spell. He dropped his hand to rub at his throat, taking in great gulps of the fetid air.
“There, that’s better,” she said. “As I said, come back tomorrow, and we’ll see if my sister feels like traveling.”
“No.” Dhamon moved to stand in front of the old woman. “I will not come back tomorrow. I need your help now.”
She shook her head. “So sorry.”
He felt the air growing thin.
The sivak tapped at the door frame. “We should leave, Dhamon.”
What am I doing here? Dhamon thought, feeling dizzy again.
“My sister is not so powerful as I, but she is handy in the laboratory,” Maab continued. “I cannot help you without her. Besides, you are rude, and perhaps I should not help at all.”
Dhamon ran his fingers through his hair. What if she really is powerful enough to help?
“Let me see if I can get your sister to come along with us. I can be quite persuasive.”
He walked to the mirror slowly so Maab wouldn’t think him a threat. His fingers quickly worked at the fastenings that held the mirror in place. After a moment, he carefully tugged the mirror off the wall. He held it in front of him so Maab could see her reflection. As she moved toward the door this time, Dhamon walked alongside her.
“Dear sister, too bad this mad young man hasn’t come by before to coax you from our room. I would’ve liked to have taken a stroll before now.”
They worked their way back along the twisting corridor, the sivak leading the way and Dhamon, holding the mirror, walking just ahead of Maab.
“I hope this isn’t a fine dose of foolishness,” Dhamon whispered, grateful that Maab seemed to be hard of hearing. “I hope she really is my cure.”
Several minutes later they found themselves at the bottom of the narrow stairway. The draconian’s arms and shoulders had fresh wounds from scraping against the walls.
“My sister thinks you should have that looked to,” Maab told Ragh. “Not that we would help.” She turned up her nose. “We will not treat your kind.”
“What I would love is to kill Nura Bint-Drax when she arrives in this town,” the sivak hissed.
“We do not like your pet, young man,” Maab scolded. “My sister thinks you should keep it outside where it will not soil the floor.”
They passed by the closet where Dhamon and the sivak had hid, and Maab insisted on stopping to get a warmer cloak. “It is cold and damp very far downstairs,” she said. Dhamon managed to open the door while still keeping the mirror trained on the old woman. The grumbling sivak pulled down one rotting cloak after the next until Maab was satisfied with one made of black wool.
Dhamon tried to pass the mirror to the draconian, but Ragh, eyes filled with venom, refused to carry it. However, the draconian was quick to tug the long sword from Dhamon’s sheath.
“I know how to use blades well,” the sivak stated, “and they have a longer reach than what are left of my claws.”
Dhamon returned the draconian’s narrow stare, but made no move to protest. He knew he couldn’t hold the mirror and the sword.
Again the sivak took the lead, slaying a spawn that was trundling up the stairs and again taking on the sleek black form.
“It is a most amazing pet you have,” Maab observed. “Reminds my sister and me of Takhisis’s children, the sivak draconians. They are able to do such deadly and wondrous things. They have beautiful forms, and they have beautiful wings and can fly.”
The sivak hissed, gesturing down the staircase. “Is this the way to your books, old woman?”
She shook her head, looking at her reflection in the mirror. She shuffled to the wall opposite the stairway. She poked one stone after the next until a section of the wall spun around, revealing a staircase nearly as narrow as the one that had led to her room.
“Too dark,” she complained. A twirl of her fingers, however, remedied that. A globe of pale rosecolored light appeared in the palm of her hand. Dhamon stared. He remembered Palin Majere casting a similar spell when they were in the great blue dragon’s desert.
“My sister knows the way better than I. She says follow these stairs to the very bottom.”
Ragh paused, rubbing a clawed hand across its chin and looking decidedly unhappy about scraping his shoulders raw again. “Does your sister know anything of Nura Bint-Drax, the naga who is coming here in the next few days?”
Maab shook her head. “Of course not. My sister hates the hideous creatures and pays them no heed.”
The sivak sighed and started down the tight stairwell.
“However, I know a little of Nura Bint-Drax and where she travels,” Maab added. “While my sister is not so interested in such creatures, I make it my business to know what slithers across every inch of this town.”
“Tell me about her,” Ragh said, his voice echoing softly. “Where does she travel?”
“If you are polite to us. After we are done helping your master.”
Dhamon steadied himself against the stairwell, with considerable effort walking sideways, going slowly, matching the old woman’s pace, while holding the mirror so she could watch it. He risked a glance down at the sivak, catching a glint of the sword the creature held high.
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!”