Burnished platinum mirrors hung upon the walls and even upon the door. These shone dully in the dim light that sifted down from the ceiling. By this light he saw himself in hazy reflection: a tall young elf, straight-backed, shoulders braced, head high. Not the least suggestion of dismay marked his face or dimmed his clear eyes as the Council of Truth-Alhana Starbreeze, Porthios of the Qualinesti, Lord Konnal, and the cleric Caylain-came to stand outside the circle. It fell to the cleric to speak.
"Dalamar Argent," she said, her voice dry as the rattle of naked branches, "hear the judgment that has been passed."
Alhana's hands clenched and unclenched; the pulse at the base of her neck jumped. Dalamar saw this in the mirrors. She looked like a woman standing in the halls of an ancient crypt where the souls of the dead do not rest easily. Porthios took a small step toward her, a side-step no one saw except Dalamar.
"This is what will be," Caylain said, and if her voice did not tremble, her hand certainly did as it absently smoothed creases from her white robe. "You will stand within this circle for the space of twelve hours. You will stand alone, and things will be shown to you, things of which I cannot warn you, for they are things I do not know."
These were the words of ritual now, not Caylain's own.
"As the images emerge, a thing will happen," said Caylain, "or a thing will not happen. In accordance with your guilt or innocence, the chain will move to bind you, or it will lie still and leave you free."
There was no doubt in the eyes of any how the platinum chain would behave. But forms must be honored, so it is among elves. Forms must be honored, even when they made no sense to the moment.
"May the gods preserve you," Caylain murmured.
Yet another form. No one in the chamber believed for an instant that any god they prayed to would preserve him. Caylain turned and walked out from the room, the hem of her robe whispering to the floor, her pale hands folded tightly. Lord Konnal followed, and Alhana after him with Porthios at her side, matching her step for step. Only the Qualinesti looked at Dalamar, his swift glance seen in reflection, perhaps thought secret. It was the glance of a warrior who wonders how well the courage of a man will stand him in his steepest test.
Well enough, said Dalamar's wry smile. Well enough, and you need not wonder.
Porthios's eyes flashed suddenly, the prince unhappy to have his thoughts so easily read, so ironically answered. Then he, too, no longer looked at the prisoner within the platinum circle. He walked from the chamber, his hand at the small of Alhana's back, guiding her as men politely guide women, in courtesy.
Alone, alone, Dalamar stood. In his belly fear sat, hard and cold and leeching poison. What road had he chosen, what road in the darkness would he walk?
Then came the ghosts, each reflected in mirrors, first hazily, then more clearly, marching to the sound of a platinum chain creeping ever closer, scraping upon the floor. Each phantom had his face. All the ghosts were him.
Ghost-Dalamar walked in wilderness, in foreign lands where the people did not know his name. He wandered the streets of fabled cities, and he was shunned. He walked in darkness, alone as only an elf can understand, and it seemed to him that his heart had broken long ago. Only lifeless shards rattled around in his breast now. He saw his name vanish from all the records of the Silvanesti. He saw himself un-made, and he heard his name in the mouths of humans, dwarves, kender, and others. Lord Dalamar! "Lord," they said, the title spoken in awe, sometimes with respect. In the mouths of many of them his name was the same as another word for fear.
He smiled to see that. Even as he did, the ghostly images swayed, sliding on the platinum, shifting in the mirrors, unforming and forming again.
Dalamar saw three mages, three with their heads together, talking or arguing. One was an old man in white robes, another a beautiful silver-haired woman in dark. The third was a limping man in his middle years, and he wore red. They turned from their talking and looked at him, their faces on all sides of him and behind, their eyes glittering with fierce knowledge, with slashing ambition, with stern commitment. Even in this vision Dalamar felt the weight of their regard, knowing that weight had crushed some, but not knowing whether or not it would crush him. He did not flinch, though he knew many others had, and in his heart rang these words, this greeting to the three: "I have nothing to lose." The three looked at one another, and the wizardess in the dark robes said to her companions that these were the words of the truly free.
Again the vision shifted, and now Dalamar saw himself standing upon a threshold. Before him was a door beyond which only darkness lay, a maelstrom of ambition, a storm of hatred and longing and power so deep and strong that the foundations of the world did shake to support it. He put his hand upon the skull-shaped doorknob and pushed.
The images in the mirrors flowed again, slowly now, like thick blood running. Dalamar saw himself standing with two other mages, a man in white robes and a woman wearing red.
"Are you ready?" asked the red-robed woman. She looked at him with a lover's eyes, and he read desperation and a hopeless fear in there.
The vision flowed faster now, running like a river in spate, racing, whirling, swirling all around him. If he could have moved, Dalamar would have turned from it. Yet had he done that, the vision would have followed.
Fire rose up out of the ocean. A hole gaped wide in the sea that he somehow knew for the Turbidus Ocean. Darkness, bred of rage, flowed out from that fiery rift and all around the clash of battle thundered, the screams of the dying, the rage of dragons, illuminated by fire and the battle-light flashing from swords. Someone screamed. It was he! And all the blood was running out of him even as eyes so terrible he dared not meet their glance raked him, tearing flesh from his bones, clawing to find something in him-his soul. Takhisis, he thought, for her name is the name of terror. A voice like the howling in a madman's mind shrieked in laughter.
Not she! The faithless whore! Not she!
And still the terrible eyes tore at him, peeling him layer by layer, skin from muscle, muscle from bone, soul from body. Ah, Nuitari! Shield me-
Never he! The serpent-son! Never he!
All the world fell away, even as the body fell from his soul. He saw now only insanity, destruction, no light, no darkness, nothing but ravening and annihilation, madness feeding on madness and rage upon rage like wolves turning upon each other. Towers tumbled and cities burned around him. Pledges came undone. Oaths unraveled. In all lands, among all kindred, brothers turned upon brothers, sons murdered their fathers, mothers their daughters. Children cut their teeth on the sword's blade and played with daggers in the cradle, while disease ran like fire, and fire ate stone. Stone rained down like stars falling out of the sky and gods ran screaming, wailing in midnight places. There was no evil now, no good. There was not that slender path between the poles upon which red-robed mages so carefully trod. There was only the maw of destruction that understood nothing of the balance of life and death, the eternal struggle between light and dark.
All this Dalamar saw in those terrible, devouring eyes, all this and more… and worse.
He saw his soul, and it lay in the clawed hand of that father of emptiness. About him fluttered something small and dully gleaming, something light as parchment and empty, empty with no magic in it or anything to love. It was the soul of a man whose touch made no mark in the world, the soul of a useless man, a helpless man. Emptiness drained the life out of this effectless soul as it drained out the life of the world.