Emptiness. Never to be filled, and even the weeping of gods did cease…
And he stood again upon the threshold of the chamber whose door presented a knob like a grinning silver skull. He saw a mage standing in the shadows, dark-robed, his face hidden, his eyes not even two gleams of light in that darkness.
"Come," said the mage, his voice a strange, dry whisper.
"Shalafi," whispered Dalamar, the image in the mirrors, the man in the circle. "Master," he said, as a student to his teacher. But what teacher, where? And in the mirrors five small marks, spaced as though they were the prints of all the fingers of a man's spread hand, appeared upon the breast of each image of Dalamar. Dark they were, then they were red, and the red ran slowly, like blood dripping down.
A man screamed, and then no one screamed. Then there was only darkness, and the touch of cold platinum round his ankles, the chain come so close now that it did begin to bind him, circling him around and around, the links piling up and climbing to his knees as a line of light opened in the darkness behind.
"And so you see," whispered a voice, that of Caylain the cleric. "And so you see what road you will travel, Dalamar Argent. A road of blood and darkness."
So he had seen, and though it seemed only an instant in passing, these visions had flowed over him, around him, and through him for twelve hours. His leaden limbs knew that, his knees shaking with exhaustion, his belly growling with hunger. His throat, dry as a desert, knew that.
Dalamar lifted his head, and his eyes still filled with visions of emptiness, of blood and wounding and the mage whose face was lost in darkness. "I have seen," he said, his voice thick and ragged.
They shuddered to hear him, the simplicity of his words, the starkness of his thirst-ravaged voice. They shuddered, and they looked to each other, taking his pain as confirmation of his guilt.
Aye, well. There was surely pain-all the pain of standing within this temple, this hall of white gods, flowing into him from the tiles. It rose up from the floor through his feet. It ran into his arms, and from the ceiling it rained down like fire.
"I am yours," he said to the pain and the darkness yet to befall. For there would be more, and soon. This Ceremony of Darkness was not nearly done. "I am yours," he said to the god no one here dared name. He smiled, not with joy and certainly not for mirth. He smiled, though, and he did so because he had chosen his path. He who had been allowed to choose nothing in all his life, whose days were ordered by custom and traditions forged by a king long dead, he chose his path. "Nuitari…"
Caylain shuddered, and in that moment others came into the chamber, their faces white in the shadowed hoods of their cloaks. Porthios came, and Alhana whose eyes were cold as stone, whose face was set in an unyielding expression of disdain. A chill struck Dalamar, hard to the heart. She was, this princess, the embodiment of the land. She looked upon him now as though she did not see him, as though he were not standing before her. As Lord Konnal led a small troop of Wildrunners into the chamber, Alhana Starbreeze turned her face from Dalamar, from the dark elf, and walked away. The land forsook him.
It was the first moment of his exile.
Chapter 13
"Dark elf," they called him, the name of an exile, the name of one who has fallen from the light and the kindred of Silvanos. Dark elf. The name sat on Dalamar's heart like ice, cold and creeping, dragging numbness through his very blood.
Through gray, raining woodlands they took him, until they came to the banks of the Thon-Thalas, the river that would run swiftly to the sea and bring him out of Silvanesti, out of the company of elves. They would rather have marched him through the forest, hands bound, feet hobbled, face hidden behind a dark cowl. In other times, in better times, they would have done that, crying his crime to all they passed, farmers and villagers, boatmen and potters and princes. "Here is a dark mage! Here is a criminal of the worst order! Look away from Dalamar Argent! Never speak his name again! Forbid him the forest if ever you see him! He is dead to us! Here is a dark mage! Here is a criminal…!"
But they could not parade him through the aspenwood, not here in the ruined kingdom. They could only shout to the green dragons out in the wilderness. What did the dragons care? Still, they shouted. Ritual demanded it. Form must be filled. They made the best of their Ceremony of Darkness that they could without the traditional accoutrements.
On the barren grounds of the Tower of the Stars, Lord Konnal read from a newly inscribed parchment, detailing Dalamar's crime in a voice that echoed and re-echoed from the empty stone towers of the city. "He has worshiped falsely, cleaving to evil gods! He has made dark magics and done evil deeds! He has turned from the Light!"
That done, he passed the scroll to Caylain. This record would be entered into the libraries of House Cleric, where his name would be stricken from all documents that held it. Any mention made of him in the houses where he'd served would vanish. All record that he had studied in House Mystic would be erased. Only his birth record would remain, and it would be copied over to the secret tomes kept in the Temple of E'li where the names of dark elves were kept. Then, even his birth record would vanish. He would not exist in the annals of his people. His homeland would never hear his name spoken, or ever feel the tread of his feet upon its soil.
While the rain dripped down and mist moved in sickly green waves, Alhana Starbreeze judged Dalamar guilty of crimes of magic, and she declaimed his sentence of exile to all gathered.
"He has turned from the Light," she cried in a firm, clear voice, "and the Light will turn from him." Her eyes cold as ice, she lifted her head and looked him full in the face. "Be gone from us, Dalamar Argent. Never come here again, and never seek to hear your name upon the lips of any of the Children of Silvanos."
In the eyes of Porthios, of Alhana and Konnal, upon the faces of all present, Dalamar saw this: He was dead to them, less than a ghost. And it felt as if he were, for it seemed no blood ran in him to warm. It seemed his heart had stopped its beating.
In the ruined land, they had no cleric but Caylain to bless the Dark Escort in the name of E'li, those charged with removing the dark elf from the precincts of Light, from Silvanesti. And even that escort was not so thick with Wildrunners as tradition wished it could be. Of mages there were some, those who had warded the little skiff from the spells of green dragons on the trip up the Thon-Thalas to Silvanost. This work they would do again, for the journey downriver would be just as dangerous.
No one looked at Dalamar as he was loaded into the skiff. Loaded, yes, for he could hardly walk, and his hands were not free to help him balance. He hit the hard bottom of the boat on his knees, then fell over onto his side. Rain, falling heavier now, slid down his face, almost like tears, but he did not weep. Instead he lay in silence, cold and shivering, his body wracked with pain that came from no physical wounds. Nothing he endured in the Temple of E'li as he'd waited his Ceremony of Darkness felt like this. Nothing he'd seen in the Circle of Darkness had given him to know he would feel pain like this.
Something is being cut out from me, he thought. I am being cut out from something. And this, he knew, was not like leaving Silvanesti for Silvamori. This was different. Here, at the start of this journey, lay no hope for return.
Ah gods. Ah, gods…
Had the risk been worth the fee? He did not know. Now, here, he did not know.
The skiff rocked on the water, moving swiftly downriver as the Wildrunners took long and powerful strokes on the oars. It was as though they could not wait to cast out the dark elf from their company. No one touched him. No one stood near. And the river flowed down to the sea, running, while fore and aft of the skiff Wildrunners shouted his crime to dragons, calling his name and bidding all who heard to never speak it again.