"Save me! Oh, save me!"
The light beneath the door pulsed now, deeply green. Its energy clawed at Dalamar, raising up the hair on his neck, on his arms. Above him, the door that had been a little ajar opened fully.
"Save me! Disaster is near! Don't leave me!"
Green light poured out from the chamber, then went suddenly still and dark. Footfalls sounded softly, and a young elf dressed in white robes came out of the room, a chamber so small it might have been a closet. He had a thing in his hand, something small and round. Torchlight glinted from it as from crystal. One beam of that light struck Dalamar in the eye, and he did not flinch. With great clarity he saw a vision of whirlwind madness, a nightmare of screaming and killing, of trees dying, of woodlands withering. He saw Silvanesti crumble, the towers of Silvanost- even the Tower of the Stars itself!-melt like wax, while a green miasma replaced the air and poisoned all that breathed it. Beasts ran mad, elves died screaming, each man and woman and child of them flung into the pit of his own worst nightmare. All this he saw before the light winked out and the elf-mage slipped silently down the corridor like a thief cloaked in shadows. Once the thief turned, a furtive glance over his shoulder, and every nerve in Dalamar's body screamed as he recognized him-Lorac Caladon of Silvanesti.
What plague did Lorac carry out of the Tower of High Sorcery? What devastation did he bring now to the Sylvan Land? These things Dalamar wondered, but not so painfully as he wondered one other thing.
"Ah, gods," Dalamar groaned, "why did I let him go?"
For the same reason, whispered a dark and true voice deep in his heart, for the same reason you stopped Lady Kesela from intruding upon a Test. For the magic you love more than anything else.
A dark shape, huddled and bleeding, Kesela moved, but only a little. Her breath a groaning, she moved again, wrenching herself over onto her back. Her eyes glared, two hard stones. Her mouth was a red gash like a wound in her white, white face.
"Apprentice," she groaned. Hatred filled the corridor, stinking on the air. Her hand twitched a little.
She's dying, Dalamar thought, but he didn't trouble himself long or hard about it. She deserved that, a wizardess who sought to interfere with a Test. He groaned, though, as she did, and not for her death or for any pain he himself felt. Dalamar groaned, the sound echoing along the corridor, winding up to the high stone ceiling, for a truth he hated and must acknowledge. He had sent Lorac Caladon out into the world, back from his Test and into Silvanesti, with an artifact of magic that would tear the Sylvan Land to ruin. And he would not have done otherwise.
He could not have.
"So much would I give up for magic," he whispered. "Even this chance to stop a plague from overtaking my homeland."
Kesela's hand twitched again, her eyes shone with dire glee. "More than that, Dalamar Argent," she groaned. "More than that…"
Hissing filled the corridor, like steam escaping a lidded kettle, like snakes. Down from the ceiling, out from the corners and the shadows lurking, came a red tide running, red as fire, red as blood. The leading edge of it touched them both at the same time, and the corridor filled with screaming. Her screaming. His screaming as the flesh melted from his bones; his bones burst and spilled out their marrow.
Screaming, he died in agony and in fire. Screaming, he died.
Chapter 17
Dalamar lay in silence, still and barely breathing. He felt as though he'd lain that way for days, sleeping without waking, never dreaming. Beneath his cheek was a thick pillow of down; a blue blanket of soft combed wool covered his nakedness. Somewhere a bird sang, a wren by the sound of the intricate weaving of notes. Incense drifted like memory through the air, hanging low, a gray ghost come to seek him. It smelled of lavender. It smelled of the Temple of E'li, of Silvanost, sun, and soft breezes.
Perhaps I am not dead, he thought.
A hand touched him lightly on the brow, brushing his hair from his cheek, inviting him to wake fully. "You are not," a woman's voice said. It was not a gentle voice, though he thought it could be if she wanted that. "Though I don't blame you if you feel as if you are."
Dalamar opened his eyes and turned onto his back. He was in a small room with only a bed and a table near to hand, a chest at the foot, and a desk for writing. A woman stood beside the bed, tall and lovely. She was, by the look of her, human. Her hair, the color of pure polished silver and arranged in an intricate fantasy of braids, gleamed in the sunlight. She wore black robes of velvet, diamonds and rubies sewn into the seams, and her fingers sparkled with gemmed rings. Her face was lined, but lightly. He knew her! He had seen her in Istar, only she had been younger, and her name, her name was Kesela. He had killed her. She had killed him. In Istar…
He closed his eyes again, swallowing dryly.
No one, it seemed, had killed anyone, and certainly not in fallen Istar.
"My lady," he said, "how long have I been ill?"
"You have not been ill," said the woman. "Illusions are all you suffer from, young mage-illusions and illusions within illusions. I am"-she smiled a little-"not Kesela. I let the illusion borrow my face, my younger face. I am Ladonna. Can you sit and take some of this wine I've brought?"
Ladonna! Dalamar thought he would have to struggle to sit, but to his surprise the feeling of weighty lassitude fell from him as he pushed himself onto his elbow, then sat up. He gathered the blue blanket around his waist. The woman smiled at his modesty.
"I've seen more of you than you imagine, Dalamar Argent, and other things than the body you wear." She watched him sip the wine, then said, "Congratulations. You have been Tested."
He had been, he knew that now, and he remembered every detail of that Test, the casting of spells, the journey through Istar. Ah, the theft of the dragon orb that would undo a king and ravage his kingdom! He had permitted that theft when he might have stopped it. This, in the dreamscape, he'd done for magic, and he knew, even as bitter regret yet clung to the memories, that he would do as much or more in the waking world to defend the integrity of a Test, the integrity of High Sorcery itself, should he be called upon.
"Yes," he said, putting aside the goblet. "I have been Tested. I remember. And I did not fare well."
"Do you think so? Interesting."
The scent of lavender incense drifted around them, the scent of fair Silvanost in the days before a king's nightmare ravaged her. "Then I did not fail?"
"You are hard on your teachers but no, you did not fail. There were no tasks to accomplish, young mage. We only care about whether you are skilled, and your level of devotion to magic. These things we now know. How do you feel?"
Numb, weary, and confused. That's how he felt, and he would not say as much to her or to anyone. "I have heard, my lady, that even those mages who survive the Tests come away with scars. I see none on me." He gestured down the length of his body. "I feel none."
Ladonna shrugged, a small, elegant gesture. "Do you think, then, that you are the wonder of the age, the only mage in Krynn to come away from his Tests with no mark on him at all?"