“I have some ideas.” Grag was starting to grow enthusiastic. “Ideas about how dragons and draconians can work together in ways that humans cannot. I could speak to Her Majesty, if you like. I think that once I explain—”
“You do that!” said Dray-yan hastily, glad to be relieved of this burden. Bozak were known for their devotion to the goddess. If Takhisis would listen to anyone, it would be Grag.
Dray-yan went back to the original topic under discussion. “So the humans escaped. How did that happen?”
“My men tried to stop them,” Grag said defensively. He felt he was being blamed. “There were too few of us. This fortress is undermanned. I repeatedly requested more troops, but his lordship said they were needed elsewhere. Some human warriors, led by an accursed Solamnic knight and an elven female, held off my forces, while other humans ransacked the supply room and hauled off whatever they could lay their hands on in stolen wagons. I had to let them go. I didn’t have enough men to send after them.”
“The humans have to travel south, a route that will take them into the Kharolis mountains. With winter coming on, they will need to find shelter and food. How many got away?”
“About eight hundred. Those who worked in the mines. Men, women, children.”
“Ah, they have children with them.” Dray-yan was pleased. “That will slow them down. We can take our time, Commander, pursue them at our leisure.”
“What about the mines? The army needs steel. The emperor will be upset if the mines close.”
“I have some thoughts on that. As to the humans—”
“Unfortunately, they have leaders now,” Grag complained. “Intelligent leaders, not like those doddering old idiots, the Seekers. The same leaders who planned the slave revolt and fought and killed his lordship.”
“That was luck, not skill,” Dray-yan said dismissively. “I saw those so-called leaders of yours—a half-breed elf, a sickly mage, and a barbarian savage. The others are even less worthy of note. I don’t think we need worry overmuch about them.”
“We have to pursue the humans,” Grag insisted. “We have to find them and bring them back here, not only to work in the mines. There is something about them that is vitally important to Her Dark Majesty. She has ordered me to go after them.”
“I know what that is,” said Dray-yan triumphantly. “Verminaard has it in his notes. She fears they might dig up some moldy old artifact, a hammer or something. I forget what it is called.” Grag shook his head. He had no interest in artifacts.
“We will go after them, Grag, I promise you,” Dray-yan said. “We will bring back the men to work in the mines. We won’t bother with the women and children. They only cause trouble. We’ll simply dispose of them—”
“Don’t dispose of all the women,” Grag said with a leer. “My men need some amusement—” Dray-yan grimaced. He found the unnatural lust some draconians had for human females disgusting.
“In the meantime, there are other more important events happening in the world, events that could have a significant impact on the war and on us.”
Dray-yan poured Grag a glass of wine, sat him down at the table, and shoved forward a stack of papers.
“Look through these. Take special note of a place labeled, ‘Thorbardin’…”
Chapter 1
The coughing spell. Hot tea. Chickens aren’t eagles.
Wearily, Raistlin Majere wrapped himself in a blanket and lay down on the dirt floor of the pitch dark cave and tried to go to sleep. Almost immediately, he began coughing. He hoped this would be a brief spasm, as some were, and would soon end, but the tight, constricted feeling in his chest did not abate. Rather, the cough grew worse. He sat upright, struggling to breathe, a taste of iron in his mouth. Fumbling for a handkerchief, he pressed it to his lips. He could not see in the utter darkness of the smallish cave, but he had no need to see. He knew quite well when he removed the cloth it would be stained with red.
Raistlin was a young man in his early twenties, yet he felt sometimes as if he had lived a hundred years and that each of those years had taken its toll on him. The shattering of his health had happened in a matter of moments during the dread Test in the Tower of High Sorcery. He’d gone into that test a young man, physically weak, perhaps, but relatively healthy. He’d emerged an old one—his health irretrievably impaired—not even the gods could heal him; his brownish red hair gone white, his skin turned glistening gold; his vision cursed.
The mundane were horrified. A test that left a young man crippled was not a test at all, they said. It was sadistic torture. The wise wizards knew better. Magic is a powerful force, a gift of the gods of magic, and with such a force comes a powerful responsibility. In the past, this power had been misused. Wizards had once come perilously close to destroying the world. The gods of magic had intervened, establishing rules and laws for the use of magic, and now only those mortals capable of handling such responsibility were permitted to wield it.
All mages who wanted to advance in their profession were required to take a test given to them by the wizards high in the Order. To ensure that every wizard who went into this test was serious about the art, the Orders of High Sorcery decreed that each wizard must be willing to bet his or her life on the outcome. Failure meant death. Even success did not come without sacrifice. The test was designed to teach the mage something about himself.
Raistlin had learned a great deal about himself, more than he wanted to know. He had committed a terrible act in that Tower, an act from which part of him recoiled in horror, yet there was another part of him that knew quite well he would do the same again. The act had not been real, though it had seemed quite real to him at the time. The test consisted of dropping the mage into a world of illusion. The choices he made in this world would affect him the rest of his life—might even end up costing him his life.
The terrible deed Raistlin had committed involved his twin brother, Caramon, who had been a horrified witness to it. The two never spoke of what had happened, but the knowledge was always there, casting its shadow over them.
The Test in the Tower is designed to help the mage learn more about his strengths and his weaknesses in order for him to improve himself. Thus, the punishment. Thus, the rewards. The punishment had been severe in Raistlin’s case—his health wrecked, his vision cursed. He had emerged from the Test with pupils the shape of hourglasses. To teach him humility and compassion, he saw the passage of time speeded up. Whatever he looked upon, be it fair maiden or a newly picked apple, withered with age as he gazed at it.
Yet the rewards were worth it. Raistlin had power now, power that astonished, awed, and frightened those who knew the young mage best. Par-Salian, head of the Conclave, had given Raistlin the Staff of Magius, a rare and valuable artifact. Even as he bent double coughing, Raistlin put out his hand to touch the staff. Its presence was comforting, reassuring. His suffering was worth it. The magical staff had been crafted by Magius, one of the most gifted mages who had ever lived. Raistlin had owned the staff for several years now, and he still did not know the full extent of the staff’s powers.
He coughed again, the cough tearing at him, rending flesh and bone. The only remedy for one of these spasms was a special herbal tea. The tea should be drunk hot for best effect. The cave that was his current home had no fire pit, no means to warm the water. Raistlin would have to leave the warmth of his blanket and go out into the night in search of hot water.
Ordinarily, Caramon would have been on hand to fetch the water and brew the tea. Caramon was not here, however. Hale and healthy, big of heart and body, generous of spirit, Raistlin’s twin was somewhere out there in the night, capering light-heartedly with the other guests at the wedding of Riverwind and Goldmoon.