“An act of treason?” Iolanthe shrugged. “Yes, I suppose so. But they are not rumors, Raistlin Majere. They are facts. I should know. I am Ariakas’s mistress.”
Raistlin felt the hair rise on his arms and prick the back of his neck. His life hung by a silken thread.
“I am also,” she added smoothly, “a friend to your half-sister, Dragon Highlord Kitiara uth Matar.”
Raistlin’s jaw dropped. “You know … my sister?”
“Oh, yes,” Iolanthe said. She was quiet a moment, then launched suddenly into a tirade. “Her troops, the soldiers of the Blue Dragonarmy, are being paid … well paid. Although she failed to take Palanthas, she controls much of Solamnia. She demands and receives tribute from the wealthy cities which she had sense enough not to burn to the ground. And she sees to it that the payment goes to her soldiers. Kit’s blue dragons are loyal and well disciplined unlike the reds, who are brainless and conceited and continually fight among themselves. Ariakas stupidly allowed his reds and his soldiers to pillage and loot and set fire the cities he took, and now he grumbles that he has no money.”
Raistlin remembered Solace, the burned-out Inn of the Last Home where he had spent so many happy hours. He remembered the terrifying siege of Tarsis. He kept silent, but inwardly he allowed himself a grim smile of satisfaction at Ariakas’s self-inflicted predicament.
The smile vanished when Iolanthe impulsively clasped his hand. “It’s so good to have someone to talk to. Someone who understands. A friend!”
Raistlin withdrew his hand from hers. “I am not a friend,” he said, and thinking that might sound rude, he added abruptly, “We just met. You hardly know me.”
“I feel like I know you well,” said Iolanthe, not the least offended. “Kitiara talks about you a great deal. She is very proud of you and your brother. Where is he, by the way?”
Raistlin decided it was time to change the subject. “What the Nightlord said last night about Nuitari—”
“True,” said Iolanthe. “Every word, except for the part about Ladonna being executed. I would have heard. But Nuitari has broken with his mother, Takhisis, and now the Conclave of Wizards will unite against the Dark Queen.”
Raistlin was quiet, noncommittal. He was not part of the Conclave. He had not sought their permission to take the black robes. He had done so without consulting them, in fact, and that made him a renegade. The Conclave considered renegade wizards outlaws.
Iolanthe drew nearer to him. Her perfume filled his nostrils and made his head throb.
“I know what you are thinking,” she said softly, “because I am thinking the same: What does this mean for me?” She gave him a playful pat on the shoulder. “We should go to ‘the Tower’ and find out.”
Casting him a glance over her shoulder, she added, “My people have a saying: ‘A man should use his breath to cool his tea.’ That’s good advice anywhere in Neraka, but it especially applies to our fellow wizards.”
“I understand,” Raistlin said. He felt a flutter of excitement. At last he was to see the wondrous Tower of High Sorcery, meet the wizards who would help shape his destiny.
“Shall we leave? Are you ready?” Iolanthe saw his eye go to his staff, and she shook her head. “You should not carry that in public. The Nightlord will be searching for it. The staff should be safe enough here. I always cast warding spells upon my door.”
“The staff will keep itself safe,” Raistlin said. He didn’t like leaving it; he had come to depend on it. But he understood the wisdom of her advice.
Iolanthe shut and locked the door and traced a rune upon it with her fingertip; then she spoke a few words of magic. The rune began to glow a faint bluish color.
Iolanthe caught Raistlin’s eye and flushed. “Amateurish, I know. A spell such as one casts in mage school. But weak minds find the glowing rune impressive. And believe me,” she added, “we deal with a lot of weak minds around Neraka.”
Iolanthe took hold of Raistlin’s arm, telling him to act as her escort, whether he wanted to or not. “The streets are dangerous these days,” she said. “It pays to have someone watching your back.”
Raistlin didn’t like it, but he could not very well repulse Iolanthe. She had already made it clear that she could help him or harm him and that the choice was his. The staircase was narrow, and she pressed against him, insisting on walking close by his side.
“How many stairs?” she asked teasingly.
“Thirty-one,” he replied. “Counting the landing.”
Iolanthe shook her head and laughed at him.
Raistlin could not see what she thought was so funny.
4
Inn of the Broken Shield.
The Tower of High Sorcery.
Iolanthe decided to first introduce Raistlin to her neighbor and landlord, the owner of the mageware shop. The proprietor was an elderly gentleman with the unlikely name of Snaggle. He was some sort of half-breed, so stooped and dried up and wrinkled that it was impossible to tell if he was half-dwarf or half-goblin or half-mongrel dog. He greeted Raistlin with a toothless grin and offered him a discount on his first purchase.
“Snaggle is an excellent man to know,” Iolanthe explained as they walked down the broad, paved street that ran in front of the temple. “He never asks questions. He gives fair value for the steel. And because he is favored by the Emperor, who regularly shops there, Snaggle often carries items that would be difficult for others to acquire. He won’t sell to just anyone, mind you, but he knows now that you are my friend, so you will find him accommodating.”
Raistlin was not her friend, though he did not say so. He had never had friends. Tanis and Flint and the others called themselves his friends, but he knew that beneath their smiles they did not love him, did not trust him. He was not like his brother, jovial, warmhearted Caramon—everyone’s boon companion.
Raistlin studied his surroundings with his usual care as they continued on their way. “Where are we going?” he asked.
“To the White District,” Iolanthe replied. “The city of Neraka is like Queen Takhisis in a way: A dragon with a single heart and five heads. The heart is the temple in the center; the heads are the armies that guard it. Since you materialized inside the temple, I take it you did not get a good look at the outside.”
The temple was surrounded by high, stone walls and was difficult to see from their angle. Iolanthe led Raistlin to the front gate, which was standing wide open, for a better view. The mage gazed at the temple and thought he had never seen anything so hideous. Takhisis had a sense of humor, apparently, albeit a twisted one. Once long in the past there had been, in the city of Istar, a radiant and holy and beautiful temple dedicated to Paladine, God of Light. The Temple of Takhisis was a distorted, perverted mockery of that ancient temple, which lay fathoms deep beneath the Blood Sea. A thing of darkness, Takhisis’s temple cast a pall over the entire city, like the unnatural darkness of an eclipse, when the moon blots out the sun, except that an eclipse ends. The temple’s darkness in the midst of daylight was constant.
“Ugly as sin, isn’t it?” Iolanthe said, regarding the temple with distaste. “Evil should be beautiful. It does so much more damage that way. Don’t you agree?” Her violent eyes glittered, and she gave him a sly smile.
They continued along the main street, which ran outside the temple, known as Queen’s Way.
“We are now in what they call the Inner City,” Iolanthe said. “The temple is surrounded by a wall, and Neraka is surrounded by its own wall. Outside that wall, the five dragonarmies have their camps. Inside the wall, each dragonarmy has its own district.”