Only one Highlord, the Blue Lady, Kitiara, managed to keep her forces under control. Her officers and troops were loyal to her and highly disciplined. They were proud of their Highlord and proud of themselves, and though some grumbled that they were missing out on the fun, they stayed in their camp.
Soldiers of the Red Dragonarmy were already in the city, and they had been given orders to keep the others out until the Emperor arrived. That proved a difficult task since draconians could simply fly over the walls, and they crowded into the Broken Shield and the Hairy Troll (both under new management).
When the Nerakan Guard, backed by the soldiers of the Red Dragonarmy, tried to expel the draconians during the night, fights broke out. The Nightlord, seeing that the Nerakan Guard was unequal to the task of dealing with the unruly mobs and afraid that the fighting would spill over onto temple grounds, dispatched temple guards to assist. That left the temple undermanned at a critical time, right when the Nightlord was preparing for the war council.
The Nightlord was furious and laid all the blame on Ariakas, who, whispers said, had been so stupid as to nearly get himself done in by his own trollop. The Nightlord ordered every dark pilgrim in the city and surrounding environs to assemble at the temple to assist with security.
Raistlin was up before dawn. He had spent the night in the tunnels beneath Lute’s shop. That morning, he took off his dyed black robes. He ran his hand over the cloth. The dyer had not lied; the black color had not faded, had not turned green. They had served him well. He folded them and laid them neatly on the chair.
He tied the pouches containing his spell components and the dragon orb onto a strip of leather and hung the pouches around his neck. He attached the thong with the silver knife onto the wrist of his hand and tested it to make certain the knife would fall into his palm at a flick of his wrist. Finally, he dressed himself in the black velvet robes and golden medallion of a Spiritor, a high-ranking cleric of the gods of Darkness. Kitiara had given Raistlin the disguise, telling him how she had encountered the Spiritor during her escape from Ariakas’s prison.
The soft cloth slid down Raistlin’s neck and shoulders. He arranged the bulky fabric so his pouches were underneath, concealed from sight. Clerics drew their holy magic from prayers to their gods, not from rose petals and bat guano.
That done, he set the dragon orb on the table and placed his hands upon it.
“Show me my brother,” he commanded.
The colors of the orb shimmered and swirled. Hands appeared in the orb, but they were not the familiar hands. They were skeletal hands, fleshless with bony fingers and the long, hideous nails of a corpse …
Raistlin gasped, abruptly breaking the spell. He snatched his hands away. He heard the sound of laughter and the hated voice.
“If your armor is made of dross, I will find a crack in it.”
“We both want the same thing,” Raistlin said to Fistandantilus. “I have the means to achieve it. Interfere, and we both lose.”
Raistlin waited tensely for the reply. When it did not come, he hesitated; then, not seeing any hands, he grabbed the orb and thrust it into the pouch. He did not use the orb again, but made his way through the tunnels that took him underneath the city wall and into Neraka.
A large crowd of dark clerics was gathered in front of the temple by the time Raistlin arrived. The line extended down the street and wrapped around the building.
Raistlin was about to take his place at the end when it occurred to him that a Spiritor such as he was pretending to be would not wait in line with lowly pilgrims. To do so might look suspicious. Raistlin rapped the shins of those in front of him with the end of the Staff of Magius, ordering them to get out of the way.
Several rounded on him angrily, only to shut their mouths and swallow their ire when they saw the sunlight flash on his medallion. Sullenly, the dark pilgrims drew aside to allow Raistlin to bully his way through to the front of the line.
Raistlin kept his hood pulled low over his head. He was wearing black leather gloves to conceal his golden skin as well as his knife. He feigned a limp, giving him a plausible reason for leaning on a staff. And though the Staff of Magius garnered some curious glances, the staff had a way of appearing nondescript as circumstances required.
Arriving at the temple entrance, Raistlin presented his pass, also provided by Kit, and waited with unconcealed impatience as the draconian guard studied it. The draconian finally waved a clawed hand.
“You have leave to enter, Spiritor.”
Raistlin started to walk through the ornate double doors, which were adorned with the representation of Takhisis as the five-headed dragon, when another guard, a human, halted him.
“I want to see your face. Remove your hood.”
“I wear my cowl for a reason,” said Raistlin.
“And you’ll take it off for a reason,” said the guard, and he reached out his hand.
“Very well,” said Raistlin. “But be warned. I am a follower of Morgion.”
He drew back his hood.
The guard’s face twisted in fear and revulsion. He wiped his hand on his uniform to remove any possible contamination. Several clerics waiting their turn in line behind Raistlin shoved each other aside in their haste to move away from him. Of all the gods in the dark pantheon, Morgion, god of disease and corruption, was the most loathsome.
“Would you like to see my hands?” Raistlin asked and started to pull off the black gloves.
The guard muttered something unintelligible and jerked his thumb toward the doors. Raistlin drew his hood over his head, and no one stopped him. As he entered the temple, he could hear, behind him, the shocked comments from the onlookers.
“Chunks of flesh falling off …”
“… lips rotted away! You could see the tendons and the bone …”
“… living skull …”
Raistlin was pleased. His illusion spell had worked. He considered maintaining the illusion, but keeping the spell going all day would be draining. He would simply keep his hood over his face.
Raistlin joined a black mass of clerics milling around in the entryway. He asked one how to find the council chamber.
“I have traveled from the east. This is my first time visiting Her Dark Majesty’s temple,” Raistlin said by way of explanation. “I do not know my way around.”
The dark pilgrim was pleased to be singled out by a cleric of such high office, and she offered to personally escort the Spiritor. As she led him through the convoluted corridors to the council hall, she described the events planned for the war council, or the “High Conclave,” as Ariakas termed it.
“The meeting of the Highlords will commence with the setting of the sun. An hour after”—the pilgrim’s voice grew soft with awe—“our Dark Queen, Takhisis, will join her Highlords to declare victory in the war.”
A trifle premature, Raistlin thought.
“What happens during the High Conclave?” he asked.
“First the Emperor’s troops will take their places at the foot of his throne. Then the troops of the Highlords will enter and, after that, the Highlords themselves. Last to come will be the Emperor. When all are assembled, the Highlords will swear their loyalty to the Emperor and Her Dark Majesty. The Highlords will present the Emperor with gifts to the goddess as a mark of their devotion.
“We hear,” the dark pilgrim added in a confidential tone, “that one of the gifts will be the elf woman known as the Golden General. She will be sacrificed to Takhisis in the Dark Watch rites. I hope you will be able to attend, Spiritor. We would be honored by your presence.”
Raistlin said he looked forward to it.