Caramon’s hand once again closed over his sword hilt, but he did not draw it. The echoes faded.
Silence closed in. Nothing happened. No one came. No voice spoke.
Tas turned to help Caramon limp ahead. “At least we won’t have to listen to that awful sound anymore,” he said, stepping over the broken gate. “I don’t mind saying so now, but that shriek was beginning to get on my nerves. It certainly sounded very ungate-like, if you know what I mean. It sounded just like... just like...”
“Like that,” Caramon whispered.
The scream split the air, shattering the moonlit darkness, only this time it was different. There were words in this scream—words that could be heard, if not defined.
Turning his head involuntary, though he knew what he would see, Caramon stared back at the gate. It lay on the stones, dead, lifeless.
“Caramon,” said Tas, swallowing, “it—it’s coming from there—the Tower... .”
“End it!” screamed Par-Salian. “End this torment! Do not force me to endure more!”
How much did you force me to endure, O Great One of the White Robes? came a soft, sneering voice into Par-Salian’s mind. The wizard writhed in agony, but the voice persisted, relentless, flaying his soul like a scourge. You brought me here and gave me up to him—Fistandantilus! You sat and watched as he wrenched the lifeforce from me, draining it so that he might live upon this plane.
“It was you who made the bargain,” Par-Salian cried, his ancient voice carrying through the empty hallways of the Tower. “You could have refused him—”
And what? Died honorably? The voice laughed. What kind of choice is that? I wanted to live! To grow in my Art! And I did live. And you, in your bitterness, gave me these hourglass eyes—these eyes that saw nothing but death and decay all around me. Now, you look, Par-Salian! What do you see around you? Nothing but death... Death and decay... So we are even.
Par-Salian moaned. The voice continued, mercilessly, pitilessly.
Even, yes. And now I will grind you into dust. For, in your last tortured moments, Par-Salian, you will witness my triumph. Already my constellation shines in the sky. The Queen dwindles. Soon she will fade and be gone forever. My final foe, Paladine, waits for me now. I see him approach.
But he is no challenge—an old man, bent, his face grieved and filled with the sorrow that will prove his undoing. For he is weak, weak and hurt beyond healing, as was Crysania, his poor cleric, who died upon the shifting planes of the Abyss. You will watch me destroy him, Par-Salian, and when that battle is ended, when the constellation of the Platinum Dragon plummets from the sky, when Solinari’s light is extinguished, when you have seen and acknowledged the power of the Black Moon and paid homage to the new and only god—to me then you will be released, Par-Salian, to find what solace you can in death!
Astinus of Palanthas recorded the words as he had recorded Par-Salian s scream, writing the crisp, black, bold letters in slow, unhurried style. He sat before the great Portal in the Tower of High Sorcery, staring into the Portal’s shadowy depths, seeing within those depths a figure blacker even than the darkness around him. All that was visible were two golden eyes, their pupils the shape of hourglasses, staring back at him and at the white-robed wizard trapped next to him.
For Par-Salian was a prisoner in his own Tower. From the waist up, he was living man—his white hair flowing about his shoulders, his white robes covering a body thin and emaciated, his dark eyes fixed upon the Portal. The sights he had seen had been dreadful and had, long ago, nearly destroyed his sanity. But he could not withdraw his gaze. From the waist up, Par-Salian was living man. From the waist down he was a marble pillar. Cursed by Raistlin, Par-Salian was forced to stand in the topmost room of his Tower and watch—in bitter agony—the end of the world.
Next to him sat Astinus—Historian of the World, Chronicler, writing this last chapter of Krynn’s brief, shining history. Palanthas the Beautiful, where Astinus had lived and where the Great Library had stood, was now nothing but a heap of ash and charred bodies. Astinus had come to this, the last place standing upon Krynn, to witness and record the world’s final, terrifying hours.
When all was finished, he would take the closed book and lay it upon the altar of Gilean, God of Neutrality. And that would be the end.
Sensing the black-robed figure within the Portal turning its gaze upon him, when he came to the end of a sentence, Astinus raised his eyes to meet the figure’s golden ones.
As you were first, Astinus, said the figure, so shall you be last. When you have recorded my ultimate victory, the book will be closed. I will rule unchallenged.
“True, you will rule unchallenged. You will rule a dead world. A world your magic destroyed. You will rule alone. And you will be alone, alone in the formless, eternal void,” Astinus replied coolly, writing even as he spoke. Beside him, Par-Salian moaned and tore at his white hair.
Seeing as he saw everything—without seeming to see Astinus watched the black-robed figure’s hands clench. That is a lie, old friend! I will create! New worlds will be mine. New peoples I will produce—new races who will worship me!
“Evil cannot create,” Astinus remarked, “it can only destroy. It turns in upon itself, gnawing itself. Already, you feel it eating away at you. Already, you can feel your soul shrivel. Look into Paladine’s face, Raistlin. Look into it as you looked into it once, back on the Plains of Dergoth, when you lay dying of the dwarf’s sword wound and Lady Crysania laid healing hands upon you. You saw the grief and sorrow of the god then as you see it now, Raistlin. And you knew then, as you know now but refuse to admit, that Paladine grieves, not for himself, but for you.
“Easy will it be for us to slip back into our dreamless sleep. For you, Raistlin, there will be no sleep. Only an endless waking, endless listening for sounds that will never come, endless staring into a void that holds neither light nor darkness, endless shrieking words that no one will hear, no one will answer, endless plotting and scheming that will bear no fruit as you turn round and round upon yourself. Finally, in your madness and desperation, you will grab the tail of your existence and, like a starving snake, devour yourself whole in an effort to find food for your soul.
“But you will find nothing but emptiness. And you will continue to exist forever within this emptiness—a tiny spot of nothing, sucking in everything around itself to feed your endless hunger...
The Portal shimmered. Astinus quickly looked up from his writing, feeling the will behind those golden eyes waver. Staring past the mirrorlike surface, looking deep into their depths, he saw—for the space of a heartbeat—the very torment and torture he had described. He saw a soul, frightened, alone, caught in its own trap, seeking escape. For the first time in his existence, compassion touched Astinus. His hand marking his place in his book, he half-rose from his seat, his other hand reaching into the Portal...
Then, laughter... eerie, mocking, bitter laughter—laughter not at him, but at the one who laughed. The black-robed figure within the Portal was gone.
With a sigh, Astinus resumed his seat and, almost at the same instant, magical lightning flickered inside the Portal. It was answered by flaring, white light—the final meeting of Paladine and the young man who had defeated the Queen of Darkness and taken her place.
Lighting flickered outside, too, stabbing the eyes of the two men watching with blinding brilliance. Thunder crashed, the stones of the Tower trembled, the foundations of the Tower shook. Wind howled, its wail drowning out Par-Salian’s moaning.
Lifting a drawn, haggard face, the ancient wizard twisted his head to stare out the windows with an expression of horror. “This is the end,” he murmured, his gnarled, wasted hands plucking feebly at the air. “The end of all things.”
“Yes,” said Astinus, frowning in annoyance as a sudden lurching of the Tower caused him to make an error. He gripped his book more firmly, his eyes on the Portal, writing, recording the last battle as it occurred.