“No, we dead cannot feel lust. But we can feel hatred, we can feel envy, we can feel jealousy and possession.
“I could kill Dalamar—the dark elf apprentice is good, but he is no match for me. His master? Raistlin? Ah, now that would be a different story.
“My Queen in your dark Abyss—beware Raistlin! In him, you face your greatest challenge, and you must—in the end—face it alone. I cannot help you on that plane, Dark Majesty, but perhaps I can aid you on this one.
“Yes, Dalamar, I could kill you. But I have known what it is to die, and death is a shabby, paltry thing. Its pain is agony, but soon over. What greater pain to linger on and on in the world of the living, smelling their warm blood, seeing their soft flesh, and knowing that it can never, never be yours again. But you will come to know, all too well, dark elf...
“As for you, Kitiara, know this—I would endure this pain, I would live out another century of tortured existence rather than see you again in the arms of a living man!”
The death knight brooded and plotted, his mind twisting and turning like the thorny branches of the black roses that overran his castle. The skeletal warriors paced the ruined battlements, each hovering near the place where he had met his death. The elven women wrung their fleshless hands and moaned in bitter sorrow at their fate.
Soth heard nothing, was aware of nothing. He sat upon his blackened throne, staring unseeing at a dark, charred splotch upon the stone floor—a splotch that he had sought for years with all the power of his magic to obliterate—and still it remained, a splotch in the shape of a woman... And then, at last, the unseen lips smiled, and the flame of the orange eyes burned bright in their endless night.
“You, Kitiara—you will be mine—forever...
1
The carriage rumbled to a stop. The horses snorted and shook themselves, jingling the harness, thudding their hooves against the smooth paving stones, as if eager to get this journey over with and return to their comfortable stables.
A head poked in the carriage window.
“Good morning, sir. Welcome to Palanthas. Please state your name and business.” This delivered in a bright, official voice by a bright, official young man who must have just come on duty. Peering into the carriage, the guard blinked his eyes, trying to adjust them to the cool shadows of the coach’s interior. The late spring sun shone as brightly as the young mans face, probably because it, too, had just recently come on duty.
“My name is Tanis Half-Elven,” said the man inside the carriage, “and I am here by invitation to see Revered Son Elistan. I’ve got a letter here. If you’ll wait half a moment, I’ll—”
“Lord Tanis!” The face outlined by the carriage window turned as crimson as the ridiculously frogged and epauletted uniform he wore. “I beg your pardon, sir. I—I didn’t recognize... that is, I couldn’t see or I’m sure I would have recognized—”
“Damn it, man,” Tanis responded irritably, “don’t apologize for doing your job. Here’s the letter—”
“I won’t, sir. That is, I will, sir. Apologize, that is. Dreadfully sorry, sir. The letter? That really won’t be necessary, sir.”
Stammering, the guard saluted, cracked his head smartly on the top of the carriage window, caught the lacy sleeve of his cuff on the door, saluted again, and finally staggered back to his post looking as if he had just emerged from a fight with hobgoblins.
Grinning to himself, but a rueful grin at that, Tanis leaned back as the carriage continued on its way through the gates of the Old City Wall. The guard was his idea. It had taken a great deal of argument and persuasion on Tanis’s part to convince Lord Amothus of Palanthas that the city gates should actually not only be shut but guarded as well.
“But people might not feel welcome. They might be offended,” Amothus had protested faintly. “And, after all, the war is over.”
Tanis sighed again. When would they learn? Never, he supposed gloomily, staring out the window into the city that, more than any other on the continent of Ansalon, epitomized the complacency into which the world had fallen since the end of the War of the Lance two years ago. Two years ago this spring, in fact.
That brought still another sigh from Tanis. Damn! He had forgotten! War End’s Day! When was that? Two weeks? Three? He would have to put on that silly costume—the ceremonial armor of a Knight of Solamnia, the elven regalia, the dwarven trappings. There’d be dinners of rich food that kept him awake half the night, speeches that put him to sleep after dinner, a nd Laurana... . Tanis gasped. Laurana! She’d remembered! Of course! How could he have been so thick-headed? They’d just returned home to Solanthus a few weeks ago after attending Solostaran’s funeral in Qualinesti—and after he’d made an unsuccessful trip back to Solace in search of Lady Crysania when a letter arrived for Laurana in flowing elven script:
“Your Presence Urgently Required in Silvanesti!”
“I’ll be back in four weeks, my dear,” she’d said, kissing him tenderly. Yet there had been laughter in her eyes, those lovely eyes!
She’d left him! Left him behind to attend those blasted ceremonies! And she would be back in the elven homeland which, though still struggling to escape the horrors inflicted upon it by Lorac’s nightmare, was infinitely preferable to an evening with Lord Amothus... .
It suddenly occurred to Tanis what he had been thinking. A mental memory of Silvanesti came to mind—with its hideously tortured trees weeping blood, the twisted, tormented faces of long dead elven warriors staring out from the shadows. A mental image of one of Lord Amothus’s dinner parties rose in comparison Tanis began to laugh. He’d take the undead warriors any day!
As for Laurana, well, he couldn’t blame her. These ceremonies were hard enough on him—but Laurana was the Palanthians’ darling, their Golden General, the one who had saved their beautiful city from the ravages of the war. There was nothing they wouldn’t do for her, except leave her some time to herself. The last War’s End Day celebration, Tanis had carried his wife home in his arms, more exhausted than she had been after three straight days of battle. He envisioned her in Silvanesti, working to replant the flowers, working to soothe the dreams of the tortured trees and slowly nurse them back to life, visiting with Alhana Starbreeze, now her sister-in-law, who would be back in Silvanesti as well—but without her new husband, Porthios. Theirs was, so far, a chill, loveless marriage and Tanis wondered, briefly, if Alhana might not be seeking the haven of Silvanesti for the same reason. War’s End Day must be difficult for Alhana, too. His thoughts went to Sturm Brightblade—the knight Alhana had loved, who was lying dead in the High Clerist’s Tower and, from there, Tanis’s memories wandered to other friends... and enemies.
As if conjured up by those memories, a dark shadow swept over the carriage. Tanis looked out the window. Down a long, empty, deserted street, he caught a glimpse of a patch of blackness—Shoikan Grove, the guardian forest of Raistlin’s Tower of High Sorcery.
Even from this distance, Tanis could feel the chill that flowed from those trees, a chill that froze the heart and the soul. His gaze went to the Tower, rising up above the beautiful buildings of Palanthas like a black iron spike driven through the city’s white breast.
His thoughts went to the letter that had brought him to Palanthas. Glancing down at it, he read the words over:
Tanis Half-Elven,
We must meet with you immediately. Gravest emergency. The Temple of Paladine, Afterwatch Rising 12, Fourthday, Year 356.