“Dalamar!” the voice shouted again. “It’s Caramon!”
Dalamar sobbed in relief. Lifting his head—a move that required a supreme effort—he looked at the Portal. The dragons eyes glowed brighter still, the glow even seeming to spread along their necks. The void was definitely stirring now. He could feel a hot wind upon his cheek, or perhaps it was the fever in his body. He heard a rustling in a shadowed corner across the room, and another fear gripped Dalamar.
No! It was impossible she should be alive! Gritting his teeth against the pain, he turned his head. He could see her armored body, reflecting the glow of the dragon’s eyes. She lay still, unmoving in the shadows. He could smell the stench of burned flesh. But that sound...
Wearily, Dalamar shut his eyes. Darkness swirled in his head, threatening to drag him down. He could not rest yet! Fighting the pain, he forced himself to consciousness, wondering why Caramon didn’t come. He could hear him calling again. What was the matter? And then Dalamar remembered—the guardians! Of course, they would never let him pass!
“Guardians, hear my words and obey,” Dalamar began, concentrating his thoughts and energies, murmuring the words that would help Caramon pass the dread defenders of the Tower and enter the chamber.
Behind Dalamar, the dragons heads glowed brighter yet, while before him, in the shadowed corner, a hand reached into a blood—drenched belt and, with its dying strength, gripped the handle of a dagger.
“Caramon,” said Tanis softly, watching the eyes watching him, “we could leave. Go up the stairs again. Maybe there’s another way—
“There isn’t. I’m not leaving,” Caramon said stubbornly.
“Name of the gods, Caramon! You can’t fight the damn things!”
“Dalamar!” Caramon called again desperately. “Dalamar, I—”
As suddenly as if they had been snuffed out, the glowing eyes vanished.
“They’re gone!” said Caramon, starting forward eagerly. But Tanis caught hold of him.
“A trick—”
“No,” Caramon drew him on. “You can sense them, even when they’re not visible. And I can’t sense them anymore. Can you?”
“I sense something!” Tanis muttered.
“But it’s not them and it’s not concerned about us,” Caramon said, heading down the winding stairs of the top of the Tower at a run. Another door at the bottom of the steps stood open. Here, Caramon paused, peering inside the main part of the building cautiously.
It was dark inside, as dark as if light had not yet been created. The torches had been extinguished. No windows permitted even the smoke-clouded light from outside the Tower to seep into it. Tanis had a sudden vision of stepping into that darkness and vanishing forever, falling into the thick, devouring evil that permeated every rock and stone. Beside him, he could hear Caramon’s breathing quicken, and feel the big man’s body tense.
“Caramon—what’s out there?”
“Nothing’s out there. Just a long drop to the bottom. The center of the Tower’s hollow. There are stairs that run around the edge of the wall, rooms branch off from the stairs. I’m standing on a narrow landing now, if I remember right. The laboratory’s about two flights down from here.”
Caramon s voice broke. “We’ve got to go on! We’re losing time! He’s getting nearer!” Clutching at Tanis, he continued more calmly. “C’mon. Just keep close to the wall. This stairway leads down to the laboratory—”
“One false step in this blasted darkness and it won’t matter to us anymore what your brother does!” Tanis said. But he knew his words were useless. Blind as he was in the smothering endless night, he could almost see Caramon s face tighten with resolve. He heard the big man take a shuffling step forward, trying to feel his way along the wall. With a sigh, Tanis prepared to follow... .
And then the eyes were back, staring at them.
Tanis reached for his sword—a stupid, futile gesture. But the eyes only continued to stare at them, and a voice spoke. “Come. This way”
A hand wavered in the darkness.
“We can’t see, damn it!” Tanis snarled.
A ghostly light appeared, held in that wasted hand. Tanis shuddered. He preferred the darkness, after all. But he said nothing, for Caramon was hurrying ahead, running down a long winding flight of stairs. At the bottom, the eyes and the hand and the light came to halt. Before them was an open door and a room beyond. Inside the room, light shone brightly, beaming into the corridor. Caramon dashed ahead, and Tanis followed, hastily slamming the door shut behind him so that the horrible eyes wouldn’t follow.
Turning, he stopped, staring around the room, and he realized, suddenly, where he was—Raistlin’s laboratory. Standing numbly, pressed against the door, Tanis watched as Caramon hurried forward to kneel beside a figure huddled in a pool of blood upon the floor. Dalamar, Tanis registered, seeing the black robes. But he couldn’t react, couldn’t move.
The evil in the darkness outside the door had been smothering, dusty, centuries old. But the evil in here was alive; it breathed and throbbed and pulsed. Its chill flowed from the nightblue-bound spellbooks upon the shelves, its warmth rose from a new set of black-bound spellbooks, marked with hourglass runes, that stood beside them. His horrified gaze looked into beakers and saw tormented eyes staring back at him. He choked on the smells of spices and mold and fungus and roses and, somewhere, the sweet smell of burned flesh.
And then, his gaze was caught and held by glowing light radiating from a corner. The light was beautiful, yet it filled him with awe and terror, reminding him vividly of his encounter with the Dark Queen. Mesmerized, he stared at the light. It seemed to be of every color he had ever seen whirling into one. But, as he watched, horrified, fascinated, unable to look away, he saw the light separate and become distinct, forming into the five heads of a dragon.
A doorway! Tanis realized suddenly. The five heads rose from a golden dais, forming an oval shape with their necks. Each craned inward, its mouth open in a frozen scream. Tanis looked beyond them into the void within the oval. Nothing was there, but that nothing moved. All was empty, and alive. He knew suddenly, instinctively, where the doorway led, and the knowledge chilled him.
“The Portal,” said Caramon, seeing Tanis’s pale face and staring eyes. “Come here, give me a hand.”
“You’re going in there?” Tanis whispered savagely, amazed at the big man’s calm. Crossing the room, he came to stand beside his friend. “Caramon, don’t be a fool!”
“I have no choice, Tanis,” Caramon said, that new look of quiet decision on his face. Tanis started to argue, but Caramon turned away from him, back to the injured dark elf.
“I’ve seen what will happen!” he reminded Tanis.
Swallowing his words, choking on them, Tanis knelt down beside Dalamar. The dark elf had managed to drag himself to a sitting position, so that he could face the Portal. He had lapsed into unconsciousness again, but, at the sound of their voices, his eyes flared open.
“Caramon!” He gasped, reaching out a trembling hand. “You must stop—”
“I know, Dalamar,” Caramon said gently. “I know what I must do. But I need your help! Tell me—”
Dalamar’s eyes fluttered shut, his skin was ashen. Tanis reached across Dalamar’s chest to feel for the lifebeat in the young elf’s neck. His hand had just touched the mage’s skin when there was a ringing sound. Something jarred his arm, striking the armor and bouncing off, falling to the floor with a clatter. Looking down, Tanis saw a blood-stained dagger. Startled, he whirled around, twisting to his feet, sword in hand.
“Kitiara!” Dalamar whispered with a feeble nod of his head.
Staring into the shadows of the laboratory, Tanis saw the body in the corner.
“Of course,” Caramon murmured. “That’s how she killed him.” He lifted the dagger in his hand.
“This time, Tanis, you blocked her throw.”
But Tanis didn’t hear. Sliding his sword back into his sheath, he crossed the room, stepping unheedingly on broken glass, kicking aside a silver candlestand that rolled beneath his feet. Kitiara lay on her stomach, her cheek pressed against the bloody floor, her dark hair falling across her eyes. The dagger throw had taken her last energy, it seemed. Tanis, approaching her, his emotions in turmoil, was certain she must be dead.
But the indomitable will that had carried one brother through darkness and another into light, burned still within Kitiara.
She heard footsteps... her enemy... .
Her hand grasped feebly for her sword. She raised her head, looking up with eyes fast dimming.
“Tanis?” She stared at him, puzzled, confused. Where was she? Flotsam? Were they together there again? Of course! He had come back to her! Smiling, she raised her hand to him.
Tanis caught his breath, his stomach wrenching. As she moved, he saw a blackened hole gaping in her chest. Her flesh had been burned away, he could see white bone beneath. It was a gruesome sight, and Tanis, sickened and overwhelmed by a surge of memories, was forced to turn his head away.
“Tanis!” she called in a cracked voice. “Come to me.”
His heart filled with pity, Tanis knelt down beside her to lift her in his arms. She looked up into his face... and saw her death in his eyes. Fear shook her. She struggled to rise. But the effort was too much. She collapsed.
“I’m... hurt,” she whispered angrily. “How... bad?” Lifting her hand, she started to touch the wound.
Snatching off his cloak, Tanis wrapped it around Kitiara’s torn body. “Rest easy, Kit,” he said gently. “You’ll be all right.”
“You’re a damn liar!” she cried, her hands clenching into fists, echoing—if she had only known it—the dying Elistan. “He’s killed me! That wretched elf!” She smiled, a ghastly smile. Tanis shuddered. “But I fixed him! He can’t help Raistlin now. The Dark Queen will slay him, slay them all!”
Moaning, she writhed in agony and clutched at Tanis. He held her tightly. When the pain eased, she looked up at him. “You weakling,” she whispered in a tone that was part bitter scorn, part bitter regret, “we could have had the world, you and I.”
“I have the world, Kitiara,” Tanis said softly, his heart torn with revulsion and sorrow.
Angrily, she shook her head and seemed about to say more when her eyes grew wide, her gaze fixed upon something at the far end of the room.
“No!” she cried in a terror that no torture or suffering could have ever wrenched from her. “No!”
Shrinking, huddling against Tanis, she whispered in a frantic, strangled voice. “Don’t let him take me! Tanis, no! Keep him away! I always loved you, half-elf! Always... loved... you...”
Her voice faded to a gasping whisper.
Tanis looked up, alarmed. But the doorway was empty. There was no one there. Had she meant Dalamar? “Who? Kitiara! I don’t understand—”
But she did not hear him. Her ears were deaf forever to mortal voices. The only voice she heard now was one she would hear forever, through all eternity.
Tanis felt the body in his arms go limp. Smoothing back the dark, curly hair, he searched her face for some sign that death had brought peace to her soul. But the expression on her face was one of horror—her brown eyes fixed in a terrified stare, the crooked, charming smile twisted into a grimace.
Tanis glanced up at Caramon. His face pale and grave, the big man shook his head. Slowly, Tanis laid Kitiara’s body back down upon the floor. Leaning over, he started to kiss the cold forehead, but he found that he couldn’t. The look on the corpse’s face was too grim, too ghastly. Pulling his cloak up over Kitiara’s head, Tanis remained for a moment, kneeling beside her body, surrounded by darkness. And then he heard Caramon’s step, he felt a hand upon his arm. “Tanis—”
“I’m all right,” the half-elf said gruffly, rising to his feet. But, in his mind, he could still hear her dying plea.
“Keep him away!”