Dalamar followed her gaze, smiling, seeing every thought beneath that lovely, curling hair. “Oh, you knew about the attack on Lady Crysania?” he asked innocently.
Kit scowled. “You know damn well I knew about the attack! And so does my brother. He’s not an idiot, if he is a fool.”
She spun around on her heel. “You told me the woman was dead!”
“She was,” intoned Lord Soth, the death knight, materializing out of the shadows to stand before her, his orange eyes flaring in their invisible sockets. “No human could survive my assault.” The orange eyes turned their undying gaze to the dark elf. “And your master could not have saved her.”
“No,” Dalamar agreed, “but her master could and did. Paladine cast a counter-spell upon his cleric, drawing her soul to him, though he left the shell of her body behind. The Shalafi’s twin, your half-brother, Caramon, lord”—Dalamar bowed to the infuriated Kitiara—“took the woman to the Tower of High Sorcery where the mages sent her back to the only cleric powerful enough to save her—the Kingpriest of Istar.”
“Imbeciles!” Kitiara snarled, her face going livid. “They sent her back to him! That’s just what Raistlin wanted!”
“They knew that,” Dalamar said softly. “I told them—”
“You told them?” Kitiara gasped.
“There are matters I should explain to you,” Dalamar said. “This may take some time. At least let us be comfortable. Will you come to my chambers?”
He extended his arm. Kitiara hesitated, then laid her hand upon his forearm. Catching hold of her around her waist, he pulled her close to his body. Startled, Kitiara tried to pull away, but she didn’t try very hard. Dalamar held her with a grip both strong and firm.
“In order for the spell to transport us,” he said coolly, “you need to stand as close to me as possible.”
“I’m quite capable of walking,” Kit returned. “I have little use for magic!”
But, even as she spoke, her eyes looked into his, her body pressed against his hard, well-muscled body with sensuous abandon.
“Very well.” Dalamar shrugged and suddenly vanished.
Looking around, startled, Kit heard his voice. “Up the spiral staircase, lord. After the five hundred and thirty-ninth step, turn left.”
“And so you see,” Dalamar said, “I have as great a stake in this as do you. I have been sent, by the Conclave of all three Orders—the Black, the White, and the Red—to stop this appalling thing from happening.”
The two relaxed in the dark elf’s private, sumptuously appointed quarters within the Tower. The remains of an elegant repast had been whisked away by a graceful gesture of the elf’s hand. Now, they sat before a fire that had been lit more for the sake of its light than its warmth on this spring night. The dancing flames seemed more conducive to conversation...
“Then why didn’t you stop him?” Kit demanded angrily, setting her golden goblet down with a sharp clinking sound. “What’s so difficult about that?” Making a gesture with her hand, she added words to suit her action. “A knife in the back. Quick, simple.” Giving Dalamar a look of scorn, she sneered. “Or are you above that, you mages?”
“Not, above it,” Dalamar said, regarding Kitiara intently. “There are subtler means we of the Black Robes generally use to rid ourselves of our enemies. But not against him, lord. Not your brother.”
Dalamar shivered slightly and drank his wine with undue haste.
“Bah!” Kitiara snorted.
“No, listen to me and understand, Kitiara,” Dalamar said softly. “You do not know your brother. You do not know him and, what is worse, you do not fear him! That will lead to your doom.”
“Fear him? That skinny, hacking wretch? You’re not serious—” Kitiara began, laughing. But her laughter died. She leaned forward. “You are serious. I can see it in your eyes!”
Dalamar smiled grimly. “I fear him as I fear nothing in this world—including death.” Reaching up, the dark elf grasped the seam of his black robes and ripped it open, revealing the wounds on his chest.
Kitiara, mystified, looked at the wounds, then looked up at the dark elf’s pale face. “What weapon made those? I don’t recog—”
“His hand,” Dalamar said without emotion. “The mark of his five fingers. This was his message to Par-Salian and the Conclave when he commanded me to give them his regards.”
Kit had seen many terrible sights—men disemboweled before her eyes, heads hacked off, torture sessions in the dungeons beneath the mountains known as the Lords of Doom. But, seeing those oozing sores and seeing, in her mind, her brother’s slender fingers burning into the dark elf’s flesh, she could not repress a shudder.
Sinking back in her chair, Kit went over carefully in her mind everything Dalamar had told her, and she began to think that, perhaps, she had underestimated Raistlin. Her face grave, she sipped her wine.
“And so he plans to enter the Portal,” she said to Dalamar slowly, trying to readjust her thinking along these new and startling lines. “He will enter the Portal with the cleric. He will find himself in the Abyss. Then what? Surely he knows he cannot fight the Dark Queen on her own plane!”
“Of course he knows,” Dalamar said. “He is strong, butt here—she is stronger. And so he intends to lure her out, to force her to enter this world. Here, he believes, he can destroy her.”
“Mad!” Kitiara whispered with barely enough breath to say the word. “He is mad!” She hastily set her wine goblet down, seeing the liquid slopping over her shaking hand. “He has seen her in this plane when she was but a shadow, when she was blocked from entering completely. He cannot imagine what she would be like—!”
Rising to her feet, Kit nervously crossed the soft carpet with its muted images of trees and flowers so beloved of the elves. Feeling suddenly chilled, she stood before the fire. Dalamar came to stand beside her, his black robes rustling. Even as Kit spoke, absorbed in her own thoughts and fears, she was conscious of the elf’s warm body near hers.
“What do your mages think will happen?” she asked abruptly. “Who will win, if he succeeds in this insane plan? Does he have a chance?”
Dalamar shrugged and, moving a step nearer, put his hands on Kitiara’s slender neck. His fingers softly caressed her smooth skin. The sensation was delicious. Kitiara closed her eyes, drawing a deep, shivering breath.
“The mages do not know,” Dalamar said softly, bending down to kiss Kitiara just below her ear. Stretching like a cat, she arched her body back against his.
“Here he would be in his element,” Dalamar continued, “the Queen would be weakened. But she certainly would not be easily defeated. Some think the magical battle between the two could well destroy the world.”
Lifting her hand, Kitiara ran it through the elf’s thick, silken hair, drawing his eager lips to her throat. “But... does he have a chance?” she persisted in a husky whisper.
Dalamar paused, then drew back away from her. His hands still on her shoulders, he turned Kitiara around to face him. Looking into her eyes, he saw what she was thinking. “Of course. There’s always a chance.”
“And what is it you will do, if he succeeds in entering the Portal?” Kitiara’s hands rested lightly on Dalamar’s chest, where her half-brother had left his terrible mark. Her eyes, looking into the elf’s, were luminous with passion that almost, but not quite, hid her calculating mind.
“I am to stop him from returning to this world,” Dalamar said. “I am to block the Portal so that he cannot come through.” His hand traced her crooked, curving lips.
“What will be your reward for so dangerous an assignment?” She pressed closer, biting playfully at his fingertips.