“Though there have always been the three Robes—good, neutral, and evil—among the magic-users, we have, unfortunately, not always maintained the balance,” Raistlin said. “As people turned against us, the White Robes withdrew into their Towers, advocating peace. The Black Robes, however, sought—at first—to strike back. They took over this fortress and used it in experiments to create armies.” He paused. “Experiments that were not successful at that time, but which led to the creation of draconians in our own age.
“With this failure, the mages realized the hopelessness of their situation. They abandoned Zhaman, joining with their fellows in what became known as the Lost Battles.”
“You seem to know your way around here,” Caramon observed.
Raistlin glanced sharply at his brother, but Caramon’s face was smooth, guileless—though there was, perhaps, a strange, shadowed look in his brown eyes.
“Do you not yet understand, my brother?” Raistlin said harshly, coming to a stop in a drafty, dark corridor. “I have never been here, yet I have walked these halls. The room I sleep in I have slept in many nights before, though I have yet to spend a night in this fortress. I am a stranger here, yet I know the location of every room, from those rooms of meditation and study at the top to the banquet halls on the first level.”
Caramon stopped, too. Slowly he looked around him, staring up at the dusty ceiling, gazing down the empty hallways where sunlight filtered through carved windows to lie in square tiles upon the stone floors. His gaze finally came back to meet that of his twin.
“Then, Fistandantilus,” he said, his voice heavy, “you know that this is also going to be your tomb.”
For an instant, Caramon saw a tiny crack in the glass of Raistlin’s eyes, he saw—not anger—but amusement, triumph. Then the bright mirrors returned. Caramon saw only himself reflected there, standing in a patch of weak, winter sunlight.
Crysania moved next to Raistlin. She put her hands over his arm as he leaned upon his staff and regarded Caramon with cold, gray eyes. “The gods are with us,” she said. “They were not with Fistandantilus. Your brother is strong in his art, I am strong in my faith. We will not fail!”
Still looking at Caramon, still keeping his twin’s reflection in the glistening orbs of his eyes, Raistlin smiled. “Yes,” he whispered, and there was a slight hiss to his words, “truly, the gods are with us!”
Upon the first level of the great, magical fortress of Zhaman were huge, stone-carved halls that had—in past days—been places of meeting and celebration. There were also, on the first level, rooms that had once been filled with books, designed for quiet study and meditation. At the back end were kitchens and storage rooms, long unused and covered by the dust of years.
On the upper levels were large bedrooms filled with quaint, old-fashioned furniture, the beds covered with linens preserved through the years by the dryness of the desert air. Caramon, Lady Crysania, and the officers of Caramon’s staff slept in these rooms. If they did not sleep soundly, if they woke up sometimes during the night thinking they had heard voices chanting strange words or glimpsing wisps of ghostly figures fluttering through the moonlit darkness, no one mentioned these in the daylight.
But after a few nights, these things were forgotten, swallowed up in larger worries about supplies, fights breaking out between humans and dwarves, reports from spies that the dwarves of Thorbardin were massing a huge, well-armed force.
There was also in Zhaman, on the first level, a corridor that appeared to be a mistake. Anyone venturing into it discovered that it wandered off from a short hallway and ended abruptly in a blank wall. It looked for all the world as if the builder had thrown down his tools in disgust, calling it quits.
But the corridor was not a mistake. When the proper hands were laid upon that blank wall, when the proper words were spoken, when the proper runes were traced in the dust of the wall itself, then a door appeared, leading to a great staircase cut from the granite foundation of Zhaman.
Down, down the staircase, down into darkness, down—it seemed—into the very core of the world, the proper person could descend. Down into the dungeons of Zhaman... .
“One more time.” The voice was soft, patient, and it dove and twisted at Tasslehoff like a snake. Writhing around him, it sank its curved teeth into his flesh, sucking out his life.
“We will go over it again. Tell me about the Abyss,” said the voice. “Everything you remember. How you entered. What the landscape is like. Who and what you saw. The Queen herself, how she looked, her words...”
“I’m trying, Raistlin, truly!” Tasslehoff whimpered. “But... we’ve gone over it and over it these last couple of days. I cant think of anything else! And, my head’s hot and my feet and my hands are cold and... the room’s spinning ’round and ’round. If—if you’d make it stop spinning, Raistlin, I think I might be able to recall...”
Feeling Raistlin s hand on his chest, Tas shrank down into the bed. “No!” he moaned, trying desperately to wriggle away. “I’ll be good, Raistlin! I’ll remember. Don’t hurt me, not like poor Gnimsh!”
But the archmage’s hand only rested lightly on the kender’s chest for an instant, then went to his forehead. Tas’s skin burned, but the touch of that hand burned worse.
“Lie still,” Raistlin commanded. Then, lifting Tas up by the arms, Raistlin stared intently into the kender’s sunken eyes.
Finally, Raistlin dropped Tas back down into the bed and, muttering a bitter curse, rose to his feet.
Lying upon a sweat-soaked pillow, Tas saw the black-robed figure hover over him an instant, then, with a flutter and swirl of robes, it turned and stalked out of the room. Tas tried to lift his head to see where Raistlin was going, but the effort was too much. He fell back limply.
Why am I so weak? he wondered. What’s wrong? I want to sleep. Maybe I’ll quit hurting then. Tas closed his eyes. But they flew open again as if he had wires attached to his hair. No, I cant sleep! he thought fearfully. There are things out there in the darkness, horrible things, just waiting for me to sleep! I’ve seen them, they’re out there! They’re going to leap out and As if from a great distance, he heard Raistlin’s voice, talking to someone. Peering around, trying desperately to keep sleep away from him, Tas decided to concentrate on Raistlin. Maybe I’ll find out something, he thought drearily. Maybe I’ll find out what’s the matter with me.
Looking over, he saw the black-robed figure talking to a squat, dark figure. Sure enough, they were discussing him. Tas tried to listen, but his mind kept doing strange things—going off to play somewhere without inviting his body along. So Tas couldn’t be certain if he was hearing what he was hearing or dreaming it.
“Give him some more of the potion. That should keep him quiet,” a voice that sounded like Raistlin’s said to the short, dark figure. “There’s little chance anyone will hear him down here, but I can’t risk it.”
The short, dark figure said something. Tas closed his eyes and let the cool waters of a blue, blue lake—Crystalmir Lake lap over his burning skin. Maybe his mind had decided to take his body along after all.
“When I am gone,” Raistlin’s voice came up out of the water, “lock the door after me and extinguish the light. My brother has grown suspicious of late. Should he discover the magical door, he will undoubtedly come down here. He must find nothing. All these cells should appear empty.”
The figure muttered, and the door squeaked on its hinges.
The water of Crystalmir suddenly began to boil around Tas. Tentacles snaked up out of it, grasping for him. His eyes flew open. “Raistlin!” he begged. “Don’t leave me. Help me!”
But the door banged shut. The short, dark figure shuffled over to Tas’s bedside. Staring at it with a kind of dreamlike horror, Tas saw that it was a dwarf. He smiled.