“These women had long since forgotten the name of Paladine. Like the Kingpriest, they were wrapped in their own righteousness and could see nothing through their veils of goodness. Filled with my own self-righteousness, I let them know what I intended. Their fear was great. They did not believe the gods would punish the world. They saw a day when only the good (meaning the elves) would live upon Krynn.
“They had to stop me. And they were successful.
“The Queen is wise. She knows the dark regions of a man’s heart. I would have ridden down an army, if it had stood in my way. But the soft words of those elven women worked in my blood like poison. How clever it was for the elfmaid to have been rid of me so easily, they said. Now she had my castle, my wealth, all to herself, without the inconvenience of a human husband. Was I even certain the baby was mine? She had been seen in the company of one of my young followers. Where did she go when she left my tent in the night?
“They never once lied. They never once said anything against her directly. But their questions ate at my soul, gnawing at me. I remembered words, incidents, looks. I was certain I’d been betrayed. I would catch them together! I would kill him! I would make her suffer!
“I turned my back upon Istar.
“Arriving home, I battered down the doors of my castle. My wife, alarmed, came to meet me, holding her infant son in her arms. There was a look of despair upon her face—I took it for an admission of guilt. I cursed her, I cursed her child. And, at that moment, the fiery mountain struck Ansalon.
“The stars fell from the sky. The ground shook and split asunder. A chandelier, lit with a hundred candles, fell from the ceiling. In an instant my wife was engulfed with flame. She knew she was dying, but she held out her babe to me to rescue from the fire that was consuming her. I hesitated, then, jealous rage still filling my heart, I turned away.
“With her dying breath, she called down the wrath of the gods upon me. ‘You will die this night in fire,’ she cried, ‘even as your son and I die. But you will live eternally in darkness. You will live one life for every life that your folly has brought to an end this night!’ She perished.
“The flames spread. My castle was soon ablaze. Nothing we tried would put out that strange fire. It burned even rock. My men tried to flee. But, as I watched, they, too, burst into flame. There was no one, no one left alive except myself upon that mountain. I stood in the great hall, alone, surrounded on all sides by fire that did not yet touch me. But, as I stood there, I saw it closing in upon me, coming closer … closer.…
“I died slowly, in unbearable agony. When death finally came, it brought no relief. For I closed my eyes only to open them again, looking into a world of emptiness and bleak despair and eternal torment. Night after night, for endless years, I have sat upon this throne and listened to those elven women sing my story.
“But that ended, it ended with you, Kitiara.…
“When the Dark Queen called upon me to aid her in the war, I told her I would serve the first Dragon Highlord who had courage enough to spend the night in Dargaard Keep. There was only one—you, my beauty. You, Kitiara. I admired you for that, I admired you for your courage, your skill, your ruthless determination. In you, I see myself. I see what I might have become.
“I helped you murder the other Highlords when we fled Neraka in the turmoil following the Queen’s defeat, I helped you reach Sanction, and there I helped you establish your power once again upon this continent. I helped you when you tried to thwart your brother, Raistlin’s, plans for challenging the Queen of Darkness. No, I wasn’t surprised he outwitted you. Of all the living I have ever met, he is the only one I fear.
“I have even been amused by your love affairs, my Kitiara. We dead cannot feel lust. That is a passion of the blood and no blood flows in these icy limbs. I watched you twist that weakling, Tanis Half-Elven, inside out, and I enjoyed it every bit as much as you did.
“But now, Kitiara, what have you become? The mistress has become the slave. And for what—an elf! Oh, I have seen your eyes burn when you speak his name. I’ve seen your hands tremble when you hold his letters. You think of him when you should be planning war. Even your generals can no longer claim your attention.
“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.…”
CHAPTER
1
he 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 man’s 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, and 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.
That was all. No signature. He knew only that Fourthday was today and, having received the missive only two days ago, he had been forced to travel day and night to reach Palanthas on time. The note’s language was elven, the handwriting was elven, also. Not unusual. Elistan had many elven clerics, but why hadn’t he signed it? If, indeed, it came from Elistan. Yet, who else could so casually issue such an invitation to the Temple of Paladine?
Shrugging to himself—remembering that he had asked himself these same questions more than once and had never come to a satisfactory conclusion—Tanis tucked the letter back inside his pouch. His gaze went, unwillingly, to the Tower of High Sorcery.
“I’ll wager it has something to do with you, old friend,” he murmured to himself, frowning and thinking, once again, of the strange disappearance of the cleric, Lady Crysania.
The carriage rolled to a halt again, jolting Tanis from his dark thoughts. He looked out the window, catching a glimpse of the Temple, but forcing himself to sit patiently in his seat until the footman came to open the door for him. He smiled to himself. He could almost see Laurana, sitting across from him, glaring at him, daring him to make a move for the door handle. It had taken her many months to break Tanis of his old impetuous habit of flinging open the door, knocking the footman to one side, and proceeding on his way without a thought for the driver, the carriage, the horses, anything.
It had now become a private joke between them. Tanis loved watching Laurana’s eyes narrow in mock alarm as his hand strayed teasingly near the door handle. But that only reminded him how much he missed her. Where was that damn footman anyway? By the gods, he was alone, he’d do it his way for a change—
The door flew open. The footman fumbled with the step that folded down from the floor. “Oh, forget that,” Tanis snapped impatiently, hopping to the ground. Ignoring the footman’s faint look of outraged sensibility, Tanis drew in a deep breath, glad to have escaped—finally—from the stuffy confines of the carriage.
He gazed around, letting the wonderful feeling of peace and well-being that radiated from the Temple of Paladine seep into his soul. No forest guarded this holy place. Vast, open lawns of green grass as soft and smooth as velvet invited the traveler to walk upon it, sit upon it, rest upon it. Gardens of bright-colored flowers delighted the eye, their perfume filling the air with sweetness. Here and there, groves of carefully pruned shade trees offered a haven from glaring sunlight. Fountains poured forth pure cool water. White-robed clerics walked in the gardens, their heads bent together in solemn discussion.
Rising from the frame of the gardens and the shady groves and the carpet of grass, the Temple of Paladine glowed softly in the morning sunlight. Made of white marble, it was a plain, unadorned structure that added to the impression of peace and tranquillity that prevailed all around it.
There were gates, but no guards. All were invited to enter, and many did so. It was a haven for the sorrowful, the weary, the unhappy. As Tanis started to make his way across the well-kept lawn, he saw many people sitting or lying upon the grass, a look of peace upon faces that, from the marks of care and weariness, had not often known such comfort.
Tanis had taken only a few steps when he remembered—with another sigh—the carriage. Stopping, he turned. “Wait for me,” he was about to say when a figure emerged from the shadows of a grove of aspens that stood at the very edge of the Temple property.
“Tanis Half-Elven?” inquired the figure.
As the figure walked into the light, Tanis started. It was dressed in black robes. Numerous pouches and other spell-casting devices hung from its belt, runes of silver were embroidered upon the sleeves and the hood of its black cloak. Raistlin! Tanis thought instantly, having had the archmage in his mind only moments before.
But no. Tanis breathed easier. This magic-user was taller than Raistlin by at least a head and shoulders. His body was straight and well-formed, even muscular, his step youthful and vigorous. Besides, now that Tanis was paying attention, he realized that the voice was firm and deep—not like Raistlin’s soft, unsettling whisper.
And, if it were not too odd, Tanis would have sworn he had heard the man speak with an elven accent.
“I am Tanis Half-Elven,” he said
, somewhat belatedly.
Though he could not see the figure’s face, hidden as it was by the shadows of its black hood, he had the impression the man smiled.
“I thought I recognized you. You have often been described to me. You may dismiss your carriage. It will not be needed. You will be spending many days, possibly even weeks, here in Palanthas.”
The man was speaking elven! Silvanesti Elven! Tanis was, for a moment, so startled that he could only stare. The driver of the carriage cleared his throat at that moment. It had been a long, hard journey and there were fine inns in Palanthas with ale that was legendary all over Ansalon.…
But Tanis wasn’t going to dismiss his equipage on the word of a black-robed mage. He opened his mouth to question him further when the magic-user withdrew his hands from the sleeves of his robes, where he’d kept them folded, and made a swift, negating motion with one, even as he made a motion of invitation with the other.
“Please,” he said in elven again, “won’t you walk with me? For I am bound for the same place you go. Elistan expects us.”
Us! Tanis’s mind fumbled about in confusion. Since when did Elistan invite black-robed magic-users to the Temple of Paladine? And since when did black-robed magic-users voluntarily set foot upon these sacred grounds!
Well, the only way to find out, obviously, was to accompany this strange person and save his questions until they were alone. Somewhat confusedly, therefore, Tanis gave his instructions to the coachman. The black-robed figure stood in silence beside him, watching the carriage depart. Then Tanis turned to him.
“You have the advantage of me, sir,” the half-elf said in halting Silvanesti, a language that was purer elven than the Qualinesti he’d been raised to speak.
The figure bowed, then cast aside his hood so that the morning light fell upon his face. “I am Dalamar,” he said, returning his hands to the sleeves of his robe. Few there were upon Krynn who would shake hands with a black-robed mage.
Test of the Twins Page 8