Caramon’s flush grew deeper. He looked down at the floor.
“I’m sorry,” Crysania said abruptly. “Please forgive me. II haven’t slept for nights, ever since this started.” She put a trembling hand to her forehead. “I can’t think,” she added hoarsely. “This incessant noise.…”
“I understand,” Caramon said, glancing up at her. “And you have every right to despise me. I despise myself for what I was. But that really doesn’t matter now. We’ve got to leave, Lady Crysania!”
“Yes, you’re right” Crysania drew a deep breath. “We’ve got to get out of here. We have only hours left to escape. I am well aware of it, believe me.” Sighing, she looked down at her hands. “I have failed,” she said dully. “I kept hoping, up until this last moment, that somehow things might change. But the Kingpriest is blind! Blind!”
“That’s not why you’ve been avoiding me though, is it?” Caramon asked, his voice expressionless. “Preventing me from leaving?”
Now it was Crysania who blushed. She looked down at her hands, twisting in her lap. “No,” she said so softly Caramon barely heard. “No, I-I didn’t want to leave without … without …”
“Raistlin,” Caramon finished. “Lady Crysania, he has magic of his own. It brought him here in the first place. He has made his choice. I’ve come to realize that. We should leave—”
“Your brother has been terribly ill,” Crysania said abruptly.
Caramon looked up quickly, his face drawn with concern.
“I have tried for days to see him, ever since Yule, but he refused admittance to all, even to me. And now, today, he has sent for me,” Crysania continued, feeling her face burn under Caramon’s penetrating gaze. “I am going to talk to him, to persuade him to come with us. If his health is impaired, he will not have the strength to use his magic.”
“Yes,” Caramon muttered, thinking about the difficulty involved in casting such a powerful, complex spell. It had taken Par-Salian days, and he was in good health. “What’s wrong with Raist?” he asked suddenly.
“The nearness of the gods affects him,” Crysania replied, “as it does others, though they refuse to admit it.” Her voice died in sorrow, but she pressed her lips together tightly for a moment, then continued. “We must be prepared to move quickly, if he agrees to come with us—”
“If he doesn’t?” Caramon interrupted.
Crysania blushed. “I think … he will,” she said, overcome by confusion, her thoughts going back to the time in his chambers when he had been so near her, the look of longing and desire in his eyes, the admiration. “I’ve been … talking to him … about the wrongness of his ways. I’ve shown him how evil can never build or create, how it can only destroy and turn in upon itself. He has admitted the validity of my arguments and promised to think about them.”
“And he loves you,” Caramon said softly.
Crysania could not meet the man’s gaze. She could not answer. Her heart beat so she could not, for a moment, hear above the pulsing of her blood. She could sense Caramon’s dark eyes regarding her steadily as the thunder rumbled and shook the Temple around them. Crysania gripped her hands together to stop their trembling. Then she was aware of Caramon rising to his feet.
“My lady,” he said in a hushed, solemn voice, “if you are right, if your goodness and your love can turn him from those dark paths that he walks and lead him—by his own choice—into the light, I would … I would—” Caramon choked and turned his head hurriedly.
Hearing so much love in the big man’s voice and seeing the tears he tried to hide, Crysania was overcome with pain and remorse. She began to wonder if she had misjudged him. Standing up, she gently touched the man’s huge arm, feeling its great muscles tense as Caramon fought to bring himself under control.
“Must you return? Can’t you stay—”
“No” Caramon shook his head. “I’ve got to get Tas, and the device Par-Salian gave me. It’s locked away. And then, I have friends.… I’ve been trying to convince them to leave the city. It may be too late, but I’ve got to make one more attempt—”
“Certainly,” Crysania said. “I understand. Return as quickly as you can. Meet me … meet me in Raistlin’s rooms.”
“I will, my lady,” he replied fervently. “And now I must go, before my friends leave for practice.” Taking her hand in his, he clasped it firmly, then hurried away. Crysania watched him walk back out into the corridor, whose torchlights shone in the gloomy darkness. He moved swiftly and surely, not even flinching when he passed a window at the end of the corridor and was suddenly illuminated by a brilliant flash of lightning. It was hope that anchored his storm-tossed spirit, the same hope Crysania felt suddenly welling up inside her.
Caramon vanished into the darkness and Crysania, catching up her white robes in one hand, quickly turned and climbed the stairs to the part of the Temple that housed the black-robed mage.
Her good spirits and her hope failed slightly as she entered that corridor. Here the full fury of the storm seemed to rage unabated. Not even the heaviest curtains could keep out the blinding lightning, the thickest walls could not muffle the peals of thunder. Perhaps because of some ill-fitting window, even the wind itself seemed to have penetrated the Temple walls. Here no torches would burn, not that they were needed, so incessant was the lighting.
Crysania’s black hair blew in her eyes, her robes fluttered around her. As she neared the mage’s room at the end of the corridor, she could hear the rain beat against the glass. The air was cold and damp. Shivering, she hastened her steps and had raised her hand to knock upon the door when the corridor suddenly sizzled with a blue-white flash of lightning. The simultaneous explosion of thunder knocked Crysania against the door. It flew open, and she was in Raistlin’s arms.
It was like her dream. Almost sobbing in her terror, she nestled close to the velvet softness of the black robes and warmed herself by the heat of his body. At first, that body next to hers was tense, then she felt it relax. His arms tightened around her almost convulsively, a hand reached up to stroke her hair, soothingly, comfortingly.
“There, there,” he whispered as one might to a frightened child, “fear not the storm, Revered Daughter. Exult in it! Taste the power of the gods, Crysania! Thus do they frighten the foolish. They cannot harm us—not if you choose otherwise.”
Gradually Crysania’s sobs lessened. Raistlin’s words were not the gentle murmurings of a mother. Their meaning struck home to her. She lifted her head, looking up at him.
“What do you mean?” she faltered, suddenly frightened. A crack had appeared in his mirrorlike eyes, permitting her to see the soul burning within.
Involuntarily, she started to push away from him, but he reached out and, smoothing the tangled black hair from her face with trembling hands, whispered, “Come with me, Crysania! Come with me to a time when you will be the only cleric in the world, to the time when we may enter the portal and challenge the gods, Crysania! Think of it! To rule, to show the world such power as this!”
Raistlin let go his grasp. Raising his arms, the black robes shimmering about him as the lightning flared and the thunder roared, he laughed. And then Crysania saw the feverish gleam in his eyes and the bright spots of color on his deathly pale cheeks. He was thin, far thinner than when she had seen him last.
“You’re ill,” she said, backing up, her hands behind her, reaching for the door. “I’ll get help …”
“No!” Raistlin’s shout was louder than the thunder. His eyes regained their mirrored surface, his face was cold and composed. Reaching out, he grasped her wrist with a painful grip and jerked her back into the room. The door slammed shut behind her. “I am ill,” he said more quietly, “but there is no help, no cure for my malady but to escape this insanity. My plans are almost completed. Tomorrow, the day of the Cataclysm, the attention of the gods will be turned to the lesson they must inflict upon these poor wretches. The Dark Queen will not be able to stop me as I work my magic and carry myself forward
to the one time in history when she is vulnerable to the power of a true cleric!”
“Let me go!” Crysania cried, pain and outrage submerging her fear. Angrily, she wrenched her arm free of his grasp. But she still remembered his embrace, the touch of his hands.… Hurt and ashamed, Crysania turned away. “You must work your evil without me,” she said, her voice choked with her tears. “I will not go with you.”
“Then you will die,” Raistlin said grimly.
“Do you dare threaten me!” Crysania cried, whirling around to face him, shock and fury drying her eyes.
“Oh, not by my hand,” Raistlin said with a strange smile. “You will die by the hands of those who sent you here.”
Crysania blinked, stunned. Then she quickly regained her composure. “Another trick?” she asked coldly, backing away from him, the pain in her heart at his deception almost more than she could bear. She wanted only to leave before he saw how much he had been able to hurt her—
“No trick, Revered Daughter,” Raistlin said simply. He gestured to a book with red binding that lay open upon his desk. “See for yourself. Long I studied—” He swept his hand about the rows and rows of books that lined the wall. Crysania gasped. These had not been here the last time. Looking at her, he nodded. “Yes, I brought them from far-off places. I traveled far in search of many of them. This one I finally found in the Tower of High Sorcery at Wayreth, as I suspected all along I might. Come, look at it.”
“What is it?” Crysania stared at the volume as if it might have been a coiled, poisonous serpent.
“A book, nothing more.” Raistlin smiled wearily. “I assure you it will not change into a dragon and carry you off at my command. I repeat—it is a book, an encyclopedia, if you will. A very ancient one, written during the Age of Dreams.”
“Why do you want me to see this? What does it have to do with me?” Crysania asked suspiciously. But she had ceased edging her way toward the door. Raistlin’s calm demeanor reassured her. She had even ceased to notice, for the moment, the lightning and cracking of the storm outside.
“It is an encyclopedia of magical devices produced during the Age of Dreams,” Raistlin continued imperturbably, never taking his eyes from Crysania. seeming to draw her nearer with his gaze as he stood beside the desk. “Read—”
“I cannot read the language of magic,” Crysania said, frowning, then her brow cleared. “Or are you going to ‘translate’ for me?” she inquired haughtily.
Raistlin’s eyes flared in swift anger, but the anger was almost instantly replaced by a look of sadness and exhaustion that went straight to Crysania’s heart. “It is not written in the language of magic,” he said softly. “I would not have asked you here otherwise.” Glancing down at the black robes he wore, he smiled the twisted, bitter smile. “Long ago, I willingly paid the penalty. I do not know why I should have hoped you would trust me.”
Biting her lip, feeling deeply ashamed, though she had no idea why, Crysania crossed around to the other side of the desk. She stood there, hesitantly. Sitting down, Raistlin beckoned to her, and she took a step forward to stand beside the open book. The mage spoke a word of command, and the staff that leaned up against the wall near Crysania burst into a flood of yellow light, startling her nearly as much as the lightning.
“Read,” Raistlin said, indicating the page.
Trying to compose herself, Crysania glanced down, scanning the page, though she had no idea what she sought. Then, her attention was captured. Device of Time Journeying read one of the entries and, beside it, was pictured a device similar to the one the kender had described.
“This is it?” she asked, looking up at Raistlin. “The device Par-Salian gave Caramon to get us back?”
The mage nodded, his eyes reflecting the yellow light of the staff.
“Read,” he repeated softly.
Curious, Crysania scanned the text. There was little more than a paragraph, describing the device, the great mage—now long forgotten—who had designed and built it—the requirements for its use. Much of the description was beyond her understanding, dealing with things arcane. She grasped at bits and pieces—
… will carry the person already under a time spell forward or backward … must be assembled correctly and the facets turned in the prescribed order.… will transport one person only, the person to whom it is given at the time the spell is cast … device’s use is restricted to elves, humans, ogres … no spell word required.…
Crysania came to the end and glanced up at Raistlin uncertainly. He was watching her with a strange, expectant look. There was something there he was waiting for her to find. And, deep within, she felt a disquiet, a fear, a numbness, as if her heart understood the text more quickly than her brain.
“Again,” Raistlin said.
Trying to concentrate, though she was now once more aware of the storm outside that seemed to be growing in intensity, Crysania looked back at the text.
And there it was. The words leaped out at her, reaching for her throat, choking her.
Transport one person only.…
Transport one person only!
Crysania’s legs gave way. Fortunately, Raistlin moved a chair behind her or she might have fallen to the floor.
For long moments she stared into the room. Though lit by lightning and the magical light of the staff, it had, for her, grown suddenly dark.
“Does he know?” she asked finally, through numb lips.
“Caramon?” Raistlin snorted. “Of course not. If they had told him, he would have broken his fool neck trying to get it to you and would beg you on his knees to use it and give him the privilege of dying in your stead. I can think of little else that would make him happier.
“No, Lady Crysania, he would have used it confidently, with you standing beside him as well as the kender, no doubt. And he would have been devastated when they explained to him why he returned alone. I wonder how Par-Salian would have managed that,” Raistlin added with a grim smile. “Caramon is quite capable of tearing that Tower down around their ears. But that is neither here nor there.”
His gaze caught hers, though she would have avoided it. He compelled her, by the force of his will, to look into his eyes. And, once again, she saw herself, but this time alone and terribly frightened.
“They sent you back here to die, Crysania,” Raistlin said in a voice that was little more than a breath, yet it penetrated to Crysania’s very core, echoing louder in her mind than the thunder. “This is the good you tell me about? Bah! They live in fear, as does the Kingpriest! They fear you as they fear me. The only path to good, Crysania, is my path! Help me defeat the evil. I need you.…”
Crysania closed her eyes. She could see once again, vividly, Par-Salian’s handwriting on the note she had found—your life or your soul—gain one and you will lose the other! There are many ways back for you, one of which is through Caramon. He had purposely misled her! What other way existed, besides Raistlin’s? Is this what the mage meant? Who could answer her? Was there anyone, anyone in this bleak and desolate world she could trust?
Her muscles twitching, contracting, Crysania pushed herself up from her chair. She did not look at Raistlin, she stared ahead at nothing. “I must go …” she muttered brokenly, “I must think.…”
Raistlin did not try to stop her. He did not even stand. He spoke no word—until she reached the door.
“Tomorrow,” he whispered. “Tomorrow.…”
CHAPTER
15
t took all of Caramon’s strength, plus that of two of the Temple guards, to force the great doors of the Temple open and let him out into the storm. The wind hit him full force, driving the big man back against the stone wall and pinning him there for an instant, as if he were no bigger than Tas. Struggling, Caramon fought against it and finally won, the gale force relenting enough to allow him to continue down the stairs.
The fury of the storm was somewhat lessened as he walked among the tall buildings of the city, but it was still difficult going
. Water ran a foot deep in some places, swirling about his legs, threatening more than once to sweep him off his feet. The lightning half-blinded him, the thunder was deafening.
Needless to say, he saw few other people. The inhabitants of Istar cowered indoors, alternately cursing or calling upon the gods. The occasional traveler he passed, driven out into the storm by who knows what desperate reason, clung to the sides of the buildings or stood huddled miserably in doorways.
But Caramon trudged on, anxious to get back to the arena. His heart was filled with hope, his spirits were high, despite the storm. Or perhaps because of the storm. Surely now Kiiri and Pheragas would listen to him instead of giving him strange, cold looks when he tried to persuade them to flee Istar.
“I can’t tell you how I know, I just know!” he pleaded. “There’s disaster coming, I can smell it!”
“And miss the final tournament?” Kiiri said coolly.
“They won’t hold it in this weather!” Caramon waved his arms.
“No storm this fierce ever lasts long!” Pheragas said. “It will blow itself out, and we’ll have a beautiful day. Besides”—his eyes narrowed—“what would you do without us in the arena?”
“Why, fight alone, if need be,” Caramon said, somewhat flustered. He planned to be long gone by that time—he and Tas, Crysania and perhaps … perhaps.…
“If need be …” Kiiri had repeated in an odd, harsh tone, exchanging glances with Pheragas. “Thanks for thinking of us, friend,” she said with a scathing glance at the iron collar Caramon wore, the collar that matched her own, “but no thanks. Our lives would be forfeit—runaway slaves! How long do you think we’d live out there?”
“It won’t matter, not after … after …” Caramon sighed and shook his head miserably. What could he say? How could he make them understand? But they had not given him the chance. They walked off without another word, leaving him sitting alone in the mess hall.
But, surely, now they would listen! They would see that this was no ordinary storm. Would they have time to get away safely? Caramon frowned and wished, for the first time, he had paid more attention to books. He had no idea how wide an area the devastating effect of the fall of the fiery mountain encompassed. He shook his head. Maybe it was already too late.
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