Nancy Berberick - Dalamar The Dark

Hands clenched tightly, that clenching hidden in the wide sleeves of his robe, Dalamar took a step forward-one, one only-and all the world filled up with shouting, all that shouting pouring out from one throat: His own. A wild wind roared in his head, thundering and shrieking. He struggled, and then he stopped, willing himself to be still. In that moment he framed his will in words, the roaring in his head stopped, and the blackness engulfing him felt as normal and friendly as sleep.

To that blackness he gave himself, surrendering his will because that surrender was his will, trusting that he would find himself where he needed to be. Quietly, he fell… and then things were not so quiet.

Fire ran in Dalamar, coursing through his veins like lust and rage. Fire became his very blood, burning in rampage, the flames roaring in him with the sound of his own voice. This was the fire of magic, the fierce running power of Nuitari's sorcery tearing into him, out of him, a fire no one commanded but he.

See how the power flashes through him! Like lightning charging the sky! He will not be able to hold it… He will not be able to-

Dalamar stood on a foggy plain howling with glee, and his voice was the song of the wind wailing wild in the treetops, the high canopy of the Forest of Wayreth. His soul soared on that howling, magic running in him, leaping, laughing. He tamed the howling, brought it back inside himself, and let it out again, sending his voice out powerfully as though it were a thing that lived independently of him. On his voice flew all the chants he had learned in Silvamori, words of achingly beautiful simplicity, words that were useless without the music to carry them, a weaving of notes so complex no one could map it for another to follow.

He sings. He sings. He must have learned this from the Kagonesti in Silvamori…

Dalamar thought he would say, Yes, I have learned this from a Kagonesti, from a wizardess there whose power lay in the music of her untamed soul, and this magic is so like to the Wild Magic you all fear that the difference is hard to see. I see it, though! I do, for I have learned well this magic others have scorned… He thought he would say that, but he didn't have words for other than speaking the shape of his magic and all the spells he loved as though they were his own heart and his own soul.

He flung forth fireballs, and he caught them and quenched them in his hands. Every spell he knew, he cast- those learned in Silvanost of House Mystic, in Silvamori, gleaned from the dusty tomes in the library at Tarsis, and those precious spells stolen in secret from the tutors hidden in his little cave. He cast them, and he gave no thought to whether the casting would drain him of strength, even of life. How, when the casting of spells and the weaving of magic was all he'd ever wanted to do. In all his life he wanted nothing more than this. If he died of this, what better way to die? He laughed, and he wept, and both these things were expressions of his joy, of his power and the utter certainty that he could go on and on, spending himself in magic until the world was woven up in his spells.

With word and song and gesture, Dalamar drew wonders from the earth, and he pulled down terrors from the sky. He conjured a misty world where there was no sky and no earth existed. There, he walked among shadow-beings and ghosts. He stood beside dryads in their glens and spoke with centaurs from the darkest part of Darken Wood. Demons came to stand before him, creatures with two heads or nine eyes, beings whose breath was a fume of acid, whose breast held no heart but only the empty place where a heart should have beat; horned beings, fanged beings, creatures with wings as leathery as any dragon's. They called him lord and came bowing and pleading for a chance to serve him. These creatures he brought to him, summoning them with magic and the force of his unbending will, and he sent them away again, but not before he gained from each the promise to return at his command. Thus he bound creatures to himself that would have terrified others to see.

In rapture, he summoned the ghost of a Dragon Highlord, and that one he laughed at, for she was Phair Caron and she wept and wailed at his feet, blood pouring from the empty sockets where her eyes should have been, her fingers wet with that blood. He turned from her, still laughing, and now he saw that he was not standing upon the foggy plain but in a street with tall buildings rising up all around him, with smooth pavement beneath his feet and the sweet scent of gardens in the air-

"I am in Silvanost!" Dalamar took a long slow breath. His head ached with memories of conflicting dreams, some sweet, others nightmares. "I am in Silvanost. Or-or am I in Tarsis? No, no, not there. I am at the Tower."

"Tarsis?" The tall human woman beside him smiled, though that smile at best was never more than a sneer. Her dark robe glittered in the shining day, sewn with diamonds and hemmed in rubies. Her black hair, piled high in a crown of braids, shimmered with ropes of pearls.

"Regene," he said, thinking he stood again with the White Robe who liked so well to change her shape.

"Who?" said the woman, frowning. "Don't you recognize me, Dalamar Argent? Or have you been too long in the taverns, sitting in shadows and drinking your pale elven wine?"

He did recognize her, even as she asked the question, he did recognize her. "My lady," he said, to Kesela of the Black Robes.

She laughed, a low, throaty sound. "Well, now that you've got me straight, look around and get yourself straight. You're not in Tarsis, of all places! And we're certainly not at the Tower yet, but we're close. It's yonder, far into the woods. Look, you can see the trees of the Guardian Forest." She snorted her disdain. "Though it looks more like a Warding Woodland to me. I suppose the city has grown so big around it that it seems diminished."

Dalamar looked around him. Behind, he caught a glimpse of shining houses. Roofs supported domes of glass so that the inhabitants need not suffer without their gardens in winter but could tend them in warmth all year round. He was in Istar! And, after all, where else would he be? He was in Istar with Lady Kesela, she whose name turned the blood of brave men to water, whose reputation for ruthlessness was the shame of her father, a Solamnic Knight, and the delight of the dark gods she worshiped. They had come here on the wings of magic, bearing scrolls of ancient work and beauty to give to the Master of the Tower of High Sorcery, this wizardess of fearsome repute and he, her apprentice. This gift they brought with little fanfare, for if it was not a secret, still it was not something they would trumpet through the city. The Kingpriest had already declared the worship of the dark gods unwelcome in his city. Talk ran all around Krynn that he would soon declare it outlawed and then turn his eye toward those who worshiped the gods of Neutrality.

Voices rose and fell, singing and chattering, laughing and shouting, Istar talking to itself. All around them the city streets flowed with people-darting kender, dwarves out of Thorbardin, elves from Silvanesti, humans from the Solamnic Plain, from Khur and Nordmaar. Mages went among them, and clerics of all kinds, though it wasn't but a moment before Dalamar's eye picked out the truth of what rumor had been saying. There were more clerics and mages wearing white robes than red, and hardly any black robes at all. The more precious this gift they bore, for the Master of Tower had no mind to purge his libraries of texts because some king who thought himself the arbiter of Krynn's religion had no sense of balance and proportion. And, it would not be doubted, in exchange for this scroll, Lady Kesela would come away with something of value, a charm, a talisman, the favor of the Master of the Tower. She did not give from graciousness.