Nancy Berberick - Dalamar The Dark

"Ah," said Lady Kesela, suddenly at his elbow. "Now that's curious."

Soft, a piteous sound, a voice moaned, "Save me."

The voice came from the room across the corridor, and now Dalamar sensed a thing he had not before-an aura hung on the air, and all around that room opposite, a shimmering, tingling charge of magic. Someone in that room had recently spent himself in mage-craft. Dalamar's heart skipped a beat. Someone had lately taken his Test!

"Save me! Oh, disaster is near!"

With no other word, Kesela pushed past Dalamar, who tried to stop her. "No!" he whispered. "My lady, don't!"

Kesela shook him off, and the voice moaned louder now, pleading for help, begging for aid and warning of disaster.

"My lady!" Greatly daring, Dalamar leaped, taking hold of her sleeve. "Listen to me," he whispered harshly. The green light flared, sending shadows swirling across the flagged stone floor in frantic patterns. "Whoever is in there is reeking of magic, and I think he's just taken his Test-or perhaps he is still taking it. You don't know what's going on in there, what magic is in play. You could cost a mage his life if you interfere with his Test."

She looked at him, staring coldly. The jewels sewn into her robe ran in the torchlight, and her face seemed made of marble. "There is no Test going on, Dalamar. What makes you think so? There is only magic, something in play, some artifact engaged. I would see."

"Oh, have pity! Do not leave me here! Save me!"

She would see, and if that voice were the voice of a mage who had overreached in magic, engaged some artifact or spell, she would not hesitate to pluck the book from his table, the talisman from his hand.

But this was a Test. Dalamar knew it. In his bones, he knew. In his blood where magic sang, he knew. Within that chamber someone was taking his Tests of High Sorcery and, to mages, there was no more sacred rite.

"Save me!" Like a ghost's moan, that cry wound through the corridor. The light leaking from beneath the door changed to softest green now, like sunlight shining through aspen leaves. "Do not leave me here!"

Kesela grasped the doorknob, and Dalamar reached to grab her. She turned, her eyes cold with rage of a kind he had never seen on her. Fear ran icy in his belly. She saw it, and she laughed. The wizardess shouted a word of magic, and into her hand sprang a ball of fire, pulsing, glowing. Dalamar felt the heat of it, and he heard a roaring like the forgeman's furnace as Kesela flung the fire, cursing.

Heart racing, he ducked, and he fell hard to his knees, the fire roaring overhead. Mad! The woman must have gone mad! Only a word was needed to shape his own magic, and in the breathing of it he had in hand, like a shining spear, a bolt of lightning so powerful it might have been plucked from the storm. Coldly, permitting himself no anger, allowing her all her own, he struck out, flinging that bolt. Kesela screamed as the bolt struck her full in the chest. Burning flesh sizzled, the stench of burning hair filled the corridor. Kesela slumped to the floor, her eyes wide, her mouth twitching around words she could not manage. She choked, and blood poured out from her mouth, spilling down her chin, her neck, dimming the diamonds sewn into her black robe.

"Save me! Oh, save me!"

The light beneath the door pulsed now, deeply green. Its energy clawed at Dalamar, raising up the hair on his neck, on his arms. Above him, the door that had been a little ajar opened fully.

"Save me! Disaster is near! Don't leave me!"

Green light poured out from the chamber, then went suddenly still and dark. Footfalls sounded softly, and a young elf dressed in white robes came out of the room, a chamber so small it might have been a closet. He had a thing in his hand, something small and round. Torchlight glinted from it as from crystal. One beam of that light struck Dalamar in the eye, and he did not flinch. With great clarity he saw a vision of whirlwind madness, a nightmare of screaming and killing, of trees dying, of woodlands withering. He saw Silvanesti crumble, the towers of Silvanost- even the Tower of the Stars itself! — melt like wax, while a green miasma replaced the air and poisoned all that breathed it. Beasts ran mad, elves died screaming, each man and woman and child of them flung into the pit of his own worst nightmare. All this he saw before the light winked out and the elf-mage slipped silently down the corridor like a thief cloaked in shadows. Once the thief turned, a furtive glance over his shoulder, and every nerve in Dalamar's body screamed as he recognized him-Lorac Caladon of Silvanesti.

What plague did Lorac carry out of the Tower of High Sorcery? What devastation did he bring now to the Sylvan Land? These things Dalamar wondered, but not so painfully as he wondered one other thing.

"Ah, gods," Dalamar groaned, "why did I let him go?"

For the same reason, whispered a dark and true voice deep in his heart, for the same reason you stopped Lady Kesela from intruding upon a Test. For the magic you love more than anything else.

A dark shape, huddled and bleeding, Kesela moved, but only a little. Her breath a groaning, she moved again, wrenching herself over onto her back. Her eyes glared, two hard stones. Her mouth was a red gash like a wound in her white, white face.

"Apprentice," she groaned. Hatred filled the corridor, stinking on the air. Her hand twitched a little.

She's dying, Dalamar thought, but he didn't trouble himself long or hard about it. She deserved that, a wizardess who sought to interfere with a Test. He groaned, though, as she did, and not for her death or for any pain he himself felt. Dalamar groaned, the sound echoing along the corridor, winding up to the high stone ceiling, for a truth he hated and must acknowledge. He had sent Lorac Caladon out into the world, back from his Test and into Silvanesti, with an artifact of magic that would tear the Sylvan Land to ruin. And he would not have done otherwise.

He could not have.

"So much would I give up for magic," he whispered. "Even this chance to stop a plague from overtaking my homeland."

Kesela's hand twitched again, her eyes shone with dire glee. "More than that, Dalamar Argent," she groaned. "More than that…"

Hissing filled the corridor, like steam escaping a lidded kettle, like snakes. Down from the ceiling, out from the corners and the shadows lurking, came a red tide running, red as fire, red as blood. The leading edge of it touched them both at the same time, and the corridor filled with screaming. Her screaming. His screaming as the flesh melted from his bones; his bones burst and spilled out their marrow.

Screaming, he died in agony and in fire. Screaming, he died.

Dalamar lay in silence, still and barely breathing. He felt as though he'd lain that way for days, sleeping without waking, never dreaming. Beneath his cheek was a thick pillow of down; a blue blanket of soft combed wool covered his nakedness. Somewhere a bird sang, a wren by the sound of the intricate weaving of notes. Incense drifted like memory through the air, hanging low, a gray ghost come to seek him. It smelled of lavender. It smelled of the Temple of E'li, of Silvanost, sun, and soft breezes.

Perhaps I am not dead, he thought.

A hand touched him lightly on the brow, brushing his hair from his cheek, inviting him to wake fully. "You are not," a woman's voice said. It was not a gentle voice, though he thought it could be if she wanted that. "Though I don't blame you if you feel as if you are."

Dalamar opened his eyes and turned onto his back. He was in a small room with only a bed and a table near to hand, a chest at the foot, and a desk for writing. A woman stood beside the bed, tall and lovely. She was, by the look of her, human. Her hair, the color of pure polished silver and arranged in an intricate fantasy of braids, gleamed in the sunlight. She wore black robes of velvet, diamonds and rubies sewn into the seams, and her fingers sparkled with gemmed rings. Her face was lined, but lightly. He knew her! He had seen her in Istar, only she had been younger, and her name, her name was Kesela. He had killed her. She had killed him. In Istar…