Chapter Seventeen

Crysania rode in silence behind Lagan, listless and with barely enough strength to cling to him. From time to time, he turned to remind her. "Hold on, lady. Don't fall asleep. Hold on."

She tried, with the sun beating down on her, the gritty wind clawing at her face and eyes. She tried to hold on, to keep her grip so Lagan didn't have to fret about her. And then her arms would weaken, her hands come unclasped. Nodding, her head would fall forward, a moment of blessed sleep before Lagan turned to whisper, "Hold on, lady. Don't fall asleep."

"It's hard," she confessed, forcing herself awake. "The sun…"

Always the sun, burning down, beating upon them. Like a hammer beating iron stock, so the saying had gone in Palanthas. She had thought the land dead before, when Tandar had been able to afford her glimpses of the world around him. Then they'd been near the mountains, near the brown, muddy river. This greater devastation she sensed without his help. The air smelled dry. Nothing more. It carried in it no hint of life, no scent of green. Beneath the horse's hooves, sometimes not even dead grass crunched. Sometimes there was only earth, cracked and hard.

They seldom found water anymore. When Tandar scented a stream, they headed for it. When the horses did, they trusted the beasts. Never was there enough to fill all their water bottles and still accommodate Tandar and the horses. After the horses had drunk, after Tandar had lapped, often what remained was enough for one waterskin only. This they shared, passing the skin around so that each might take a scant mouthful. For food, they had what Tandar hunted, small rodents, once a large fowl of some kind. On this they lived, but not well.

The sun, the wind, the heat—they were a relentless enemy from which no escape could be possible. Not even at night did they find relief. Despite her coverings, Crysania's skin was burnt to blisters, stinging at the mere touch of her gown, at the slightest breath of air. She knew the others were in as much pain as she. Who could sleep when the smallest motion burned, when all the body ached for the touch of cool water? Not she. She lay quietly on her blanket, still and staring blindly up, trying to imagine stars, sometimes thinking that the hiss of night wind in the grass was the first sigh of rain come at last to heal them.

When the rain didn't come, when no blessing swept down out of the blackness, Crysania's throat would clench tight with pain and the longing to weep. However, she had no tears. The sun had burned them all away.

One night, aching with that unshed burden, she'd felt Tandar move close to her, pressing against her back.

Tandar, who are you?

She felt his amusement, a glitter of laughter across her mind. Don't you mean, "What are you," lady? I am a tiger. I am your tiger.

But she told him, no, she didn't mean "what are you." I mean what I ask. Who are you?

The glitter faded. The tiger lay still, his heart beating. I cannot say, lady.

She smiled, softly, without rancor. You choose your words carefully, Tandar

As should we all.

Across the fire, burning each night for cheer, for light against the darkness, for the sake of the sighted, Lagan snored gently Jeril and Kela, asleep on their shared blanket, breathed in unconscious rhythm.

They are so lucky, Crysania thought, the feeling surprising her.

Soft, testing, Tandar's voice in her mind: Because they have each other?

She lay still, feeling the beat of his heart, the rise and fall of his breathing. She would ignore that question. It was intrusive. Almost she thought it was impertinent. It didn't deserve an answer.

Yes, because they have each other.

And you, lady. Have you no one, waiting in Palanthas for you to return?

All of Palanthas, it might be said, awaits the return of the Revered Daughter.

He was a long moment silent, his thoughts only smoky feelings of longing, the kind she'd never felt from him till now. Who was he?

I have a friend, she said to him in thought. A man of the desert. A mage. He is gone, though, and I don't know how he fares. This war… She stopped and chose honesty. I sent him away.

Because he displeased you.

No. Because… because… She sighed wearily. I don't even remember why anymore.

But she did remember. Of course she did. She wouldn't have said so that day in the temple garden, but she knew now: She'd sent Valin away because he'd come too close. And maybe she'd sent him to his death, her devoted friend who would go anywhere, even to his death, if she required it.

Ah, gods! If she could ask for one boon this night and receive it, it would be the ability to weep.

The tiger sighed deeply, and soon Crysania felt him sleeping. She was left alone in the night and the eternal dark, wondering how Valin fared, wondering whether he still thought of her, or whether he had seen the impossibility of what he wanted from her. Wind hissed in the grass, not sounding like rain now, but sounding like fire.

"Valin," she whispered, her throat closing up again with tears she could not shed. "I hope you are well, friend mage. I miss you."

The tiger moved a little away, and soon after Crysania did sleep and, sleeping, she dreamed of Valin. She heard his voice; the scent of him filled the dream. She felt his hands as though she were holding them, and they felt the same as on the day he'd offered her his love, warm and trusting.

"Is it true?" he said in the dream, who'd never spoke those words in the waking world. "Is it true that you, lady, whose love for all those who need you is boundless, have not enough for one more?"

In the dream, blessedly, she was able to weep. In the dream, she did. But when she woke in the morning, her cheeks were dry, her tears unshed. Beside her, the tiger slept, his heart keeping beat with her own. She slipped her hand into her pocket, closed her fingers round the Dragon Stones.

For these I am here, she told herself, for the power they will give, for the chance to speak once again with Paladine. And it will be he with whom I speak.

She said so to herself, in perfect faith, she who had given up much for that faith. What else to do but trust her god?

After they broke their fast on tough, dry rodent, they resumed their journey northeast toward the city of the Dark Queen. It was then Crysania began to gather her strength, her courage, for the thing she must do before entering Neraka.

Jeril dropped back to ride beside Lagan and Crysania, letting Tandar range ahead, letting Kela guard from the rear. Crysania, head nodding in the noon heat, let the sound of quiet conversation wash over her, Jeril's voice low and gruff, Lagan's weary She had come to love those voices, to know them as though they were the voice of her own heart.

"You make a fine fighter," Jeril said.

Lagan snorted. "For a cleric. For a poet."

"Well, yes, for a cleric. Among my people, though, the poet who can't use his sword as well as his pen isn't accorded much respect." He chuckled. "You, my friend, would not go unrespected in my father's tents. My brother," he said, "has chosen his friends well."

"Paladine be with him," Lagan said, the words heartfelt.

It seemed to Crysania that words such as those had come too easily to their lips in the past, easy blessings, convenient prayers, spoken almost without thought. Who among them now didn't feel the words of each prayer offered? Who among them, out in this burning land, didn't crave the god's blessing, for himself, for his kin and friends?

She reached for her medallion. It sat cold in her hands.

"So, cleric-warrior," Jeril said, laughing. "What will we do with you after all this journeying is done?"

"No one need worry about that." Crysania, her arms around him, felt Lagan's quiet laughter. "Comes the end of this journey, comes the end of my fighting days. I want nothing more than to return to the Temple of Paladine and bury my nose in old books and parchments again."

"And make your translations of antique prayers and even older hero stories?"

Crysania heard Lagan's sigh. "Yes," he said, "that's just what I want to do. And I want the easy rounds of ritual and prayer, the sound of the chants rising up all around me, the smell of the incense—"

Suddenly startled, the horse snorted, shying from Jeril's mount. Lagan got the gray in hand and turned, saying, "It's Tandar, Lady. Come running back."

There was a flurry of hooves, and Kela's mount surged past. The mage flung a word to the others and urged her horse to speed.

"She's gone to follow Tandar," Lagan said. "He's found something."

The mage's voice came back to them, sudden and clear and joyous. "Mountains! We've come to the mountains, lady! And water! There is water!"

"All the gods be praised," Lagan sighed. "Come, hang on tight, lady."

At last she could breathe! Crysania pulled in lungfuls of air that had no gritty dust mixed with them. Hot it was, but clean and almost smelling of the trees that grew here. Perhaps those trees did not thrive, but they did survive. The trickling sound of running water brought an ache of joy to her heart. The horses gulped, Tandar lapped, and the waterskins made the most wonderful sound, gurgling as they filled. The water tasted like stone, like earth, sweet and clean. Crysania drank until Jeril had to warn her to stop.

"There is plenty, lady, but you'll make yourself sick if you don't drink slowly, and not so much."

Crysania forced herself to do as Jeril warned. She drank, listening to the world around her. She heard a bird call, another answer. They might have been wrens, for their songs were a lovely liquid complexity of notes seldom heard from other birds. She heard rustling in the brush, and that certainly was supper.

"The sky," she asked Jeril. "Does it still burn?"

It did, far away to the north where the sea itself burned.

"We must go on," she said. She reached into her pocket and cradled the Dragon Stones in her palm. She expected to feel the power of them weakened, as so much of magic had become. They felt as strong in her hand as on the first day Dalamar had presented them to her.

For that, she thought, the gods be thanked. From these stones, she would find the strength to do what soon she must do, the needful thing before entering Neraka. She listened to her friends, their beloved voices, as they spoke one to another.

I will have the strength, she told herself, to do it. They will understand… .

They went on, the land climbing, the air cooling slightly. Tandar hunted and brought them hares and once a grouse. It was not the season for nuts, but to their meal of meat and water, they added dandelion greens and nettle leaves, found growing bravely in the cooler air of the mountains. Better fed, their spirits lifted, and it seemed that all would be well.

At noon of the third morning since gaining the foothills of the mountains, Crysania felt the presence of Neraka. Nor was she the only one to sense it. Lagan, uneasy before her, said he felt as though everything were dark and bruised.

"The air, the ground, the sky itself. It all feels like pain."

It did, for now they approached the precincts of the Dark Queen, of Takhisis herself. The wind sounded like her voice, rasping, grasping, filled with evil. Crysania shuddered. None here but she had ever heard that voice. Thirty years before, it had raked her, shrieked at her, laughed at her, mocking her every hope, torturing her every prayer.

Did she ride to hear that voice again? Would Takhisis greet her once the Dragon Stones were reunited?

Paladine! She reached for her medallion. It sat still in her hands, as though it were nothing more than a beautifully wrought decoration.

She rode with one arm around Lagan, one free so she might hold the medallion, feel something of its warmth and strength should… should its power ever return. In that way, they came to Neraka, riding out of the hills to the edge of a deep, shadowed valley where the city of the Dark Queen lay before them.

Unlike Palanthas, or even rough Sanction to the south, Neraka was not an old city. In truth, it could be only rightly called a sprawling village, a collection of tents and rude huts and crooked buildings around a gaping wound that had been—that still was, despite its ruin—the Temple of the Dark Queen. All around that temple rose the Khalkist Mountains.

A whisper insinuating itself into her thoughts, the memory of Dalamar's words: "It is told that almost one thousand years later, the dwarves found the magical Dragon Stones the elves had cast deep within the mountains, and shunning magic as they do, gave the stones to a red dragon, who in turn ordered that the stones be hurled into the caldron of Darklady. Darklady then erupted, forming the Lords of Doom, the ring of volcanoes that surround Neraka. It is said the explosion of color from the stones became the eyes of Takhisis's constellation."

So, Crysania thought, weary and sweating, staring blindly down at Neraka, we have come almost to the end of our journey.

Lagan shifted and turned, speaking to Crysania. "It's not so old, the city, is it?"

"Not so old as some might think."

Its origins lay in the time of the Cataclysm, when the gods destroyed the Kingpriest who would have raised himself up in their image. After the Cataclysm, when the gods took all the true priests away, faith had left the land for a time. It had taken the Dark Queen to set about the turn of events that brought the return of faith in the gods. Takhisis had taken up the foundation stone of the Kingpriest's temple from Istar, the city of the Kingpriest, and set it down on the plateau that spread out before them. Her temple had grown out of it… and her evil.

"Full of evil, though," the dwarf said, shuddering. "I feel it like a shadow on me, lady."

Beside them, Jeril's horse shuffled. Behind, Kela's mount snorted and danced. Even the beasts felt the dark touch.

Crysania pressed her hand to her medallion but felt no warmth or comfort. Still, she prayed. What else to do? Paladine would hear, she trusted he would. He had never turned from her, not in the waking world.

Around her, her friends kept quiet, some praying their own silent prayers, others simply lost in their own thoughts. Only Tandar moved, pacing.

Crysania said softly, "Dear ones, from here I go on alone."

Her words trailed silence in their wake, deep and stunned. Then Jeril cried, "No!" and Lagan said, "Lady, you can't mean it."

She meant it, however, though it took all her might to hold on to her resolve. These friends had come so far with her, lending her strength and courage, their faith like a balm. Now she must leave them.

"From here on," Crysania repeated, her voice quiet, "Tandar and I go on alone."

"Lady…" Lagan stopped, still too surprised to find words.

Crysania laid her fingers on Tandar's head, seeking reassurance, seeking support. She found it in the soft vibration of his breath.

"This is my quest, Lagan. You've risked too much already. All of you." She shuddered, feeling the darkness of Neraka like a maw opening before her. "I won't—I can't ask you to go into that place."

"Your quest?" The dwarf had found words now, and they came fast and strong. "You talk as if we didn't all undertake this journey. As if we haven't all risked ourselves already."

Crysania's heart ached under the burden of that truth. She who had no tears on the burning Plains of Solamnia had them now. They pricked at her eyes.

"I know you have, Lagan, and I thank you for it. But I must go on alone."

"No," Kela said, speaking for the first time. "Whether or not you like it, we stay with you."

Silence fell, the surprise of those who would never have spoken thus to the Revered Daughter of Paladine.

Kela went on, undismayed. "We've come this far together. It's the only way to continue. Jeril," she said. "Jeril, tell her."

Jeril moved his horse to Crysania's side. "Lady, know this: We are not going back without you. And if you don't let us ride beside you, we will follow." With a sweet simplicity to remind her of his brother, he said, "We are sworn, lady Should we now forswear ourselves and break our vows to Paladine?"

Tandar's thought touched hers, wordless urging she could not fail to understand.

Ah, but how could she take them with her? How dared she take them, these brave souls, these courageous hearts, into the city of the Dark Queen?

How did you dare take them this far?

How indeed?

"Very well," she said, helpless before them, undone by their love. "We go on together."

On down the steep hillside, the horses slipping on the scarp, on tumbling stones. On and down into the shadowy vale, leaving the light behind them. They rode until they came to a crossway. There Tandar moved close to Crysania.

Four roads, winding and uncertain, as though painted with a trembling hand, led into the village, joined at the center by the black Temple of the Dark Queen. It seemed to Crysania that the air trembled around that place, wavering between the twisted spires, the warped walls. So heavy, the burden of that evil!

Nothing moved on the road. Not a cart, not a rider, nor anyone on foot. Not even a raven sailed the sky.

"Ariakan's army came through here," Jeril said. "He would have recruited from the inhabitants. Maybe the city is unoccupied."

"No," Crysania murmured softly. "It is not empty. I feel it. There are people there, souls there. Each," she whispered, shivering, "each in evil's grasp, in torment."

Night came as they spoke, creeping down the hills, merging with the shadows until all lay dark and still. Blackness lay all about them, except for the angry red glow from the north, just visible over the mountaintops. The sea still burned.

They made an unlighted camp and ate what little they had from the morning meal. Though Tandar offered to hunt, no one was interested in eating the game he'd find in this evil place. In the darkness, Crysania listened to Lagan and Jeril and Kela discuss whether they should approach Neraka by day or by night. Either way, they were exposed, vulnerable, for a grassy plain surrounded the city They would find no concealment. She let them talk, thinking it through, but when they seemed no closer to a choice, she made one for them.

"Night," she said, "is the best choice. Even in this foul place, it will offer us cover, however scant, as we ride. We will go now."

With no fire to put out, the small meal eaten, they mounted again in solemn silence and set out, downward into the Dark Queen's city.

All the while they rode out onto the Plains of Neraka, slowly making their way toward the city, they saw no movement. No light shone. No shadow glided across the darkness. The temple loomed above the walls of the city, darker than the starless sky. Crysania shivered, chilled to her bones by a coldness that seemed to be moving around them, coming closer. Her uneasiness communicated to the gray gelding, who danced sideways, ignoring Lagan's attempts to quiet and steady him.

"What is that cold, lady?" the dwarf asked. He shivered as she did.

"I—I don't know. It's—"

Evil, Tandar said, his voice low and dark in her mind.

It was evil, and it moved like a miasma on the wind. Even as Crysania realized that, the coldness surged toward her.

She cried out and let go her grip on Lagan just as the first touch of ice brushed up against her skin. Her heart came up in her throat as hands like bones and ice grasped her, lifting her into the air. It seemed as if ice was boring into her bones.

Jeril called her name. "Lady! Crysania!"

Tandar roared.

And Crysania fell, down and down.

Breath blasted from her lungs as she hit the ground.

Lagan shouted to her, to the panicked horse. Jeril cried, "Kela!" and the white tiger snarled his battle cry as Crysania gasped for breath, trying suck in air and finding nothing. Tandar hit her once, butting her in the back with his head. He hit her again, and air came back into her lungs.

Steel hissed against leather as Desert Light came out from its sheath. Crysania pushed herself up, shouldering past Tandar. She ignored the groan of her spine, the sharp pain in her left shoulder where she'd struck a rock.

"Something is here," she gasped. She felt it, cold creeping malice. "Something evil…"

Kela's shrill scream tore the air.

The others wheeled, surrounding Crysania, weapons outward. The icy nothingness came closer, again reaching for Crysania. The circle around her tightened, horses snorting and dancing, weapons still gleaming. Lagan cursed as one suddenly stung. He held his place, horse in grip, war axe firmly in hand. With Tandar's eyes, Crysania saw a white patch growing across the dwarf's neck, like the dead skin of frostbite spreading. Then her sight faded suddenly.

Crysania's heart thundered in her breast. What fell thing had touched him? Her breath came ragged and raw.

Horses danced all around her as riders struggled to make them hold their places despite the terror they felt.

Tandar! Let me see! Tandar!

Light burst upon her, the bright, colorless sight of the tiger.

"There!" Kela cried. She pointed into the darkness, barely managing to keep her seat as her horse danced and twisted. The beast was as frightened as she by the thing that stood in the darkness, that was part of the darkness.

Jeril whirled to where she was pointing. "I can't see anything!"

"There! Eyes. Red eyes!"

Through a forest of legs, Crysania saw two lights in the night. They were not red, as Jeril had said, but dead white and glaring, for she saw through Tandar's eyes, she saw what the tiger saw. Then the lights vanished, and she saw only darkness and the city beyond, barely visible in the dim glow from the north.

"There!" This time Lagan saw it.

Crysania's blood ran cold to see the terrible, glaring white eyes that hovered above the ground. If they were a man's eyes, the thing would have been taller than Jeril. The others wheeled to see, but it was gone again, shifting, floating, flitting about them.

"What is it?" Jeril demanded. "Damn it! The thing's circling us! Kela—there!"

And then Tandar left her in darkness, roaring as he bolted from the circle. The eyes vanished.

"It's a daemon warrior," Crysania said, huddled and shivering. "Firegold spoke of them. She said they were cast up from the darkness of Chaos."

The creature came nearer, the cold of it flowing.

"Begone!" Kela cried. Gasping, she called out words of magic. A flare of light erupted from her fingertips. Crysania felt the heat of her spell, smelled the tang, like lightning's scent. The cold darkness danced backward from the flames, almost mockingly.

Jeril swore, rubbing at his eyes, blinded for a moment by the brightness. "Damn, woman, warn me when you're going to start throwing fire!"

Kela laughed, a high, nervous sound. "If I warn you, I warn the enemy. Keep yourself ready and you'll be all right."

Now the thing suddenly appeared in the space between Jeril and Lagan, rushing forward. Crysania felt the coldness, the blackness as deep as the Dark Queen's evil.

Sight vanished again, leaving Crysania disoriented and dizzy. Tandar roared.

The daemon rushed forward, a river of cold pouring in Lagan's direction. Crysania heard the dwarf shouting battle cries and prayers all at once. The axe's blade whistled through the air. Lagan cried in pain. Crysania heard the terrible sound of steel shattering. Tandar flung himself down upon her, pounding the breath from her lungs again, leaving her gasping as the shards of Lagan's blade whirled through the night, a hundred tiny blades.

Kela flung out another casting. The icy flow surged back. Crysania struggled to her feet, staggering blindly among the legs of terrified horses. Tandar wheeled, circling. Suddenly Crysania could see through the tiger's eyes once more. What little Crysania saw, she saw in a mad whirl of light and dark all tangled up, as though by the light of a guttering torch being whirled around someone's head. Her stomach churned. Dizzy, she groped for the white tiger and held on to him hard.

"It's trying to reach Crysania" Lagan roared. "Protect her!"

Crysania tried frantically to see the dark, cold thing, the glaring eyes, the blackness. The daemon surged toward Kela. Jeril and Lagan closed in to block its movement.

Kela cast a spell again, hurling balls of bright fire the size of a man's head, driving it back, but her horse had taken all it could bear. It bucked, reared, then bolted, with the mage clinging to its back. Darkness swallowed them both. Crysania heard a high-pitched cry, then only the sound of the horse as it galloped away.

"Kela!" Jeril cried after her, even as he shifted in place, trying to fill the gap. The daemon warrior came toward him, moving more deliberately this time. They were one less, and now they had no magic to defend them.

Jeril met the creature, war cries raging from him as wild laughter. Desert Light whirling above his head, he charged. His horse kicked and bucked; he struggled to maintain control and failed. The beast bolted before he got both feet from the stirrups, dragging the warrior behind it.

Tandar twisted and turned, keeping his body against Crysania's legs, trying to see from where the next rush would come.

She saw, in that wild, flickering way, Lagan on his feet, braced and defiant, nothing but the haft of his war axe in hand as the swirling darkness reached him. He screamed as the daemon touched him, howling as though he were on fire. Head back, he screamed, and—horrible!—the darkness reached out snaking tendrils, swirling into him, stabbing into his eyes and mouth.

Lagan staggered. The oaken haft of his war axe fell from his grip. Eyes wide in wordless agony, he clutched at his throat and fell to his knees. White as marble, white as snow, all the color leeched from his cheeks, from his hands, from all his flesh. Lagan Innis was dead before he hit the ground.

Crysania cried out in grief, in rage of a kind she'd never felt before. And inside her, in her mind, in her very heart, she heard grief's echo as Tandar roared. No! Gods, no! Lagan!

The wildly whirling sight was ripped away from her, leaving her in darkness, shuddering and weeping, unable to move. The pool of icy nothingness flowed all around her, reaching, seeking, touching.

The stones! Lady! The Dragon Stones!

Tandar's cry roared in her head. Crysania, on hands and knees, tried desperately to snatch the Dragon Stones from her pocket. Each time she moved, she fell, disoriented, sightless, and feeling the cold of the daemon warrior seeking her. Tandar was all over her, whipping around her body, trying to cover her from all sides.

The Dragon Stones!

Did he warn that the daemon was coming for the Dragon Stones? Did he cry out to protect this treasure they'd risked so much for?

Gasping, panting in the night that was at once burning hot and riddled by icy cold, Crysania commanded stillness from herself, ordered herself to breathe, to move with purpose and to trust Tandar to keep her safe. With one trembling hand, she took the two stones from her pocket. The one sat still, humming to itself, unaligned. The other greeted her as if she were an old and good friend, with warmth and love.

She lifted her fist, the stones in her grasp. All the warmth she'd ever felt in Paladine's goodness, all the comfort, all the strength—dear gods, all the courage!—poured into her and flowed out from her again, a power directed, wielded as a weapon.

No one knew what the Dragon Stones were meant to do, and anyone who said he did was only guessing.

Crysania lifted her hand, and she lifted her heart, her will, her faith.

"Begone!" she cried. "Evil cannot touch me, for I have Paladine as my shield!"

A scream tore the night, an inhuman sound like glass exploding. Like fury and blood and razor-sharp wire scraping over her skin. Tandar roared in triumph, and the night changed. The inhuman coldness of the daemon warrior fell away, vanished on the air, as though it had never been.

Shaking, sobbing, Crysania fell to her knees, the stones still clutched in her fist.