CHAPTER 14

She had the dark, curly hair and the crooked smile that men would later find so charming in her daughter. She had the simple, guileless honesty that would characterize one of her sons and she had a gift—a rare and wonderful power—that she would pass on to the other.

She had magic in her blood, as did her son. But she was weak—weak-willed, weak-spirited. Thus she let the magic control her, and thus, finally, she died.

Neither the strong—souled Kitiara nor the physically strong Caramon was much affected by their mother's death. Kitiara hated her mother with bitter jealousy, while Caramon, though he cared about his mother, was far closer to his frail twin. Besides, his mother's weird ramblings and mystical trances made her a complete enigma to the young warrior.

But her death devastated Raistlin. The only one of her children who truly understood her, he pitied her for her weakness, even as he despised her for it. And he was furious at her for dying, furious at her for leaving him alone in this world, alone with the gift. He was angry and, deep within, he was filled with fear, for Raistlin saw in her his own doom.

Following the death of her father, his mother had gone into a grief-stricken trance from which she never emerged. Raistlin had been helpless. He could do nothing but watch her dwindle away. Refusing food she drifted, lost. onto magical planes only she could see. And the mage—her son—was shaken to his very core.

He sat up with her on that last night. Holding her wasted hand in his, he watched as her sunken, feverish eyes stared at wonders conjured up by magic gone berserk.

That night, Raistlin vowed deep within his soul that no one and nothing would ever have the power to manipulate him like this—not his twin brother, not his sister, not the magic, not the gods. He and he alone would be the guiding force of his life.

He vowed this, swearing it with a bitter, binding oath. But he was a boy still—a boy left alone in darkness as he sat there with his mother the night she died. He watched her draw her last, shuddering breath. Holding her thin hand with its delicate fingers (so like his own!), he pleaded softly through his tears, "Mother, come home. . .. Come home!"

Now at Zhaman he heard these words again, challenging him, mocking him, daring him. They rang in his ears, reverberated in his brain with wild, discordant clangings. His head bursting with pain, he stumbled into a wall.

Raistlin had once seen Lord Ariakas torture a captured knight by locking the man inside a bell tower. The dark clerics rang the bells of praise to their Queen that night—all night. The next morning, the man had been found dead—a look of horror upon his face so profound and awful that even those steeped in cruelty were quick to dispose of the corpse.

Raistlin felt as if he were imprisoned within his own bell tower, his own words ringing his doom in his skull. Reeling, clutching his head, he tried desperately to blot out the sound.

"Come home . . . come home. . . ."

Dizzy and blinded by the pain, the mage sought to outrun it. He staggered about with no clear idea of where he was, searching only for escape. His numb feet lost their footing. Tripping over the hem of his black robe, he fell to his knees.

An object leaped from a pocket in his robes and rolled out onto the stone floor. Seeing it, Raistlin gasped in fear and anger. It was another mark of his failure—the dragon orb, cracked, darkened, useless. Frantically he grabbed for it, but it skittered like a marble across the flagstone, eluding his clawing grasp. Desperate, he crawled after it and, finally, it rolled to a stop. With a snarl, Raistlin started to take hold of it, then halted. Lifting his head, his eyes opened wide. He saw where he was, and he shrank back, trembling.

Before him loomed the Great Portal.

It was exactly like the one in the Tower of High Sorcery in Palanthas. A huge oval door standing upon a raised dais, it was ornamented and guarded by the heads of five dragons. Their sinuous necks snaking up from the floor, the five heads faced inward, five mouths open, screaming silent tribute to their Queen.

In the Tower at Palanthas, the door to the Portal was closed. None could open it except from within the Abyss itself, coming the opposite direction—an egress from a place none ever left. This door, too, was closed, but there were two who could enter—a White-Robed Cleric of Infinite Goodness and a Black Robed Archmage of Infinite Evil. It was an unlikely combination. Thus the great wizards hoped to seal forever this terrible entrance onto an immortal plane.

An ordinary mortal, looking into that Portal, could see nothing but stark, chill darkness.

But Raistlin was no longer ordinary. Drawing nearer and nearer his goddess, bending his energies and his studies toward this one object, the archmage was now in a state suspended between both worlds. Looking into the closed door, he could almost penetrate that darkness! It wavered in his vision. Wrenching his gaze from it, he turned his attention back to retrieving the dragon orb.

How did it escape me? he wondered angrily. He kept the orb in a bag hidden deep within a secret pocket of his robes. But then he sneered at himself, for he knew the answer. Each dragon orb was endowed with a strong sense of self—preservation. The one at Istar had escaped the Cataclysm by tricking the elven king, Lorac, into stealing it and taking it into Silvanesti. When the orb could no longer use the insane Lorac, it had attached itself to Raistlin. It had sustained Raistlin's life when he was dying in Astinus's library. It had conspired with Fistandantilus to take the young man to the Queen of Darkness. Now, sensing the greatest danger of its existence, it was trying to flee him.

He would not allow it! Reaching out, his hand closed firmly over the dragon orb.

There was a shriek. . ..

The Portal opened.

Raistlin looked up. It had not opened to admit him. No, it had opened to warn him—to show him the penalty of failure.

Prostrate upon his knees, clutching the orb to his chest, Raistlin felt the presence and the majesty of Takhisis, Queen of Darkness rise up before hire. Awe-stricken, he cowered, trembling, at the Dark Queen's feet.

This is your doom! Her words hissed in his mind. Your mother's fate will be your own. Swallowed by your magic, you will be held forever spellbound without even the sweet consolation of death to end your suffering!

Raistlin collapsed. He felt his body shrivel. Thus he had seen the withered body of Fistandantilus shrivel at the touch of the bloodstone.

His head resting on the stone floor as it rested upon the executioner's block of his nightmare, the mage was about to admit defeat. . . .

But there was a core of strength within Raistlin. Long ago, Par-Salian, head of the Order of White Robes, had been given a task by the gods. They needed a magic—user strong enough to help defeat the growing evil of the Queen of Darkness. ParSalian had searched long and had at last chosen Raistlin. For he had seen within the young mage this inner core of strength. It had been a cold, shapeless mass of iron when Raistlin was young. But Par-Salian hoped that the white—hot fire of suffering, pain, war, and ambition would forge that mass into finest tempered steel.

Raistlin lifted his head from the cold stone.

The heat of the Queen's fury beat around him. Sweat poured from his body. He could not breathe as fire seared his lungs. She tormented him, mocked him with his own words, his own visions. She laughed at him, as so many had laughed at him before. And yet, even as his body shivered with a fear unlike any he had ever known, Raistlin's soul began to exult.

Puzzled, he tried to analyze it. He sought to regain control and, after an exertion that left him weak and shaking, he banished the ringing sounds of his mother's voice from his ears. He closed his eyes to his Queen's mocking smile.

Darkness enveloped him and he saw, in the cool, sweet darkness, his Queen's fear.

She was afraid . . . afraid of him!

Slowly, Raistlin rose to his feet. Hot winds blew from the Portal, billowing the black robes around him until he seemed enveloped in thunderclouds. He could look directly into the Portal now. His eyes narrowed. He regarded the dread door with a grim, twisted smile. Then, lifting his hand, Raistlin hurled the dragon orb into the Portal.

Hitting that invisible wall, the orb shattered. There was an almost imperceptible scream. Dark, shadowy wings fluttered around the mage's head, then, with a wail, the wings dissolved into smoke and were blown away.

Strength coursed through Raistlin's body, strength such as he had never known. The knowledge of his enemy's weakness affected him like an intoxicating liquor. He felt the magic flow from his mind into his heart and from there to his veins. The accumulated, combined power of centuries of learning was his—his and Fistandantilus's!

And then he heard it, the clear, clarion call of a trumpet, its music cold as the air from the snow—covered mountains of the dwarven homelands in the distance. Pure and crisp, the trumpet call echoed in his mind, driving out the distracting voices, calling him into darkness, giving him a power over death itself.

Raistlin paused. He hadn't intended to enter the Portal this soon. He would have like to have waited just a little longer. But now would do, if necessary. The kender's arrival meant time could be altered. The death of the gnome insured there would be no interference from the magical device—the interference that had proved the death of Fistandantilus.

The time had come.

Raistlin gave the Portal a last, lingering glance. Then, with a bow to his Queen, he turned and strode purposefully away up the corridor.

Crysania knelt in prayer in her room.

She had started to go back to bed after her return from the kender, but a strange feeling of foreboding filled her. There was a breathlessness in the air. A sense of waiting made her pause. Sleep would not come. She was alert, awake, more awake than she had ever been in her entire life.

The sky was filled with light—the cold fire of the stars burning in the darkness; the silver moon, Solinari, shining like a dagger. She could see every object in her room with an uncanny clarity. Each seemed alive, watching, waiting with her.

Transfixed, she stared at the stars, tracing the lines of the constellations—Gilean, the Book, the Scales of Balance; Takhisis, the Queen of Darkness, the Dragon of Many Colors and of None; Paladine, the Valiant Warrior, the Platinum Dragon. The moons—Solinari, God's Eye; Lunitari, Night Candle. Beyond them, ranged about the skies, the lesser gods, and among them, the planets.

And, somewhere, the Black Moon—the moon only his eyes could see.

Standing, staring into the night, Crysania's fingers grew cold as she rested them upon the chill stone. She realized she was shivering and she turned around, telling herself it was time to sleep. . . .

But there was still that tremulous intake of breath about the night. "Wait," it whispered. "Wait. . . . "

And then she heard the trumpet. Pure and crisp, its music pierced her heart, crying a paean of victory that thrilled her blood.

At that moment, the door to her room opened.

She was not surprised to see him. It was as if she had been expecting his arrival, and she turned, calmly, to face him.

Raistlin stood silhouetted in the doorway, outlined against the light of torches blazing in the corridor and outlined as well by his own light which welled darkly from beneath his robes, an unholy light that came from within.

Drawn by some strange force, Crysania looked back into the heavens and saw, gleaming with that same dark light, Nuitari—the Black Moon.

For a moment, she closed her eyes, overwhelmed by the dizzying rush of blood, the beating of her heart. Then, feeling herself grow strong, she opened them again to find Raistlin standing before her.

She caught her breath. She had seen him in the ecstasy of his magic, she had seen him battling defeat and death. Now she saw him in the fullness of his strength, in the majesty of his dark power. Ancient wisdom and intelligence were etched into his face, a face that she barely recognized as his own.

"It is time, Crysania," he said, extending his hands.

She took hold of his hands. Her fingers were chilled, his touch burned them. "I am afraid," she whispered.

He drew her near.

"You have no need to be afraid," he said. "Your god is with you. I see that clearly. It is my goddess who is afraid, Crysania. I sense her fear! Together, you and I will cross the borders of time and enter the realm of death. Together, we will battle the Darkness. Together, we will bring Takhisis to her knees!"

His hands caught her close to his breast, his arms embraced her. His lips closed over hers, stealing her breath with his kiss.

Crysania closed her eyes and let the magical fire, the fire that consumed the bodies of the dead, consume her body, consume the cold, frightened, white-robed shell she had been hiding in all these years.

He drew back, tracing her mouth with his hand, raising her chin so that she could look into his eyes. And there, reflected in the mirror of his soul, she saw herself, glowing with a flaming aura of radiant, pure, white light. She saw herself beautiful, beloved, worshipped. She saw herself bringing truth and justice to the world, banishing forever sorrow and fear and despair.

"Blessed be to Paladine," Crysania whispered.

"Blessed be," Raistlin replied. "Once again, I give you a charm. As I protected you through Shoikan Grove, so you shall be guarded when we pass through the Portal."

She trembled. Drawing her near, holding her close one last time, he pressed his lips upon her forehead. Pain shot through her body and seared her heart. She flinched but did not cry out. He smiled at her.

"Come."

On the whispered words of a winged spell, they left the room to the night, just as the red rays of Lunitari spilled into the darkness—blood drawn from Solinari's glittering knife.