Dragonlance 02 - Dragons of Winter Night (18 page)

“I’ve got to rest, Raist,” he gasped. “Put me down.”

“Certainly, my brother,” Raistlin said gently. He helped Caramon lean against the pearl wall of the Tower, then regarded his brother with cool, glittering eyes.

“Farewell, Caramon,” he said.

Caramon looked at his twin in disbelief. Within the shadows of the trees, the warrior could see the undead elves, who had followed them at a respectful distance, creep closer as they realized the mage who had warded them off was leaving.

“Raist,” Caramon said slowly, “you can’t leave me here! I can’t fight them. I don’t have the strength! I need you!”

“Perhaps, but you see, my brother, I no longer need you. I have gained your strength. Now, finally, I am as I was meant to be but for nature’s cruel trick—one whole person.”

As Caramon stared, uncomprehending, Raistlin turned to leave.

“Raist!”

Caramon’s agonized cry halted him. Raistlin stopped and gazed back at his twin, his golden eyes all that were visible from within the depths of his black hood.

“How does it feel to be weak and afraid, my brother?” he asked softly. Turning, Raistlin walked to the Tower entrance where Tika and Tas lay dead. Raistlin stepped over the kender’s body and vanished into the darkness.

Sturm and Tanis and Kitiara, reaching the Tower, saw a body lying on the grass at its base. Phantom shapes of undead elves were starting to surround it, shrieking and yelling, hacking at it with their cold swords.

“Caramon!” Tanis cried, heartsick.

“And where’s his brother?” Sturm asked with a sidelong glance at Kitiara. “Left him to die, no doubt.”

Tanis shook his head as they ran forward to aid the warrior. Wielding their swords, Sturm and Kitiara kept the elves at bay while Tanis knelt beside the mortally wounded warrior.

Caramon lifted his glazed eyes and met Tanis’s, barely recognizing him through the bloody haze that dimmed his vision. He tried desperately to talk.

“Protect Raistlin, Tanis—” Caramon choked on his own blood—“since I won’t be there now. Watch over him.”

“Watch over
Raistlin?”
Tanis repeated furiously. “He left you here, to die!” Tanis held Caramon in his arms.

Caramon closed his eyes wearily. “No, you’re wrong, Tanis. I sent him away.…” The warrior’s head slumped forward.

Night’s shadows closed over them. The elves had disappeared. Sturm and Kit came to stand beside the dead warrior.

“What did I tell you?” Sturm asked harshly.

“Poor Caramon,” Kitiara whispered, bending down near him. “Somehow I always guessed it would end this way.” She was silent for a moment, then spoke softly. “So my little Raistlin has become truly powerful,” she mused, almost to herself.

“At the cost of your brother’s life!”

Kitiara looked at Tanis as if perplexed at his meaning. Then, shrugging, she glanced down at Caramon, who lay in a pool of his own blood. “Poor kid,” she said softly.

Sturm covered Caramon’s body with his cloak, then they sought the entrance to the Tower.

“Tanis—” Sturm said, pointing.

“Oh, no. Not Tas,” Tanis murmured. “And Tika.”

The kender’s body lay just inside the doorway, his small limbs twisted by convulsions from the poison. Near him lay the barmaid, her red curls matted with blood. Tanis knelt beside them. One of the kender’s packs had opened in his death throes, its contents scattered. Tanis caught sight of a glint of gold. Reaching down, he picked up the ring of elven make, carved in the shape of ivy leaves. His vision blurred, tears filled his eyes as he covered his face with his hands.

“There’s nothing we can do, Tanis.” Sturm put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “We’ve got to keep going and put an end to this. If I do nothing else, I’ll live to kill Raistlin.”

Death is in the mind. This is a dream, Tanis repeated. But it was Raistlin’s words he was remembering, and he’d seen what the mage had become.

I will wake up, he thought, bending the full force of his will to believing it was a dream. But when he opened his eyes, the kender’s body still lay on the floor.

Clasping the ring in his hand, Tanis followed Kit and Sturm into a dank, slime-covered, marble hallway. Paintings hung in golden frames upon marble walls. Tall, stained-glass windows let in a lurid, ghastly light. The hallway might have been beautiful once, but now even the paintings on the walls appeared distorted, portraying horrifying visions of death. Gradually, as the three walked, they became aware of a brilliant green light emanating from a room at the end of the corridor.

They could feel a malevolence radiate from that green light, beating upon their faces with the warmth of a perverted sun.

“The center of the evil,” Tanis said. Anger filled his heart—anger, grief, and a burning desire for revenge. He started to run forward, but the green-tainted air seemed to press upon him, holding him back until each step was an effort.

Next to him, Kitiara staggered. Tanis put his arm around her, though he could barely find the strength to move himself.
Kit’s face was drenched with sweat, the dark hair curled around her damp forehead. Her eyes were wide with fear—the first time Tanis ever saw her afraid. Sturm’s breath came in gasps as the knight struggled forward, weighted down by his armor.

At first, they seemed to make no progress at all. Then slowly, they realized they were inching forward, drawing nearer and nearer the green-lit room. Its bright light was now painful to their eyes, and movement exacted a terrible toll. Exhaustion claimed them, muscles ached, lungs burned.

Just as Tanis realized he could not take another step, he heard a voice call his name. Lifting his aching head, he saw Laurana standing in front of him, her elven sword in her hand. The heaviness seemingly had no effect on her at all, for she ran to him with a glad cry.

“Tanthalas! You’re all right! I’ve been waiting—”

She broke off, her eyes on the woman clasped in Tanis’s arm.

“Who—” Laurana started to ask, then suddenly, somehow she knew. This was the human woman, Kitiara. The woman Tanis loved. Laurana’s face went white, then red.

“Laurana—” Tanis began, feeling confusion and guilt sweep over him, hating himself for causing her pain.

“Tanis! Sturm!” Kitiara cried, pointing.

Startled by the fear in her voice, all of them turned, staring down the green-lit marble corridor.

“Drakus Tsaro, deghnyah!”
Sturm intoned in Solamnic.

At the end of the corridor loomed a gigantic green dragon. His name was Cyan Bloodbane, and he was one of the largest dragons on Krynn. Only the Great Red herself was larger. Snaking his head through a doorway, he blotted out the blinding green light with his hulking body. Cyan smelled steel and human flesh and elven blood. He peered with fiery eyes at the group.

They could not move. Overcome with the dragon fear, they could only stand and stare as the dragon crashed through the doorway, shattering the marble wall as easily as if it had been baked mud. His mouth gaping wide, Cyan moved down the corridor.

There was nothing they could do. Their weapons dangled from hands gone nerveless. Their thoughts were of death. But,
even as the dragon neared, a dark shadowy figure crept from the deeper shadows of an unseen doorway and came to stand before them, facing them.

“Raistlin!” Sturm said quietly. “By all the gods, you will pay for your brother’s life!”

Forgetting the dragon, remembering only Caramon’s lifeless body, the knight sprang toward the mage, his sword raised. Raistlin just stared at him coldly.

“Kill me, knight, and you doom yourself and the others to death, for through my magic—and my magic alone—will you be able to defeat Cyan Bloodbane!”

“Hold, Sturm!” Though his soul was filled with loathing, Tanis knew the mage was right. He could feel Raistlin’s power radiate through the black robes. “We need his help.”

“No,” Sturm said, shaking his head and backing away as Raistlin neared the group. “I said before—I will not rely on his protection. Not now. Farewell, Tanis.”

Before any of them could stop him, Sturm walked past Raistlin toward Cyan Bloodbane. The great dragon’s head wove back and forth in eager anticipation of this first challenge to his power since he had conquered Silvanesti.

Tanis clutched Raistlin. “Do something!”

“The knight is in my way. Whatever spell I cast will destroy him, too,” Raistlin answered.

“Sturm!” Tanis shouted, his voice echoing mournfully.

The knight hesitated. He was listening, but not to Tanis’s voice. What he heard was the clear, clarion call of a trumpet, its music cold as the air from the snow-covered mountains of his homeland. Pure and crisp, the trumpet call rose bravely above the darkness and death and despair to pierce his heart.

Sturm answered the trumpet’s call with a glad battle cry. He raised his sword—the sword of his father, its antique blade twined with the kingfisher and the rose. Silver moonlight streaming through a broken window caught the sword in a pure-white radiance that shredded the noxious green air.

Again the trumpet sounded, and again Sturm answered, but this time his voice faltered, for the trumpet call he heard had changed tone. No longer sweet and pure, it was braying and harsh and shrill.

No! thought Sturm in horror as he neared the dragon. Those were the horns of the enemy! He had been lured into a
trap! Around him now he could see draconian soldiers, creeping from behind the dragon, laughing cruelly at his gullibility.

Sturm stopped, gripping his sword in a hand that was sweating inside its glove. The dragon loomed above him, a creature undefeatable, surrounded by masses of its troops, slavering and licking its jowls with its curled tongue.

Fear knotted Sturm’s stomach; his skin grew cold and clammy. The horn call sounded a third time, terrible and evil. It was all over. It had all been for nothing. Death, ignominious defeat awaited him. Despair descending, he looked around fearfully. Where was Tanis? He needed Tanis, but he could not find him. Desperately he repeated the code of the knights,
My Honor Is My Life
, but the words sounded hollow and meaningless in his ears. He was not a knight. What did the Code mean to him? He had been living a lie! Sturm’s sword arm wavered, then dropped; his sword fell from his hand and he sank to his knees, shivering and weeping like a child, hiding his head from the terror before him.

With one swipe of his shining talons, Cyan Bloodbane ended Sturm’s life, impaling the knight’s body upon a blood-stained claw. Disdainfully, Cyan shook the wretched human to the floor while the draconians swept shrieking toward the knight’s still-living body, intent upon hacking it to pieces.

But they found their way blocked. A bright figure, shining silver in the moonlight, ran to the knight’s body. Reaching down swiftly, Laurana lifted Sturm’s sword. Then, straightening, she faced the draconians.

“Touch him and you will die,” she said through her tears.

“Laurana!” Tanis screamed and tried to run forward to help her. But draconians sprang at him. He slashed at them desperately, trying to reach the elfmaid. Just when he had won through, he heard Kitiara call his name. Whirling, he saw her being beaten back by four draconians. The half-elf stopped in agony, hesitating, and at that moment Laurana fell across Sturm’s body, her own body pierced by draconian swords.

“No! Laurana!” Tanis shouted. Starting to go to her, he heard Kitiara cry out again. He stopped, turning. Clutching at his head, he stood irresolute and helpless, forced to watch as Kitiara fell beneath the enemy.

The half-elf sobbed in frenzy, feeling himself begin to sink into madness, longing for death to end this pain. He clutched
the magic sword of Kith-Kanan and rushed toward the dragon, his one thought to kill and be killed.

But Raistlin blocked his path, standing in front of the dragon like a black obelisk.

Tanis fell to the floor, knowing his death was fixed. Clasping the small golden ring firmly in his hand, he waited to die.

Then he heard the mage chanting strange and powerful words. He heard the dragon roar in rage. The two were battling, but Tanis didn’t care. With eyes closed fast, he blotted out the sounds around him, blotted out life. Only one thing remained real. The golden ring he held tightly in his hand.

Suddenly Tanis became acutely conscious of the ring pressing into his palm: the metal was cool, its edges rough. He could feel the golden twisted ivy leaves bite into his flesh.

Tanis closed his hand, squeezing the ring. The gold bit into his flesh, bit deeply. Pain … real pain …

I am dreaming!

Tanis opened his eyes. Solinari’s silver moonlight flooded the Tower, mingled with the red beams of Lunitari. He was lying on a cold, marble floor. His hand was clasped tightly, so tightly that pain had wakened him. Pain! The ring. The dream! Remembering the dream, Tanis sat up in terror and looked around. But the hall was empty except for one other person. Raistlin slumped against a wall, coughing.

The half-elf staggered to his feet and walked shakily toward Raistlin. As he drew nearer, he could see blood on the mage’s lips. The blood gleamed red in Lunitari’s light—as red as the robes that covered Raistlin’s frail, shivering body.

The dream.

Tanis opened his hand. It was empty.