Dragonlance 09 - Dragons of the Hourglass Mage (26 page)

She’s like me, he guessed. Kit’s on the side that favors Kit.

“Ariakas summoned me to ask if I knew anything about this man everyone is hunting for,” Raistlin said. “The one with the green gemstone.”

“You mean Berem? Say, do you know why everyone is looking for him?” Mari asked eagerly. “I mean, sure it’s not every day you come across a guy who has an emerald stuck in his chest, but what’s so special about him? Apart from the emerald, I mean. I wonder how it got stuck there. Do you know? And what would happen if someone tried to pull it out. Would he bleed to death? Do you know what I think? I think—”

“I don’t know anything about Berem,” said Raistlin, finally managing to get a word in. “All I know is that is why Ariakas wanted to see me.”

“That’s all?” said Mari, and she gave a whistle of relief. “Good. Now I won’t have to kill you.”

“That’s not funny,” said Raistlin.

“It wasn’t meant to be. So are you going to take the job for Talent? Can I come with you? We make a great team, you and me.”

“Talent didn’t tell you where he’s sending me, did he?” Raistlin asked in alarm. If a kender knew, so would half of Neraka.

“Naw, Talent never tells me anything, which is probably smart,” Mari said. “I’m not much good at keeping secrets. But, hey, wherever it is, you’ll need my help.”

He’d heard those words before, spoken by another kender. Raistlin recalled how many times Tasslehoff had been extremely unhelpful, rummaging through his spell components, spoiling half of them and stealing the other half, sneaking tastes of the potions (with sometimes disastrous results), walking off with various household items from spoons to soup kettles, and forever landing him and his friends in trouble.

Only the previous autumn, Tasslehoff had grabbed what he’d thought was a plain, ordinary staff, only to have it turn into blue crystal and perform a miracle …

Was that really only last autumn? Raistlin asked himself. It seems a lifetime.

“Hey, Raist, wherever you are, come back,” said Mari, twitching his sleeve and waving her hand at him. “Are you going to see old Snaggle? ‘Cause if you are, we’re here.”

Raistlin halted. He set down his crate on the doorstep and sat down beside it.

“You cannot come with me, Mari. In fact, you should leave Neraka,” he said to her. “Quit working for Talent. It is too dangerous.”

“Oh, Talent’s always telling me that,” said Mari. “And see, nothing’s happened to me yet!”

“Yes, it has,” said Raistlin gently. “Kenders belong to the Light, not the Darkness, Mari. If you stay here, the Darkness will destroy you. It is already starting to change you.”

“It is?” Mari’s eyes opened wide.

“You murdered a man. You have blood on your hands.”

“I have some of today’s lunch on my hands and a little glob of that yucky potion and some goblin slime from the tavern, but no blood. Look, you can see for yourself.” Mari held up her hands, palms out for his inspection.

Raistlin shook his head and sighed.

Mari patted him on the shoulder. “I know what you mean. I was only teasing. You mean I have the blood of the Adjudicator on my hands. But I don’t. I washed it off.”

Raistlin rose to his feet. He picked up his crate. “You had better run along, Mari. I have serious business here.”

“We all have serious business here,” said Mari.

“I doubt you know the meaning of the word.”

“Oh, but I do,” Mari said. “We kender don’t
want
to be serious, but we can if we have to. My people are fighting the Dark Queen all the world over. In Kendermore and Kenderhome and Flotsam and Solace and Palanthas and lots of other places I’ve never even heard of, kender are fighting, and sometimes we’re dying. And that’s sad, but we need to keep fighting because we have to win, because horrible
things will happen if we don’t. Takhisis
hates
kender. She ranks us right up there with elves, which is awfully flattering to us kender, though maybe not to the elves. So you see, Raist, the Darkness isn’t changing us. We’re changing the Darkness.”

Mari’s eyes were bright. Her smile was cheerful. “What do I tell Talent?”

“Tell him I will take the job,” Raistlin said. Smiling, he reached out and took yet another jar from her hand just as she was about to slip it into a pocket. “I wouldn’t want you to have to kill me.”

arly that morning Raistlin and Iolanthe traveled the corridors of magic to Dargaard Keep. The two emerged from the rainbow ethers into the only room in the ruined keep that was fit for habitation—Kitiara’s bedchamber and sitting room. Even there, Raistlin noted black stains on the walls, evidence of the fire that had swept through the keep so long ago.

The glass in the lead-paned windows had been broken and never replaced. A chill wind hissed through what was left of the latticework, like breath through rotting teeth. Raistlin looked out that window onto a scene of desolation, destruction, and death. Ghostly warriors with visages of fire kept horrible vigil, walking the parapets that had been gloriously red for the color of the rose and were transformed to a hideous red with their own blood.

Dargaard Keep, so legend said, had once been one of the wonders of the world. The keep had been designed to resemble the symbol on the family crest, the rose. Petal-shaped stone walls had once glistened in the morning sun. Rose-red towers had proudly soared into the blue
skies. But the rose had been afflicted by a canker, destroyed from within by the knight’s dark passions. The rose walls were blackened, stained with fire, death, dishonor. Broken towers were shrouded in storm clouds. Some said that Soth wrapped himself and his keep in a perpetual tempest, deliberately banishing the sun, so he might shield his eyes from the light that had become hateful to him.

Raistlin gazed on the ruin of a noble man, led to his downfall by his inability to control his passions, and Raistlin thanked whatever gods had blessed him at his birth that he was not afflicted by such weakness.

He turned his eyes from the dread sight outside the window to his sister. Kitiara was seated at a desk, writing orders that could not wait. She had asked her visitors to be patient until she finished.

Raistlin took the chance to study her. He had seen Kit briefly in Flotsam, but that hardly counted, for she had been riding her blue dragon and wearing the armor and helm of a Dragon Highlord. Five years had passed since they were together, when they had vowed to meet again in the Inn of the Last Home, a vow Kit had broken. Raistlin, who had changed beyond all measure in five years, was surprised to see that his sister had not.

Tall and lithe, with a warrior’s strength and hard-muscled body, Kitiara, who was in her mid-thirties, looked much the same as she had looked at twenty. Her crooked smile still charmed. Her short, black curls clustered around her head, luxurious and rampant as when she was young. Her face was smooth, unmarred by lines of sorrow or joy.

No emotion ever touched Kitiara deeply. She took life as it came, living each moment to the fullest, then forgetting the moment to leap to the next. She had no regrets. She rarely thought about past mistakes. Her mind was too busy plotting and scheming for the future. She had no conscience to sting her, no morals to get in her way. The one crack in her armor, her one weakness, was her obsession with Tanis Half-Elven, the man she had not wanted until he turned his back on her and walked away.

Iolanthe roamed nervously around the room, her arms clasped beneath her cloak. The room was chill, and she was shivering, though perhaps not so much from the cold as from dread. She had
insisted they arrive early in the day, so they could be gone before nightfall. Raistlin continued to watch Kit, who was struggling with her missive.

Writing was laborious work for Kitiara. Fond of action and excitement, easily bored, she had always been a poor student. She had never had a chance to go to school. Their mother, Rosamund, had an affinity for magic that she would later pass onto her son. Sadly, Rosamund was not able to cope with the gift. For her, the gift became an affliction. After her twin sons were born, she drifted for years on a sea of strange dreams and fantasies, barely clinging to sanity. When her husband died, Rosamund’s hand slipped from the last bit of reality that had been keeping her afloat and sank beneath the waves. Kit had taken over raising her younger brothers. She had remained with the boys until she determined that they were old enough to take care of themselves. Then she had gone off on her own, leaving her brothers to fend for themselves.

Kitiara had not forgotten her half brothers, however. She had returned to Solace some years later to see how they were getting along. It was then that she had met their friend Tanis Half-Elven. The two had begun a passionate affair. Raistlin had known at the time that the affair would end badly.

The last Raistlin had seen of Kitiara, she had been riding on the back of her blue dragon, Skie, and he had been on board a ship sailing to its doom in the Blood Sea. Caramon had wrung an admission from Tanis that he had been spending his time in Flotsam dallying with Kit, that he had betrayed his friends to the Dragon Highlord. Raistlin recalled Caramon’s outraged anger, yelling accusations at Tanis as their ship was swept up into the storm.

“So that’s where you’ve been these four days. With our sister, the Dragon Highlord! …”

“Yes, I loved her,” Tanis had said. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

Raistlin doubted if Tanis understood himself. He was like a man who cannot overcome his thirst for dwarf spirits. Kitiara intoxicated him, and he could not get her out of his system. She had been the ruin of him.

Kitiara was dressed for combat. She wore her sword, boots,
and blue dragonscale armor, with her blue cape thrown over her shoulders. She was wholly absorbed in her work, hunched over the desk like a child in the schoolroom, forced to complete some hateful assignment. Her head, with its mass of black curls, almost touched the paper. Her teeth were clamped on her lower lip; her brow furrowed in concentration. She wrote, muttering, then scratched out what she had written and started again.

At last Iolanthe, mindful of the passing time, gave a delicate cough.

Kitiara held up her hand. “I know you’re waiting, my friend.” Kit stopped to sneeze. She rubbed her nose and sneezed again. “It’s that gods-awful perfume of yours! What do you do? Bathe in it? Give me a moment. I’m almost finished. Oh, damn it to the Abyss and back! Look what I’ve done!”

In her haste, Kit had passed the heel of her hand over the page, smearing the last sentence she had written. Swearing, she flung down the pen, spattering ink over the page and contributing to its final demise.

“Ever since that fool Garibaus got himself killed, I must write all my orders myself!”

“What about your draconians?” Iolanthe asked, glancing toward the closed door, through which they could hear the scraping of claws and subdued voices of Kit’s bodyguards. The draconians were grumbling. Apparently even the lizardmen found Dargaard Keep a loathsome place. Raistlin wondered how Kit could stand living here. Perhaps it was because, like much else in her life, the tragedy and horror of Dargaard Keep skidded off her hard surface, like skaters on ice.

Kitiara shook her head. “Draconians are good warriors, but they make lousy scribes.”

“Perhaps I might be of assistance, Sister,” said Raistlin in his soft voice.

Kitiara turned to face him. “Ah, Baby brother. I am glad to see you alive. I thought you had perished in the Maelstrom.”

No thanks to you, my sister, Raistlin wanted to say caustically, but he kept quiet.

“Your baby brother conned Ariakas out of one hundred steel to come here to spy on you,” said Iolanthe.

“Did he?” Kitiara smiled her crooked smile. “Good for him.”

The two women laughed conspiratorially. Raistlin smiled in the shadows of his cowl, which he had kept deliberately drawn low over his face, so he could observe without being observed. He was pleased to find his suspicions about Iolanthe confirmed. He decided to see what more he could discover.