“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’ll 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 stall lay on the floor.
Clasping the ring in his hand, Tanis followed Kit and Sturm into a dark, 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 ante, 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 them.
They could not move. Overcome with the dragonfear, 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!”
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