away. He saw the death knight walk toward her with slow,
steady steps.
The knight raised its right hand and pointed at Crysania with
a pale, shimmering finger.
Tas felt a sudden, uncontrollable terror seize him. “No!” he
moaned, shivering, though he had no idea what awful thing
was about to happen.
The knight spoke one word.
“Die.”
At that moment, Tas saw Lady Crysania raise her hand and
grasp the medallion she wore around her neck. He saw a bright
flash of pure white light well from her fingers and then she fell
to the ground as though stabbed by the fleshless finger.
“No!” Tasslehoff heard himself cry. He saw the orange flaring
eyes turn their attention to him, and a chill, dank darkness, like
the darkness of a tomb, sealed shut his eyes and closed his
mouth….
CHAPTER 8
Dalamar approached
the door to the mage’s laboratory with trepidation, tracing a
nervous finger over the runes of protection stitched onto the
fabric of his black robes as he hastily rehearsed several spells of
warding in his mind. A certain amount of caution would not
have been thought unseemly in any young apprentice
approaching the inner, secret chambers of a dark and powerful
master. But Dalamar’s precautions were extraordinary. And
with good reason. Dalamar had secrets of his own to hide, and
he dreaded and feared nothing more in this world than the gaze
of those golden, hourglass eyes.
And yet, deeper than his fear, an undercurrent of excitement
pulsed in Dalamar’s blood as it always did when he stood
before this door. He had seen wonderful things inside this
chamber, wonderful… fearful….
Raising his right hand, he made a quick sign in the air before
the door and muttered a few words in the language of magic.
There was no reaction. The door had no spell cast upon it.
Dalamar breathed a bit easier, or perhaps it was a sigh of disap-
pointment. His master was not engaged in any potent, power-
ful magic, otherwise Raistlin would have cast a spell of holding
upon the door. Glancing down at the floor, the dark elf saw no
flickering, flaring lights beaming from beneath the heavy
wooden door. He smelled nothing except the usual smells of
spice and decay. Dalamar placed the five fingertips of his left
hand upon the door and waited in silence.
Within the space of time it took the dark elf to draw a breath
came the softly spoken command, “Enter, Dalamar.”
Bracing himself, Dalamar stepped into the chamber as the
door swung silently open before him. Raistlin sat at a huge and
ancient stone table, so large that one of the tall, broad-
shouldered race of minotaurs living upon Mithas might have
lain down upon it, stretched out his full height, and still had
room to spare. The stone table, in fact the entire laboratory,
were part of the original furnishings Raistlin had discovered
when he claimed the Tower of High Sorcery in Palanthas as his
own.
The great, shadowy chamber seemed much larger than it
could possibly have been, yet the dark elf could never deter-
mine whether it was the chamber itself that seemed larger or he
himself who seemed smaller whenever he entered it. Books
lined the walls, here as in the mage’s study. Runes and spidery
writing glowed through the dust gathered on their spines. Glass
bottles and jars of twisted design stood on tables around the
sides of the chamber, their bright-colored contents bubbling
and boiling with hidden power.
Here, in this laboratory long ago, great and powerful magic
had been wrought. Here, the wizards of all three Robes – the
White of Good, the Red of Neutrality, and the Black of Evil –
joined in alliance to create the Dragon Orbs – one of which was
now in Raistlin’s possession. Here, the three Robes had come
together in a final, desperate battle to save their Towers, the
bastions of their strength, from the Kingpriest of Istar and the
mobs. Here they had failed, believing it was better to live in
defeat than fight, knowing that their magic could destroy the
world.
The mages had been forced to abandon this Tower, carrying