He didn't know what would remain of Silvanost, what of the towers and the temples and the houses of the high folk and low. He had heard tales, dark and grim and filled with sorrow. He had listened, and he had asked questions, and it seemed that no one, no matter how hard he tried, could say what the Sylvan Land truly looked like these days. No matter, no matter. He was going to see for himself, and for mat privilege he paid in rough and long work. A loader of supplies in every port, a swabber of decks, repairer of ropes-with the hemp-torn flesh to prove that- he did not mind the fee.
He did not wonder, looking out at the leaping sea, why he did not mind, though he had for so much of his life resented his servitor status. Then, he had been chained by tradition and law as strongly as though by forged steel links. Now, he wore no chain. He had the kind of freedom no other elf aboard this ship or any of the others possessed. He had made a choice no elf here would dare to make, and he'd made it with all his heart.
Gold spilled across the sea, the last of the day. In the west, the moons were rising, pale ghosts of themselves in this light. The Cape of Nordmaar slipped past, that land where dragons still lived, the remnants of dragonarmies yet lurked. Those, claimed Porthios, would be hard to root out. "As hard as the green dragons who made their home in the Silvanesti Forest." His sun-gold face had gone a little pale when he'd said that. Whose did not when thinking on the greens who had made claim to the land that one of their own had ravaged? The aftermath of war came not only in ruined trade, broken cities, the legions of dead whose bones yet bleached in the sun on the Plains of Dust, rotted in the Khalkist Mountains, and lay frozen into Icewall Glacier. It was found in the scattered forces of the broken dragonarmies, mortal folk, and dragons who held with deathgrips to their dark corners, who fought among themselves, terrorized the civilian population, and waited only for another leader to pull them together and make of them what they had been: the terror of Krynn.
Dalamar leaned a little over the rail, watching porpoises leaping, the shining curve of their backs glittering. Some said there were creatures who lived in the sea who looked like porpoises but were other-sea-elves, the sailors called them, people of elf-kind who had found their own way to survive the Cataclysm.
Well, Dalamar thought, we all find ways.
Him, he must find a way, too. He was sailing home, returning to a land that had once loved its people, but one that the Children of Silvanos wouldn't find so welcoming now. To the land of E'li he sailed, to the land where the gods of Good had once ruled, where they would be set up again. Not by his hand would that happen, though, and not in answer to any prayer of his heart. Dalamar Nightson his lover had named him, saying it was a strange name for a Light Elf, yet a fitting one-almost fitting. In the cave north of Silvanost, that secret place from years gone, it might well be that his hidden spellbooks yet remained. It might well be. If they were, if even one was, he would lay his hand upon it, and he would do a thing his heart now clearly called him to do.
To the Dark Son, from a dark son…
Those words had dedicated four spellbooks to god-Nuitari, that dark god who was the son of Takhisis and Sargonnas, the god of Vengeance. A better god, this one, for though he walked in darkness, he made no game of what he loved and what he treasured. Nuitari loved only magic, only secrets, only those. A better god for one who had spent his life chained by tradition and kept from the magic he so loved, the magic that fueled his heart with passion.
To the Dark Son, from a dark son…
Those words would as fittingly dedicate the heart of Dalamar Nightson, for he had not done with gods, only with those of Good who had made promises they had not remembered to keep until the world lay broken, their game board in ruin.
"Who was he?" asked the Wildrunner, Elisaad Windsweep. Off to the west, the first thin line of Silvanesti's coast stretched dark as an ink-line. So far out, the coves were straightened by distance, the sweet curves but a sketch. Nonetheless, the winds of home blew off those shores. Home! Every heart on Bright Solinari yearned westward, longing to see the forested shores, the shining towers… Beyond reason, they longed for what they'd left and had only the smallest idea of what actually remained. In cabins, on decks, and in the hold where the cargomen tended their loads, tales of Silvanesti sang on the air, stories of the homeland so long left, so deeply missed.
Elisaad stepped across the deck and came a little closer to the soldier who sat perched on the pile of rope. "Raistlin Majere," she said, "the mage who ended the Nightmare. Who was he?"
Dalamar, kneeling near and winding another pile of rope, picked up his head to listen.
"Not was," said the soldier. "Is. He's not dead, just gone from our story." He was an elder, this soldier, Arath Wingwild his name, and he had a way of smiling that made everyone near seem no older than a child at his father's knee. Elisaad appeared to like that; Dalamar didn't. Still, he wanted the story as much as Elisaad, and so he kept quiet. Though the hemp scraped his palms raw, he kept working, and he listened.
"Raistlin Majere is a human," said Arath, his nose wrinkling a little, as elves' noses tended to do when outlanders were under discussion. "A mage, and it's said he went to Wayreth and took his Tests of High Sorcery earlier than most do." His expression darkened. He didn't actually shudder, but he came close. "They didn't deal kindly with him-"
"The wizards there?"
"No, girl. The Tests." The west wind freshened. Arath picked up his head, wondering whether he scented the forest yet. He did not, only the salt sea. "The wizards, they don't come down in favor of a mage or against. They administer the Tests, that's all. What comes of them, well, the mage determines. He passes or he fails on the merit of his knowledge of magic, his ability, and his strength. I've heard it said the Tests always take something from a mage, leaving him marked in some way. This one, this Raistlin Majere, he passed his Tests, but he paid a high fee. Ruined his health, it's said. Frail as a lamb in winter. If you saw him"-now the teller shuddered-"well, you'd know. His skin is a terrible golden color, not sun-gold, not that. Like the metal itself, that kind of gold. And his eyes-"
"His eyes are gold?"
"No. They are black, and the irises… they're shaped like an hourglass."
Elisaad snorted, plainly unbelieving. "It's a fantastic enough story. You don't have to add your own touches."
Arath shook his head. "None of these things are my making, girl. What I tell you is true. I saw him in Tarsis with his companions. I was part of Lady Alhana's guard when she went wandering. I saw him when he and his companions met her."
Winding the hemp, leaving small spots of bright blood on the rope, Dalamar remembered the fisherman's story. Some humans, a half-elf, an elf-maid, a kender, and a dwarf-those were the folk who'd given aid to Alhana Starbreeze, the princess wandering in foreign ports. These, the searchers who wanted a dragon orb, went into the Nightmare Kingdom to break the spell of Cyan Bloodbane. The mage, Raistlin Majere, was one of the humans.
Gulls cried overhead, gray against the blue sky. Dalamar looked westward to the coastline coming nearer… to home.
"He has a great power, that mage," Arath said. "It's said all over the ports-in the darker quarters-that if he isn't one to be reckoned with right now, he will be soon."
"A hero?" asked Elisaad.
The old warrior snorted. "Depends on what you mean by that."
"Well, he saved the kingdom, didn't he?"