“I know where that is,” Tas stated. “It’s north of Flotsam, about fifty miles. But he’s not in Stasis, Palin. He’s right here.”
The elf’s eyes, which had been open and unseeing, suddenly closed. They remained closed for a long, long time. He was coming back from the stasis, back from the enchantment that had taken his spirit out into the world, leaving his body behind. He drew air in through his nose, keeping his lips pressed tightly shut. His fingers curled, and he winced, as if in pain. He curled them and uncurled them and began to rub them.
“The circulation stops,” Dalamar said, opening his eyes and looking at Palin. “It is quite painful.”
“My heart bleeds for you,” said Palin.
Dalamar’s gaze went to Palin’s own broken, twisted fingers. He said nothing, continued to rub his hands.
“Hullo, Dalamar!” Tas said cheerfully, glad for a chance to be included in the conversation. “It’s nice to see you again. Did I tell you how much you have changed from the time I saw you at Caramon’s first funeral? Do you want to hear about it? I made a really good speech, and then it began to rain and everyone was already sad, and that made it sadder, but then you cast a magic spell, a wonderful spell that made the raindrops sparkle and the sky was filled with rainbows—”
“No!” Dalamar said, making a sharp, cutting motion with his hand. Tas was about to go on to the other parts of the funeral, since Dalamar didn’t want to talk about the rainbows, but the elf gave him a peculiar look, raised his hand, and pointed.
Perhaps I’m going to Stasis, Tas thought, and that was the last conscious thought he had for a good, long while.
16
A Bored Kender
Palin placed the comatose kender in one of the shabby, dust-covered and mildewed chairs that stood at the far end of the library, a portion that was in shadow. Affecting to be settling Tas, Palin took the opportunity to look closely at Dalamar, who remained seated behind the desk, his head bowed into his hands.
Palin had seen the elf only briefly on first arriving. He had been shocked then at the ruinous alteration in the features of the once handsome and vain elven wizard: the gray-streaked black hair, the wasted features, the thin hands with their branching blue veins like rivers drawn on a map, rivers of blood, rivers of souls. And this, their master . . . Master of the Tower.
Struck by a new thought, Palin walked over to the window and looked down into the forest below, where the dead flowed still and silent among the boles of the cypress trees.
“The wizard-lock on the door below,” Palin said abruptly. “It was not meant to keep us in, was it?”
No answer came from Dalamar. Palin was left to answer himself. “It was meant to keep them out. If that is true, you might want to replace it.”
Dalamar, a grim look on his face, left the room. He returned long moments later. Palin had not moved. Dalamar came to stand beside him, looked into the mist of swirling souls.
“They gather around you,” Dalamar said softly. “Their grave-cold hands clasp you. Their ice lips press against your flesh. Their chill arms embrace you, dead fingers clutch at you. You know!”
“Yes,” said Palin. “I know.” He shook off the remembered horror.
“You can’t leave, either.”
“My body cannot leave,” Dalamar corrected. “My spirit is free to roam. When I depart, I must always come back.” He shrugged. “What is it the Shalafi used to say? ‘Even wizards must suffer.’ There is always a price.”
Dalamar lowered his gaze to Palin’s broken fingers. “Isn’t there?”
Palin thrust his hands into the sleeves of his robes. “Where has your spirit been?”
“Traveling Ansalon, investigating this fantastical time-traveling story of yours,” Dalamar replied.
“Story? I told you no story,” Palin returned crisply. “I haven’t spoken one word to you. You’ve been to see Jenna. She was the one who told you. And she said that she hadn’t seen you in years.”
“She did not lie, Majere, if that’s what you’re insinuating, although I admit she did not tell you all the truth. She has not seen me, at least not my physical form. She has heard my voice, and that only recently. I arranged a meeting with her after the strange storm that swept over all Ansalon in a single night.”
“I asked her if she knew where to find you.”
“Again, she told you the truth. She does not know where to find me. I did not tell her. She has never been here. No one has been here. You are the first, and believe me”—Dalamar’s brows constricted—”if you had not been in such dire straits, you would not be here now. I do not pine for company,” he added with a dark glance.
Palin was silent, uncertain whether to believe him or not.
“For mercy’s sake, don’t sulk, Majere,” Dalamar said, willfully misinterpreting Palin’s silence. “It’s undignified for a man of your age. How old are you anyway? Sixty, seventy, a hundred? I can never tell with humans. You look ancient enough to me. As for Jenna ‘betraying’ your confidence, it is well for you and the kender that she did, else I would have not taken an interest in you, and you would now be in Beryl’s tender care.”
“Do not try to taunt me by remarking on the fact that I am old,” Palin said calmly. “I know I have aged. The process is natural in humans. In elves, it is not. Look in a mirror, Dalamar. If the years have taken a toll on me, they have taken a far more terrible toll on you. As for pride”—Palin shrugged in his turn—”I lost that a long time ago. It is hard to remain proud when you can no longer summon magic enough to heat my morning tea. I think you have reason to know that.”
“Perhaps I do,” Dalamar replied. “I know that I have changed. The battle I fought with Chaos stole hundreds of years from me, yet I could live with that. I was victorious, after all. Victor and loser, all at the same time. I won the war and was defeated by what came after. The loss of the magic.
“I risked my life for the sake of the magic,” Dalamar continued, his voice low and hollow. “I would have given my life for the sake of the magic. What happened? The magic departed. The gods left. They left me bereft, powerless, helpless. They left me— ordinary!”
Dalamar breathed shallowly. “All that I gave up for the magic—my homeland, my nation, my people . . . I used to consider I had made a fair trade. My sacrifice—and it was a wrenching sacrifice, though only another elf would understand—had been rewarded. But the reward was gone, and I was left with nothing. Nothing. And everyone knew it.
“It was then I began to hear rumors—rumors that Khellendros the Blue was going to seize my Tower, rumors that the Dark Knights were going to attack it. My Tower!” Dalamar gave a vicious snarl. His thin fist clenched. Then, his hand relaxed, and he gave a grating laugh.
“I tell you, Majere, gully dwarves could have taken over my Tower, and I could have done nothing to stop them. I had once been the most powerful wizard in Ansalon, and now, as you said, I could not so much as boil water.”
“You were not alone.” Palin was unsympathetic. “All of us were affected the same way.”
“No, you weren’t,” Dalamar retorted passionately. “You could not be. You had not sacrificed as I had sacrificed. You had your father and mother. You had a wife and children.”
“Jenna loved you—” Palin began.
“Did she?” Dalamar grimaced. “Sometimes I think we only used each other. She could not understand me either. She was like you, with her damnable human hope and optimism. Why are you humans like that? Why do you go on hoping when it is obvious that all hope is lost? I could not stomach her platitudes. We quarreled. She left, and I was glad to see her leave. I had no need of her. I had no need of anyone. It was up to me to protect my Tower from those great, bloated wyrms, and I did what I had to do. The only way to save the Tower was to appear to destroy it. And I did so. My plan worked. No one knows the Tower is here. No one will, unless I want it to be found.”