Palin shivered. He should go back, abandon this. It was too dangerous. He wasn’t even a mage! But as the thought crossed his mind, the light from the crystal atop the staff dimmed—or so it seemed to him.
No, he thought resolutely. I must go on. I must know the truth!
Gripping the drawstring with a palm wet with sweat, he pulled it hard, watching, holding his breath as the curtain slowly lifted, rising upward in shimmering folds.
The light grew more and more brilliant as the curtain rose, dazzling him.
Raising his hand, shading his eyes, Palin stared in awe at the magnificent, fearful sight. The portal was a black void surrounded by five metallic dragon heads. Carved by magic into the likeness of Takhisis, Queen of Darkness, their mouths gaped open in a silent scream of triumph, each head glowing green, blue, red, white, or black.
The light blinded Palin. He blinked painfully and rubbed his burning eyes.
The dragon heads shone only more brilliantly, and now he could hear them each began to chant.
The first, From darkness to darkness, my voice echoes in the emptiness.
The second, From this world to the next, my voice cries with life.
The third, From darkness to darkness, I shout. Beneath my feet, all is made firm.
The fourth, Time that flows, hold in your course.
And finally, the last head, Because by fate even the gods are cast down, weep ye all with me.
A magical spell, Palin realized. His vision blurred, and tears streamed down his cheeks as he attempted to see through the dazzling light into the portal. The multicolored lights began to whirl madly, spinning around the outside of the great, gaping, twisting void within the center of the portal.
Growing dizzy, Palin clutched the staff and kept his gaze on the void within. The darkness moved! It began to swirl, circling around an eye of deeper darkness within its center, like a maelstrom without substance or form.
Round... and round... and round... sucking the air from the laboratory up in its mouth, sucking up the dust, and the light of the staff....
“No!” Palin cried, realizing in horror that it was sucking him in as well!
Struggling, he fought against it, but the force was irresistible. Helpless as a babe trying to stop his own birth, Palin was drawn inside the dazzling light, the writhing darkness. The dragon’s heads shrieked a paean to their Dark Queen. Their weight crushed Palin’s body, then their talons pulled him apart, limb by limb. Fire burst upon him, burning his flesh from his bones.
Waters swirled over him; he was drowning. He screamed without sound, though he could hear his voice. He was dying, and he was thankful he was dying, for the pain would end.
His heart burst.
Chapter Eight
Everything stopped. The light, the pain.
Everything was silent.
Palin was lying facedown, the Staff of Magius still clutched in his hand.
Opening his eyes, he saw the light of the staff shining silver, gleaming cold and pure. He felt no pain, his breathing was relaxed and normal, and his heartbeat steady, his body whole and unharmed. But he wasn’t lying on the floor of the laboratory. He was in sand! Or so it seemed. Glancing around, slowly rising to his feet, he saw that he was in a strange land—flat, like a desert, with no distinguishing features of any type. It was completely empty, barren. The landscape stretched on and on endlessly as far as he could see. Puzzled, he looked around. He had never been here before, yet it was familiar. The ground was an odd color—a kind of muted pink, the same color as the sky. His father’s voice came to him, As though it was sunset or somewhere in the distance, a fire burned....
Palin closed his eyes to blot out the horror of realization as fear surged over him in a suffocating wave, robbing him of breath or even the power to stand.
“The Abyss,' he murmured, his shaking hand holding the staff for support.
“Palin—” The voice broke off in a choked cry.
Palin’s eyes flared open, startled at hearing his name, alarmed by the sound of desperation in the voice.
Turning around, stumbling in the sand, the young man looked in the direction of that terrible sound and saw, rising up before him, a stone wall where no wall had been only seconds previously. Two undead figures walked toward the wall, dragging something between them. The “something” was human, Palin could see, human and living! It struggled in its captors' grasp, as though trying to escape, but resistance was useless against those whose strength came from beyond the grave.
The three drew nearer the wall, which was, apparently, their destination, for one pointed to it and laughed. The human ceased his struggles for a moment.
Lifting his head, he looked directly at Palin.
Golden skin, eyes the shape of hourglasses ...
“Uncle?” Palin breathed, starting to take a step forward.
But the figure shook its head, making an almost imperceptible movement with one of its slender hands as though saying, “Not now!”
Palin realized suddenly that he was standing out in the open, alone in the Abyss, with nothing to protect him but the Staff of Magius—a staff whose magic he had no idea how to use. The undead, intent upon their struggling captive, had not noticed him yet, but it would be only a matter of time.
Frightened and frustrated, Palin looked about hopelessly for someplace to hide. To his amazement, a thick bush sprang up out of nowhere, almost as if he had summoned it into being.
Without stopping to think why or how it was there, the young man ducked swiftly behind the bush, covering the crystal on the staff with his hand in an attempt to keep its light from giving him away. Then he peered cautiously out into the pinkish, burning land.
The undead had hauled their captive to the wall that stood in the middle of the sand. Manacles appeared on the wall at a spoken word of command.
Hoisting their captive up into the air with their incredible strength, the undead fastened Raistlin to the wall by his wrists. Then, with mocking bows, they left him there, hanging from the wall, his black robes stirring in the hot breeze.
Rising to his feet, Palin started forward again when a dark shadow fell across his vision, blinding him more completely than the brilliant light, filling his mind and soul and body with such terror and fear that he could not move. Though the darkness was thick and all encompassing, Palin saw things within it—he saw a woman, more beautiful and desirable than any other woman he had ever seen before in his life. He saw her walk up to his uncle, he saw his uncle’s manacled fists clench. He saw all this, yet all around him was such darkness as might have been found on the floor of the deepest ocean. Then Palin understood. The darkness was in his mind, for he was looking upon Takhisis—the Queen of Darkness herself.
As he watched, held in place by awe and horror and such reverence as made him want to kneel before her, Palin saw the woman change her form.
Out of the darkness, out of the sand of the burning land, rose a dragon.
Immense, its wing-span covered the land with shadow, its five heads writhed and twisted upon five necks, and its five mouths opened in deafening shrieks of laughter and of cruel delight.
Palin saw Raistlin’s head turn away involuntarily, the golden eyes closed as though unable to face the sight of the creature that leered above him. Yet the archmage fought on, trying to wrench himself free of the manacles, his arms and wrists torn and bleeding from the futile effort.
Slowly, delicately, the dragon lifted a claw. With one swift stroke, she slit open Raistlin’s black robes. Then, with almost the same, delicate movement, she slit open the arch-mage’s body.
Palin gasped and shut his eyes to blot out the dreadful sight, but it was too late. He had seen it, and he would see it always in his dreams, just as he would hear his uncle’s agonized cry forever. Palin’s mind reeled, and his knees went limp. Sinking to the ground, he clasped his stomach, retching.