Dragons of a Vanished Moon Read online

  “No!” Goldmoon cried out. She rose unsteadily to her feet and fell away from Mina, holding out her hand in warding. “No, Child, I don’t believe it. I won’t listen to you.”

  Mina seized Goldmoon’s hand.

  “You will listen, Mother. You must, so that you will understand. The gods fled in fear of Chaos, Mother. All except one. One god remained loyal to the people she had helped to create. One only had the courage to face the terror of the Father of All and of Nothing. The battle left her weak. Too weak to make manifest her presence in the world. Too weak to fight the strange dragons that came to take her place. But although she could not be with her people, she gave gifts to her people to help them fight the dragons. The magic that they called the wild magic, the power of healing that you know as the power of the heart … those were her gifts. Her gifts to you.”

  “If those were her gifts, then why did the dead need to steal them for her …” said Dalamar softly. “Look! Look there!” He pointed to the still water.

  “I see.” Palin breathed.

  The heads of the five dragons that guarded what had once been the Portal to the Abyss began to glow with an eerie radiance, one red, one blue, one green, one white, one black.

  “What fools we have been,” Palin murmured.

  “Kneel down,” Mina commanded Goldmoon, “and offer your prayers of faith and thanksgiving to the One True God. The One God who remained faithful to her creation—”

  “No, I don’t believe what you are telling me!” Goldmoon said, standing fast. “You have been deceived, Child. I know this One God. I know her of old. I know her tricks and her lies and deceits.”

  Goldmoon looked at the five-headed dragon.

  “I do not believe your lies, Takhisis!” Goldmoon said defiantly. “I will never believe that the blessed Paladine and Mishakal left us to your mercy!”

  “They didn’t leave, did they?” Palin said.

  “No,” Dalamar said. “They did not.”

  “You are what you have always been,” Goldmoon cried. “A god of Evil who does not want worshipers, you want slaves! I will never bow down to you! I will never serve you!”

  White fire flared from the eyes of the five dragons. Palin watched in horror to see Goldmoon begin to wither in the terrible heat.

  “Too late,” said Dalamar with terrible calm. “Too late. For her. And for us. They’ll be coming for us soon. You know that.”

  “This chamber is hidden—” Palin began.

  “From Takhisis?” Dalamar gave a mirthless laugh. “She knew of this chamber’s existence long before your uncle showed it to me. How could anything be hidden from the ‘One God’? The One God who stole away Krynn!”

  “As I said, what fools we have been,” said Palin.

  “You yourself discovered the truth, Majere. You used the device to journey back to Krynn’s past, yet you could go back only to the moment Chaos was defeated. Prior to that, there was no past. Why? Because in that moment, Takhisis stole the past, the present, and the future. She stole the world. The clues were there, if we’d had sense enough to read them.”

  “So the future Tasslehoff saw—”

  “—will never come to pass. He leaped forward to the future that was supposed to have happened. He landed in the future that is now happening. Consider the facts: a strange-looking sun in the sky; one moon where there were once three; the patterns of the stars are vastly different; a red star burns in the heavens where one had never before been seen; strange dragons appear from out of nowhere. Takhisis brought the world here, to this part of the universe, wherever that may be. Thus the strange sun, the single moon, the alien dragons, and the One God, all-powerful, with no one to stop her.”

  “Except Tasslehoff,” said Palin, thinking of the kender secreted in an upstairs chamber.

  “Bah!” Dalamar snorted. “They’ve probably found him by now. Him and the gnome. When they do, Takhisis will do with him what we planned to do—she will send him back to die.”

  Palin glanced toward the door. From somewhere above came shouted orders and the sound of feet running to obey. “The fact Tasslehoff is here at all proves to me that the Dark Queen is not infallible. She could not have foreseen his coming.”

  “Cling to that if it makes you happy,” said Dalamar. “I see no hope in any of this. Witness the evidence of the Dark Queen’s power.”

  They continued to watch the reflections of time shimmering in the dark pool. In the laboratory, an elderly woman lay on the floor, her white hair loose and unbound around her shoulders. Youth, beauty, strength, life had all been snatched away by the vengeful goddess, angry that her generous gifts had been spurned.

  Mina knelt beside the dying woman. Taking hold of Goldmoon’s hands, Mina pressed them again to her lips. “Please, Mother. I can restore your youth. I can bring back your beauty. You can begin life all over again. You will walk with me, and together we will rule the world in the name of the One God. All you have to do is to come to the One God in humility and ask this favor of her, and it will be done.”

  Goldmoon closed her eyes. Her lips did not move.

  Mina bent close. “Mother,” she begged. “Mother, do this for me if not for yourself. Do this for love of me!”

  “I pray,” said Goldmoon in a voice so soft that Palin held his breath to hear, “I pray to Paladine and Mishakal that they forgive me for my lack of faith. I should have known the truth,” she said softly, her voice weakening as she spoke the words with her dying breath. “I pray that Paladine will hear my prayer and he will come … for love of Mina … For love of all …”

  Goldmoon sank, lifeless, to the floor.

  “Mother,” said Mina, bewildered as a lost child, “I did this for you.…”

  Palin’s eyes burned with tears, but he was not sure for whom it was he wept—for Goldmoon, who had brought light into the world, or for the orphan girl, whose loving heart had been snared, tricked, deceived by the darkness.

  “May Paladine hear her dying prayer,” Palin said quietly.

  “May I be given bat wings to flap around this chamber,” Dalamar retorted. “Her soul has gone to join the river of the dead, and I fancy that our souls will not be far behind.”

  Footsteps clattered down the stairs, steel swords banged against the sides of the stone walls. The footsteps halted outside their door.

  “I don’t suppose anyone found a key?” asked a deep, rumbling voice.

  “I don’t like this, Galdar,” said another. “This place stinks of death and magic. Let’s get out of here.”

  “We can’t get in if there’s no key, sir,” said a third. “We tried. It wasn’t our fault we failed.”

  A moment’s pause, then the first voice spoke, his voice firm. “Mina gave us our orders. We will break down the door.”

  Blows began to rain on the wooden door. The Knights started to beat on it with their fists and the hilts of their swords, but none sounded very enthusiastic.

  “How long will the spell of warding hold?” Palin asked.

  “Indefinitely, against this lot,” said Dalamar disparagingly. “Not long at all against Her Dark Majesty.”

  “You are very cool about this,” said Palin. “Perhaps you are not overly sorry to hear that Takhisis has returned.”

  “Say, rather, that she never left,” Dalamar corrected with fine irony.

  Palin made an impatient gesture. “You wore the black robes. You worshiped her—”

  “No, I did not,” said Dalamar so quietly that Palin could barely hear him over the banging and the shouting and the thundering on the door. “I worshiped Nuitari, the son, not the mother. She could never forgive me for that.”

  “Yet, if we believe what Mina said, Takhisis gave us both the magic—me the wild magic and you the magic of the dead. Why would she do that?”

  “To make fools of us,” said Dalamar. “To laugh at us, as she is undoubtedly laughing now.”

  The sounds of fists beating at the door suddenly ceased. Quiet descended on those outsid
e. For a hope-filled moment, Palin thought that perhaps they had given up and departed. Then came a shuffling sound, as of feet moving hastily to clear a path. More footsteps could be heard—lighter than those before.

  A single voice called out. The voice was ragged, as if it were choked by tears.

  “I speak to the wizard Dalamar,” called Mina. “I know you are within. Remove the magical spell you have cast on the door that we may meet together and talk of matters of mutual interest.”

  Dalamar’s lip curled slightly. He made no response, but stood silent, impassive.

  “The One God has given you many gifts, Dalamar, made you powerful, more powerful than ever,” Mina resumed, after a pause to hear an answer that did not come. “The One God does not ask for thanks, only that you serve her with all your heart and all your soul. The magic of the dead will be yours. A million million souls will come to you each day to do your bidding. You will be free of this Tower, free to roam the world. You may return to your homeland, to the forests that you love and for which you long. The elven people are lost, seeking. They will embrace you as their leader, bow down before you, and worship you in my name.”

  Dalamar’s eyes closed, as if in pain.

  He has been offered the dearest wish of his heart, Palin realized. Who could turn that down?

  Still, Dalamar said nothing.

  “I speak now to you, Palin Majere,” Mina said, and it seemed to Palin that he could see her amber eyes shining through the closed and spell-bound door. “Your uncle Raistlin Majere had the power and the courage to challenge the One God to battle. Look at you, his nephew. Hiding from the One God like a child who fears punishment. What a disappointment you have been. To your uncle, to your family, to yourself. The One God sees into your heart. The One God sees the hunger there. Serve the One God, Majere, and you will be greater than your uncle, more honored, more revered. Do you accept, Majere?”

  “Had you come to me earlier, I might have believed you, Mina,” Palin answered. “You have a way of speaking to the dark part of the soul. But the moment is passed. My uncle, wherever his spirit roams, is not ashamed of me. My family loves me, though I have done little to deserve it. I do thank this One God of yours for opening my eyes, for making me see that if I have done nothing else of value in this life, I have loved and been loved. And that is all that truly matters.”

  “A very pretty sentiment, Majere,” Mina responded. “I will write that on your tomb. What of you, Dark Elf? Have you made your decision? I trust you will not be as foolish as your friend.”

  Dalamar spoke finally, but not to Mina. He spoke to the blue flame, burning in the center of the still pool of dark water.

  “I have looked into the night sky and seen the dark moon, and I have thrilled to know that my eyes were among the few eyes that could see it. I have heard the voice of the god Nuitari and reveled in his blessed touch as I cast my spells. Long ago, the magic breathed and danced and sparkled in my blood. Now it crawls out of my fingers like maggots swarming from a carrion carcass. I would rather be that corpse than be a slave to one who so fears the living that she can trust only servants who are dead.”

  A single hand smote the door. The door and the spell that guarded it shattered.

  Mina entered the chamber. She entered alone. The jet of flame that burned in the pool shone in her black armor, burned in her heart and in her amber eyes. Her shorn red hair glistened. She was might and power and majesty, but Palin saw that the amber eyes were red and swollen, tears stained her cheeks, grief for Goldmoon. Palin understood then the depth of the Dark Queen’s perfidy, and he had never hated Takhisis so much as he hated her now. Not for what she had done or was about to do to him, but for what she had done to Mina and all the innocents like her.

  Mina’s Knights, fearful of the powerful wizards, hung back upon the shadowy stairs. Dalamar’s voice raised in a chant, but the words were mumbled and inarticulate, and his voice faded slowly away. Palin tried desperately to summon the magic to him. The spell dissolved in his hands, ran through his fingers like grains of sand from a broken hourglass.

  Mina regarded them both with a disdainful smile. “You are nothing without the magic. Look at you—two broken-down, impotent old men. Fall on your knees before the One God. Beg her to give you back the magic! She will grant your pleas.”

  Neither Palin nor Dalamar moved. Neither spoke.

  “So be it,” said Mina.

  She raised her hand. Flames burned from the tips of her five fingers. Green fire, blue and red, white, and the red-black of embers lit the Chamber of Seeing. The flames merged together to form two spears forged of magic. The first spear she hurled at Dalamar.

  The spear struck the elf in the breast, pinned him against the wall of the Chamber of Seeing. For a moment, he hung impaled upon the burning spear, his body writhing. Then his head sagged, his body went limp.

  Mina paused. Holding the spear, she gazed at Palin.

  “Beg,” she said to him. “Beg the One God for your life.”

  Palin’s lips tightened. He knew a moment’s panicked fear, then pain sheared through his body. The pain was so horrific, so agonizing that it brought its own blessing. The pain made his last living thought a longing for death.

  2

  The Significance of the Gnome

  alamar had said to Palin, “You do understand the significance of the gnome?”

  Palin had not understood the significance at that moment, nor had Tasslehoff. The kender understood now. He sat in the small and boring room in the Tower of High Sorcery, a room that was pretty much devoid of anything interesting: sad-looking tables and some stern-backed chairs and a few knicknacks that were too big to fit in a pouch. He had nothing to do except look out a window to see nothing more interesting than an immense number of cypress trees—more trees than were absolutely necessary, or so Tas thought—and the souls of the dead wandering around among them. It was either that or watch Conundrum sort through the various pieces of the shattered Device of Time Journeying. For now Tas understood all too well the significance of the gnome.

  Long ago—just how long ago Tasslehoff couldn’t remember, since time had become extremely muddled for him, what with leaping forward to one future that turned out wasn’t the proper future and ending up in this future, where all anyone wanted to do was send him back to the past to die—anyhow, long ago, Tasslehoff Burrfoot had, through no fault of his own (well, maybe a little) ended up quite by accident in the Abyss.

  Having assumed that the Abyss would be a hideous place where all manner of perfectly horrible things went on—demons eternally torturing people, for example—Tas had been most frightfully disappointed to discover that the Abyss was, in fact, boring. Boring in the extreme. Nothing of interest happened. Nothing of disinterest happened. Nothing at all happened to anyone, ever. There was nothing to see, nothing to handle, nothing to do, nowhere to go. For a kender, it was pure hell.

  Tas’s one thought had been to get out. He had with him the Device of Time Journeying—this same Device of Time Journeying that he had with him now. The device had been broken—just as it was broken now. He had met a gnome—similar to the gnome now seated at the table across from him. The gnome had fixed the device—just as the gnome was busy fixing it now. The one big difference was that then Tasslehoff had wanted the gnome to fix the device, and now he didn’t.

  Because when the Device of Time Journeying was fixed, Palin and Dalamar would use it to send him—Tasslehoff Burrfoot—back in time to the point where the Father of All and of Nothing would squash him flat and turn him into the sad ghost of himself he’d seen wandering about Nightlund.

  “What did you do with this device?” Conundrum muttered irritably. “Run it through a meat grinder?”

  Tasslehoff closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see the gnome, but he saw him anyway—his nut-brown face and his wispy hair that floated about his head as though he were perpetually poking his finger into one of his own inventions, perhaps the steam-powered preambulating hubb
le-bubble or the locomotive, self-winding rutabaga slicer. Worse, Tas could see the light of cleverness shining in the gnome’s beady eyes. He’d seen that light before, and he was starting to feel dizzy. What did you do with this device? Run it through a meat grinder? were exactly the same words—or very close to them—that the previous gnome had said in the previous time.

  To alleviate the dizzy feeling, Tasslehoff rested his head with its topknot of hair (going only a little gray here and there) on his hands on the table. Instead of going away, the uncomfortable dizzy feeling spiraled down from his head into his stomach, and spread from his stomach to the rest of his body.

  A voice spoke. The same voice that he’d heard in a previous time, in a previous place, long ago. The voice was painful. The voice shriveled his insides and caused his brain to swell, so that it pressed on his skull, and made his head hurt horribly. He had heard the voice only once before, but he had never, ever wanted to hear it again. He tried to stop his ears with his hands, but the voice was inside him, so that didn’t help.

  You are not dead, said the voice, and the words were exactly the same words the voice had spoken so long ago, nor were you sent here. You are not supposed to be here at all.

  “I know,” said Tasslehoff, launching into his explanation. “I came from the past, and I’m supposed to be in a different future—”

  A past that never was. A future that will never be.

  “Is that … is that my fault?” Tas asked, faltering.

  The voice laughed, and the laughter was horrible, for the sound was like a steel blade breaking, and the feel was of the slivers of the broken blade piercing his flesh.

  Don’t be a fool, kender. You are an insect. Less than an insect. A mote of dust, a speck of dirt to be flicked away with a brush of my hand. The future you are in is the future of Krynn as it was meant to be but for the meddlings of those who had neither the wit nor the vision to see how the world might be theirs. All that happened once will happen again, but this time to suit my purposes. Long ago, one died on a Tower, and his death rallied a Knighthood. Now, another dies on a Tower and her death plunges a nation into despair. Long ago, one was raised up by the miracle of the blue crystal staff. Now the one who wielded that staff will be raised up—to receive me.