And if they hadn't?
Then they hadn't. They were treasures, and they were artifacts, but they were not more than physical manifestations of what he loved. They were not the magic, only one mage's shaping of it.
All around lay silence. His ears ached for the sound of birds in the trees, water in the stream, but the land lay desolate, exhausted. Birds had long ago flown away. Those that had not were long dead. Somewhere, deep in the forest, green dragons roamed, and creatures worse than they. But not here. Here nothing lived. The wind stirred above the ravine, high in the rattling branches of despoiled aspens. The miasma that befouled all of the air in the kingdom swirled a little, like steam over a stinking pot. Dalamar lifted his arm to cover his nose and mouth with his sleeve and went down into the ravine, down to his cave and the promise he longed to keep.
The pulse of magic no longer ran in the cave, not even a whisper of what had been breathed in the darkness. It was a dead place, not but stone and dust and air long unbreathed.
Softly, Dalamar whispered, 'Shirak!' and light leaped into this hand, a clear cool globe. He hung it in the darkness and looked around. The dust of years lay upon the floor, marked by the tiny tracks of mice and voles. His work table of wild green marble was broken, cracked in the middle and fallen in two. The pots of herbs and oils and other spell components he had so secretly gathered in summer, a long time ago, were but shards in the dust, fallen from the niches in the stone wall, their colors dimmed, their contents dried and gone.
His light leading, Dalamar walked through the cave, dust puffing away from his boots, all the way to the back where he'd hidden his books. The wards were gone, too small to stand before the magic that had warped dries. The mice had found a treasure between the covers, nesting material for the generations. In the five years since last he'd seen the books, nothing remained but gnawed leather covers and a few scraps. He bent to touch one, yellow and brittle. A few letters marked the edge of the scrap, vestiges of some spell. Gone, all that work, all that crafting, gone.
Dalamar looked around at the cave, the ragged shadows, the ruin. Somewhere, beyond Krynn, beyond the battles of the rest of their godly kin, Nuitari and Solinari and red Lunitari did abide, the three gods of magic. To one, bright Solinari, Dalamar had allowed himself to be consecrated. He did not speak to that one now, but to the darkest god.
'Nuitari,' he whispered, the name on his lips a prayer. 'O Dark Son, in your shadows I have found comfort, in your darkness I have plied secrets. In your night, O Nuitari, I have hidden my heart.'
The words came, unframed, unconsidered. Dalamar dropped to his knees. This gesture he made with the whole of his heart, he who had been bending the knee in one way or another all his life, knelt now because he wanted to do that.
'O child of dark gods, O keeper of secrets deep and terrifying, hear me.'
In the ruin of his secret place, he lifted his hands and motes of dust made silver by the sphere of cool light danced around his fingers.
'Hear me, Dark Son! I have come to make a pledge to you, and I have come to consecrate myself truly.'
On the floor, like a shard of darkness separated from shadows, a jagged piece of pottery lay. Dalamar took it up, finding the sharpest edge with his thumb. He smiled and looked deeply into the shadows far back in the cave. All around him lay the broken remains of his small secret studies, the little trove of spellbooks shredded, his work table broken, the spell components he'd so carefully gathered dried and gone to dust. Before him lay shadows, darkness stretching far back to regions he had never gone. He listened to the cave breathe, the airs of distant places running around in darkness, and he breathed in rhythm with it. Breathing, he found magic, felt it sparkling in his blood, firing his heart.
'Yours,' he said to the god who was not there, yet who was ever near, 'yours is the realm of magic and secrets.' He lifted his heart and his hands, the potshard still held in his right, gleaming. 'Yours is the dark path where power exists for its own sake, unbounded, unbridled. O Nuitari, yours is the path my feet will walk, and yours is the path my heart will follow.'
He clenched his right hand, suddenly, convulsively, grinding the jagged shard of pottery into the flesh of his palm. Blood, black in the cool mage-light, ran in one thin line from between his fingers. He moved his hand over the small scrap of parchment, the last of a wondrous page. The first drop of his blood fell on the scrap, hissing. In the moment he heard the sound, Dalamar felt his heart fill with dark and howling power. The hair on the back of his neck raised, and sudden sweat ran down his cheeks. The second drop of his blood fell, the parchment smoked, and the scrap rolled and tumbled, leaping into flame as though it were, in fact, the whole of all the pages of four books, not this little shred.
Shadows leaped up the walls. Flames as red as blood ran in sudden circle around the mage kneeling on the stony floor. Winds howled, though no wind stirred. Storm sounded, though no rain fell and outside the sky was bitterly bright. Heatless fire, dancing flames, light like the light in a dragon's eye…
Dalamar lifted his fists, the bleeding and the clean, and as he did, such fires of magic ran in him as would rival the flames he saw now. His blood burned, his heart soared, and his soul sang darkly, hymns to a god whose name elves never mentioned, whose image no elf made, whose prayer no elf chanted. In that moment, Dalamar knew the god of his heart, the god who makes no promise and so breaks no promise. He knew the god to whom magic is all.
'Nuitari!' he shouted, with all the strength of his heart, all the breath in his lungs. He cried, 'Nuitari! Once I was Dalamar Argent. I have come to tell you that Dalamar Argent is dead! I am Dalamar Nightson, and I am yours, O Dark Son. I am yours in the hidden night, yours in the glaring day. I am yours in magic, yours in prayer. I am yours-'
Outside the cave, voices whispered, voices raised in question and then lowered in cursing. A twig snapped. Dalamar's heart leaped hard in his chest, thundering. The shadows on the walls retreated, scurrying down the stone as the blood-red fire fell and died. The magic gone, ripped from him, Dalamar turned toward the cave's entrance.
The opening shone like one malevolent eye, white and bright. Tall shapes stood there, dark as nightmare against the glare. He tried to gain his feet but could not. With the magic gone, so was all the strength he'd used to support it. He staggered, fell, and a woman's voice shouted, 'Take him!'
Six Wildrunners ran into the cave. They circled him, as magic's fire had done, wary and glaring at him over drawn blades. Then one, the woman who had first cried out, laughed, a brittle, edgy sound.
'So this is what servants do when they ignore the orders of their betters. You'd have done better, servitor, to obey Lord Konnal's orders and kept to temple grounds.'
He said nothing, for he knew no word of his would avail now.
'He's weak,' the Wildrunner sneered. 'He has none of that foul black magic to use. Take him to Lord Konnal!'
They fell on Dalamar. Roughly they tore him from the floor and bound his hands tightly behind his back. Their faces were ugly, wrenched by fear and loathing. One, a stocky young man, spat at him, and the trail of his spittle on Dalamar's cheek felt like acid etching into his flesh. Another put a noose round his neck to lead him by, and thus he was taken from his secret place and dragged back through the forest to Silvanost and the Temple of E'li. There they bound him, and they flung him into a small, lightless cell in the Temple. They did not feed him; they gave him no water to drink. They left him alone, and outside the cell a watch of Wildrunners stood constant guard.
In the night, owls mourned, and mice scurried. In the night came pain so deep it was like a toothed thing gnawing at his organs. Through the long watches, Dalamar lay on the hard cold floor, refusing to groan, refusing to turn from the agony. Savaged by a green dragon's magic, broken and filthy, still there were artifacts of E'li's magic in this Temple, and these did not love a mage who had turned from the Light, an elf whose heart now beat in the dark rhythms of Nuitari's magic. No matter, no matter. He lay in pain, and he didn't groan. He lay in pain, and he embraced it. What else could he do? Wail and cry out?
Never.
The gray sky hung low. Wind rattled the naked branches of ravaged aspens and made the green miasma writhe. The pale ruined towers of Silvanost loomed high over the city, like wretched ghosts gathered to watch a terrible undertaking, the convening of the Ceremony of Darkness. With his hands bound behind him, exhausted by
