past. He was tired of the celibate bed, and he found her swift to laugh and slow to complain of a mage who walked in shadows and kept more secrets than she did hairpins.
He decorated his bedchamber with a tapestry woven in Silvanesti, a lovely weaving of the forest in spring, and he bought a half-case of Silvanesti wine, the kind that tastes of autumn. He drank the wine as one drinks the memories of all that is lost to him, bitterly and sweetly. When spring came again, Dalamar parted with his lover, unwilling to be chained by her expectation of the resumption of their affair upon his return. She didn't weep. She only laughed, and she did not look back when she walked out the door. He stood for a while, breathing the last wisps of her perfume, the musky odor of some golden oil imported from Northern Ergoth, then he sealed his chambers with invisible locks, with warding spells and secret traps. That done, he took up his pack and went down the stairs to pay his landlord rent for the next full year before he left the city. He had, at last, a home.
Into Valkinord he went. He found no magical scrolls, no secret artifacts, and again he saw that someone had been before him. He did find a small shrine to Nuitari, hung with shadows and the thin gray lace of spider webs. He cleaned it and stopped to worship, alone in the dust with the wind and the ghosts, the wanderer among the ruins. He found himself thinking about the Tower of High Sorcery and the hidden forest of Wayreth. Some sources told him that the forest lay at the edge of Icewall Glacier, others declared it would be found in the north part of Abanasinia. Still others took oaths that Wayreth Forest stood near Qualimori- no! — just beyond Tarsis. The forest found, one still had to locate the Tower which, all stories agreed, moved within the forest as easily as fish move in water. In there, no mage would find his way unless he was invited or unless he had so clear a focus on his goal, so unwavering a will to gain it, that nothing of the forest's magic could confuse or deter him. At night he dreamed about the Tower, but in the morning when he woke, he remembered only the barest threads of the dream, the faintest whisper.
That summer, Dalamar traveled as far as Neraka where he learned that the Highlords of Takhisis now often gathered to plot and make ready to launch another campaign against the people of Krynn. He spent a long time sitting in the hills outside the broken city, listening to rumors and feeling the power emanating from the place, a strength of magic and armed force. What power would he gain if he went into Neraka, presented himself to a Highlord, and offered his service? None, he decided, and only another master to serve.
He got up and walked away from Neraka, from the brooding armies of Takhisis, and went down to Southern Ergoth.
Forbidden all elven lands, still Dalamar slipped into Silvamori and went into the tower of Daltigoth, that pile which was, once and a long time ago, one of the five Towers of High Sorcery. This one had been the haunt of mages who'd dedicated themselves to the dark gods. The studies conducted there were grim and terrible, perfections in the arts of torment and woe. Another of the five towers had stood in Goodlund, but even the foundation of that was lost. A third tower was raised up in doomed Istar; there Lorac Caladon had taken his Tests of High Sorcery. That, like all of Istar, lay now beneath the sea, fallen in the Cataclysm. Two towers yet stood-one in Palanthas and one in the secret Forest of Wayreth. Only Wayreth's tower now functioned, kept and warded by its present master, Par-Salian of the Order of the White Robe, and only there could a mage take his Tests of High Sorcery. The tower in Palanthas, well, that one was cursed, and Dalamar had never heard of anyone going in there.
Thinking of towers, of the dream he had lately had, the one he had long held, he went through the Tower of High Sorcery at Daltigoth. Water dripped ceaselessly down the walls, outside and in. Winds sighed through broken stone. In the dungeons, piles of bones lay, brown and gnawed. In the upper chambers, nothing remained of the people who'd lived and worked there, not even the sob of a ghost. He went up and down crumbling stone stairs and brushed the dust of ages from musty tapestries. In libraries, he found nothing, not the least scroll, the smallest book. Here he didn't wonder whether some treasure hunter had been before him. The vast chambers and the deep vaults all had the look of places that had been systematically emptied a long time ago. Libraries, studies, scriptoria, laboratories… through all these Dalamar wandered listlessly and with little interest in what he saw. He had something else on his mind.
'It's time,' Dalamar said, standing in the wide space that might once have been a vast reception hall. He did not speak loudly, but the echo of his words ran 'round and 'round the tower, bounding from the stone walls, leaping down the stairs, and falling into the well. The time had come to search and see if he could find the Tower of High Sorcery at Wayreth, to see whether the Master of the Tower would grant him the chance to take his Tests. He looked around and saw the hem of his black robe grayed with dust, his own footsteps marked behind him and before.
Shouldering his pack, Dalamar walked out the door, past the crumbling gargoyles, and down the shattered stone stairs. The courtyard tumbled with weeds. A wind blew stiffly off the waters of the Straits of Algoni, cold and smelling of the sea. Gulls cried in the hard blue sky, their voices like wounds on the silence. Something dark darted, swiftly caught out the corner of his eye. Dalamar looked up, and looking, he took a step into the courtyard.
Pain shot through him, lancing from his back and leaping through to his chest. He choked, he tried to turn to defend himself, and a flying weight hit him, driving him down to the broken pavement. Laughter rang out, leaping from the high walls of the ruined tower, shrieking in the sky, and burning in his mind like fire. He struggled, trying to throw off the weight that pinned and held him hard to the ground. Heart hammering, he kicked, twisting his shoulders. He never moved the weight, never stopped the shrieking laughter, but he got a breath, a short staggered gasp of air, and-
They were not cracked paving stones beneath Dalamar's cheek, tearing the flesh. Blood from his cut cheek seeped into the earth of a forest floor. A thin breeze drifted, smelling of oak and faintly of distant pine. Dalamar, groaning, finished taking his breath. He got his hands under him and found no weight held him. Carefully, he pushed to his knees, and he heard a soft chuckle.
'Gently, mage,' said a low voice, the speaker clearly amused. 'Gently.'
He looked up, slowly, and saw a woman perched upon a tall boulder, smiling as she tapped the shining blade of a dagger against her knee. Two sapphires gleamed in the grip of the blade, the eyes of a dragon etched into the ivory grip. Dalamar noted the weapon, and he saw no threat in the eyes of the woman tapping rhythms against her knee with the blade. Though she sat, he knew she was tall as he, her long legs said so. Dressed in hunting leathers and a red shirt, she wore her night-black hair bound back from her face by a white scarf. A human, he noted, and tall as a barbarian Plainswoman, though she hadn't the look of one of those. Too pale of cheek, and too dark of hair, and not many Plainswomen had eyes the exact color of sapphires.
'Who are you?' he asked, climbing to his feet. One swift glance showed him he'd lost his pack. The little pouch of steel coins, his spare boots, the last leather flask of his autumn wine… all were gone. 'Who are you?' he repeated coldly, and though the look he bent on her had chilled the blood of strong folk, this woman never moved but to smile.
'Best to ask, Dalamar Nightson, where am I? Or, more to the point, where are you?'
Wind sighed high in the treetops, and it didn't smell of the sea. It dropped low, and it carried the scent of the woman, her leathers, the faint tang of sweat, and the sweetness of the herbs with which she washed her hair. A stream gurgled, water talking to stone on its way by. He stood in an upland forest, so said the boulders strewn about, great chunks of stone of the kind found in the Kharolis Mountains. God-flung stone, the dwarves said, debris from the Cataclysm.
'Where are you?' asked the woman, tapping the dagger's blade against her knee. The rhythm quickened, suddenly impatient. 'Where are you, Dalamar Nightson?'
'In the Forest of Wayreth,' he said, his heart thudding in his chest.
Out the corner of his eye, he saw something black racing, low on the ground like a hound running. He braced and turned. He saw nothing but forest, trees running upslope, mighty oaks, broad of girth and rough-barked. Sunlight shone through the leaves. So tall were the trees that to stand looking up gave him the feeling of being far down, perhaps beneath the sea where the sky, when seen at all, was but a round disk. As water ripples, so did the light ripple, running with shadow. As water speaks, so did the forest, wind sighing through the oaks.
'What was that?' he asked, turning to the woman.
But she was gone.
Only sun-dappled moss sat on the boulder, thick and golden green. Not even the least scratch marred the softness. All around the stone the moss grew undisturbed. He touched it-springy and cool. He lifted his head and breathed the air. Nothing lingered of the dark-haired woman's scent, not even the faintest trace of leather.
