Chapter 16

Murmured greetings drifted after him as the Master of the Tower drew near the reception area, the voices of mages of all Orders bidding him good even. By these Dalamar knew him as Par-Salian. A tall human, thin with age, the Master did not quite come into the chamber. He stood upon the threshold of the passage leading out from the foretower and into the south tower. At sight of him, Dalamar rose, hands folded within the sleeves of his own dark robe. He had known humans of greater age than he, elders among their kind who were old at fifty years and nearly dead at eighty. His own ninety-eight years, the count of a young man among elves, astounded them, and in turn, their fleeting years appalled him. He did not feel this way in the presence of Par-Salian. He was old by human standards, but he had a strength of will that made strength of body seem like nothing but crude brawn. To this strength Dalamar responded, his heart, seldom moved to respect, warmed.

"Good evening, my lord," he said. He inclined his head to bow.

Par-Salian made no such gesture. He stood still a long moment, his blue eyes glinting with keen intelligence, his wrinkled face stony, betraying nothing of his assessment of this young dark elf standing before him. On the walls, the torches burned smokeless flames of magic. Shadows spun webs on the floor and the scent of sorcery hung on the air.

At last, "You've come to be tested."

Dalamar's belly clenched, fear and excitement both. "I have, my lord."

"With whom have you studied?"

Not even the least flush of shame would Dalamar permit. He held the Master's gaze and said, "For a little while, with the mages of Ylle Savath of Silvanost. For the rest of the time, I have been my own tutor."

Par-Salian raised a brow. "Indeed. And you know that not all mages come out from these Tests whole, few come out unmarked. Some are consumed by the magic they can't control, and those don't return from this Tower alive."

He said so coldly, with no glimmer of emotion in his eye. Firmly, head high, Dalamar answered in kind. "I know this, my lord, and I am here."

A soft breeze sighed through the chamber, drifting out from the south tower, scented of magic, of age and the beeswax of countless candles burned over countless years. Dalamar lifted his head to that scent, as though to the sound of a voice calling.

Par-Salian nodded as one who considers something. "I know some things about you, Dalamar Argent."

Dalamar stood in silence, forbearing to correct the Master of the Tower on the matter of his name.

"I know you had some part in the defense of Silvanesti." The White Robe smiled now, leanly. "It might have worked, your scheme of illusion."

"It did work, my lord," Dalamar said. "It worked for a time, and the Highlord was damaged."

"Damaged, and soon to have all the reinforcements she needed. But, you're right. It was not your magic that failed the kingdom. Something more did." Into Dalamar's questioning silence, he said, "The heart of your king did. He did not trust his people, and he did not trust his gods." His voice grew chill. "And you lost faith along with the king."

"No, my lord. In those gods of his"-again he inclined his head respectfully-"in those gods of yours, I never had much faith. I have found a god who guides me now, and in Nuitari I have placed all my faith."

In the silence stretching out between them, Dalamar knew himself weighed, knew himself considered, and felt all the corners of his heart scrutinized. He trembled-who could not under that gaze?-and he forced himself to stand, though his knees wanted to buckle. That he would never permit, not here, not now, never before this mage who held in his hand his chance to take the Tests of High Sorcery.

"Well enough, then." The Master of the Tower made a small, welcoming gesture, the kind meant to usher a guest into the hall. He stepped back, indicating that Dalamar should precede him into the south tower.

Hands clenched tightly, that clenching hidden in the wide sleeves of his robe, Dalamar took a step forward-one, one only-and all the world filled up with shouting, all that shouting pouring out from one throat: His own. A wild wind roared in his head, thundering and shrieking. He struggled, and then he stopped, willing himself to be still. In that moment he framed his will in words, the roaring in his head stopped, and the blackness engulfing him felt as normal and friendly as sleep.

To that blackness he gave himself, surrendering his will because that surrender was his will, trusting that he would find himself where he needed to be. Quietly, he fell… and then things were not so quiet.

Fire ran in Dalamar, coursing through his veins like lust and rage. Fire became his very blood, burning in rampage, the flames roaring in him with the sound of his own voice. This was the fire of magic, the fierce running power of Nuitari's sorcery tearing into him, out of him, a fire no one commanded but he.

See how the power flashes through him! Like lightning charging the sky! He will not be able to hold it… He will not be able to-

Dalamar stood on a foggy plain howling with glee, and his voice was the song of the wind wailing wild in the treetops, the high canopy of the Forest of Wayreth. His soul soared on that howling, magic running in him, leaping, laughing. He tamed the howling, brought it back inside himself, and let it out again, sending his voice out powerfully as though it were a thing that lived independently of him. On his voice flew all the chants he had learned in Silvamori, words of achingly beautiful simplicity, words that were useless without the music to carry them, a weaving of notes so complex no one could map it for another to follow.

He sings. He sings. He must have learned this from the Kagonesti in Silvamori…

Dalamar thought he would say, Yes, I have learned this from a Kagonesti, from a wizardess there whose power lay in the music of her untamed soul, and this magic is so like to the Wild Magic you all fear that the difference is hard to see. I see it, though! I do, for I have learned well this magic others have scorned… He thought he would say that, but he didn't have words for other than speaking the shape of his magic and all the spells he loved as though they were his own heart and his own soul.

He flung forth fireballs, and he caught them and quenched them in his hands. Every spell he knew, he cast- those learned in Silvanost of House Mystic, in Silvamori, gleaned from the dusty tomes in the library at Tarsis, and those precious spells stolen in secret from the tutors hidden in his little cave. He cast them, and he gave no thought to whether the casting would drain him of strength, even of life. How, when the casting of spells and the weaving of magic was all he'd ever wanted to do. In all his life he wanted nothing more than this. If he died of this, what better way to die? He laughed, and he wept, and both these things were expressions of his joy, of his power and the utter certainty that he could go on and on, spending himself in magic until the world was woven up in his spells.

With word and song and gesture, Dalamar drew wonders from the earth, and he pulled down terrors from the sky. He conjured a misty world where there was no sky and no earth existed. There, he walked among shadow-beings and ghosts. He stood beside dryads in their glens and spoke with centaurs from the darkest part of Darken Wood. Demons came to stand before him, creatures with two heads or nine eyes, beings whose breath was a fume of acid, whose breast held no heart but only the empty place where a heart should have beat; horned beings, fanged beings, creatures with wings as leathery as any dragon's. They called him lord and came bowing and pleading for a chance to serve him. These creatures he brought to him, summoning them with magic and the force of his unbending will, and he sent them away again, but not before he gained from each the promise to return at his command. Thus he bound creatures to himself that would have terrified others to see.