He worked long in the laboratory, the mage in the avatar's body. At noon he let the avatar go, sent it to the kitchens in the north tower where it prepared a meal for itself and then returned to work. When, at dusk, it left the laboratory again, the avatar paused on the way across the courtyard. A dark figure slipped out of the gate, a mage in a black robe. The last light glinted on silver runes stitched into the hems of the sleeves, runes of protection and warding. There went the dark elf, that one who had killed the dragon upon which Tramd had flown into battle. The mageling had tested here, or so rumor said, and he had obviously done well enough to find himself walking around alive. Most of the newly tested enjoyed the chance to leave the Tower by the speediest, and it cannot be denied, most theatrical manner, to flash forth in magic to their destination. This one, however, seemed to prefer a quieter exit. Tramd muttered a curse, not a real one meant to kill or maim, just a half-hearted, sour imprecation, but he did not finish it. Like a ghost, a white shadow drifting, another figure left the compound, but she did not walk out of the Tower grounds and into the Guardian Forest. She stood a moment, tall in her white robes, her dark hair drifting around her cheeks in the lazy breeze at day's end. She lifted her head and her arms, raising them as a swan lifts her wings. She left the compound in that magical flash, that theatrical burst of light, and the after-image was, indeed, one of a swan in sudden flight.
Regene of Schallsea, he thought. Well, well.
But he thought no more about it. Not then. The avatar was weary, the muscles and bones of it aching with the work it had done. He let it go back to its chambers. He let go the connection between his mind and its body, but not before the avatar had arranged itself in some comfortable semblance of sleep. No matter, though, if the thing slumped to the floor in a tangle of arms and legs like some puppet whose strings are broken. No one dared intrude upon Tramd o' the Dark, or this thing they thought was he. It would lie, undisturbed, until the mage himself woke, once again in blindness, once again in the tall towers of the Citadel of Night, to rouse the avatar and work another day upon his spells of lifting, the magics that flew in the face of gravity.
Chapter 18
Wind blew hot off the Plains of Dust, moaning around the hulks outside the seawall, scouring the ship hulls, and stripping off the paint slapped on in winter by the foolishly hopeful. Children ran in the byways between the hulls, shouting and laughing in the shadows of the ships left marooned when the Cataclysm had stolen the sea. The scent of rotting garbage drifted on those dusty winds, wandering through the winding ways of the marketplace, invading all of New City. A sweetness of baking fell before the stench. Even the thrill of scent from the quiet corners where the mage-ware shops sat did not prevail over years of garbage flung insensibly over the walls by those who lived in better quarters of New City. Gray-winged gulls, far-faring scavengers, creaked over the heaps of trash, over the bazaars, over all the city, and any would think Tarsis was, even still, a port city.
Any who walked its streets and byways felt Tarsis had the pulse of a port city-the drumbeat of voices in the marketplace, women shouting to children, potters at the whining wheel, dwarf forgemen shouting to be heard above their own anvils. Parrots screeched in gilded cages, leopards snarled in pens near the south side of the marketplace, exotic creatures caught and held for sale to the wealthy of this city or another. There had been a sudden fashion for tigers in the winter, great stalking beasts to prowl outside the doors of those who considered themselves so wealthy or famous or politically valuable as to fear kidnapping. All over Krynn, the beasts of jungles were seen in the palace courtyards, and some of the wealthy had moats into which insatiable piranhas were introduced. By the savagery of his protection was a man's status judged, and the marketplace in Tarsis did a good business in all such creatures except the fish.
The sights, the smells, the song of the thousand-voiced people in bright-colored robes, glittering shirts, and silken hose swirled around Dalamar like a dance as he went through the streets, making his way from the south side and up through the Street of Potters, the euphemistically named row of brothels all folk in the city knew as the Avenue of the Maidens, and down Iron Row. He went quickly down that street, not so much heading for a destination as fleeing a din, hurrying past the forges and the smithies, the armorers where so much of the Dwarvish language filled the air- shouts, laughter, songs, and cursing-that a blind man would think himself in Thorbardin.
In the Lane of Flowers where produce and herbs and, of course, flowers were sold from shops with garden plots out their back doors, a pretty girl leaned out a window, shouting to a young man on the cobbled street. Dalamar looked up at the sound of her voice, and he smiled just a little. He knew her, his lover of the seasons past. She waved, but only in passing. She had an eye for someone else now. He did not return the gesture. She was gone from his life and not likely to come back. Neither did he care about that but to feel relieved the matter was closed, the thing between them finished.
He went on his way with eager steps now, shouldering through the crowd and heading for that part of the city to which no colorful name was attached, the place known simply and always as Their Quarter, or Our Quarter, if the speaker were a mage. Here the streets narrowed to lanes. He walked past the Shop of the Dark Night, past the Red Moon Waxing, Solinari's Hand, and finally to the Three Children where his own apartments waited. He did not take the back stair up or go inside to the speak with the one-eyed Palanthian who ran the shop for a mage no one knew or had ever seen. Dalamar stopped outside the door, where the two halves of a sawn whiskey butt stood filled with herbs, thyme, mint, and bright orange flowers of nasturtium spilling over the sides.
"Good day," said a woman, her white robes shining in the shadowed doorway, her dark hair pulled back from her cheeks. Her sapphire eyes shone as Regene of Schallsea approached. "Welcome home, Dalamar Nightson."
Dalamar served her elven wine in gray earthenware cups patterned with red swirling lines, two of three he'd uncovered in the ruins of Valkinord. He showed Regene to a comfortable seat on the couch near the window. He drew the shades so that the bright light of Tarsian summer shone muted, and the foul breezes off the garbage heaps made only slight incursion-he lit incense against that, for his own sake. He longed for forest breezes and would find none here.
Regene accepted his hospitality, smiling serenely over the wine, and she behaved in all ways as though her visit was expected-as did he. She thought she had never met a man more incapable of ruffled feathers than this dark elf out of Silvanesti.
They sat in silence a while, for a time playing the game of seeing which of them would speak first. Small psychic probes rustled the magical plane, seeking, rebuffed, seeking. In the end, Dalamar spoke first. The mask of hospitality fell from his face, his eyes glittered, and she thought of keen-edged blades.
"Explain yourself," he said.
Regene shrugged. "I would think I am as transparent as a whore's veil." She folded her legs beneath her, tugging the hem of her robe modestly over her ankles. "I'm here because I thought you would be here." She gestured around her, pleased. "And you are. You left the Tower in some haste after only a quarter hour in conversation with Ladonna, and I don't think she called you to her to tell you how poorly you fared in your Tests. Rather, the opposite. Something is a-brew, Dalamar Nightson, some storm of events magical and political. I have a good ear. I know when the Heads of the Orders are stirring and what type of brew they like to mix. If you are not at the eye of the storm, you are certainly within eye-shot."