“My sister thinks you should have that looked to,” Maab told Ragh. “Not that we would help.” She turned up her nose. “We will not treat your kind.”

  “What I would love is to kill Nura Bint-Drax when she arrives in this town,” the sivak hissed.

  “We do not like your pet, young man,” Maab scolded. “My sister thinks you should keep it outside where it will not soil the floor.”

  They passed by the closet where Dhamon and the sivak had hid, and Maab insisted on stopping to get a warmer cloak. “It is cold and damp very far downstairs,” she said.

  Dhamon managed to open the door while still keeping the mirror trained on the old woman. The grumbling sivak pulled down one rotting cloak after the next until Maab was satisfied with one made of black wool.

  Dhamon tried to pass the mirror to the draconian, but Ragh, eyes filled with venom, refused to carry it. However, the draconian was quick to tug the long sword from Dhamon’s sheath.

  “I know how to use blades well,” the sivak stated, “and they have a longer reach than what are left of my claws.”

  Dhamon returned the draconian’s narrow stare, but made no move to protest. He knew he couldn’t hold the mirror and the sword.

  Again the sivak took the lead, slaying a spawn that was trundling up the stairs and again taking on the sleek black form.

  “It is a most amazing pet you have,” Maab observed. “Reminds my sister and me of Takhisis’s children, the sivak draconians. They are able to do such deadly and wondrous things. They have beautiful forms, and they have beautiful wings and can fly.” The sivak hissed, gesturing down the staircase. “Is this the way to your books, old woman?” She shook her head, looking at her reflection in the mirror. She shuffled to the wall opposite the stairway. She poked one stone after the next until a section of the wall spun around, revealing a staircase nearly as narrow as the one that had led to her room.

  “Too dark,” she complained. A twirl of her fingers, however, remedied that. A globe of pale rose-colored light appeared in the palm of her hand.

  Dhamon stared. He remembered Palin Majere casting a similar spell when they were in the great blue dragon’s desert.

  “My sister knows the way better than I. She says follow these stairs to the very bottom.” Ragh paused, rubbing a clawed hand across its chin and looking decidedly unhappy about scraping his shoulders raw again. “Does your sister know anything of Nura Bint-Drax, the naga who is coming here in the next few days?”

  Maab shook her head. “Of course not. My sister hates the hideous creatures and pays them no heed.”

  The sivak sighed and started down the tight stairwell.

  “However, I know a little of Nura Bint-Drax and where she travels,” Maab added. “While my sister is not so interested in such creatures, I make it my business to know what slithers across every inch of this town.”

  “Tell me about her,” Ragh said, his voice echoing softly. “Where does she travel?”

  “If you are polite to us. After we are done helping your master.” Dhamon steadied himself against the stairwell, with considerable effort walking sideways, going slowly, matching the old woman’s pace, while holding the mirror so she could watch it. He risked a glance down at the sivak, catching a glint of the sword the creature held high.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Raistlin’s Gift

  “Now where do we go, old woman?” The draconian stood at the bottom of the staircase. Three narrow, circular tunnels led away from him. Each was lit by flickering, smokeless torches. They caused shadows to dance so wildly across the stonework that it looked as if the tunnels writhed like serpents. “Which of these paths do we follow?” Maab tossed her globe of light into the air and blew it out as one might extinguish a candle. “Oh yes, dear sister. I know it was the dwarves,” she stated smugly. “Very able dwarves.” Staring at the mirror that Dhamon held, she put her ear a few inches from it. “What’s that you say? Yes. Yes. I know that, too. The dwarves built this castle and the rooms beneath it. More below ground than above. Good dwarven masonry. The best we could buy!” She snickered. “Yes, dear sister, I remember that it was your idea. They built these secret tunnels too. These that our new friends see—and more they can’t and never will.”

  “Why?” Dhamon found himself asking.

  “Why all the tunnels?” She cocked her head.

  Dhamon meant why such an inordinate amount of space. He suspected this place was as large or larger than the Tower of Wayreth, in which Palin Majere sometimes resided. But he nodded yes to her question.

  “We wanted the tunnels in the event our enemies came to our castle and took it over. Centuries past…”

  Centuries! Dhamon thought. Perhaps she was as old as Maldred’s tales hinted.

  “… long centuries past, perhaps still today, there are those who hate us Black Robes. Hate us because of our power. It’s envy, really. No sorcerers are as powerful as the Black Robes. My sister and I wanted the tunnels so we could move about undiscovered. Watching the trespassers, striking when we wanted. Escaping if we had to. One of the tunnels, I won’t tell you which one, extends well beyond this town. Miles.”

  The sivak let out an exasperated sigh. “Your enemies have taken over your castle, old woman.

  There are spawn everywhere. Draconians, too. Sometimes the black dragon’s agents crawl through this city.”

  She waggled a bony finger at him, dropping her voice to a whisper. “I know precisely what is in my castle, you insolent creature. I can scry every inch of it when I’ve a mind to, every inch of this rotting town for that matter. That is exactly my point. Our enemies do not know about all of these tunnels and cannot find us here. No one alive knows about all of these tunnels.” Dhamon chuckled. “Dwarves live a long time, Maab. The ones who built this place might still remember where all the tunnels are. You forget about them.” She gave him a malevolent smile. “Not the ones who built this castle. They didn’t live a long time.

  My dear sister killed every last one of those handy dwarves so they would not tell others the secrets of our home.”

  “What about us then?” A shiver ran down Dhamon’s spine. He started to say something else, but the sivak was faster.

  “I am losing my patience,” Ragh said. “I want the naga more than Dhamon wants his cure. If the cure you claim you can deliver is not fast in coming, I’ll leave the two of you and wait above for her arrival.”

  “Three of us,” Maab huffed. “Testy beast.”

  “Which way do I go?” Ragh repeated. “Which way to your books and powders and this nonsense of a cure Dhamon is driven to pursue?”

  She waggled her finger again. “To the left. Our laboratory is at the very end of the tunnel. Now move, creature. It is damp down here, and that is bad on these old bones. Besides, my sister misses our cozy chamber far above. She is hungry for a plump rat.” The sivak made a grumbling sound, taking the passage Maab had indicated, moving sideways at times when it narrowed. After several hundred yards—well beyond the boundaries of the building above—the tunnel widened, but the ceiling lowered and he had to crouch to keep moving. The air was fresh here, as it had been in Maab’s room, and the hint of spring wildflowers was present.

  Dhamon wondered if the old woman brought the air and the smell with her, not wanting to breathe the stale stuff that would otherwise fill this dank place.

  He followed close behind Ragh, mirror tilted for Maab’s benefit. He noted that the tunnels were lit by the smokeless torches, which gave off no smell and no indication that the fire was consuming the wood. He moved faster, bumping into Ragh’s leathery spawn wings.

  “Hurry,” he told the draconian. The scale on his leg was warming again, and he knew that soon the painful sensations would become insufferable.

  Ragh growled and increased his pace, still keeping a grip on Dhamon’s sword. “Old woman,” he said as he neared the end of the tunnel and passed by a torch that was held in the top of a wolf’s snout. “If you and your sister are such powerful sorceresses—”

  “We are among the most powerful of the few Black Robes still alive in Ansalon. My sister claims we are the most powerful. She says that not even Dalamar or—”

  “Why didn’t you simply snap your fingers and banish all of these spawn and draconians from your castle? From this town? Then we wouldn’t have to squeeze ourselves through these damn tunnels.” She giggled. “Creature, we are old, my dear sister and I. Wisely, we have no desire to leave our home. These… spawn… as you call them, give us something interesting to watch. The smallest of them catch juicy mice that our servants bring to us. My sister likes to listen to the screams of the prisoners they sometimes torture in the other chambers beneath our home. The screams are music to her. She especially likes it when the creatures make… more spawn…of some of the men. The sounds that come to us then are…” She paused until she’d decided on the words. “They are unsettling and most pleasant. Interesting.”

  The sivak sadly shook his head.

  “Besides, they have left us alone. I slew the handful who bothered me, and the rest keep their distance.”

  “This tunnel is a dead end,” Ragh snapped. “We will have to turn around and try another way.”

  “Creature, you are blind.”

  Maab squeezed by Dhamon, who pivoted so she could still glance into the mirror if she wanted. His fingers clenched the beveled edges, steeling himself against the pain that he was certain would get worse. A stab of icy cold shot upward from the scale and into his chest.

  It had been a long time since the scale had pained him twice in a single day.

  “Why now?” he hissed.

  She touched something on the wall and shuffled toward the sivak. Ragh pressed his back against the wall and snarled as she squeezed by. She prodded the stones at the end of the tunnel until she found one that was softer and pressed on it. A thin section of the wall swung open, and she walked through, drawing her moth-eaten cloak tight around her, calling for her sister to come along.

  The room beyond was filled with shadows that fled to the far corners when Maab coaxed another ball of light into her palm. The place was cavernous, but so cluttered that it looked cramped.

  Shelves upon shelves lined every inch of wall. Resting on them were crumbling books, bone tubes that protected scrolls, and stacks of parchment that looked so fragile they would dissolve if they were touched. Skulls, some of them human, served as bookends. The skull of what must have been a large and impressive minotaur rested on a pedestal toward the center of the room.

  Preserved animals were posed on other pedestals and scattered on the top shelves. A raven with its decaying wings spread wide stood poised as if to take flight. Lizards, squirrels, and several large rats were caught in time as if they were forever running. A small lynx held a ragged rabbit in its frozen jaws.

  Spider webs hung from everything.

  The scent of fresh air and wildflowers that seemed to follow the old woman warred with the myriad of odors that lay thick in this room—the rotting animals, mixtures neither Dhamon nor the draconian could put a name too, dried blood, and rotting wood. Moss grew on some of the table legs and on a few of the bookcases. There were patches of slime on the floor, and along a section of the ceiling an ugly gray-green vine tenuously clung.

  As the light globe brightened and grew larger, Maab tossed it toward the ceiling, where it hovered and illuminated more of the place. The ceiling, and the patches of the walls that were visible, were filled with the mosaics depicting Black Robe sorcerers in various activities. Directly overhead, a trio of the sorcerers were shown summoning a many-tentacled beast that was partially obscured by the ugly vine.

  Tables stood end to end in the middle of the room. Most had beakers and vials and odd-shaped bowls on them, all covered with a thick layer of dust. Others held big jars in which floated brains and various other organs. One held the preserved form of a five-legged piglet, another the head of a young female kender. Beneath some of the tables were large sea chests, blanketed by webs and dust.

  Shields were propped up against some of the tables. One bore the emblem of the Legion of Steel, two had once belonged to Dark Knights, a fourth had no markings, no trace of dust on it.

  “It’s been far too long since we’ve been down here, dear sister,” Maab clucked. “I so miss this place and all of our wondrous things. Perhaps it was good you came along after all, Dhamon. Now, about that cure.”

  She shuffled toward the nearest shelves, so caught up in looking through the books that she did not notice Dhamon was not following her closely with the mirror. She plucked one book after another from the shelves as high as she could reach, returning to a slate-topped table and reverently placing them on it. There were some books she couldn’t reach. For these she snapped her bony fingers and beckoned the sivak to retrieve them for her.

  “The red one,” she told him. “Not that red one. The one with a spine the color of fresh blood. Yes, that’s it. The color of a red dragon. The three black ones at the top. Precious books. Mind your claws don’t scratch the bindings.”

  Rolling his eyes, Ragh did as he was bid. A few of the books were bound in what appeared to be dragonhide. One was covered with charred and preserved human flesh.

  “Put them on the table. Now, be a good creature and see that my sister comes over here.” The draconian growled and headed toward Dhamon.

  “Ragh, I…” Dhamon’s voice caught in his throat.

  “You can have your sword back,” the sivak told him. “After you set that damned mirror down over by a bookcase so she can see herself.”

  The draconian gave Dhamon only a passing glance. He was too absorbed in the contents of the room: a pedestal holding a section of a silver dragon’s egg, a rack at the far end of the room over which was draped part of the skin of a red dragon. He walked past Dhamon and toward a curio cabinet that displayed claws and eyeballs.

  “Ragh.”

  There was a crash, and the sivak and Maab whirled to see Dhamon lying amid the shattered mirror.

  He was twitching, his face and hands cut from the glass, his skin pink and feverish.

  “No!” Maab wailed. “My sister! He’s chased away my dear sister!” The old woman fell to her knees and howled. The sound grew so loud and shrill that glass vials shook in their holders. The sivak dropped Dhamon’s sword and threw his hands over his ears, looking behind him for the doorway they had entered through. All he saw were shelves upon shelves of books and artifacts.

  The globe of light brightened and changed hue from yellow to orange and now to a red that painted everything with an abyssal glow. The spawn form melted from the sivak, as he could no longer concentrate on retaining it.

  The air grew hot and dry, and breathing became very difficult.

  “My sister!” Maab screeched. “I am all alone without my sister! You chased her away! Now you’ll die!”

  Ragh’s keen hearing picked up other noises, a scrabble of feet above. No doubt whatever was on the street above or in other buildings had overheard the woman’s wail and was moving away from the ominous noise. He heard a vial shatter behind him, then another and another. There was a soft patter of mosaic tiles from the ceiling hitting the shaking floor.

  Dhamon moaned.

  “The shield,” Dhamon managed. “Show her the shield, Ragh.” It took a minute for Ragh to realize what Dhamon was talking about and another few minutes for him reach beneath the table and grab the unmarked shield.

  Maab’s cloak billowed away from her in a blistering hot wind that had arisen from nowhere. Spider web-fine white hair stood away from a wrinkled face etched in fury. Her eyes were wide and red now, no longer covered with the blue film, and her wail had changed to an indecipherable string of words. Bony fingers twirled madly in the air, illuminated and distorted by the blood-red orb that was still growing against the ceiling.

  Ragh fought his way toward her, struggling through air that had become palpable, so thick he felt as if he were being smothered and baked by it.

  “Your sister!” the sivak shouted, his hoarse voice somehow reaching the old woman. “I’ve found your sister! Look here!”

  Instantly the air thinned and the red globe faded to yellow, then to white again and shrank. The old woman was still shaking, fingers smoothing at her thinning hair, as her ice-blue eyes locked onto the mirror-finish shield that Ragh held in front of him.

  “My sister,” she said, breathing with relief. She struggled to her feet and touched the edges of the shield, moving her face this way and that so she could see her reflection more clearly. She pressed her ear close. “What’s that you say, Maab? Oh, you were here all along, I just lost sight of you. Yes, I was wrong to panic. Look at this mess I’ve made. All this glass to clean up. What? Of course we will tend to that young man’s cure first. Come along now.” The old woman shuffled toward Dhamon, who lay so still he might have been dead.

  “Can’t see him breathe,” she muttered. “This trip down here was maybe for nothing.”

  “Dhamon is breathing,” the sivak told her. “Barely.”

  She waggled her fingers at Ragh and pointed to the table with the slate top. “Put him on that. Mind yourself that you don’t get cut on all that glass.”

  The sivak slipped the shield on his right arm and balanced Dhamon over the other shoulder.

  She kept an eye on her reflection for a moment more, then scurried away, plucking down a few more books and searching through the bone tubes until she found an especially thick one that was blackened on one end.

  “Raistlin’s gift to me and my dear sister,” she whispered.

  She hurried back to the table, which was long enough that Dhamon was laid out straight on it, her books arranged in a semicircle around his head. As she thumbed through them, the pages flaked at the edges. The thinnest volume, one bound in green dragonskin, was plagued by wormholes.