Dragons of Winter Night - Margaret Weis [46]
“But how could they be defeated?” Tanis said incredulously.
“Can you ask that, knowing what you do of your mage friend? Powerful he is, but he must have rest. Even the strongest must have time to renew their spells, recommit them to memory. Even the eldest of the order—wizards whose might has not been seen on Krynn since—had to sleep and spend hours reading their spellbooks. And then, too, as now, the number of magic-users was small. There are few who dare take the tests in the Towers of High Sorcery, knowing that to fail is to die.”
“Failure means death?” Tanis said softly.
“Yes,” Alhana replied. “Your friend is very brave, to have taken the Test so young. Very brave, or very ambitious. Didn’t he ever tell you?”
“No,” Tanis murmured. “He never speaks of it. But go on.”
Alhana shrugged. “When it became clear that the battle was hopeless, the wizards themselves destroyed two of the Towers. The blasts devastated the countryside for miles around. Only three remained—the Tower of Istar, the Tower of Palanthas, and the Tower of Wayreth. But the terrible destruction of the other two Towers scared the Kingpriest. He granted the wizards in the Towers of Istar and Palanthas safe passage from these cities if they left the Towers undamaged, for the wizards could have destroyed the two cities, as the Kingpriest well knew.
“And so the mages traveled to the one Tower which was never threatened—the Tower of Wayreth in the Kharolis Mountains. To Wayreth they came to nurse their wounds and to nurture the small spark of magic still left in the world. Those spellbooks they could not take with them—for the number of books was vast and many were bound with spells of protection—were given to the great library at Palanthas, and there they still remain, according to the lore of my people.”
The silver moon had risen, its moonbeams graced their daughter with a beauty that took Tanis’s breath away, even as its coldness pierced his heart.
“What do you know of a third moon?” he asked, staring into the night sky, shivering. “A black moon …”
“Little,” Alhana replied. “The magic-user draws power from the moons: the White Robes from Solinari, the Red Robes from Lunitari. There is, according to lore, a moon that gives the Black Robes their power, but only they know its name or how to find it in the sky.”
Raistlin knew its name, Tanis thought, or at least that other voice knew it. But he did not speak this aloud.
“How did your father get the dragon orb?”
“My father, Lorac, was an apprentice,” Alhana replied softly, turning her face to the silver moon. “He traveled to the Tower of High Sorcery at Istar for the Tests, which he took and survived. It was there he first saw the dragon orb.” She fell silent for a moment. “I am going to tell you what I have never told anyone, and what he has never told, except to me. I tell you only because you have a right to know what—what to expect.
“During the Tests, the dragon orb …”—Alhana hesitated, seeming to search for the right words—“spoke to him, to his mind. It feared some terrible calamity was approaching. ‘You must not leave me here in Istar,’ it told him. ‘If so, I will perish and the world will be lost.’ My father—I suppose you could say he stole the dragon orb, although he saw himself as rescuing it.
“The Tower of Istar was abandoned. The Kingpriest moved in and used it for his own purposes. Finally the mages left the Tower of Palanthas.” Alhana shivered. “Its story is a terrible one. The Regent of Palanthas, a disciple of the Kingpriest, arrived at the Tower to seal the gates