Dragonlance 15 - Dragons Of A Fallen Sun (58 page)

years. I don't know where he may have gone."

Palin looked dubious, as if he did not quite believe her.

Jenna spread her bejeweled hands on the table's surface, fin-

gers apart. "Listen to me, Palin. You do not know him. No one

knows him as I know him. You did not see him at the end,

when he came back from the Chaos War. I did. I was with him.

Day and night. I nursed him to health. If you could call it

that."

She sat back, her expression dark and frowning.

"I am sorry if I offended you," Palin said. "I never heard. . . .

You never told me."

"It is not something I enjoy talking about," Jenna said

tersely. "You know that Dalamar was gravely wounded during

our battle against Chaos. I brought him back to the Tower. For

weeks he hovered between the realm of the living and that of

the dead. I left my home and my shop and moved into the

Tower to care for him. He survived. But the lo$s of the gods, the

loss of godly magic, was a terrible blow, one from which he

never truly recovered. He changed, Palin. Do you remember

how he used to be?"

"I didn't know him very well. He supervised my Test in the

Tower, the Test during which my Uncle Raistlin took him by

surprise, turning what Dalamar had intended as illusion into

reality. I'll never forget the look on his face when he saw I had

been given my uncle's staff." Palin sighed deeply, regretf1jl!y.

The memories were sweet, yet painful. "All I remember of

Dalamar is that I thought him sharp-tongued and sarcastic,

self-centered and arrogant. I know that my father had a better

opinion of him. My father said Dalamar was a very compli-

cated man, whose loyalty was to magic, rather than to the Dark

Queen. From what little I knew of Dalamar, I believe that to be

true."

"He was excitable," Tas chimed in. "He used to get very ex-

cited when I started to touch anything that belonged to him.

Jumpy, too."

"Yes, he was all that. But he could also be charming, soft-

spoken, wise. . ." Jenna smiled and sighed. "I loved him, Palin. I

still do, I suppose. I have never met any other man to equal him."

She was quiet a moment, then she shrugged and said, "But that

was long ago."

"What happened between you two?" Palin asked.

She shook her head. 1/ After his illness, he withdrew into him-

self, became sullen and silent, morose and isolated. I have never

been a particularly patient person," Jenna admitted. "1 couldn't

stomach his self-pity and I told him so. We quarreled, I walked

out, and that was the last I saw of him."

"I can understand how he felt," Palin said. "1 know how lost

I felt when I realized the gods were gone. Dalamar had practiced

the arcane art far longer than I. He had sacrificed so much for it.

He must have been devastated."

"We all were," Jenna said bluntly, "but we dealt with it. You

went on with your life, and so did I. Dalamar could not. He fret-

ted and fumed until I feared that his frustration would do what

his wounds could not. I honestly thought he would die of it. He

could not eat or sleep. He spent hours locked up in his laboratory

searching desperately for what had been lost. He had the key to

it, he once told me during one of the rare times he actually spoke

to me. He said the key had come to him during his sickness. Now

he had only to find the door. It's my belief," Jenna added wryly,

"that he found it."

"So you do not think he destroyed himself when he destroyed

the Tower," Palin said.

"The Tower's gone?" Tas was stunned. "That great big Tower

of High Sorcery in Palanthas? What happened to it?"

"I am not even convinced he blew up the Tower," Jenna said,

continuing the conversation as if the kender wasn't there. "Oh, I

know what people say. That he destroyed the Tower for fear the

dragon Khellendros would seize it and use its magic. I saw the

pile of rubble that was left. People found all sorts of magical arti-

facts in the ruins. I bought many of them and resold them later for

five times what I paid for them. But I know something I've never

told anyone. The truly valuable artifacts that were in the Tower

were never found. Not a trace. The scrollbooks, the spellbooks,

those belonging to Raistlin and Fistandantilus, Dalamar's own

spellbooks-those were gone, too. People thought they were de-

stroyed in the blast. If so," she added with fine irony, "the blast

was extremely selective. It took only what was valuable and im-

portant, left the trinkets behind."

She eyed Palin speculatively. "Tell me, my friend, would you

take this device to Dalamar if you had the chance?"

Palin stirred restlessly. "Probably not, now that I think of it.

If he knew I had it, the device would not remain long in my

possession. "

"Do you truly intend to use it?" she asked.

"I don't know." Palin was evasive. "What do you think?

Would it be dangerous?"

"Yes, very," she answered.

"But the kender used it-"

"If you believe him, he used it in his own time," she said.

"And that was the time of the gods. The artifact is now in this

time. You know as well as I do that the magic of the artifacts from

the Fourth Age is erratic in nature. Some artifacts behave per-

fectly predictably and others go haywire."

"So I won't really find out until I try," Palin said. "What do

you suppose could happen?"

"Who knows!" Jenna lifted her hands, the jewels on her fin-

gers glittered. "The journey alone might kill you. You might be

stranded back in time, unable to return. You might accidently do

something to change the past and, in so doing, obliterate the pres-

ent. You might blow up this house and everything around it for a

twenty-mile radius. I would not risk it. Not for a kender tale."

"Yet I would like to go back to before the Chaos War. Go back

simply to look. Perhaps I could see the moment where destiny

veered off the path it should have taken. Then we would know

how to steer it back on the right course." --

Jenna snorted. "You speak of time as if it were a horse and

cart. For all you know, this kender has made up this nonsensical

story of a future in which the gods never left us. He is a kender,

after all."

"But he is an unusual kender. My father believed him, and

Caramon knew something about traveling through time."

"Your father also said the kender and the device were to be

given to Dalamar," Jenna reminded him.

Palin frowned. "1 think we have to find out the truth for our-

selves," he argued. "1 believe that it is worth the risk. Consider

this, Jenna. If there is another future, a better future for our world,

a future in which the gods did not depart, no price would be too

great to pay for it."

"Even your life?" she asked.

"My life!" Palin was bitter. "Of what value is my life to me

now? My wife is right. The old magic is gone, the new magic is

dead. I am nothing without the magic!"

"I do not believe that the new magic is dead," Jenna said

gravely. "Nor do I believe those who say that we 'used it all up.'

Does one use up water? Does one use up air? The magic is a part

of this world. We could not consume it."

"Then what has happened to it?" Palin demanded impa-

tiently. "Why do our spells fail? Why do even simple spells re-

quire so much energy that one has to go to bed for a week after

casting them?"

"Do you remember that old test they used to give us in school?"

Jenna asked. "The one where they put an object on the table and tell

you to move it without touching it. You do, and then they put the

object on a table behind a brick wall and tell you to move it. Sud-

denly, it's much more difficult. Since you can't see the object, it's dif-

ficult to focus your magic on it. I feel the same when I try to cast a

spell-as if something is in the way. A brick wall, if you will. Gold-

moon told me her healers were experiencing similar feelings-"

"Goldmoon!" Tas cried eagerly. "Where is Goldmoon? If

anyone could fix things around here, it's Goldmoon." He was on

his feet, as if he would run out the door that instant. "She'll know

what to do. Where is she?"

"Goldmoon? Who brought up Goldmoon? What does she

have to do with anything?" Palin glowered at the kender. "Please

sit down and be quiet! You've interrupted my thoughts!"

"I'd really like to see Goldmoon," Tas said, but he said it qui-

etly, under his breath, so as not to disturb Palin.

The mage lifted the device carefully in his hand, turned it

over, examined it, caressed it.

"Your wife was right," Jenna stated. "You're going to use the

device, aren't you, Palin?"

"Yes, I am," he replied, closing his hands over it.

"No matter what I say?"

"No matter what anyone says." He glanced at her, appeared

embarrased. "Thank you for your help. I'm certain my sister can

find you a room at the Inn. I'll send word."

"Did you really think I would leave and miss this?" Jenna

asked,amused.

"It's dangerous. You said-"

"These days, walking across the street is dangerous." Jenna

shrugged. "Besides, you will need a witness. Or at the very least,"

she added lightly, "you'll need someone to identify your body."

"Thank you very much," Palin said, but he managed a smile,

the first Tas had seen the mage wear. Palin drew in a deep brealli,

let it out slowly. His hands holding the device trembled.

"When should we try this?" he asked

"No time like the present," Jenna said and grinned.

CHAPTER TWENTYTWO

THE JOURNEY BACK

And that's the rhyme," said Tasslehoff. "Do you want me to

repeat it again?"

"No, I have it memorized," Palin said.

"Are you sure?" Tas was anxious. "You'll need to recite it to

return to this time. Unless you want to take me with you?" he

added excitedly. "Then I could bring us."

"I am quite sure I have the spell memorized," Palin said

firmly. And, indeed, the words were emblazoned in his mind. It

seemed to him that he could see their fiery images on the backs of

his eyes. " And, no, I'm not taking you with me. Someone needs to

stay here and keep Mistress Jenna company."

"And to identify the body," Tas said, nodding and settling

down in his chair, kicking his feet against the rungs. "Sorry, I

forgot about that. I'll stay here. You won't be gone long anyway.

Unless you don't come back at all," he mentioned, as an after-

thought. Twisting in his chair, he looked at Jenna, who had

dragged her chair to a far comer in the kitchen. "Do you really

think he'll blow up?"

Palin carefully ignored the kender.

"I will chant the magic that activates the device. If the spell

works, I believe that I will vanish from your sight. As the kender

says, I should not be gone long. I do not plan to stay in the past.

I am going to my father's first funeral where, hopefully, I will be

able talk to Dalamar. Perhaps I'll even talk to myself." He smiled

grimly. "I'll try to find out what went wrong-"

"Take no action, Palin," Jenna warned. "If you do find out

anything useful, return and report. We will need to think long

and hard before acting upon it."

"Who is 'we'?" Palin demanded, frowning.

"I suggest a gathering of the wise," Jenna said. "The elven

king Gilthas, his mother Laurana, Goldmoon, Lady Crysania-"

"And while we are spreading the word of what we've found

far and wide and waiting for all these people to come together,

Beryl murders us and steals the device," Palin said acerbically.

"She uses it, and we're all dead."

"Palin, you are talking about altering the past," Jenna said in

stern rebuke. "We have no idea what the ramifications would be

to those of us living in the present."

"I know," he said, after a moment. "1 understand. I will return

and report. But we must be prepared to act rapidly after that."

"We will. How long do you think you will be gone?"

"According to Tasslehoff, hundreds of days will pas~r me

for each second of time that passes for you. I estimate that I may

be gone an hour or two marked by our time."

"Good fortune on your journey," Jenna said quietly. "Kender""

come over here and stand beside me."

Palin took hold of the device, moved to the center of the

kitchen. The jewels glinted and sparkled in the sunshine.

He closed his eyes. He stood for long moments in d~ep

thought and concentration. His hands cherished the device. He

delighted in the feel of the magic. He began to give himself tp the

magic, let it cherish him, caress him. The dark years slipped away

like receding waves, leaving memory's shoreline smooth and

clean. Palin was, for a moment, young and filled with hope and

promise. Tears blurred his vision.

"Holding the pendant in my hand, I repeat the first verse,

turning the face of the device up toward myself." Palin recited the

first words of the spell: " 'Thy time is thy own.' " Acting as he had