Dragonlance 09 - Dragons of the Hourglass Mage (44 page)

Fistandantilus relaxed his grip a fraction.

Raistlin’s heart gave a painful lurch, and he was able to draw in a breath. Fistandantilus squeezed his hand again, and Raistlin cried out in agony and fell to the floor. He lay on his back, staring up at Fistandantilus. The old man knelt down beside Raistlin and pressed the bloodstone against Raistlin’s heart.

Fear, raw and bitter, gripped Raistlin. His mouth went dry; his arm muscles clenched; sickening, hot liquid burned his throat. His fear wrung him, drained him, leaving him confused and shaken. He was not afraid of death. Weak and frail, he had fought death from the moment of his birth. Death held no terror for him; even now, it would be easier to simply shut his eyes and let the easeful darkness wash over him.

He did not fear dying. He did fear oblivion.

He would be consumed by Fistandantilus. His soul devoured,
swallowed up, and digested. His body would go on living, but he would not. And no one would know the difference. In the end, it would be as if he had never been.

“Farewell, Raistlin Majere …”

Raistlin was swimming in the ocean, trying to keep afloat, but he was trapped in the Maelstrom and there was no escape; the blood-red water was dragging him down, dragging him under.

“Caramon! Where are you?” Raistlin cried. “Caramon, I need you!”

He felt an arm clasp hold of him, and for a moment relief flooded through him. Then he realized that the arm was not the muscular arm of his twin. It was the bony arm of Fistandantilus, clutching his victim closer, preparing to suck out his life. Fistandantilus pried open Raistlin’s fingers and took hold of the dragon orb. He held it up before him and laughed.

Raistlin saw to his horror his own face laughing at him. The eyes were his eyes, the pupils the shape of hourglasses. The hand that held the dragon orb was his hand. The light of the staff, which was fast dimming, glimmered on golden skin. The delicate bones, the maze of blue veins, were all his.

He was losing himself, dwindling away to nothingness.

Rage blazed inside Raistlin. He was too weak to use his magic. The spells writhed like snakes in his mind and slithered away, and he could not catch them. But he had another weapon—the weapon a mage could use when all other weapons had failed him.

Raistlin gave a flick of his wrist, and the little silver knife he wore on the thong around his forearm slid into his palm. His hand closed spasmodically over the hilt and, with his dying strength, he wrapped his arm around Fistandantilus and pulled him close and thrust the knife into him. Raistlin felt the knife pierce flesh, and he felt it scrape horribly against bone. He had struck a rib. He jerked the knife free. Blood, warm and sticky, gummed his fingers.

Fistandantilus flinched and gave a puzzled grunt, wondering at first what was wrong. Then the pain hit him, and he realized what had happened. His face that was Raistlin’s face contorted. The hourglass eyes darkened with pain and fury. Raistlin had not dealt his foe a mortal blow, but he had gained precious time.

His strength was almost gone. He had one more chance, and it would be his last. Unwittingly, Fistandantilus helped him, twisting his body in an effort to try to seize the knife. Raistlin stabbed and the blade sank deep. Fistandantilus gave a cry, only it was Raistlin’s voice that screamed. Raistlin saw his own face contort in agony. He shuddered and closed his eyes and thrust the knife in deeper. He gave the blade a twist.

Fistandantilus fell, writhing, to the floor. Raistlin let go of the knife; his hand was too weak and shaking to hold on to it. The knife remained buried up to the hilt in the black robes.

Raistlin gasped for air and watched himself die. He realized suddenly he had only a few moments to act. He grabbed the bloodstone that still lay on his breast and slammed it down on the heart of the dying wizard.

An eerie feeling come over Raistlin, a feeling that he had done this before. The feeling was strong and unnerving. He ignored it and kept the stone pressed to the heart, and he felt his own strength, his own being returning to him and with it, the knowledge, the wisdom, the power of the archmagus.

Fistandantilus opened his mouth in an attempt to cast a spell. He coughed, choked, and blood, not magic, flowed from his lips. He gave a shudder. His body went rigid. The blood bubbled on his lips. The hourglass eyes fixed in his head, and he lay still. His hand went flaccid; the dragon orb rolled onto the floor. The hourglass eyes, dark with enmity and rage, stared up at Raistlin. He looked down on himself, dead, and Raistlin wondered, suddenly, fearfully, if he was the one who had died, and if it was Fistandantilus who was gazing down at him.

Alarmed at the thought, he snatched the bloodstone from the body, and the flow of knowledge ended abruptly. He did not know what he had gleaned; his head was littered with strange spells and arcane knowledge. He was reminded of the confusion in the library in the wretched Tower of High Sorcery in Neraka.

He rose, shakily, to his feet, and he was suddenly aware that he was not alone. By the light of the Staff of Magius, once more burning brightly, he could see on the wall a shadow—five heads of the Dark Queen.

Well done, Fistandantilus!

Raistlin caught his breath and cautiously looked up.

Raistlin Majere is dead! You have slain him!

The shadowy eyes of the shadowy heads stared at something in his hand. He looked down to see that he was holding the bloodstone pendant.

“Yes, my Queen,” he said. “Raistlin Majere is dead. I have killed him.”

Good! Now make haste to the Foundation Stone. You are the final guardian
.

The heads vanished. The Dark Queen, intent upon other dangers, disappeared.

“Not even the gods can tell the difference,” Raistlin murmured.

He looked at the bloodstone pendant. As the wizard’s dark soul flooded into his, Raistlin had glimpsed unspeakable acts, countless murders, and other crimes too terrible to name. He closed his hand over the pendant, then flung it into one of the acid pools. He watched the acid devour the pendant, as the pendant had almost devoured him. He seemed to hear it hiss in anger.

Raistlin held up the dragon orb. He watched the colors swirl in the light, and he chanted the words and disappeared from the tunnels, leaving the body of Raistlin Majere behind.

aistlin stood before a broken column, encrusted with jewels that glittered temptingly, luring the unwary to their doom. He murmured the words to a spell he had not known he knew, and he traced a rune in the air. The figure of a woman appeared inside the stone. The woman was young, with a sweet and winsome face, pale with grief and sorrow, soft with yearning. The woman’s eyes searched the darkness.

He saw her lips move, heard her ghostly, anguished cry.

“Berem comes, Jasla,” Raistlin said.

He was careful to avoid stepping in the underground stream, which was crawling and snapping and roiling with baby dragons. Climbing a rock ledge that ran along the foul water, he came to a place some distance from the stone, where he could keep watch. He spoke the word,
“Dulak,”
and the staff’s light went out.

Raistlin waited in the darkness for the person who had been dumb enough—or perhaps courageous enough—to walk into his spell trap. Raistlin knew who that person was, the other half of
himself. He heard the sounds of two people sloshing through the dragon-snapping, bloodstained water. He knew them in spite of the darkness.

One was Caramon, a good man, a good brother, better than he deserved. The other was Berem Everman. The emerald glimmered and, in answer, the jewels in the Foundation Stone began to glitter with a myriad of colors.

Caramon walked protectively at Berem’s side. His sword was in his hand, and it was stained with blood. His black armor was dented; his arms and legs were bleeding. He had a bloody gash on his head. His jovial face was pale, haggard, drawn with pain. Sorrow had marked him. The darkness had changed; the darkness had changed him.

A brother lost.

Raistlin looked into the future and saw the end. He saw a sister’s love and forgiveness, her brother redeemed. A brother found.

He saw the temple fall. The stone splitting as the Dark Queen shrieked in rage and struggled to keep her grip on the world. He saw a green dragon, waiting for his command, waiting to take him to the Tower of Palanthas. The Tower’s gates would open at last.

“Shirak,”
said Raistlin, and the magical light of the Staff of Magius banished the darkness.

he Temple’s darkness is lit to day-like brilliance with the power of my magic. Caramon, sword in hand, can only stand beside me and watch in awe as foe after foe falls to my spells. Lightning crackles from my fingertips, flame flares from my hands, phantasms appear—so terrifyingly real that they can kill by fear alone.

Goblins die screaming, pierced by the lances of legions of knights who fill the cavern with their war chants at my bidding, then disappear at my command. The baby dragons flee in terror back to the dark and secret places of their hatching, draconians wither in the flames. Dark clerics, who swarmed down the stairs at their Queen’s last bidding, are impaled upon a flight of shimmering spears, their last prayers changing to wailing curses of agony.

Finally comes the Black Robes, the eldest of the Order, to destroy me—the young upstart. But they find to their dismay that—old as they are—I am in some mysterious way older still. My power is phenomenal. They know within an instant that I cannot be defeated.
The air is filled with the sounds of chanting, and one by one, they disappear as swiftly as they came, many bowing to me in profound respect as they depart upon the wings of wish spells. …

They bow to me.

Raistlin Majere. Master of Past and Present.

I, Magus.