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Tower	By : Skullbearer Category: A through F > Dragonlance Views: 1927 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the book(s) that this fanfiction is written for, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Written for and dedicated to Chetwynd_Hayes, who's just had a serious operation. Hope this helps you feel better (you can always be glad you're /not/ there)
Meetings in the Tower
Ivory and Ebony interlude.
Wasted thoughts time has lost
Something special could grab the air
And pull a cloud over your heart
But it won't
Nothing special will come over you
Will come for you
-Like it's Your Last, Devil Sold His Soul.
The Tower of High Sorcery was cold.
Usually, that was almost a blessing, it matched Dalamar's mood and made it easier, to take the cold into himself and block out the world. It was easier to be ice; ice didn't think, ice didn't feel, ice didn't have to respond to the knot of dull pain that had become a more constant companion than the loss of exile. He'd long ago stopped expecting it to fade.
It only ebbed at odd moments, when Fistandantilus looked at him, forcing Raistlin's features into a parody of his lover's expressions. Dalamar didn't know if the lich was trying to fool him, or just to hurt him, and didn't care, because whenever it did that the pain faded, only to be replaced by a rush of fury so intense that Dalamar was sometimes surprised it didn't incinerate the lich on the spot.
After that, sometimes the lich would carry on with the charade, pulling its stolen face into what it must believe a hurt expression looked like. Sometimes it just turned away, as though nothing had just happened. Sometimes, it would actually lash out and Dalamar would be left nursing burns and bruises but with a feeling of vindication he could never quite place. This time, it sneered. Fistandantilus could read the murder in his eyes, just as it knew Dalamar was powerless to act.
Despite knowing exactly what this usually preceded, Dalamar didn't react.
He knew how much the lich wanted to kill /him/, just as he knew that lich was equally powerless, unless it wanted to bring the wrath of the Conclave on its head.
Fistandantilus' expression didn't change, it didn't even move. Dalamar braced himself, knowing it was useless but determined to try anyway.
The first blast he managed to deflect, and even managed to duck the second- Fistandantilus had used this ruse before. He gathered himself to avoid the next attack-
And stopped. He'd known this was coming, but always hoped that maybe... Fistandantilus didn't move, he'd raised one of Raistlin's slender hands before it's dead eyes and clenched it into a fist. The knuckles stood out under the golden skin as he tightened it.
This time, he wouldn't fall. This time, he wouldn't scream. He'd promised himself that a thousand times. He'd promise it a thousand more.
It was only afterwards, leaning on the table in one of the Tower's vast and numerous kitchens, that Dalamar let the ice slip, just a little. It was warmer in the kitchens, by virtue of being almost underground, and was the one place Fistandantilus rarely visited. Dalamar wondered if the lich even had to eat anymore. It was a dead wraith inhabiting a dead body, why would it?
Because of this, the kitchen had become the closest thing he had to a haven in this place. He felt more at home here than in the bedroom he had been allotted. That room was bare and empty, and freezing cold, the fire's heat never penetrating very far. Down here the fire's heat was reflected off the warm brick walls and Dalamar took off his cloak for the first time that day.
His hands were still shaking a little; the spell left no permanent marks, but the echo of pain would follow him for a while yet. He glanced longingly at the locked cabinet beside the washbasin where he kept the healing potions. They wouldn't do any good, he knew, he'd tried. They'd healed the burns he gotten trying to open the lich's spellbooks, and the broken wrist he'd received when Fistandantilus caught him, but they wouldn't do anything for the pain that spell left him with.
Or the pain in his heart. Not just the loss, but the despair when he saw how impossible this was. He'd known this was going to be hard when he came here, but how hard... Fistandantilus hadn't even been trying, an ice blast here, a fireball there... and when Dalamar managed to avoid those, the lich just tore through his magical defences as though they weren't even there, and Dalamar would be in so much pain he couldn't even stand, let alone fight back.
How was he supposed to kill something like that?
The creature didn't even seem to sleep, or if it did, it warded its room until Dalamar couldn't even find it, let alone break in.
Of course, the Conclave had forbidden him to kill the lich before they discovered what it was doing, but Dalamar really didn't care. It was no longer as simple as revenge. Although he still didn't know for certain what Fistandantilus was planning, its secrecy, and the sheer amount of power it seemed to involve, was terrifying.
What /was/ he doing? If the lich wanted to take over the world it would have done so by now. Dalamar had scoured the Conclave for books on the creature, wondering if it wanted to finish some great plan left undone, but the accounts were maddeningly vague. Many of the oldest accounts had been left behind in the destroyed Towers during the Lost Battles, and the only reliable accounts left came from the Dwarfgate Wars, where those closest to the Dark Mage had perished with the destruction of Zhaman.
More than anything, Dalamar wanted to go the Great Library, but other than his occasional visits to the Conclave, he was a veritable prisoner in the Tower. The charm he had been given to cross the guardian forest had been taken back the moment Fistandantilus had seen who the Conclave had sent. Whether the creature had guessed Dalamar knew the truth and wanted to keep him isolated, or if it was simply enjoying tormenting him Dalamar didn't know.
His plan, his only real hope, was that whatever the lich was trying to do would leave him weakened enough to be vulnerable. If he could stop whatever it was trying, so much the better, but if not, he would settle for just killing the monster.
And Nuitari, he hoped that would come soon. It wasn't the danger that was the worst, he'd been expecting that, and while the lich had so far been restrained from doing him any permanent damage, Dalamar wasn't so foolish as to believe that would last. Those times were better in fact, when he could pit himself against the lich, no matter how hopelessly.
The worst was when he was alone, either in his rooms or here, in the kitchen. He was the only living occupant in the Tower unless you counted the Accursed, and Dalamar didn't. It became so lonely, being isolated so completely. Even when he'd been alone before he hadn't been, not really. They had been other people, other animals, around him. No longer.
The room became suddenly colder, and Dalamar looked up quickly. It wasn't Fistandantilus, rather one of the Dead Ones, the undead spirits that haunted the Tower.
At first they had frightened him, a constant reminder of what would happen to him if he failed and died here, but it had slowly faded. The Dead Ones were everywhere, in every corner, down every hallway, invisible except for their dead, accusing eyes and pale white hands. Eventually Dalamar had stopped noticing them, and had even, on one particularly distracting evening, walked straight through one.
This one was starting to look rather familiar, Dalamar thought, manoeuvring his chair closer to the fire. He had seen it before, he was sure. Of course, he had seen most of the spectres several times, but this one stuck in his mind. He had never seen such a look of paralyzing terror on any person's face, let alone a dead one.
Dalamar levered his aching limbs out of the chair, and went to boil some water for tea. He wasn't thirsty, but he was cold, and he needed the normality in the face of so much horror.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the spectre’s eyes dart to the door, then at the ceiling, as though afraid something was going to come oozing through the brickwork.
The was really only one thing a dead creature would be frightened of in this place. "It's not here." His voice sounded rusty, he only ever seemed to use it for spellcasting and the barely civil /'Shalafi'/ which was all he could bring himself to name Fistandantilus. "It never comes down here." The kettle full, he hung it over the fire to boil. "I don't think it eats."
The spectre looked at him, and once again Dalamar was struck by the sheer range of expression in its eyes. Most of the Dead Ones just drifted along in the dull resentment of those who know things couldn't possibly get any worse. This one seemed to know that not only were things not yet at their worst, they would probably get there very soon. Right now it was looking at Dalamar in amazement, as though it hadn't realised he could speak.
And then, maybe because he really was that lonely, or because the spectre had stirred some long-dead ember of curiosity, he continued. "What are you scared of anyway?" He settled back in his chair with a sigh, stretching his aching legs. "You /are/ dead, you know."
The spectre’s white hands flew up in exasperation. Of course, it knew /that/. It glanced once against the door, then the air rippled as it shuddered.
"I know, it frightens me too." Funny that, he'd never really thought about how much Fistandantilus scared him, the fear was buried so far under the pile of fury, hatred and grief that he never seemed to feel it.
The Dead One held one hand in his direction, then made a dismissive gesture. Why don't you leave? No doubt the spectre would love to have that option.
Why not? he really needed to talk to someone, or something. In the same flat, emotionless tone, Dalamar answered, "I'm going to kill him."
It was interesting to see the spectre’s eyes widen, then they became a blur as the creature frantically shook its head.
"I'm going to kill him," Dalamar repeated, almost to himself. The kettle was starting to steam and he pulled a mug from the washbasin. Raistlin's old mug, which he had not been to bring himself to throw away and had ended up using. The red enamel was chipped and cracked.
The spectre raised it's hands in despair. Why?!
Dalamar was not going to talk about that to anyone, even one who couldn't talk back. "Don't you want him dead?" he said mildly, pouring the boiling water into the mug and adding the tea leaves.
It rolled its eyes. Of course.
That was interesting. Dalamar felt more like himself than he had for a long time. "Why?"
The Dead One looked again at the door, as though worried Fistandantilus would burst through and do... whatever it was that thing could do that could frighten even one already dead. Then it raised a hand to where its throat had once been and made a tearing motion.
Now that /was/ interesting. Dalamar sat forwards. "It killed you?"
The spectre nodded.
"Why?"
It was a stupid question; he knew it the moment the words left his mouth.
The creature couldn't speak, how was it supposed to tell him that.
To his surprise, the spectre didn't just roll its eyes again, but froze, as though deciding something, and beckoned him over to the door.
The creature made its tentative way up the ground level, first checking every passageway for signs of the lich. Once there, it pointed out of one of the windows.
Dalamar looked out. He didn't look out much. His room was so high up he never saw much, and kitchen didn't have any windows. He was rather shocked to see it was snowing. Winter had arrived. Almost a year had gone by without his noticing.
The spectre was not pointing at the clouds though, but rather at a ragged bundle lying on the ground a little way from the gates. Dalamar looked at it. It appeared to be a head of black cloth, entangled with what look like...
Bones.
"Was that you?" The body of the one who had cursed the Tower, that had stood guard over the gate until Fistandantilus had torn them from their post. How would that...
"You killed yourself." Dalamar stated, turning back to go the kitchens. It was cold, and to be honest he wasn't too sure if he wanted to carry on talking to the spectre. If this was really the ghost of the one who had cursed the Tower, then it was the same mad mage who had provided the Kingpriest with the excuse to go after magic users. This fool had started the Lost Battles and he wasn't anyone Dalamar wanted to talk to.
But...
"Why does it scare you so much?" Fistandantilus had been absent for the most part during the Lost Battles, appearing only afterwards in- of all places- the Temple of the Kingpriest.
What happened then froze Dalamar in place better than any amount of ice ever could.
The spectre clutched at where its temples would have been, and shook its head over and over, wavering from side to side as though fighting a terrible battle. It seemed strange and bizarre, but it was instantly recognisable. It was exactly what Raistlin had looked like when had been finally losing the battle with Fistandantilus.
"It controlled you?" Dalamar's voice was a croak. It took him a few moments to realise he was no longer holding the mug. It lay on the floor, still in one piece, but with a new chip in the rim and the steaming tea spreading across the flagstones.
The spectre nodded furiously.
"It made you throw yourself on that fence?"
More nods.
"It made you curse the Tower?"
Nod. Nod.
"He made you attack the Kingpriest."
Nods, with a hand gesture that clearly meant; something like that.
"It engineered the Lost Battles?"
One single, empathic nod.
"Why?"
For the first time, the Dead One- Andras Rannoch, Dalamar finally recalled the name- looked him in the eye. He could see the desperation in them, dead as they were. Desperation to warn him, for him to understand just how terrible this was, and have him warn the world of what had come back. The spectre didn't know why, but it knew, just as Dalamar now knew, that it would have been horrible beyond their worst nightmares had it succeeded.
Were he to succeed.
Dalamar felt cold, cold that had nothing to do with the Tower's curse or the weather. The Conclave didn't know this, /nobody/ knew this. Fistandantilus had been thorough, damn it to the Abyss.
"They don't know that it's... that creature." Dalamar said at last. That was the worst part. They wouldn't believe him if he told them it was Fistandantilus, not Raistlin. /The ravings of one driven mad by one loss too many/, they'd sneer. And if that was the case, they wouldn't pay any notice to Rannoch's warning either. "They think it's someone else." Give and take, Rannoch had told him something important. "They think it was someone who was... close to me. I know it isn't." Dalamar swallowed. "It killed him." His voice was as dead as Fistandantilus'
The spectre nodded again, yes, it knew what he meant. Fistandantilus had probably killed someone close to him too, to set him off against the Kingpriest. He vaguely recalled that Rannoch had lost a tutor to the Kingpriest's armies. Coincidence? Probably not. Where Fistandantilus was concerned, there was no coincidence.
Once again, Dalamar felt sick. Fistandantilus had engineered the Lost Battles, without anyone noticing, even Rannoch had only known when it was too late. And now Dalamar was trying to stand against him.
But then again. Fistandantilus had engineered the Lost Battles, had been quite happy to see magic wiped from the face of the earth. It had served its plan. What was that plan? The destruction of all magic, reserving it just for the lich itself? What was it that would eclipse even world conquest? Dalamar would have to stand against him, because someone had to.
He remembered Fistandantilus' expression, when the lich realised who his apprentice was, that rage. It hadn't expected him. It had been expecting someone it could work with, perhaps another poor fool like Andras Rannoch who it could bend to its will. Instead, it had gotten him. Would that be enough? Would that simple mistake be enough to disrupt the lich's plans? Fistandantilus had been very careful with him, not letting Dalamar have any opportunity to attack him. He could see how the lich had sealed him off, a distraction. Had he delayed the creature's plans just by being here? He felt a brief flicker of hope.
"I will stop him." He met the creature's dead gaze. After staring down Fistandantilus, it wasn't hard.
The creature started to shake its head.
"I /will/." He infused the words with as much certainty and dedication as he could. Words of steel. "I /will/ kill him." He took a deep breath. "And you are going to help me."
It wasn't the best ally by any means, and the spectre looked half doubtful, half dreading, but it finally nodded, eyes rolling once more to the ceiling as though praying for this not to go as badly as it feared.
He felt sick, but again, that hot rush of vindication. Of, he almost smiled, heroism. For Raistlin, for himself, for the magic. He would have to win.
Skull Bearer.
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Tower