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Evermore: The Gathering	By : RosaTenebrum Category: A through F > Dragonlance Views: 9663 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own the Dragonlance series, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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CHAPTER 12

It was cool and quiet in the Great Library, cut away from the city's buzz and hustle. The air was rich with the musty smell of the old tomes and scrolls, the stillness of it only occassionally penetrated by a shuffling of pages and muffled coughs.

In the western wing of the building, on the third and highest floor, Raistlin was sitting at a desk brightly illuminated by a gas lamp attached to its side. He had skimmed through dozens of pages of the Palanthas Year in Review from 105 AC, reading every headline and even the tiniest pieces of news in search of something that would catch his eye and provide a clue to the ghost's riddle. He was vaguely aware of and bothered by time passing - for all he knew, he could just as well gain nothing from this or it could be a trap still - but then he was thoroughly intrigued by the magic involved and he also reminded himself of the caution he had urged on himself with regard to Crysania. She'd come around. She'd send for him. Calmly, he pushed down the doubt that threatened to rise.

Leaning his elbow on the desk and resting his head against his fist he continued to turn the brittle yellow pages of the thick leather-bound volume exploring the life in Palanthas more than two hundred years ago, slumping lower and lower in his seat the more time elapsed. Headline after headline followed with no sign of anything linked to Jarek's inn or locked doors. The persecution of the Knights of Solamnia figured prominently in the news almost daily - good riddance -, as did rumours announcing the approaching end of days.

He had all but given up hope when he finally saw it. Newly focused, he sat up abruptly, slamming the table with an open palm in victory. The Aesthetic crouching at the adjacent desk gave him a chagrined look.

Local Girl Killed by Father, shouted the headline for the third of Sirrimont. In the drawing under it, a familiar face framed by blone curls looked straight at Raistlin across the centuries, smileless and solemn. Thrilled, he started to read.

Yester-evening the sun set over Palanthas the Ancient leaving a terrible tragedy in its wake. Early in the afternoon, Ambrus Venegas, an earnest farmer of 42 years of age, committed a heinous crime at the local Rose inn. Suspecting her only daughter of having an extra-racial love affair with a young elf, the farmer sought the lovers out at the inn and dealt with his next of kin in the cruel way he saw fittest by, as it was later established, cutting her throat. According to the shocked eye-witnesses, the young elf escaped through the window, after which the enraged middle-aged man carried her dead daughter out of the inn and subsequently dumped her lifeless, blood-soaked body into a nearby pigs' water trough. The crazed Venegas, identified by various witnesses, prevented anyone from getting near him, mounted a horse and escaped towards the eastern gates. No murder weapon was found in the room where the crime took place nor was one observed on the culprit's person. As of now, The Rose inn is accepting no more visitors.

Moving on to the caption under the drawing, he read:

Ildi Venegas, seventeen human years of age at the time of her untimely, gruesome & sad death, guilty of nothing more than loving a member of a different race. Let her fate serve as a reminder to us all of the importance of tolerance and compassion.

For long moments, drumming the table with his fingers, Raistlin contemplated the girl's - Ildi's - hand-sketched face and the writing below, undoubtedly penned by a cleric, as well as the narrative of her demise. So it was her father, not husband. So she was a simple farmer's girl: apparently she knew the numbers but she did not know how to write and communicate to him through letters drawn in the air. So there was no murder weapon. That seemed to confirm what he had known all along: her father had slit her throat with a spell. But there was no mention of magic, and how could there be? According to the report, Venegas was just a farmer, not a mage.

Glancing around to see if he was alone, Raistlin tore out the page, folded it in his bag and returned the mutilated book to its shelf. He needed to speak with Jarek. But first there was someone else he needed to see.

Outside, in a little backstreet off the busy marketplace, he settled in the agreed corner to wait for Smiling Clegg. Earlier that day he had sent the beggar on a mission to learn everything he could about the two clerics he had heard discussing Crysania in less than amiable tones near the Bredell stables. Zoltan and Adik, the clerics had called each other, and from the looks of it, they were up to no good.

It didn't take long before he saw the shabby figure of Smiling Clegg approaching from the distance. True to his name, the man wore a big grin which never left his face as he limped towards Raistlin on his wooden leg.

"I take it you have good news."

"Oh, no. Most bad, most bad."

Raistlin handed the man a coin. "Do tell."

"I asked around, sir, much as you told. Interviewed a bloke who knows a bloke who knows one of 'em two priests you was interested in."

"And? What passed?"

"That man Zoltan, right? They says he's headin' this group of people, religious ones, who don't never want to see the lady as their leader."

"Why is that?"

"'Cos she be just that: a lady. Girl," Clegg clarified, cupping his hands against his scrawny chest in a weak imitation of breasts.

"That's all? They don't want her to become head of the church just because she is a woman?"

"And rich, and noble. Goes against Paladine's rules, they says."

"So an aristocratic woman cannot be the church leader, according to this group?"

"Yup." Clegg was beaming over a job well done.

"And are there lots of these people who oppose her inauguration?"

Clegg scratched his stubbled chin. "Not really. Well, some. About fourty, fifty in their group."

"That's not much."

"Could be sixty. An' there's somethin' else..." Clegg paused, at pains to continue. "Those folks seem to think she might have risen in the church through shady means. They're saying things like, 'Reverend Father Elistan liked her.' I mean, really liked her, a bit too much." He raised a lecherous eyebrow, but then he just looked uncomfortable. "Aw, hell's bells. You don't think there could be any truth to that, do you?"

"Not for me to judge. Now, let me get this clear: are you absolutely sure this group's goal is to stop the Revered Daughter's inauguration from happening?"

"That's how I see it, yup."

Raistlin rummaged in his pocket and handed Clegg some more coins. "Thanks, Clegg. Now, off you go."

The man took a bow. "Any time, good sir. Any time."

Leaving the street corner, Raistlin headed back towards the inn in the fading afternoon light. He had looked through the news articles in the library concerning Crysania's inauguration and only seen unanimous praise for her excellent virtues and learnedness in theology. No references whatsoever to the inauguration of someone like her being controversial or an abomination to Paladine. But apparently, he thought, apparently a small section of the holy men of the temple disagreed. He smiled to himself as he walked: they'd probably hit the roof if they knew. One of the articles had stated matter-of-factly that the Revered Daughter had lost her eyesight in an accident. Nothing about evil mages, as some rumours suggested according to Clegg. Of course, rumours like that were bound to pop up - no matter what the predicament, you could always blame evil mages.

It was late already when he returned to the inn. There were only a handful of people in the lounge, which was never very crowded, anyway; perhaps the inn had a reputation, and not for serving excellent meals. Bessie was taking orders, standing beside one of the tables with a notepad in her hands, giving him a bored glance as he entered; the door to the cellars stood closed behind her, oblivious to what had expired behind its back the night before. Jarek The Barrel was nowhere to be seen, so Raistlin made straight for upstairs.

Before going to his room, however, he went over to the room where Ildi Venegas's life had ended two centuries ago and knocked on the door.

No answer. No sound. No father and daughter.

Only deceptive calm.

*

Day two.

The disappoitnment he had refused to acknowledge, that he still refused to acknowledge as he descended the stairs into the the lounge, weighed heavily on his mind, prompting a new hope that he equally repressed from his conscious thought. There had been no note from Crysania waiting in his room last night. Perhaps this morning, then; perhaps Jarek had something for him...

It was early, and the tavern was empty, most of the guests still sleeping in their rooms. One booth was occupied, though: the black-bearded dwarf was sitting in his regular seat. Seeing Raistlin, the dwarf gave him a companionable nod and gestured him closer.

"You were asking about that couple, right? Them brawlers?"

Raistlin took a seat opposite him. "Funny you should mention that."

"The name's Sandriver. Kevron Sandriver." With only a minute flinch at the peculiar eyes of the human before him, the dwarf extended a hand, which Raistlin shook very briefly. "Flint. Flint Graw," he returned with a straight face, looking the dwarf in the eye without blinking. Sandriver frowned suspiciously, but let it pass. Perhaps the world today was crazy enough for anyone to be given an ancient dwarvish name.

"Brace yourself, lad. Flint." He said the name as if he had to try it out once or twice, and again a profound suspicion flashed in his eyes before he continued, "It ain't holiday goers you've been hearing. Ever wonder about the inn name, hm? Ghost and Rose?"

"Such thoughts have crossed my mind, yes." Raistlin poured himself a drink of water from the jug on the table and taking a sip, he continued, "You know the history?"

"Ay. It's been kept under the table, but people talk." To prolong the excitement a little longer, Sandriver took a long swig of his ale and then directed a stare at Raistlin, one that warned him of the coming shock. "A long time ago, I'm talking about hundreds of years," he began, sniffing his nose, "there was a murder in one of the rooms. Some sort of honour killing, or so I gather. They say the father didn't like his daughter fucking an elf, so he killed her. Strangled her, or snapped her neck. Right here, at this very inn. So if there's fighting and screaming in the night, I'd put my bets on restless spirits." Sandriver tugged at his outrageous beard, gauging Raistlin's reaction to his story, and upon not detecting any concluded a little sheepishly, "Just figured you'd like to know."

"Have you heard them?" Raistlin asked the man, pouring himself another cup of water.

Sandriver lifted his mug. "I only come here for the ale. Would never spend a night." He leaned closer and said in a lower tone, "We dwarves ain't no cowards, but this be a fucked up place if ever there was one. It was a long time ago, sure, but something like that leaves a mark, I tell you. Suffering, anger."

"So what happened to the murderer? The girl's father." According to the witnesses, Venegas had fled towards the east on horseback. Not much of a clue there.

"Rumour has it that he killed himself too out of guilt. The only daughter and all. Ah, terrible, terrible, the thought of killing your next of kin with your own hands." Sandriver sighed ruefully. "You have offspring, sir?" he suddenly asked and, as Raistlin shook his head, he added, breaking into a booming laughter, "Not that you know of, right?"

Raistlin rubbed the bridge of his nose wearily. "And what about the elf?" he asked, trying to make his voice heard over the dwarf's hoarse, grumbling mirth. "He could be alive still."

Sandriver stopped laughing and looked at Raistlin appalled. "The hell should I know? Probably married in whatever damn slant-eyed tribe he came from and lived happily ever after. Don't think he even remembered the lass's name. And can you blame him? Don't tell me you remember the name of every broad you've screwed in your lifetime." He found this exceedingly funny and was again seized with hysterical laughter.

Raistlin looked at the dwarf unamused, vividly reminded of his brother. One thing was certain: Caramon would have liked this man Sandriver. "Well, thank you for sharing the tale," he commented by way of a goodbye, unsure if the howling dwarf paid any attention to him or not. "Ghosts as next-door neighbours - there's something you don't see every day."

The dwarf nearly spurted out his drink. "The Barrel put you in there? In that floor?" He was genuinely indignant, half rising from his chair. "What the hell kind of customer service is that?"

Right on time, the kitchen door flew open and the innkeeper strolled into the lounge. Raistlin left the booth and went to meet him at the counter, cocking a finger at the man. "Jarek, a word."

Jarek looked at him as if he'd just threatened to kill him. "Y-yes?"

"You didn't bother to tell me about the ghosts then."

With a long and wailing groan, Jarek slumped against the shiny counter, covering his face with his hands. "I'm terribly sorry, Master Flint, so terribly sorry! We never put anyone on that floor, no way, hush-hush, bad for business..." His voice was muffled behind his hands. Shaking his head in desperation, he kept on saying, "Bad for business! Bad for business!"

"But you did put me there, Jarek."

"I knew it would be trouble, I knew it!" He was peering at Raistlin from between his fingers. "Oh please forgive me, good master. I would never have put you on that floor if they hadn't insisted, I swear!"

"Who? Who insisted?"

Jarek went red in the face. He cleared his throat. "Well, to be honest, it was a message on a piece of paper."

"Go on."

"Yeah. Thought it was from the same lady, the one that brought your stuff." The wailing note crept back into his voice. "Oh please say you accept my apology! I didn't know what else to do, honestly! I thought the whole thing was some sort of... I don't know, insane bachelor party prank!"

The innkeeper was in the dark; better to keep him there. "Good thinking. Because, as it happens, that's exactly what it was." Raistlin smiled at Jarek, aiming for a playful tone. "Wait till I get my hands on those bastards."

Jarek was dazed. "What? Oh. Well. Congratulations. When is the wedding?" he added politely, without the slightest interest.

Just then Bessie came in through the swinging doors hip first, balancing two plates in her hands. She stopped. "Wedding? What wedding?"

"Master Flint here's getting married."

"Oh. How sweet," she said dryly in her husky voice.

He hated a low voice on a woman. Reminded him too much of his sister. Turning his attention back to Jarek again, Raistlin demanded, "That note. You still have it?"

Jarek spread his hands, looking as miserable as a wet dog. "Sorry."

"No matter. Now, I want you to take me to that room. I think you know which one I'm talking about."

Jarek's eyes grew large. "But..."

"I'm not asking again, Jarek."

"Um, maybe tomorrow, when -"

"Now." Raistlin stared at the man sternly, until he dropped his gaze and went to choose the right key from the locked cabinet.

Halfway up the stairs Jarek finally dared to talk to him again. "I guess... I guess you won't be suing me then?"

"You, no. My friends, yes."

Relief was evident in the innkeeper's face. "I'll tell Bessie to get another room ready for you tonight."

"No, I don't think that's necessary."

"You're saying you'll stay... in there?" Jarek had stopped and was pointing upstairs with his mouth open.

"That's right." Raistlin pushed past the bewildered innkeeper. "So what's the story about the ghosts?" he asked over his shoulder as they climbed the steps. "I heard there were mages involved."

"Mages?" Jarek frowned. "I never heard of any mages. To the best of my knowledge," he said, panting from the exercise as he followed Raistlin, "a father stabbed his daughter to death, 'cos he didn't like an elf suing her. Never heard nothing about any mages," he muttered under his breath and entered into a long-winded explanation about how he had invested a lot of time and energy in the inn he had bought twenty years ago for cheap (figures), not inherited, because the children of the previous owner had wanted nothing to do with the place (understandably), and how it galled him to have to keep the uppermost floor closed, but what could you do? "I've never seen them, just heard them, making a godawful racket in the night, but that's enough to chill your blood. You think I should get a cleric to help? Maybe I should. You know of any?"

Jarek went quiet as they reached the third floor, falling behind and unwilling to proceed further into the corridor. Ill at ease and darting nervous glances around him, he followed Raistlin with creeping steps, and as soon as he had opened the lock with the little key he turned heel and started walking away.

"Jarek," Raistlin called out after the man who reluctantly turned. "Any other messages for me?"

"None, sir," he said and scurried away as fast as his corpulence would allow.

Raistlin stared into the empty corridor, stunned in spite of himself. The day was still young, of course. There was plenty of time for her to send a messenger.

He turned the knob and put his head around the door. The stuffy air made him cough; it was clear the room had not been used for many years. He went in and drew the curtains hanging heavily over the window, half expecting to find Ildi standing there, naked and wet and battered. But he saw only a bed, chairs and tables, identical to the ones in the neighbouring room. And there was blood. He walked to the large ugly stain soaked into the carpet and squatted down, inspecting the area. So much red in there, almost black; the girl must have been drained of all her blood in a short moment. Easy - with magic.

Deep in thought, Raistlin extracted the torn-out book page from his pocket and looked at the names. Ambrus Venegas and Ildi Venegas: names that said nothing to him, perhaps of eastern origin, names that he had called out in his room last night, hoping in vain to evoke their owners. Suddenly the drunken dwarf's words came back to him: Don't tell me you remember the name of every broad you've screwed in your lifetime. Raistlin folded the page and put it back. Hate to disappoint you, old mate, he thought - remembering the names of the broads was extremely easy, because there was only one. And that was one too many.

She was one of his brother's girlfriends: Caramon had one for every finger. During their mercenary days Raistlin had once heard him drunkenly boasting about having had his way with over two hundred women. He had thought his brother had upped the number to impress the lads, but on second thought knew he hadn't - not much, anyway. It was routine for Caramon to have a quick one at each inn they stopped at, and there had certainly been about two hundred of those. The thing with Caramon was that he had scarcely time to sit down to table before girls were flocking to him from every side, admiring his physique and swooning over his winks and smiles. All he had to do was choose and then lead the chosen one into a back room. And of course he always had to loudly introduce Raistlin as his twin brother, despite the fact that he did not want to be introduced and much less as Caramon's twin, because that's when the quiet and sometimes not-so-quiet comparing inevitably started, the evaluation and scrutiny he had been exposed to for all his life. Your brother doesn't look very strong. It's so hard to believe you're actually twins. And the Solace girls would look back at him with complacent expressions: I know you want it, but you're not going to get it. Your brother will. Well guess what - he didn't want it, not with those cheap sluts who would have run away screaming anyway if they'd known what he had in mind. So he stopped looking at them, so as not to give them any false ideas and to disturb their sense of attractiveness; of course, the less he looked, the more they tried to arrest his attention. Especially one of them, so he had decided to run a little experiment.

She was eighteen, the same age as him, and the stupidest bitch one could imagine. He did not even find her attractive; she was more his brother's type - huge breasts, talking all the time and giggling at everything the other gender said. For reasons unknown, probably because of a silly row she'd had with Caramon, she had started coming on to Raistlin. Her crude and childish advances had sickened him, but he had decided to play along simply to see where it would go; besides, it was amusing to know that Caramon was, according to his noble declaration, in love with her.

She came one evening, as agreed, with a bottle of cheap wine, not agreed; they were supposed to fuck, not share life stories over drinks. She was terribly annoyed at first that he wouldn't even taste the wine, but soon forgot about it in her steadily growing giggly drunkenness. He got mildly excited watching it and took to refilling her cup whenever it was empty - a couple more, and she would be so plastered that she would go along with anything he said. The booze hadn't been such a bad idea after all. He should have thought of it himself.

They ran out of it too soon, though, and just as he was getting up from the floor where they were sitting to find something more to drink in the kitchen, she grabbed his hand and attacked him like a wild animal, covering his mouth with her own. He tried to evade her alcohol-smelling breath and push her away, but she was all over him, pushing him towards the bed with her sweaty body, her hand groping his crotch. Assaulted like that, he had to will himself to arousal. Twisting and turning, trying to bring the drunken squirming body rubbing against him under his control, he summoned up the image of the girl he had seen at the fair two days ago, the one who had flushed prettily and lowered her eyes when she had noticed him watching her. That girl in a gorgeous dress. Altogether in a different league from the moaning slut under him who had been with gods knew how many men, including his own dear brother. Just like Miranda.

It was clear from the beginning that they did not see eye to eye; it was more like fighting than fucking, him trying to turn his head away as she tried to kiss him, trying to get her in the right position and hold her there long enough, her trying to turn it into a romance. For a very short moment it seemed to be working, he was concentrating on the image of the girl from the fair and what he would do to her, but as soon as he tried something out - nothing much, just pushing her down a bit - she froze and shot him a look at once astonished and accusing. Just as he had expected. She was drunk, but not that drunk. So he let go of her arms and let her set the pace. After a while he tried again - still nothing much - but this time she actually started crying ("What the flip are you doing? Stop!") and so he gave up and allowed her to straddle him, getting more and more pissed off by the minute.

He observed her for some time, jumping up and down on him with her big tits bouncing and loud well-practiced moans coming out of her mouth, and he knew that, no matter who or what he would think, it wouldn't work out like this. Suddenly realizing that he wasn't with her, she stopped and opened her eyes, gazing at him dully. "Get lost," he said to her quietly. She just blinked, as if she couldn't believe what he'd just said, and continued to move, until he grasped her wrist so that it hurt. "Which part of 'get lost' did you not understand?" Tearing up, she scrambled out of the bed and quickly collected her clothes from the floor, slurring that he was weird and creepy. After that she broke up with Caramon, and whenever she ran across them in town or at the inn she pretended not to see. Caramon could not understand; he was profoundly hurt by her lack of explanation. She didn't even say bye, Raist; can you imagine? Yes, yes he could, and the whole thing amused him.

That was thirteen years ago and he hadn't slept with a woman since. Unlike his simpleton of a brother who sounded like a boar when he screwed, taking his women as straightforwardly and unimaginatively as it was possible to do, he couldn't just walk to a random girl at a random inn and ask her to spend the night - not with his ideas, not even when his health would have allowed it. Not that he would have done it, anyway, it was so utterly beneath him. He had two good hands and a vivid imagination; he could manage perfectly well by himself. There had even been a time when he had decided to set himself above all natural urges to fully concentrate on magic. He had kept it up for some time, more or less successfully, but then Laurana Kanan had come along and he had to stop; he preferred to control his own body rather than to have his body control him with involuntary nocturnal fantasies.

Coming out of his thoughts, Raistlin looked up from the carpet at the wall behind the bed. He stared, knowing this was what he had been looking for: on the wall, just above the skirting board and almost hidden behind the bedside table, ran a series of thin purple streaks to which hung grey specks of ash. Magical residue - but not of the typical sort: the purple streaks glittered still, as if the magic giving birth to them had been cast just a while before he entered the room. With a tingling sense of curiosity, Raistlin leaned closer and ran his hand along the wall. All the other surfaces were heated by the sun, but the purple area was cold to the touch, and when he took his hand back, his fingers were covered in bluish ash.

A simple farmer, presumably no more literate than his daughter. But he had cut her throat with magic that did not resemble anything Raistlin had ever seen before. How was that possible?

He stood up from his squatting position, looking around him at the green curtains and the plain furniture, as if the empty room could provide him with an explanation. "Why don't you show yourself, Venegas?" he said in a loud harsh voice. "You scared of me? Sent a little girl to do your job?" He wheeled around: behind him, to his left, he was certain he had heard a low chuckle of laughter, somehow familiar and yet unreachable.

Feeling groggy and drowsy all of a sudden, he went to close the curtains, plunging the room back into the still, centuries-long darkness. "They" had insisted that Jarek put him into the adjacent room? Mishakal? Was this some sort of trial, a test to see if they could really let him go free? Or a long, drawn-out game of revenge designed by his old nemesis the Queen?

Maybe he should go downstairs and ask Jarek if the guest registers from 105 AC were still there. He could leaf through them, see if he could find the name of the elf and find out if he was still alive, then track him down... He rubbed his temples, trying to keep hold of his thoughts that seemed scattered and unhinged. This was getting too far. He didn't have the time for this.

And yet there was a compelling sensation that he was approaching the edges of something he could not pass; like a sentence without a full stop, or a tale without a teller.
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Evermore: The Gathering