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Torqueo	By : Skullbearer Category: A through F > Dragonlance Views: 1672 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
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.

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Torqueo
Dreams
a thousand generations
the soil on which we walk
a mountain of mistakes
for us to climb for pleasure
-Call the Ships to Port, Covenant
It should have been a relief. He had been seeking answers for so long that anything would have been better than not knowing. It wasn't. In that moment, Dalamar understood why Raistlin hadn't told him the truth. His lover had been right; he wouldn't have wanted to know.
Not if the truth was this.
Oh, Nuitari.
In the mirror, Fistandantilus' face contorted, and Dalamar felt as though he'd been kicked in the stomach. He'd seen that look on Raistlin's face, when he had seen him in Neraka. Just after... no. It had been imagination and futile hope that had made him seen something of Raistlin in those dead eyes. Stupid, pointless hope.
Fistandantilus picked up one of the books, and opened it. It was blank. He closed it, and opening it again, this time revealing page after page of familiar writing. Offering them to Raistlin.
Dalamar saw the look of longing in Raistlin's eyes. He knew how he felt, could understand the desire, but... surely, Raistlin had to have known who he was dealing with. No amount of magic could possibly have been worth taking such a risk. Raistlin had to have known... had to have known what Fistandantilus had done to...
And perhaps he didn't know, or Fistandantilus had offered something- a promise, a threat- that gave Raistlin no other choice. Because after an endless heartbeat, he'd taken the books.
Dalamar wanted to scream, shout, bang on the glass... but what good would that do? He couldn't do anything. He couldn't pass through the glass and affect what had already happened. All he could do was watch, and no matter how much he wanted to, he couldn't look away. It was like a fist had closed around his insides, and was trying to turn him inside out. He almost doubled over, his lips drawn back in impotent rage. Why were they showing him this? Why like this? Was this how they wanted to get rid of him, by giving him what he wanted in such a way that would cripple him?
He watched, he had to watch as Raistlin sat down with the books in his laps, following silent instruction from Fistandantilus. He was scribing scrolls from the spellbooks. Dalamar recognized them, missiles of force, advanced fireball, a banishment spell for undead. Dalamar almost smiled at the heartbreaking familiarity of it, broken only by the hideous specter hovering behind the young mage, eyes locked on him with an intensity that sent chills through the Dark elf.
Fistandantilus. The greatest mage that had ever lived. The seemingly immortal archmage who clearly had not died in the Dwarfgate Wars, as everyone had assumed. Who had survived... Oh Nuitari no. Dalamar had heard the dark rumors that surrounded the ancient archmage. He had lived thousands of years, never aging, using an enchanted bloodstone to drain the life-forces of those who apprenticed under him.
Dalamar's stomach clenched again, and nausea swept through him at the hunger in Fistandantilus' eyes. By the expression on Raistlin's face, the young mage had seen it too, and knew what it meant.
But it could happen. It couldn't. Raistlin hadn't died during the Test. He had walked out, and there had been no sign of... of Fistandantilus until so many years later. The archmage hadn't killed him.
Not yet, anyway. His mind whispered before he could stop it.
A soft clicking noise reached Dalamar's ears, a violent contrast to the utter silence of the images. He managed to tear his eyes away, and stared, in equal horror, back down the corridor.
There had to have been three dozen mirrors between him and the broken mirror, three dozen reflections. Three dozen colourless images of himself pulling themselves free.
In a part of his mind not paralyzed from the joint shocks, Dalamar wondered how those reflections could be smiling, when he seemed to have forgotten how.
Then the shock shattered like glass, and Dalamar lifted his hands. He forced his mind out of its state of horror and focused it on a spell. A more powerful spell.
The lightning bolt shot down the corridor, it struck two reflections and Dalamar staggered backwards as two colourless bolts struck him in return. His blood turned to ice and for a moment his breath misted white, frost in the warm air. The chill passed too slowly, but it had been worth it. The concussive blast of the lightning bolt was more powerful, shattering mirrors and reflections alike. Behind the glass, the mirrors were the glossy black of tar.
Dalamar turned and sprinted down the corridor. His heart pounded against his chest as he ran, the reflection in the intact mirror showed, not Raistlin, but his own colourless image. Not waiting for them to pull free, Dalamar ran faster. The corridor seemed endless, in the distance, it made a sharp left turn and there, Dalamar saw something moving. Black robes. He only hoped they belonged to the figure he'd seen earlier, and not more reflections.
The reflections on either side had changed again, behind his image he could see Raistlin again. He could make out only fragments of what was happening, sometimes behind him, sometimes in front. Raistlin casting, fighting against a skeletal specter. Fire and magic wreathing his hands, turning the skin a gleaming gold.
A hand struck out, his own, black and white hand. Dalamar knew better than to fight back and ducked under it. His breath was sharp in his chest, each step made his legs ache. He was tiring fast, exhausted as much from mental shock as physical exertion.
In the mirror, behind the reflections. Raistlin was casting again, a ball of flame engulfing the room.
The corridor turned, and ended sharply with a door. There were two more mirrors, but they had no reflections. Instead, Dalamar saw Raistlin clearly again. He looked strange, blue eyes staring out from the golden skin, the contrast making his hair more red than brown. It was so strange, at once the old Raistlin he remembered, and the man who he had met outside the Tower. So different, but still the same person. Those eyes, whether blue or gold, he knew so well. He saw the confidence in those eyes, a sharp, clever smile hovering on those lips. A golden hand reached out to push the door open.
The clicking came again, louder, and Dalamar pushed at the door. To his astonishment, it opened easily, and he hurried through, pushing the door closed after him.
There were no more mirrors, just a spiral staircase leading up. It was tight and narrow, and he felt exhausted just at the sight of those endless steps. Further up, he saw Raistlin's face looking back at him from a window, and with a deep breath, gathering his remaining reserves of strength, Dalamar started to climb.
Raistlin was climbing too, steps that seemed to hang in mid air. The conclusion of his Test. What had happened? Dalamar forced himself to move faster, not wanting to miss anything that could throw more light on this. What had happened to Raistlin? What had Fistandantilus done to him that had led to... to that?
The archmage was waiting for Raistlin in the next window pane. The dead appearance was no longer confined to his eyes; the mage's face had taken on the countenance of a corpse, cold and lifeless, almost translucent.
Raistlin almost smirked, staring disdainfully at the long-dead mage. What sort of threat was this?
Dalamar didn't have to hear the words Raistlin spoke. When Fistandantilus reached out for him, a motion that chilled Dalamar far more than the reflected lightning, Raistlin easily stepped aside, almost laughing at the undead mage. He waved him off as he would his brother. Fistandantilus had served him, he could now go back to whatever afterlife he waited in and better luck next time.
It was at once wonderful and painful. He loved Raistlin so much, because it would be exactly what Raistlin would do, even to Fistandantilus. And it hurt, because Dalamar already knew he had failed.
The dead silence was broken again, a loud clattering from further up. Whoever it was ahead of him, Dalamar was gaining on them. Who were they? The only mage here, other than himself. Perhaps one sent to watch him? Dalamar found he didn't care. He didn't care for anything save the next window.
What he saw there made him stop dead and stare. Of all the things he could have expected it was not this.
Raistlin was sitting beside Crystalmir lake on a clear, moonlit night, relaxed and calm, leaning on a tree stump. Dalamar had seen him like that, been with him like that so many times it seemed as though the scene had been lifted straight from his most cherished memories. If it wasn't for the golden cast of Raistlin's skin, he might have believed it.
Dalamar stared at the window longingly. If he could have anything, anything in the world... it would be for it to stop there. For the mages of the Tower to have ended Raistlin's Test right there. Because something was going to happen. This idyllic scene was going to fracture somehow. Had fractured.
He saw it in the next window. Raistlin staring, sitting up, scrambling to his feet to meet the creatures Dalamar saw in the window after that. Undead shades, specters most likely summoned by Fistandantilus himself. Raistlin barely had time to snatch up the scrolls, let alone cast, before they were on him. Raistlin vanished under a sea of writhing black.
Light blazed from the next window, as though the sun had broken through the barriers of sorcery and into the Tower. The black shades around Raistlin retreated, then vanished as Raistlin cast again. Dalamar shook his head, amazed that his young lover had had the strength to cast at all, let alone so quickly.
Raistlin had cast, but he was out of strength. Dalamar felt dizzy as he continued to climb up. He'd lost count how many floors he'd passed, how many windows. He heard steps again, closer still. Whoever it was here was only a floor or two above.
And it couldn't be much further to the top. The ceiling was flat, rather than showing the corrugated impression of yet more stairs. There should be at least a landing ahead, if not a floor.
Then Dalamar lost all interest in where he was, because Fistandantilus was there, reflected in the glass, face to face with Raistlin. The undead mage's face was little more than a skull, only one eye left, the other a worm-eaten husk. Raistlin's face was a mask of rage, unable to muster the strength to stop the lich.
Dalamar actually doubled over, as though someone had punched him, at the sight of the bloodstone pendant around Fistandantilus' neck. He knew... oh Nuitari no. The glass was cold under his fingers, Fistandantilus lifted the stone over Raistlin's chest, the hideous hunger back in his eyes.
'Not so arrogant now, youngling?' Those rotten lips spoke.
Those skeletal fingers, bone tips razor sharp, reached for Raistlin's chest- and the glass shattered. Dalamar stared down at his bleeding fist in shock, only just realizing he had been pounding on the glass as though it was a cage. He was in so much shock that his hand didn't hurt, and it took him a moment to gather himself enough to move. He had to move. He had to... he had to see. If that was the only thing he could offer Raistlin he would see what... what happened.
Raistlin's hand was also bleeding, although there were no visible wounds. Those were on his chest. The lich's fingers had torn the flesh to ribbons, on hand still caught in his ribs. Dalamar didn't see it. He couldn't process what he was seeing. It was like a shadow-puppet show, unreal, distant. He couldn't, it couldn't... He was shaking his head, over and over again. No. No. No.
Fistandantilus' foul face split into a vicious smile, before fading. The lich's decaying body losing substance, becoming something less than flesh, less than air.
Dalamar didn't need to see where it went. He couldn't have watched it anyway. His tore himself away, and all but staggered up the last few steps to the landing and the door set in the far wall.
He couldn't watch. He couldn't. He knew where Fistandantilus had gone. He knew. He knew. It was what he had come to find out and now he knew. Raistlin had been right, he hadn't wanted to know. Every time he'd been angry with the young mage, demanded, turned away. He hated himself now. To have demanded Raistlin to tell him... this! How had he been able to live with that knowledge? How could he live knowing that... that creature was always there, always watching...
Dalamar felt dizzy, sick. He stumbled across the landing and leant against the door, a moment, just a moment. To gather his thoughts, to keep control.
He shouldn't have known. For the first time in his life, Dalamar didn't want to know something. Raistlin must have felt the same way. But he had known, and now, so did Dalamar. Just as he knew, as he wrenched the door open and saw the figure standing with his back to him, just who had been leading this chase.
They were on a walkway snaking around the top of the Tower. A railing as fine as spiderweb was all that stood between them and the long, long drop down. The figure was standing there, not bothering to turn around although he knew Dalamar was there. Dalamar swallowed. The same person he had been chasing through the Tower. Both of them.
Raistlin turned. His eyes were cold and dead, Fistandantilus' eyes. Raistlin as he had seen him in Neraka. Dressed in black robes. The body he knew so well a puppet under Fistandantilus' strings.
No. No. Dalamar mouthed soundlessly. Then. "No!"
Fistandantilus drew Raistlin's face into a snarling smile. Dalamar didn't question how this could be happening, how he could be /here/ of all places. Nor did he consider that he was about to attack the most powerful mage on Krynn. He didn't care. He flew at the monster, drawing his dagger, his free hand hooking into claws.
His nails raked that impossibly inhuman face, anything to stop it, to hide those eyes. Anything. But his dagger... he couldn't. Raistlin... That blade would drive through skin his knew, through muscles he had touched, end the life he had cherished and loved...
Raistlin couldn't have either. But Fistandantilus had no such compulsions.
Raistlin's hand. Fistandantilus' hand pressed against his chest, as though the lich was trying to drive his claws through Dalamar's chest as he had with Raistlin. His robes burnt to ash under those fingertips, and Dalamar cried out. Those beautiful fingers, delicate, made as much for pleasure as spellcasting. They burnt against his flesh as though at once red-hot and unbearably cold. The pain was unbearable. Tears stung his eyes and he felt blood running down from the wound, his legs weakening, the pressure on his chest increasing as though the lich wished for his life force as well as Raistlin's. The world blurred and he was left staring into Raistlin's eyes. Fistandantilus' eyes. Dead eyes.
"You're dead." Dalamar whispered- A statement. A threat. A promise- and drove his dagger into Fistandantilus' side.
Ice-cold blood poured over his hand, and the creature staggered against the railing. Dalamar's weight crushed him against it, pushing the blade in still deeper. Raistlin's body was as cold s the railing, colder, draining the warmth from his body. The dagger rose, and fell again, and that terrible face was eclipsed by a flood of scarlet. He screamed, and Dalamar screamed, and the railing screamed as it finally tore under their weight and they were falling down, down, down onto the sharp-toothed fence below.
The last thing Dalamar saw was the side of the Tower flying past, and Raistlin's- Fistandantilus'- face contorted with pain and rage, before the magic gathered around him, and the world floated away...
Skull Bearer.
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Torqueo