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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.

Chapter List
- 46
- 47
- 48
CHAPTER 46

His initial estimation had been wrong: it was still four hours to midnight when they reached Relgoth.
The rain had ceased, and pale moonlight was seeping through the clouds as they passed under the gateway into the inn yard and dismounted. Instantly a young boy appeared from the side building and led the horses into the stable. The name of the inn - the Lame Boatman - was not exactly inspiring, but the exterior with its brick walls and green doors was well-maintained and attractive, and there were warm and inviting lights in the windows.

Raistlin described these things to Crysania as they walked through the yard towards the front door. He could tell she was freezing, had been for the last couple of hours, which was damned ridiculous. He had offered her his cloak to wear on top of her own, but she had refused. Twice. Eventually he had grown tired of her antics, stopped the horses and placed the cloak over her shoulders with firm movements, while she continued to sit rigidly in the saddle. She had had not taken it off for the rest of the first part of their ride, but when they left the village of Ryn after a short break at dawn, she had folded the cloak and laid it across his horse's back.

"Oh. Paladine tell you to put it down?" he'd said to her jeeringly. "Better to freeze to death than accept help from the bad man? Is that what He said?"

"I'm fine now, thank you very much," she'd answered imperiously, her cheeks glowing red with embarrassment.

"Surely you wearing my cloak is not the most questionable thing He's caught us doing."

Growing even more red in the face, she had told him to start riding.

It was very warm inside the Lame Boatman inn, and the tavern downstairs was full. A lively chatter was heard throughout the rooms as the customers prattled merrily about the comings and goings of the world. A roaring blaze crackled in the fireplace on the back wall, and the air was filled with the smell of freshly-cooked food.

Their entrance didn't go unnoticed. When they came through the door into the lobby, the chatter went on, but several heads turned in their direction. Raistlin went over to the service desk and beckoned a worker. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that the sons of bitches sitting at the tables were craning their necks and viewing Crysania with open interest, while she stood waiting a little further away, unaware of the dozens of eyes glued to her face and body. Highly irritated, Raistlin turned to the fellow behind the desk and asked for lodgings for the night.

The fellow checked the register with a look of importance and extracted a key to room fourteen, second floor. When Raistlin asked for the second key, the fellow looked up startled.

"Sorry, master magus. It's the only room available at the moment. Sorry. I thought you two were -"

"We are. One room will do."

Raistlin took the key, quickly signed false names in the register and then went back to Crysania, not wasting the opportunity to glare at the whoresons in the tavern as he passed. They were wise enough to stop staring at once. Just one of the many advantages of wearing the black robes: you never had to ask twice.

Raistlin led Crysania to the second floor and on down the hallway, until he spotted room fourteen. He stood back and allowed Crysania to enter first before stepping in himself. He closed the door behind them, and as he took a look around the room, a small grin touched his lips. Wondering how he should break the news to Crysania, he glanced at the woman. She had located the table on the left and was fumbling her hand along the edge, searching for the chair that had been moved away from the table against the wall.

"Where do I put the bag?" she asked. She had insisted on carrying it herself, how else.

"Put it on the bed," Raistlin said casually, placing his bags on the bed as well. "It's right in front of you. Just a few steps. Follow my voice."

She did as told, but when she was about to drop her belongings on the bed, her hand fell on the bag already there. She stopped, bemused.

"But these are yours," she pointed out flatly.

"I know," Raistlin said, hardly able to contain his amusement. "You see, there's only one bed."

Crysania looked at him uncomprehendingly, and then her eyes grew wide with shock. She was struck speechless.

"No, I did not do this on purpose," Raistlin said, anticipating her thoughts. "The inn's fully booked. This was the only room left. Ask the staff, if you don't believe me."

"Is there a couch?" Crysania managed to gasp. "A divan? Anything?"

"A divan? Perhaps the lady would like a glass of sparkling wine with Silvanestian ginger, too?"

She was incensed by the laughter in his voice. "This is not funny."

"No," Raistlin said in a deadly serious tone. "This is just awful. Absolutely terrible. I think this might be the single most crushing blow of my life."

Fuming silently, Crysania glowered in his direction.

"Is it big?" she demanded then, her voice dripping with outrage.

"What is?"

"The bed." She was blushing fiercely again.

"It'll fit two. Easily, if on top one another."

With a sound of frustration, Crysania turned away from him. Pressing her hands to her burning cheeks, she stood by the bed not knowing what to do or where to go.

Raistlin watched her with a smile, thinking that she was absolutely the sweetest thing he had ever seen. Then he took a step closer and said placatingly, "Look. It's no big deal. I'll sleep on the floor."

"Nonsense." She had calmed down and was trying to sound more reasonable. "You've been riding all day."

"So have you."

"Yes but."

"Your concern for me is touching, Crysania. But there is no way I'd let you spend the night on the hard floor."

She said nothing, but after what looked like an inner battle she turned to the bed again and coolly placed her bag next to his. "Like you said, it'll fit two."

That was unexpected. Raistlin shot Crysania a surprised look, while taking a seat by the table. He drew up the other chair and told her to sit. She did, folding her hands and crossing her legs at the ankles. The end of her plait was still damp from the rain. The small cuts on her fingers, likely caused by the thorns on the rose he had picked up yesterday, stood out very prominently.

"Are you hungry? And don't even consider saying no. You're tired and hungry. And cold," Raistlin said, stressing the final word.

Crysania remained silent.

"Well?" Regading her relentlessly, Raistlin crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair.

"All right," she conceded quietly but fiercely. "I'm hungry. And tired. And I want this over and done with. Happy now?"

For a moment Crysania looked like she was going to start crying, but she bit her lip and fought it off. Looking down, she smoothed loose strands of hair from her brow, and suddenly Raistlin longed to touch that place where her neck joined her shoulder. He fancied he could see the pulse in her throat, fragile and delicate, beating away under the soft white of her skin. The cuts on her hands were deliberate. They were for him. He knew it, and he could not stop looking at them.

"I know this is hard," Raistlin said softly, his eyes lingering on Crysania's hands, "But I'm doing everything I can to keep you safe. You know that, don't you?"

"I don't know what I know anymore." Her face was blank with anguished denial.

Raistlin kept looking at her steadily. Say it, he thought. Now. Stop pretending. Stop fighting the inevitable.

A sharp knock on the door drew both their attention. "Room service," a voice cried from the hallway, and then the door was opened, and a man with a tinderbox peeked in. "Is this not a good time?" he inquired, looking from Raistlin to Crysania and back again.

They both answered at the same time.

"I didn't order room service," Raistlin said.

"Come in, please," said Crysania.

"Err. The fire," the attendant mumbled, raising his tinderbox.

Raistlin scowled at the man. "Get in and be quick about it."

"Lord magus. Lady." Bowing and fussing, the attendant entered and set about making the fire. Several quiet minutes passed as he busied himself with the logs and the firesteels. Raistlin kept his eyes on Crysania the whole time. Her face was impassive and she sat still, but he could sense she knew he was watching. Once the room service attendant glanced up at Raistlin, caught his eye and nervously dropped his gaze back to his work again.

"All right, listen up," Raistlin said briskly to Crysania after the attendant had left and a fire was burning in the hearth. "We're gonna go downstairs now, order something to eat and talk to each other loudly about going to Gaarlus. If the rebels come looking, that will send them in the wrong direction long enough for us to stay well ahead of them."

Crysania looked sceptical. "I don't know anything about Gaarlus. I've never been there. What do you want me to say?"

"Something about following the Watching River, or stopping for supplies in Jansburg. We'll make it up as we go along."

"Maybe they're already headed in the wrong direction," Crysania remarked hopefully. "If I were them, I'd check the High Clerist's Tower first."

"Which is exactly why we're here and not there right now. But we have to be on the safe side. They might have sent out several groups in different directions. We can't stop here for long. We must be on our way by tomorrow evening."

"To Solanthus," Crysania confirmed, sounding rather unconvinced.

"To Gaarlus," Raistlin corrected in a meaningful tone. "Come on, then. Let's go and make sure everyone knows that."

"It's past eighth hour," she objected. "I must pray first."

"Go ahead, then." Clasping his hands, Raistlin rested his chin on his knuckles as he watched the woman.

His response stunned her. "For your information, clerics of Paladine are not in the habit of saying their evening prayers in front of servants of Nuitari," she said loftily.

"Oh that's right. I'd forgotten you had different sets of prayers for converting purposes."

The look of self-importance on Crysania's face was replaced by one of hurt and bewilderment. "Could you please give me a minute?" she said. She sounded very weary and lonely.

"I'll be out in the hallway," Raistlin stated, got up and left the room.

Putting his hands behind his back and leaning against the wall, he waited for at least ten minutes, during which he had plenty of time to reflect, and now the image that had been haunting him for the last few weeks was there again: please don't leave me alone in the darkness. The terror and distress in her voice had been palpable, and she had reached out to him, grasping at the hem of his robe, anything she could get a hold of, but he had roughly yanked his hand away from her grip and told her that she had served her purpose. That he no longer needed her. Suddenly he didn't know why he'd said that. He could have just walked away, even let her believe that they had become separated in the heat of battle. But instead of making the cut clean and tidy, he had chosen to stop and speak those words.

He was snapped from his thoughts by the door opening, and saw Crysania stepping out into the corridor.

"Raistlin?" she said, gazing into the emptiness before her.

"I'm here, Crysania," he replied at once, and for some reason he felt he needed to say it again, but even that wasn't enough. "I'm right here."

Crysania approached, intrigued by the strange tone in Raistlin's voice.

They started to walk slowly towards the stairs, Raistlin talking her through all the twists and turns of the corridors. He was a natural guide. People often said too much, or too little, but he gave just the right amount of information. Ironically enough, she trusted her steps with him.

Downstairs in the tavern they settled at a table in the corner and ordered the daily special which was roast chicken and green beans. There was lots of loud laughing and conversation, glasses clinking and chairs moving. How did Raistlin expect anyone to hear them?

"It's a bit loud in here," Crysania said, leaning forward to make herself heard.

"Don't worry. I'll pick the proper moment. You just play along."

"Is everyone looking?"

"Yes. And I can't blame them. Relax, Crysania," Raistlin added when she shifted in her seat uncomfortably. "It's just a bunch of rustics. They have no idea who we are. But I'm sure they could identify us later, in case someone should ask."

"What about our names in the register? I assume they wanted our names at the desk."

"Of course they did. And I gave them names, just not ours. We have to be obvious, but not too obvious."

"Which names?" Crysania asked suspiciously.

"Seamus and Molly Bredell. Which one would you like to be?"

Insane. The whole situation was insane. Sighing, Crysania reached out her hand until it touched a pitcher on the table, thinking not for the first time that Raistlin seemed to be enjoying it all a bit too much. Being chased around the world, running rings around their pursuers - he seemed to be taking it as a delightful game that he was going to win. But then a thought crossed her mind which claimed that she was enjoying it just as much, that all her senses were awake and alert in the thrill of not knowing what would happen next.

Thoroughly uncomfortable, Crysania lifted the pitcher and said, "Is it water?"

"Yes."

She felt the cup to get an idea of its size and then carefully poured water into it, both relieved and annoyed that Raistlin did not offer to help. And there was another thing: he hadn't called her his dear or darling all day. She was upset by it, and then she was upset that she was upset by it. Crysania took several sips, trying to ignore both her unreasonable agitation and the feel of Raistlin's gaze on her. Again he was doing it. He was putting her on the spot, and whenever he did that she felt he was just waiting for her to give in. Confident, dominant, amused by her resistance. You're mine, that gaze said, and I can wait for as long as it takes for you to surrender.

Once again sweeping under the rug the unspoken truth that hung in the air between them, Crysania assumed an air of indifference and said, "The men from the manor - do you think they've got back to Palanthas by now?"

"Come again?" Raistlin said, his voice closer. She could picture him leaning forward, his elbows on the table.

She pitched her voice over the laughter and conversation. "I said, do you think the men who came to the house are back to Palanthas by now?"

"I still didn't catch that," Raistlin said.

Crysania blinked at him. He was just trying to get her closer. "Yes, you did," she retorted timidly, not moving an inch.

Raistlin gave a little chuckle and said, "I think they're probably back in the city, yes. It was just a minor spell," he continued, and then his voice grew louder suddenly, "and that's the first thing we're going to do once we get to Jansburg. Thank you."

"Here you go," the waitress said with affected cheerfulness as she placed their plates in front of them.

"Yes," Crysania said, her pulse suddenly racing. "But I don't imagine there are many weavers in Jansburg. Thank you."

They waited until the waitress had gone, and then Raistlin said to Crysania in conspiratory tones, "Well played, Missus Bredell."

Crysania picked up the fork, pleased but ill at ease. It was just a tiny little lie, spoken out of necessity, yet she couldn't help feeling umcomfortable about it. To Raistlin lying came easy, of course. He was accustomed to lies of an entirely different scale. Suddenly Crysania felt nauseated and had to put down the cutlery in her hand. From somewhere far away, Araminta's words came back to her, anxious and filled with worry: He's a violent, dangerous man. Crysania, dear, you have to let this go. Don't I know it, she thought to herself desperately - she knew it every single day and every single minute, but she couldn't follow her friend's advice. A disaster was waiting to happen, and she was already halfway down that avenue.

Making herself take a reluctant bite of her bread, Crysania said wanly, "Someone will surely recognise us in Solanthus and alert the rebels. There can't be all that many clerics of Paladine paired with -"

"That's why I told you to grab a couple of secular dresses and the blue cloak. I won't be wearing a robe, either. We'll be just like any couple having a lovely little trip to the old capital, really. Although," Raistlin said tauntingly, "I suppose you would prefer being my sister to being my wife."

"I'm sure the blue cloak will create enough of a diversion," Crysania muttered in return. Why did he always catch her off guard with his little digs and innuendos, when she was least prepared? "And you without your robe."

"Oh, I promise to keep my pants on," Raistlin said reassuringly, and then added under his breath, "Unfortunately."

Pretending not to have heard, Crysania tried to concentrate on the food on her plate. But all that crazy talk about wives and pants only took her mind back to what she had somehow managed not to think about for a good long while. The bed. There was just one bed in their room. One. Blood rushed to her cheeks again, and she was well aware that Raistlin knew what she was thinking about, that he was smugly pleased about having succeeded in drawing yet another reaction from her, and that her reaction only encouraged him further. He knew exactly what he was doing to her. And with this thought came another, a strange and previously unknown thought, unpleasant and seductive all at once: did she not know exactly what she was doing to him, too? Didn't she hold all the cards in that sector? It was as if she was suddenly being handed an invitation to play against an opponent who was only too much like herself yet infinitely more dreadful. She might think she was tough, that she had what it took, but deep down she knew that if she went into that play, she would experience a terrifying defeat. And so Crysania let go of that strange new thought and carried on with her chicken.

"Do you know of any inns in Gaarlus?" Raistlin asked loudly after some minutes of silent eating.

"Um, no," Crysania replied, taken by surprise, and immediately reproached herself for the inane answer. There must be someone close by listening in on their conversation.

"Really?" Raistlin said, with a hint of controlled irritation in his voice. "I thought you said you had a friend there. In Gaarlus."

"Oh, in Gaarlus. I misheard, sorry. A friend. Yes." Crysania grimaced inwardly. Gods, she sounded like an idiot. Maybe she should shut up before she made a bigger fool of herself.

"Well?" Raistlin insisted. "Any recommendations on where we should stay?"

"I don't know," Crysania stuttered. "I mean, I always stay at her home when I visit the... Gaarlus."

Raistlin did not reply for a moment. Then he said, "Tremendously convincing." The note of irritation, tight and cold, was still there.

"I'm sorry," Crysania murmured, hoping the situation would just go away. By some miracle, it did.

"I think we're done here," Raistlin said, and now there was nothing in his voice to indicate anger. "Would you like some wine, or shall we turn in for the night?"

"No, thank you. To the wine, I mean."

"But yes to upstairs?"

"Yes to upstairs," Crysania confirmed, although she felt it would have been easier to spend the night in the chair she was sitting in.

After paying the bill, they walked out of the tavern and into their room without many more words between them.

Once inside, Crysania took a seat on the chair by the fire, absorbing its warmth and trying to come up with ways to delay the inevitable. Her hair was a mess, wasn't it? She definitely needed to redo her plait for the night. With slightly trembling hands, she took off the ribbon and shook her hair loose, scooping all of it to her left shoulder. Combing the strands with her fingers, she began to make a new plait and had kept at it for a few moments when she realised that behind her, in the other chair, Raistlin had stopped moving; she could tell he was watching, and again the thought came to her, more like an instinct than conscious reasoning, that she had a hold over him too. Urged by this awareness and the stimulating sense of danger that rose within her, Crysania slowed her pace, working down the plait with deliberate fingers. At the manor Raistlin had said he loved the way she played with her hair, in a tone that left no room for doubt, and as Crysania slowly weaved the strands in and out, she knew she held him enthralled. For once she was the one in control: she could feel his barely suppressed anticipation resting heavily on her body, and she kept on, disturbing his calm surface to the point of storm. There was nothing wrong with how the plait turned out, but she undid the lower half and started again, teasing, tormenting. Her heart beat madly in her chest. Her hands felt weak and her head light.

When she finally stopped, the quiet continued. Crysania sat still, with her hands in her lap, and realised she didn't know where Raistlin was. Still in the chair? In the bed? Or standing right behind her? A sense of dread began to set in, and she sorely regretted her display - it was reckless and impulsive, like coaxing a lightning to strike. Before the silence could grow even more unnverving, Crysania slipped out of the chair and, adopting a semblance of composure, removed her shoes one at a time, taking much more time than necessary to set them neatly by the door. Otherwise fully clothed, she then made her way over to the bed, still unclear about Raistlin's whereabouts, and settled herself awkwardly on its far edge, facing the door. Admittedly, it felt good to lie down after hours on the road. The bed was soft and fitted with delicate linen sheets, and Crysania figured that under different circumstances she might have slept very well in it. But now there was no way she'd be able to relax enough to rest. She just lay there still with all her muscles tense and hardly breathing, while Raistlin sat down on the other side.

Neither of them spoke for a long moment. Crysania could feel the arm on which she lay growing numb, but she refused to stir as long as Raistlin was watching her. Because he might take it the wrong way and start to - Crysania tried, but couldn't block the image - start to forcibly kiss her, touching, rubbing, fondling all at the same time. A violent shudder of pleasure ran through Crysania at the memory. Oh, god, how fiercely he had handled her, pushing her to the ground and not even caring that it was damp and strewn with sharp twigs, all that restraint and control exploding in an outburst of desire he could no longer check. He was as hard and rough as the ground, as unyielding as the broken branches digging into her arms and back, and she had been thinking that the more it would hurt, the better it would feel.

Crysania listened, helpless against the shame and pleasure and fear humming inside her, but there was not a sound from Raistlin. What was he doing, just sitting there? What was he thinking? What was he feeling? Was he happy that she was with him? Was he indifferent? Did he regret the past at all?

When he spoke, what he said was unexpected.

"You once slept in my arms."

It was both an invitation and a question: do you remember. Of course she did. On the floor in the cursed Tower. On the day when she had finally admitted to herself that she was in love - and subsequently got scared by the thought and denied it. It was cold in the Tower, and she had used it as an excuse to curl up against Raistlin. She had fallen asleep with her head on his shoulder and pretended to be asleep for another few moments just to feel Raistlin's body next to hers. She knew he too was awake; she knew he too wanted that moment to last. Or thought she knew. Because all the time, while her mind had been floating in soft, feathery nothingness, all the time his mind was far away in the Abyss, planning and calculating how to get rid of her when there was nothing left to take.

"That was a long time ago," Crysania said impassively, hoping her voice would not betray the tears that had begun to well up in her eyes.

Raistlin didn't respond, but kept watching her in the dark. She thought he could probably go on watching her all night, never uttering a word.

But after an instant his weight shifted off the bed, the door opened and closed, and he was gone.

Crysania remained unmoving for several moments longer, hoping, fearing that Raistlin would return. The fire crackled, the wind howled past the windows, and the more minutes passed the more certain Crysania became that she had misread herself and had been doing so for a long time: by now she was accustomed to the pain that came with the memory of the Abyss, it was not the pain that made her flinch and look the other way, but the savage thrill that fluttered through her, dark and hideous, every time she thought of what Raistlin had done to her, and it was wrong, in every sense and every interpretation, it was sick and twisted, and she wanted to stop.

The pain she could handle; the desire she could not.

There was no prayer to set it right. No words to explain to Paladine the why or the how.

There was only the awareness of awareness, her rigid body lying on the bed, craving, longing, denying:

Fire, play with me.

*

Raistlin couldn't help smirking as he passed the service desk downstairs. If - a strong if - Farag and Friends managed to make it to this place, they'd check the register for sure. At first, they would think there was nothing, but then someone - Farag himself, probably - would go through the list again, and his eye would catch on Bredell. He'd then do a little thinking - The Bredell stables! That's where we last saw the wizard! - and ask around, all victorious and triumphant, and the waitress would tell the good priest that the two of them had left for Gaarlus just a couple of days ago. A cleric and a wizard? Sure I saw them! A strange thing to see, a white-robed cleric with a black-robed sorcerer. Sat here all night, discussing and plotting, and left the following morning. Eager to serve, the waitress would go and ask for confirmation from the other girl who'd been eavesdropping on their conversation while cleaning the tables, and she too would swear, even if Crysania had nearly screwed up the conversation, she too would swear on her life that the cleric and the magician were on their way to Gaarlus.

Around the corner from the tavern, Raistlin found a peaceful spot to sit and examine the blank book found in the Winter Pines Hall library. Except it was not blank, it was far from blank. Between the covers, there rose a city of high, gleaming walls, filled with palaces and houses of wondrous splendour: all you had to do to see this hidden paradise was to look at the page from a certain angle. It was not magic, just a trick of the eye out of which the gnomes of Ansalon had made a lucrative business. These pictograms - as the gnomes called them - were sold for a couple of coins at fairs around the continent, even in Solace where usually the only thing on offer was good old hay and dung, in the same shady tent where you could buy some highly sought-after drawings of naked large-breasted girls, drawings which never did anything to him, but which seemed to interest his brother very much, despite the fact that Caramon had probably seen every pair of tits locally available.

Holding the book up and squinting his eyes, Raistlin made the three-dimensional city appear and spent moments exploring its streets and buildings. This one was by far the most complex pictogram he had ever seen - the ones sold by gnomes often showed images of flowers or swords or dragons, but never a fully-detailed city with even the street names visible in certain corners. But what intrigued Raistlin the most was the labyrinth at the centre, an elaborate structure that had no entrance nor exit, no matter from which side one viewed the book. The only marking on the maze was a simple word in the ancient language of Dohi carved on one of its outer walls: qiameth. Evermore. For all time to come.

Raistlin lowered the book into his lap and sat thinking. Was this the city beyond the invisible? And why Dohi? He knew he had moved to the next phase of the mystery, for Ildi no longer responded to his summons. She had shown him the book and disappeared, the book that just happened to materialise on the shelf when he wasn't looking and that just happened to have been read by Crysania in her childhood. Now more than ever it seemed like a trap waiting to spring, but an army of hobgoblins couldn't have stopped him from seeing the search through. The labyrinth - that's where Ambrus Venegas had received the magic. That's where he had gone after taking his daughter's life. Raistlin knew it as surely as if it had been printed on the walls of the phantom city in gigantic letters. He closed the book with a smile. If Venegas thought he was afraid of him, then he had another think coming. Whoever was waiting for him in Redwald, he would be more than glad to lure them into their own trap. All he had to do was to be careful and not act rashly under any circumstances. And at that he was exceptionally remarkably ridiculously good.

From Redwald, Raistlin's thoughts drifted to Solanthus. They'd ride there tomorrow and settle in an inn, and then he'd tell Crysania to stay put and go out himself, pretending that he was going to arrange for someone to go over to Palanthas to investigate the situation. You wait, I go - a simple yet effective strategy enabled by her blindness. If she could see, demanding to go with him and asking around on her own, it would be a whole lot trickier to pull off the plan. Now, luckily, she had no choice but to stand aside and let him take over.

A week or two in Solanthus, a few more promises and some words of persuasion, until he could be certain that what he was going to do would work. Then back onto the road again, at the end of which Solace was waiting. The prospective thought of Caramon's face at the sight of Crysania never failed to amuse Raistlin. His brother would have received his message by now and think that he was coming to Solace without any company at all. Caramon's jaw would drop like a bloody anchor; he wouldn't be able to stop gaping. That was his twin. Never very good at hiding the few thoughts that occasionally went through his sieve of a brain.

But underneath all that mirth, Raistlin sensed a current of fear: the vision of Caramon the Dark Queen had conjured to get under his skin would not leave him be. He had never seen Caramon looking at him like that, like at a complete stranger, not even in the Abyss, and even if he knew it was just an illusion, a shard of doubt settled in his soul every time he was reminded of the Queen's nightly visit. What if the Caramon from his vision, the one who would turn his back on him, was the Caramon he would find in Solace? What if everything had changed? Two years - maybe Crysania was right. Maybe it was a long time. Oh, but nonsense. His brother never changed. He would always be stuck in his pathetic life in that pathetic village, making hay and cutting wood, dreaming small and never reaching for the stars. He was probably still running the inn, and probably still married to that other half-wit with breasts bigger than her head. Always the same old Caramon. Reliable and solid, like a cart horse. Two years was nothing.

As these thoughts kept piling and growing in Raistlin's head, he suddenly realised he was breaking a cold sweat. Breathing heavily, he got up to his feet and headed for the lounge in hurried steps, icy fear drumming through him. Insane to have left her alone; she could have come out after him and told the staff that he had brought her here against her will. Raistlin pelted up the stairs, two steps at a time, as quickly as he could, and flew the door open in one fluid swoop. Only when he saw Crysania's figure on the bed, lying in the exact same position as he had left her, her legs straight out, her face towards the door, did his pulse begin to calm, the debilitating certainty that everything was over slowly leaving him.

Quietly Raistlin shut the door and crept closer until he could see the woman more clearly in the fire light.

Poor little darling. Scared and tired from the road, she had fallen into a deep sleep. Her breathing was even, and her shoulders, so rigid and tense under his gaze, had visibly relaxed. Her plait was very black against the pillow. She had pulled the blanket up to her waist.

Insane to have thought that she was gone. She would always stay. He would always know how to make her stay.

Not making a sound, Raistlin removed his boots and robe, but, contrary to his usual sleeping habits, kept his trousers on. Carefully, so as not to wake Crysania, he climbed on the bed and laid next to her. Leaning his elbow on the bed and his head on his hand, he immersed himself in watching the cleric. Her back, her arms, her neck - every part of her that was visible to him. He reached out and touched her hair lightly, running his fingers along the plait, but when he tried to lower his hand on her hip, she stirred and moved away from him, withdrawing her own hand from under the blanket.

The cuts on her fingers were red and loud, and they were for him. See me, they screamed. Give me more and never stop.

Don't leave me in the darkness, she'd said. But the darkness beckoned her. She wanted to step in and embrace it.

The thought was intoxicating.

For long moments Raistlin stayed awake in the quiet of the night, watching Crysania as if he was, by force of will alone, winding strands of magic around her unconscious body to bind her to him when she woke.

And when he finally slept, he slept better than he had in years.
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Evermore: The Gathering