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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
- 5
- 6
- 7
CHAPTER 5

'Master,' she says

She lies on her back on the steps leading up to the altar,

legs spread, knees up, hands pinned above her head

Her white gown is hiked up around her hips,

the long beaded veil tangled beneath her:

some of the pearls come off,

pattering down the steps,

as I move

hard

fast

holding her down

Her voice is sweet, set on pleasing:

'Master,' she says

I let go of her hands, reach for her hair;

I wind the long plait around my wrist,

once, twice,

pulling

thrusting

very hard

very fast

The holy pendant

on her smooth ivory neck

I grab the chain, yank it up;

it bites into the skin of her throat

and she's mine,

tearing

bruising

yielding

under my command

Her white eyes wide open

'Do what you like to me'

His mind exploded in a soaring ecstasy, and he cried out as hot and intense waves pulsed through him and out of him in heavy surges, low and burning, wave after wave of pure bliss that drowned out all coherent thought.

He tried to make it last as long as he could, holding the image in his mind's eye, but all too soon the pleasure melted, and slowly slipped away.

He opened his eyes only after long moments had passed, after the ringing in his ears had ended and his breathing settled. Gods. He was almost terrified by what just the mere thinking of her could do to him.

Temple steps. That wasn't even his favourite.

Drained and exhausted, he got to his feet, walked to the tub and cleaned himself with the cold bathing water.

The pale summer moon poured into the room from the window. He glanced out between the curtains and to his disappointment saw that the alley below was as silent as it had been when he last checked; dawn was still far away and would not come any sooner, no matter how hard he stared out into the night. He left the curtains open to make sure he would be awoken by the very first ray of sunlight and returned to the bed, where he had tossed and turned deeply restless for at least an hour, frustration and longing and aggression building up in him like floodwater against a rickety dam.

He was alright now, and willing to try for sleep again. He knew he had to rest, just a little, even though he considered natural sleep a bothersome inconvenience, so different from the deep and dreamless coma-like state that came after spellcasting. Sleep - a real, natural night's sleep - was a realm of nightmares, and also a waste of precious time; four hours each night was enough. This was nothing new - he had always been a light sleeper. Even as a little boy he would wake well before sunrise, to read and to study in peace and quiet the specimens of flora and fauna - dead butterflies and insects, leaves of plants and trees - he had found and collected during the day.

Sleep was an invincible enemy. It always beat you in the end, but he liked cheating it anyway.

Raistlin settled down on the bed and closed his eyes, emptying his mind of thought. Blank. Just blank. Wordless. Imageless.

Right when he was about to succeed, he was brought back to wakefulness by the sounds of someone moving about in the adjoining room. There were footsteps and coughing, a few muffled words exchanged. Oh, great - perhaps his pleasure had been a little louder than he'd thought, so much so that he'd managed to wake up his rowing neighbours.

He tried to ignore the sounds and forget everything, especially Crysania and the way she made his blood burn, but try as he might, his mind seemed to find the woman behind every corner. The magic was gone - she was not. As simple as that. He wanted her to exist where the magic had been.

He turned on his back, staring up at the ceiling through the darkness. In the Abyss she had been everywhere in his dream. Incomprehensible visions, most of which he could no longer remember all that well. He remembered a house, though, a white brick house with golden fields around, and children laughing, and the brisk smell of autumn and smoke in the air. And her. In that house with him. And with them a third person, someone to whom he had taught magic. Now just a hazy presence without a face.

There was only one thing he remembered clearly, and it was the thing he did not want to remember. The dark, long shadow of the executioner's axe. Who am I? My own executioner. The deep, devastating sense of loss.

And Crysania's voice, flowing through the dream, soothing and comforting him. Protect him, Platinum Father. Grant him peace.

It was a wonder he'd had any dreams at all. Raistlin remembered the shadows of the five dragonheads on the desert hardpan as Takhisis rose up behind him in all her majestic might, screeching in rage and preparing to strike. He remembered raising his gaze up to the red skies - to receive the first blow on his feet, not crouching on the ground like a wounded, terrified dog - and he remembered thinking he would watch that same flaming sky for all eternity. But no sooner than the thought had formed, the barren landscape faded into a white, feathery mist; the Queen's ferocious scream died away, and all was sleep. Just nice, sweet, peaceful sleep.

Why did Paladine do it? Raistlin did not think it was to reward him; the Platinum Father was all for forgiveness and compassion, but surely not before you did your own part and repented. Perhaps it was for Crysania, then, which would be perfectly natural: after everything she had lost, perhaps Paladine had answered her prayers as a recompense, considering her tranquility more important than Raistlin's damnation.

Raistlin rolled over to his side, eyes fixed unseeing on the silver beam of moonlight that spilled across the floor in the corner, thinking. There was another possible explanation. The more Raistlin thought it over, the more certain he felt; and the more certain he felt, the more annoyed he became. The answer was simple, and it was always the same. Who had done everything he could to save the world? Who had carried Crysania back to safety? Who had always done what was right and true? Caramon, of course. Strong, friendly and helpful Caramon, unselfish and loyal, always on the straight and narrow. Paladine could not punish someone like that, could he? The thought of his beloved twin in eternal torment would have eventually led the blubbering idiot back to the bottle. Of course the gods would not allow that to happen. They wanted the great and honourable Caramon to have peace of mind, and so they gave it to him. That must be it.

Caramon. Caramoncaramoncaramon. It went round in Raistlin's head like an angry wasp trapped in a bottle. Caramon was in the beginning and he was in the end, immovable as a mountain, impossible to shake off.

Caramon had looked him in the eye and told him the world would end. He had claimed he had seen it.

Two and a half years ago in Dergoth Raistlin had promised the dwarf Argat Caramon's head in exchange for open access to the fortress of Pax Tharkas. Now he vowed that if he ever saw his brother's miserable face again, and the words Caramon had spoken turned out to have been a lie, he would fulfill his promise to the dead dwarf.

Is this how you work to redeem yourself? asked Mishakal inside his head, and the goddess's disapproving voice was immediately joined by the scornful one that always taunted him. Should you not thank him instead? it whispered derisively. Answer me this: who let you return to the world? Yes. Caramon. Without his twin, without their bond, or whatever the hell you wanted to call it, he would have already joined the river of souls never to return.

At that moment, a loud, harsh scream suddenly penetrated the wall - a man's scream, filled with rage and disbelief. "Is this how you pay me? After everything I've done for you, is this how you pay me?"

"No, you've got it all wrong!" cried a terrified woman's voice in answer. "This isn't what it seems!"

"How stupid do you take me for? Don't you think I have eyes? Don't you think the whole sodding world has eyes and ears to see and hear what's been going on behind my back? Well, I've got news for you, missy: no more! I won't be made a fool of twice!"

Raistlin listened, propped up on his elbows, his heart pounding wildly from the sudden noise, but there was no reply from the woman. The racket had died down, as clean as knife cutting cord, as if both of the loudmouths had suddenly been struck dumb.

He laid his head back on the pillow, searching for and locating the thread of his interrupted thought. The strange occasion of his birth had sent him back, that was true - but was it really worth it, this second chance? At this very instant, in the middle of the night in a noisy inn, it did not feel like it, and Raistlin was surprised to realize just how deep was his desire to exchange this loneliness for even just one moment with the woman who before had been second best in his life. Two years ago she had been nothing to him, and here he was now, depending on her for his purpose to live. Perhaps that was Paladine's idea of poetic justice.

He did not know what to expect at the temple tomorrow. Perhaps they would kick him out, all the way back into this small, stuffy room, which seemed to serve as the perfect symbol for his new life. Still it continued to amaze Raistlin how quickly he had accepted to relinquish the magic. Mishakal had presented it as a choice, but he had begun to doubt he could have refused: the gods had seemed pretty intent on getting rid of him, and even more intent on breaking his spellcasting for good. Taking the magic was the cruellest possible thing to do, but Raistlin could not deny that a part of him was oddly pleased, even flattered, about it. Cruel, maybe, but also a great compliment. A sign of fear. That was something. Now he supposed he would have to make the best of what he got and adapt, although making suppositions and relying on chances were things he had never much cared for.

Raistlin's whole life, his driven and ambitious and ruthless life, had been dominated by fear of failure and weakness, which did not leave much room for improvisation. A leisurely afternoon, which most people would have looked forward to with pleasure, was for him a dreadful bog of aimless boredom, directionless and purposeless. He had experienced a period of disorientation, such as resembled the one he was experiencing now, only once, and he looked back on that time with deep revulsion.

The first year in the tower after the war had been difficult. At first he was full of excitement: finally he was on his own, after twenty-six years of being lumped together with the smallest brain of all Krynn, after twenty-six years of having to bear the fool's endless ignorant questions and pestering presence. Finally he was leading his own life free of burdens, and although out of old habit he would occasionally make as if to call out to Caramon, expecting him to be somewhere in the background, he was only pleased to realize his mistake. His new home, the tower that had been cursed by the blackrobes at the end of the Lost Wars, was a treasury of arcane lore. He spent his days and nights studying rare spells and ancient tomes in blessed silence, delving deeper and deeper into the secrets of the Art, with which he would soon dazzle the world as the most powerful and glorious mage that history had ever seen. It was what he had always wanted.

But then, after a few weeks of that immense inner peace, his mind had started to wander some strange paths. He had the constant feeling someone else was there with him, watching and listening, not inside his mind like the old lich Fistandantilus had been, but outside - a sinister presence that lurked just out of sight in the shadows. Voices would speak his name and call out to him. He would hear people talking in the adjacent rooms, but always found them empty. Driven by these voices as much as his desire to learn everything he could, he inspected the tower room by room, climbing and descending endless stairs, opening and closing myriads of doors that had been locked for years, finding gruesome things hidden behind them. Little by little his studies came at a standstill; he examined the objects and worked through the books he had found with a compulsive rage, but there was no remarkable progress, and so he drifted through the days in a dazed sort of numbness, the dark terror of failure running endlessly on in his mind. The tower had been waiting for him, for the Master of Past and Present, so what was supposed to happen now that he was finally here? At some point he lost track of time and date: from the narrow windows he could see the season change down below from spring to summer and finally to autumn. With winter, the fevers came, and a silence, even more complete than before, descended with the snow. He studied huddled in moth-eaten blankets, shaking with fever and weak from nightmares, hardly able to light a candle or hold the quill, trying to block out the brutal, slithering voices that snickered and hissed in his ear, telling him that he was worthless and that it would simply be better to hurl himself down from the Death Walk at the top of the tower, just like the last of the ancient blackrobes had done, the one whose mangled body he had found impaled on the sharp arrowheads of the surrounding gates.

That was before he had found a little black journal filled with Fistandantilus's scribblings and notes, before the grand plan had started to take shape, before he had managed to bring each part of the cursed tower completely under his control. Before all of these things, during that one year, he had been swimming in some seriously dark waters.

That one single time.

But no, there had been another emptiness, too. In the end. A terrible moment, when he had known he would succeed - he would reach his goal, the only thing he was living for - and felt nothing. The magic sparkled in his veins, but when he looked inside: empty. He did not stop; he pressed on. Maybe when everything was over, when the battle was done and Takhisis would lie vanquished at his feet, he would feel again.

And now this. This new emptiness.

But under the emptiness, there was a plan: a faint intuition so alien and so unlike him that it only rippled at the back of his consciousness like the glint of the sun sinking into the horizon, not yet turned into words. He was almost there, though, almost ready to admit that -

"You goddamn good for nothing! You cheap whore!"

"Please, no!"

"Piece of trash elf-lover! Did you suck his cock? Was it good? Better than human I s'pose, eh, was it?"

Angered by how the sudden crude shouts constantly jolted him out of his thoughts and made his heart spike, Raistlin reached up and repeated the trick that had silenced the lovely couple so effectively a few days back: he gave the wall a good hard punch, shouting "Give it a break, you two!"

No effect this time. There was not even a pause. The man continued to hurl vile abuse at his wife. She had begun to sob.

Right. Raistlin threw aside the blanket, swung his feet over the bed, pulled on his trousers and boots, and slipped the coat over his shoulders.

The hallway was empty and dark, much more desolate and cold you would have expected on a late summer's night. The gas lamps lining the wood-panelled walls were unlit, and Raistlin wondered about this detail briefly as he paced towards the neighbour door. Normally innkeepers would keep their places well lit for night-time travelers, but apparently not Jarek The Barrel.

This was the right door, the door to Room 6, according to the the little brass number that had tipped over onto its side. Raistlin leaned his ear against the wood and listened for an instant.

Silence.

He whacked the door with the heel of his hand. He waited.

No one came.

Cowards.

Or perhaps passed out from drinking.

Raistlin was about to knock again, but this time his hand stopped in mid-air. A cold, queer sensation had invaded him. What if the voices he had been hearing were just voices in his head? Like the ones in the tower.

And another thought, unpleasant and ugly: Like the ones mother had.

He rapped on the door listlessly, not really feeling up to it anymore.

Without staying to wait for an answer, he started back to his room, regretting he had left it in the first place. What an absolutely useless idea. It really was very cold in the hallway, almost freezing; he was shivering inside his coat, and he made haste, rejoicing at the thought of getting back to bed.

Only his door did not open.

Raistlin rattled the knob several times, but the door remained firmly shut.

He removed the key, put it back patiently with a nervous little smile, and tried again: no result.

Tugging and pulling at the door, he darted a look over his shoulder into the shadows. Clearly the brawling lovers had not passed out: now there was a series of lashing sounds, accompanied by angry growls and weary sobbing.

"You wanna get out?" the man yelled at the top of his lungs. "You'll get out after I'm done with you!"

Raistlin yanked at the knob frantically, his discomfort steadily growing. Nothing budged. He might as well have been tugging at a rock.

The lashing noises in Room Six came closer. A weight fell against the door with a heavy thump, and sounds of clawing followed. The sobbing never ceased; it was desperate, breathless.

Raistlin yanked at the knob some more, and then finally kicked the door, grumbling a few curses. How the fuck had he managed to lock himself out? He bent forward to squint at the keyhole, and a grim hopelessness descended on him. One knock spell. One simple little stupid knock spell was all it would take, and he couldn't do it. He reminded himself to never again be so careless as to go anywhere without his knife, not even a little ways. Now, as it happened, the knife was in his room on the table, he was half naked and unarmed, and coming out into the hallway was a drunken and deceived behemoth of a man - by the sound of him - who would be very happy to realize there was an outsider witness to the beating he was giving his lady wife.

Raistlin tried the key one more time, urging it under his breath, when all of a sudden he became aware of something strange, and his arms crawled up in gooseflesh.

The voices were coming from his room.

Immediately as he realized this, a shrill scream pierced the air.

With a yell of mingled surprise and agony, Raistlin let go of the knob which had suddenly grown burning hot against his palm and slowly backed away a few steps, his nerves set to run or to fight whatever it was that was going to leap at him from behind the door.

But as he waited he realized that the voices were on his left again. Not in his room.

Not in any room. In the hallway.

The woman was shrieking for help. In fact she did not sound like a woman. She sounded like just a girl.

The voices moved to the right now; they rose up to the ceiling in a screaming whirlwind and circled down through the air again, bouncing off the walls - all the grunts, all the crashes, all the curses.

And something else, too. A gathering presence, spiteful and vicious, which made Raistlin's hair stand on end. It was coming closer, calling out to him - not in words, but in his blood: a dry, rustling whisper.

Raistlin backed against the wall, breathing rapidly, trying to see in every direction at once. The malicious presence was crawling over him, pressing against his chest and throat like a cold invisible hand, and it was getting hard to breathe, but a curious observation occurred to him in the middle of it: although the hallway was a cacophony of sound, no one else seemed to care. You would have thought at least some of the doors would have flown open, spitting out angry residents stirred from sleep, or at least Jarek should have been upstairs by now, working to throw the troublemakers out.

Raistlin did not have time to wonder about the implications of this, because something else caught his attention. A single sound above it all, a sensation - a low, trembling vibration. A sound he would have recognized anywhere.

He stood listening, astonished and with a touch of wistful envy.

Someone was casting magic.

Not high level magic, but magic all the same.

One spell, brief and aggressive, meant to hurt - that much he could conclude from what he heard, every fibre of his concentration directed at that low-pitched wobbling sound, even as the alien presence continued to press him flat against the wall.

The screaming stopped. The final wail choked into a terrible, liquid gurgling sound, and then there was silence.

Nothing moved in the cold hallway. The suffocating presence was gone.

Raistlin waited for another moment, then turned and approached his door cautiously.

The doorknob was cool. It turned without effort.

He stepped inside and removed his clothes deep in thought, wrapping his brain around what he had just witnessed. Now he had a pretty good idea of what was going on; he had read about it, but never before experienced it first hand, and although it was not the most pleasant thing to experience, he felt relieved all the same. His sanity was no longer the question - his mind could perhaps create voices, but it certainly could not lock doors. The real question was why he had been given a room on this particular floor, and in this particular inn, for that matter. Something told him it was not a coincidence.

Raistlin grabbed the leather bracer from the table and flicked the knife out. He stood there for a moment, looking at it. Then he sheathed the knife and strapped the bracer around his forearm, just to be on the safe side, although he knew that, should trouble arise, steel weapons would not be of any use - not with these creatures.

He lay down on the bed for the third time that night and tried to relax.

He did not know how much time had elapsed when he suddenly stirred awake and immediately sensed another being in the room. He rose half up, ready to release the blade - all was dark and still, but when he looked towards the window, there was a silvery shaft of moonlight which silhouetted an intruder in its beam.

It was a woman, and she was looking at him, just like she had been looking at him through the bathwater the other day - was she the one who had been screaming, trying to claw her way out of her room and away from her angered husband? Raistlin sensed no threat from her: the savage mind that had briefly touched his in the hallway belonged to someone else.

He distinguished nothing clearly, but he had the impression the woman - the girl - had her hand over her throat.

"Hey," Raistlin called out softly.

The moon disappeared behind a cloud.

She was no longer there.

Everything was quiet now.

His heart rate settled.

He slept.

*

He could not tell which one of the three woke him up: the sound, the light or the pain.

The sound came from a fly, buzzing on the window through which the sun already streamed and fell sparkling on Raistlin's face, lighting the dusty room.

The pain, mild but stinging, and not at all unexpected, was in his right wrist. Raistlin got up on his elbow, unbuckled the bracer and saw it had left a set of red marks along his forearm. The joys of sleeping armed. He shook his hand, opening and closing his fist, and soon the tingle went away.

He did not feel particularly refreshed after the nightly events, but nonetheless got up at once and began his preparations like one possessed. Today was the day. He would talk to her, finally, tell her he had dreamt of her, heard her loving prayers. What would actually happen when he saw her, when she knew who had come? Would she be sitting down or standing up? Would there be tears? Touches? Neither? Both? He had to admit he was thrilled, almost to the point of giddiness - and that realization did not come enitrely without a hint of despise towards himself, towards his own eagerness.

He did not want another one of those monstrous headaches - not again, especially not today - so he downed some of the remaining herb powder with water in advance, distantly wondering how long it would take until the withdrawal symptoms would stop, because that was the only explanation he could come up with for those excruciating fits of pain. Yesterday, a day after the Bredells and the wine, the pain had been so vicious that he'd had to close the curtains and spent all morning and afternoon lying still in the bed, knowing that a single move would drive a red-hot spear of agony through his skull. In any case it was not the pain that bothered him the most about it, as hellish as it was; what galled him was the fact that once again his fragile body had betrayed him and forced him to waste one precious day of the limited number of days he had. Five weeks. Those two words flickered in his mind like a lighthouse in a storm, like a final warning. Five weeks. Screw that one up, and you can be sure you'll never get to talk to her again.

Raistlin poured some water from the jug into the clay bowl and washed his face, enjoying the splash of cool water on his skin. Then he attached the knife back to his forearm and dressed himself.

When finished, he checked the result in the swing mirror. Not the picture of health - was he ever? - but at least he no longer looked like he'd come straight from hell. The dark circles under his eyes had somewhat lightened, and the slight tremble had disappeared from his hands. He needed a robe, though, a real mage's robe to feel right as rain again. All in good time, he told himself. She won't know what you're wearing.

He gazed in the mirror for an instant longer, half expecting to see a pale face forming next to his in the glass. "Hello?" he said tentatively to the room, but there was no answer. The nightly creatures were gone, but Raistlin did not think the time of day had anything to do with their absence. After all, he had first heard them - and seen the young woman, too - in plain daylight on his first morning at the inn. Strange: only four days had passed since that moment, and yet it already seemed like ages ago.

He walked over to the window, wondering how long the summer would stand its ground against autumn. It was the first week of Reorxmont, the month which usually brought a break in the summer heat with heavy rain and increasing winds, but as of yet there had been no sign of those, and today did not seem any different. Without much hope, Raistlin opened the window, and sure enough, the air was as still and heavy as before. Even the fly, sitting dully on the windowpane, was stunned out of its senses by the heat. It did not put up much of a fight when Raistlin finished it off with the heel of his boot.

He set the boot back on the floor next to its partner, stepped into them and grabbed the key.

Now he noticed it immediately and marvelled that he had not done so before last night. The hallway outside his room was not just a little on the cool side - it was cold in the way that was not at all summerlike. He went to door number six and looked at it closely, as if expecting it to come alive and spill all the secrets.

After ten seconds of looking he was none the wiser. He tried the knob, knowing before he did that it would not turn.

For a brief moment, he doubted himself. But the chill in the air was tangibly real, as was the memory of the sinister presence that had whispered to him in the dark. And the sound of magic, the bittersweet vibration that had run through the air straight into his yearning soul. He had been meant to hear it, all of it, of that much he was certain. But to what end? Another question altogether.

Raistlin walked slowly to the far end of the hallway, past the rows of dark wooden doors and back again, keeping an eye out for signs of life. As he had expected, there were none. No mud stains on the red runner, no smells of breakfast, no nothing. Just still, lifeless silence.

As he walked towards the staircase, he thought again of the hostile presence he had felt around him. It had been dark and dangerous, downright brutal, but he had not been afraid of it, any more than it had been angered by him standing in its way. Rather than animosity, there had been curiosity, something like the feeling of old acquaintance. Almost as if it had recognised him the way he recognised it, without knowing why.

Raistlin checked the two lower floors on his way down. The difference was clear. Sounds of life echoed from behind the doors: chattering and snoring, even melodious singing, water sloshing, and a baby crying. Here the warmth of the summer sun reached into every corner.

Having seen and heard enough, Raistlin skipped lightly down the rest of the stairs to the lounge, where he found Jarek sitting at the counter, glass in hand. The man lifted his gaze when he heard footsteps coming and quickly put the drink aside, a look of surprise spreading over his florid face. "I say, you look very cheerful this morning, master Flint!" he exclaimed. "Our humble abode please you? Everything to your liking?"

"Yes, everything's peachy, except the couple next to me is quite loud." Raistlin stopped by the counter, drumming his fingers on the wood and inspecting the innkeeper's reactions.

Jarek and Bessie, who was scrubbing the tables at the other end, exchanged a frightened glance.

"What couple?" Jarek voiced then in an innocent tone, looking guilty as hell. He threw a second glance at Bessie, who had stopped working and was now regarding them grimly with a damp rag in her hand.

Clearly, subtlety was not their forte.

"The couple next to me," Raistlin elaborated candidly, feigning ignorance of the wordless messages that were flying between the two. "They argue. Loud."

Jarek only stared at him with a fixed smile, working to find an answer. Finding one, he suddenly stirred to life again. "Oh, them!" he cried theatrically. "Of course! I'll... I'll just have a word with them, as soon as possible." He fell back into silence, peering at Raistlin from under his bushy eyebrows.

"Good. Please do," said Raistlin, his suspicions confirmed. As he turned to leave he caught sight of a dwarf sitting in a corner table, alone, eavesdropping on the conversation. The dwarf had an outrageous black beard and a foaming mug of ale before him, and his bloodshot, watering eyes were gazing at Raistlin with obvious interest, in fact more than just interest: he looked as if he was simply dying to have a word.

Raistlin marched past the dwarf to the door without a further glance. Right now he had more important things to think about than sharing a drink with a short-legged lout.

He stepped outside into the morning air, and was all but dismayed by the relentless heat that washed over him. Any hopes of rain he might have harboured were dashed as he looked up at the sky overhead and saw that it was bright blue, with a few puffy clouds floating by. Letting out a displeased sigh, he pulled his hood deep over his head and ventured into the heat.

The glittering white central avenue was already swarming with people, but as it was the straightest and shortest route to the temple grounds, Raistlin decided to push through. Time was of the essence, and he was almost irrationally afraid of losing even a minute of productivity.

He pressed forward determinedly, pleased to see that people were wise enough to scramble out of his way. He did not pay much heed to his surroundings, focused as he was on the large buildings that loomed in the distance at the end of the street, but halfway through his eyes did happen to fall on a certain sign above a closed and curtained door. It was a wooden sign shaped as a black cauldron, with little stars and bubbles shooting out of it. BOINO'S ANTIQUE HOUSE OF ENCHANTED OBJECTS & CURIOS, the sign read in tall gilt letters.

Raistlin passed under the infantile sign with a contemptuous glance, but then a thought struck him, and he turned on his heels and returned to the mysterious door.

A fear of recognition touched the edges of his consciousness as he walked in, but crumbled away almost immediately: one look around the place, and he knew this bunch of peddlers couldn't tell their arse from their elbow. The Art was just a word to them, something to make money out of, which was apparent from the shop's messy outlook. The wooden floor was rotten from water damage, and there were balls of dust in the corners, not to mention the suspicious-looking patches of green growth on the bare stone wall behind the counter on the right. The dangerously rickety looking shelves lining the walls on the other side - and housing a horde of woodworms, no doubt - were bursting with various odds and ends: trinkets and amulets and rings in all sorts of containers, small weapons, kitchenware, glass balls and pyramids in rainbow colours, you name it. A stick of sorry-looking incense was burning next to the cash register in an apparent attempt to give the premises a fittingly magical feel. Its pungent, cloying fragrance hung in the air, mingled with the stench of mold that oozed from the lower floors. How anyone could live here day after day without getting ill was a mystery to Raistlin.

A little bell had jingled overhead on his arrival. A fat man sitting behind the counter reading a paper jerked his head in lazy greeting. "If you're here for 'you know what'," he said to Raistlin without much enthusiasm, "we're fresh out." After this cryptic announcement, he returned to his paper.

Raistlin looked at the man slowly. "Alright. Good to know."

The epitome of customer service made no comment, so Raistlin began to stroll between the shelves, partly amused and partly amazed that he actually half entertained the idea that this pigsty of a shop might have the thing he was looking for. He noticed as he walked that the rotten and stained floor swayed beneath his feet, ready to give in and crash down into the cellar at any minute. He continued a little more cautiously, surveying the charms and gimmicks with a mixture of amused contempt and genuine outrage at the fact that people who called themselves mages had chosen to cheapen the magic by enchanting all these silly everyday domestic objects for monetary gain.

He was about to leave when his eye suddenly fixed on what he had vaguely hoped but not really expected to see: a colourful glass bowl with a handwritten sign attached to it that read CHARMS OF TRUE SIGHT. Raistlin approached the bowl, both excited and slightly irked - a decade ago charms like these would have been hard to find and very expensive, but now they were offered for sale for anyone interested in a dusty little corner store.
Raistlin picked up a random charm from the bowl - a teardrop shaped purple amulet on a golden chain - and was engrossed in studying it, when a voice spoke to him from behind his shoulder in a slightly foreign accent.

"Hello there."

Raistlin spun around and saw a short, thin man who could have been anything between thirty and fifty years of age - he was so dirty and his face so pockmarked it was hard to tell. The stranger was sporting a shabby brown leather vest and a pair of sandals, which showed his hairy feet and chipped toes, whereas his legs were clad in black breeches with green patches. His spiky black hair shot out from his skull in disarray, and over his left eye he wore a garishly orange eyepatch. The dark brown right eye, however, was looking at Raistlin with sly curiosity, and then flicked to the amulet dangling from Raistlin's hand.

"Interested?" the tradesman said glibly, nodding at the trinket. "Dispels magic, makes you see past illusions. You see, a wizard may cast a spell that makes the world seem sorta crazy. He could, he could double himself, say, or make you believe there's a dragon breathing fire up your ass. The drift is, there ain't. But he can make you think different." The man reached out and balanced the tear-shaped stone on a flat palm, lightly and reverently, as if it was the most precious thing he had ever laid eyes upon. "An interesting gift, a conversation piece! Won't allow them damn wizards to do a number on you that easily."

The sales speech was over. Eyepatch crossed his hairy arms and stood looking at Raistlin expectantly, his visible eye glinting with greed.

Raistlin looked back at him with distaste, without any interest in trading with a man who called mages wizards, had a criminally bad sense of style and clearly not a clue of magic. "I don't know," he said anyway, tamping down his irritation. "I was looking for something a bit more neutral."

"You're in luck," the man replied eagerly, putting the purple amulet back in the bowl and fishing out another one. "Simple enough?" he asked, holding out a plain brass necklace. The man's hand was darkened with dirt, and his fingernails were filthy and overlong.

With a shudder of disgust, Raistlin took the necklace and put it around his neck. "Any mirrors here?"

Eyepatch looked displeased at the question, but nevertheless led Raistlin to a dressing mirror in the back, all the while explaining that the value of these amulets did not lie in their looks, but their magical capacities.

Ignoring the upset tradesman, Raistlin stepped in front of the mirror and looked in it for a long time without speaking. He did not have any expectations, not really, and was infinitely surprised to find he had severely underestimated the trinket's powers. He blinked a few times, hardly able to believe what his eyes told him. He lowered his gaze and looked back up again several times. He waited some more, but in his heart he knew it worked: if it was going to happen, it would have happened by now.

His lips curled up into a thin little smile. Up yours, Par-Salian, he thought with mirth, leaning closer to the mirror's silvery surface. The hourglasses remained, of course, as did the curse - that could only be removed by a very complex spell. But the curse created an illusion, and that illusion was now undone: time moved at a normal pace.

Raistlin turned towards the tradesman, who had been looking at him slightly worried all the time, and said, "I'll take it."

He followed Eyepatch to the counter, where the other man was still sitting, the edge of his beloved paper almost close enough to the smouldering incense to catch fire. "Give the guy a discount," the reading man said, without looking up from the tabloid. "Can't remember the last time a customer behaved civilly, gods curse it."

Eyepatch shrugged. "Whatever you say, Boino. We've had mild trouble with 'you know what'," he explained to Raistlin, almost apologetically, while scribbling something on a scroll he had extracted from the drawer under the counter. "Been a bit too popular with blackrobes."

Raistlin was not interested in their troubles with blackrobes. He was looking to his left at a rosewood cabinet with glass doors and a red velvet lining, which housed a collection - six pieces in all - of UNIQUE ITEMS NOT FOR SALE. Raistlin looked over the items in a distracted way, but all of a sudden his eye caught something of interest: sitting on the middle shelf was a pair of thick round glasses with poison green arms. In front of this curious item was a little piece of parchment, which bore the legend "Magical Glasses of True Seeing." Could it be? Raistlin looked more closely. Yes. It had been six years, but the image of Tasslehoff Burrfoot with those too large glasses perched on his tiny nose was something you did not easily forget.

"Where did you get the pair of glasses in the cabinet?" Raistlin asked the tradesman while handing him the coins - the full price, despite of what the man called Boino had said.

"A long story," Eyepatch replied evasively, but his tone suggested that he actually wanted to share it. He was dropping the coins one by one into the cash register; his eyebrows rose as he counted them, but he said nothing, the greedy old swindler.

Raistlin shot the man a smile. "Humour me."

Eyepatch, fooled by his customer's winning smile, not seeing that it stopped short of his eyes, leaned his elbows on the counter and craned his neck for a better view. "That pair of glasses right there," he said musingly, pointing a finger at the cabinet, "belonged to one of the great - if not the greatest - wizards of our times, if you must know." He fell silent and looked steadily at Raistlin, silently challenging him to inquire further.

"Yeah? And who might that be?" Raistlin asked innocently. He dreaded the answer - and yet he was extremely interested in hearing it.

Eyepatch sniffed expertly. "Majere. Baistlin Majere. A bloke from the little country town of Solace far, far from here. A dismal little town at the back of beyond, but this guy, this Majere, was no hillbilly, I can tell you that. A blackrobe, he was. A big shot. The greatest wizard ever."

"Oh, yes," said Raistlin pensively. "I think I've heard of him. But I do believe the name is Raistlin, my good man. With an R."

"Nah, don't think so," Eyepatch said at once, shaking his mangy head. "I mean I'd know."

Raistlin shrugged and gave another meaningless smile. "Yeah. You're probably right. After all, you're the expert here, not me."

The tradesman beamed with pleasure. "Anyways," he said in a remarkably friendly tone, once he was recovered from the compliment, "the glasses come from him. Majere."

"And you know this for a fact, because...?"

"Hey, no need to get critical!" Eyepatch retorted sharply, all joviality gone from his voice. "I know it for a fact," he said more calmly then, "because the seller convinced me."

"The seller convinced you. Was this seller a kender, by any chance?"

The man's right eye narrowed suspiciously. "How did you know?"

"Just a hunch. I suppose he also claimed to know this great wizard personally."

"Indeed he did!" Eyepatch punched his left palm lightly with his right fist, thoroughly excited all of a sudden. "Said they were the best of friends, so close you couldn't get a goblin's tooth between them."

Raistlin rolled his eyes inwardly. It was Tasslehoff, alright. "Best of friends?" he repeated in an incredulous tone. "You wouldn't think a blackrobed mage and a kender had much in common."

"Hey, I'm just telling you what the little guy told me!" Eyepatch shouted, sounding offended again, as he handed the quill and the scroll he had been writing on over the counter to Raistlin. "If you would be so kind as to sign here. Just for our records, you know."

Raistlin took the scroll, but he was not willing to let the matter drop just yet. "I'm curious," he said, looking up from the scroll at Eyepatch, "what did this Majere do that made him so great?"

Eyepatch started back in disgust. "Sheesh! Were you born yesterday? 'What did he do', he asks me!" His tone was oozing with self-important contempt at the ignorant question he had just heard, but he really wanted to tell, so he crossed his arms on the counter again and dropped his voice to the low murmur of confidentiality. "This wizard, this Baistlin Majere from Solace, did insane stuff. You know, wet dream stuff that all those little wannabe wizards in their pretty little skirts can only dream about. Spells and... everything. Real magic, that's what we're talking about. Magic you could never dispel with that necklace of yours, not in a million years. As good a necklace as it is," he added quickly, and topped his words with a flashy smile, which exposed a golden canine.

"You paint a vivid picture," Raistlin said dryly, but somewhat amused, signing his name on the line next to his purchase. Wet dream stuff? Well, that was one way to put it.

"A true one, I swear," Eyepatch nodded solemnly, taking back the scroll and returning it in the drawer without a glance. Then a mildly puzzled expression rose to his weasel face, and he was silent a moment, as if trying to decide between two equally disastrous options. "There's something else, too, you know," he said at length, in an even more quiet and confidential tone than before.

"Yes?" Raistlin encouraged, as the man did not seem to be able to spit it out on his own.

The tradesman laced his fingers on the counter and heaved a sigh. "Well. The same kender who sold me the glasses told me that this wizard Majere had planned..." He swallowed loudly and ran his foul paw through his greasy hair.

"Yes?"

"Well, that he had actually planned to become god. Yeah, I know," Eyepatch said quickly, seeing Raistlin's expression, "I find that sort of thing hard to believe as well."

Raistlin stared at the man in silence. "Why?" he asked then.

"Why what?"

"Why do you find it so hard to believe? You said yourself he was the most powerful mage of them all." Raistlin was smiling still, but a hint of irritation had crept into his voice.

"Well, yes, but do you honestly think a man, a mortal human being, could become god just like that?"

"Not 'just like that', obviously," said Raistlin with a humourless laugh. "It requires a lot of work, a lot of planning, a lot of talent..." He trailed off and added, as if in an afterthought, "I imagine."

"Okay, okay," Eyepatch admitted conciliatingly. "Maybe he did have enough skill and resources to pull that sort of thing off. But that's not the point. The point is, why would he do it? Only one answer I can come up with."

"Do tell." Raistlin kept on looking at the man with a rigid smile.

"Well, isn't it obvious? The guy had something seriously wrong in the attic." Eyepatch tapped his temple. "Big time. Right, Boino?"

"Right," said Boino, without looking up from his paper.

Raistlin's gaze hardened and went from Eyepatch to Boino and back to Eyepatch again.

"Anyway, if it's true," Eyepatch continued, without perceiving the change in his customer, "I'm glad it never got out in the open. All sorts of sick copycats out there." He shook his head critically. "Looney see, looney do - right, Boino? You go tell a nutcase that a man wanted to be god, and the next thing you know he's trying it hisself." He sat down on the high stool next to Boino, his scarred face breaking into a smile. "Kender tales, that's what it is, though," he concluded. "I wouldn't trust that bunch."

"Except when it comes to the origins of the goods," Raistlin said caustically. "Right, Boino?"

For the first time during Raistlin's visit, Boino looked up from his reading, an amazed expression playing across his features, but said nothing.

Eyepatch was just as wordless. He was glaring at Raistlin with his one eye, seemingly having lost all interest in serving him.

Without wasting any more breath on the two, Raistlin turned and took his leave, slamming the door with unnecessary force on his way out. The bell above the door jingled frenziedly, ending in a hollow crashing sound. Good. He hoped he had broken it.

After the fumes of the shop, the heavy air outside felt like homecoming, but Raistlin hardly even noticed the difference. His mind was elsewhere, still in that shop and on those two idiots running it, the pathetic fools who seemed to think that what he had done was some kind of joke.

He breathed in deep, telling himself to keep his cool. Two ignorant hucksters - what did they know? He had gone high, higher than any mortal man before him, succeeding where Fistandantilus had failed. It was only natural that such a stellar performance was met with doubt and disbelief by lower beings.

There was no point in dwelling on it any longer. The dump store had provided him with what he had needed - that was what mattered now. Raistlin adjusted his new necklace, hiding it completely under his collar. Then he simply stood there in the street corner for a moment, taking in the view of the street, half expecting for the trinket to have lost its dispelling abilities. But the amulet worked just as miraculously as it had in the store. The buildings around him did not crumble before his eyes. The children walking by remained as they were - children, not wrinkly midgets out of a madman's delirium.

It was over. The living nightmare was over.

For ten years his world had seemed sorta crazy, and he had accepted it. Ten years of death and decay, of finding solid beauty only in pictures. He knew that with his power and influence he could have got himself an amulet like this years sooner, easily even, but he had never bothered to look for one, let alone prepare one himself. The world was dead to him back then. Today, it was everything he had.

He started towards the temple grounds again, taking one final glance at the antique store behind him. As much as the place and its staff irked him, he could not prevent a mean little smile from coming to his lips. Maybe one day Eyepatch would go through the scroll - his unique item number seven - for calculations and take a closer look at his customers' names.

Raistlin's signature was not the most readable, but at least he had written it with a B.
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Evermore: The Gathering