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A Book of Roses - Book 2	By : Moongirl Category: A through F > Dragonlance Views: 3932 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the book(s) that this fanfiction is written for, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 6
- 7
Chapter 7 – The Magic In Her Hands

Quite some time has passed.
The seasons blended together smoothly, and winter was upon them again. Even if it was a snowstorm raging outside or just a cloud-covered day, Shareene loved to watch the weather outside her window. Mostly, she spent her time in her workroom, trying to avoid the dark elf that has now taken precedence in her husband’s life. She disliked this, as she couldn’t spend quiet time with just the two of them, as she liked to. Now his time was devoted to training this intruder and maintaining his studies. There was not much time or energy left at the end of the day to spend with her.
Despite the new arrival, Raistlin did try to keep her foremost in his life. He took her into their studies so as not to arouse suspicion in Dalamar. His original plan was to keep Shareene hidden so that she wouldn’t be harmed. But then he knew something would slip – a voice in the hall, someone moving from one room to the next, worse would be if he was actually listening in to his private rooms and heard “something” going on – so it would be best if she was out in the open. At least then, if the elf applied his greater than normal hearing to his door, he would have a reason to cut his pointed ears off.
There were times where he made the two of them study and practice in the same room. Though he knew Shareene didn’t have the ability to actually pull a simple spell off, he would send the ability through the charm about her neck, giving the illusion that he allowed her to cast. Raistlin wanted it known that he controlled everyone’s magic in this tower, regardless of their stature there. He believed that it was enough for Dalamar to see that she could do something if he wanted it, and there should be no question for why she was there.
But at the end of every day, Shareene would be there in their rooms to tend him, and Raistlin would be too tired to even realize she was caring for him. Many times did he wake up the next morning and find himself in yesterday’s robes, his boots and belt removed with the staff resting on the wall beside him – and alone in an empty room. Her spot was usually cold as she already got up earlier than him. These were the times he regretted some decisions, and especially hated the elf for his very existence. He wanted to be intimate with his wife, letting their moments together ease his mind, and ended up falling asleep before he even touched the dinner she made for him. He became disgusted with his weakness, how fate seemed to keep knocking him away from what little happiness he could find, and the hate for Dalamar would grow again. Angry, Raistlin would get himself ready for the day, half-heartedly nibble on the bread and cheese she prepared for him, and then face the day ready to beat the pride out of the elf if he even dared try to show it.
But Dalamar was too smart to do such a thing. He didn’t want to jeopardize his lofty position in the wizardly world. The dark elf’s rise to power was hard, but he had achieved a position that others would give their souls for - to study and learn from the greatest mage of their time. It was a great honor, even if it meant that he was to spy for the Conclave to get it. He didn’t care, he could feed them kender tales for all they knew and they would keep him on the job as long as he gave them some news. He did everything he could to please his Shalafi, thought it seemed that he could do nothing right for him. He would give his high praise to the woman he so coveted, and then turn a wicked eye at him and make him do something harder. If he failed, the Shalafi would chastise him and make him do it again till he got it right. But Dalamar didn’t care. Being a servant for most of his life in the city of Silvanost taught him to take such lashings without complaint. Though there were a few times it hit a raw nerve and made him want to retaliate, he kept his calm and muddled through until he seemed to satisfy him.
There were the odd chances Dalamar took to try and talk to the woman, find out who she was and why she was there, when he was told he would be the only apprentice there. She ignored him or cast the same wicked look he was used to seeing on his Shalafi, making him stifle the next question. If the Shalafi saw what he was trying to do, more reprimands and scathing accusations were hurled at him, then sent to one of the rooms that still needed repair to do just that. The accusations were what gave Dalamar pause when he tried to fix a shelf without the stronger means of magic. They seemed to hint that he was talking to the Shalafi’s property and that he should look for his “pleasure” someplace else. It made him think that there was more to their relationship than just master and student. The dark elf decided that he would keep listening for clues and signs before saying anything to the Conclave about her presence there.
With life as it was in the tower, all three shared the same thoughts. If it weren’t for him or her there, this life would be perfect. Raistlin and Shareene wanted Dalamar and and Dalamar wanted Shareene gone. But none of them would get their wish, so they had to deal with what fate handed to them.
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It was an exceptionally cold winter before Yule. The windows were constantly frozen over and piled with snow, blocking the view outside. A simple warming spell could change that, but Raistlin didn’t have the energy. He spent so much of his magic on controlling Dalamar’s powers and giving Shareene the illusion of the gift that he was spent most of the time. At least her spells were not a constant thing; the elf’s was. Getting fed up with his weakness, he locked himself away in his private laboratory to find the means of making his magical strength better and longer lasting. With all he was learning, he needed to build up his resistance and will. There had to be some answer contained in the midnight blue books that surrounded him.
Many nights of reading passed till Raistlin came upon an interesting passage in what seemed to be a magical diary. Bringing the candle closer so he could read with his blurring eyes, he took in every word with rapt interest.
“I have found the means to use the magickal energies of others for my own use…almost by accident. It seems that in using this one particular stone, I was able to draw out the energy…andetimetimes the very soul…of some mage I deem worthy enough to be useful to me. It depends on how strong I use it. If I feel the need of a little boost, I can take one of my promising students, suck their magic dry, and with a small memory spell make them forget that they even had the ability and send them on their way. If I feel they are a threat to me, I can drain their magic so hard that the stone literally steals their soul…leaving them for dead…which I do.
“ ‘I am rather sorry for you loss, madam. But it seems your child wasn’t as gifted as we all thought he was. There are certain risks to taking the black robes…Nuitari is not a forgiving god.’ It seems to be the common note I leave with the remains as I let my servants take it back to their families. Must crush their fragile hearts to hear that they chose such an evil path and then let it consume them…how I relish that thought.
“There’s something to be said for one’s accidents. Her Dark Majesty must delight in our failures in her sons’ service, and then curse when we find out one of her secrets…as I have just done. It makes me….”
Raistlin flipped through the pages, trying to find out what the stone was. All he could find was more gloating and self-praise for his discovery, making his frustration grow. He nearly picked up the book to hurl it across the room when a familiar shadow appeared in his way.
“And this is the gratitude shown to my work when I give you the answers you seek,” it mocked him in a deathly tone. “Put my book down and gain some self control!”
Immediately fearful and startled, Raistlin put the book down gently on the table. Pausing for a moment so that his voice reflected only respect did he speak to him. “You have given me a valuable clue, but that is all. There is no mention as to which stone holds this property.”
The shadow seemed to smirk at him. “How much more knowledge must I lay at your feet before you begin to learn to use your own mind?”
His thin fingers claw at the desk as he tried to rein in his anger. It always knew how to belittle him. “I do not need to be told everything like a schoolchild,” he whispered through clenched teeth. “I need more ideas of what is needed, and then I can work from there.”
The shadow seemed to take this answer into consideration. “Then peruse this book,” it instructed, letting the sigils light up faintly on the binding. “And if I should find you abusing my handiwork again, the punishment will be most severend Ind I might not inflict it on you.” With that warning, it faded back into nothingness.
Raistlin’s eyes went wide, his jaw hurting as his teeth clenched at the thought the lich just threatened the most precious thing he owned. He knew that was no threat, but a promise. Forcing himself to breathe again, he willed his hands to let go of the table’s edge and reach for the book indicated. He nearly dropped it, as his fingers were cold at the thought of his punishment brought upon Shareene. Placing it on the table, he leaned back in his chair and paused to meditate. Once he felt calm again, he opened the book and began to read again.
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Shareene was toying with a broach she wanted to give as a Yule gift to her husband. She had been working on it for a few months now, finding just the right jewels to imprint the old wizardry symbol into the gold. She tried using the pendant he gave her to infuse some of herself into the broach, so he could carry a piece of her around regardless of where he was, but she wasn’t sure if she was doing it right.
As soon as she heard someone approach her door, she quickly hid ttem tem and pretended to be interested in a ring she happened upon. Looking up, she smiled as she guessed correctly who it was. Dropping the ring, she got up from her table and walked over to him. She threw her arms around his waist and reached up to kiss him lightly. He seemed a little preoccupied in his response and she withdrew quickly. Raistlin frowned inwardly, but didn’t let it show.
“I haven’t seen you awake in such a long time, forgive me,” she whispered.
He shook his head. “No, I should be asking for forgiveness.” Before he could continue, she laid a finger on his lips, stilling him as she looked at him. He could read it from her eyes that she understood and there was no need for words. Sometimes they would never need to speak as one look spoke everything between them. Raistlin blinked in understanding, then kissed her finger. “I must ask you to work on something for me,” he started again as she resumed holding him. “I need this rather quickly, so if you could hold your other projects for the moment I would appreciate it.”
Shareene tilted her head a little. “What is it?”
Disengaging her arms, he reached for a pouch on his belt. He took it off and laid it in her hands. “There is a stone in here that needs to be mounted onto a necklace. It should help me in not being so fatigued every day. I’ve already charged this, so do be careful in handling it.”
The pouch was heavy in her hands, and for some reason she thought there was something alive in it, like it had a pulse – it’s own heartbeat. “I’ve never felt anything like this,” Shareene whispered, staring at the bag. “I could swear…I could swear it’s alive in here. What is it supposed to do?”
“It will help me keep control on the elf, while retaining my own magic so I don’t tire as easily. Then I can keep on with my studies, and still be awake enough to spend time with you,” he said as he touched his fingertips to her chin and angled her face up to his. “This is why it has become a priority. I don’t want you to feel that I have abandoned you, or that I must be a physical burden to you.”
She looked into his eyes, and felt a little alarmed that his eyes held no emotion. He had walled off his thoughts to her, immediately making her feel that he was hiding something. “No, Raistlin, I never thought of you as a burden.” She was only telling partially what she felt. Her husband was not the burden, the dark elf was. He cut into their time and his energy. Now he had to rely on a magical device in order to live out a normal day – a device that didn’t feel quite right to her. “Though I would welcome the chance to have you back to normal again.” She started to wonder if this was the right choice to make or not, but she always did as he asked her, no questions asked.
“Remember that I do this for us,” he whispered to her delicately, as if his words were trying to keep her stray thoughts in check. “Please, make it as fast as you can.” Seeing her under his words of control, he kissed her forehead and started to back away. “I will hopefully see you tonight, and you do not have to make anything elaborate for me for dinner. Being with you will be enough for me.” With that he left her alone in her workroom.
Shareene blinked rapidly as if waking up, frowning that he wasn’t still with her but understood that he had other things to attend to. Going back to her table she sighed, as she had to make her gift wait. She gently scooped up the gold and gems and placed them back into her pouch, sealing them away from damage.
Replacing the velvet on the table, she opened the pouch Raistlin gave her and let the contents fall out upon it. She gasped as she saw the unlovely stone before her. There was nothing attractive about it. The stone was a deep red that reminded her of a pool of blood, and just as dulled as if it was starting to congeal. It didn’t reflect the candlelight, but seemed to draw all light of the room and devour it within. She turned it around with one of her styling tools, seeing if it would reflect any light on any surface. It remained dull on the dark velvet. Setting the tool down, she tried to will herself to touch it. There was something about it that made her feel revulsion at the very thought of handling it, but she would have to eventually. Cautiously, her fingers finally touched it.
It was cold; colder than a stone should be when it hadn’t been held. She held it up to her eyes, examining the inside of it. Nothing marred the inside, no imperfections at all. It started to pulse again in her touch, small pinpricks of energy danced on her fingertips. She was used to feeling some energy in different stones and gems, but nothing like this.
Still wondering what the properties were, Shareene placed it back on the velvet before she went to her shelves. She had gathered a small collection of gemstone books when Raistlin retrieved his own books. Poking through each one, she tried to match up the description to the stone she had on her table. In the last book she found a small description. “A bloodstone; normally used in the ing ing of others by absorbing the ‘illness’ within itself.”
She shut the book and went back to her table, feeling a little more comfortable about it. She set work to it right away.
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In a few days, Shareene presented him with the pouch back, saying the work was completed. She mentioned about some difficulties she had with setting the stone in place. How it seemed to have a mind of its own, leaping from her hand if it didn’t feel like being worked with. She also recounted how it had the tendency to zap her with its internal energy, or sometimeavieaving her feeling drained after wrestling with it. Raistlin kissed her on the forehead and bade her to go to bed, stating that he would be back in an hour or so.
He went back to his laboratory, sealing the door and rushing his way back to the desk. Once he sat down, he emptied the contents onto its surface. Raistlin smiled as he noted her skill in jewelry crafting never dulled. The bloodstone was beautifully mounted in gold wire and strung gracefully along the chain. He picked the necklace up gently, watching the stone spin slightly in the dim firelight. Touching it, he could feel part of Shareene’s essence within, feeling her love and care and hope that this piece would restore him again. With a crooked smile, he slipped the chain over his head, letting the stone thump against his chest, and waited for any sign that it would work.
Nothing happened. Realizing that he needed to direct his focus on something in order to wake it up, Raistlin closed his eyes and searched for his apprentice with his mind. Easily, he found Dalamar, fast asleep in his chambers. He found this a good sign, as the dark elf would never even feel the change in spells around him.
Now, he had to find the aura of his magic. Releasing the old spell that bound Dalamar’s magic, Raistlin could now see it shimmering within and without the elf’s body. All he had to do now was will the stone to trap it within him, making it difficult for the elf to access it. He nearly went ahead with the order until another thought struck him. Instead of capping it all, Raistlin siphoned a little into the stone, and then walled the rest away.
The stone started to feel warm, even through the heavy material of his robes. Raistlin opened his eyes and looked down at it. It almost seemed to be glowing faintly from inside, but wasn’t sure of its source. He took the stone in his fingers again and held it up. The light within resembled the aura he had seen around his apprentice. Satisfied that this is his answer to his fatigue, Raistlin grinned as he let the stone slip into his palm so he could access the energy inside.
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True to his word, Raistlin returned to his chambers and entered the bedroom softly. Shareene was asleep, fatigued from working hard at the pendant. He quietly walked over to their bed and sat down gently beside her, never waking her up. Holding the stone in one hand, he rested the other over her heart and let some of the magic revive her.
Shareene was dead asleep as she nearly passed out before reaching the bed. In the darkness of her sleep did she faintly feel someone touching her, and warmth spreading slowly inside, like a hot liquid. The warmth ended from the source, but her body tingled with an unknown energy, almost similar to when she used the charm about her neck to cast but stronger. She felt like her skin was glowing in golden light, shimmering as it danced beneath the surface, warming her in places that made her breath quicken.
She opened her eyes, noticing that he was slipping something inside his robes, thinking she didn’t see. Shareene wondered why bother when those robes were not going to be on him much longer. She felt fully awake now, and seeing the glint of mischief in his eyes made her want him. Her hands fumbled at her belt as she let it loose, and wast abt about to pull her own robes off when he grabbed it by the shoulders and in a quick motion had it off her. He quickly dashed off his own clothing and just as fast had both of them under the heavy blankets.
His kisses were hard, demanding, starved for attention. She tried to remember when was the last time they were intimate with each other, and gave up when she realized just how long it was. Her frustration came out in a rush, meeting his demand with her own. Her hands gripping his hair, and then let them claw down his back as she reveled in what she missed for so long. He growled against her lips, his own hands gripping her so hard he left bruises. So mindless was he that Raistlin felt that he couldn’t wait any longer and entered her swiftly, smiling wickedly as he heard her yelp in surprise but not in anger. She wrapped herself around him, holding onto him for dear life as he took her rapidly. To his disappointment, he finished just as quickly, but the initial demand was satisfied.
Once his mind started to clear, he realized he didn’t feel her release. Remaining inside, he reached down to coax the right spots into relieving her. She came as quickly as he did, gasping his name as she arched into his hand. As she relaxed, he pulled out and took her into his arms like a doll. Shareene curled up against him, a little upset that it was so fast, but knew that now the initial stress was over they could resume a more normal pace. With that thought, she drifted off again, held securely in her husband’s arms.
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Shareene slowly woke up, wishing to fall asleep again now that her thoughts were put to ease by Raistlin’s recovery. Still, she ended up blinking her eyes to wipe the fog from her vision, stirring only enough to see what time it was.
It was still the dead of night. The moons were past their window now. Guessing she only had a nap, she turned her head back to rest it on his outstretched arm, one hand resting against his chest. She could see the chain dripping down from his neck, the stone resting on the mattress below. There was a glow inside of it, faint but still visible. She loathed being near it – let alone touching it – even though she knew it was for his health. But there was something she deemed unholy about it.
As she got a better look at Raistlin as he slept, she could see how much the extra burden of the Conclave spy was taking a toll on him. His face was peaceful, his lips slightly open as he breathed through them, but there was no mistaking the dark circles under his eyes. The coloring of his skin only made it look worse than it was. His hair was not as soft as it was when they met, and looked as tired as the rest of him did. Her hands felt along his sides, noticing that he was much thinner than what she remembered. He obviously hadn’t been eating or drinking much as he wrapped himself up so much in his work that every day necessities were tossed to the side. The muscle was not as ineninent anymore. Either he was starving himself, or the magic was doing it for him.
Shareene was concerned, but also determined that he wouldn’t let himself go so badly after this. There was no excuse now as he had this stone to do most of his work of controlling the dark elf. She vowed to keep a closer eye on him to make sure he didn’t let himself get this bad again. She almost scolded herself for not seeing it sooner, but let the thought go. He wouldn’t have listened to her before, maybe now he would once he was feeling better.
She placed a soft kiss on his neck as she curled up against him again. Her shifting woke him up slightly, enough that he brought his arms around her once more, holding her tightly into place. With a sigh, he slowly opened his eyes, staring at the wall across the room. Raistlin felt a little more awake but still very tired. It might take him a while to get used to the borrowing of power, had to learn how to tap into it whenever he needed it, but it was a decent enough fix for now. “Are you awake?” he whispered.
She sighed. “A little,” Shareene responded.
He let one of his hands slide down her back, letting it rest again near her hip. “I didn’t hurt you too much, did I?”
She smiled in the dark. “I’m only hurt from the lack of activity, that’s all. It’ll pass.”
Raistlin almost took that as a hit for his inattentiveness. “I hope my dear apprentice was fatigued enough not to hear us.”
“Enough to wake up the undead?” she joked.
“Almost,” he responded, missing her attempt. Resting his chin on her head, he let his eyes close again, taking in the scent of her hair. “Not that I mind, of course. I just miss it.”
Shareene kissed his neck, letting it trail down a shoulder. “I would gladly keep reminding you.” She gently pulled his face near hers, tucking her face into his hair as she breathed slowly into his ear. His fingers gripped her as the skin on his arms prickled at the sensation. She did it again, this time with the tip of her tongue tracing a pattern just below his ear. He growled slightly, wanting to take control but decide to let her set the pace. She seemed pleased as she gently pushed him onto his back and lay across him, kissing him slowly and letting her lips explore sensitive areas around his neck and shoulders.
Then, something seemed to change about her movts. ts. Raistlin’s eyes opened as he noticed a change in her touch, her sounds, and the very aura of her. Her hands seemed to be warmer, charged as if she had held the gift of the moons inside of her. Her touches changed from gentle to demanding, her body almost a weight on him instead of the light feather he always felt her as. He couldn’t understand fully as the power that seeped from her palms awoke more than just his physical self. It almost seemed to call to the maghat hat ran inside him, intensifying both the emotional and physical aspect of her foreplay. He tried to will his concentration back into focus, but the more she touched him, the more he lost control.
Shareene was lost in this new feeling, a small part of her marveling at the apparent magic inside of her she never knew about. Most of her didn’t care, her mind appreciating the fact that for once, she was in control of Raistlin. Something snapped inside Shareene’s mind, fueling the power she could almost see in her hands - even with her eyes closed – to link with his own power, draw it in, and pushed it back inside of him, making their contact that more intimate. She could almost taste the power she drew from him, intoxicating her, and she wanted more. She didn’t even notice that Raistlin stopped touching her back, his hands locked on her upper arms as she pulled away for a moment to look down on him.
She smiled a crooked grin as she saw the shock on his face, his lips hanging open as if to say something but couldn’t as breathing took precedence. Her hands gripped his sides, she knew she got him to react the way she wanted him to, and malevolency fogged over her eyes. Shareene reveled in the fact that she was in control of the most powerful mage of this land, not knowing why she felt this way.
Raistlin saw momentary look of control in her eyes, watching the color change to a deep green. He recovered enough to speak. “Do you even know what you are doing?”
“Does it matter?” she asked, her voice heavy and dark. She took a pointed look at his obvious arousal and then looked back into his eyes. “It seems that you have no objections.”
“This isn’t like you, Shareene. Snap out of it.” His words had no effect as the hardness never left her stare. He closed his eyes, concentrating on putting his control into his voice, magically charging it. “Shareene, you do not know what you are playing with. Calm yourself, and then finish what you started.”
This seemed to wake her up, but only a little. She nodded, then shifted so that her hips were above his. Raistlin then allowed his own magic to awaken – without her taking it against his will – and extended his hands towards hers. She linked her fingers between his, her eyes widening as the exchange of power flowed freely between them. Shareene’s legs bent under his will, dropping her down onto him till he was inside and she straddled him. Her eyes closed at the second connection, a long moan escaping her as they were joined body and soul. She could feel in her mind that he now controlled the actions, even with her in the dominant position. He bade her to move, riding him as she wanted to without rushing her, but he held the flow of magic in check, not letting her siphon off what she wanted and then slamming the rest back into him. Once he was sure Shareene could not lose magical control did he allow himself to let the passion take him over.
Being linked with Raistlin, she could almost feel everything he was feeling, which shocked her and yet excited her more. The constant coursing of power – golden and silver at the same time – heightened the experience as she never thought possible. Shareene moved on him harder, faster, noting the more she raised his pleasure the flow of their magic between them increased. Her legs seemed to tire, but she kept up her pace till it would seem she couldn’t move anymore.
He knew she wouldn’t last, feeling her movements falter and he was so close. Without breaking the connection, he controlled both of them till he was now in the dominant position, she lying beneath him with her legs shaking against his sides. Now he didn’t need to keep a hold of her hands as his arms snaked under her shoulders, pinning her tightly against him as he drove into her. She was now screaming, her fingers raking long gashes into his back as the sensations, both physical and magical, were ready to consume her mind. Raistlin wondered momentarily if Dalamar was deep enough in sleep to not hear her, and then Shareen growled in response, “Damn the elf and what he thinks!”
Driven by her words, he clamped his mouth on hers, his tongue invading her, making them joined three ways. She arched sharply into him, screaming into his mind and his mouth as the final connection drove her over the edge. One final thrust, and he joined her in a deep growl as he spent himself into her. Raistlin wanted to pass out, seeing the darkness creep over his vision, but had to let the magical connection slowly stop. If it came to an abrupt halt, it would be too much of a shock for her to handle. Slowly and carefully, the flow of power eased with the slowing of their hearts, till it faded into a distant memory. Only then did he stop the flow and broke the connection, slid out of her and collapsed to his side of the bed.
He wanted to know why Shareene was able to do that, when she didn’t have the skill before, but before he could form a thought he had passed out.
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Raistlin slowly woke up the next day, the sun managed to beam through the frosted window and shown on his face. One hand reached out to where Shareene should be laying, and found her spot cold and empty again. He was almost upset over the fact that she didn’t wait for him to wake up. Yawning, he slowly got out of bed and threw on a pair of robes to keep the chill away. He hoped for a hot bath since his legs and back hurt from the exertion last night, almost forgetting what happened between them.
He found Shareene setting the last of the plates on their table, humming softly to herself. It sounded familiar to him, a song from their childhood, but couldn’t remember the words. All he could remember was that she usually sang along with it, and he would listen, enraptured of her voice. There was no one in Solace that could sing like she could. She watched him enter the room and she smiled brightly at him, another sight he missed all this time. He tried to return it, felt his mouth twist up in the normal smirk he only knew how to give, but she always knew that it was a smile to her. “Come, love,” she spoke playfully, “your bath awaits you in the corner.”
Raistlin walked behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, noting her hair was a little damp. “And you dared to take one before me?” he whispered in a mock threatening tone. “That will not do.” A few whispered words, and he picked her up off her feet and carried her over to the large tub with her laughing and demanding to be put down. A few more words and both their robes were lying to the side as he carefully dropped her in. She was wiping the water out of her eyes, laughing madly as he stepped in and sat down across from her.
She made a disgusted sound as she playfully splashed water at him. “You are too demanding!” she scolded him. “Always has to be your way, doesn’t it?”
He smirked as he leaned into her, balancing himself on all fours. “Yes, always my way.” Shareene laughed lightly, but there was something else to how he said that made her breath catch. She had a vague memory of the night’s events, but they were so foggy she didn’t know how it pertained to what he just said. Instead of wondering, she reached up to cup his face in her hands and kissed him gently on the lips.
For a moment, Raistlin wanted to back away from the touch of her hands, but couldn’t explain why. He kissed her back but it was so hesitantly that both of them were left confused. Instead of looking into each other’s eyes, they looked away to opposite sides of the room, like children caught in the act of mischief. Both were left wondering what the other did to behave like this.
Heaving a sigh, Raistlin slid back to his side of the tub, sitting as sullenly as he did the first time he bathed with her. Staring into the water, he could see her legs clearly as they lay to his side, watched as the water turned stagnant and clouded, the wood of the tub slowly eaten away by time’s effects, and her legs never aging. The more he stared, everything around her eroded away, but she remained as she was. He almost started to will the sight of change on her, but it never happened.
He closed his eyes, taking in another sigh. “I’m sorry,” he started. “You go take care of what needs to be done, and I’ll be done in a moment.”
He never felt the water move, as she never left his side. He looked back up at her, and in her eyes was the caring, loving Shareene he had always known, a faint smile on her lips. “There’s nothing to forgive. You did nothing wrong,” she started, and then hesitated as the memories of the night were too vague for her to remember. She had no clear explanation to why they were acting so awkward to each other. As children, Raistlin was always embarrassed and reserved to her antics. She only felt moments of awkwardness when she wanted to blurt out everything she felt towards him, never afterwards. Something happened last night to shake both of them, but she couldn’t remember what.
She reached out her arms to him, gesturing to him to come closer to her. He hesitated for a moment, and then resigned his will to hers. She guided him to sit with his back towards her, her arms wrapping around his chest, her face in his hair, her breath in his ear. Raistlin closed his eyes, absorbing her love of him, and not feeling compelled to return it. A part of him felt horrible that he didn’t feel the same way at the moment, but he didn’t care and couldn’t explain why.
Shareene felt him lay in her arms, either with no movement or feeling him go rigid as if he wanted to break her hold on him. One of her hands strayed, her fingers making brief contact with the pendant she had to make for him, and immediately her hand backed away from it. She wanted to blame his change of behavior on the stone, but in her heart she knew that he was changing before that. Her thoughts immediately turned to the dark elf, inwardly cursing him to the deepest parts of the Abyss for what he was doing to them.
After a moment, Shareene let her arms drop and she started to leave the tub. Raistlin said nothing, just sat for a moment where she left him and listened as her footsteps walked away from him. He didn’t even look up at her as he normally did to appreciate the view of her walking without a stitch of clothing on. “What is happening to us?” he thought to himself as he reached for the soap.
Shareene wondered the same thing as she went back into their bedroom to dry and put on another black robe. There was never this kind of distance or silence between them. She knew the difference between the silent communication they normally shared, and the silence of growing distance that they now employed. Curiously, she looked into the vanity mirror she rescued from an abandoned room. Looking her face over, she could see no outward change in her appearance. But there was something about her that she didn’t recognize, and wondered if it was pushing Raistlin away.
In anger and frustration, she slammed the mirror down onto the table and bit her lip, demanding of herself not to cry. She knew in her heart she was losing her beloved Raistlin, but to what – or whom – she didn’t know, and it frightened her.
Hearing him step out of the tub in the other room, she quickly wiped the tears from her eyes and took a few deep breaths. Out of habit, she touched the dragon charm around her neck – a gift from the Raistlin she did know – and reassured herself that everything would work out all right between them…regardless of the pain and heartbreak she was feeling right at this moment.
Raistlin looked up as he heard Shareene leave the bedroom, his new robes over one arm and the belt heavy with components in the other hand. He read thek onk on her face, a mix of sorrow with determination not to let it show. He didn’t have the heart to show her he could still see it. Silently, he took the clothes from her and placed a kiss on her cheek, but it felt more out of habit than actually feeling he was grateful for her serving him. He threw his robes on; she turned away and finished getting breakfast on the table. Shareene ate in silence; Raistlin touched very little and was silent. They passed the time lost in their own worlds, wondering what was going wrong with them instead of airing it between them.
When it was clear he was done nibbling at what was on his plate, she started to clear the dishes away. Feeling that she should attempt something to make him smile, with a smirk she said casually over her shoulder, “I wouldn’t be surprised that, after all we did last night, I might be bearing your child now.”
He was in the middle of drinking his tea when she said that. Coughing, he looked back at her in surprise. That was something he didn’t consider at all. “Don’t try to drown me with those kind of messages,” he said as he cleared the poorly swallowed tea out of his throat.
That was not the kind of reaction she expected, almost felt hurt from it. She bowed her head and went back to her cleaning, he sat in silence with his eyes fixed on something only he could see. Once that was done, she muttered about her being in her workroom and started to walk away till he reached out quickly for her wrist. It startled her, his fingers almost digging into her skin.
“I will need to speak with you later,” Raistlin started in a toneless voice. “I think there is something we both need to discuss. I would do it now, but my…apprentice…will be awaiting me.”
Shareene couldn’t respond, she just nodded, fear creeping into her thoughts. She would have the whole day to worry what he will say to her, and she didn’t look forward to it.
“I must go,” he sighed, standing up and leaving his mug on the table, never letting her wrist go. “Remember, be here at the first turn of night. Don’t worry over dinner unless you hunger. I won’t have need of it.” She wanted to protest, but stopped as she saw there was no arguing with him this day. “Tread safely,” he wished her, dropping an emotionless kiss on her forehead before he disappeared back to the bedroom to finish dressing. She stood there for a moment, still feeling the print of his lips on her skin, before slipping on her shoes and transporting herself to her workroom.
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Raistlin took his apprentice into the laboratory and set him to work on a research assignment while he busied himself at his desk. He wanted to complete the one he was working on for months now, but his mind kept drifting to the night before. Something seemed odd about it all – not about the stone but about Shareene. Sitting with his hands steepled before his face, he tried to remember what had happened, tried hard to recall everything that occurred to make them both feel so ill at ease.
His first thought was how roughly he treated her in bed, wondering if that was the case. He felt some remorse in that, but not enough that should arouse such feelings of…of what? Raistlin searched for the word that would accurately describe what he was feeling, and couldn’t find it. It was more like something had changed between them. Why now did he want to take from her without giving back? Why did he try and will his vision’s curse upon her skin, wanted to see her age and deteriorate before him? Such dark thoughts of Shareene were never normal for him. It troubled him, yet didn’t in some way.
Raistlin searched his memory again, looking for a clue that could change his attitude towards Shareene. He remembered taking her the first time then he vaguely remembered a second time after she just made her smart comment. He concentrated harder on that moment. The images came to him; he let her take control and saw something snap behind her eyes. Concentrating more, he remembered her trying to leech away his magic with…her own….
This was the first time he ever felt the give and take of magic during their lovemaking. Did she have some dormant energy that he wasn’t able to notice before? Did working on the bloodstone awaken it somehow, or did it just transfer some to her? Or was he imagining it all? No, he didn’t imagine it because he had to stop her from bleeding his energy away. He now couldn’t shake that look of complete control in her eyes and how she reveled in it. He had to wrestle her into submission, letting Shareene think she was still in control when he was actually controlling her thoughts and the power that flowed between them.
Raistlin started to wonder if the bloodstone didn’t awaken something dormant in her. If it did, there was no way for Shareene to control it right now. She could easily drain his magic away - the only thing that defined him - and that was something he would not allow. His thoughts turned dark, no one would take away what was his – the power - not even his wife. If she got out of control, how would he bring her to heel?
“Shalafi?” a whispered word broke through his thoughts. He looked up to see Dalamar standing near his desk in mid stride, a book open in his hands. “Are you all right today?”
Raistlin thought he actually heard concern in his voice but brushed the thought away. “I’m fine, just a little preoccupied.”
“May I be of some help?” he asked in his heavy Silvanesti accent.
“No,” he responded shortly. “I will correct it myself. Continue with your study.”
“Yes, Shalafi.” Dalamar simply walked away.
Raistlin sat for a moment longer, wondering if he should ask Shareene if she had noticed anything, possibly testing her and seeing if she really held any powers within her. Would explain why she picked up the words to the spells he placed in her charm so quickly, but that could just be a latent ability to pick up languages. So many questions that he needed the answers to. Resolving himself to talking to her about it that night, he was able to put it in the back of his mind and continue his own work.
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He found Shareene, as usual, trying to keep herself busy in their rooms. She smiled at him, meant to be warm and reassuring but wasn’t, and continued with her chores. Instead of sitting down, he walked over and stilled her hands. “There is something I must talk to you about.”
Shareene seemed a bit startled by the look in his eyes. “If it’s about the comment I made this morning, it was just a joke. I won’t really know for a month or so….”
He shook his head, “It’s not about that. Please, sit.” Nervously, she sat down without taking her eyes off of him. A wave of his hand and a chair moved behind him and he sat across from her. “Try to remember last night – seriously though. Had you noticed anything different from the other times?”
Shareene looked at him questioningly, then closed her eyes and tried to recall everything. “I remember you waking me up by feeding me a small amount of your magic,” she started. “There was…there was a strange sensation during the second time…like standing in the waves of the lake. A pulling and pushing…in my skin or in my hands.”
“Can you remember anything else?” he pressed.
She didn’t know where this questioning was taking them, but she closed her eyes and tried to concentrate. After a few minutes, she shook her head and looked back at him. “I’m sorry, but I can’t remember much. What is it that you’re looking for?”
He sat back, watching her. She couldn’t read what he was thinking; his stare was blank. His hand strayed to the stone he wore, toying with it as if he was debating if she was telling the truth or not. The room grew uncomfortable and she shifted uneasily in her chair. “Look, Raistlin, I can never lie to you. I cannot remember last night, at all. Not with the clarity you’re asking of me.” Her eyes drifted to the stone, it still made her uneasy.
Raistlin blinked, a sign that he made up his mind. “Fine then, I will try to refresh your memory then. Last night you awoke a second time, and we had shared a second moment together, but there was something much more different in your actions. Somehow, and I do not know how, you had the ability to take away my magic, and were able to control me with it.”
It was obvious it wasn’t clear to her, her brows furrowed in disbelief. “What?” she whispered.
He continued. “I managed to gain control of it again, held you in a thrall so that you could get the magic you needed and work off whatever it was that possessed you. We had both, I assume, passed out afterwards.”
Shareene’s mouth hung open, confused. “I don’t have that ability…do I?”
“I do not know, but I intend to find out.” With a swiftness she was unaccustomed to, Raistlin was upon her, the bloodstone now pressed to her breastbone with the flat of his hand. She wanted to scream, shove him and the vile stone away from her, but she was frozen in place, her eyes locked in fear and her hands gripping the sides of the chair till her knuckles were white. He held her gaze with his, breathing hard as he reached inside of her, going through her with magic to find what she held inside.
He found his own in the charm around her neck and ignored it. He went farther, deeper; looking if there was a source to her powers or was it something from outside of her. He found it, a small spark in her heart, not enough for her to accomplish what she did the night before, but there was some energy inside. Raistlin wondered if the bloodstone triggered it, an effect he wasn’t aware of before. The light within her shimmered white, sometimes red, but remained predominately white. He withdrew from her, pulling the stone away and replacing it around his neck again.
Once the contact was severed, Shareene gasped and started swearing in every tongue she could think of. Her entire chest felt frozen, it took effort to take one breath to shoot out her opinion of his treatment. She gripped the front of her robes, hoping the heat of her hand would help warm her skin again. “Damn it, Raistlin!” she yelled. “Never do that to me again!” Her face twisted in pain as her skin warmed, but feeling like her insides would never be warm again.
“There is some magic within you,” Raistlin spoke as if he never heard her curse him. “Small, not strong enough for you to do what you have done last night. But it still could be dangerous if we left it unchecked.” She looked up at him incredulously, hearing him talk about her like she was one of his lab rats. “Tomorrow I want you to join the training that I’m placing Dalamar on. I want to test and see what your potential really is.”
Shareene grew angry at his words. She stood up and faced him. “How dare you talk to me – your wife – like a magic experiment? I don’t even know what you’re talking about, and now I have to prove I’m some sort of mage to you? Why? If I’m not are you tossing me out as so much refuse? I have nothing to prove to you!”
Annoyance shown in his eyes, and he quickly gripped her shoulders and gave her a small shake. “Listen! What you did was impossible last night. Sharing magical energy in sex is not something new and unheard of. With what magic I saw inside of you, you should not have been able to drain me into a babbling idiot. There is something in you that you have to learn to control. I may have awakened it with feeding you some of my power, and now that its there we have to train you to be in control. That is why I want you in training.”
Her stare was hard, but Raistlin knew his words got through as her defiant stance lessened. He let her go, and she stumbled a little from the loss of contact. She took a few breaths to bring her anger down. “I don’t understand it either, but I will do as you ask.” Raistlin knew he didn’t ask her, he commanded her, but he let it go. He wanted to say more, but the silence dragged on and after waiting for him, she turned to the bedroom and slammed the door behind her.
Sighing, he rubbed his face to release the tension he felt there, and decided to make his tea for the night. Taking his steaming mug to the desk, he sat down and uncovered the dragon orb he had there. Pulling the base closer, he gazed into it, wondering if the answers he sought would be in there.
Images flew past; he could see all of what transpired on Ansalon, or any other continent or island he chose. Instead, he pushed the present away and concentrated on the possibilities their path now lay in. The visions of his dream came back in the mists of the dragon orb. Shareene, dressed in white, holding his hand like royalty as the walked through a door…out into the plains of the Abyss. It was disturbing yet thrilling at the same time. He could see himself sitting on a throne, she sitting in her own yet much smaller than his…again the plains of the Abyss stretched out at their feet…hands held in the air with a look about them that surpassed the look given by monarchs. No…they looked more like gods….
He blinked and shoved the orb away from him, dismissing the visions as folly. He brooded in his chair as he sipped, knowing that their marriage was failing…all for the magic.
“Perhaps it was a mistake, bringing her back into my world,” Raistlin muttered to himself. “Though, if I had left her behind, she would most likely be dead right now. Who’s to say I haven’t condemned her to something worse than death….” He sighed, letting the dark and foul mood eclipse his heart.
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Shareene showed up in the smaller laboratory as Raistlin and Dalamar were preparing for the day. They both took notice of how stiffly she walked, her back straight and her face hardened. She still hadn’t forgiven him for the unwanted invasion of her person the night before, but he chose to ignore it.
Raistlin tested her on simple concentration spells, building a simple shield around herself without the use of the charm. With her anger that she couldn’t let go, she had a rough time of it. Dalamar leaned next to her, whispering her words of encouragement and suggestions, which set off a heated wave of jealousy in Raistlin as the dark elf’s words sparked the shield around both of them. He had a momentary thought of shattering the flimsy shield and strangling the elf where he stood, but remained silent.
Dalamar seemed to see the annoyance and restraint on his Shalafi’s face, for he quickly turned back to Shareene and whispered something again, a second later the shield fell. Soon afterwards, Shareene nearly fell with it, but the dark elf caught her before she hit the floor. Another spark of anger flared in Raistlin, watching the elf handle his property.
“When did I start thinking of her as no more than a stick of furniture?” he thought to himself just then.
Dalamar picked up Shareene and placed her down in a nearby chair for her to recover, then approached the master. “Shalafi, this is rather unusual for her. She never passed out after a spell. Not even as has a problem concentratin
“
“What are you implying, apprentice?” Raistlin questioned quietly, his emotions coloring his words.
“Nothing, Shalafi. I just was wondering what is wrong with her?”
“Such concern,” Raistlin mocked him, fingering the black robes that draped from one of the elf’s shoulders. “Be more concerned with your own affairs, apprentice. You do not have to be privy to everything that occurs in my walls,” he warned, emphasizing the fact that Dalamar was a guest, not a resident. “I shall let her recover, she is tapping into reserves she just recently discovered. You can get the components ready for tonight’s work. I have some studying to do.
Chastised, Dalamar could only nod and walk away to the stocked shelves. Raistlin turned to his desk and opened one of the blue bound spellbooks lying there. Even though he had dismissed the visions he had seen the night before, they wouldn’t leave his mind. He would have to research this extensively, find out what it means for the both of them.
After she had revived, they kept working till she was ready to pass out again. Figuring she couldn’t do more that day, Raistlin sent Shareene away to their rooms, Dalamar to work outside to gather supplies they needed that night. The lesat wat were around him, the better he could concentrate on his dilemma.
Raistlin sat down and started to read further into the diary of Fistandantilus. It seemed that anything he did now was almost an echo of what this man had done previously. A few hours into reading and feeling like he would never find an answer, he stumbled upon an entry with no date on it.
“I have a great many plans ahead of me. None of which I can afford to leave in the hands of the ill prepared. I wish there was no need of others in this, but this is what fate hands me. I don’t plan to have them around me forever…just use them and toss them aside. I don’t plan on making more room for them in the heavens to share with me the glory of my power.”
Raistlin thought for a moment, recalling the history this mage had made. He remembered from his stories how this person had envisioned himself a god to replace the Queen of Darkness, and how he failed. There were others on this journey also? Raistlin read on.
“The Kingpriest, as malleable as he was, became too paranoid and insane to use. Once, he was the perfect candidate, but once he started believing he was more powerful than the gods, he became useless. This other one I’ve chosen may not be strong enough in his convictions. There is a blessing afforded to him by his chosen pantheon, but is it enough?”
Interesting that he originally thought of the Kingpriest that nearly destroyed the whole world in his foolishness. But what was the purpose of siding with someone of a strong backing of good?
“If he isn’t strong enough to open the gates, if his faith slips, we’re all dead. Well, I intend to find a way to try again….”
The gate. Raistlin knew of this gate. There was such sitting in the back of the main laboratory, draped in black velvet. The other gates were destroyed after the Dark Queen altered their makeup, leading all the doors to open to her plain, the Abyss. The mages could not destroy this one. He now owned it.
…Walking over the threshold, hand in hand, into the land of the Abyss…to the Dark Queen herself…
It came to him. It needs two people to open the gates; one of black, one of white. Opposite alignments working together in pure faith and power in order to access her domain.
Raistlin wondered if he was being shown the future. If he was able to succeed where Fistandantilus had failed, with Shareene at his side – for he could think of no one else that was that good and pure to him – to defeat the Queen of Darkness and for them to take her place. He sat back and considered this possibility.
If this were the future he could see, then this would truly be the greatest accomplishment ever recorded; far greater than his role of shutting the door in the Queen’s face, barring her from entering the material plane, and receiving no thanks for it. Raistlin, the man that was reviled even in his childhood, would have more than fat innkeepers bowing to him. He would have a legion of followers, worshippers, priests and priestesses, all of them offering him praise and adoration. He would have the power over their lives, bestowing blessings and curses as his whim. What’s being an archmage compared to the magnitude of power at his hands being a god? Now this is the kind of power and glory he wished to have, what drove him to becoming greater than anyone else despite what they thought of him. Raistlin never had a clear vision of that ultimate goal, until now.
His thoughts slipping away from him, his hands shaking in excitement, Raistlin swept himself away to the main laboratory. A quick command to the candles around him, the room lit up, revealing the draped object at the back. He swiftly walked over to it and gave the velvet a sharp tug, letting it fall to the floor in a dusty heap. There, the dragonheads sat frozen in silent screams of adoration to their goddess. The center was nothing more than a black mirror, reflecting himself back at him. This would be the key to all his dreams. All the struggling, pain, defeat, leading to this moment where he had a clear destiny to fulfill. There before him lay his future, and it was more than his dreams could handle. Now he didn’t care what happened to the dark elf. There was no way Dalamar could stop him, not even the Conclave. This was written in the stars, in his blood, and soon those stars would shift to reveal a new constellation in the skies: Raistlin’s.
No more playing with magic. No more wasting time on experiments that had no clear goal. Now was the time to plan, devise schemes, spells and objects of power that would aid him in this, the greatest achievement ever. His heart sang again with purpose, the magic flowing smoothly again through his veins now that it carried that purpose with it. He could not reveal it to anyone, not just yet. This was his moment, and when the time was right, then the others would know; his own little surprise to his spy, his wife, and the rest of the world.
And with that thought, Raistlin laughed loudly in a room where no one could hear his delight.
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Weeks had passed into Shareene’s training. She became weakened less now as she adapted to the power within. It still taxed her, and at the end of the day she had not the strength to even eat, she simply went to bed and fell into a deep sleep, only to wake up the next day and do it all over again. The breaks she got were when Raistlin stole away Dalamar to work on some odd project that only they had the strength for. She welcomed those moments, disappearing into their rooms to get away from it all.
Though she could never get away from the magic surrounding her. In her weakened state, Shareene wasn’t about to use the stairs and had to use the teleportation stones instead. In their rooms were herbs drying, books of every kind of field and study, scrolls and odd objects on every shelf and table. She thought everything was starting to look like the hovel Weird Meggin once lived in, and wondered what Raistlin was up to this time.
Then there was the broach she was almost done with. Now that she knew she had magical energy inside of her, Shareene had no doubts that she was fusing a part of herself into each stone. Now it seemed to shimmer within, a sign that she was doing it properly. There were only a few more emeralds left to place and it would be ready for Yuletime.
This particular day, she lay in bed and stared at the ceiling, trying to relax yet not drift off to sleep. She must have, because she was startled by the sound of the main door banging open. Sitting up abruptly made her head swim, and had to take a moment before standing up, till the door of her bedroom flew open.
Dalamar looked in, fear and panic on his face. Before she could demand why he broke in, he started speaking rapidly in an odd mix of Silvanesti and common. Shareene walked over to him and grabbed his shoulders roughly. “Get yourself together, Dalamar and tell me what happened.” Immediately her thoughts turned to Raistlin…and fear swept over her.
“The Shalafi,” he gasped, “He’s passed out. Burning fever. Incoherent. Asking for you.”
“Where is hshe she demanded, her own panic matching the dark elf’s. “Take me to him, damn it all!”
Regaining part of his composure, Dalamar grabbed her arms and spoke a few words. The room dissolved around them, replaced with the laboratory they were just working in. As soon as the world felt solid around her again, Shareene saw Raistlin on the floor. Breaking away, she ran towards him, dropping to her knees beside him.
She had seen him this sick before, when his mother died. She had helped his brother hold him away from the burial plot before Raistlin flung himself in with her. She helped tend to him in shifts, even though his half-sister resented Shareene being there. Shareene stood her ground, even defied her to hit her. Kitiara just smirked and slapped her cheek instead, more of a mark of reluctant acceptance than out of anger or respect.
Shareene felt for a pulse, it was weak but still there. His skin burned at the touch, his robes soaked through with sweat. “He’s over worked himself again,” she said to no one in particular. Looking up at Dalamar, she gestured him over. “I need you to transport him back to his rooms. Then I need you to find the willow bark around here and start brewing it. I’ll take care of the rest.” There almost seemed to be some tension in the elf about following her orders, for he stood rather stiffly, looking down at both of them. “Now, Dalamar,” she commanded. Reluctantly he did as she asked, transporting all three back to his private study.
With the elf’s help, they carried Raistlin to the bed. He started to carry on in his delirium, speaking in garbled tones about nothing and everything. Shareene tried to make sense of his babble, but gave up, as she had to find a stockpile of blankets to bury him in. Dalamar returned with a basin of water and a cloth while the water in the fireplace started to boil. Shareene returned with two more heavy blankets and started to layer them over Raistlin. As she tucked him in so he wouldn’t kick them off in his thrashing, the elf laid the first compress to his forehead. Whatever he was dreaming, it must have startled him as he protested loudly at the contact.
Raistlin started thrashing more, words being muttered were starting to take shape, into spells. Shareene tried to pin his arms and shoulders down, gesturing to Dalamar to hurry with the potion. Even though she used all of her weight to keep him down, Raistlin was clearly stronger than her and managed to get free now and then, only to have her struggle with bringing him back in control again.
Dalamar returned with the mug filled with the boiled willow bark and added a few other herbs that would calm Raistlin’s fevered mind. “Quick, we need to get him to drink that,” Shareene said. “I can’t hold him like this for much longer. He must think I’m some demon attacking him.”
The elf proved to be much stronger than both of them as he pulled Raistlin into a slight sitting position and handed the potion over to Shareene. She sat on his legs to keep from kicking as Dalamar held his arms to his sides, holding him up. She leaned over, whispering into Raistlin’s ear words of comfort, like she did when she tended to him when they were children, and waited for them to take effect. Slowly did her words seep into his mind, and he started to quiet down. Whispering again, she brought the potion up to Raistlin’s lips and slowly had him drink from it. After a few sips, he was quiet again and they both let go of him.
Once Raistlin was lying down and tucked back under the blankets, Shareene began to apply the compresses again to his face. “How did you do that?” Dalamar asked her. She looked at him questioningly. “Calm him down like that. How did you know how to do that?”
She shrugged, telling the elf now couldn’t hurt much. “I knew him since we were children. My parents moved from Tarsis to Haven to Solace when I was younger, barely an. n. I was his friend back then, and helped his brother when Raistlin fell ill. I only saw him in the summer, but we were close.” Dalamar said nothing, just stood there, staring at them both. Noting the silence, she looked over her shoulder at him. “I know you’re thinking. Might as well put a voice to it.”
“You’re not here to study magic, are you?” he said.
“How obvious was that?” she answered in her smart aleck tone. “No, the gods decided that we should meet up after we parted, and we sort of picked up where we left off. Gods, it has to be nearly seven years later we find each other again.” She shook her head at the thought.
Dalamar watched her care for Raistlin, knowing now why the jealous looks and smart remarks when he inquired about Shareene. It was more than just dragging attention away, but that he cared about this woman, sometimes more than the magic but not all the time. Recent events changed that opinion in the elf’s mind. But still, there was some feelings left for Shareene, feelings that could never be erased in the throes of power.
There is nothing in this world or any other world that can erase the though that one was loved unconditionally, not even the call of magic could do that.
Heaving a sigh, Dalamar looked at the shelves so he didn’t feel he was disturbing them. “I will attend to the experiment, might as well clear that up since it won’t be finished tonight. I will check back later on both of you, and do remember to take care of yourself also.” He walked to the door, preferring to walk to the laboratory at this moment. He heard a small thank you from Shareene as he reached for the doorknob. He didn’t acknowledge it, but smiled a little to himself, and then left.
Shareene sighed once she heard the door click shut. She worried, even though she had seen Raistlin this sick before. She got him sick once, and then the time when his mother passed away, then a few small bouts of colds when the temperature would fluctuate. She seen him fall ill by many reasons, and she was there at his side. But she knew Raistlin was working himself hard over something she didn’t know about. He spent almost all his time in study, barely sleeping or eating, and she couldn’t regulate his patterns anymore. There were days where she didn’t see him at all.
She wrung out the cloth and mopped his face and neck again, hoping that it would cool the fever a little. The water seemed to evaporate as soon as it touched his skin. Shareene had to bring it down before it cause irreparable damage. She looked down into his face, noting that his eyes weren’t moving rapidly under the lids anymore. At least he was in some comfort as he slept. She stayed up with him, long into the night, ignoring her own needs as she worked on breaking the fever.
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A week had past and Raistlin was no better. Shareene spent all her time in their rooms, trying to make the fever break. She did everything she had done before that cured him when he was younger, but this time it wasn’t working. Dalamar came in every now and then with an herbal concoction he found and asked her to use it. Those didn’t work either, and she feared she would lose him to whatever was raging inside of him.
Tired and nearly beaten, Dalamar found her in her chair next to the bed, wringing out a cloth and applying it to Raistlin’s forehead. She looked up and shook her head, a silent response to the normally asked question. “I’m sorry, Shareene,” he whispered. “I’m trying everything I can think of.”
She nodded, blinking wearily. “We’re both doing everything we can for him.” The dark elf got a better look at her face, noticing how red her eyes were and how dark the circles were becoming.
“Have you eaten anything?” he asked. Placing his fingers under her chin, he angled her face up to his. “If you keep this pace up, you’ll be in no condition to care for anyone.”
“I’ll be fine,” she responded automatically. “He needs me. I can’t leave him.”
Dalamar merely made a short sigh. “Then I will have to take care of you myself.” Letting her face go, he walked over to the pitcher of drinking water and poured her a mug. “Here, drink this slowly. I don’t know when was the last time you’ve eaten and I don’t want you to shock yourself.” She took the cup blindly and started to sip at it, closing her eyes as the water started to wake her up. He came back with two rolls, and after handing her one did he find himself a chair and sat across from her.
He watched for long moments as she ate but never took her eyes off of Raistlin, as if she was afraid to look away. Looking down at his bread and picking out the soft insides to eat, he whispered, “What if there is no chance of saving him?”
It seemed to bring Shareene back to the present, as she turned her eyes back on the elf.
“How can you say that to me?” she whispered in protest. “I will not let him be consumed by whatever it is that’s plaguing him.”
“I can appreciate that,” Dalamar spoke in hushed tones. “But he hasn’t recovered, almost seems that there is no known cure for what he has.” He took a bite to pause, and then started again. “There is the possibility that his time has come. The Shalafi was working on magics that no one has used in centuries. Something could have went wrong, and this is the result.”
Shareene became angrier the more the dark elf spoke. “And I have heard you swear loyalties to Raistlin, vowing that you would not let harm come to him.”
“I think you misunderstood me,” Dalamar corrected her. “My loyalties lie in this order: my god Nuitari, myself, him, then the Conclave. The magic is all that matters, and it’s the same with him. It seems recently he got his priorities back in order, as now he was concentrating perfectly on his work than sitting and dreaming in a corner while I fixed shelves. If something went wrong in the experiments we were running, he would save himself and leave me to whatever fate has for me. I would do the same. That is the price we pay for our art.”
His words did not match up with his actions the week before. “You just started believing this creed, because what I saw before contradicts your story now.”
Dalamar shook his head. “No, I may have had a small moment of panic, but there again you misread my actions. I have much to learn from this man. There is a great deal of power and knowledge inside of him, and I want it. There’s too much to learn from him, and to have it cut off now would ruin my plans for myself.
“I know what you’re thinking. Selfish dirty bastard of an elf that I am cannot understand what value you place on his life. I do know, I know well. There were times I had felt the same feelings you have about another. But that was not my destiny, as the call of the dark magic did not care about my class in the Silvanesti hierarchy. There was my acceptance, and I would not give it up for any reason. Because I had chose to defy the rigid system the Silvanesti believed in, I was cast out. I lost my homeland – and I’m sure the country waif that you are cannot understand what it’s like to be thrown out of your own home – but it never stopped the call in my heart, in my blood. The magic was stronger than the elfin need for identity. My magic was my identity now.
“You have let yourself become the property of this mage. You have no identity; I can see that now. I can imagine that your parents shuffled you from town to town, searching for something that they didn’t know what it was. You had let yourself become the same as them. Otherwise, there would be some understanding in your eyes right now of what I talk about. You were not brought here to learn about the art. You are just a momentary thing, a diversion till the Shalafi figured out his own identity, which is the magic.”
The words burned her. Dalamar spoke the words that gripped Shareene’s heart with fear. That somewhere, Raistlin’s love of her had died. Now that he had no need of her anymore, he threw himself into his work and left her alone, discarded. She wanted to be angry with him for treating her as such, but all she could feel was a deep sorrow, feeling her heart shatter like glass and the edges now sliced at her chest. “So, since you’ve figured all this out, what difference does it make to you that I’m here at all?”
“None, actually.” He set his bread aside and brushed the remains off his robes carefully. “I, at first, didn’t understand why there was another here when I was told I would be the only apprentice here. The more time I spent between the two of you, the more it became obvious you weren’t here just for the study of the arts. I felt no magical aura around you – except for a faint one recently – and the spell work he gave you a mere child could do. I personally don’t care about your relationship with my Shalafi, as long as I get what I want out of my relationship with him.”
“There is more to it for your being here, isn’t there?”
“Which this isn’t the time nor the place to discuss this,” he said to cut off the questioning. “If there is more to my being here, there might be no point to it if he doesn’t survive.” The elf took a glance at Raistlin and then looked back at her. “I do not want to lose my Shalafi before I can truly learn from him, and I am sure you do not want to lose your life partner. So our hostilities to each other must be put aside for this common goal.”
She remained silent, turning her eyes away from the dark elf. Dalamar took that as a sign of acceptance. “You said that you had seen him this bad before, when you were children. What did you do back then that cured him?”
“Everything I’m trying now. Now it seems that it’s not working.” Shareene removed the cloth from his forehead, sighing again as she felt the heat it absorbed. “I tend to think he overextended himself with his studies and this weather.” She glanced out the window. “It looks like Palanthas will never thaw again.”
Dalamar stood up suddenly and stared down into the bed. “Why didn’t I think of it before….”
“What?” she asked, annoyed with him.
“That’s probably why he hasn’t recovered. He’s over drained his reserves. I’ve seen this before. If one over taxes their magic, they fall into a sickness so deep it takes them months to recover.”
“He doesn’t have months, Dalamar,” Shareene growled. “We can’t leave it to the gods to restore the magic within. Somehow we’ll have to restore it ourselves.”
“And how do you propose to do that?”
She thought for a moment, and thought back to the bloodstone that he was wearing. It was risky and she could end up killing herself in the process, but it was a risk she was willing to take. “I do know something of magic, something that should work but it might take a few days to see any results. I’ll need you to care for the rest of the tower, finish up whatever he asked you to do, and stop back if you find any restorative spells. But I’ll need to be alone with him, because it’s going to tire me out in the process.”
Dalamar gave a short nod. As she turned back to tend to Raistlin, she felt the elf gently grab her arm and turn her towards him. “Be careful,” he warned. “It will be my hide adorning these walls if he should recover and find you dead.”
She smirked - so similar was it to his master’s that he looked startled for a moment. “Don’t worry, your position will be safe,” she shot back at him. It was understood that they worked together for this one time, but the loathing of the other will never fade away.
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Shareene paced the room, reading from what books she could to find the proof she needed for what she planned. She could find no resource or reference to the kind of stone Raistlin now owned. She started to wonder if it was at all possible to carry this out, if it would work at all. Long after the sunlight faded from the window and the light of Solinari replaced it, Shareene tossed one last book aside in frustration. The answer she needed would not be inside any of the tomes Raistlin kept in her reach. She thought about his laboratory, that the books she needed might be there, but decided against looking. She probably couldn’t read them if she wanted to. If they weren’t magically protected, she still couldn’t read the language of mages.
She walked to the window, looking up at the white crescent in the sky. In an hour, its red cousin would be joining it in the sky. The dark moon she didn’t even try to look for. She had done so once, and never could find it. She leaned her forehead against the cold glass, letting it shock her into wakefulness so she could think again.
Her eyes turned to Raistlin, still unconscious, breathing hard through parted lips. Did Dalamar speak the truth? Was it true that since her husband found the purpose of his heart – which wasn’t her, it seems – she would be forgotten in the rush of magical enthrallment? A part of her tried to believe that it wasn’t true but her doubts crept in and had shown her that his words were accurate. Once the elf had taken residence in the tower, Raistlin made every excuse not to be near her anymore. She didn’t understand, thinking if the dark elf was such a pest that he didn’t treat him like the vermin he was and cast him out. And now, asking for the pendant so that he could control the elf better, only to use it on her to find out if she had any power in her at all. The month he spent recently, locked up with his apprentice and only sparing time to “train” her abilities, then sending her away when she couldn’t perform anymore.
It was all before her, and she was too blind to see it. The dark elf would further his needs, not her. If she had the ability at all, it was too small for him to even care. Just as long as she could control it, that’s all that mattered. But it wasn’t enough for him to keep his attention and his affection.
Shareene wondered why she should even attempt this risky procedure she dreamed up. If Raistlin didn’t love her anymore, why should she love him at all? She wanted to be angry with him, resentful, feel like she was used and betrayed. Looking away from him, she tried to break the love and adoration she felt for him with the facts of his attitude towards her recently. She felt her vision turn red, and then looked back at him.
All the anger, frustration, and rage she felt vanished when she looked at his face. The hurt was still sharp and clear, but she couldn’t hate him. Shareene desperately tried to hang onto her rage, but it slipped away. She started cursing herself, calling herself weak because she could not stop the love she had for someone that didn’t love her back. If she could only just drop him, let fate take its course. If he wasn’t meant to survive, what should it matter to her? He didn’t care, why should she?
Shareene couldn’t come up with the answer, and she started to weep bitter tears.
“Damn that elf,” she cursed to the darkness outside. “He was right. I have no purpose. He is my identity. I’m nothing in the grand scheme of things, and I mean nothing to him. Just a shadow.” She bit her lip as she cried, tasting the blood running into her mouth and not caring. “Let it bleed,” she thought to herself, “Maybe then the poison will be gone from my veins.”
She felt her legs give out, fell to the floor in a crumpled heap. Feeling the frustration of her life press around her, she started punching the floor. She could feel her hands bruise, knuckles splitting and the marble becoming sticky with blood, and then she stopped. Having spent all her tears, she laid there for a moment, panting and emotionally tired.
Shareene tried to think again, wondering if risking her life was worth his. Losing track of time, she sighed and slowly got back on her feet. She walked over to the bed and looked down at the comatose Raistlin, her outburst never disturbed his unnatural sleep. She pulled the covers away slightly, revealing the pendant that still remained on his person.
“This might kill me, you know,” she spoke to him, even though he gave no reaction to hearing her. “But if what your apprentice says is true, then there’s no point to my being here, is there? If it kills me, so much the better, because I cannot go on living without your love. If you lost every feeling you had for me, I’d rather be dead than to try living without you.” She felt the tears fall from her eyes again. She wiped them away with the back of her hand, leaving a red smear across her cheek. “What better way to prove to you that I love you, regardless of your indifference to me, by giving my life up for you.”
Again, she had the vile wave of loathing as she reached out for the bloodstone. Taking a deep breath, she dropped her hand over the stone, pressing it against Raistlin’s chest. Shareene clenched her jaw, feeling the searing cold bite her hand, rush up her arm and seize her heart. She could feel the stone digging through her, searching for the power within. It found it, and started draining her rapidly. She wanted to scream, the overwhelming feeling of being violated once again entered her mind and she wanted to break the connection, but it wouldn’t let her. Shareene was frozen in place again, every muscle locked. She couldn’t feel her heart beat anymore, couldn’t draw a breath, and panic soon gave way to blacking out.
The stone was done draining her and let her go. Darkness took over her mind; she welcomed the oblivion, and fell to the floor, lifeless.
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Dalamar entered the Shalafi’s rooms, noting the strange silence in the tower. The doors were unlocked, and he let himself in. No one was in the main room, and wasn’t surprised by that. Raistlin’s recovery would not be that quick. He walked over to the door leading to their bedroom, smirking at the though of what the straight-laced mage did in the dark hours with his toy in this room.
He opened the door and all traces of his dirty thoughts disappeared. Shareene was on the floor, her back towards him. At this distance she hardly look as if she was breathing, the light shining on her skin revealed no warmth there. Dalamar ran over, flipped hver ver and searched her neck for a pulse. He scanned her face, noting how pale she looked as he pressed her skin for any sign of life. He finally found it; faint but it was still there. Holding his hand beneath her nose, he could feel her breath, just as weak as her heart beat. Dalamar sighed. Shareene was still alive.
He straightened up and went over to Raistlin. Now he looked like as aas asleep instead of just passed out. The elf touched his forehead, his skin was still damp but the fever was gone. Whatever she did, it saved the Master of the Tower’s life.
Dalamar scooped up Shareene’s body in his arms and carried her to the other side of the bed, burying her under the same covers that were over his Shalafi. He had to watch two people now, to make sure they both recovered safely. Choosing a book off the shelves, he took to a chair and started reading as he watched them both heal.
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A few days later, Dalamar entered the rooms to find Raistlin sitting on the edge of the bed. He looked tired and slightly unaware of his surroundings. “Shalafi,” the elf spoke softly, “How are you feeling?”
Raistlin turned dark and sunken eyes toward Dalamar, seemingly taking a moment to recognize him. “I am fine,” was all he said, but Dalamar knew there was more. Raistlin’s face was drawn; he looked weak and thinner from the ordeal. Knowing that his pride would never reveal what he truly felt, he made it look like he accepted his master’s words. “What has happened to Shareene?”
“She is fine, just needs to recover.”
“What happened?” Raistlin insisted, annoyance coloring his words.
Dalamar took a seat across from him, and leaned forward till his elbows were resting on his knees. “You had overspent your powers and nearly lost your life to it. Shareene originally thought you had fallen ill and treated it as such. I realized, however, that it was the overtaxing of your strength that had left you weakened and on the verge of death. She sent me away, so that – I presume – she could drain her power into you to make you recover faster. I am not sure how she accomplished this, but the next day I found her passed out on the floor, nearly drained to the point of death I should imagine. But she is alive, and I’ve been watching over both of you ever since.”
Raistlin just sat there, revealing no emotion to what the dark elf told him. “Attend to your studies now, apprentice,” he ordered. “I believe I am strong enough to take care of her now.”
“As you wish, Shalafi.” Grateful that his master was back to his old self, Dalamar walked away with a feeling of accomplishment. The secrets of untapped power would still be his to glean off this man.
Raistlin listened till he heard the second door close, and then allowed the fear to grip He He couldn’t understand why she allowed herself to nearly die for him. He would have surely recovered on his own, why did she risk so much?
He had no answer as he looked at her still form. Some color had returned to her skin, but the blankets were so thick he couldn’t see her breathing. He stood up carefully, feeling just how weak he had become as he tried to walk to her side of the bed. He sat down next to her, taking note at the split in her lip, possibly cut when she fell down. With a gentle hand he brushed her hair with his fingers, sighing as he wondered why she would value his life over hers.
“Because she has the illness known as love for you,” the shadow said in a depreciating tone. “She has a few forms of it: unconditional, motherly, and soulmate. There is no cure for her except death.” The shadow seemed to sigh, but there was no emotion attached to it. “Pity that her selfless act didn’t kill her, as she is not a part of our plans.”
“What are you talking about?” Raistlin asked the shadow.
“If she had any magic within her, she couldn’t help you open the gates to the Abyss. It takes the power of a mage of black and the pureness of a cleric of white to open the gate. While she is – or was – of white magic, she could never open it. We would have all perished again if you had used her. There might have been some possibility she could have become a cleric, but you used my stone to awaken magic within her. If there was any trace of power within her, she would be chosen of Solinari.”
“Her power…is gone?”
The shadow approached the bed. “I see no more light within, save for her soul. She knew the stone would bleed her dry and place it in you. She knew the risk for doing such a thing, and she nearly killed herself in the process.”
“If you had observed it, why didn’t you stop her?” Anger was starting to creep into his voice.
“Why should I?” the shadow shrugged. “She was of no use to us. Your first priority is to serving me, not her. If she wasn’t a part of the solution, she was the problem. I certainly did not care what happened to her. She was useless to us from the start.”
Raistlin closed his eyes and turned away from it. “She is not useless. She’s the only one that gave a damn about me.”
“And look how you treat her. You lost interest in her the moment you found your epiphany. You saw her as a means to an end. She had a momentary lust for your power, and how did your thoughts turn? How to control her, how do I stop her if she gets out of line. Remember your Test…remember what you did to your own brother when he showed….”
“Enough!” Raistlin screamed. He waited for the lashing the shadow would surely smite him with, but it did not come. He was goaded into revealing his emotion, and he fell for it. “I know what I did,” he whispered when he calmed down again. “I know what I am capable of.”
The shadow seemed to shake his head. “I grow weary of you showing this soft-hearted weakness. I will keep reminding you of what you have promised to me until you do it. She is of no use to us; get rid of her.”
Raistlin shook his head. “No. I will not abandon her.”
“You are too weak to be of use to me now. Have you forgotten your vision?”
“It’s not possible now.” Raistlin looked back at her face. “If she cannot open the gates, then she cannot rule by my side when I become a god.”
“Do not lose sight of this goal. This is more important than one fragile female. This is about the ultimate power, seizing control of this world not by armies, but by the hand of a god. What is owning one person compared to owning them all?”
The words sparked a new flame within his heart. His memory of his childhood sprang to life before his eyes. The beatings from his teacher, the bullying of the students and the commoners, and the distrustful looks from girls flooded his mind. Sturm and the constant accusations, people shrinking away from his terrible gaze, all of this and more filled him with a bitterness he could taste. He once had a shining light embodied in Shareene, but even she was drawn to his power, tried to steal it away once, and then fought him when he wanted her to control herself. It seemed at that moment that all he had was his magic now.
The shadow could read Raistlin’s heart as they were becoming two people in one body. He could see the change and the lust for power and control seize him, and was pleased. He disappeared without another word, for his job was done for now.
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Shareene recovered a few days later, waking slowly and wondering if she was alive or dead. The stomach pains told her she was very much alive, and she almost felt remorse that the stone didn’t kill her. She looked over and saw Raistlin sitting in a chair, his eyes in a book, memorizing something. He must have noticed her looking at him for he looked up and quirked a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. Shareene had saved Raistlin, but nothing seemed to have changed between them for the better.
After eating, he left her to attend to his work. She didn’t protest to his absence. She had found out from him that much time had passed. Once she felt strong enough she bathed, dressed, and teleported to her own workroom.
Yule was almost here, and Shareene debated if it mattered at all. She took out the pouch that contained the almost finished broach and spilled its contents onto her worktable. She sat down heavily, staring at the emeralds she had yet to place. Shareene couldn’t see the magic in the gold or the stones anymore. Either she hadn’t had the ability to see it anymore, or when she lost her powers so did the item.
It didn’t matter. Feeling waves of depression press on her heart, she wondered if she should even finish the gift. Would Raistlin even appreciate it, wear it proudly now as a symbol of her love and dedication to him?
Did anything matter anymore?
She took a deep breath, wiped the tears from her eyes with her sore hands. She picked up one of her jewelry tools and slowly started to fit the emeralds into place.

To be continued….
- 6
- 7
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A Book of Roses - Book 2