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Alvorecer	By : Skullbearer Category: A through F > Dragonlance Views: 1612 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own the book(s) that this fanfiction is written for, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Alvorecer 9
For the Giving
Today to run away,
Coma White, Marilyn Manson
Casting the spell had weakened Fistandantilus, and the shock was so intense that his control lapsed. For a moment, the barriers fell.
/How?/ The lich's thoughts echoed deafeningly in Raistlin's mind, incredulous. //How?// The dark elf was dead. He'd /known/ he was dead. The sea elves might save a half-elf or an oaf of a human, but after the demented actions of their own exiles, they would never save a Dark elf. And even if they did, surely they would kill him rather than let him go.
A flash of hatred—Fistandantilus hated being wrong, and Raistlin felt the lich's rage towards the elves. Predictable enough to lull you into believing you could anticipate them, then doing the last thing you'd expect them to do. First the sea elves, showing mercy to the creatures they most hated, and now this Dark elf who just wouldn't die!
Without warning, the lich's attention bore down on Raistlin, icy and burning like an unearthly dead sun. The barriers rose again, slamming closed and shutting out the world, but not before the lich's thought slid through one last time. Fear. If his unwilling host had seen this, had heard his thoughts...Much easier to possess one broken in soul, than one who would fight him at every turn.
Stripped bare, imprisoned with his own mind, Raistlin drew himself into himself, coiling a mass of thoughts and memories around his mind, shutting himself in as the lich had shut him out. Walls within walls within walls. Fistandantilus pushed against them, then; sensing only grief, pain and hopelessness, he pulled away, satisfied.
Raistlin had thought holding back despair was the hardest thing imaginable. He was wrong. The hardest thing in the world was holding back the wave of sheer, overwhelming relief that threatened to break over him when /he/ had stepped into sight. His eyes were fogged, but even blind, he would have known. The walls had fallen for one heart-splitting moment and Raistlin had seen his face.
Seen Dalamar's face.
The moment had almost destroyed him. To see him, to know that Dalamar was alive, that he was unhurt, that he was /here/, and to have to hold back those feelings was shattering. The feeling in his heart- the heart of his soul, when his body was no longer his -feeling like he was about to split apart from overwhelming joy. The strongest emotion he had even felt, and he had to hold it back. He had thought holding back despair was terrible, holding back relief...impossibly so.
But he had done it, and tricked Fistandantilus, and as the lich's attention turned away from him, he allowed himself to feel- bit by bit, crumb by crumb- the emotions sweeping over him. The images. Dalamar, his face pale and hollow with exhaustion, his eyes silver with burning intensity, with the driving will that had brought him so far. Dalamar, who he'd been so certain he'd lost forever. Dalamar, who'd followed him -Gods only knew how- to the closest thing to the Abyss that could be found on Krynn.
And to think, this was the same person who had once believed he would never trust him.
The change that just seeing the Dark elf had brought staggered him. Staggered, and frightened. The crushing weight of despair lifted, as though a wall had fallen within his thoughts. Clarity. He had been so close to giving in to that despair, so close to just giving up. It was only now it was gone that Raistlin realized just how close he'd come. To have fallen so completely apart that he'd been unable to act, it was terrifying.
He'd known his love for the Dark elf had left him vulnerable, something enemies could use to attack him, but it was only when that attack came that he realized how much.
Stop. Stop. Fistandantilus' mind raked over his, scraping along the blanket of despair he'd wrapped around himself, then, satisfied that he had seen nothing, and remained crippled by grief, turned back out.
The lich's thoughts flickered against his, the walls weakening slightly as he concentrated. Flashes. Rage. Cold, ice-bound rage. Focus. Burn. Lie. Words. Poisoned words. Focus. The spell. /Ast kiranann kair gadunrm soth-arn suh kali jalaran/...
Oh, Lunitari no.
/Kill him./
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Whatever Dalamar had expected -and he must have expected something, although he couldn't imagine what- it wasn't this. It wasn't the frozen, burning fury on his lover's now-alien face. It wasn't the hatred that was written in every motion, in every breath. It wasn't the terrible, nightmarishly familiar dead look in those hourglass eyes. It was strange that, on one hand, it was almost a relief. He was right. This wasn't Raistlin. Hadn't /been/ Raistlin. If it had, Dalamar didn't know what he'd have done.
Those hourglass eyes had flickered, a moment. A split-heartbeat. He could have imagined it.
He probably had. There was no sign of Raistlin in those eyes now. No sign of him in that face. Just that dead creature. 'He' Raistlin had called him, before the coughs had almost choked him to death. The creature that had been with them since Raistlin's Test, and had its hands around Raistlin's throat since autumn.
And Nuitari, Gods, let it not have strangled him yet. Let Raistlin still be in there somewhere. Let him have /seen/. Nuitari. Raistlin. Dalamar didn't know who he was praying to anymore.
"Raistlin?" Caramon looked between them.
Dalamar stared at him, unable to believe this even of Caramon. Did he honestly believe that the creature standing there, looking at him behind those eyes, was his /brother?/ The big man looked almost fearful, and Dalamar wondered if he was expecting Raistlin to rush up and kiss him.
"Traitor." The creature spat through Raistlin's lips. The voice was barely recognizable. The tone was all that was left. The accent, the inflections, the words...None were Raistlin's. "I trusted you and you betrayed me." Had it been Raistlin's voice, it would have hurt. But now Dalamar felt as though he had wandered into a pantomime without knowing the lines. "You twisted my mind. Enchanted me..." And it /was/ a pantomime, a show put on in honor of the idiots who would believe it.
The Raistlin-creature lifted its hand, the Dragon Orb's cloth bag held in hands that somehow seemed more skeletal than ever. "But this freed me. This broke the spell. This let me think again."
Dalamar didn't say anything. There was no point in denying it. Caramon would believe it, would believe anything from what he thought was his brother. The kender wouldn't care what the truth was, as long as it was entertaining. Tika alone looked suspicious. Tika he could convince, but what was the point? What was their opinion to him? What was the point in wasting his breath when he could see the danger rising in those dead eyes. A murderous rage he was sure the creature did not have to fake.
Raistlin...
The creature had tried to kill him in Silvanesti. Raistlin hadn't let him, had given Nuitari only knew what to protect his lover. But now... If Raistlin was still in there, he was too weak, too broken to fight. It sounded impossible, that Raistlin, unbreakable, indomitable Raistlin, would allow himself break.
But then, how would he act, if he were powerless and alone, and believing Raistlin dead? The cold dread in his heart tightened, and froze when the creature raised Raistlin's hands. Slender, beautiful hands, such loving hands. Long, delicate fingers now hooked into claws, the fingers of an old man, an old monster. Magic starting to gather, staring to flare. The dead voice staring to intone; /"Ast kiranann kair gadunrm soth-arn.../"
Dalamar didn't stay to hear him finish the spell -a spell he knew very well. It might have been cowardly, but if Raistlin was still trapped within his own mind, he did not want him to see him die.
Whatever controlled Raistlin was too powerful, powerful enough to kill a dragon, powerful enough to crush the strongest mind Dalamar had ever met. Too powerful for an attack to end in anything but death. The only defense Dalamar had was his own mind, one that never stopped working, no matter how terrible things were. That set him running at the best possible moment. Early enough to still get enough space between him and the caster, but late enough that the creature couldn't re-aim without losing the spell.
The lightning bolt followed Dalamar down the corridor with a roar of exploding air and a storm of concussive force that threw him against the wall. His arm scraped the crumbling surface and his ears rang, cutting out all sound. Dizzy, barely able to stay standing, Dalamar kept running. Running. /Running/. Running away from the very person he had crossed half of Ansalon to see. Risked everything to see. Because that person was no longer there.
Dalamar didn't know how he made his way out of the crumbling temple. He couldn't remember anything after those thoughts had crossed him mind. But his mind had worked, had guided him out of the ruins, away from the draconians, and finally out of the town. Dalamar stumbled on something he couldn't see, and fell to his knees, then down on his elbows.
He wasn't crying. He was barely breathing, the air just didn't seem to come, no matter how he gasped, as though something was reaching into his lungs to steal it away. Was this what Raistlin felt, those terrible moments when the air didn't come, before the coughing fits almost tore him apart?
Had felt. The creature's voice was strong, unbroken. Dalamar choked, and gasped. He felt sick. He couldn't stop shaking. He felt now as he had felt when he'd woken from drowning. Weak and trembling and cold, but with his mind finally clear.
Dalamar sat up on his knees, head bowed as he tried to breath. His robes stank of ozone from the lighting bolt. Oh Nuitari... Raistlin. Raistlin. Raistlin who was unable to fight, not even for him. Raistlin who might be the one dead. Dalamar drew a deep breath, unable to believe it, even with the proof of it staining his clothes.
Dalamar turned, staring back as though in hope of seeing him again. To look once more, to be sure...
The Temple had its back to the mountainside, and Dalamar had, in his mad dash, climbed quite a way into the foothills. With the Temple finally crumbling to the ground, Dalamar could see beyond it into the city. He'd been right; without the Temple to hold it together, Neraka was breaking to pieces, shattering into fragments. Tents were going down like reeds in the wind, draconians scurried among the rubble like ants. Around the edges of the town, Dalamar could make out the better-trained human mercenaries lying in wait, ambushing anyone carrying loot.
And there- /there/ were four people. Two humans, one huge, one a woman, a kender, and a robed and hooded figure. Dalamar's mouth went dry, his heart pounding in his throat, because even at this distance, he knew who this was. And he knew who this wasn't. Raistlin had a slight stoop, weighed down by ill-health, but this creature was hunched, thrusting Raistlin's neck forwards, clasping the Staff of Magius to his chest rather than leaning on it as Raistlin would. This was not a crutch, it was a weapon.
Dalamar rolled over, lying on his back against the slope. His heart froze as the figure turned, golden face a wraith-white under the light of Solinari. Dalamar scrambled back as he felt those dead eyes on him. The distance was nothing and the creature wanted him dead. He had to move, to get out. He forced himself to hold still, forced his eyes to lock on the distant oval that had once been his lover's face but had now become his nemesis'.
The face turned away, and Dalamar started to cast, keeping one eye on the figure as he did so. If it turned and saw him, everything would be lost. He hoped that whatever it was doing with the three fools would occupy its attention long enough.
He wished he had memorized one of the illusion spells that had made them so much money in Flotsam, but that couldn't be helped. In his exposed position, it probably wouldn't have worked. Grateful that he still had at least this left, Dalamar cast the invisibility spell as quickly as possible.
Invisibility shrouded sight, not sound, and Dalamar made a small racket scrambling back down off the hillside, dislodging a hail of stones and pebbles as he went. It was a risk, drawing closer, but the wreckage of the Temple offered a better hiding place than the hillside.
The ruins were completely unrecognizable. Much of the rubble seemed to have vanished, as though drawn back into the same vile plane that had spawned it- which was probably the case. The rest more resembled the foundations of a long-forgotten church than a true temple, the stones blackened as though by fire.
Dalamar's skin crawled suddenly, the first prickling warnings that had become far too familiar. /Dragons/.
Just the one, but Dalamar would know it anywhere. The huge, terrible green that had woven the Nightmare where everything had come unraveled. It circled down, but Dalamar didn't wait to see where it landed. He already knew.
Dalamar crouched down beneath a half-fallen wall. What a twisted nightmare. To have come this far, looking for the very person he was now hiding from. Raistlin... Gods. He didn't seem to be able to think anything else. Gods. Nuitari. Raistlin. His heart hurt, and the spell-born weariness seemed all the deeper now that he knew he wouldn't be finding any answers here. Whatever had possessed Raistlin controlled him so deeply that Dalamar knew better than to try and break it without knowing more.
The dragonfear rose again, warningly, and Dalamar curled up under the stones, his heart beating against his ribs. The illusion would have done nothing, the invisibility would do nothing unless he stayed out of sight. The creature was searching for him. He could see, through the cracks in the brickwork, the dragon circling overhead. Dalamar screwed his eyes closed. He couldn't look.
And then it was gone, the dragon winging its way back east over the mountains, and the dragonfear faded away, leaving a bone-deep helpless anger in its wake. He was gone. Raistlin was gone. He had failed. Never mind that there was nothing he could have done, it was still failure. He had come here to find Raistlin, and he had, only to have him slip through his fingers, under the claws of that dead creature. And now he was gone, and the gods only knew where he would go.
Dalamar took a deep breath. There was no doubt where /he/ would go, the very place he should have gone. The creature had believed him dead. He should have used the chance to find answers before confronting it. He should have... Dalamar closed his eyes. He should have done a lot of things, but if he had to do it again, he wouldn't do anything differently. If Raistlin was still alive, inside his own mind, he would have seen him. He would know Dalamar was alive, and that would be worth any risk.
But now he knew, and so did the creature possessing him, and now Dalamar had to face a much longer journey. The thought of the distance he'd have to travel, through war-torn lands, was exhausting, but there was simply no other choice. He had no one else to turn to, nowhere else to go, and, however painful it was to admit to himself, meeting Raistlin again would mean his death. It was the only place left he could find the answers he needed. It was the only place Raistlin had ventured that he hadn’t. It had been there Raistlin had taken his Test and there he had first been touched by that creature.
The Tower of High Sorcery.

Skull Bearer.
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Alvorecer