Temporal Chapter 4

[skull_bearer]

I know! It's still alive. I fear that it's gone and then suddenly bam! The bunny bites again (or rather gnaws, it's been biting me since '04 and shows no sign of stopping). I can't help it. I still love this fic. Even though the early bits are some of my worst writing and I can't read them without flinching, and I've long since lost interest in the actual canon characters (except maybe Dalamar, he is still ever-awesome), I just love my Raistlin and Dalamar too much to abandon them. I'm a little unsure about this story still. It is angst on top of angst and I do wonder if it will get too much. All I can do is try not to wallow in it, I guess.

Temporal

Valhalla

The first Raistlin knew of it was the sudden weakening of the Wall. Excitement crackled around him like lightning, at last. At last! Finally they were on the move!

The spell to split time (Timespin, Raistlin felt the spell drag over their shared mind like a curtain of rain) drained the lich of so much strength that the wall became completely transparent. Raistlin cloaked himself is silence, stilled his mind and slipped out to watch behind his own eyes.

He paid little attention to the alien landscape around them, the many spiralled and turreted Istar. There would be time later to see this. There would have to be. The very concept of failure was one that made Raistlin's very thoughts shake. And now, so very close to the end, the final end, he was terrified to even plan ahead more than a few steps, in case Fistandantilus heard him.

He probably shouldn't worry, the lich was so tired by the exertion that he slumped against the high wall of a nearby building, breathing heavily. His thoughts snapped through to Raistlin like whips. This was Istar, enemy to all mages. He was here a stranger, not yet the Dark One feared by all (not yet, not yet, Raistlin carefully guided that thought away from the reefs and rocks of realisation). He must hide. Yes. Hide and seek out his other self. Yes. Kill him at once and take his place, and the freedom that would allow him to proceed with the plan in peace. Yes. To killed his other self now! Before it could realise he was here and struck first!

Raistlin pulled away, it would be a risk attacking now, with the lich tired, but they would have the element of surprise, and Fistandantilus seemed to be quite confident he could win. Beside, now that he was so close, so very close to finally being free, the thought of remaining with the lich in his mind for a moment longer than necessary was repellent. Do it now. Kill it now. End it now. Finally.

They barely needed magic to pass unseen through the crowds of Istar, but even that small drain weakened the barriers further, everything coming into sharper focus, the colours brighter, the details dazzling. Slipping unseen past guards in the baroque armour of a nation that hadn't seen true war in centuries. Past flamboyant courtiers who shuddered and pulled up the collars of their fine robes instinctively in their wake. Through a palace so beautiful that Raistlin wondered what it would look like once he was free, even behind the wall it was overwhelming, it would be blinding if seen with bare eyes.

There was even sound now. Muffled and dim, as though coming from underwater, as they descended steps leading deep into the ground, following Fistandantilus' mental map to his laboratory. Their footsteps rang out, one hand scratching along the bare brick and Raistlin could feel Fistandantilus' every thought, every stolen sense, stretching to catch any sight of his other self, the only enemy he would ever consider his equal.

Raistlin wondered if it was his heart beating so loudly, or just the memory of what being nervous felt like. It wasn't fear. Raistlin wondered if he was even capable of fear any more. It was more of a sensation of being suspended, where the slightest error would send him tumbling to oblivion, as though the entire world were holding its breath, and not just the collected thoughts of Fistandantilus and Raistlin Majere.

The staircase opened out into an anteroom, a fire was burning in the grate and Raistlin heard the lich's thoughts (so clearly! The walls were weak indeed) that he must have just had an apprentice, or was expecting one. Why else would a dead being require warmth?

Then through the far door, and into the laboratory.

Raistlin's immediate thoughts, despite his plans, despite the danger, despite everything, was that if he was unable to take everything here with him, he would stash it somewhere safe and go and find it once he'd returned to his own time. None of the disgusting trinkets and baubles of lesser mages; no crystal balls or servile imps. Nothing but books, shelf after shelf of books, and although his thoughts were louder than he meant them it didn't matter, because they had meshed perfectly with Fistandantilus'.

Raistlin's head turned, moved by strings of ice, and like a puppet, he moved into the room. Stopped at the sound of movement behind the far door. Raistlin strived not to think at all, nothing, nothing. Feel nothing think nothing, do nothing to attract attention.

"A little early, my impudent apprentice." And nothing would ever have prepared Raistlin for hearing that voice again, ringing staccato in his mind in a million echoes. Even the lich clawing at his mind was momentarily stunned. Then the dark mage came into view.

This time, Raistlin was sure the world stopped. Had the Cataclysm happened at that moment, the very burning mountain would have paused above Istar, to witness what happened next. Through stolen eyes, the two liches stared at each other. Fistandantilus' mind writhed, unable to cope with the simple knowledge that he was standing here yet at the same time over there.

The other Fistandantilus was much like he had appeared to Raistlin in the Test. Cold, dark, cruel, decay reeking from every pore every at this distance. He must have been expecting another poor fool to suck dry.

They moved first, Raistlin's throat twisted to let out a roar that had nothing human or even undead about it. It was pure animal denial. The lich's mind bucked until it was all Raistlin could do to hang on at the edges, the lich screeching out a spell he only caught the tail end of.

Shards of ice hammered the other Fistandantilus, who was knocked out of his trance, and howled an attack back.

Raistlin allowed himself a scream of triumph. The lich had lost. Even if the other Fistandantilus were to win this, and kill them both, he would still have lost, trapping the other lich in an endless loop where he would always progress along the same path, and go back in time and die. No matter who won this battle, he would die.

Fistandantilus didn't even notice, every part of him so bent on destroying his other self, this thing that should not be, that every wall feel as though it had never been. Raistlin's senses came back with a snap, the gloom of the room, the crash and howl of the spells, the smell of damp and decay and magic, the feeling of the arcane energy flowing through him - and oh, how he had missed that! - the taste of his own blood where the lich had gnawed on his lip hard enough to split the skin.

It was almost overwhelming, and he couldn't let it be. Raistlin focuses and hurled his own power into the battle, add strength to every spell and incantation. Both liches were so maddened by the sight of each other they barely noticed. Pouring energy freely into every motion: come on! Come on! We can win this we can win this! Fistandantilus' plan might be in ruins, but Raistlin was determined to come out of this alive, alive and victorious!

Spells cast so fast they were barely more than raw magic, hardly having the time to settle into fire or cold or lightning before they were dispelled or dodged or, more and more often, slammed into their target. The other Fistandantilus was faltering. It was weaker, it had been expecting a new body, to exchange its tired, decaying bones for youth and vigour. It snarled, managed to dodge the next attack and cast something which Raistlin wasn't even able to see, which hammered into them like a falling anvil. They staggered back, and the other lich lunged, hand grasping around its neck for an all-too familiar bloodstone pendant. Raistlin had only seen it once, but would never forget it.

Rage sparked along every one of the lich's thought. That was his! That was his! Pain forgotten, Raistlin forgotten, the next spell forced the other lich back and they closed, Raistlin's stolen hands reaching out to snatch the pendant.

Raistlin hovered carefully, slowly extending his mind to grasp at the lich's without him noticing, while preparing the cage he had spent so long constructing. Any moment. Any moment.

Now! The final spell sent the other Fistandantilus crumbling to the ground. The lich ordered Raistlin's hand out greedily towards the pendant. Then, just then, with the lich's every thought bent on his prize. It was then. Raistlin snagged the lich's consciousness like a hook does a fish, and dragged him back out of his mind, behind the Wall, into the cage, and the door slammed shut and sealed. The explosion of being back in his own body was such that Raistlin had to will himself into moving, gripping the pendant that throbbed hot and cold in his hand like some inhuman heart. He could hear Fistandantilus roaring in his mind, feel the edges of the cage start to give under the onslaught of the lich's desperate rage.

His other self was less of a challenge. Any appearance of youth or humanity was long gone from the face. It appeared as Raistlin had seen it during his Test. A rotting corpse too stupid to know it was already dead. It looked up at him and for a moment, Raistlin was sure it knew him. Could see through his mind to its trapped, screaming other self, and through that knew the being which was about to kill it.

The hand grasping the pendant came down with all the pent-up fury and frustration of being trapped in his own mind, and the hatred and degradation of the five years before. His blow punched straight through the lich's rotted ribcage, the worm-eaten bones splintering and drawing blood where they scratched him, the soft and swollen internal organs bursting and Raistlin was sure he could feel worms crawling over his skin.

The other lich reached up to claw at Raistlin's chest, in a reversal of the last moments of his Test. But the bone were too brittle, the tendons to frail, and they barely tore his robes. In his mind Fistandantilus tried to force his way through, failed, and screamed. He screamed like Raistlin imagined he himself had screamed, when the lich had dragged him away from Dalamar in the Blood Sea. And endless shriek that needed no pause for breath, more sensation than sound, more thought that either.

The walls around them narrowed to a spinning tunnel around them, like being inside a tornado, and the lich's mind fell apart.

Thoughts, knowledge, everything that the lich had every thought or seen or heard or read. Everything in a millennia-long existence. Everything he and his Istar counterpart had ever born witness to drove into Raistlin's mind like a hurricane. Fragments hurtled everywhere but Raistlin had been able to hold himself together as a prisoner in his own mind, nothing could touch him now. He saw glimpses of places unimagined and familiar, saw faces from a thousand years ago, a hundred years to come, saw his own face, and for a moment he even thought he saw Dalamar's. He saw everything, standing there in the heart of the storm, one hand crushing Fistandantilus' heart, the other clutched to his head as he watched the greatest archmage die.

And then...

And then.

Then the storm passed. And Raistlin was once against shivering on the floor, one hand buried up to the elbow in a corpse, the other trembling so hard his fingers were blurred. The old lich might have been ancient, but Raistlin had absorbed so much energy he could barely remain still. Every inch of him was shaking, and nothing, nothing had every felt so glorious. He stumbled to his feet, letting go of the bloodstone and leaving it inside Fistandantilus' corpse. There was an enormous hole in his mind where the lich had been, but it was already filling up with thoughts. Raistlin looked down at his hands, one scalded red from so much casting, the other black to the elbow with ancient blood. He was absolutely freezing. His body was so cold even the stones felt warm in comparison. His fingers ached from being hooked into Fistandantilus' claws for so long, and he flexed them, still marvelling at being able to do something so simple.

He looked around again, at all the spellbooks lining the walls. All Fistandantilus' spellbooks, written and collected over the millennia of the lich's existence. He could even see the lich writing them in his mind's eye, the memories called up on a whim. He could take them now, read even the greatest of them without fear of going mad. They were his now. He was the Master of Past and Present.

Raistlin threw back his head and howled. He couldn't help it. It had been so long (how long? He still had no idea of time). He was alive. He was himself. He was alone. He hadn't been alone in his own mind since the Test. He clutched at his face and got rotting blood all over his cheek and one eye. Himself, himself, the same nose and mouth and face, even thinner than he remembered them (Fistandantilus must not have bothered eating much).
He even looked as he had before the Test, his skin was pale, rather than burnished gold, and his hair was the same familiar shade of red. It would not last, he would revert the moment he returned to his own time, and there too waited his blasted cough and Par-Salian's curse. But here he was whole and relatively hale, as much as he ever had been, surrounded by a world which didn't crumble to dust when he looked at it.

He would do something about it, Raistlin decided. He had the power, and now he had the knowledge (although it would take a while to pick through the mess of Fistandantilus' memories), and finally, finally he had the time. He would take these books and go back. Leave his brother and that revolting cleric to the tender mercies of Istar: they could go home or be squashed flat, he didn't care. It wasn't his problem. He could go home! Go home and track down Dalamar and finally -

The dead lich's memories stirred.

Dalamar.

Raistlin froze, one hand still dragging black streaks down his face.

 

Comments

[shadowvalkyrie.livejournal.com]

Eeeep! I can't believe I missed the update this long! I&E! Alive! *dances*

Raistlin pulled away, it would be a risk attacking now, with the lich tired, but they would have the element of surprise, and Fistandantilus seemed to be quite confident he could win. Beside, now that he was so close, so very close to finally being free, the thought of remaining with the lich in his mind for a moment longer than necessary was repellent. Do it now. Kill it now. End it now. Finally.

*cheers*

They barely needed magic to pass unseen through the crowds of Istar, but even that small drain weakened the barriers further, everything coming into sharper focus, the colours brighter, the details dazzling. Slipping unseen past guards in the baroque armour of a nation that hadn't seen true war in centuries. Past flamboyant courtiers who shuddered and pulled up the collars of their fine robes instinctively in their wake. Through a palace so beautiful that Raistlin wondered what it would look like once he was free, even behind the wall it was overwhelming, it would be blinding if seen with bare eyes.

That's a great establishing shot of Istar -- short, but saying all that's necessary.

Raistlin wondered if it was his heart beating so loudly, or just the memory of what being nervous felt like. It wasn't fear. Raistlin wondered if he was even capable of fear any more. It was more of a sensation of being suspended, where the slightest error would send him tumbling to oblivion, as though the entire world were holding its breath, and not just the collected thoughts of Fistandantilus and Raistlin Majere.

*loves*

And nothing would ever have prepared Raistlin for hearing that voice again, ringing staccato in his mind in a million echoes. Even the lich clawing at his mind was momentarily stunned. Then the dark mage came into view.
This time, Raistlin was sure the world stopped. Had the Cataclysm happened at that moment, the very burning mountain would have paused above Istar, to witness what happened next. Through stolen eyes, the two liches stared at each other. Fistandantilus' mind writhed, unable to cope with the simple knowledge that he was standing here yet at the same time over there.

*shivers*

Raistlin allowed himself a scream of triumph. The lich had lost. Even if the other Fistandantilus were to win this, and kill them both, he would still have lost, trapping the other lich in an endless loop where he would always progress along the same path, and go back in time and die. No matter who won this battle, he would die.
Fistandantilus didn't even notice, every part of him so bent on destroying his other self, this thing that should not be, that every wall feel as though it had never been. Raistlin's senses came back with a snap, the gloom of the room, the crash and howl of the spells, the smell of damp and decay and magic, the feeling of the arcane energy flowing through him - and oh, how he had missed that! - the taste of his own blood where the lich had gnawed on his lip hard enough to split the skin.
It was almost overwhelming, and he couldn't let it be. Raistlin focuses and hurled his own power into the battle, add strength to every spell and incantation. Both liches were so maddened by the sight of each other they barely noticed. Pouring energy freely into every motion: come on! Come on! We can win this we can win this! Fistandantilus' plan might be in ruins, but Raistlin was determined to come out of this alive, alive and victorious!

*cheers for the triumphant moment*

Pt 2

[shadowvalkyrie.livejournal.com]

Now! The final spell sent the other Fistandantilus crumbling to the ground. The lich ordered Raistlin's hand out greedily towards the pendant. Then, just then, with the lich's every thought bent on his prize. It was then. Raistlin snagged the lich's consciousness like a hook does a fish, and dragged him back out of his mind, behind the Wall, into the cage, and the door slammed shut and sealed. The explosion of being back in his own body was such that Raistlin had to will himself into moving, gripping the pendant that throbbed hot and cold in his hand like some inhuman heart. He could hear Fistandantilus roaring in his mind, feel the edges of the cage start to give under the onslaught of the lich's desperate rage.

*cheers even more* Go, Raistlin!

His other self was less of a challenge. Any appearance of youth or humanity was long gone from the face. It appeared as Raistlin had seen it during his Test. A rotting corpse too stupid to know it was already dead. It looked up at him and for a moment, Raistlin was sure it knew him. Could see through his mind to its trapped, screaming other self, and through that knew the being which was about to kill it.
The hand grasping the pendant came down with all the pent-up fury and frustration of being trapped in his own mind, and the hatred and degradation of the five years before. His blow punched straight through the lich's rotted ribcage, the worm-eaten bones splintering and drawing blood where they scratched him, the soft and swollen internal organs bursting and Raistlin was sure he could feel worms crawling over his skin.

That is wonderfully vivid -- in disgusting ways. *g*

And then.
Then the storm passed. And Raistlin was once against shivering on the floor, one hand buried up to the elbow in a corpse, the other trembling so hard his fingers were blurred. The old lich might have been ancient, but Raistlin had absorbed so much energy he could barely remain still. Every inch of him was shaking, and nothing, nothing had every felt so glorious. He stumbled to his feet, letting go of the bloodstone and leaving it inside Fistandantilus' corpse. There was an enormous hole in his mind where the lich had been, but it was already filling up with thoughts. Raistlin looked down at his hands, one scalded red from so much casting, the other black to the elbow with ancient blood. He was absolutely freezing. His body was so cold even the stones felt warm in comparison. His fingers ached from being hooked into Fistandantilus' claws for so long, and he flexed them, still marvelling at being able to do something so simple.

Wonderful! And overdue!

He looked around again, at all the spellbooks lining the walls. All Fistandantilus' spellbooks, written and collected over the millennia of the lich's existence. He could even see the lich writing them in his mind's eye, the memories called up on a whim. He could take them now, read even the greatest of them without fear of going mad. They were his now. He was the Master of Past and Present.

*loves* I always felt the books didn't pay enough attention to that part.

He even looked as he had before the Test, his skin was pale, rather than burnished gold, and his hair was the same familiar shade of red. It would not last, he would revert the moment he returned to his own time, and there too waited his blasted cough and Par-Salian's curse. But here he was whole and relatively hale, as much as he ever had been, surrounded by a world which didn't crumble to dust when he looked at it.

Time paradoxes -- ever compelling!

The dead lich's memories stirred.
Dalamar.
Raistlin froze, one hand still dragging black streaks down his face.

Oh, damn! That's not going to be an easy reunion!