skull_bearer | Tower, chapter 2 (Reply)

Tiernan Hunter: Thank you, I wanted to get Rannoch in it ever since I read about him. He's just so... adorable, in a twisted way.

arrasailup: I wish, Andras Rannoch and the take of the Lost Battles come courtesy of the best Dragonlance books I've ever read, the Kingpriest Trilogy. No Raistlin, no Dalamar. Just Fistandantilus kicking the living daylights out of everything in his way. Before I read them, I wondered if I'd made the lich too evil, afterwards I realised, if anything, I'd made him too /nice.
Sorry, I love those books :)

Shadow: Heh, cheers. Dalamar's glad for at least some company.

WalkingInDarkness737: As I said above, I didn't think of them either, thank Chris Pierson.

mintsui: Well, it isn't.

ShadowValkyrie: Fistandantilus is One Scary Bastard. I'm glad I got him about right.

Loran: Yes, I think he is as well.

Halokitty69:I love Andras a lot, he just so totally doesn't deserve any of the shit he gets, and Dalamar really needs someone to talk to, even if they can't talk back.

Tower 2

Don't give a fuck about the hell's Gate, ain't punkin' the crowd and I'm still standing up straight.
So, we pull these jobs to make a little money;
No one gets hurt if they don't act funny.
-Scooby Snacks, Fun Loving Criminals.

It wasn't even colour. It wasn't anything. Trapped inside his own head, Raistlin couldn't describe what it was like in words. He had no eyes to see, no ears to hear, no hands to feel. But see and hear and feel he did, even though the world outside was completely cut off. He could 'feel' Fistandantilus' thoughts, 'see' the outline of outside, but the lich was being careful, and The Wall had never faltered again.

But it would, Raistlin was certain of this. It had grown easy to flit through the hole in The Wall -- the hole the lich had put there himself, irony of ironies -- and see into Fistandantilus' thoughts. It had taken him a while to trust in his own invisibility, waiting for the lich to grow complacent, accepting that Raistlin was no threat, before daring to move. And even longer- although there was no real sense of time in this place- to attempt to read the lich's thoughts. But it had worked.
It wasn't so easy to put them together though, like putting together a puzzle made of a billion pieces and half of them missing. Luckily, Raistlin was good at puzzles, and he had more than enough time. And whatever the lich was planning to do, it involved a great deal of magic, magic that would leave him weakened. Hopefully by then, Raistlin would have discovered what he was planning, and would have worked out a way to disrupt it, and if possible, turn it back on its caster. All he had to do was not to be noticed.

It was painfully easy. Easy because whatever was happening outside was occupying all of Fistandantilus' attention, with none left to spend on a ghost he believed half dead with grief anyway. Painful because it was so obvious that this was how Fistandantilus had been controlling him. And he hadn't even known the lich was there.

There was a certain irony at playing- and beating- Fistandantilus at his own game. He had always been good at manipulation, although his skills had gone rusty of late, pitted against Caramon, who a brain-dead troll could have tricked, and Dalamar, who needed none.

Dalamar. Gods. He missed him. It was utterly stupid to wish the elf was here, not to mention blatantly impossible, but he couldn't help but wish it anyway. It was a cold, lonely existence - he couldn't call this living- and he desperately wanted to talk to him. The crafty Dark elf always had the best ideas. And there were times when his grip on the lich's thoughts slipped, or he was almost noticed, or he snatched some new piece of knowledge that made no sense, and he just wanted to scream in frustration and would have given anything just for a few moments with Dalamar. Just to centre himself. Just to know he wasn't alone.

But he was, and to think down those lines was to come dangerously close to giving up. Raistlin threw those thoughts back behind The Wall regretfully. There wasn't time for them, and they could attract unwanted attention, there would be later, but for now he had to focus.

It was a lot like eavesdropping. He stayed perfectly still, blended into the static background, and listened. There were a lot of thoughts, some of them hidden, most of them useless, but sometimes...

Sometimes it worked. Snatching up piece that, while they might not throw any light on the situation, would help later. Or perhaps give a little hope; such as the realisation that whoever the Conclave had sent had upset the lich's plans badly, or that whatever the lich's plans were, it would take a long time yet for them to be ready.

Then, there! He'd started to recognise the thoughts he was looking for, those of the lich's plans. They had a different... colour? Texture? Scent? None of those, but they felt different.
And like all good eavesdroppers, he had to move closer to hear more, while still remaining invisible. It was difficult sometimes, when Fistandantilus was being too reflective he occasionally remembered he wasn't alone, and Raistlin had to snatch away fast as- well, thought. And there were some thoughts the lich guarded like a dragon guarded treasure, and Raistlin dared not even go near. If Fistandantilus realised his host was not as crippled as he'd thought... Raistlin didn't like to think about it. Here, thought was real, and he had to be careful what came to mind.

The thoughts weren't words so much as feelings, muted and dead, and images. The memory of the Nerakan throne room took pride of place. The lich carefully dissecting the memory piece by piece, looking for what?
Information. Information on Takhisis. Had Raistlin been able to draw breath, he would have held it. He hadn't been able to find out many details, and nothing like this. Fistandantilus was planning to do something to draw even more power, how or from what or to do what Raistlin didn't know, but it would be quite soon. The lich didn't have everything he needed yet, but it would come.

Was what he wanted in those memories? Raistlin quietened his own thoughts, tucked them away, the better to listen.
Not the throne room now, but another room, a laboratory cluttered with magical implements and spellbooks and artefacts enough to have kept Raistlin happy for the rest of his life. But Fistandantilus' attention was not drawn to them, but rather to a door in the far wall. A door that made no sense, there was a window beside it, and the lich seemed to know it was several stories up. A door with no keyhole, and a doorframe made of the heads of dragons.

Raistlin felt a slow, sinking sensation. He knew this door. Not only through Fistandantilus, who seemed to have looked upon it many a time, but from his own reading, eons ago when he was still the master of his own body. The portal to the Abyss, through which Takhisis had sent her shrieking hoards thousands of years ago, and within which She had been sealed by Huma. And the lich was trying to open it; there was no mistaking the train of the creature's thoughts.

Raistlin bit down on the emotions threatening to rush up, and fled. Fistandantilus had gone back to examining his memory of the throne room, he would learn no more here, and if he stayed much longer he risked exposing himself.

Back behind The Wall, within the protective cocoon of grief, it was safe to think. Fistandantilus wanted to open the portal to the Abyss. Why? What would the lich gain? Nothing. Takhisis might be grateful, but if he had been the kind of creature to be satisfied with blessing from his betters, none of this would be happening. Fistandantilus would only serve one more powerful in the hopes of betraying and usurping them...

...In fact, the only surprise should have been that he hadn't realised it sooner. Fistandantilus had told him as much, in his Test. He had seen the lich bore a hole through The Wall to hide his treacherous thoughts when facing the Dark Queen. Very well, the first had been a long time ago, and the second when he had been in no fit state to register anything, but that was no excuse. To usurp Takhisis herself! No wonder the lich was tempted. Raistlin would have been hard pressed to resist that sort of possibility. Fistandantilus had planned- Gods, he had planned for centuries for this. He had staged the Lost Battles to destroy the Orders of High Sorcery so they couldn't interfere, had insinuated himself in the Kingpriest's court and set the madman off against anyone or anything that could stand in his way. And when everything was ready, he had made his attempt in Zhaman.

But that had failed, somehow, and the rest Raistlin knew only too well. Fistandantilus hadn't stopped trying, hadn't given up, and even now Raistlin couldn't help but admire that kind of dedication. If he hadn't become the tool of it.
And if the idea of Fistandantilus attaining Godhood didn't make him feel sick. Who knew what the creature would do with unlimited power, but if what he had done so far was to be any indication, Raistlin wasn't too sure he wanted to know. And he definitely didn't want to know what would happen to him- or to Dalamar- if the lich were to succeed. He didn't think the creature would be so kind as to give them a quick death.

Raistlin forced himself to calm down. Fistandantilus wasn't ready, why? The portal was there, what did he lack?

It wasn't that hard to find, now he knew what to look for. The information was there, just behind The Wall, not even hidden very well. The lich was confident, or perhaps he just thought the information irrelevant. What would Raistlin do with it?
And indeed what would he do? The lich needed a goodly priest to open the portal, a goodly priest and a black robe, an impossible combination but one which Fistandantilus had made in the past. There were old thoughts of using Elistan- which gave Raistlin a queer feeling of familiarity, as well as a slight relief the lich had chosen someone else. He hadn't liked the old cleric much, but no one deserved that. His new chosen was some talented new cleric, Cristi- something or other. The lich was planning to use her, trick her, into opening the portal. It didn't matter. He couldn't do anything with this.

Raistlin supposed he could interrupt while the lich was fighting the Dark Queen, but that was hardly an ideal answer. He could, Fistandantilus would be weakened enough for it, but he would be obliterated and Takhisis would be free to walk Krynn. It was better than letting Fistandantilus achieve his ambitions, but not by much.

Raistlin filed away the information. But still, why didn't the lich act? The cleric was there, in the Temple in Palanthas (there was a Temple in Palanthas?) practically next door, but still the lich didn't act. Why?

With two pieces of the puzzle, the third was the easiest to find. Because of the magic. Because Fistandantilus didn't have the knowledge necessary to open the portal, let alone to fight the Dark Queen. And he was unlikely to get it. Many of the lich's spellbooks had been destroyed during the Cataclysm, and the most vital had gone up in flame with Zhaman. Without them, Fistandantilus either had do all his research again from scratch- a work of centuries- or to go back and get them.

It was an odd mixture, admiration and hatred and fear. Admiration that the lich really would do that, hatred for what it would meant, and fear at how impossible the task to stop him now seemed.

But yet...

There was something there, something buried under a head of thoughts and memories. It wasn't well guarded, but it was like taking out a single card without collapsing the castle. Not fear, so much as wariness, a warning. Not to go near his past self.

Raistlin froze, and for a moment his presence became so blatantly obvious that he had to dash back out quickly before Fistandantilus noticed. He did, but Raistlin had been fast enough that other than a quick glance outside The Wall, Fistandantilus dismissed it.

Raistlin forced his thoughts to calm, and carefully listed them, one at a time, carefully checking for any mistakes.

Fistandantilus was going to the past, yes, he knew that.

The lich's past self would be there, that too was obvious.

What would happen if the two met. That, Raistlin didn't know, and didn't try and guess, it was beside the point anyway.

The lich would be weakened by the casting of the Timespin spell- and he would cast it, Fistandantilus had as low regard for most magical artefacts as Raistlin did- yes, that would be the case. Enough to see out, at any rate, the lich considered waiting a while before casting anything that would weaken him further, a few days at least.

And now the dangerous part.
What would happen, if Raistlin took control, and attacked the lich's past self? Or tricked Fistandantilus to do so, as the lich had nearly tricked him into turning against Dalamar? The lich was probably the most paranoid creature he'd ever seen; surely it wouldn't take much to pit him in combat with himself, the only rival he'd acknowledge? Just the removal of that little reminder that it was a bad idea, and the careful doctoring of his thoughts by Raistlin to make sure he never came to that conclusion again.
What would happen if they won?

It would be suicide.

At least on Fistandantilus' part. If his past self were to die it would reverberate through the River of Time and take lich's present self along too. The creature would be dead at long last, and Raistlin would be left alone for the first time in seven years, alone in his mind, alone in his thoughts, alone...

In the past.

Alone with Fistandantilus' spell-memory gone.

Alone with no way home.

Alone in a land on the verge of the Cataclysm.

Skull Bearer.