“I cast the Curse of Rannoch! I am the Master of Past and Present. You are nothing, a nobody. Without me, you would have failed your Test in the Tower.”
“Without me,” Raistlin returned, “you would be lost and adrift in the vastness of the universe, a voice without a mouth, a scream no one can hear.”
“You have used my knowledge,” Fistandantilus said. “I have fed you my power!”
“I spoke the words that mastered the dragon orb,” said Raistlin.
“I tell you the words to speak!” Fistandantilus retorted.
“You do,” Raistlin agreed, “and all the while you mean to destroy me. You will wait until my life-force gives you strength, and then you will use it to kill me. You plan to become me. I won’t let that happen.”
Fistandantilus laughed. “My hand holds your heart! We are bound together. If you kill me, you will die.”
“I am not convinced of that. Still, I will not take a chance,” said Raistlin. “I do not intend to kill you.”
He sat down upon a dust-covered bench. The tavern’s interior was much as it had been centuries before, when the tavern had been a popular place for the wizards and their pupils to congregate. There was no bar, but there were tables surrounded by comfortable chairs. Raistlin would have expected the room to be filled with cobwebs and overrun by rats, but apparently even spiders and rodents were loath to live within the shadow of the Tower, for the dust lay thick and smooth and undisturbed. A mural on the wall portrayed the three gods of magic toasting each with mugs of foaming ale.
Raistlin looked around the empty tables and chairs, and he imagined wizards sitting there, laughing, telling tales, discussing their work. Raistlin saw himself seated there, discoursing, studying, arguing with his fellows. He would have been accepted for what he was, not reviled. He would have been loved, admired, respected.
Instead he was alone in the darkness with the specter of evil.
Raistlin leaned the Staff of Magius against the table, propping it with a chair so it would shed its pure, white light on the table. A cloud of dust rose as he sat down, and he sneezed and coughed. When the coughing fit ended, he took the orb from its pouch and placed it on the table.
Fistandantilus had gone quiet. Raistlin could no longer mask his thoughts from the old man, for he had to concentrate his entire being on taking control of the dragon orb. Fistandantilus saw the danger he was in, and he was trying to find a way to save himself.
Raistlin placed the dragon orb on the table, steadying the small globe so it did not roll off onto the floor. He took from another pouch a crudely carved wooden stand he had constructed during those days when he and Caramon and the others had traveled by wagon across Ansalon.
Raistlin had been happy then, happier than he had been in a long time. He and his brother had rediscovered some of their old camaraderie, remembering what it was like in their mercenary days, when it had been just the two of them relying on steel and magic for their survival.
He brushed dust from the table off the dragon orb and brushed the dust of Caramon from his mind. He placed the orb in the center of the wooden stand. The orb was cold to the touch. He could see, in the staff’s light, the varied shades of green swirling around slowly inside. He knew what to expect, having used the orb before, and he waited, counseling patience, battling fear.
He thought back to the writings of an elf wizard named Feal-Thas, who had once possessed a dragon orb. Raistlin recalled one line.
Every time you try to gain control of a dragon orb, the dragon inside is trying to gain control of you.
The dragon orb began to grow to its original size, about the span of his hand measured with his fingers spread wide, from the tip of his thumb to the tip of his little finger.
He reached out to the orb.
“You will regret this,” Fistandantilus said.
“I will add it to my list,” Raistlin said, and he placed his hands upon the cold crystal of the dragon orb. “Ast bilak moiparalan. Suh tantangusar.”
He spoke the words he had learned from Fistandantilus. He spoke them once; then spoke them a second time.
The green color swirling around in the orb was subsumed by a myriad of colors, all whirling so rapidly that if he looked at them, they would make him dizzy. He shut his eyes. The crystal was cold, painful to the touch. He kept firm hold of it. The pain would ease, only to be replaced by far worse.
He said the words a third time and opened his eyes.
A light glowed in the orb. A strange light, formed of all the colors of the spectrum. He likened it to a dark rainbow. Two hands appeared in the orb. The hands reached out for his hands. Raistlin drew in a deep breath and took hold of the hands, clasped them tightly. He was confident, felt no fear. In the past, the hands had supported him, soothed him as a mother soothes a child, and he was startled, alarmed, to feel the hands close over his in a crushing grip.
The table, the chair, the staff, the tavern, the street, the Tower, Palanthas—everything disappeared. Darkness—not the living darkness of night, but the horrible darkness of everlasting nothingness—surrounded him.
The hands pulled on his hands, trying to drag him into the void. He exerted all his will, all his energy. All was not enough. The hands were stronger. They were going to drag him down.
He looked at the hands and saw, to his horror, that they were not the hands of the orb. The flesh of the hands had rotted and fallen off. The nails were long and bone yellow, like those of a corpse. The bloodstone pendant, its green surface spattered with the blood of so many young mages whose lives the old man had stolen, dangled from the scrawny neck.
The battle sapped Raistlin’s fragile strength. He coughed, spitting blood, and since he dared not let go of the hands, he was forced to wipe his mouth on the sleeve of his new black robes. He spoke to the dragon, Viper, whose essence was trapped inside the orb.
“Viper, you acknowledged me as your master!” he said to the dragon. “You have served me in the past. Why do you abandon me now?”
The dragon answered.
Because you are prideful and weak. Like the elf king Lorac, you fell into my trap.
Lorac was the wretched king who had been arrogant enough to think he could control the dragon orb. The orb had seized control of Lorac and duped him into destroying Silvanesti, the ancient elven homeland.
“He destroyed what he loved most. I destroyed Caramon,” Raistlin said feverishly, not even thinking about what he was saying. “The dragon has duped me …”
The hands tightened their grip and pulled him inexorably into the endless emptiness. Raistlin fought against it with a strength born of desperation. He had no idea what was going on, why the orb had turned on him. His arms trembled from the strain. He was sweating in the black robes. He was growing weaker.
“You float on the surface of Time’s river.” Raistlin gasped, struggling for breath against the choking sensation in his throat. “The future, the past, the present flow around you. You touch all planes of existence.”
That is true.
“I have an enemy on one of those planes.”
I know.
Raistlin looked into the orb, looked beyond the hands. He could see, on the other side of the River of Time, the face of Fistandantilus. Raistlin had seen rats on battlefields swarming over the corpses of the dead. He’d watched them devour flesh, strip it from the bones. The ruins the rats left behind were all that was left of the old man.
His eyes remained, burning with resolve and ruthless determination. His skeletal hands held Raistlin fast, one hand on his hand, one hand on his heart. Fistandantilus was fighting Raistlin for control of the dragon orb. And he was using Raistlin’s own life- force to do it.
“I see the irony does not escape you,” said Fistandantilus. His voice softened, grew almost gentle. “Stop fighting me, young magus. No need to continue to endure the struggle, the pain, the fear that is your wretched life. You stand before me naked and vulnerable and alone. All those who ever cared for you now loathe and despise you. You do not even have the magic. Your skills, your talent, your power come from me. And deep inside, you know it.”