"What is this?" Raistlin demanded, feigning ignorance.
"In order to protect you," Liam replied smoothly. "I am an excellent shot. And although I do not speak the language of magic, I understand a little of it. I would be able to tell, for example, if someone in that cellar were to try casting a spell that would make him disappear. I doubt if he would have time to complete the spell before my arrow struck him through the heart. But do not hesitate to call out if you find yourself in danger."
"I feel safe in your hands," Raistlin said, bowing to hide his sardonic smile.
Lifting the skirts of his robes-gray-colored robes, now that he looked at them-holding the candle high, he cautiously descended the steps that led into the darkness.
The staircase was a long one, longer than Raistlin had anticipated, leading deep under the ground. The stairs were carved of stone, a stone wall extended along on the right side, the stairs were open on his left. He shifted the candle as he walked, sending its pale light into as many portions of the cellar as it would reach, trying to catch a glimpse of something-anything. He could make out nothing. He continued his descent.
At last his foot touched dirt floor. He looked back up the stairs to see the elves small and diminished, a far distance away, almost as if they stood upon another plane of existence. He could hear their voices faintly; they were perturbed that he had passed beyond their sight. They decided that they would go down to find him.
Flashing the candle about, Raistlin tried to see as much as he could before the elves arrived. The candle's feeble light did not extend far. Expecting to hear the elves' soft footfalls, Raistlin was startled to hear a deep booming sound instead. A blast of air extinguished his candle, leaving him trapped in a darkness so deep and impenetrable that it might have been the darkness of Chaos, out of which the world was formed.
"Liam! Micah!" Raistlin called, and was alarmed when the names echoed back to him. Nothing more than echoes. The elves did not answer.
Trying his best to hear over the rush of blood to his head, Raistlin distinguished faint sounds, as of someone pounding on a door. He gathered by this and the fact that the elves hadn't responded to his call that the trapdoor had inexplicably slammed shut, leaving him on one side and the elves on the other.
Raistlin's first panicked impulse was to use his magic for light. He stopped himself before casting the spell. He would not act on impulse. He would think the situation through calmly, as calmly as possible. He decided that it was best to remain in the darkness. Light would reveal to him whatever was down here. But light would also reveal him to whatever was down here.
Standing in the dark, he pondered the situation. The first notion that came to him was that the elves had lured him down here to leave him to his death. He abandoned this quickly. The elves had no reason to kill him. They had every reason to want to get into the cellar. They hadn't lied about the spellbooks, that much he had ascertained from their private conversations. The continued pounding on the trapdoor reassured him. The elves wanted to open that door as much as he wanted it open.
This decided, he took the precaution of moving, as quietly as he could, to put the stone wall at his back. His sight gone, he relied on his other senses, and almost immediately, now that he was calmer, he could hear breathing. Someone else's breathing. He was not alone down here.
It was not the breathing of a fearsome guardian, not the deep, harsh snufflings of an ogre, not the husky, whistling breaths of a hobgoblin. This breathing was thin and raspy, with a slight rattle. Raistlin had heard breathing like this before-in the rooms of the sick, the elderly.
Although somewhat reassuring, the sound shattered his calculations as to what he might find down in the cellar. The first wild thought was that he was about to meet the owner of the books, Lemuel's father. Perhaps the old gentleman had chosen to retire to the cellar, to spend his life with his precious books. Either that or Lemuel had locked his father in the cellar, a feat which, considering the father was a respected archmagus, was highly unlikely.
Raistlin stood in the dark, his fear diminishing by the moment as nothing untoward happened to him, his curiosity increasing. The breathing continued, uneven, fractured, with a gasp now and again. Raistlin could hear no other sounds in the cellar, no jingle of chain mail, creak of leather, rattle of sword. Above, the elves were hard at work. By the sounds of it, they were attacking the trapdoor with an ax.
And then a voice spoke, very near him. "You're a sly one, aren't you?" A pause, then, "Clever, too, and bold. It is not every man who dares stand alone in the darkness. Come! Let's have a look at you."
A candle flared, revealing a plain wooden table, small and round. Two chairs stood opposite each other, the table in between. One of the chairs was occupied. An old man sat in the chair. One glance assured Raistlin that this old man was not Lemuel's father, the war magus who fought at the side of elves.
The old man wore black robes, against which his white hair and beard shone with an eerie aura. His face arrested attention; like a landscape, its crevices and seams gave clues to his past. Fine lines spreading from the nose to the brow might have represented wisdom in another. On him, the lines ran deep with cunning. Lines of intelligence around the hawk-black eyes tightened into cynical amusement. Contempt for his fellow beings cracked the thin lips. Ambition was in his outthrust jaw. His hooded eyes were cold and calculating and bright.
Raistlin did not stir. The old man's face was a desert of desolation, harsh and deadly and cruel. Raistlin's fear smote him full force. Far better that he should fight an ogre or hobgoblin. The words to the simple defensive spell that had been on Raistlin's lips slipped away in a sigh. He imagined himself casting it, could almost hear the old man's mocking, derisive laughter. Those old hands, large-knuckled, large-boned, and grasping, were empty now, but those hands had once wielded enormous power.
The old man understood Raistlin's thoughts as if he'd spoken them aloud. The eyes gazed in Raistlin's direction, though he stood shrouded in the darkness.
"Come, Sly One. You who have swallowed my bait. Come and sit and talk with an old man." Still Raistlin did not move. The words about bait had shaken him.
"You really might as well come sit down." The old man smiled, a smile that twisted the lines in his face, sharpening mockery into cruelty. "You're not going anywhere until I say you may go." Lifting a knotted finger, he pointed it straight at Raistlin's heart. "You came to me. Remember that."
Raistlin considered his options: He could either remain standing in the darkness, which was obviously not offering him much protection, since the old man seemed to see him clearly. He could make a desperate attempt to escape back up the steps, which would probably be futile and make him look foolish, or he could grasp his courage and assert what dignity remained, confront the old man, and find out what he meant by his strange references to bait.
Raistlin walked forward. Emerging out of the darkness into the candle's yellow light, he took a seat opposite the old man.
The old man studied Raistlin in the light, did not appear particularly pleased with what he saw.
"You're a weakling! A sniveling weakling! I've more strength in my body than I see in yours, and my body is nothing but ashes and dust! What good will you do me? This is just my luck! Expecting an eagle, I am given a sparrow hawk. Still"-the old man's mutterings were only barely audible -"there is hunger in those eyes. If the body is frail, perhaps that is because it feeds the mind. The mind itself is desperate for nourishment, that much I can tell. Perhaps I judged hastily. We will see. What is your name?"