War of the Twins (5 page)

And now, even though he despised these idiots seeking to please a Master who would—in the end—only murder the one chosen, even though he enjoyed fooling them and taunting them, Raistlin still felt a pang sometimes, in the loneliness of the night, when he heard them together, laughing.…

Angrily, he reminded himself that this was all beneath his concern. He had a greater goal to achieve. He had to concentrate, conserve his strength. For today was the day, the day Fistandantilus would choose his apprentice.

You six will leave, Raistlin thought to himself. You will leave hating and despising me, and none of you will ever know that one of you owes me his life!

The door to the Learning Room opened with a creak, sending a jolt of alarm through the six black-robed figures sitting at the table. Raistlin, watching them with a twisted smile, saw the same sneering smile reflected on the wizened, gray face of the man who stood in the doorway.

The wizard’s glittering gaze went to each of the six in turn, causing each to pale and lower his hooded head while hands toyed with spell components or clenched in nervousness.

Finally, Fistandantilus turned his black eyes to the seventh apprentice, who sat apart. Raistlin met his gaze without flinching, his twisted smile twisted further—into mockery. Fistandantilus’s brows contracted. In swift anger, he slammed the door shut. The six apprentices started at the booming sound that shattered the silence.

The wizard walked to the front of the Learning Room, his steps slow and faltering. He leaned upon a staff and his old bones creaked as he lowered himself into a chair. The wizard’s gaze went once more to the six apprentices seated before him and, as he looked at them—at their youthful, healthy bodies—one of Fistandantilus’s withered hands raised to caress a pendant he wore on a long, heavy chain around his neck. It was an odd-looking pendant—a single, oval bloodstone set in plain silver.

Often the apprentices discussed this pendant among themselves, wondering what it did. It was the only ornamentation Fistandantilus ever wore, and all knew it must be highly valuable. Even the lowest level apprentice could sense the powerful spells of protection and warding laid upon it, guarding it from every form of magic. What did it do? they whispered, and their speculations ranged from drawing beings from the celestial planes to communicating with Her Dark Majesty herself.

One of their number, of course, could have told them. Raistlin knew what it did. But he kept his knowledge to himself.

Fistandantilus’s gnarled and trembling hand closed over the bloodstone eagerly, as his hungry gaze went from one apprentice to the other. Raistlin could have sworn the wizard licked his lips, and the young mage felt a moment of sudden fear.

What if I fail? he asked himself, shuddering. He is powerful! The most powerful wizard who ever lived! Am I strong enough? What if—

“Begin the test,” Fistandantilus said in a cracked voice, his gaze going to the first of the six.

Firmly, Raistlin banished his fears. This was what he had worked a lifetime to attain. If he failed, he would die. He had faced death before. In fact, it would be like meeting an old friend.…

One by one, the young mages rose from their places, opened their spellbooks, and recited their spells. If the Dispel Magic had not been laid upon the Learning Room, it would have been filled with wonderful sights. Fireballs would have exploded within its walls, incinerating all who were within range; phantom dragons would have breathed illusory fire; dread beings would have been dragged shrieking from other planes of existence. But, as it was, the room remained in candlelit calm, silent except for the chantings of the spellcasters and the rustling of the leaves of the spellbooks.

One by one, each mage completed his test, then resumed his seat. All performed remarkably well. This was not unexpected. Fistandantilus permitted only seven of the most
skilled of the young male magic-users who had already passed the grueling Test at the Tower of High Sorcery to study further with him. Out of that number, he would choose one to be his assistant.

So they supposed.

The archmage’s hand touched the bloodstone. His gaze went to Raistlin. “Your turn, mage,” he said. There was a flicker in the old eyes. The wrinkles on the wizard’s forehead deepened slightly, as though trying to recall the young man’s face.

Slowly, Raistlin rose to his feet, still smiling the bitter, cynical smile, as if this were all beneath him. Then, with a nonchalant shrug, he slammed shut his spellbook. The other six apprentices exchanged grim glances at this. Fistandantilus frowned, but there was a spark in his dark eyes.

Glibly, sneeringly, Raistlin began to recite the complicated spell from memory. The other apprentices stirred at this show of skill, glaring at him with hatred and undisguised envy. Fistandantilus watched, his frown changing to a look of hunger so malevolent that it nearly broke Raistlin’s concentration.

Forcing himself to keep his mind firmly on his work, the young mage completed the spell, and—suddenly—the Learning Room was lit by a brilliant flare of multicolored light, its silence shattered by the sound of an explosion!

Fistandantilus started, the grin wiped off his face. The other apprentices gasped.

“How did you break the Dispel Magic spell?” Fistandantilus demanded angrily. “What strange power is this?”

In answer, Raistlin opened his hands. In his palms he held a ball of blue and green flame, blazing with such radiance that no one could look at it directly. Then, with that same, sneering smile, he clapped his hands. The flame vanished.

The Learning Room was silent once more, only now it was the silence of fear as Fistandantilus rose to his feet. His rage shimmering around him like a halo of flame, he advanced upon the seventh apprentice.

Raistlin did not shrink from that anger. He remained standing calmly, coolly watching the wizard’s approach.

“How did you—” Fistandantilus’s voice grated. Then his gaze fell upon the young mage’s slender hands. With a vicious snarl, the wizard reached out and grasped Raistlin’s wrist.

Raistlin gasped in pain, the archmage’s touch was cold as the grave. But he made himself smile still, though he knew his grin must look like a death’s head.

“Flash powder!” Fistandantilus jerked Raistlin forward, holding his hand under the candlelight so that all could see. “A common sleight-of-hand trick, fit only for street illusionists!”

“Thus I earned my living,” Raistlin said through teeth clenched against the pain. “I thought it suitable for use in such a collection of amateurs as you have gathered together, Great One.”

Fistandantilus tightened his grip. Raistlin choked in agony, but he did not struggle or try to withdraw. Nor did he lower his gaze from that of his Master. Though his grip was painful, the wizard’s face was interested, intrigued.

“So you consider yourself better than these?” Fistandantilus asked Raistlin in a soft, almost kindly voice, ignoring the angry mutterings of the apprentices.

Raistlin had to pause to gather the strength to speak through the haze of pain. “You know I am!”

Fistandantilus stared at him, his hand still grasping him by the wrist. Raistlin saw a sudden fear in the old man’s eyes, a fear that was quickly quenched by that look of insatiable hunger. Fistandantilus loosed his hold on Raistlin’s arm. The young mage could not repress a sigh of intense relief as he sank into his chair, rubbing his wrist. The mark of the archmage’s hand could be seen upon it plainly—it had turned his skin icy white.

“Get out!” Fistandantilus snapped. The six mages rose, their black robes rustling about them. Raistlin rose, too. “You stay,” the archmage said coldly.

Raistlin sat back down, still rubbing his injured wrist. Warmth and life were returning to it. As the other young mages filed out, Fistandantilus followed them to the door. Turning back, he faced his new apprentice.

“These others will soon be gone and we shall have the castle to ourselves. Meet me in the secret chambers far below when it is Darkwatch. I am conducting an experiment that will require your … assistance.”

Raistlin watched in a kind of horrible fascination as the old wizard’s hand went to the bloodstone, stroking it lovingly. For a moment, Raistlin could not answer. Then, he smiled sneeringly—only this time it was at himself, for his own fear.

“I will be there, Master,” he said.

Raistlin lay upon the stone slab in the laboratory located far beneath the archmage’s castle. Not even his thick black velvet robes could keep out the chill, and Raistlin shivered uncontrollably. But whether it was from the cold, fear, or excitement, he could not tell.

He could not see Fistandantilus, but he could hear him—the whisper of his robes, the soft thud of the staff upon the floor, the turning of a page in the spellbook. Lying upon the slab, feigning to be helpless under the wizard’s influence, Raistlin tensed. The moment fast approached.

As if in answer, Fistandantilus appeared in his line of vision, leaning over the young mage with that look of eager hunger, the bloodstone pendant swinging from the chain around his neck.

“Yes,” said the wizard, “you are skilled. More skilled and more powerful than any young apprentice I have met in these many, many years.”

“What will you do to me?” Raistlin asked hoarsely. The note of desperation in his voice was not entirely forced. He
must
know how the pendant worked.

“How can that matter?” Fistandantilus questioned coolly, laying his hand upon the young mage’s chest.

“My … object in coming to you was to learn,” Raistlin said, gritting his teeth and trying not to writhe at the loathsome touch. “I would learn, even to the last!”

“Commendable,” Fistandantilus nodded, his eyes gazing into the darkness, his thoughts abstracted. Probably going over the spell in his mind, Raistlin thought to himself. “I am
going to enjoy inhabiting a body and a mind so thirsty for knowledge, as well as one that is innately skilled in the Art. Very well, I will explain. My last lesson, apprentice. Learn it well.

“You cannot know, young man, the horrors of growing old. How well I remember my first life and how well I remember the terrible feeling of anger and frustration I felt when I realized that I—the most powerful magic-user who had ever lived—was destined to be trapped in a weak and wretched body that was being consumed by age! My mind—my mind was sound! Indeed, I was stronger mentally than I had ever been in my life! But all this power, all this vast knowledge would be wasted—turned to dust! Devoured by worms!

“I wore the Red Robes then—

“You start. Are you surprised? Taking the Red Robes was a conscious, cold-blooded decision, made after seeing how best I could gain. In neutrality, one learns better, being able to draw from both ends of the spectrum and being beholden to neither. I went to Gilean, God of Neutrality, with my plea to be allowed to remain upon this plane and extend my knowledge. But, in this, the God of the Book could not help me. Humans were his creation, and it was because of my impatient human nature and the knowledge of the shortness of my life that I had pressed on with my studies. I was counseled to accept my fate.”

Fistandantilus shrugged. “I see comprehension in your eyes, apprentice. In a way, I am sorry to destroy you. I think we could have developed a rare understanding. But, to make a long story short, I walked out into the darkness. Cursing the red moon, I asked that I be allowed to look upon the black. The Queen of Darkness heard my prayer and granted my request. Donning the Black Robes, I dedicated myself to her service and, in return, I was taken to her plane of existence. I have seen the future, I have lived the past. She gave me this pendant, so that I am able to choose a new body during my stay in this time. And, when I choose to cross the boundaries of time and enter the future, there is a body prepared and ready to accept my soul.”

Raistlin could not repress a shudder at this. His lip curled in hatred.
His
was the body the wizard spoke of! Ready and waiting.…

But Fistandantilus did not notice. The wizard raised the bloodstone pendant, preparing to cast the spell.

Looking at the pendant as it glistened in the pale light cast by a globe in the center of the laboratory, Raistlin felt his heartbeat quicken. His hands clenched.

With an effort, his voice trembling with excitement that he hoped would be mistaken for terror, he whispered, “Tell me how it works! Tell me what will happen to me!”

Fistandantilus smiled, his hand slowly revolving the bloodstone above Raistlin’s chest. “I will place this upon your breast, right over your heart. And, slowly, you will feel your lifeforce start to ebb from your body. The pain is, I believe, quite excruciating. But it will not last long, apprentice, if you do not struggle against it. Give in and you will quickly lose consciousness. From what I have observed, fighting only prolongs the agony.”

“Are there no words to be spoken?” Raistlin asked, shivering.

“Of course,” Fistandantilus replied coolly, his body bending down near Raistlin’s, his eyes nearly on a level with the young mage’s. Carefully, he placed the bloodstone on Raistlin’s chest. “You are about to hear them.… They will be the last sounds you ever hear.…”

Raistlin felt his flesh crawl at the touch and for a moment could barely restrain himself from breaking away and fleeing. No, he told himself coldly, clenching his hands, digging his nails into the flesh so that the pain would distract his thoughts from fear,
I must hear the words!

Quivering, he forced himself to lie there, but he could not refrain from closing his eyes, blotting out the sight of the evil, wizened face so near his own that he could smell the decaying breath.…

“That’s right,” said a soft voice, “relax.…” Fistandantilus began to chant.

Concentrating on the complex spell, the wizard closed his
own eyes, swaying back and forth as he pressed the bloodstone pendant into Raistlin’s flesh. Fistandantilus did not notice, therefore, that his words were being repeated, murmured feverishly by the intended victim. By the time he realized something was wrong, he had ended the reciting of the spell and was standing, waiting, for the first infusion of new life to warm his ancient bones.