Rites
by Mirune Keishiko
They feared him. They always did. And they hated him because they feared him-they always did. Even though their eyes grew wide, their armor rattled, their helmet-obscured faces blanched whenever he cast his spells, they would never mention him. Nor would they ever mention that their enemies scattered and ran before him as steam and the stench of burning flesh rose from sudden, gaping wounds. When the soldiers gathered around the cooking fires, when they boasted of their kills over looted wine and plundered meat, they never told of how his phantoms of sound and light first struck chaos even into the most disciplined troops, or how his fireballs flew easily even over the highest walls to lay waste to the city before its defenders could start to nock their arrows. The mercenaries toasted blood and steel and cruelty, not books and spices and learning. And they certainly did not like to talk about, much less share company with, the standoffish, sneering young magic-user who buried in his musty-smelling robes a pair of hourglass eyes and a ghastly golden face.
That suited Raistlin just fine, because at least they left him well enough alone once the dust settled and the liquor began to flow. And Caramon always wanted to stay behind-he never came right out and said it, because that would be way too much of a betrayal of his dear twin brother, but he would put on that big puppy-dog look of his until Raistlin finally insisted, just enough times, that he keep dining with the other soldiers. Dining and singing and drinking and, usually, harassing the captive females unfortunate enough to be the day's entertainment. Raistlin would endure, with more or less patient resignation, Caramon's routine solicitousness-"You sure, Raist? It could be dangerous. Why don't you just stay with us? There might still be survivors hiding out in there. Shouldn't I come with you?"-before the bigger twin finally let up and, heaving a sigh of mixed contempt and relief, Raistlin could finally wander in peace.
It was always like this.
Raistlin liked to explore the towns and villages the mercenaries went through, once they had quite finished raping and pillaging and he, for his part, had eaten and rested from the battle's exertions. With any luck, the area was not reduced to a useless, smoking wasteland, but yielded to the young mage's diligent curiosity such discoveries as a cache of rare herbs, a half-scorched book of practical lore, a set of useful implements. The soldiers tended to discard or ignore these, caring only for weapons and valuables. While looting and razing the settlement, they seized or slaughtered any remaining inhabitants, disposing of the bodies in mass graves before retiring to enjoy their booty. This left for Raistlin a generally tranquil, if not deathly silent, ruin in which to explore and salvage.
The morning's battle had been vicious but efficient. By lunchtime, the local lord's family had been captured and turned over to the mercenaries' employer, the militia and citizens rounded up or killed. The sun was casting long shadows across the ground and the feasting soldiers' banter dim echoes behind him as Raistlin picked his way through a particularly mazelike jumble of crumbled buildings and fallen roof-beams. This had been the richer section of town, and the houses had been taller and more ornate, their contents more lavish. This had only encouraged the looting soldiers, who had ripped and slashed and burned enthusiastically. Raistlin, carefully clambering over broken furniture and ash-coated rubble, could only gaze around him at what must have been broad, sunlit windows draped in rich fabric, baskets brimming with sun-ripened fruit, gorgeously carved chairs and tables now mostly in pieces taken back to camp, fed to roasting fires. Raistlin's eyes saw little differently from the decay and destruction already around him, but with his piqued imagination he could still envision a luxurious past.
Squinting in the faint reddish glow of sunset, he was poking through some heaps of ash in a kitchen hearth-sometimes frantic villagers tried to burn the most interesting things-when he heard it: a thin, high-pitched cry, suddenly, hastily muffled.
Not for the first time that afternoon did he stop and listen intently, silver knife already in hand, the words of a defensive spell upon his lips. Survivors were rare, but could fight like cornered rats.
His pulse thrilling in his ears, he hid in a shadowed, soot-coated nook, covering his mouth and nose with his sleeve and waiting for his sight to adjust to falling night. Another cry, now only half smothered, pierced the air. A baby's cry, reedy and petulant, belatedly, desperately muted.
He uncovered and crept down a narrow stairway slick in places with congealing blood. He held the Staff of Magius aloft, both to keep it from clattering against his surroundings and to wield it as a weapon if necessary. Flies buzzed annoyingly around his face as he paused at the bottom of the stairs, flattening himself against the wall. He peered through the gathering darkness, willing himself to be patient and silent. Soon the baby cried out again, the shrill sound echoing off the close stone walls of the cellar.
Picking his way across glass shards and wooden splinters, he found the woman huddled behind a tangle of hacked-up wine racks. Blood ran together with liquor, smelling musty and metal at once. He approached her cautiously, brandishing his staff in front of him, but he soon realized caution was no longer needed. She was bleeding from a deep wound in her gut. As Raistlin stared down at the wet cobblestone floor, something stirred and gurgled in the darkness. The woman's arms had loosened around a small bundle of blankets. Raistlin watched a tiny fist emerge, groping in vain.
The baby's thin, escalating cries soon reverberated across the space. Raistlin cringed, but found himself gathering her up, clumsily cradling her head in the crook of his arm, even as he saw her withering, rotting, in his accursed sight; he looked away despite himself. She writhed in his awkward half-embrace, her wrinkly face bright red, her tiny mouth howling in need. She was wet and undoubtedly hungry. She could not have been more than several weeks old. In Raistlin's eyes, her skin peeled away to bleached bone and her scream faded into a silent, skeletal grimace. He closed his eyes. Her sparse hair was silky against his cheek; she smelled like milk.
There might be captives yet who could somehow nurse this child, care for her, raise her. She would become a slave at camp, just another prisoner of war pressed into the hardest of service, doing the lowest of chores as one of the youngest servants. Perhaps before she even started her moons, she would be made further use of. The soldiers' employer had two young sons, barely yet tall enough to mount their own horses, but their eyes already glinted with malice as they followed their father through the mercenaries' camp. Perhaps the baby would die within days, if not hours, of being brought to the soldiers' attention. A baby was a noisy, defenseless nuisance, and a particularly brutal murder would certainly lower morale among the survivors.
Or would this child be like her strong, stubborn, courageous mother? Or perhaps she was a sister, or an aunt. Raistlin glanced down at the crumpled form on the puddled floor before him. She and the baby had the same dark hair, the same olive skin. Raistlin estimated the woman had crouched here with the infant for some hours already, too badly injured even to try to bandage her wounds, hoping against hope, perhaps, to eventually escape alive and undetected before life itself escaped her.
He reacted to the distant shuffle of armor and footsteps almost before he realized he'd heard it. He drew his thick red robes over the baby's face to stifle its outcry and dimmed the Staff of Magius, so that only by its very weakest light did he suddenly find the woman watching him.
He froze. Her eyelids drooped, her mouth twisted. In his withered sight she was already gray skin and brittle bones, but still her gaze met his, clouded, leaden, but insistent. The long, blood-spattered hair straggling over her face barely moved with each breath.
Her eyes finally fluttered shut again just as Raistlin began to shape numb lips around little-used words. Propping his staff up against the wall, he traced archaic runes on the face of the child squirming under his robe, using thin, pungent liquid from a tiny vial in his pouches. It was the first time he had actually used the spell, one of advanced magic discussed only in the better-hidden textbooks at the Tower of Wayreth. It had been an exciting intellectual exercise to study it furtively in the deeper watches of the night, relishing the thought of Par-Salian's ill-concealed apprehension were the older wizard to find out. But now, as Raistlin whispered the last few words of the spell-with perfect accuracy, he knew-and felt the magic burn white-hot through his fingers, the memory of his excitement turned to ash in his mouth.
"Raist! Raist! Where are you? Are you down here?"
Caramon and two of his friends came clattering down the stairs, swords out and flashing wildly. Eggart and Gared, thought Raistlin vaguely as he sagged against the wall, nearly losing his grasp on the baby in his arms. A hard, hacking cough barreled out of his chest, sent him staggering to the floor. Or was it Garrett and Etgar, he thought hazily, his chest clenching. Something like that. Who cared?
"Raist! Gods above! You okay? Guys, cover me while I take care of him!"
Raistlin let the lifeless body slip gently to the floor. His fingers sought its recent warmth, still singing in the thick wool of his robes. "I'm fine," he rasped as Cameron quickly put brawny arms around his frail shoulders, boosted him to his feet. "Nothing happened. You're overreacting. I was just looking around."
Gathor and Ergot-or whoever they were-shot him beady-eyed, suspicious glances from across the cellar. Staring straight back at them, Raistlin watched their raven-pecked eyeballs sink into cavernous, shattered skulls and said nothing. Still propping up his brother, Caramon kicked at the woman's splayed foot. It wobbled reassuringly. "Hope she didn't give you any trouble."
"She's dead," opined Earhog, knocking a broken bottle aimlessly aside.
"Too bad for us," responded Caramon, and the soldiers exchanged grins. "We'd better go, Raist," he muttered, moving to dust off Raistlin's robes until the mage swatted irritably at his hands. "It's pretty late. I just had to come looking for you, you'd been gone so lo-Agh!" He backed away, recoiling in horror. He had tripped over the small, still-soft body, spilling partially out of unfurling blankets. "What was that!"
"Let's go," said Raistlin, in a hiss that cut through leather and steel and brought Caramon up short. "I'm tired."
He followed them up the stairs, through the ruined house, and out into the crisp evening air. Their torches crackled loudly in the stillness. They didn't like or trust the chill, white light of the Staff of Magius. As soon as the party neared the encampment in the center of town, Caramon's friends drifted away to rejoin their other comrades with obvious relief. Wheezing, Raistlin leaned on his staff as a sudden dizziness overcame him. It would pass, he knew; it always did. He closed his eyes, forcing himself to breathe slowly and evenly against the frantic spasms of his lungs.
"Everything okay, Raist?" said Caramon again, torn between concern for his brother and an evident interest in the captive girl being mauled at a nearby table.
Raistlin smothered another wave of coughs in his sleeve. "Go away, Caramon."
As his brother still hesitated he recalled, in the dimmed light of the Staff of Magius, the naked horror in Caramon's brown eyes down in the cellar. His brother had seen the liquid symbols seared across the tiny forehead, like ink set on fire.
Caramon would understand. Or maybe not. He wasn't very bright. But he would forgive. Caramon always forgave. It was all the same to him anyway. Raistlin's lip curled.
"Go find something to play with, big brother." Raistlin pushed past him toward the tent they shared. "I'm going to bed."
Caramon said nothing. Raistlin turned his back on him, leaning on the staff with each slow step, and felt his brother's gaze linger on his back-fearful, uncertain, wondering. It was always like that. He was used to it. At least they left him alone.
He passed into the humid darkness inside the tent and sagged into a chair, exhausted beyond words. The wood of the staff was cool in his hands, but his fingers still burned.
~ fin ~