A/N: I'm ba-ack. Sorry for the wait – I've been on vacation. Oh, and don't expect a formal A/N at the end. I've heard rumors about a ban on answering reviews, so my method will be a bit unorthodox. Never fear, I'll still answer y'all. I wouldn't have stolen a Black Robe's name if I weren't willing to attempt to bend the rules!
There are Patterns I Must Follow, Just as I must Breathe Each Breath
For a second, there was dead silence. Then, Fie started to laugh. "You? Dalamar's fearsome Shalafi? You couldn't hurt so much as a rabbit. I refuse to believe that you are the most powerful mage to have ever walked Krynn. Besides which, if you're so powerful, why did you need that staff to close the portal?" Fie's tone was mocking.
Catherine put her head in her hand at her friend's runaway mouth. Raistlin sneered. "Looks can be deceiving. If you were not prepared for my appearance, you may blame Dalamar, because your education in recent Krynnish history is obviously sadly lacking."
Catherine looked up in indignant support for the father she'd just found. "It's not Dalamar's fault! We only got here last night, and at that time, neither of us was up for a history lesson." She crossed her arms over her chest; a stern gesture, but one that looked utterly ridiculous on one of her stature.
To his credit, Raistlin did not laugh at the half-elf teen. "As you will." He sounded bored. "Now, you will take me to Dalamar." There was great authority in Raistlin's voice, the authority that comes from never having anyone question you.
Unfortunately for Raistlin, Fie was not so meek. "Why should we? I'm still not even convinced that you are that Raistlin character. And why do you need us to take you to Dalamar anyway? If you are Raistlin, you should be able to just poof yourself anywhere in the Tower like Dalamar does. You were the master of this place, weren't you?" Because of the dimness of the room, Fie did not see Raistlin's eyes flash dangerously.
"I will not 'poof myself', as you put it, for reasons that are my own. If you insist on not believing my identity, bring me to Dalamar anyway. If I am who I claim to be, he will recognize me. If not, he should have no trouble restraining me from wreaking havoc on the Tower. Unless, of course, he is even weaker than I remember." With that, Raistlin heaved himself out of his chair with the aid of the Staff, and started out the door.
With an apologetic shrug to Fie, Catherine trailed the mage out the door. Fie rolled his eyes at his friend's insatiable curiosity and followed her. "I think Dalamar is in his rooms changing." He heard Kit tell the stranger mage. "Fie knocked him out with a sleep spell, so we had to dump a bit of water on him." Fie winced, wondering what the mage's reaction would be.
Surprisingly, it was favorable. "I told him that he needed to strengthen his shields. Doubtless he deserved it." Suddenly, the mage turned his eerie golden gaze upon Fie. "Didn't you say that you only arrived here yesterday?"
Even Fie was cowed by the intense stare of the Master of the Past and Present. "Um… Yes. We're quick learners."
Catherine broke in, sure that Raistlin was going to start criticizing Dalamar again. Though she still did not feel completely comfortable around the elf, she had gained respect for him while he taught. She also felt a lot more loyalty to the elf then she did to the strange mage who had just appeared out of the portal.
"Dalamar taught us to speak magic properly in the morning, and so he decided to give us a treat by teaching us an actual spell this afternoon. He said that Fie's spell was the strongest sleep spell he'd ever felt!" For some reason she could not name, Raistlin rubbed her the wrong way, so she felt the need to brag about her magically talented friend.
"I never wasted my time on sleep spells when punishing Dalamar for his insolence." Raistlin's reply was acidic, and contained a veiled threat.
Fie snorted derisively, having seen no proof of this supposedly powerful mage's talents. He led the way down the steps, and Catherine took the rear. When they got to the landing where the laboratory was, Fie clapped for a spectre.
"Take us to Dalamar." Raistlin hid a smirk beneath a delicate golden hand. The spectres would never follow the commands of this imperious young man.
Much to Raistlin's shock, however, the spectre gave the ghostly equivalent of a bow. "Thisss way, Massster." Raistlin was dumbstruck. The spectres referred to no one but him as Master! He curbed his anger, however, at least for until he had spoken to Dalamar.
The spectre led them to Dalamar's room, where it bowed once more and promptly disappeared. Fie and Raistlin looked at each other, neither wanting to be the first being the dark elf would see when he opened the door. Catherine sighed at the men's idiocy and pushed past Fie teasingly to get to the door. "Dalamar?" She knocked quietly but sharply.
Dalamar pulled open the door fairly quickly. He was wearing a new robe, which was slightly rumpled as though he'd been lying on the bed and reading. "What is it, Catherine?" He was looking down at her to talk to her, but his eyes drifted upwards as though to ask for Nuitari's help with daughters. As his eyes glanced up, he saw Fie and, more shockingly, Raistlin.
"Sh…Sh… Shalafi!" Had he not been an elf, Dalamar would have fallen over his own feet as his body told him to bow while his eyes were gaping and his mind reeling. The elf blinked rapidly and pinched his arm where he thought Raistlin wouldn't see. "Wh… Wh… How…" The normally erudite-sounding elf was reduced to stuttering, stumbling speech with the reappearance of a man who was supposed to be dead, or at least long gone.
"Time has had no positive effect on your mental capacity I see, Apprentice. Stop gaping at me like that. I am quite alive." Raistlin's eerie eyes glinted in laughter.
"Bbut the laboratory door! How did you get out of the Abyss? How did the door get open?" The elf's demeanor was becoming like that of Evelynn – slightly hysterical at the reincarnation of a past that had been long buried.
"Fie here will have to answer you about the door. As to the Abyss, once Fie opened the Portal, it was fairly simple to escape. Takhisis had not realized that the other gods had awakened me, so I was able to catch her off guard. I was able to close the Portal with the Staff of Magius before she was able to follow me out."
Despite Dalamar's shock, he still possessed a sharp mind. "The Staff? Why use the Staff to close the Portal rather than a normal spell? And do you not have enough spells memorized that you couldn't risk her following you? If you have just been sleeping as some rumors say, your magic should be stronger than ever for the rest." The elf was suspicious.
A spasm of pain passed over the golden face before it too was hidden behind emotion's usual mask. "Apparently, though I am once more needed in the world, my magic is not. I suppose it is a bit of a compliment, that the gods themselves are afraid of what I might do when let loose on the world. Nevertheless, it is a compliment I would rather not have received. My magical power is gone, though the gods did not think to remove all magical influences on my body." Lightning seemed to flash over his eyes. "So, Apprentice, even if you are still the Conclave's pitiful puppet, you have no need of reporting my reappearence."
Dalamar was wise enough to do nothing but nod, though his hand strayed involuntarily to the wounds on his chest. "Your bedroom is still vacant, Shalafi. If you wish to, you may move in immediately." He decided that changing the subject would be the safest course of action at the moment.
Raistlin looked furious. "I may move in? Since when are you master of this Tower?" Dalamar made no move to state the obvious. Fie and Kit exchanged nervous glances as the two adults argued over their heads. "Of course I wish to move in, and you may freshen the sheets on my bed immediately. Stay out of my study, and I expect dinner at sunset, not a minute later."
Dalamar artfully contained a sigh. "Yes, Shalafi. As you wish." He disappeared to change the sheets as Raistlin spun on his heel to go to his rooms in a more mundane fashion.
"Oh, boy." He glanced back at Fie. "You may meet me in my study in an hour." With a swirl of soft black robes, he was gone.
Fie looked at Catherine. "He was saying that I have to, wasn't he?"
Catherine couldn't help laugh. "I think so. I, apparently, am not worthy of the time of day, much less his attention. Poor Dalamar! Why does Raistlin treat him so badly?" She shook her head in sympathy for her father.
"Well, if the stories about him are true, Raistlin could afford to be nasty to whomever he wanted. From what I've seen of Dalamar so far, he's a fairly tough character, but he seemed absolutely petrified of Raistlin. Maybe you can find out why."
"I've known the man as long as you have! Why should he tell me? I know I wouldn't tell people I've known for less than a day why I'm afraid of someone." Catherine was really not liking this commanding, imperious side of Fie.
"You are his daughter. Look, if you try to find out why Raistlin does that to Dalamar, I'll try to get Raistlin to soften up a bit. He seemed to take a liking to me, you never know. Where is Dalamar anyway? It doesn't take so long to change sheets, and I wanted to ask him about Raistlin before my private session with him anyway."
As though on cue, Dalamar reappeared in his room, rubbing his head. He muttered to himself in Elvish, and Catherine was sure that it must have been something along the lines of "Why me?" He then noticed the teens standing outside of his door. "How?"
No other explanation of the question was needed. There was only one thing that Dalamar could have been asking. Fie looked him in the eye, having the grace to look slightly ashamed. "I told the spectres that I am Fistandantilus, and apparently, I'm enough like him that they believed me. They let me into the room, where I found Raistlin's diary. That had the incantation to open the Portal, and so I did. He told you the rest. It was no big deal."
For a second, Dalamar could just gape at Fie, and Catherine couldn't blame him. "No big deal? Raistlin had to prepare for years before he could open the Portal. It is not a spell that a novice mage should be able to perform. You snuck into a laboratory that was guarded by spectres under the orders to suck the life out of any intruders. You have resurrected a mage who was believed dead for over a decade, lack of powers notwithstanding. And all of this you have done within hours of learning the magical alphabet!" Dalamar took a deep breath to calm his raging emotions.
"Go." Dalamar had regained his composure. "As he'll no doubt tell you, 'To be early is to be on time. To be on time is to be late. To be late is to be dead.'" He shooed Fie off.
Fie shrugged apologetically at Catherine and headed off. As he walked out of the doorway, he jarred the half-elf, and she winced. Fie was already too far down the hallway to notice, however, eager for his private meeting with Raistlin. Dalamar, on the other hand, did perceive Catherine's wince.
"Are your pains from yesterday bothering you again? Come into my room." Dalamar immediately waved her in and cleared the books off of his large, black-sheeted bed. Catherine was a bit hesitant, but obeyed.
"What injury is bothering you?" Dalamar's voice was matter-of-fact, and Catherine immediately clambered onto the bed on instinct, as though it was a doctor's table.
"My chest." Dalamar looked at her strangely. He had bandaged her wounds the night before, and his magical check of her body had registered nothing new on her chest.
"Well, lets see." He motioned for her to take her shirt off.
"Excuse me?" Catherine looked at him indignantly. "I know you're my father and all, but you have only known me for one day! Don't you just have some sort of ointment you can give me?"
"I'm sorry. My Shalafi was a skilled healer, and he taught to always look at the problem before proscribing a cure for it. And, I did bandage your other wounds while you were unconscious. Besides which, development-wise, you are at the equivalent age of a seven-year human. Now, do you want me to help you, or not?"
He turned to rummage through the closet for assorted ointments and bandages. When Dalamar turned around again, Catherine's shirt was off, clutched at the top of her chest in a ball.
"Come on. Let's see the problem." Dalamar's voice was stern, but kind.
Catherine reluctantly pulled the shirt away. It was evident from the shirt, which was half-inside out, that something had scabbed over that morning and the shirt had gotten caught in the scabs. When Catherine had taken the shirt off, it ripped the scabs open once more. She gently pulled it away from the trouble site, and Dalamar gasped.
Catherine looked at him angrily. "You were the one who asked to see. You should've said if you can't handle a bit of blood. Though if you can't and you're an evil mage that's kind of…"
Dalamar cut her off. "That's not the problem." He fiddled with a clasp at the neck of his ebon robes. When it came open, he pulled the neckline open to reveal his own pale, well-muscled chest. Catherine stared unabashedly at the five bleeding finger-marks that mirrored the ones on her own chest. "Now you see why I was a bit surprised."
Catherine could only nod as Dalamar fastened his robe again. Mine, unlike yours I'm sure, are magical in origin, so they can never heal. Yours, however, I'm sure will depart leaving no more than scars with the proper treatment." He conjured a wet cloth and gently wiped away the fresh blood. Patting the wounds dry with another cloth, Dalamar took a small jar of salve and smeared it on the wounds.
"How? How were they caused?" Catherine's eyes were as round as saucers as she submitted to Dalamar's treatment.
"Raistlin." Dalamar's answer was simple, yet eloquent. He began to wind a soft bandage around his daughter's chest, taking care not to smear any of the salve. "What about you? Obviously, they cannot have been created through magic, yet they seem quite persistent."
"Arash." Catherine spit the name out like a curse.
Dalamar's eyes grew cold. "I see." He tried to decide whether or not to tell his daughter about his captive.
The decision was taken out of his hands, however. "How do you know who Arash is? I'd never used his name before." Catherine was suspicious. Much as she wanted to, she couldn't yet bring herself to completely trust the man who claimed to be her father. She was worried that he might've used some sort of magic to probe into her mind.
"Don't worry, I did not pull it from your mind." Dalamar gave a slight half-smile. In her emotions, his daughter was much more her mother's than his. He could see her thoughts as clearly as though he really was using a mind-probing spell. "I pulled him through the Portal as well. I thought that he might be useful in the future." He left it at that, and hoped that Catherine would leave the subject alone.
He had underestimated his daughter's capacity for curiosity, however. "Where is he?" Though she'd never admit it to anyone, Kit was more than a little afraid of her nemesis, and didn't really want to run into him.
Once more, Dalamar's sharp Elven eyes were able to read the emotions on her face. "Don't worry, he's securely locked up."
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Suddenly and very randomly, Tasselhoff ran into the room. As Dalamar and Kit stood gaping, the kender spoke, his voice shrill with excitement. "Hi Dalamar! Long time no see! Is this your daughter? She looks a lot like you. She's Kit's daughter, isn't she? I must say, I do miss Kit. She was sometimes rather sharp with me, but she was so interesting! Very violent though. Is your daughter very…"
Tas' babbling was cut off by Dalamar, who spoke while removing a spoon that 'fell' into the kender's pouch. "Why are you here, Kender, and how did you come?"
"Oh, that!" Tas seemed to nearly leap out of his skin in excitement. "I nearly forgot, I was so happy to see you. I was sent on a very Important Mission." It was obvious from his tone that he was capitalizing Stressed Words, as was his wont. "The Great Mage-Writer and creator of this fic, Dally, sent me. She gave me this to deliver." He pointed at one of his multitudinous pouches. "Isn't it exciting? An Important Quest, all for me!"
"Be quiet, kender." Dalamar's voice was harsh. He'd had face-to-face dealings with Dally before, and was suitably wary. He snatched the pouch from Tasselhoff, retrieving one of his spell component pouches as well. He opened the pouch and found several letters. He pulled the first one out, addressed to him. He read aloud.
"Dear Dalamar,
Please forgive this interruption in the story, but the reviewers needed answers to their reviews, and as this is the end of the chapter, I felt that it was an appropriate place to hide them. I'd be very grateful if you wouldn't mind reading the letters aloud so that the reviewers may be thanked.
Yours in love, lust, and adoration,
Dally"
Dalamar closed the letter with a sigh at the closing. He would not, however, risk the authoress' fury by disobeying. Bleeding handprints were nothing compared to the pain and humiliation a vengeful keyboard could bring! He opened the first response.
"Casey,
As always, apologies for the long wait. I'm glad you found the chapter up to par, and I hope that this next one has also pleased. Thanks for taking the time to review!
Dally"
Catherine blinked in shock. "What is all of this?"
Dalamar hurriedly shushed her. "I'll explain later. I must keep reading so that She doesn't get mad."
"Kilyn,
Sorry about any proofreading mistakes I may have made. I have such trouble catching my own mistakes, and I sometimes forget that Word doesn't always do it for me! I'm glad you're enjoying the story, though. I will review your story ASAP – as I said, I just got home from vacation.
Dally"
"The Worm that Lives in Books,
Thank you very much for reading and reviewing! I'm glad that you enjoyed my story, and think highly of it. I try with Dalamar, though sometimes I feel that my "rose-tinted glasses" make him too nice, so I'm happy that you feel I've been doing a good job. I hope that you'll continue to read and review.
Dally"
"Dear Valgoruth,
I am so glad you e-mailed me the other day, or I would still have no idea who I knew reviewed this! As I told you, this is not a self-insertion. Thanks for reading, and I hope you'll continue. (By the way, you are allowed to review every chapter you've read, in case you've made it farther than the first chapter!)
Your friend,
Dally"
Dalamar made sure that there were no further letters in the pouch, and he handed it roughly back to Tas. "Well, thank you for delivering those letters, though in the future, you may inform Authoress Dally that I would prefer a different messenger. Hopefully one who does not insist on trying to take all of my belongings as he leaves." Dalamar concluded dryly as he emptied Tas' pouches of the numerous interesting objects that accumulated there while he had been reading the letters.
Suddenly, a voice chimed in out of thin air. "Oh, but I like Tasselhoff! Don't worry, he will be my messenger in the future. Remember to review!" This last comment was directed at her beloved readers. Tas disappeared as Dalamar fumed at the Authoress who insisted on putting more restraints on his life as the fanfiction site put more on hers.