A/N (Aroihkin's Notes) 12.25.2009:
I tried, previously, to keep my darkfic tendencies out of TAF. It was meant to be silly, adrenalin-fueled fun in the first two stories, and then became silly, WAFF-y romance with a dash of adrenalin and citrus as of the third story. Here, as of about fifteen chapters into the forth and years later, I've realized that my ex was insane for encouraging me to write nothing but fluff in this story. At so many chapters, it needs a spine to stand upright with and to reach any sort of conclusion in its plot.
That, and darkness should be in any extensive plots involving Raistlin Majere, don't you think? And I suppose that it's appropriate that things should get darker as Akara herself matures, all-told.
...No, I really don't have anything better to do on christmas than to write dark-plot. Merry x-mas to the readers, all the same. ^^
Don't cry, there's always a way...
Here in November in this house of leaves, we'll pray!
Please... I know it's hard to believe
To see a perfect forest, through so many splintered trees.
You and me, and these shadows keep on changing!
-- Poe - Haunted
05.02.2010: All scene-dividers have been eaten, again, on all of my stories. I give up. Please just go read this story on arowrites dot net where it hasn't been made incoherent; I am unable to keep up with this site's stupidity.
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TAF: Face to Face
Ashes to Ashes
Moonlight. Heartbeats -- one, two, three. Shadows. Four, five, six. The numbers counted on lips that did not speak; had not spoken in years, perhaps, so natural was the silence. Rainwater running off of the rooftop and into the gutters. Seven, eight, nine. Movement down below, a door opening and closing, golden lamp-light briefly meeting silver moonlight before being extinguished again. Ten, eleven, twelve. A hood being pulled over dark brown hair. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. Two steps out from under the roof ledge, skirting around where the runoff was the strongest...
Sixteen, seventeen...
A knife coated in dark ash would not glint, no matter how many moons were out. The one counting heartbeats continued to count -- eighteen, nineteen, twenty -- and jumped from the rooftop. A knife covered in dark ash still slid through a throat easily enough, one hand on the victim's forehead, the other awash in hot blood. Twenty-two, twenty-three. The tingling scent of magic un-cast hitting the night air as the twitching body fell, clutching at its ash-smeared throat, gurgling what would have been a spell...
At thirty heartbeats, the body had stopped moving, and the one counting was already gone.
Akara half-woke.
The world veered sharply left, the darkness beneath blankets taking the place of moonlight, oven-like warmth taking the place of cold rain, the constriction of a bandage taking the place of hot wet blood on her left hand. She gasped in great shuddering -- silent -- breaths, and clenched both hands futilely when the blankets over her head were pulled back.
Blue smoke seemed to fill Akara's mind, fogging it, making the words said to her distant and forgettable. She stared blankly at golden skin as the voice continued, growing more urgent. Akara reached up with her free hand and set it on that oddly-colored chest, feeling a heart-beat, before pressing her ear there instead. One, two, three...
"Akara..." Raistlin trailed off, staring down at the thief as her fever drug her back under. This wasn't the first time she'd woken up gasping for air tonight, but thankfully her condition didn't seem to be worsening, even if it wasn't yet improving. The mage looked at the morning light through-out the room and gently pried himself away from the sleeping thief, slipping his robe back on and padding on bare feet over to the fireplace.
There, on the mantle over the dying embers, Raistlin's eyes settled on an old, leather-bound tome, covered in fine white dust like crematory ashes. It hadn't been there the night before. "Magekiller," he murmured, and lifted the book in his hands.
Raistlin turned to take a seat by the fire, and found that even he, master of the Tower of High Sorcery of Palanthas, could be made to jump nearly out of his skin. A tall, ghostly figure regarded him with calculating dark eyes, so close that it made the black-robe take a reflexive, defensive step backwards, sucking in a startled gasp.
Akara's great-grandfather's uncle, Grissom Krinir, one of the most famous thieves of Krynn's past and the Magekiller of Krontis. This was his book that Raistlin held in his hands, and if there was ever a ghost for an Archmage to worry about having at his back... but no knives showed, the ghost simply watched him. So far.
"Grissom Krinir, I presume?" Raistlin asked after taking a single moment to gather his composure. The ghost inclined his head, and raised a hand to adjust the expensive spectacles resting on the bridge of his nose. He didn't look like the ghost of a famous thief or a serial mage-killer, but Raistlin knew better than to let that throw him off. Even Akara didn't really look her own part, which in turn was the hallmark of the skilled professional. And if there was one thing the Magekiller had been...
"Would you like me to give this to her when she wakes up?" the Archmage guessed, lifting the book meaningfully, "I assure you that it will not end up in the fireplace again, at least not while it is in my care."
The ghost inclined his head again. His black hair was pulled into a neat tail at the nape of his neck, slightly singed at the ends like his otherwise-pristine clothing. He appeared to have been taller than Raistlin, even when the mage stood up straight as he did now. The gaze from those dark green eyes went past the black-robe and to the fire.
"Is there a reason you do not speak?" Raistlin asked finally, curiosity overtaking him as his unease slowly, slowly faded. Still no knives, no sudden movements -- he knew all too well how solid a ghost could be when they chose. The ghost's stare went from the fire and back to him for a long moment, and then the deceased Krinir opened his mouth; opened it wide and held it that way, dark eyes holding an odd, challenging glint behind the after-image of spectacles.
Taking the invitation, Raistlin lifted his heels slightly, peered inside, and then recoiled. There was no tongue, only the ghostly after-image of a scarred-over stump! Which meant... "That predates your death by a number of years," he said, astonished, and he glanced at the book in his hands, his sharp mind working fast. "Removing your tongue must have been to keep you silent about something. You were only the Magekiller for a few years before your... death."
Grissom Krinir closed his mouth, and nodded slowly. The ghost, at least, did not appear to be offended.
"But you were literate, you could have written down whatever it was--" Raistlin's musing was interrupted by the ghost pointing towards the door out of the room. He hesitated, and glanced at the bed and the sleeping, living Krinir in it. "She will be safe alone?"
The ghost dropped his arm, and drifted -- no, walked, as though living -- over to the bedside, pulling the blankets back with a tug of an almost-substantial hand. Akara was still in her fever-dreams, her mouth open slightly and her breath coming fast. Grissom Krinir watched her for a moment as Raistlin watched him, and then reached down to pull at her wounded shoulder, rolling her onto her back. The ghost lifted her right wrist and looking thoughtfully at the old bite scars there, and then turned to Raistlin questioningly, perhaps even challenging.
"That is from years ago," Raistlin felt compelled to explain, aware he was being judged, "when I was fevered, she prevented me from casting by holding onto my hands and using her own wrist... I have never deliberately harmed her."
Krinir watched him a moment longer, visibly weighing his words, and then let Akara's wrist drop. He seemed more insubstantial now, manipulating the mortal world was clearly a highly taxing effort. Again, he pointed towards the door, and this time Raistlin set the book down and quickly pulled on his boots, taking up his staff even as the ghost swept past him and through the closed door. Raistlin hurried along behind, as he hadn't had to do with anyone in a very long time.
The ghost stuck, thankfully, to the corridors and doorways that Raistlin could pass through, leading him deeper into the old house than he'd gone before, through doors that hadn't been opened in a long enough time to gather dust in their frames. More than once, Raistlin had to hold his sleeve over his nose and mouth or risk a terrible coughing fit. This house was one of the oldest buildings in Krontis, the Krinir family had been one of the founders and Grissom Krinir had himself been the one to design the strange plumbing system. He undoubtedly knew all the hidden nooks and crannies and secret passages.
More than once, the ghost paused beside a wall and gestured to have Raistlin push at a hidden panel, or step on a particular corner of an old slat of wood; more than once, they descended steep staircases cramped and sharply-curving between walls. It occurred to Raistlin many times that the ghost could be leading him to his death -- the Magekiller was an odd guide for the infamous black-robe to be following, to say the least! -- but he reminded himself, each time, that there were easier ways to go about it, even for a ghost. This man, in life, had perfected the art of permanently silencing spellcasters, and would have been a formidable foe indeed if he'd turned upon Raistlin, even in death.
Finally, deep underground where the walls and floor had become stone and the ceiling remained out of the light of his staff, it seemed that they had arrived. The door Raistlin was made to push open was heavy and made of hewn rock, almost impossible for him to move. The room beyond was blackened and charred, a stone pedestal in the center covered in white ash. Raistlin looked askance at the ghost, only to find that he was alone, nothing but blue smoke drifting in the air beside him, dissipating slowly.
He stepped into the room, a cold sense of dread overtaking him as the heavy stone door ground shut behind him. Now it was just Raistlin and the room, and the light of his staff shone on the ashes. Nowhere to go but forward, the mage stepped further in, stepped up to the pedestal and slid his fingers through what had to be the remains of a man put to death by fire -- there was no mistaking the soft silt texture of the powder as anything else. He looked up, raising his staff to see higher than it naturally shone, and stared at a fire-blackened metal cage suspended high up, the shackles from within hanging out through the bars at the bottom. It had been too many centuries for anything to remain, but...
Raistlin remembered, he remembered when flames had licked at his legs, when he had almost been put to death. He remembered -- too vividly now, all too vividly, and for the first time in many years this one memory sent him staggering, gasping for breath, until he fell against the blackened wall of the chamber and slid down it. It was like the air was running out, like he would never get free... the Staff of Magius' light went dark, and his magic left his fingers, leaving only cold dread behind. It didn't mater that it was dark, all he could see was the flames in his own mind--
There was no telling how long he remained there, no telling how many words spilled from his lips as he shakily told the darkness the stories of his past he so rarely uttered. Illness, poverty, his parents' deaths, various betrayals and his almost-death by the flames... even his Test, and beyond. There was no telling how much was said, it was all a blur, and then...
Suddenly...
The door beside him slid open again as though of its own accord, something humming and electric in the air that he hadn't noticed in his memory-fog dying down, going quiet.
Atop the Staff of Magius, the crystal flickered back to life, as a candle almost-snuffed finally consuming the air again. Raistlin looked up, unaware that his head had bowed and that his face was streaked with tears. Before him on the ash-strewn pedestal stood a stack of aged vellum, and a pair of long, wickedly-curved knives laid delicately atop it.
If this had been a test, it seemed that he had passed it. Raistlin stood, and gathered the vellum and the knives from within Grissom's ashes and then... paused for another moment, and reached for his spell components. The air around him seemed to tense, the humming almost returned -- but when he turned and left, the door sliding shut behind him, all that was left on the pedestal was ashes and rose-petals, scattered there carefully by his own hand.
Upon re-entering Akara's room, Raistlin set his staff aside to better hold the heavy stack of parchment in both arms, the knives still carefully balanced atop them. He looked to Akara as he set them down on an end-table, finding that the thief had kicked the blankets off entirely and now sprawled half on her stomach, half on her good side, her eyes half-open and her breath still too fast. But her temperature was improving, he found when he placed a hand on her forehead, and those half-open eyes were finally losing their glazed, feverish quality.
Raistlin spared a glance for the empty chair by the fire, where he would normally have gone to study, and then moved to climb onto the bed instead, kicking off his boots. He sat against the headboard beside Akara, his hand settling on her hair for a moment before he nudged the sleeping woman closer, letting her use his thigh as a pillow to spare her neck. It just seemed... better to be close, after that ordeal. Settled in, he reached to the table by the bed and took up the stack of vellum, drawing it over so that he could begin to read Grissom Krinir's cramped, aged handwriting, the dead thief's only living relative sleeping much more soundly with the archmage near.
Feeling some of the chill of that fire-blackened room leech out of him, finally, Raistlin began to read.
Akara woke up, this time completely. The blue smoke was gone from her sight, and she turned her head to look up at the ash-smeared mage, his black robes powdered white in places. She raised her one free hand, touching the dust, brow furrowing. For his own part, Raistlin had fallen asleep, his head dropped forward, one hand on her hair and the other holding a piece of aged vellum. Something had obviously happened while she had been dreaming of...
Her eyes settled on the pair of curved knives on the table, the plain metal pommels were ringed perfectly to slip a thin rope through, the braided leather wrap of their grips barely looked any older than they had in her dreams. One would barely know by looking at them, how much blood stained that leather, how wickedly sharp the edges contained in plain leather sheaths were. But she knew, she knew. When she looked back up at Raistlin, he was awake and watching her steadily.
"Grissom Krinir," he murmured to her, "was more than just a thief. The reason your family never spoke of him is... he was..."
"A killer." Akara's voice was still hoarse, she wondered dimly if it would ever recover or if she would always sound like a match to his own. Surely the damage wasn't so extensive as that? "A thief who used his skills to kill the mages who ruled Krontis." When he looked startled, she added quietly, "My dreams have been fogged in blue smoke all night. I've lived a hundred deaths, felt the blood on my hands, never uttered a word -- he counted heartbeats just as I do when I steal, but he stole something else entirely from those people."
"They deserved it," Raistlin's eyes gleamed, and he held up the parchment in his hand. "He wrote his story, though it has been very difficult to read it. The vellum is very, very old and the ink has faded to near-invisibility, but I have been able to get the... general idea so far."
"Where did you get those?" But when she reached out over his lap with her free hand, it was toward the knives, not the papers. Hesitating only briefly, Raistlin set the page down and lifted one knife, offering it pommel-first, watching as her hand slightly shook as she took it. She swallowed, feeling its weight, holding it inexpertly and then pulling it close. Tangible, physical proof that her rogue, legendary relative had been real. Those dreams had been real. Akara felt ill.
"I met him," Raistlin murmured, "his ghost still walks this world." Akara felt her eyes widen and her breath catch in alarm. She'd seen Grissom's ways of dealing with mages! These knives, then -- had he had them turned on him?
"Did you two fight?" she asked, trying to sit up. Raistlin kept her down with barely any effort, his hand on her head exerting just enough pressure. He shook his head. "Don't cast around him," Akara gasped, "if he comes back, don't cast anything! There's rumors... there's rumors of decapitations, still, of mages found with their tongues cut out, though... though that wasn't really his style, come to think of it," Akara turned thoughtful, "I've... I've seen it now, he did things neat and quick and clean, no sawing through a-anything," Moons, now she felt ill, "no torture. Just like a thief... in, done, and out..."
"Shh," Raistlin stroked her hair, "I think he and I have reached an... understanding. There was danger, for a while, but... I was allowed to walk away with his story and his weapons, unharmed." Akara just shivered, curling closer to him on the bed, her hand clutching the knife.
"He'd better not be hoping for a replacement," she said weakly, "I'm a total wuss!"
"I highly doubt that he hopes any such thing for you," the mage murmured, and lifted the page he'd fallen asleep over, replacing it on the stack. "Grissom Krinir was used. Used for his stealth, for the secrets he saw and heard between heartbeats as a thief... and when they needed him no longer, they held him down and removed his tongue, branded him as chattle, and gave him away. Him and his sister both." Akara looked up, staring at Raistlin as he continued, his voice hardening, "You refuse to call me 'Raistlin' because you are not a mage; because those in this city who are not magi are second-class citizens!"
The thief stared at him, a sinking feeling in her gut as he coughed into his hand, bowing over her head with the force of it. She squirmed out from under his other hand while he was preoccupied with trying desperately to breathe, and got out of the bed. Akara padded silently -- unsteadily -- over to the fire and the kettle always kept full in it, pouring hot water into a mug reserved for him, throwing in the right amount of his strange herbs. This was harder than ever with only one hand, forcing her to set the cup on the floor to do anything to it, then picking it up after. She carried it back, though the world tried to slant sideways more than once, and held it out to him.
Raistlin took it with one hand and her wrist with the other, sipped at the tea and then set it aside. He pulled her back onto the bed before she could fall. "Your great great grandmother was Grissom's sister," he continued mercilessly, "neither of them were mages, she was married off as early as you almost were. Grissom was sent along as a... bonus," he sneered, "to the man who claimed his sister. The Conclave of the time... was responsible for this. This is why Grissom became a killer, why he sought out the highest-ranking mages of Krontis, spilled their blood in the street... the highest ranking of the corrupt mage families was almost wiped out entirely, save for one survivor."
"Shut up," Akara finally whispered, pulled nearly into his lap, off-balance without her other hand to catch her. She slumped against his shoulder. "I don't want to hear more!"
Raistlin's grip on her wrist remained, his thumb tracing the bumpy scars left by his teeth on one side. "Call me 'Raistlin'," he whispered, "say it and I will stop... for now. But you must learn it all eventually." When Akara remained silent, he pulled impatiently on her wrist, "Say it! What do you care of their rules, Akara? Call me by my given name, here in private at least!"
"...It's just hard," the thief's hoarse voice was quiet even to her own ears, "it's just really hard!" Louder, though Akara's throat hurt, and she looked him in the eye. "Get told to do something one way all your life and then try to do it the other way... it's really really hard!"
"Please," the archmage murmured, "at least once in a while, in private, call me by my first name. Try." It was very important to him, she could tell, now that he knew some of Krontis' dark history. The way things had been done back then was a bit... worse than how things were done now, in part thanks to her relative's actions, but it obviously still really bothered him. Akara swallowed.
"I'll try, once in a while," she agreed in a small voice, and heard his breath catch and hold. Was it really this important, that he would hold his breath for it? "...Raistlin." Akara's captured hand twitched as the name left her lips, and she held her own breath, staring almost defiantly into those strange golden eyes. Go ahead, she thought, change your mind, see if I care!
But Raistlin didn't do any such thing, he only smiled faintly and then nodded once at her. "You see?" he asked almost wistfully, "Not so difficult, after all."
"Yeah, well," Akara's face warmed as she pulled her wrist free of his loosened grip and moved to sprawl out beside him, the pain in her shoulder sharpening every time she moved in the least bit wrong. She took up the knife again, inspecting it closer as he lifted his tea in one hand and the vellum in the other, continuing his study of her bloodline. I suppose, she thought to herself, resigned, that it's just too much of a mystery for him to leave alone, especially now!
Perhaps she knew him better now than she realized... or perhaps she didn't at all. Only time would tell.
-- --: -x- :-- --
Dragonlance belongs to someone else.
All here that is not found in the books... is mine.
Never steal if you value your spleen.
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