Chapter 2
The Costs of Seeking Forbidden Knowledge
As they approached the Langtree docks and a shift in the breeze caused the smell of the sea to assail Caramon's nose all the worse, he gave a miserable groan. "Hey, Raist? You wouldn't have anything in one of your pouches or bag that'll help with seasickness, would you?"
"No," Raistlin replied, hourglass gaze scanning the pre-dawn activity surrounding the galley they were meant to board. "We didn't have anything in stock at the castle that might help, so you'll just need to grin and bear the upset stomach."
As Caramon gave another miserable groan, Scrounger said cheerfully from behind the twins, "Cheer up, Caramon! We're starting out on an adventure that we were specially chosen for! Us! Could you have imagined that just a couple years ago? What's being a little green around the gills compared to the intrigue and mysteries waiting for us?"
"Scrounger," Raistlin said sharply. "Our purposes for leaving need to be kept secret..."
"We haven't even left Langtree yet," Scrounger said with exasperation. "Everyone here works for the Baron and no one cares if or why he's sending us out."
The warmage turned around swiftly and Scrounger came to a stumbling halt to not run into him as a piercing hourglass gaze glared down from within the shadows caused by the upturned red hood. Raistlin's annoyed whisper was near a raspy hiss, tilting his staff a fraction to point at the half kender. "Just because we are still in Langtree, doesn't mean it's safe to speak freely. There's troubles brewing around the continent and, outside those of us who have served the Baron in the military, we have no idea who is truly loyal to Ivor and who might be a spy sniffing about for sensitive information that could be exploited. You will keep to yourself why we're traveling, or I will turn your tongue into a snake that bites your face every time you're about to speak words that would potentially endanger our mission."
Scrounger's eyes widened and he shrank back from the mage with a grimace.
Caramon gave a heavy sigh, running a hand through his thick dark hair, and said, "Raist, come on, you don't need to be like that. Scrounger..."
"No, no." Scrounger gestured with a fine boned hand. "Raistlin is right, even if he's being dramatic at the moment. I should be more careful under the circumstances."
Raistlin gave a small nod of agreement and turned back to lead the way to their ship. Though he didn't acknowledge it, he noticed his twin following with a tightness in his gait and gaze turned down to look at the road. Caramon could sulk about his methods, but he was still following along as needed, and Scrounger would likely behave himself for at least the duration of their sea travel. That was all that really mattered.
The captain of the trading galley was a distant cousin of the Baron's wife, as tall and fair as the Baron was slight of build and dark. He glanced over at the expected trio as they approached, sharp grey eyes taking note of the obvious mage and the two soldiers of vastly different builds who were dressed in inconspicuous boiled leather armor that lacked any insignia of their lord. With a blunt frankness common to this part of Blode, and especially its sailors, Captain Harris said, "We'll be finished our final checks and shoving off before the sun fully breaks the horizon. There's an empty storage room in the hold that we've tossed spare cots and chests in for you three. Keep out of the way on your way down and don't go poking about through crates. Soldier or sailor, anyone caught taking extra rations or trade goods from the hold will be given a second smile and then tossed overboard."
"A second smile?" Scrounger asked with furrowed ginger brows.
The Captain peered down at the young man with vaguely kender like features and made a gesture across his throat. "Aye, lad. A second smile."
Scrounger gulped and said quickly with a, hopefully, disarming smile, "You've got nothing to worry about with us three. And as we're not able to do much else for the trip, we'll at least help by keeping an eye out for anything amiss, but it looks like you've got a mighty fine crew assembled and I'm sure we'll all be having a nice quiet trip."
The captain gave a nod, glanced the trio over again, and said to the giant of a man, "You're looking a little ill. You got something that's catching?"
"No, Sir," Caramon said with a shaky smile. "Just don't do too well with the ocean, smell of it is enough to set my stomach off a bit. But I know this is going to be an easier trip than some of our others because we're sticking to following the coast and I'll be fine."
Captain Harris gave a nod and said, "I'll tell the cook to toss together one of his remedies for that and serve it with your breakfasts and dinners. Should help keep you from making a mess in your room."
"Thank you, Sir," Caramon said with more enthusiasm. "I'd really appreciate it."
The captain gave another nod and then turned back to direct his crew. Obviously dismissed, Scrounger was quick to scurry up the gangplank to board the ship, weaving between the bustling sailors. Caramon gave a heavy sigh and trudged along behind, and Raistlin silently followed after his twin.
Most of the activity was above deck or taking place within the crew's quarters. The hold was deserted and fully loaded as they made their way past the maze of crates and closed doors, looking for the storage room that would be their lodgings.
As he walked past a particular stack of crates, a scent that was consciously unrecognizable, and yet somehow hauntingly familiar, caught Raistlin's attention, causing a sense of deja vu that he hadn't felt in some months. His quiet steps came to a halt and he debated whether he should investigate it now, or if it would be wiser to wait and sneak away from them as he had to occasionally do to deal with another sort of matter plaguing him.
"I found our room!" Scrounger called from a short distance ahead. "Caramon, we uh... we might have a problem. These cots look a bit small for you. You might end up needing to set up on the floor so you don't break one."
Raistlin heaved a sigh, deciding it would be safer to wait until the ship had set sail and he could sneak away.
Caramon simultaneously gave a miserable groan, following Scrounger's voice to view the state of their lodgings for himself. A glance into the crowded little room was all he needed to confirm Scrounger's assessment. "I guess I'll need to set up my bedroll. Hopefully this ship doesn't have a rat problem."
As his twin moved into the room and Raistlin was able to see inside, he offered quietly, "I'll cast a pest repellent cantrip to ward off that potential problem."
Caramon gave a strained smile and said, "Yeah. Sounds good. Thanks, Raist."
"Of course, my brother."
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Late that evening, Caramon eventually fell into an uneasy sleep. The galley's chef's tonic had helped keep him from expelling his dinner, but his queasy feeling hadn't abated entirely. Scrounger was curled up like a little dormouse on his cot, quiet snores almost unnoticeable with Caramon's louder ones to drown them out.
Raistlin waited longer than was probably necessary to be certain that the two of them were deep asleep, but eventually he pushed off his bedroll acting as his blanket and eased himself off the creaky cot. There was no stirrings from the other two at the quiet noises. The mage grabbed his staff from where it was leaning against his cot and silently walked to the door, counting out the steps needed to reach it in the pitch black room and carefully navigating around his twin's form on the floor. He cracked the door open and listened for a few seconds, but there were no lights or sounds of any crew members being in the hold for some reason.
Assured of keeping his actions private, Raistlin exited the room and eased the door closed behind him. He quietly commanded, "Shirak," and the staff's crystal obediently gave off a gentle glow of light. It was a simple matter from there to find his way back through the labyrinthine stacks of crates, especially once his keen sense of smell caught the distinctive citrus scent again.
The mage leaned his staff against a nearby crate to the ones he had interest in. He slipped a small leather ledger from a pocket of his robes, along with a stick of khoal from one of the little pouches dangling among the expanded collection he kept on his modified sashik. He flipped open the ledger, past a map and list that weren't written by his hand, and past sketches and notes that were, until he found a mostly empty page. Ready to write whatever may be inspired by investigating the scent, Raistlin turned back to the crates. Small flicks of his finger directed the nails holding the lid of the top crate to pull up enough to unseal it. He pushed the lid open, and the scent of what looked like oddly hued oranges with irregularly shaped wide leaves on their stubby stems grew almost overpowering.
The eerie sense of deja vu rapidly returned. Raistlin breathed deep, concentrating on the scent, even as some part of his thoughts were issuing warning that trying to trigger a vision was going to come at an excruciating cost. The mage tuned out that disruptive warning, closing his eyes and focusing on the scent. This was likely to be painful, but if it unlocked some new clue of the one still haunting his thoughts, it would be worth the passing inconvenience.
Some intuitive part of his mind whispered that the scent was incomplete, that it was supposed to be paired with other scents to keep it from being so harshly pungent. Something flowery... And an earthy herbal scent... Deft fingers blindly scrawled the impressions down on the paper; Raistlin wasn't so concerned with his penmanship in that moment to open his eyes and pay better attention to his notes.
There was a momentary flash of auburn hair, a few shades closer to true red than his own used to be, but not so brilliant a red as Par-Salian's false apparition's had been. Instinct began to rise, feeding him bits of information; even as nausea began to grow in warning that he was delving into knowledge he was not meant to know. Raistlin stubbornly ignored the warning, mind's eyes concentrating on the thought of that hair, trying to will more of her to take shape in his mind.
...The scent, it was from something she washed her hair with...
In a way that was almost like soldiers had described feeling limbs they had lost in battle, the mage could almost feel soft curls wrapped around and between his fingers. Locks, he somehow knew, that were kept so soft and vibrant from whatever that scented wash was.
The ship swayed a little as another brief note was jotted down; something the mage didn't consciously register with as intently focused as he was. The salty scent of the sea filtered into his awareness, however, melding with the scent of the unusual oranges.
That's when a proper vision of her sprung to life.
A flash, almost like a memory surfacing, of red hair expanded out, becoming a full view of incredibly long hair that, in this glimpse, was pulled back from her delicate face and shapely, mostly bare, shoulders by a lattice-work of slender braids. The sound of waves crashing on a shore drifted across his mind, almost in sync with the pounding pressure that was forming in his head. The phantom woman had almost seemed to be curled close to his side, but was pulling away. He wasn't losing his grasp on her, however. She was shifting, looking up with uncanny silvery-grey eyes that were catching sunlight from behind him and reflecting it back with a metallic sheen that was nearly as clear as his own cursed eyes now held. There was the faintest crinkle around her eyes, seemingly staring directly at him with a guileless smile that was immensely pleased by something happening.
The sight of her brought on a wave of complicated but powerful emotions, along with the unsettling feeling of something like a gaping hole in his chest caused by longing and a sense of overwhelming loss. A loss of the emotions that felt almost stripped away whenever the image of her was likewise ripped from his mind's active awareness, leaving behind only the echoing knowledge of something having been there, but unable to properly feel and sort through it once the vision was gone.
The pressure in the mage's head became sharp stabs of pain, and the khoal stick was now jotting down tiny details of that face as fast as he could. As much as he wanted to hold onto the vision, to hold onto the sight of that addictively sunny smile for as long as possible, to have time to refine his notes even further; Raistlin could feel dizziness rapidly growing alongside the pain. He knew he needed to let go, for the moment, before the strain knocked him unconscious. He couldn't afford to have Caramon and Scrounger, or the ship's crew, find him collapsed on the floor in the morning. Especially not on the outset of their mission; and more especially not with a crate open and the problematic questions that could cause and he couldn't give a truthful answer to. The last thing he needed was the captain thinking he had been stealing rations and attempting to make good on his warning about thieves receiving a second smile. The warmage could defend himself from an attack, and he had his brother and Scrounger to provide aid, but they were still out to sea and would be in a precarious position of being on an isolated boat surrounded by hostile individuals. Even if they made it off the ship alive, they'd need seek alternate means back to the Baron, and likely have damning accusations waiting for them to answer for in Langtree. It was far too much risk to justify a few more seconds of this divinatory glimpse of beauty his cursed sight couldn't, for the moment, ruin.
Reluctantly, grudgingly, Raistlin forced his eyes open, losing his grip on the sight of his phantom. A murmured cantrip caused the hem of his robe's sleeve to smell of mint, and he covered his face with the fabric to drive back the scent of citrus and salt as he set his book and khoal aside for the moment, willfully warding off further visions. As quickly as could be managed, he pulled the crate's lid back in place and the barest slivers of magic flared out with reverse flicks of his fingers, fixing the nails back in place. By the time that was done and the book and khoal were back in hand, the actual image of the woman haunting his thoughts was long gone, as were surrounding details of her, and he was left with a lingering ache that spanned his forehead and out behind his temples.
Raistlin glanced over his messy notes as he grabbed his staff once more and walked away from the fruit crates, back towards the stairs they had descended into the hold of the ship from. He took up a cross legged seat on a crate tucked away in the corner of the stairwell, and began transferring over circumstantial notes to neater and larger lists of things he had been able to glean from this fleeting vision of his dream phantom. One list was things about the silver-eyed phantom herself, such as what he just learned she washed her hair with.
The second list was details of things glimpsed around her that might help him narrow down where she might be found. This latest vision indicated that, while he had previously seen her in rooms or at one point what seemed to be a space under a tree, she was near enough to an ocean or sea to apparently pay visits to the shores. That last fact would seemingly be almost useless, given just how widespread oceans and seas were across the world, and therefore how much land nearby them that would be to search. But that did narrow potential searches down to places that weren't far inland. Species of certain trees and plants the herbalist had caught glimpses of and could identify had further narrowed down what sort of lands she was apparently calling home, eliminating tropical, desert, and other extreme climes across Ansalon. That she was predominantly human in appearance, if with odd coloration and notably delicate features, eliminated the likelihood of her roaming about in certain more temperate regions that were controlled quite strictly by races like ogres, the Silvanesti elves, and minotaur.
Bit by bit, the potential places she could be were narrowing, and eventually he would have to see something definitively identifying enough to pinpoint which of those areas was the correct one. Some monument or distinctively constructed building, or some glimpse of a night sky to spot a telltale positioning of constellations. Something that would give away where he could justify to himself absconding to, and taking whatever considerable time it would take away from his current career pursuits, to conduct a thorough search for leads on where and who she was, and perhaps finally discover why visions of her were haunting him.
Notes of those natures transferred over quickly enough with as few as they were, hourglass gaze glanced over the hastily written edits to his understanding of her appearance. He pulled a small piece of resin gum from a pouch and flipped the pages to his most recent sketch of the silver eyed phantom. He wasn't some great artist who would be winning the patronage of discerning nobles, not by any means; but Mistress Meggin used to have him copy sketches of medicinal plants and human anatomy to aid with herbal identification and surgeries. Her sharp critiques of the accuracy of his work and the life or death importance of certain fine details being depicted accurately had left him with at least being able to copy reasonably accurate pictures if he needed to draw one. And as the strain of these novice attempts at divining and forcing visions was so great, and he just couldn't seem to keep a proper image of her affixed into his memory, he dearly needed and made the effort to try reconstructing what he was seeing through a portrait.
It had started with broad stroke notes, using that accursed false construct of Pa-Salian's imaginings as a reference of what his visionary phantom was definitively not, writing down and making a rough outline of what she looked like based on how different from the illusion of the elven woman she was. His first vision of his phantom after the Test had made it quickly apparent that there were major differences in their appearances. Par-Salian's illusion had in retrospect been almost a caricature of the hasty details of the description Raistlin had originally tried to fixate on. The false creation's details were all around too extreme- hair too striking of a red, eyes too brightly silver, eyelashes purely black instead of an auburn that was dark enough to be near black. Her nose had been too slender, chin too narrow, cheeks a little too high, in trying to fit with the thought of her features being "delicate". For the elf maiden Par-Salian had crafted, the total picture had been quite beautiful; but her coloring was not as balanced as the vision phantom had been, and her features seemed frail and almost cold in comparison to the real thing's softer and fuller features.
He wasn't entirely sure how accurate his amateur sketches were becoming, but he knew the latest ones were frequently sparking a vague sense of recognition in his mind, so he was fairly certain his attempts were crafting a close resemblance. This time, he had noted that specific lines of her nose were off in his sketch, needing a less pronounced curve to her nostrils, the angle of her jawline needed to be altered by a degree, and the bow of her lower lip needed some minor alterations as well. Raistlin carefully made those adjustments, hoping as he did so that he was one step closer to having a catalyst that might be be able to spark visions during times when it was safe to indulge what was admittedly becoming something that might rightfully be deemed an obsessive pursuit that he had to keep hidden from his twin and others. If he could get an accurate enough sketch that it could trigger visions of her with but a look, and he could narrow down where she was through various clues on her location, such a sketch could also be used to show locals of the area. He could hopefully find someone who knew her and point him in a more precise direction of where she was.
What he'd do, and what he'd say, when his phantom was before him in reality, Raistlin still didn't have any reasonable answers to give himself. He well knew this quiet hunt for the woman in his dreams bordered on irrational; that he had few ideas as to how she'd even react to a "chance" introduction between them, what her life currently entailed, and how what he was seeing could or would fit in with it... What he did know, however, was that his instincts hadn't stopped screaming that he needed to find this apparition. Despite that grotesque scenario Par-Salian had enraged him with during his Test- while he had been drugged and ill, and he was fairly certain Par-Salian had bewitched his mind with a fear enchantment of some kind to ensure his thoughts stayed in a befuddled state- his instincts were saying that silver-eyed woman he kept seeing was in fact his, not his brother's or anyone else's. Even if it seemed insane for him to have hunted her down as he had and they knew nothing of one another, and even if his pursuit and usage of magic had caused the unnatural appearance he now had, his instincts were saying she'd ultimately be welcoming his presence with the sweet smile she frequently had in his visions. A smile that he was almost desperate to see in person.
A smile that he also feared seeing because if she was largely or entirely human, not an elf, as she seemed to be, his accursed sight would undoubtedly steal the beauty of it away. That was a disturbing prospect; one that, for quite some time after his Test, had made him shy away from anything that seemed liable to trigger a vision and attempt to bury his wonderings of the woman in his visions. Throwing himself into his work in the Baron's army, and keeping a certain supernatural parasite he was stuck with under his command, had helped keep him distracted for a long while. Little things kept triggering the vague deja vu moments, though; and there finally reached a point after nearly a year of trying to ignore them that he realized with resignation that it was indisputably more of a potential liability to try smothering out the thoughts entirely. Master Horkin had been giving him a bit of advice on one matter, but that advice had been applicable to more than a few problems in that moment, and he had decided to heed it for what it was. His brain most certainly couldn't find a rational explanation to tie all these clues together and give definitive cause for why he kept seeing this specific woman, but he was going to trust what his instincts were saying about the horribly empty feeling left behind in his heart whenever the sight of her came and then was just as quickly snatched away.
Raistlin concentrated on individual aspects of the portrait as he made clinical alterations to the details, not allowing himself to focus on the image as a whole. If he did otherwise, so soon after the previous vision had left him in this shaky and nauseated state, he might trigger another fledgling divination and push himself past his limits of endurance to handle the side effects. Even if he wasn't in an incriminating position in front of an open crate, he still didn't want to have Caramon fussing over him if he was found in such a state, or for anyone to see the open book and its contents. He wasn't sure just what his twin had thought of what he witnessed of the Test. The first time Caramon had tried to bring it up, Raistlin had cut him off almost immediately and made it clear that topic was off limits to discussion for the rest of their lives, unless his brother wanted to be disowned. Caramon had obeyed that demand thus far, but if he was given cause to know that Par-Salian's scenario had any roots in truth, that there was a red haired and silver eyed woman, he might try to press for answers.
Raistlin had absolutely no intention of discussing the events of the Test. Nor did he want his brother within a hundred miles of the real woman when he eventually figured out where she was.
The event in the Test had been disturbing enough to live through; and while his instincts seemed to be shouting at him that this phantom was indeed his, he wasn't risking any semblance of a real life repeat happening. If it did... Some part of Raistlin's thoughts could agree that, even if he had yet to be able to repeat his casting of a fireball spell, his rage would be great enough that he'd likely set his twin on fire again, this time in truth. And that private admission in the darkest of his thoughts caused little unrest to come to, which was a disturbing self-revelation in and of itself. He knew he should feel ashamed of such thoughts, that he should feel some level of guilt or remorse for his jealous actions during his Test. The simple fact was, he didn't. On other matters with his brother, the times when he snapped at Caramon for lesser annoyances, he felt those emotions in retrospect. When it came to the woman in his visions, however, those feelings disappeared entirely. If someone tried to steal her away, even if it was incidentally Caramon, the warmage knew he'd end the threat they were posing. Though he'd do so in a more calculating fashion this time, drawing them away from his phantom first so she wouldn't witness the act. He wouldn't feel remorse for it if Caramon forced his hand, but he would rather not have such a situation come about if it could be avoided.
When the modifications to the portrait was done, Raistlin closed the ledger and slipped it and the diminished stick of khoal back where they belonged. That task concluded, he evaluated how he was currently feeling. The worst of the side effects were easing, he was no longer feeling unstable, though he did have a lingering headache. He was tired, but he wasn't far from his cot. They had a good long stretch of time before he'd be required to do any magic workings, barring something going wrong during this boat ride.
Raistlin realized he should probably head off his other potential source of trouble during this mission while it was relatively safe to do so. He heaved a sigh and golden fingers went into another pocket of his red robes. A newer small ledger for note taking was removed. He conjured up a quill and inkpot, setting the latter on the crate next to where he was seated, and a few more words filled the inkpot with a suitable, if basic, black ink. And then he retrieved the final object he needed, this from his inner left breast pocket. As it had been since the day he had awoken with it on his person and in his old white robes, the malachite disk was there.
The warmage removed the magical amulet from its resting place, cursed gaze glancing it over. Just like the Staff of Magius, the stone was protected by its innate magical property and didn't decay before his sight like most things did. Even still, its appearance was changed from the first time he had seen it. Whatever enchantments were bound to this disk had helped protect him from the lich's attempt to claim his soul and commandeer his body, but the unleashing of such magic has caused the stone some damage. Spreading out from the engraved sun symbol, fine cracks could be seen, running along the striations in the banded greens of the malachite. The stone hadn't shattered; whatever protective binding magic Lunitari had woven into it, it was powerful enough to stay intact against even that powerful parasite of an archmagus. But over the couple years since, whenever the enchantment was put under enough strain by the lich, especially when he was in a particularly greedy mood, what had started off as superficial lesions in the stone had slowly deepened.
Raistlin wasn't sure just how long this little amulet would be able to hold out for, but Lunitari hadn't done anything to reinforce the magic since it had been unleashed. He was only being granted a reprieve, a temporary solution until he could reason out how to permanently end the threat he was under. And he knew it was best to keep the lich semi-placated and cooperative; not fighting against the magic quite so viciously as when he was feeling threatened by prolonged periods of starvation that were enough to rouse him from his magically enforced slumber to seek critical sustenance. The ravenous creature springing upon him at unexpected moments had caused a few embarrassing or troublesome events. He had learned from them quickly enough that he couldn't entirely evade his side of the bargain struck, and it was better to stay in control of when and how the lich got his meals and getting something in return for those measured feedings.
The warmage gave another sigh, braced himself for the inevitable unpleasantness, and then said the incantation that would send the stone into a tiny pocket dimension for the next hour, unless called back sooner.
As soon as the amulet was banished from the material realm, Raistlin could feel a presence awakening within him. It was like the rancid breath of Death itself brushing against the back of his neck, causing the fine hairs to stand on end, and then an unnatural aura of a predatory animal instinctively locking onto him as prey.
"Don't even attempt it," Raistlin warned his ever present undead foe, tone quiet and icy, vigilant for any signs of misbehavior. "You know the rules by now, servant of mine. The next piece of our lessons first, then you get fed. Unless you want to go a few seasons without so much as a whiff of my life force being accessible to you."
The lich couldn't be seen, but Fistandantilus's rage at being spoken to in such fashion was instantaneous and palpable, rippling out against his host's awareness like a tremor spreading out the threads of a spider's web. Except, the spider was the one caught in his own web; and it was the one he had mistakenly deemed a fly, with the aid of divine magic, keeping him weak and from breaking free to have his revenge. His fractious voice echoed in the younger mage's mind, "You arrogant little..."
"Finish that thought," Raistlin interrupted sharply, "and you will get half the time to feed."
"You don't give me enough as it is!" Fistandantilus snarled back in impotent fury. "A measly five minutes..."
"You get enough to survive, and I don't give a damn about a supernatural leech's comforts or keeping him fully satiated," Raistlin cut over the counter-protest. "And you know that every second you're currently wasting will likewise come out of your feeding time." He spoke a word of Sihir, and a simple hourglass appeared in hand to emphasize his next words. "The sands are falling for the time until you get sent back to sleep, so how little you get fed is the only aspect of this evening's events that you hold any sway over."
There was a bristling silence for several seconds and then, almost sulking, the archmage's ethereal voice echoed back with thinly veiled hatred of his captor and compulsory apprentice. "Last lesson, we had discussed the different emanations of transmutation magic that can be directed to target one's self to temporarily increase one's abilities beyond their natural bounds, and how one should visualize those emanations effecting one's anatomy. Tonight, we need to cover the less mundane details of such delicate spellwork, that of the specialized Sihir vocabulary that will invoke certain effects or direct the magic to the proper areas it needs. Just as with the last lesson, your rudimentary understanding of anatomy from your dissections with that backwater healer will differ from the mystical understanding of the interplay of organs, following relations that are both too small to naturally observe and those that break from their physical limitations when under influence from magic..."
Raistlin resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the necromancer's air of haughty superiority being affected. Tiresome as Fistandantilus could be with such behavior, the archmagus hadn't been lying when he had said that he had learned and forgotten more arcane knowledge than several high mages combined had ever known. And the lich did so enjoy hearing himself speak. Sometimes, Raistlin almost got the feeling that hundreds of years in hiding and isolation had driven the archmage a bit insane, that Fistandantilus might be privately craving some sort of interaction that allowed for him to flaunt and validate his veritable mental library of mystic knowledge.
Raistlin eventually needed to uncover a way to permanently destroy the lich, to rid himself of the dire threat of becoming the undead being's next victim. Knowledge of such magic was something the archmage was, for obvious reasons, not remotely willing to share. Raistlin had spent a brief period of time at the Tower for convalescence from his injuries and had found that they had precious little information regarding the undead that wasn't kept in areas restricted to Black Robes. The only thing mentioned in passing that was even vaguely useful was that liches traditionally had some sort of receptacle that they stored their soul in, one that would be guarded by an array of magic that the lich could cast, and that item needed to be destroyed to remove a lich's ties from the world.
Unfortunately for him, Raistlin wasn't dealing with just any lich. If Fistandantilus had any such a receptacle, it could be hidden anywhere in the world. Given the fact, however, that the lich's soul had resided without corporeal form in the Tower for centuries and was currently lurking in his body, Raistlin felt it reasonable to wager that the lich hadn't used traditional methods to turn himself into what he was. Destroying this undead parasite wasn't going to be so simple a matter as finding some object, disenchanting its protective magics, and then smashing it or blowing it up. What Fistandantilus might have done, though, he didn't have the foggiest idea yet. And with how cagey Par-Salian and others were acting after his Test, he judged it unwise to attempt to push their tolerance any further by trying to sneak into places he ought not be at the Tower to see what information they might have on the infamous necromancer.
An overnight detour to their home in Solace while on their way to join the Baron's army had been a long shot to seek information. Scanning Lemuel's father's books he had left behind because of space constraints in travel had turned up no helpful information. The White Robe warmage had dealt with some lesser undead and notated which spells were especially damaging to them, but he hadn't encountered a lich before. Which meant that he needed to expand his understanding of magic further, carefully observe his supernatural pest, and figure out just what was allowing Fistandantilus to continue existing as he had been and what needed to be done to bring that existence to an end.
Until such time as he could piece together a remedy to this problem, Raistlin was going to pry every other bit of useful information as he could from the ancient wizard. Letting Fistandantilus have his little moments of ego stroking kept him in a more chatty and instructive mood.
So the Red Robe warmage ignored the extraneous peacocking and began to take notes of tonight's lesson as the Black Robe archmagus shifted to the real lecture, expanding out, word by precious word, his understanding of further intricacies pertaining to the language of magic.
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.
An hour later, Raistlin was stumbling back to the makeshift quarters he was sharing with his twin and Scrounger. He was doing his best to suppress a wet, wracking cough that was doing its best to squeeze every breath of air from his lungs, and failing miserably in that effort. This was as debilitating as when those visions hit him and he pushed too hard to try holding onto them. That damnable lich might only be feeding off his lifeforce, but the sudden draining of that energy, disrupting what was needed for sustaining his body, never failed to manifest in physical ways. His latest lessons with the necromancer were helping explain some of that cause and effect. While there were martial applications to augmenting transmutation spells, he was also hoping such magic might aid him in recovering from sacrificing some of his lifeforce to the lich. Or, especially when undertaking sensitive matters and not having time to rest properly, be used as an emergency measure on those rare occasions when Fistandantilus managed to force himself awake and tried to get an unsolicited snack in before the malachite amulet managed to drag him back into his enchanted sleep.
It was a small ordeal in and of itself just to get the door to the storage room open. His cursed vision already distorted his perception of the things around him, and his current supernatural malady and the resulting breathing problems was causing a wretched case of vertigo and blurred vision, making it seem as though the doorknob was swaying and bobbing in front of him, all while decaying and falling away to rusty bits. It took a frustrating amount of concentration to grab hold of the knob, but he managed to after several seconds.
Raistlin eased open the door and tried to sneak back in, intent on quickly making it to his travel pack and retrieving his tea and tin mug to help ease the tightness in his breathing. His lungs and throat, however, gave particularly nasty spasms at the same moment and he nearly choked on the wrenching cough that resulted.
Despite how heavy of a sleeper he was, the noise woke Caramon almost instantly, with the same sort of instincts that caused parents to wake when their children made noises in the middle of the night. And Caramon's groggy, loud utterance of, "Raist? You need me to get your tea set up?", as he shifted and shoved himself to a seated position, followed by another wheezing, almost whistling, cough from the mage, caused Scrounger to rouse as well.
Raistlin couldn't even get enough air through to breathe, never mind give his twin a response, and it took every last bit of his nearly depleted strength to stumble the last few feet to his cot and drop onto it for support.
Caramon was already to his feet and rushing over, and he started to say something in concern for the flecks of blood coming up from the coughs. Seeing his twin's fleeting metallic glare reflecting the light from his staff, the big man decided to hold back those words, and instead concentrated on getting the tea that seemed to help his brother.
Not having time or space to make a fire to heat the water, once the herbs were measured into the cup Raistlin took the proffered mug and forced out the command between ragged coughs, "Adapi-berair." It was a mark of just how drained he felt that he had to speak aloud such a small training cantrip to direct his magic properly. The water was instantly steaming and, after he waited the bare minimum time for the leaves to steep, he started drinking the brew down.
When the mug was empty and the mage's coughing had largely subsided, Scrounger ventured to ask, "So, mind if I ask what you were doing up and about this late? Everything okay with the ship?"
Raistlin silently cast a cleaning cantrip on his mug. As he put it away, he noticed Caramon was also giving him a questioning look. He said, scratchy voice aggravated, "Do I need wake you both to announce I'm heading above board to relieve myself? Need I apologize for attempting a modicum of personal discretion?"
Caramon flinched at the caustic response and said, defensive of his comrade in arms, "Scrounger is just trying to keep cautious and make sure everything is alright. You don't need to bite his head off."
Raistlin set his pack back where it belonged and shifted to a laying down position. "If something was wrong with the ship, there'd be a ruckus above as the crew rushed to deal with it and from whatever was endangering our voyage. Things are quiet, so clearly it's fine. Apologies for waking you both. Now can we please get what rest we're able to before we're awoken for the breakfast delivery?"
Caramon exchanged a look with Scrounger, then said quietly as he headed back towards his bedding, "Yeah, sure, Raist. Glad you're okay."
"Thank you, my brother," Raistlin replied, likewise shifting on his cot to get some sleep.
Scrounger glanced between the twins, and for perhaps the hundredth time wondering at the baffling speed in which the tones could shift for how they interacted with one another, then gave a sigh. Siblings were strange, and these two more so than most. The mage commanded his staff's crystal to go out, and Scrounger snuggled under his bedroll to try falling asleep. As he did so, he tentatively asked, "Hey, Raistlin?"
There was an exhausted questioning grunt from the warmage's direction.
"The ship isn't swaying so much now that we've pulled off from shore a bit. In the morning, maybe want to conjure up a flat surface for us and get in that game of Knight's Jump we missed in the barracks?"
There was silence for half a minute, then a rasping whisper replied. "Sure, Scrounger."
Scrounger gave an unseen smile to the concession.