Okay. REMSG stuff now.

If anybody got a bunch of alerts from about this story, that's because I put this chapter up as Canto One, got the Lain idea, deleted the story, and reposted it with this as Canto 2.

I'm trying first person with this story, which is fastly in outlines becoming...for lack of a better word...a little trippy. It's supposed to be confusing at this point. Sorry.

I own no one and nothing here. If anyone can give me hints as how to better write Dalamar, PLEASE PLEASE tell me because I am SO embarrassed.

Judecca, Canto II: Ken

Looking back, I don't understand why none of us realized from the beginning that it was all Raistlin's fault.

Well, no. That's uncharitable. I suppose, at least for me, it's all either my fault or the fault of someone I traveled with long ago, someone whose face and name I don't even remember but whose life I saved. Or so I dream. Yet everything else in the dream was the truth, just like everything we will be writing here is the truth. Maedhros was adamant about that, especially after he finally got to look at the Encyclopedia Raistlin found—or will find, by the end of this entry. I guess for him, being labeled "fictional" was just another blow like back at the inn, when the keeper got all that information about his father wrong. Maedhros is one of those people who wanted his life—still wants his life, and now his afterlife—to be worth something, and for that life to be misrepresented and fictionalized...but I suppose we all feel that way here.

We all wanted to leave a mark on the world, and we want it to last forever. Why else would we have done so many infamous things? Villainy is remembered because it is unorthodox. Heroism...heroism fades, individuals become faceless. Even now my friends—my Tokyo friends-- are not labeled as individuals but as "the DigiDestined." They aren't stopped on the street by people saying, "Oh! It's Yolei Inoue!" but "Oh! It's one of the DigiDestined!" But me...even now, in the digital world, I'm labeled. "It's the Digimon Emperor!" One individual. Single. Branded. Forever. But that's what I wanted, and now I'm paying the price. Wishes have prices.

I suppose that's a running theme of our lives, and it's one of the things we all want you to get out of reading this—that, and that we exist. We're talking to you. We've made the wishes, we've paid the prices, and we're still standing despite it all. Yet we're not all standing at full height. Learn from that.

But before anyone can take this shuffled sheath of paper and beat coherence out of it, I suppose I have to relate what happened. Maybe it really did start with Raistlin after all, because my part in this story begins with my opening the door to my apartment on an otherwise pleasant late-spring day and finding him lying on the floor, coughing up blood.

"Tea!" Raistlin gasped, as I goggled in the doorway for a brief second—I didn't know what he was doing in my world, and I certainly didn't like the state he was in. His long black robes were stained and spattered with I-don't-know-what, and he seemed pale under the golden coloring of his cheeks. His hourglass eyes bored wildly up at me from under a black hood and a tangle of white hair, and he repeated his order urgently, then collapsed.

I remained standing there, like a complete idiot, as my mother came up behind me to see who was calling and started screaming. She'd never met Raistlin (or any of the other members of the Group, for that matter), and he's a fairly unnerving individual at full health, let alone bleeding on the carpet from what looks like consumption. Jolted back to the moment, I helped him inside and lay him on the sofa, then ran into the kitchen with his tea pouch.

"It's okay, Mom, it's okay, he's a friend of mine, but he needs his medicine; is the teapot around?" Still shaking, she got it for me, and as I heated the water and poured into it the pungent, musty herbs, mind racing all the while. Why was Raistlin in Tokyo? He should've been with his own people; the only members on a mission that I knew of were Maedhros and Feanor, still battling some Dark Lord or another on their home continent to save someone named Isil-something's soul.

Realizing how many holes there were in that description, I groaned. No wonder I didn't know what Raistlin was doing here, or why he was so hurt. Lucemon was in charge of email updates—which, while better than our old system of communication (which consisted of being whisked to another world to talk face-to-face), was a mixed blessing. We received weekly reminders of interviews and even had something akin to an infrastructure now, but anything not involving our new secretary directly he considered "boring" and "unworthy of detail." I knew that I myself had an interview that afternoon with a potential new member, and needed to print out the interviewee's biography sheet, but why a delegate was necessary to remind me I had no clue.

The teakettle whistled, so I poured the mixture into our largest coffee mug and brought it to Raistlin, who by this time was actually sitting up—albeit with the assistance of every pillow on our couch. "Tell her to stop hovering," he snapped, golden eyes flashing in my mother's direction. "I am not going to murder anyone—at least, not presently. Give me that."

That's Raistlin for you. I handed him his tea and turned to Mom. "Um...you better do as he says and leave us alone, Mom. We just need to talk for a bit." Meekly she nodded and left, and I bowed my head. Ordering my parents around brings up unpleasant memories for me.

After several long sips of tea, Raistlin cleared his throat and turned to me. "Sit down." I did. "Believe me, appearing here like this was never my intent. I am a messenger, nothing more, but that blathering idiot of a secretary-on-probation caught me at a bad time."

No kidding, I thought in spite of myself, genuine concern mixing with curiosity. "What were you doing?" I asked.

Raistlin wouldn't meet my eyes. "Does it matter to you?"

I got the hint and dropped the subject. "So what was so important that Lucemon had to send you out like--" I paused, trying to figure out how to phrase it.

"Don't bother sparing my feelings; they died long before you and your ilk cropped up to mow them down. And if you'd quit asking useless questions I might actually get to the missive for which I was so unceremoniously drafted. I have brought your transportation to your rendezvous with idiocy today, and I have come to request...a favor." He coughed the last word.

I accepted the "transportation," an amulet I needed to put on when the time came for my interview, and rearranged the pillows behind his bird-thin frame. "Of course, Raistlin. Anything."

"Somehow I knew you would say that. You young, earnest, hopeful types always do." Since he's died, apparently Raistlin has become rather musing, taking the part of "wise elder" on several occasions though, white hair notwithstanding, he isn't even thirty. Though I would never refer to myself as "hopeful." "Anyway, I suppose you will hear what I've been doing anyway. I need..."

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"A change of clothes," I marveled for the thousandth time as I booted up my computer. "Because his robes are soiled from apprentice hunting." The idea of Raistlin wanting an apprentice—indeed, of him ever having one to begin with, though he assured me he had and the person turned out to be not exactly what he'd had in mind—seemed so bizarre. I'd always admired him for, despite having to rely on others when his frail body could take a strain no longer, never really seeming to need anyone. He was his own person, and to his Abyss with the rest of the world. I could never be like that. The thought of it was frightening—and intoxicating. Even the Emperor, my alter ego born from the darkness in my heart, had needed legions of supporters. Raistlin stood alone.

At least, when he had the strength. For now, he was asleep in my parents' bedroom as his robes whirled around in the washing machine, and I still had an hour before my interview. Time to put my mind on less important matters. I may have been a Recovering Evil Madman, a DigiDestined, and a part-time genius, but I was still an eleven-year-old kid as well. And I hadn't played my favorite video game, Donkey Madness, in a long time.

O0o0o0o0o0o0

"Ken? Ken? Shouldn't you have gone by now?"

"Good grief!" I looked at the time in the corner of my screen and panicked. "I'm late! I'm so late!" Grabbing the papers I'd printed about today's subject, I shut down my computer and patted Wormmon on the head. "Thanks for reminding me," I told him, then slung the amulet around my neck and vanished.

We—that is, the Recovering Evil Madmen Support Group, have one of the most inane home bases ever (my base as Emperor excluded—a giant flying potato; what was I thinking!). From what I've been told, it seems it used to be some kind of interdimensional preschool for young gods and goddesses whose parents were off doing other, more important things (like creating or destroying universes), but it shut down when the proprietors realized that most baby deities were smarter than they themselves were. Now it's been leased by Namo, the Judge of Maedhros and Feanor's world, who apparently doesn't carry much cash, as we haven't been able to afford redecoration yet. It's very hard to concentrate on sins and forgiveness with pastel animals frolicking on all the walls, let me tell you. Quite distracting indeed. Lucemon, of course, volunteered to re-wallpaper, but as his idea of "remodeling" involves blowing things up, starting over, and brainwashing whole populations to love the result, that idea was shot down. Literally. Even Raistlin would rather have bunnies on the walls than whatever our friendly neighborhood fallen angel would cook up. Besides, Lucemon's on probation...so Namo made him a clerical worker and our secretary. I may never understand these immortals, though Raistlin's apparently outwitted quite a few.

Anyway, I apologize for the digression, and would now like to return to my rushing down the hall, scattering papers behind me and hoping my interviewee—client?--hadn't arrived yet. No such luck. An elf in black robes stood fluidly to face me as I entered, my long hair wild underneath the yellow goggles on my head, goggles given to me by Namo and proof of my position as a Recovering Evil Madman. Kicking my shoes off in the doorway (not just because I'm Japanese; he who soils the workroom carpet, cleans the workroom carpet), I tried to bow at the same time and introduce myself but ended up tripping over my own ankles. My interviewee's robes rustled as he drew them closer to himself, and I regained my balance and bowed properly. "Please forgive my tardiness and entrance, sir." My tardiness, my entrance, and my flaming-red face would be more to the truth. "My name is Ken Ichijouji, and I'll be conducting today's interview."

"Indeed," murmured the elf, dark eyes trained on me in a manner familiar, yet somehow implacable. "So this organization is so poorly staffed it hires children? No wonder they contacted me."

Perfect. Why can't anyone I interview leave off the dry humor? I was in a bad enough mood, ashamed enough of myself, already without suffering at his hands and wit. Sitting myself in the large armchair reserved for the interviewer, I noticed a strange design burned into the wood of my desk that I'd never seen before—a design still smoking, in a lazy whispy thin swirl.

Noticing, the elf shrugged. "Pardon me. I grew bored, and when I am bored, I tend to...well, associates have called it 'doodling.'"

"Not a problem," I replied absently, looking through my papers and getting a nasty shock. Whoever this elf was, I was betting he was not the man I had information on. He didn't look like the clone of a little girl reimagined as an androgynous man, he wasn't carrying a magical ribbon as a weapon, and he didn't have a lotus tattooed on his forehead. "I don't suppose your name is Nataku?" I asked, just to be certain. "Because I have his infor--"

"The clone? He got delayed, so I took his place, as I would like to have this done with as quickly as possible.Your secretary protested, but I can be quite convincing when the mood strikes." Yet Lucemon sent me the Nataku data anyway. We needed a new secretary, and fast. I'd volunteer, except I didn't think many modern employers accept "God's clerical aid" as previous work experience. "I only responded because I wanted to see what sort of men joined this institution. Now I know. Is my presence problematic?"

"Not at all. Why don't you start by telling me a little bit about yourself anyway?" Taking out a pad of paper and a pencil, I couldn't help feeling a little like a psychiatrist as I studied the elf's face. He would have been handsome—probably had been so, once, ravishingly so (I guess)--but some anxiety had strained him, paled his skin and streaked his otherwise obsidian hair with one long strip of white. And he did have nervous hands; they fiddled with his armrests as he spoke. Maybe this was stupid, if he didn't even want to be here. But...I would feel like a failure if I didn't try.

"My name," said the elf almost lazily, "is Dalamar Argent, known widely as Dalamar the Dark." Well, that figured. "I am Head of the Black Robes of my homeland, and I willingly chose to worship evil gods, for the gods of Good would not set me free to live as I saw fit. Yet as far as deeds of evil are concerned, unless you count looking out for my own interests above all else, which I would not count, I have done none. What, after all, are 'good' and 'evil' but labels only? Two sides of the same coin, clad in different colors. There are only people, each of them selfish as the next." He laughed—a short, derisive laugh that I was certain I had heard somewhere before. "My shalafi and his cleric proved that."

"Um, beg pardon?"

"Shalafi? Teacher." The fingers tried to slow down, but instead became more frenzied. "My master when young, whose lessons haunt me still." He looked at me sideways through almond-slanted eyes, eyes that for all the wear the face had taken still gleamed dark and bright. "Who is the evil one, child? The naïve student who wishes only to learn all he can about the things he loves at the expense of all else—or the arrogant genius who seeks to forever hinder his pupil's progress by the legacy he left?" He stood, pointed one of his nervous claws at me. "I will tell you, child. I will tell you why you should leave me alone, for you can never help me. The Tower should have been mine; I thought it was mine; I treated it as mine. It never was. With my aid, Takhisis should have succeeded and been left in my debt. He clawed his way back from the netherworld to thwart her. Did he understand what I had gone through? Did he ever have to live in those magicless times? Did he have to suffer the way I have, with all my ambitions always just a hand's breadth away yet utterly untouchable? His hands, his hands have moved my dreams from me...just as his hand marks me always. You want an 'evil' one, child? What sort of a man leaves his legacy like this!"

With a frenzied swoop, the elf ripped his robes open at the chest; taken aback and mortified, I snapped my head away, eyes shut. Did we have a psychiatric ward for mad stripper elves? In my boggled state, I couldn't remember, but figured since he was the first I'd met that we didn't.

"Look!" he commanded, so just to be polite I squeezed my eyes open a crack. To my immense relief, he was still wearing pants. To my further horror, his chest was bleeding. Five holes, the size and spacing apart of five fingertips, were bored into the pale flesh.

"I'm...sorry?" I ventured as the door behind me opened and a familiar figure swept in, clad in my father's black jogging suit.

"Are you finished yet, you dithering fool, I have an interview in fifteen—YOU." Raistlin's voice dropped to the bottom of his lungs as he saw the half-naked elf, who now looked half-dead as well. Wrapping himself in the torn robes, Dalamar shrunk away from the mage, pale face now whiter than ivory and dark eyes bugging out of his skull. "Shalafi!" he yelped.

And time, at least for me, stopped. "Wait a minute. He--" I pointed at Raistlin while looking at Dalamar-- "is the teacher who supposedly stole everything you ever worked for? And he--" now I addressed Raistlin "--is the idiot apprentice who violated the possessions you left in his care?"

"I have no idea what you're referring to," squeaked Dalamar. Seriously. There is no other verb.

"Oh, but I think you do, Dalamar," Raistlin whispered in his soft, razor-fine voice, sitting himself on the corner of the desk. "My Tower, the Tower you moved, then let fall in disarray during the first few years of the Fifth Age..."

"I was concentrating on finding new sources of power!" protested Dalamar.

"...was appropriately banished from once that mess was cleaned up; by the way, the fact you breathe today is entirely due to my intercession on Palin's behalf..."

"I have the magic still; what else do I need?"

"...and then, at last, that you surrendered to the white mages!"

"Lunitari and Nuitari approved..."

"I shall deal with them later!" Raistlin snapped. "Presently, I am speaking to you, Dalamar! How could you, regardless of the admittedly unorthodox circumstances, allow such a thing--"

But he never got a chance to finish his sentence, as Dalamar chose that time to abruptly vanish into thin air. Frankly, I couldn't blame him; as I've said before, Raistlin normally is rather frightening and Raistlin annoyed is tantamount to a creature from some nightmare.

The nightmare in question cursed fluently, in several languages from what I could tell, broke off into a coughing fit, and sat in the chair I hastily vacated for him. I crept out of the door, pausing only to throw my notes in the trash, as I didn't think I'd be seeing Dalamar again. As it turned out, I was dead wrong about that, but he'd left enough of an impression on me that when our paths crossed once more I remembered him perfectly.

O0o0o0o0o0o0

My part in this section of the story ends here, but from what I've been told here's what happened next, and I'll try to keep this as short as possible to make up for rambling earlier: Raistlin sat through his interview, which went only a little bit better than mine (something about homosexual assassins?...I didn't ask), then started flipping through this Encyclopedia of Mages, the book I mentioned earlier. Apparently the search for a new apprentice had been renewed with vigor after his encounter with his first (and only thus far).

All I know is that he found one, but there was just one catch: Namo had told Raistlin he needed a Recovering apprentice, and the boy he found hadn't even fallen yet.

Thus it was that when I woke up the next day, I wasn't even in my bed anymore and a boy I'd never seen before in my life was trying to kill me.
O0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

a/n: Whew! That took longer than I expected. But hopefully I'll be updating regularly...btw, the reason I'm calling the chapters "Cantos" is that I named the story after a section of Hell in Dante's Inferno, which is broken into "Cantos" as well...as a matter of fact, the bit I chose is the very, very lowest, where Hell has literally frozen over. That's where the Traitors to their Masters are...but I don't want to give away too much.

I've made a promise to myself that every time I post, I'll put some background information about a character on my Xanga (as background is going to be increasingly more important), so pop over to see a summary of Ken's life thus far, as well as some Frontier info. As for info on Lain...just watch it on YouTube. If I tried to explain it, my head would likely explode, because it's one of those stories that defies summaries. But Lain is NOT a REM. She's a handy plot device. (and cute to draw)

Coming up next, Lyon goes "camping" and discovers, in light of his recent deadness, that he and not Anakin's boss should be called the Phantom Menace. As in, he can't stop making the dang things. Oh, and we meet the mysterious unfallen apprentice-to-be.

See you soon!