Author's Note: Yaay! Reviewers! You love me, you really love me!! -fans self- And I didn't forget my promise.. so, here. -throws a very tattered and torn black robe to the masses- Be thankful, too. It took forever for me to get it off of him. But I sure enjoyed the process. XD
Heather: Thanks, man! You're opinion matters tons to me. Though mine shouldn't matter so much to you. Mine tends to suck and awful lot. u.u
Ambrosius Emrys: Good t' hear it. n.n Thanks!
She-Magus: Hot velvet must feel like heaven. XD As for Raistlin being an alien, if you look at Krynn as being another world and not just Earth in the pastfuture, that would make him an alien. He just doesn't walk around saying, "Peace, friend!" :D Thank you for your review!
Blackrose15: Yeah.. it would. But think of it like... well, Raistlin doesn't know if a towel isn't just what Earth clothes look like. Hehe. Thank you!
Soulforged Mage: Whoa, whoa, whoa! Here!! -throws black velvet in your general direction- You can have it! LoL! Thank you so much for your compliments. They made me blush madly. n.n() You should still put up your story! The idea's been used before I got up the gall to use it, so it's not mine. I wanna read yours!
Not Logged In Person: Wow.. really? Wow. Thank you. I'm gonna get a big head if ya go on like that. -snicker- I really do appreciate it.
Rynadrin: I'm so glad you like my general verboseness. Heh.. I got a lot of flack for that in Lit Class. My teachers hated it. But I think words are beautiful, so I pile as much beauty as I can into a sentence. I'm glad you appreciate it like I do. n.n
Again, thankya thankya thankya! Authors eat, sleep and breathe reviews, I kid you not!
Heeeere's JOHNNY! (Only not.)
Disclaimer: I own Raistlin. In my dreams. And we do physically impossible things together. ...what? I'm sorry, was that too much:D?
Darn, people! I jest! I own nothing!
Chapter Two
In Which It All Begins To Make Sense… Kind Of.
My mind raced as stood facing the door I had locked seconds previously, unable to move due to all the frenzied thoughts in my head. Should I hide? Was I really in danger? Would he even bother to come looking for me? Would I miss seeing the only magic I'd ever see in my lifetime as I hid under my parents' bed while he warped away? Was he too worn and sick to utter a magical phrase?
Was I insane?
Ridiculous concern for my favourite literary character replaced my fear of him, so I pressed my ear against the door, not quite knowing what to listen for. More coughing perhaps, or the cliché poof of a cartoon wizard vanishing into thin air. Something. Whatever I expected, it certainly wasn't this stark silence.
Ignoring all of the red flags that shot up as I unlocked and cracked open the door, I peered down the hall toward the living room.
Hold on, freeze! Where did he go? The way he had been hacking, it wouldn't have been shocking to find him dead or unconscious from a lack of air. But there was no trace of the murderous mantic. Frowning, I opened the door further, chilling dread grasping at my heart at the old-hinged creak that sounded from the action.
It wasn't unwarranted. As if from nowhere, a talon-like golden hand shot through the shadows of the hallway, pressing against the hollow of my chest just under my neck, palm flat and fingers splayed. I screamed for the third time that night, partially in fear and partially in pain. His touch felt like a cattle-brand! In a rush he was upon me, slamming me back against the wall, his face a few inches from mine.
Terror mingled with awe.
As much as I admire and envy the talents of Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, they utterly failed to describe their most infamous character's eyes properly. 'Hourglass eyes,' they had written, over and over again, as if the phrase was sufficient. I had never understood how only his eyes could be visible while the rest of his face was lost to the shadows of his hood. Not until then. They glowed much like candles, the colour and radiance of firelight, faintly illuminating their cages of pale silver lashes. The irises weren't simply gold, but a burning saffron perimeter fading to feral yellow near the well-defined hourglass pupils. Such ghostly luminescence probably would be lost in daylight, but here, in the dimness of the unlit bedroom, I could see it shine softly on the wetness of my hair.
I was so helplessly spellbound by that stare, by the iron scent of blood that washed over my face with his breath, that I didn't hear him speak. When he pressed his searing hand harder against my chest I gasped, the pain returning me to the present. His eyes were boring into me, and I slowly realized that he was waiting for a response. Too bad I had no clue what he said.
"Auwh..?" I managed breathlessly.
That eerie stare narrowed with impatience, and his razor tongue dripped acid. "Do you understand my words?" He repeated slowly, like a was addressing a challenged child.
I nodded, whimpering as the movement seemed to stoke the fire that raged where his skin met mine.
He mirrored my nod with a tiny incline of his pointed chin, as if the answer pleased him, a little. "Tell me where I am," he rasped, and again I was awed, this time at how inexplicably compelled I felt to obey this frail man.
"Er- Earth…." His brows furrowed in confusion, though the commanding intensity of his eyes never faltered. I realized that the word, so easily comprehended by myself, held little meaning to this otherworldly being. I gulped and tried again. "A c-continent called North America… on the world of Earth…." His expression began to contort, though I couldn't read it. "Y-year 2006," I stammered in addition, though I had no idea how the date would clarify his whereabouts to him.
Raistlin stared at me for countless moments longer before his lips parted in a wolfish snarl, the pressure of his hand intensifying until my ribcage felt as if it would be crushed. "Failed?" He spat, staring straight through me at God-knows-what as his eyes grew wider and wider with fury. "Failed?!" The volume and pitch of his voice was swiftly rose until he loosed the word "Impossible!" in the shriek of a diving hawk.
I tried in vain to gulp in air, but my lungs felt far too compressed to comply. The sorcerer ranted on, either oblivious to my slow suffocation or uncaring. Neither would have surprised me.
"I knew the words!" He was raging as my vision filled with darkness. "I could have recited them in my deepest slumber! If I were blind, still I could have perfectly prepared the Infinite Circle! How could I have erred…!"
But I couldn't hear him anymore, because I was falling down, right through the floor, and he was getting further and further away….
Pale early morning sunlight shone through the wall of windows to my left, feebly warming my icy skin. I shivered uncontrollably, clutching my tiny blanket tighter around me. My back hurt, my hands were cramped, and my chest ached fiercely from how he…
My eyes shot open, and I sat up.
I had been unconscious all night, slumped against the wall in between the door and the dresser in my parents' room. The windows were always open in there, which explained why I was so cold—it was autumn, after all—and my hands were cramped because I was clutching the towel I was still sporting with a death-grip. And my chest ached because….
I shakily got to my feet, walking on chill-stiffened legs to look into the vanity mirror that hung over my mother's dresser.
My hair was a wild mess of artificially cranberry kinks and waves. The dark circles under my eyes combined with my blue-tinged lips made me look much like a corpse. And there, in the upper center of my chest was the mark of a spindly, long-fingered hand. The skin was as sensitive as a burn as well as the colour of one, the bright red drowning out the purple-yellow of severe bruising. I brushed trembling fingers against it, the fear I felt last night once again welling up in my stomach.
Was he still in the house?
Unwilling to again be in the presence of the notorious mage while not wearing a stitch, I threw on the pajamas I had laid out the night before as if they were armour. I watched myself as I did so, breathing easier as the hideous blight vanished beneath the thick blue fabric of my sweatshirt. The unreal happenings last night seemed less threatening when I couldn't see the painful result of them.
Steeling myself with a deep breath, I ventured out of my parents' room, shooting wary glances up and down my hallway. Creeping as quietly as I could, I flattened myself against the wall, peeking around the corner where the hallway opened into the living room.
He was most certainly still here. Garbed as the night, he stood out against the multi-coloured patchwork quilt of furnishings that were my mother's décor. He was facing away from me, his head bowed down onto the dining room table he was seated at. He wasn't moving.
I was sorely disappointed in myself when, for the second time in less than twelve hours, I felt concern for the self-absorbed creature at the table. Concern made even more ludicrous in light of my abuse at his hands last night. I looked away, grinding the heels of my shaking hands into my eyes, wondering if I was destined to become the second (or the first, depending on from whence my guest came) Crysania. I could understand her now. I'd felt it, too. There was something captivating about Raistlin Majere that warred with something terrifying. Perhaps the fact that he had long eyelashes, and I'd always admired long eyelashes…
What? No!
Lord. I really was insane.
Even as I reprimanded myself, I was inching out of hiding, approaching him stealthily to see if he was breathing. For better or worse, he was. But the artist in me wouldn't let my inspection end there. There was something artful even about the laboured expanding of his sleek ribcage. It shuddered with each inhale, the air not coming to him in smooth currents as it did anyone else. He had to wrangle it into his body, even if his lungs were reluctant to comply. I watched the rich velvet ripple like water from his rhythmic trembling, my fingers itching to reach out and touch him, as if the soreness beneath my throat wasn't enough proof of his existence.
Thoughts of the wound never failed to shake me from my absurd admiration. Firmly admonished and assured that my visitor wasn't deceased, I crept forward to see what exactly we was doing, while trying to remain out of sight myself.
I couldn't help but gape. I just couldn't believe that Raistlin Majere was snoozing at my kitchen table, his forehead resting on the opened pages of, what else, a spellbook.
Impish curiosity stole over me and I tried to surreptitiously read a few lines of the arcane text, baffled to see the words apparently doing the square dance under my gaze.
I hastily skittered away, prepping a pot of tea.
The magical ward on his books.
Right. I knew that.
The sun was up and at 'em, proof that the world had not come to an end. It turned it's beaming face toward the Earth, filling my kitchen with a splendid radiance and lighting the shadows in my mind. Everything seamed a lot less frightening as my own element surrounded me. My unintentional visitor looked so out of place in the sunlight that I smirked, feeling as though I'd somehow gained the upper hand with him.
I decided to be there when he woke. I wasn't another Crysania. I reasoned away my cowering reaction to him last night as shock. I mean, hell, I hadn't even believed him to be alive, and BAM! We're alone in my house, one of us noticeably lacking in the clothes department. I'd known (so to speak) Raistlin Majere since he was six. His behavior hadn't shocked me last night—in retrospect, I'd expected it. I knew all about him, and if that didn't give me the upper-hand, what else could?
No. Not another Crysania.
Perching on my countertop, grinning like the cat who caught and intended to savour this particular canary, I cradled a mug of apple spice tea and waited for the dreamer to awaken.
…For a long time. A really long time.
"What the hell," I muttered, glaring at the napping magus irritably. I'd sipped my way through five cups of tea, dealt with the consequences of imbibing the liquid, and came back for another cup of tea. He had not even twitched. I'd even refilled the teapot once, snapping the faucet on none to quietly, plunking the kettle down clumsily, making a general racket. The books said that he was a light sleeper.
Nothing.
Light sleeper, my ass! I was half tempted to run over, shake his chair and yell, "The bunnies are coming, the bunnies are coming!" But I doubted he'd get the joke, and I didn't have a death wish.
He had to be a light sleeper, though. There was no reason why the authors would lie about their own character. So, was I missing something? What would just zap all of his energy like this—
Of course! A spell! He failed, he said. Krynn mages were always exhausted after intense casting! But what spell would, if botched, hurtle him to another world? And why was it never mentioned in the books?
Drawn into my thoughts like a math geek to an equation, I tried to part the mist of terror that clouded the prior evening, fighting to remember what else Raistlin had said. He'd mentioned something weird. What was it... a circle? Something about 'infinity' and a circle?
And then I knew. I knew exactly from where on the Dragonlance timeline he had emerged. I knew the spell he had been trying to cast.
The only instances a magical circle dealing with time had been mentioned was during the Legends Trilogy, first within the tower of Wayreth, and then in Fistandantilus' lair. At Wayreth, Par-Salian had sent Caramon and, inadvertently, Tasslehoff, into the past to stop Raistlin.
Next, Raistlin threw his twin and Crysania forward in time… that would've been Raistlin's second attempt casting the spell, for he would have accomplished it once before, alone, in the privacy of his own tower. His intention was to step back in time in order to learn from, and eventually destroy, Fisty the Lich. That first incantation was never mentioned in the books, but why?
Leaning against the counter, I crossed my arms and stared out the window. I would bet anything that this hiccup was his true first attempt at casting the Time Travel spell. Something must have thrown him off, and I was damn sure that the something was a certain tall, dark and traitorous elf whose name began with a "D" and ended with an "alamar."
I scowled. The piss-ant. Unlike most of my fellow feminine Dragonlance readers, I disliked the dark elf with a talent for stripping. He was always either ingratiating himself, sleeping around or being a prick. It bothered me.
Cough.
I jolted. I'd been so lost in my loathing that I'd forgotten why I'd thought of the elf in the first place. Twirling around to regard the groggy magician with an over-bright smile, I cried, "It's alive!"
It was his turn to start. For long moments Raistlin regarded me as if I were a cockroach he found crawling through his bedsheets, while I busied myself with pouring tea. With all of the bizarre familiarity that I felt, I padded to where he sat and placed the steaming mug down before of him. For an instant I thought that he would rise and back away from me or order me away, but he just stared at the comically painted, fat, black cat that adorned the mug he had been offered.
"I do not recognize you," he began softly, slowly turning his powerful eyes my way. "But you obviously know me."
Questions? Complaints? I'm dying to hear from you!
Also, I had some help with this chapter from my fellow authoress, Outrageous Raelena. Thank you, Rae!