Thawing

Dalamar left at dawn, and he did not bid farewell.

His task was grim, and he didn't want to prolong it any further. The necromancer had given him several potent protection draughts and several more healing elixers to ward off any illness he might suffer. And in the early hours, just as Dalamar was preparing to step through the Gate, Roltan gave him a gift.

"This amulet will tell all who have power to whom it is you belong." The vampire had said softly as he fastened a heavy ruby talisman strung on a silver chain around the dark elf's neck. His smooth white fingers tickled slightly as they lifted Dalamar's hair, causing a shiver to run through his body.

Such cold skin.

It reminded him forcefully that Roltan was not alive in the common sense, indeed had never been alive at all. Like a marble statue come to life, drawing breath somehow and remembering all the secrets it had learned in those distant days before being hewn from the mountain.

Roltan adjusted the periapt and looked down into Dalamar's eyes.

"I will look after him."

Pale grey eyes, almost silver. Frost-white flesh framed by wind-combed hair of the deepest black, blacker than the places between the planets. Dalamar raised his face to stare into those impossibly noctilucent eyes, a challenge evident in his expression.

"See that you do, Master Mettamoon. He is dear to me."

"It pains you to say that."

"To admit it, yes. But there is no pain in the devotion. My Shal...that is, Raistlin merits such loyalty. He is very great."

Roltan sat down on the stone bench, somehow more approachable without his imposing height, and gazed out over the courtyard.

"I wept for him the first night. For you both. Do you know how long it has been since I wept? Planets have been born and died. But your plight touches my soul. I will do all that is in my power to ensure that you and your master are safe and allowed to study as you have always wished. The quest for knowledge and power should not be ridiculed. There is no evil in either one of you."

Dalamar harshed a laugh and sat down next to the necromancer.

"Most would disagree with you."

"Most have not seen true evil."

"And you have?"

Roltan said nothing. He reached up and opened the front of his robes with his left hand, and drawing them away from his chest he displayed a horrific scar that ran from his right breast down toward his left side and beyond. Dalamar, who had seen and even caused countless wounds before, some more gruesome than this in severity and size, nevertheless found himself repulsed beyond description. The sight of that smooth, perfect white flesh marred by such brutality seemed as nauseating as a drunkard urinating on the floor of a cathedral. He stared at the grisly wound for long moments, until at last Roltan fastened his robe again and turned back to the lake.

"What happened?" Dalamar asked, his voice hushed.

"My brother," Roltan explained gently, "Cut out my soul."

Whatever Dalamar had been expecting him to say, it was most certainly not this. He tried to speak, to ask how such a preposterous thing had come to pass, but his words died on his tongue.

Finally, he managed to speak.

"Your soul...but you said it belonged to Law?"

"So it does, wherever it may be."

"Why did your brother do this?"

"Power, of course. My soul was my link to the only possibility of rest, for me a simple thing and very much appreciated. To my brother it was a way to engorge his own spirit with even greater potential to hold power. Should I be destroyed this day, there would be no peace on the other side. I would simply cease to be, and no spell in any language could ever bring me back. Even the Gods would be powerless. This life is all there is for me. Afterwards, all is finished."

In a flash, Dalamar understood.

"And so you learned..."

"Yes. I learned to protect the souls of others. I learneto heal the sick and the dying, even the dead. Their souls are all the more precious to me because I have none of my own. Like a barren woman who works as a midwife, I am most drawn to that which I will never have. I learned to live in mercy. For at the end, the only comfort I will receive is the knowledge that I brought solace to all I could. It will be enough."

After a moment, Roltan rose to his feet again.

"The morning draws near. You, my young friend, must find your path. Do not fear the Abyss. The denizens of that realm, if any are left alive, will give that amulet a wide berth. It contains among other ingredients a measure of my blood. The scent and feel of Mettamoon will send all but the most reckless running in the opposite direction. Keep it with you."

"Many thanks."

"When you are ready to return, you have only to retrace your steps. This Gate I will shift to the laboratory for ease of movement. You may come and go as you like."

Dalamar bowed once to him, still shaken by what he had seen beneath those robes, and shouldered his pack.

"I will return when I can, Master Mettamoon."

Roltan smiled benevolently and waved him away.

"Yes, I know you will. Good journey."

Dalamar stepped into the Gate and left the world, left the sprinkled stars and the soft breeze and the sweet scent of jasmine behind. Before him, the sky over the Abyss stretched overhead, the color of blood beneath an old scar that had never healed.

Roltan stepped into his sitting room, where Raistlin sat sleeping in a forest-colored armchair with a book open on his chest. A sudden pang of compassion moved the tall vampire to lean over and sweep his cloak from his shoulders, draping it securely over the drowsy form of the frail young mage. Roltan tucked him in well, even his bandaged feet, and stepped into his bedroom to change clothing.

He stripped off the long black robe and stood before the long mirror next to the bath a moment clad only in loose linen pants of softest green. He'd never found himself to be particularily remarkable. Nearly seven feet in height, but fairly average for a vampire. His hair was heavy and thick, silken and tumbled as a horse's mane. The white muscles of his chest were marred by the terrible scar, the evidence of his spiritual autopsy. Wrapped around the gleaming flesh of his upper left arm there was a hammered silver cuff containing a single triangular emerald set into its surface. It was the only piece of ornament that he never removed, and never spoke of.

Roltan hummed a little, turned on the taps for the water, and neatly piled the rest of his clothing on the small table next to the bathtub. He was just easing into the warm water with a contented sigh when the outer door to the laboratory burst open and a volley of curses stomped in, followed by a Draconian.

"Oh damn it..." Roltan moaned, and reached forward to pull the drain plug, "General Fenric."

Raistlin was rudely awakened by a string of the foulest language he had ever heard, growled out in some dragonish dialect that he only half understood. But, judging by the severity of the words, perhaps it was not at all a bad thing that he was unable to figure out the other half.

A huge, battle-scarred, deep purple Draconian stepped into the room, one clawed hand covering the bleeding right side of his face, the other hand clutching a glass jar which contained, hideously and unmistakably, an eye.

Roltan had been right.

These things were nothing like the Dracs of Krynn. They were bigger, cleaner, scarier.

The creature fixed his remaining eye on the wide-eyed mage in the chair before him.

"Where's the necromancer?" he asked, his voice deep and growlish and utterly inhuman.

"I have no idea." Raistlin returned with forced calm. He disentangled himself from Roltan's cloak and struggled to his feet, mentally sizing up the beast with his eyes. "Perhaps I can be of service?"

The Drac unceremoniously thrust the grisly jar into Raistlin's hands and sat down on one of the steel worktables.

"Yeah. Put that back in. And be quick about it, I have to finish training those first years. Little monsters. They really don't know how to swing a blade yet, but I'll soon have them well prepared. I'm Grand General Fenric. Who are you?"

Raistlin set the jar down and began to gather what he needed for the surgery, finding a great deal more medical supplies than he had ever seen in his life stacked neatly here and there. He took a large stack of bandages, ointments, threaded needles, and other such paraphernalia over to the small bench next to the table and opened the jar.

"I am called Raistlin. It is a distinct oddity to meet you, General. I have never seen one of your kind before."

Fenric growled noncommittally and dropped his hand from his eye, revealing a deep cut and a tragically empty socket, dangling optic nerves like a messy pasta dish across his scaly cheek. Raistlin had never seen such a thing before. He reached up and gently probed the wound, nonplussed.

"Here, I will get that." Roltan said softly, coming into the room. He took the eye from its jar and held it in one hand while he fished about for some gauze with the other. His hands moved quicker than sight as he began to clean up the mess. "I see you've met Raistlin. He will be my new assistant."

"Good enough. What can he do?"

"I am well versed in many aspects of mage craft and have read - " Raistlin began, but Fenric cut him off with one word.

"Krynn."

Raistlin blinked, nonplussed. "What?"

"I said Krynn. Your accent. It's Krynnian. I was there a while back, in my human form, taking stock of the place. Oh, about a hundred years or so. You look like you've seen the wrong end of a pretty bad spell there. Are you going to be alright?"

"He'll pull through, I dare say," Roltan answered, fitting the eye back into its socket and thumbing it in with a practiced touch, "As will you, you big idiot. At least you saved the eye this time. It's such a bother to keep growing new ones."

"Call me an idiot again and I'll feed you your guts, Roltan." Fenric growled good-naturedly, and blinked a few times to clear his vision. He rose to his feet and looked down at the two mages, his blood-stained face and delicate framework of ritual scars making him look a thousand times more savage than anything Raistlin had ever seen.

"Welcome to Draconia. Let me know if there's anything I can do for you."

"Many thanks, General Fenric." Raistlin suddenly stopped, his eyes widening. Roltan was one thing, his unchanging nature could be explained, but this?

"You're not rotting!"

Fenric's face broke into a grin. "Thanks."

"No! No, you don't understand! Roltan, my eyes...he's not rotting. And the Elvish servants weren't either! Nor your cat!"

Roltan laid a hand on his arm.

"I know, my friend. My touch extends to all who surround me. You will not see yourself dying any longer either."

Raistlin laughed, something that he very rarely did in true joy. He looked back to the beast before him, who watched the proceedings with some amusement.

"I am terribly glad that you're not rotting, General Fenric."

"Yeah," agreed the Draconian General, picking up his empty jar and heading back to the door of the lab, " Me too."