A/N: Well, the rumor about responses seems to have died down, so there will be no more random kender inserts to confuse you in this chapter. Also, I've gotten a beta reader, (Shout out to Valgoruth! Italian food forever!) so any complaints about spelling and grammar are now not my fault.
Like a Rat in a Maze, the Path Before Me Lies
Arash sat in solitude, the plate of food by his chair ignored. He was absolutely seething from that morning's humiliation. He was determined not to talk the next time, though how he would manage that, he was not quite sure. The next time, he would not act as an embarrassment to his father.
Suddenly, Arash's reverie was broken by a faint squishing sound. He looked at the door, artfully replacing a look of nervousness with one of scorn. The noise, however, was not emanating from the door. Realizing that, Arash looked around the room, trying to find where the attacker might be coming from. He stood, not even consciously realizing that that meant the spectres had left with Dalamar.
Finally, after spinning in a circle to survey the room twice, Arash noticed something grey, or maybe not grey, squeezing through one of the walls. At first, Arash thought that it might be some magical lackey of Dalamar's. When it finished coming into the room, however, it ended up not as a being or a face, but as a stone. The predominant color was grey, though other colors flashed through it irregularly in the even light that shone from the ceiling. It was a big stone, or perhaps a small one. It was round, but every other shape imaginable at the same time. It was smooth, but also bumpy, slimy, sandpaper-rough, and more, all at once.
For a minute, all Arash could do was stare at it in entranced shock as it changed and undulated and fluxed. Then, an idea came into his brain, unbidden. Break it. Arash wasn't sure why he felt so compelled, so he tried to ignore the thought. Break it, came the insidious command. Just use the chair and break it. Arash suddenly wondered what would be so bad about breaking the stone. After all, he was already in a strange world, and had been humiliated by a fag in a dress. What more could go wrong?
Break it. This time, he did not try to fight the seductive command. The stone seemed to move nearer the floor, though it was hard to tell whether it was actually moving or simply following its mercurial nature. Arash picked up the heavy, uncomfortable wooden chair and brought it smashing down onto the stone. There was an immense explosion, and Arash knew no more.
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Fie wandered in the direction he thought the study might be, lost in thought. He was having a bit of trouble coming to terms with the colossal amount of strength he had just inherited. He was slightly intimidated, to be sure. However, most of his thoughts were embarrassingly power-hungry. On Earth, he had always strove to be the best at anything he applied himself to, however, he never thought of himself as power-hungry.
Once in a while at home, the shameful thought that because of his intellect he was better than normal humans, would come through. He had always guiltily shoved that thought away before it could really take root, but here was concrete evidence that he was, in part, correct. Even Dalamar, an obviously powerful mage, had been shoved callously aside in favor of him, Fie, by someone reputed to be the most powerful mage to ever walk the face of Krynn. Now, Fie had been asked to go to Raistlin's study, a place that Dalamar had been instantly forbidden from. To say that the feeling of such respect was intoxicating would be an understatement.
As he let his mind wander these dark trails, Fie allowed his feet free reign among the dark passageways of the Tower. Obviously, his subconscious knew where he was going, even if Fie himself did not, because he soon arrived in front of Raistlin's study. The previously open door was closed. He knocked hesitantly.
At a reedy "Enter," from Raistlin, Fie hesitantly opened the door, which turned out not to be locked. Raistlin was sitting at the desk, reading a spell book with badly concealed longing. His face hardened once Fie had closed the door behind himself. "I suppose you know why you're here?"
The soft, compelling voice startled Fie slightly after his silent contemplations. He jumped despite himself. "Not exactly, Sir." Despite the euphoria of power, or perhaps because of it, Fie decided that understated courtesy would be best with the former mage, rather than the defiance he had shown before.
Raistlin sighed; he'd obviously hoped that this would be one apprentice he wouldn't have to spell things out for. "You have come here because, despite my current lack of power, I can teach you far more than anyone save the gods themselves could. I can read it in your eyes that you crave this power as I once did, as I still do. I can show you this power, if you want it."
Fie's heart was in his throat. Though he hadn't admitted it out loud, this was exactly what he'd hoped, and feared, that Raistlin would offer. Fie was vaguely worried about corruption that the power might bring, but that timid part of his mind was fairly quickly overridden by the seduction of magic.
"I would be honored to study under you, Master Rai…"
Fie's sentence was violently cut off when an earth-shaking explosion rocked the Tower. A piece of the study, the one that met the Tower's outer wall, fell away. Miraculously, only the lower wall and the books kept there plunged towards the dread Shoikan Grove. Above the original break, the wall stayed intact, the books unmoved. Fie gaped as part of the wall supported itself over thin air.
Raistlin's eyes unfocused as he unsuccessfully tried to transport himself to wherever his old apprentice happened to be. At the renewed reminder of the loss of even commonplace magic, Raistlin let out a string of curses under his breath again. Eyes blazing, Raistlin stormed out of the room, Fie following closely behind.
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After Catherine was bandaged up, Dalamar had expected her to leave and do whatever it was that teenaged half-elves did in their spare time. However, Catherine just watched silently as he pulled out his spell book and sat down again to study. After a few minutes of this dumb contemplation, Dalamar sighed.
"What?" His question was terse and annoyed. "Do you want some dolls or something?"
Catherine raised an eyebrow. "Can I borrow a spellbook? Or maybe a book on history? Or, here's a novel idea, maybe you could teach me yourself rather than just ignoring me!" She glared at him.
"Fine," Dalamar sighed, knowing that he wouldn't be able to get rid of her anyway. He'd never thought that a daughter would be so much trouble. Pushing aside a guilty thought about being glad he hadn't known about her before, Dalamar asked, "What do you want to know?"
"Well," Catherine was slightly surprised. She hadn't expected him to actually humor her! "I guess tell me whatever I need to know about this world. Because whether you agree to let me stay here or not, I am not going back to the orphanage!"
"I… I suppose some recent history would be good then, or perhaps I can teach you about the gods." Dalamar was so taken off guard by this impassioned speech that he began to babble slightly. Getting a hold of himself, he continued, and Catherine plopped down cross-legged onto the floor. "Yes. I will tell you about the gods. The twenty one gods of our pantheon are the children of Chaos, a being as old as…"
The world suddenly exploded around them. The wall nearest the door blew inwards, and a piece of shrapnel hit Dalamar on the head. Kit bit her lip to hold back a scream as large chunks of the wall flew towards the window. She threw herself from the floor onto the bed, rolled across, and fell to the other side where she hoped she'd be partially shielded. An enormous chunk of stone flew over her head and hit the window, which shattered into hundreds of pieces. Finally, the explosion died down.
Catherine peered up cautiously to see that nothing else would be hurtling across the room, and when she deemed it safe, she headed over towards the shelf with the bandages and unguents. After much struggling to reach them, Kit grabbed the bandages and the salve that Dalamar had put on her burns. She hurried over to stop the bleeding on his forehead.
As Catherine was mopping up the blood, Raistlin swept into the room, closely followed by Fie. "What happened?" Raistlin demanded, his voice barely above a whisper, but even more menacing than a yell would have been.
"How should I know?" Catherine fumed as Fie joined her on the floor to clean up the stricken elf. "Dalamar was telling me about the gods, and then the next thing we know, the wall explodes! Ouch!" Fie had noticed a piece of glass from the window in Kit's arm and pulled it out sharply.
"Then who…" Fie muttered, as he helped to wrap a linen bandage around Dalamar's head. He clapped sharply for a spectre and beckoned for some smelling salts. Raistlin looked slightly abashed as once more, the spectre hurried to do the young man's bidding.
Suddenly, Catherine stopped mid-motion. "Arash," she breathed. "But how?" She mused, getting up slowly and walking around the room with a dazed expression.
"Arash? What does he have to do with anything?" Fie was puzzled. "Are you sure that you didn't get hit on the head as well?" He looked at his friend incredulously.
"No." Catherine glared at Fie. "Dalamar had just been telling me that he took Arash here for some reason as well, and that he was locked up safely. What if he figured out how to get out?"
Fie accepted the smelling salts from the spectre that hovered over Dalamar. "Arash was here? Why would Dalamar care about him?" He waved the terrible smelling spices under Dalamar's nose energetically.
Dalamar sat up violently, knocking the teenaged boy aside with his waving arms. "What happened? Shalafi!" The last word was a scream. Obviously, Dalamar had a slight lapse in memory. "Oh." He began to remember the events of the past few hours. "Why is the wall gone?"
Fie joined Raistlin as he smirked at Dalamar's disorientation. "We were going to ask you that." Raistlin's voice suddenly turned caustic. "Perhaps you'd care to explain why the western half of this floor, and parts of the floors immediately above and below are completely destroyed?" He raised an eyebrow.
"I told you, already, we don't know!" Catherine cut in, buying a minute of time for the disoriented elf to recover. She then turned to Dalamar. "Dalamar, where were you keeping Arash?"
Comprehension suddenly dawned in his eyes. "Across the hall," he said wonderingly. "I don't understand how he could have gotten out." Dalamar picked himself up off of the floor. "It just doesn't make sense!"
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Suddenly, there was light in the world once more. Arash blinked his eyes rapidly, trying to adjust to the new light. "Huh?" He said dazedly. He looked around at the bare plain surrounding him. "Where am I?" The teen asked rhetorically, not really expecting an answer.
"The place that the puny mortals call the 'Plains of Dust.'" A terrible voice boomed. "It is the best place on this measly world for me to explain what is needed."
Arash blinked slowly, not trusting his eyes. "Fuck." That about summed up Chaos, whose corporeal form was of a huge giant made of what seemed to be molten rock. His features were indistinct, since they kept changing. The only things that remained constant in his face were his eyes, lidless holes that led to infinity.
"You are to be my general among the worms. You will lead my semi-human troops against the horde of mortals." Chaos's voice boomed discordantly in Arash's ears.
"Your general? Woah, dude, what the hell is wrong with you? Who are you even?" Arash was still trying to take all of it in.
"I? I am Chaos. I created this plane, and will now destroy it. However, my children trapped me in that infernal stone for years, so my power is much reduced. That is where you come in."
A/N: Well, hope you enjoyed that. The next chapter should be longer. And, you're all in luck – I'm on a writing kick for this story, so it shouldn't be too long before the next chapter's posted. Though I must warn you, school does bring new time constraints. Woah, I just checked my stats, and I saw that I have 65 reviews, compared to 301 hits! Warning: my bad boy muses will track down anyone who doesn't take the time to press the little blue-ish button and tell me what you think!
Kilyn Bloodstone: Glad you enjoyed. Sorry for the fright about Tas, but I really was not sure that the rumor about responses was just that, a rumor, so I decided to play it safe!
Jade Limill: No prob about disappearing for a while. As long as you came back! I'm glad you liked the chapter. The part about Dalamar being afraid of me was a random reference to a line in ESGAME where he mentioned that getting on my bad side meant a new, very Sue-infested chapter in Tale of Two Worlds. (Not to mention the April Fool's episode…) So, there (likely) will be nothing more on that in this story, though if everyone protests, I may rethink that.
Valgoruth: Glad you're enjoying. Hey, you didn't catch any spelling mistakes… Hope that meant that I didn't make any!
Casey: Thanks for the glowing review, and I hope to always live up to your expectations!
Fetch-Thranduilion: Thanks for starting to read! Thanks for the god reference. I was pretty sure it was Zivilyn, but I wanted to make sure. That is pretty important later on. (Hint hint…) And thank you SO much for saying that Raistlin was in character. He is, for me as well, by far the hardest to keep in character. As to the review thing, I have come to the conclusion that it was a really nasty joke someone played, luckily! Glad you like Kit and Fie better than Usha and Palin. Me too! (I'm still mad about Palin inheriting the staff…) And, as I'm sure this chapter indicated, Arash's role is going to be a very far cry from that of Steel!