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Bedlam

And I'd do anything to make you stay
No light, no light
No light
Tell me what you want me to say

-No Light No Light, Florence + the Machine

The Portal was glowing now, dull and heavy with a light that was not light at all. Dalamar looked into the Portal. It was still dark, but patterns of deeper darkness were moving across it. Like blindness slowly fading into sight. It was still impossible to make anything out yet, but that was only a matter of time. The closer Fistandantilus came to the Portal, the clearer the images would be.

And the Dark Queen knew it. She was chasing the lich. Dalamar could feel her rage growing for every ambush failed, every battalion lost. Beating from the Portal like the heat of an alien sun. Dalamar dragged his eyes from the pulsing, half-alive gate, and turned to the laboratory. He had very little time left. He needed to prepare.

He swept the seastone table clear, scattering scrolls and smashing crucibles to the floor. He got a shoulder under it and closed his eyes, forcing all his strength against the ancient stone. It shifted, creaked, the black wooden legs buckled and threatened to collapse. Dalamar gritted his teeth and hurled it up, throwing the table on its side. It wavered, nearly overbalancing and collapsing upside-down, then steadied.

Dalamar rubbed his aching shoulder. His chest felt wet and raw as the wounds in his chest bled faster under the exertion. He slid down and sat on the floor, unhooking the crossbow from his belt and propping it up against the overturned table. The massive stone stood waist high, and created a solid barrier between him and anyone coming through the door.

If Kitiara or Lord Soth decided to pay him a visit, he wouldn't make it easy for them. As for the Portal itself – well, barriers wouldn't get him very far there. Dalamar closed his eyes for a moment, longed to curl up here and get what rest he could before the storm came.

He got up stiffly, and walked to the door to the laboratory. He pressed his hands flat against the wood, closed his eyes to cast. The magic coiled in against the lock mechanism, wound around the hinges. It was the best he had. It wouldn't be even half enough. Dalamar pressed his back against a bookcase and shifted the heavy wood over a few feet to block the door. The glass and crystal jars rocked and swayed; the spell components inside stirring. If they all fell, the result might well be a massive explosion.

Dalamar stepped back, examined his work, and started to drag a heavy chest into place too. It wouldn't slow Fistandantilus if he failed, but it should stop Kitiara, at least for a while. The chest rocked, the top snapped open and Dalamar lost his grip, the chest overbalanced, and spilled open across the floor.

Dalamar closed his eyes and sighed, rubbed his face. He did not need this. He started to pile the mess of old spellbooks and moth-eaten robes back into the chest-

And felt something hard and cold under the cloth. Dalamar paused, and carefully pulled the item free. It was a silver bracelet, slightly tarnished, and studded with black stones.

Dalamar turned it to the light. He had heard of this. Gods, he and Raistlin had even discussed things like this, so long ago. Arguing what good such artefacts really were. Raistlin stubbornly insisting that relying on such variable magic items just made a mage complacent, and Dalamar pointing out that when used as part of a good strategy, they could be valuable.

Well, Dalamar had a strategy, and this could very much be a part of it. But not for him. Because Raistlin had been right for that much, such a thing would only slow him down. "Rannoch?"

The Dead One flitted through the wall. He looked at the barricaded door, the overturned table. He looked at the Portal, and his eyes went wide, skeletal jaw moving silently, in terror.

Finally, someone who had a reasonable reaction to what was happening. "There is a man outside, a Half-elf," Dalamar said shortly, scribbling a note on a scrap of parchment. "Bring him this note and the bracelet." Rannoch looked at the silver band, evaluating. "Oh, as though it would slow it for a moment," Dalamar snapped, exasperated. "But give it to the Half-elf and he'll go riding off to be slaughtered by Lord Soth. Hopefully he'll manage to keep him occupied long enough for us to do our part." They didn't need a Death Knight in the middle of this.

Rannoch nodded, and took the bracelet and the note in his white skeletal hands. Dalamar looked at the Dead One, "You might as well stay away," he said finally. "I give you permission to leave the Tower."

Rannoch stared; spun the bracelet nervously between his disembodied hands.

"You cannot fight the lich." Dalamar sighed. "There is no need for you to-"

Rannoch shook his head, furious and panicked, over and over. He waved wildly at the Portal, turned to Dalamar, between the two, over and over. Dalamar nodded wearily, he had a point. Die here quickly or try to run and get a front-seat view of whatever Fistandantilus planned for the world. There would be nowhere to hide, even for the undead.

"Wake me when you return," he said wearily, and sat back down, with his back to the table, facing the Portal.

He looked out of the window for a moment. The sky was turning dark, blue and bruise purple in a sunset he could not see. Suddenly, Dalamar was spurred up to stand up, and rush to the window. The sun was almost over the horizon now, nothing but a thin rim of red emerging from the sea. Dalamar waited until it was fully gone, and the first stars began to come out over the city.

The cold, dull exhaustion settled in his stomach. He had made all of his preparations, cast everything he could cast. He had done everything he could do, and this was going to be the last time he saw the sunset. And there was nothing he could do, nothing at all, that could change that. The only thing he could do would be to make sure Fistandantilus never saw it again either.

He walked back to the stone table, his tombstone, and slid down. He closed his eyes and rested a hand on the crossbow, feeling the heat and the hate pulse from the Portal before him. Not long now. Not long.

"Bow to me."

Raistlin laughed. The plains of the Abyss were a marsh of blood and bodies. His own breath came raw and bloody, but he didn't care. Let his veins run dry and his lungs collapse on themselves – his own magic would carry his body. His magic, the fire that had already boiled his blood to scabs and blackened his bones to obsidian.

"You have come far, wizard. My legions fall in your wake. For every move of mine, you had a counter move. More than once, you risked all you had to win a single turn. You have proved yourself a skilled player, and our game has brought me much amusement. But now it comes to the end, my worthy opponent. You have one gamepiece left upon the board—yourself."

"Yes," Raistlin agreed easily. "And that piece is in my own hands, my Lady. Were your legions in theirs? Is this what you promised them, Puppet Goddess? To spill their lives over your board under your hands?"

"You are insolent, little mage. My legions do as I command them. They die good deaths. Let me offer one to you now. Rest. Lay down your head on the ground and let the darkness steal over you. You may even dream-"

"Is this what you promised Fistandantilus?" Raistlin snapped. There was a moment of silence. "Spare me your lies. I lie down and die and you will trap me in his place, as has always been your plan. You will force me to walk the rest of his path and the only death I will have is by my own hands, maddened and screaming and condemning myself to the very same path."

"Maddened and screaming," Takhisis echoed. "Is that what you fear, little mage? What you see in the mirror, growing day by day in your own eyes?" Raistlin bared his teeth, but didn't answer.

"There will be no escape for you, small one. No pocket plane for you to huddle in, shivering and afraid of my wrath. You will be here forever, and the days are eons long here. You will be tortured in mind and in body. At the end of each day, you will die from the pain. At the beginning of each night, I will bring you back to life. You will not be able to sleep, but will lie awake in shivering anticipation of the day to come. In the morning, my face will be the first sight you see until you will beg me to grant you your madness, cast you in whatever form I see fit – if only to end your suffering."

Raistlin smiled. Looked up at the sky and felt something like pity, flickering below the white-hot blaze that filled him.

She was so frightened of him. They all were. Not because they could not kill him – oh they could, most certainly – but because they saw what he was. Burning, blazing, alive with fire.

The gods had thrown a burning mountain against the world, and now the world was returning it, in Raistlin. And like that mountain, even if he didn't kill them all, he would do so much damage that it would be irrelevant. The world would see how pathetic and small and petty the gods were, how worthless these beings who ruled them truly were.

"You must be desperate," Raistlin whispered, and laughed, the high, wild laugh, the flames crackling in his throat.

Dalamar woke in the grey light of half-dawn, stiff and aching. He poured himself a cup of water from the flask at his side and sipped it, wetting his parched throat. The Portal was even brighter now, the shadows within it more distinct. The grey on black formed a child's stick drawing of the world beyond. A battle was warring against a single, blurred figure, a figure that – simple and indistinct as it was – seemed to glow. An army was ranked against it – and the army was losing.

Dalamar stood, and walked over to the window. It was later than he'd expected, the rising sun blotted out by the smoke rising from the city. The gates were broken open and Lord Soth was tearing through the city. Nuitari – where had Half-Elven gone? Or had he just thrown himself on the Death Knight's sword already?

At least the undead seemed to be having too much fun hacking civilians to pieces to turn his attention to the Tower. The flying citadel, on the other hand, was rather more concerning. He could see the arched wings of Kitiara's dragon, circling and slashing down at the defenders. Was this her plan? To fly over the Tower and drop down on top of the Deathwalk?

He glanced at Rannoch. "Send the others to the roof. I don't want anything coming down from there."

Rannoch inclined his head and vanished. The Dead One would be back soon enough. He turned for a moment to Fistandantilus' spellbooks on the walls. He wondered if he should pile them all up and set them alight. Not to do anything actually effective, but if Fistandantilus was any kind of mage, the sight of his spellbooks going up in flames would get at least a double take. Any distraction could be vital.

The bell rang. Light and delicate and like a gong in the silence of the Tower. Gods – someone was in the Tower, not the Flying Citadel – but Kitiara must have made her way through the Grove. She attacked from the ground, while her allies attacked from the roof, making Dalamar split his defence. Dalamar glanced at Rannoch, who bowed, and flitted away through the floor.

He could not stop her. Not for long enough. The heat from the Portal was tangible, the figures within more distinct, sharper in outline. Fistandantilus was coming closer. The Dark Queen's rage was shot through with fear now. She was losing.

A muffled cry from downstairs, from the window, Dalamar could see the Flying Citadel coming closer. He ran through any spells that could slow it, tear it down – but it had taken dozens of mages working in concert to raise it, Dalamar could not possibly do it alone. And he needed to conserve his magic. He stepped up to the Portal. It was insanity to think it, but he hoped it would be soon. Before anything else got into the Tower.

A crash, a blast. Something hit the door so hard, the bookshelf buckled and crashed to the floor, the jars smashing to spill bones and acid and flower petals everywhere. Dalamar jumped, one hand thrown up, the amber rod already in his head, ready.

Dalamar saw her from the corner of his eye. Kitiara had her sword out, boots cracking on the shattered glass, behind her, the components were going up in flame, but she was past it, running flat out.

"Ast kiranann kair gadurn sotharn-" the words came as fast as he could manage.

Not fast enough. The glare of the Portal flared off the edge of her sword and – he knew this place. The words of the spell locked in his throat, his breath stuttered. The light turned green and heavy. He could almost feel Raistlin beside him – Raistlin, and Fistandantilus, fighting for control. The Dragon Orb. Lorac. The Nightmare.

He dropped the spell and fell flat, rolling as Kitiara's blade arced over his head. She hissed in frustration, and lashed out with her boot. It caught Dalamar on the shoulder but it was too late, he was up and on his feet, jumping back to try and get some distance.

Kitiara knew mages though, and didn't give him a heartbeat to recover. She turned, broke inside his guard, blade biting through the air, too close. Dalamar darted backwards, trying to get the table between himself and Kitiara. She saw what he was doing, and grinned, bloody teeth bared. Her armour was torn and blood was running down her shoulders and arms.

She couldn't keep going for much longer. Then again, neither could Dalamar. He could feel the heat of the Portal at his back, the alarm going off again as something landed on the roof of the Tower. He needed to end this, and quickly. He jumped back and swung out of the way of her sword. Twisted aside and grabbed hold of the bookshelf holding Fistandantilus' spellbooks.

It was bolted to the wall, but he managed to jolt it hard enough for the books to come loose. Kitiara cried out as one of the tomes struck her sword arm. A glancing blow, and they were not heavy, but the curse had whitened the skin where it had hit, the coldsnap of frostbite.

Her sword clattered to the floor. Dalamar leaped backwards, getting over the table and raising his hands to cast. "Ast kiranann kair gadurn sotharn-"

Kitiara was up, her sword in her off hand. She cut it through the air and raced forward, eyes locked on Dalamar. Dalamar tried to back away – but there was nowhere to go. "Suh kali jalaran!" he finished the spell at a shriek.

The blast caught Kitiara in the chest, Dalamar tried to throw himself out of the way-

But she was moving too fast, and the sword was coming in the other direction this time.

It scythed in to bite into his collarbone, splitting it and cracking through three ribs before locking somewhere deep inside his chest. Kitiara released it to stagger back, chest and throat blackened. Dalamar stared at the blade. Time slowed around him. He saw the blood starting to pool around the blade, the first bursting gouts of the severed arteries. His arm was dead, hanging numb and useless. In the Nightmare, it had been his right. Here it was his left. A tiny difference, but very, very important. Dalamar grabbed hold of the blade and, gritting his teeth, tore it free.

The blood seared out in a burst, and in the shadow of the Dream, he saw himself collapsing and staring numbly at his own dying body. Helpless, unable to move. Dalamar reached and grabbed his ruined arm, the ring on his dead flesh hand. Had it been the other arm, he would be helpless, and already dead. "Keawetan-" he gasped, "Saya dara."

His arm prickled, flared as the healing power scattered up his ruined bones and muscles. The veins knitted back together, the blood slowed to a dull, thick trickle as it clotted. Dalamar slid down the table and for a moment, he buckled over, one hand knotting into the dumb, raw flesh of his arm. The bone was still broken. He tried to move his fingers and cried out. They moved, but just that action sent burst of warning fire through his body. and the frail healing he had managed would be undone.

Kitiara had collapsed, just to the left of the Portal. She reached out blackened, charred hands towards the handle of her blade, her breath rattling in her throat.

"You utter fool." Dalamar tasted blood with the words. "You may have killed us all."

Kitiara's laugh hacked and wheezed. Dalamar's spell had burnt a hole through her windpipe; she would be dead in minutes. "Stopped you," she choked. "Stopped Raistlin."

"Is that what Soth told you?" Dalamar growled. His head wavered. He felt so tired-

Kitiara didn't answer.

"He told me you would betray me," Dalamar continued, forcing his breathing to even in an attempt to stay conscious. "He told you the same. He wants you dead."

Kitiara's hands trembled; she tried to reach for her sword again. She was dying, and still she tried to fight. Dalamar was suddenly, hideously reminded of Raistlin, in those last, precious days before Fistandantilus finally devoured him. Dying, drowning in front of Dalamar's eyes, but still fighting. Kitiara was not Raistlin, would never come close, but they shared the same blood, and the same will. That same dazzling life that the undead hungered for.

And that very life was ebbing from Kitiara's eyes. Dalamar closed his eyes, to give her at least that dignity.

The door opened again, through the smouldering mess of broken shelving and half-melted glass. Dalamar kept his eyes closed. They weren't shouting war cries and trying to kill him yet – although possibly that was because they hadn't seen him – and he wanted to keep his eyes closed for just another heartbeat.

"What is he doing here?"

Oh Nuitari. Dalamar opened his eyes. Tanis was leaning over Kitiara. Beside him was Caramon. The big man was looking at him like- like-

Dalamar had seen that look precisely twice in his life. The first time had been where the guards had found him in the cave, pledging himself to Nuitari. The second was when Fistandantilus had seen him walk into this very room. There was no other look of hate and disgust and revulsion that came close. The big man looked as though he'd been dragged backwards through the Abyss – although no doubt Fistandantilus wouldn't come out looking better – covered in grey ash and stinking of death and decay.

"After everything you've done!" Caramon's hand was on his sword.

Tanis turned, alarmed. "Put that away!"

"You took him away from me!" Caramon was screaming. "You turned him into this! Then I had him back and I lost him again! All he cared about is you!"

What in the Abyss was happening? Tanis was staring at Caramon. Kitiara tried to say something, a thin crackle of a whisper.

"All I wanted was my brother back!" Caramon wailed. "He needed me again! He wanted me help him to do good! And he came back and he hated me and he wasn't my brother again!"

"Caramon!" Tanis pulled him around.

Caramon turned, his eyes locked on the Portal. "He's in there?"

Tanis looked at Dalamar. Dalamar briefly closed his eyes, and nodded. His brain felt slow and sluggish, hard to piece things together – nothing Caramon said seemed to make any sense. What was he shouting about? And how was Caramon here, when he should be dead in Istar?

"Caramon, don't be a fool." Tanis looked at the glowing Portal.

"I've seen what will happen, Tanis." Caramon's face contorted. He looked as though he'd been crying. "I've seen what he does to the world." He gave Dalamar a look of such utter hatred that if Caramon had had even a fraction of his twin's magic, Dalamar would have been incinerated. "What he does for you."

Tear me to pieces and eat my intestines? Dalamar's head was swimming; he'd lost too much blood. What was happening?

There was a vague commotion around Kitiara. The clatter of something hitting the floor. Dalamar's eyes started to droop, he needed- he needed-

Pain exploded in his arm and Dalamar screamed. Caramon had grabbed his wounded shoulder and was squeezing. "How do I get in?!" He roared in Dalamar's face. "Tell me!" His hand twisted, Dalamar cried out again – or had he even stopped?

"Let him go!" Tanis looked horrified. Caramon let go and Dalamar doubled over, half-blind with pain. "What are you doing?"

"If that thing doesn't tell us how to get in," Caramon snarled, "he'll kill everything in the world. He'll burn it to dust, just to try and save him."

What?

"Get me in there." Caramon turned back to him. "Or I'll finish you right now."

"Keep him away!" Kitiara cried out suddenly. "Don't let him take me!" Her eyes flickered from Dalamar, Caramon, to Tanis. She looked up, pleading, and Tanis hesitated – and turned away. "I always loved you, Half-elf. I- always-loved-you-"

Tanis lowered his head, and Kitiara's last breath rattled from her.

Caramon turned back to Dalamar. He drew his sword. Dalamar glanced at the door, but there was no Rannoch, and he couldn't cry out. "Do you think," Dalamar gritted his teeth, "that if I had some way to open the Portal, I would be sitting here waiting?"

Caramon glared at him, then slowly replaced his sword back into its scabbard. "Then I'll have to wait, won't I?" He walked up to the Portal, turning his back on Dalamar. Dalamar grasped the amber rod, wondered about the chance of casting one-handed. Probably not. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Tanis cover Kitiara's body with his cloak. "He'll open the Portal before he comes through. I'll enter and stop him."

Is that what this was about? Dalamar blinked, this was… good? Another line of defence between Fistandantilus and the outside world. It might even work. Stop Fistandantilus before he passed through, and the Portal would close. Caramon would be eaten, and Dalamar might even come out of this alive. But then, why did everything suddenly feel very, very wrong?

"If you fail," Dalamar said shakily, grabbing his crossbow with his good hand. "I am our last hope."

Tanis looked incredulous, Caramon's lip curled in loathing. Dalamar ignored them. He rested the crossbow in his lap and slotted a bolt in. He still needed to cock it, and Gods knew how he would do that with only one hand.

Caramon turned his back, and Dalamar felt another wave of wrongness. Maybe it was foolish, this gut-deep certainty that whatever Caramon thought was true would be entirely false, but he had known the man for nearly ten years and it had always been accurate.

He'll burn it to dust, just to save him

The Portal seemed to swallow everything, even the sounds from outside were engulfed in the silence. The figures in the darkness were coming clearer, taking on colour. The barren red land beyond the gate, black inkdrop figures battling across it. The dragons' mouths seemed to open a little more, emit a high, almost inaudible screaming.

"Tanis-"

"Caramon-"

Dalamar closed his eyes. Let the words wash over him. He needed to focus. Draw up all the strength he had left. He opened his eyes as Caramon climbed up to the Portal. "Keep Tasslehoff away," Caramon said quietly. "I told him to stay in the Citadel, but – you know."

"Yes." Half-Elven's smile was trembling. "I'll keep him safe, don't worry."

"Make ready." Dalamar drew the crossbow up to his shoulder. The image flickered and cleared. The moment where a painting on the wall became a window. Dalamar's stomach clenched.

The Portal blurred with light, a blaze of shimmering colours as Caramon passed through the skin of magic shielding it- and was gone.

Good. It was good. Dalamar tried to convince himself. Caramon would stop Fistandantilus – or hurt him enough that Dalamar would have a good chance of beating him. And even if Dalamar failed, there was still Tanis, for whatever good that was.

He managed to edge the string up most of the way up the crossbow, then twisted his head down, hooked his teeth into the string and got it over the clip. He slumped back, the bow in the crook of his arm. Ready. Better than he could have hoped half an hour ago.

And he came back and he hated me and he wasn't my brother anymore

So why was Dalamar so sure that everything was about to fall apart? Nuitari. Dalamar's mouth moved silently in a prayer. What is happening? What is going on?

And then, as though Nuitari himself had spirited him into the Tower, Tasslehoff burst through the door.