Margaret Weis - Dragons of the Hourglass Mage

Fistandantilus fell, writhing, to the floor. Raistlin let go of the knife; his hand was too weak and shaking to hold on to it. The knife remained buried up to the hilt in the black robes.

Raistlin gasped for air and watched himself die. He realized suddenly he had only a few moments to act. He grabbed the bloodstone that still lay on his breast and slammed it down on the heart of the dying wizard.

An eerie feeling come over Raistlin, a feeling that he had done this before. The feeling was strong and unnerving. He ignored it and kept the stone pressed to the heart, and he felt his own strength, his own being returning to him and with it, the knowledge, the wisdom, the power of the archmagus.

Fistandantilus opened his mouth in an attempt to cast a spell. He coughed, choked, and blood, not magic, flowed from his lips. He gave a shudder. His body went rigid. The blood bubbled on his lips. The hourglass eyes fixed in his head, and he lay still. His hand went flaccid; the dragon orb rolled onto the floor. The hourglass eyes, dark with enmity and rage, stared up at Raistlin. He looked down on himself, dead, and Raistlin wondered, suddenly, fearfully, if he was the one who had died, and if it was Fistandantilus who was gazing down at him.

Alarmed at the thought, he snatched the bloodstone from the body, and the flow of knowledge ended abruptly. He did not know what he had gleaned; his head was littered with strange spells and arcane knowledge. He was reminded of the confusion in the library in the wretched Tower of High Sorcery in Neraka.

He rose, shakily, to his feet, and he was suddenly aware that he was not alone. By the light of the Staff of Magius, once more burning brightly, he could see on the wall a shadow-five heads of the Dark Queen.

Well done, Fistandantilus!

Raistlin caught his breath and cautiously looked up.

Raistlin Majere is dead! You have slain him!

The shadowy eyes of the shadowy heads stared at something in his hand. He looked down to see that he was holding the bloodstone pendant.

"Yes, my Queen," he said. "Raistlin Majere is dead. I have killed him."

Good! Now make haste to the Foundation Stone. You are the final guardian.

The heads vanished. The Dark Queen, intent upon other dangers, disappeared.

"Not even the gods can tell the difference," Raistlin murmured.

He looked at the bloodstone pendant. As the wizard's dark soul flooded into his, Raistlin had glimpsed unspeakable acts, countless murders, and other crimes too terrible to name. He closed his hand over the pendant, then flung it into one of the acid pools. He watched the acid devour the pendant, as the pendant had almost devoured him. He seemed to hear it hiss in anger.

Raistlin held up the dragon orb. He watched the colors swirl in the light, and he chanted the words and disappeared from the tunnels, leaving the body of Raistlin Majere behind.

Raistlin stood before a broken column, encrusted with jewels that glittered temptingly, luring the unwary to their doom. He murmured the words to a spell he had not known he knew, and he traced a rune in the air. The figure of a woman appeared inside the stone. The woman was young, with a sweet and winsome face, pale with grief and sorrow, soft with yearning. The woman's eyes searched the darkness.

He saw her lips move, heard her ghostly, anguished cry.

"Berem comes, Jasla," Raistlin said.

He was careful to avoid stepping in the underground stream, which was crawling and snapping and roiling with baby dragons. Climbing a rock ledge that ran along the foul water, he came to a place some distance from the stone, where he could keep watch. He spoke the word, "Dulak," and the staff's light went out.

Raistlin waited in the darkness for the person who had been dumb enough-or perhaps courageous enough-to walk into his spell trap. Raistlin knew who that person was, the other half of himself. He heard the sounds of two people sloshing through the dragon-snapping, bloodstained water. He knew them in spite of the darkness.

One was Caramon, a good man, a good brother, better than he deserved. The other was Berem Everman. The emerald glimmered and, in answer, the jewels in the Foundation Stone began to glitter with a myriad of colors.

Caramon walked protectively at Berem's side. His sword was in his hand, and it was stained with blood. His black armor was dented; his arms and legs were bleeding. He had a bloody gash on his head. His jovial face was pale, haggard, drawn with pain. Sorrow had marked him. The darkness had changed; the darkness had changed him.

A brother lost.

Raistlin looked into the future and saw the end. He saw a sister's love and forgiveness, her brother redeemed. A brother found.

He saw the temple fall. The stone splitting as the Dark Queen shrieked in rage and struggled to keep her grip on the world. He saw a green dragon, waiting for his command, waiting to take him to the Tower of Palanthas. The Tower's gates would open at last.

"Shirak," said Raistlin, and the magical light of the Staff of Magius banished the darkness.

The Temple's darkness is lit to day-like brilliance with the power of my magic. Caramon, sword in hand, can only stand beside me and watch in awe as foe after foe falls to my spells. Lightning crackles from my fingertips, flame flares from my hands, phantasms appear-so terrifyingly real that they can kill by fear alone.

Goblins die screaming, pierced by the lances of legions of knights who fill the cavern with their war chants at my bidding, then disappear at my command. The baby dragons flee in terror back to the dark and secret places of their hatching, draconians wither in the flames. Dark clerics, who swarmed down the stairs at their Queen's last bidding, are impaled upon a flight of shimmering spears, their last prayers changing to wailing curses of agony.

Finally comes the Black Robes, the eldest of the Order, to destroy me-the young upstart. But they find to their dismay that-old as they are-I am in some mysterious way older still. My power is phenomenal. They know within an instant that I cannot be defeated. The air is filled with the sounds of chanting, and one by one, they disappear as swiftly as they came, many bowing to me in profound respect as they depart upon the wings of wish spells…

They bow to me.

Raistlin Majere. Master of Past and Present.

I, Magus.