by Kevin Stein
Glowering, not liking this in the least, Caramon stood at the top of the magical staircase that had appeared before him. He hesitated, gripping his sword tightly. He didn’t want to go down into the darkness. He knew that, if he did, he would meet his own death, and it would be a terrible one.
“But maybe Raist is down there. He’s alone. He needs me.”
Caramon put a foot on the stair. Then, deciding that—like bad-tasting medicine—it was best to drink it quickly and get it over with, the warrior ran full speed down the staircase.
Reaching the bottom, he stepped off and instantly red beams flared around him. One glanced off his arm, searing his flesh painfully. Caramon rolled on the ground and ducked into a nearby building, shutting the door behind him. Looking out a window, he could see three creatures, aiming red-glowing wands at him.
The creatures were bent and twisted, their bodies covered with fur. Their heads looked like the skulls of dead cats, teeth gleaming in a rictus grin. One of the demons, wearing a harness of some strange, glossy material with a silver medallion in the middle, shouted something in a strange language, pointing at the building where Caramon was hiding.
The demon’s voice, rough and hissing, reminded Caramon of a cat that could talk like a human. Moving slowly and as quietly as he could, the big man crept up the stairs.
Down below, he heard the door crash and saw a bolt of crimson flare in the room, scoring the back wall and setting furniture aflame.
Footsteps, claws scraping against the floor, padded through the room, searching. Then they began to ascend the stairs. A head appeared in Caramon’s view. It saw him the same time he saw it.
“Das—” it began to shout the alarm.
Caramon’s sword bit into its neck, the keen metal driving so far into the flesh that the blade plunged through the demon into the wall. The warrior yanked his blade free and pounded up the stairs that led to the third floor.
The hallway exploded with red light, shattering chairs and tables, sending splinters flying through the air. Caramon kept running. Another demon, growling in anger at missing its target, dashed up the stairs in pursuit.
Caramon waited in ambush at the head of the stairs, drew his throwing dagger, and tossed. The knife struck the demon point-blank in the chest.
Reaching up, irritated, the demon plucked it out of its black pelt.
“Huh? I guess that’s why Bast said to use the sword,” Caramon muttered.
He saw the wand aiming at him and threw himself to the floor. Red light burned through the room, over his head. Looking about wildly, the fighter discovered a portal in the ceiling, just low enough for him to reach. He pushed the wood-slatted cover off with his bastard sword, throwing the blade through it to land on the roof. Leaping up, he grabbed the edges of the portal and started to pull himself up.
Powerful hands grabbed hold of his ankles and jerked him to the floor. The demon’s paws smashed down onto his ears, stunning him. The creature extended its claws and cut down under the warrior’s armor, digging forward, dragging dirty talons through his flesh.
The pain brought Caramon to his senses, and he kicked up with his legs, knocking the demon over. Leaping after it, he tried to pin it to the floor. The demon slipped out of his hold, and Caramon scrambled backward.
His sword was high above him, and he cursed himself for his carelessness. Then he put his hand on something on the floor and, thinking he recognized it by its feel, he closed his fingers over it.
The demon reached for its wand, snarling in dismay when its clawed fingers closed on air.
“This what you lost?” Caramon said, holding up the weapon.
The demon leaped for it. The warrior brought his knee up straight at its stomach. The creature doubled over and Caramon clasped both arms around the demon in a bear hug, muscles straining against its dark fur, crushing until he felt bones snap beneath his grip. The body went limp. Dropping the corpse to the floor, the warrior leaned against the wall, gasping for breath. After a short time, he moved back up to the hole in the ceiling, lifting himself easily through the portal and onto the empty rooftop. Picking up his blade, he crawled to the edge and stared down to see if the other demon had returned with—
A powerful fist slammed across the side of his head, nearly sending him reeling over the edge of the roof. The demon, apparently uninjured, bared its fangs, biting deep into the human’s shoulder.
Caramon stifled his cry of pain for fear of alerting any others of its kind, and brought the hilt of his sword up into the demon’s chin, knocking it backward. The warrior slashed the bastard sword across in a horizontal arc, cleaving the head from furred shoulders.
White and silver spots danced before Caramon’s vision. His legs weakened and gave out under his weight, forcing him to sit down roughly on the smooth stone. Stretching himself out on the roof, closing his eyes to the image of the Great Eye, he swallowed, breathing hard.
“And there’s an army of these things!” he said with a groan.
In his room in Barnstoke Hall, Raistlin removed several black bags from his pack—flat pouches heavily lined with fur and other soft materials. He opened one of them to reveal an array of bottles and tubes, capped with cork and stoppered with rubber blocks, containing a variety of colored liquids and crystals and powders. Unfolding a brass frame used to store chemicals while working, he took the containers out from their holding straps and placed them into their proper locations—solids in front, liquids at the back.
Another pouch produced a shallow mixing dish with matching pestle and a glass bottle of clear liquid with a wick jutting from the top. From another he drew a melting pan and stand, and a smaller pan with a handle covered in wound leather. A third contained holding stands, tiny metal chains, and various silvered tools.
The mage erected the apparatus on top of the table. Reaching into his voluminous robes, he pulled out a hollow gold tube, as long as one of his gold fingers, unadorned by symbol or rune, and placed it next to the pan.
Raistlin sat in a chair, placing his hands on his knees, fists clenched in concentration. He began to search through his memories for the proper potion—an elixir that would suit his purpose. Ingredients began to filter through his mind as he allowed the discipline of alchemy to take control of his consciousness, his knowledge of the world and familiarity with the art drawing out an answer.
A pinch of white powder as the base, another of black to equalize, blood from all parties, the symbols of sympathetic magic, dust taken at great risk to spirit and body, clear crystals to bend, green to expand, red to destroy, heat to forge, a cylinder of gold to cool.
“And alcohol,” Raistlin concluded, coming out of his near-trance.
He stood and set to work, putting the bottles he was not going to use back into their holding straps, closing the pouch and setting it aside for safety. With a long fingernail, he drew a measured amount of rough, white powder, most of which had clung together into small clumps, from a bottle and tapped it out onto the melting pan.
He lit the wick on the squat clear bottle, summoning up a dancing yellow flame. Taking a dark bottle from the rack, Raistlin carefully removed the rubber stopper, revealing a small spoon pushed into the bottom. Removing an amount equal to the white powder, he mixed them together with a wooden rod—a thin stick no wider than a leaf of grass—and spread the now gray mixture into a thin ring with an open center.
Throwing the stick far across the room with a flick of his wrist, the mage wiped a small bead of sweat that had formed on his brow. He tried to keep his thoughts and purpose straight, clear and free from influence, but-looking at the materials before him—he caught his breath, hands trembling. His eyes closed tight for a moment.
His will held. He opened his eyes.
The mage removed three more bottles from the rack, each containing crystal shards of varying sizes and shapes—one was clear, another green, and the third red. He removed a piece of the clear crystal and placed it on the shallow dish, crushing it against the meta
l with the marble hammer. He wiped the debris from the tool on his sleeve. Doing the same with the other crystals, he began to measure the amounts he thought he would need with the edge of his little finger—a bit of red gone, add a little more green, too much clear, then, not enough.
Raistlin was conscious of time passing and fought down the impulse to hurry, crushing additional rock and taking it away until the balance was finally correct. He took all the clear powder and combined it with uneven parts of the others—more green than red—rubbing it against his thumb and forefinger until their individual colors became part of the whole, inseparable. He added the new mixture into the confines of the gray-powder ring on the melting pan.
Wiping his hands on his red robes, Raistlin rubbed his eyes, which were beginning to ache from the strain. Then, with a silver knife, he scraped the blood off the gold ring Earwig had worn. The mage worked quickly, dropping the dried flakes into the small pan with the leather handle.
He reached for another stoppered bottle. This one was coated with black patches, as if it were diseased. Raistlin opened it with more care than any previous bottle, drawing back at the stench that rose out from it like a wraith. Holding the container in his fist, leaving only the mouth and end exposed, he tapped its back.
A cloud of darkness reached forward and engulfed the blood, discoloring the dried fluid to a darker shade. The mage tilted the bottle back up and placed the top on it again just as the rest of the contents began to writhe out, grasping for the promise of another’s life.
Raistlin let out a long sigh, relieved to be free of the deadly dust. Setting the pan down, he took the remaining crystals and dumped them into a crucible, holding the vessel with a pair of metal tongs over the flame, watching as they melted together.
When they began to glow from the heat, he dropped the dried blood in, the flakes instantly disappearing with a puff of dirty smoke.
“Wait! There’s something missing,” he whispered, catching his error. Searching through his materials, he grew increasingly frustrated. “I cannot find it! And without the stone, this won’t work!”
Raistlin clutched a hand to his chest in frustration, tearing at the cloth, when he suddenly noticed something hard and round in one of his inner pockets—a disk on a chain. Hastily, he removed the object.
“The charm of good fortune the woman gave me,” he murmured. “I must definitely reconsider my position on the superstitious beliefs of peasants.”
Grasping the pestle, he smashed the amulet to pieces and picked out the stones he needed, throwing them into the crucible where they melted almost instantly. He poured the new substance onto a shallow plate, spreading it thin and letting it cool. Cracking noises filled the air. The substance shattered into fine dust as red as rubies, black at the center.
The sorcerer arched his back, feeling the vertebrae crack from stiffness. He had finally come to a point where he could relax for a moment. But even as he did so, he felt time running from between his fingers. He raised the melting pan onto its stand and chains, moving carefully so as not to disturb the powder ring. Scraping the red powder into a curved half-tube with a tapering tip, he slowly formed symbols of power against the white circle in the pan, one atop the other. When it was completed, he let the tube drop to the floor.
“The final stage,” Raistlin whispered.
He erected another stand around the melting pan, two wire legs with a connecting bar at the top. He pulled two metal link chains—covered in some black, slippery substance from an opaque bottle—and hung them from the legs, placing the gold tube into the curve at the lowest point, and stoppered the top with a golden cap.
Lifting a small silver bell and hammer from the third pouch, he struck the bell with the hammer, listening carefully as its clear sound eventually died out. He struck again, nodding when there was silence.
The bell rang a third time—the clear, scintillating sound penetrating through the night. The mage listened as the echo slowly grew fainter and fainter, fading and disappearing until nothing was left.
Raistlin removed the cap and blew cool air through the tube. The symbols on the melting pan boiled and faded, melding and mixing into one another until their forms intertwined into a single sigil of power. Created through the destruction of its elements, the sigil settled against its white background and then rose upward in a flash as the gray ring flared alive with flame. Its essence coated the tube.
The mage replaced the cap, doused the flame, and leaned on the Staff of Magius for support. He breathed heavily, and lowered his head in fatigue. The ritual was complete.
Raistlin peered into the tube, saw that opaque brown crystals had formed on its inner surface—the proper result. No expression of satisfaction crossed his features, however. He raised the cowl up over his head, hiding the golden mask of his face in the darkness of his robes.
Chapter 25
Earwig stared in wonder into the Great Eye, which seemed to be reversed down here—it was black, glimmering with red and a small white dot in the center. Bolts of power arced through the cloudless heavens, reaching out with forked fingers to touch unknown spaces. He thought he might watch that wonderful sight forever—or least the next ten minutes—but an irritating voice inside him kept nagging at him to do something.
“But what, that’s the question? Oh, I remember! I’m supposed to meet Caramon in the center of town.”
Earwig was starting to turn the corner when he almost ran headlong into a group of twisted, demented-looking cats.
The creatures certainly looked interesting. Earwig was considering going up and introducing himself when he remembered that he was on another Very Important Mission. He backed up hurriedly, therefore, sliding with kender agility into a shadow so that the cats wouldn’t be tempted to stop and chat.
A loud noise made him look around curiously. It was a carriage, rumbling past, drawn by nothing at all that the kender could see.
“Gee,” he sighed, watching, “that looks like fun. And it’s heading in the direction I want to go. I guess they wouldn’t mind if I tagged along.”
Earwig dashed out, ran in back of the coach, caught hold, and perched himself on the rear. Kicking his feet, he gazed around happily.
The conveyance raced on, metal-banded wheels clashing noisily against the white stone of the city. He recognized the road they were approaching as Southgate Street. Here the carriage came to a halt. Earwig hopped off and looked around at the front. Three creatures jumped out, stretching lazily, arching their long backs in the manner of cats. Two drank from bottles they wore strapped to shining harnesses. When they were done, they shook their heads violently and grimaced.
“Celebration Punch,” Earwig remarked in sympathetic understanding.
He was about to step forward and inquire the way to the center of the city, or perhaps ask if any of these guys had seen Caramon, when the demented-looking cats jumped back into the carriage. Before the kender could get back on, it careened off down the street.
“Hey!” yelled Earwig, waving his arms. “You forgot me!”
Caramon jumped from rooftop to rooftop, stopping occasionally to catch his breath and rest. He still felt slightly nauseated from the poison and weak from loss of blood. He leaned out over the edge of the roof and saw that he was on Eastgate Street. He had only about another block to go.
“Time to move again. I hope Earwig and Bast are already there so that we can destroy that thing and get the hell out of here.”
Caramon gripped his sword, lowering himself as quickly and quietly as he could manage to the next house. He heard a scraping sound, then silence, then snuffling, as if an animal was following a track. His heart began to beat so hard that he could feel it in his ears.
Caramon forced himself to stay hidden, to wait. He longed to leap up, swinging his sword, and take the demon by surprise. But, considering its speed and incredible senses, he wasn’t sure if that were possible.
A scarlet beam pierced the warrior’s left shoulder, leaving an exit hole o
ut the front of his armor. Wisps of smoke rose from his smoldering shirt. Another bolt seared across his arm as he tried to dodge out of the line of fire. Hoping to distract the creature, he drew a dagger from his belt and threw.
The demon ducked, giving Caramon time to lunge forward, driving his blade into its chest. The demon fell dead.
Fight over, Caramon felt the pain of his wound. The sound of rushing water filled his ears, and the black sky disappeared, lost before the darkness that was covering his eyes. Locking his knees, fearing he might faint, he attempted to keep himself from falling over.
The attempt failed.
He was lying prone, legs stretched out. The temptation to close his eyes and rest until the pain and fear went away was almost overpowering.
“Raist … must find Raist,” Caramon mumbled. Groaning, he forced himself to sit up and examine the wound. The burned shirt and armor had fallen away, revealing the hole, which was sealed by heat.
“At least it won’t get infected,” the fighter giggled and began to laugh. Recognizing that he was nearing hysteria, Caramon choked back his laughter. He staggered to his feet. There was no way he could leap over rooftops. Finding a stair, he stumbled to the street below.
Raistlin stood before Shavas’s estate. The stained-glass windows were more vibrant and alive than ever, casting lines and arcs of color that shot and darted against the ground. The sight no longer fascinated the mage, and he knocked on the entrance door loudly, rapping his knuckles against the wood.
No answer came to his hail, but the door opened before him, closing and locking when he had entered the hallway. The mage walked to the library. It was empty.
Just as well. That made it easier.
Moving to the sideboard, he lifted the bottle of brandywine and removed the stopper. Glancing back at the door, checking to see that he was alone and unobserved, he withdrew the tube from his robes. He took the cap off and started to pour the brown crystals into the bottle. His hand shook.