Chapter Text
Balifor was nothing like Raistlin remembered.
Gone was the rotting ruin of a city. Gone were the throngs of the dead that peopled it. Gone was the endless night, the cold, the snows. Raistlin pulled his hood further over his face, and allowed himself a small smile. The city was alive now, alive as he was, and vibrant around him.
The midsummer market was in full swing, and Raistlin picked his way through the stalls setting everything from spell components to copper kettles, to kender knickknacks made of feathers and polished stones. People from all corners of Ansalon thronged it, humans from Khur, elves from Silvanesti, even a few gnomes and dwarves. And kender, everywhere there were kender. Raistlin murmured a quick spell over his pack and beltpouches, to make sure anyone but him touching them would suddenly remember a pressing appointment elsewhere.
Then, there was nothing more to do but enjoy the market. There was no hurry, he would need to wait until evening before he could enter the inns and ask about a guide. He glanced over the stalls, occasionally picking out some supplies, or components for his spells.
A flash of light caught his attention, and Raistlin turned. A young woman stood balanced on a rope, spinning a staff lit with flashpowder at both ends. She did a backflip, neatly landing on the rope, twirling the staff above her head. Then arched her back, touched one end of the staff to her mouth, and breathed out a stream of fire. Cheers broke out, and Raistlin clapped.
“Eh, she’s good.” The stallholder shrugged, rearranging his stock of herbs. “But I remember the Red Wizard, years back.”
A flush of warm pleasure, settling in his stomach. “Was he good?” Raistlin asked.
“Aye, amazing, could call up wonders. Dragons and chimera and beasts I can’t even describe.”
“He sounds amazing,” Raistlin flexed his hands, for a moment feeling the weight of the wool in his hands, his mother’s spun creations.
“Oh he was; pity what happened to him. Still, I suppose you know all about it, you mages.”
“Hmm.” Raistlin walked away.
A small booth drew him next, one of the kender ones. The elderly kender woman gave him a gappy smile as he approached, but didn’t try for his pouches. The missing stump where her right hand had been suggested she he’d once tried that trick on the wrong person. Raistlin examined the little array of trinkets, until he found what he was looking for. “This one.”
“That’s one of my best.” The kender hopped down from her stool and joined him, “Said the black glass came from the lost ruins! That old mage Tower, you know.”
“Did you get it yourself?” Raistlin turned the shard of black between his fingers. It was said when the Tower of Losacrum was destroyed, it collapsed into a billion pieces of crystal- black, clear and red. This one was set as the head of a cat made of twisted wire and shards of pottery. “Where did you find it?”
“Not me.” She gave Raistlin a sly look, her face a crease of wrinkles around those bird-black eyes. “I got a source, me.”
“Really.” The kender patted his robes knowingly, “I would be happy to buy this one if you tell me their name.”
“Buy it, nah.” She smirked, “But trade, yes. Bet a mage like you’d got plenty of interesting things to trade with.”
“I might.” Raistlin ran his hand over the cat, and it sat up in his hand, licking a paw. Then it leaped into the kender woman’s shoulders, curling up and purring like stones grinding against stone.
Her eyes lit up. “Another, mage! Another and I’ll tell you.”
Raistlin glanced over the stall, and spoke. “Keawetan.”
The little trinkets burst into life. Dogs barked and chased mice. Horses reared, a dragon uncoiled itself and breathed sparks. The old woman shrieked for joy, clapping her hand and stump together, for one moment again a child. Watching wonders be spun out of yarn. Raistlin sighed, his heart ached.
“That inn over there. The Warf.” She pointed down at the docks. “On the right of the blue warehouse.”
“A kender inn?”
“Nah, she ain’t partial to her own kind these days.” She beamed, “Should do a show, mage, could outdo the Red Wizard himself, ha!”
“Perhaps I will.” Raistlin smiled, and took back the cat-toy. Magic, more than he once could have dreamed of. He had Fistandantilus’ power now, or perhaps that was all his power, and had been all along.
He stopped. Just a few steps away there was a stall selling brightly polished copper. Pots, trays, jewelry- and a mirror. Raistlin stared, brushed his hood back a little.
He- hadn’t seen himself before. And for all he knew he wasn’t, he’d still pictured himself the way he had been, for so long. His skin that freakish gold, that white hair and the harsh lines of pain and sufferings, making him look more like a man of seventy than twenty five. Those hourglass eyes, that made his own face rot to a skull. A stranger in the mirror, every time he was forced to look.
Raistlin swallowed, and pushed his hood the rest of the way down. Why wear it up? No one would look twice at him. Young men with auburn hair were ten a copper in Balifor. He touched his chin, his cheek. Thin, but hardly skeletal, as he had been. His hair as copper as the pans, curling in the salt breeze. Even his freckles, that he had hated for so long. It was like meeting old friends, after so long. Raistlin swallowed against a lump in his throat.
“Fine mirror, mage!” The man hurried over; almost as short as a kender, and as round as he was tall. “A good choice. Five steel!”
“Thank you but no.” Raistlin turned away, heading towards the dock.
“Four steel!” The man hurried over to him, mirror in hand. “Four steel, mage!”
Oh Abyss, he’d forgotten that part of Baliforan trading. “I will be back,” he lied. “Keep it for me.”
The man huffed irritably, but went back to his stall. Raistlin continued down towards the dock.
The inn was the disreputable sort; it reminded him of the sort of places he had seen in Neraka. It was quiet at this time of the day, apart from a handful of old sailors playing cards and sucking their pipes outside. Raistlin pushed the door open, and stepped in.
The inside was smoky and dark, more people sitting around the corners with pipes, turning the walls and ceilings black. Raistlin choked back a cough, his lungs were so much better than they had been, but they were still fragile.
At the sound, the blackened figures turned bead-bright eyes on him, some suspicious, some bored- and one going wide.
“Raistlin!”
A small figure leaped up from beside the fireplace, and flew at him. She hit him in the middle, almost knocking him flying. “It is you! I almost didn’t recognise you!” Small hands patted at his cheek. “What are you doing here?”
Raistlin caught his breath, suddenly very much back in Neraka. “Mari?”
The kender grinned at him, hair a mess, teeth shockingly white in her grimy face. “You’re okay!” She pushed his hair back. “You look good! I’d heard-“
“What’s this?” The innkeeper got up from his table, scowling. “Raistlin? Raistlin Majere?”
The Red Wizard was a happy memory, Raistlin Majere clearly was not. Raistlin scrambled quickly, and settled on a sneer. “My parents had a sadistic sense of humor.”
The man’s scowl faded, his mouth pulled up into an ugly smile. He snorted.
“Don’t tell the kender.” Raistlin dropped his voice. “She’s sure I’m the real one, I don’t want to break her heart.”
“Don’t you be taking advantage of that one, now.”
“Not at all.” Raistlin looked down at Mari, reached into his pouch and drew out the enchanted cat. It stretched and jumped from his palm to hers. She looked at it in amazement. “That stone, little one. Where did you get it?”
Mari watched the cat prowl along her fingers in awe, then glanced up to Raistlin, “What do you want to know?”
“Because it’s from the Lost Tower of Losacrum, and I’m a mage.” Raistlin shrugged. “Do you need more of a reason?”
It was a sign that Mari was indeed no ordinary kender that she just looked at him, but didn’t say anything. “Okay.” She said at last, touching the little stone and wire cat. “But I get to keep her?”
“She was yours, so of course.”
They walked out together, Mari leading the way along the docks, towards the eastern gate. “What happened to you?” Mari took his hand. “Did you change the darkness?”
Raistlin opened his mouth, and nothing came out. He swallowed, cleared his throat. “No.”
She frowned. “Did it hurt you?”
“It ate me.” Raistlin’s mouth twisted, “Ate me, and spit out my bones, and someone loved me enough to put me back together. And now here I am. Alone.”
Mari squeezed his hand, and- so very unlike a kender- she didn’t say any more.