"The little girl plays here, running in a sun-dappled wood," the mage continued as lightning flashed out of nowhere, striking the cabin but seemingly inflicting no damage. "But I can make the rains come. I can make the fear of drowning well up in her little girl's mind." The voice was a banshee's shriek. "I can make Cadaloopee relive her worst fears. I can-"
"Stop!" shouted Brandella. Tanis put his arm around her shoulder. Convulsions of shivers passed through her slender frame. He longed to challenge the mage. To defeat him. But Tanis was no magic-user.
The wizard chuckled, his low laughter like a buzzing in their ears. "As for the half-elf, I wonder if he thinks of his poor mother, who died so soon after he was born?"
Tanis stiffened. His eyes flashed with anger, but he held his tongue. He felt Brandella's arm curl around his waist, offering him what help she could.
"She was a pretty elfmaid, full of life," came the voice. "But fragile. Very fragile. Both in body and mind. Here, in Death, she leads an idyllic existence, caring and cared for by her loved ones. I wonder what she would feel if I arranged for your brutish father to arrive on her doorstep?"
Tanis's heart pounding in his chest, he now knew the depth of his hatred for the wizard. The mage deserved his dark mountain of horrors. And Tanis wished he could bury the wizard at the bottom of it.
"What? No response?" Fistandantilus asked with a caustic edge.
"You will not harm my mother in any way," Tanis said through clenched teeth.
"Of course I won't." The voice crawled with false reassurance. "Just as long as you do as I ask." Tanis swallowed hard. The mage had had devastating power in life; his bleak, windswept mountain of evil was testament to that. The half-elf pondered the legacy that Fistandantilus had left on Krynn… and he shuddered. It was in that moment, though, that the half-elf saw a glimmer of hope. The mage had performed his magic on Krynn; here, in Death, he was a prisoner of his own creation, existing in the shadow of his horrible deeds. And Tanis remembered something Softfire had said.
The half-elf stopped, consciously willing the disappearance of the half-formed idea. If the mage could read his thoughts, Tanis didn't want Fistandantilus to follow what he had been thinking.
Turning to Brandella, he gently said, "We should consider his offer."
She stared at him, shocked. Her dark eyes with their dark lashes glowed against her porcelain skin.
"What difference does it make where evil dwells, here or on Krynn?" he argued, seeing her reaction. "Life is short compared to the time one spends in this place. Better Fistandantilus should walk among the living than to terrorize the dead for all eternity."
"Do you mean what you're saying?" she asked coldly, "or are you just trying to convince yourself?"
"I'm trying to tell you that this is our only way." Hating to play Fistandantilus's game, yet knowing there was no other choice, he fixed his face into a sneer and harshly demanded, "How could you possibly live with yourself, knowing that your sister would exist in perpetual terror?"
Her Hps trembled; she was unable to speak.
Acting as though he were trying to speak with her privately, he leaned close to Brandella and whispered, "He was defeated in Life before; he can be defeated again." Tanis knew, of course, that the mage had heard every word. Fistandantilus remained silent.
Brandella seemed to be slightly swayed, to think, for a moment, that their actions, should the pair agree to the mage's terms, would not be irreversible.
"Let me talk to him," he said coaxingly.
With enormous reluctance, she nodded.
"You say you will make a bargain with us," Tanis said tentatively to the mage. "How are we to know that you will keep your end of the deal?"
"You cannot know," said the wizard. "You must trust me because there is no one else who can help you before you die. The real question is, can I trust you to keep your end of our arrangement?"
Tanis looked up at the towering mountain, then at the sorry excuse for a cabin, and finally at the open, gray land in front of him, imagining the wizard hovering there. "It would seem," said the half-elf, "that we must trust each other equally." The voice laughed with a sound of stones rattling on metal. "Trust each other? Hardly," Fistandantilus crooned. "You forget whom you are talking to. I tell you now that if you cross me, you will regret it for as long as you live-which won't be very long-and for as long as you are dead. Which will be much, much longer. You have my promise on that."
36
"I throught I knew you." Branbella breatheb in Tanis's ear. "You do," he replied cryptically. The woman, her lips set in a thin line, gave him a suspicious glance as she wiped rain from her face. What did he mean by that7 she wondered. They trudged into the wizard's cabin, soaked to the bone; the never-ending wind and rain had slashed mercilessly at them. Fistandantilus, Brandella thought, was lucky to lack a body that could ache with cold and hunger. Suddenly, it occurred to her that she might be hallucinating all of this. After all, she was weak from lack of food and sleep, and the unrelenting weather had taken its toll.
"It's just a nightmare. I'll wake up soon," she whispered to herself.
Tanis watched Brandella worriedly. She seemed pale and ill. They had been busy for several hours doing the wizard's bidding. While storm clouds roiled overheard, they had fixed the roof of the cabin, covering it with tree branches. Next, they swept the mud and water out of the cabin, making it as dry as possible. Of course, it was still thoroughly damp, the air nearly unbreathable in its closeness despite the open door. But Fistandantilus seemed pleased.
The spell, said the mage, had to be performed in a lighted, dry place so that he was fully separated from his endlessly bleak, rain-drenched world. Clearly, thought Tanis, the wizard is afraid that the pull of Death will be too strong to escape. Tanis hoped that was so… just in case.
"Don't light the candle until I begin the spell," Fistandantilus ordered. His sibilant whisper seemed to have grown stronger. Tanis felt a ripple of fear shiver up his neck. Brandella looked increasingly strained, purple smudges darkening the nearly translucent skin beneath her eyes.
A single candle stood in its holder on a bare wooden table. The wax looked ancient yet unused, the wick charred from untold attempts to set it ablaze, standing up in seeming defiance of any flame. Next to the candle, two small black stones lay on a small pile of torn parchment.
"Look behind you on the wall," said the mage.
The dim light reflected off a small mirror in a gold frame.
"Half-elf," Fistandantilus ordered, "take the mirror and hold it in your hands-carefully." The storm increased its tempo outside. Yet despite the sound of the wind, Tanis could hear the sighing voice of the mage as though it buzzed inside his head.
Tanis went to the mirror. It was hanging at eye-level. He reached up to take it off the wall-and froze. Then he waved his hand before the shimmering piece of glass; his face was not reflected. Even when he held it at the correct angle to catch the gray light from the doorway, the mirror showed nothing. Tanis looked back at the weaver. She was shivering, holding herself erect by sheer stubbornness.
"Stop that," the mage ordered Tanis. "I told you to hold it carefully."
"Why is this mirror so important?" Tanis asked as he came to the table that held the candle.
The chill in the room deepened. "When I use the spell to send you back to Life, you will take the mirror with you," the voice explained. "It holds, by a spell, my image, the way I looked when I was alive. When it is brought back to your plane, the image will be freed and I will walk once more on Krynn."