War of the Twins Read Online Free PDF Page B

firmly on his work, the young mage completed the spell, and—suddenly—the Learning Room was lit by a brilliant flare of multicolored light, its silence shattered by the sound of an explosion!
    Fistandantilus started, the grin wiped off his face. The other apprentices gasped.
    “How did you break the Dispel Magic spell?” Fistandantilus demanded angrily. “What strange power is this?”
    In answer, Raistlin opened his hands. In his palms he held a ball of blue and green flame, blazing with such radiance that no one could look at it directly. Then, with that same, sneering smile, he clapped his hands. The flame vanished.
    The Learning Room was silent once more, only now it was the silence of fear as Fistandantilus rose to his feet. His rage shimmering around him like a halo of flame, he advanced upon the seventh apprentice.
    Raistlin did not shrink from that anger. He remained standing calmly, coolly watching the wizard’s approach.
    “How did you—” Fistandantilus’s voice grated. Then his gaze fell upon the young mage’s slender hands. With a vicious snarl, the wizard reached out and grasped Raistlin’s wrist.
    Raistlin gasped in pain, the archmage’s touch was cold as the grave. But he made himself smile still, though he knew his grin must look like a death’s head.
    “Flash powder!” Fistandantilus jerked Raistlin forward, holding his hand under the candlelight so that all could see. “A common sleight-of-hand trick, fit only for street illusionists!”
    “Thus I earned my living,” Raistlin said through teeth clenched against the pain. “I thought it suitable for use in such a collection of amateurs as you have gathered together, Great One.”
    Fistandantilus tightened his grip. Raistlin choked in agony, but he did not struggle or try to withdraw. Nor did he lower his gaze from that of his Master. Though his grip was painful, the wizard’s face was interested, intrigued.
    “So you consider yourself better than these?” Fistandantilus asked Raistlin in a soft, almost kindly voice, ignoring the angry mutterings of the apprentices.
    Raistlin had to pause to gather the strength to speak through the haze of pain. “You know I am!”
    Fistandantilus stared at him, his hand still grasping him by the wrist. Raistlin saw a sudden fear in the old man’s eyes, a fear that was quickly quenched by that look of insatiable hunger. Fistandantilus loosed his hold on Raistlin’s arm. The young mage could not repress a sigh of intense relief as he sank into his chair, rubbing his wrist. The mark of the archmage’s hand could be seen upon it plainly—it had turned his skin icy white.
    “Get out!” Fistandantilus snapped. The six mages rose, their black robes rustling about them. Raistlin rose, too. “You stay,” the archmage said coldly.
    Raistlin sat back down, still rubbing his injured wrist. Warmth and life were returning to it. As the other young mages filed out, Fistandantilus followed them to the door. Turning back, he faced his new apprentice.
    “These others will soon be gone and we shall have the castle to ourselves. Meet me in the secret chambers far below when it is Darkwatch. I am conducting an experiment that will require your … assistance.”
    Raistlin watched in a kind of horrible fascination as the old wizard’s hand went to the bloodstone, stroking it lovingly. For a moment, Raistlin could not answer. Then, he smiled sneeringly—only this time it was at himself, for his own fear.
    “I will be there, Master,” he said.
    Raistlin lay upon the stone slab in the laboratory located far beneath the archmage’s castle. Not even his thick black velvet robes could keep out the chill, and Raistlin shivered uncontrollably. But whether it was from the cold, fear, or excitement, he could not tell.
    He could not see Fistandantilus, but he could hear him—the whisper of his robes, the soft thud of the staff upon the floor, the turning of a page in the spellbook. Lying upon the slab, feigning to be