Raistlin Upadesa casting magic in the style of Gustave Moreau, as interpreted by DALL-E in January 2025.

  In the evenings Raistlin focused on penetrating into the Citadel. He did so from bed. The main mistake people made about the Citadel was that they thought it was predominantly a physical structure. In reality, it was predominantly a magical structure, and the way to access it was via magic.

  People had tried to do so a great number of times, of course, but the reason they had gotten nowhere was that the correct way of penetrating into it involved a form of magic that did not correspond to any of the established fields.

  Raistlin had discovered this type of magic during his many years of experimentation and had gradually developed it into one of his specializations. It was a type of magic targeting the life force itself, and Raistlin used it to project his life force away from his physical body. This life force projection could then penetrate into the Citadel.

  Of course, projection of the life force was just one aspect of this field of magic. It seemed to Raistlin to be a very powerful, and therefore also very dangerous, field. He was a long way from mastering all its applications – indeed he believed he had only scratched the surface.

  One reason he had not gotten very far was that he had to be careful and circumspect so as to avoid detection by scans. Progress was therefore slow. However, it did occur to him that being forced to move slowly was in some ways a benefit, since he was then less likely to mess around with his life force in a way that might be harmful.

  Raistlin waited until the evening scan had passed, then focused on projecting his life force away from his body. The first step was the most difficult one, but by now he had mastered it well.

  When he crossed the threshold, he found himself hovering near the far wall of his bedroom. From there, he could move about easily, ignoring physical obstructions entirely. He could also move instantaneously to any location he was familiar with.

  Nevertheless, it was possible that there might be magical obstructions to contend with – most obviously barriers, but also detection magics and possibly traps – and he was not taking more chances than necessary. Of course, he had never seen any such magical obstructions, and as far as he knew he was the only person in the world who practiced life force magic. But he had not come all this way by taking unnecessary chances.

  To minimize risk, he jumped straight to the Citadel. It looked different from a non-corporal perspective, but it was not the kind of difference he could have described very well. The coloring was different, for instance, but here it took on a hue that does not exist in the physical world, and which therefore has no name. There was also a particular glowing quality that Raistlin had never seen with his physical eyes.

  He entered the Citadel by its gate. This gate had no physical counterpart, so while his friend Genry would have been ecstatic to hear about it, he did not know that the gate existed. Maybe one day Raistlin could teach life force magic to Genry, but for now he suspected his friend was not the kind of person who could move carefully into this while controlling his mind and avoiding detection by scans.

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  Passing the gate, Raistlin found himself in the first Citadel chamber. It might be called the chamber of distractions. Whenever he entered this chamber, anything and everything in his life that might seem interesting would come to his mind, and he could follow this interest on a long, winding road that might seem promising, but which would lead, basically, nowhere.

  These days, the Blight was the primary such topic of interest, but Raistlin did not follow it. He had been here many times before, and he knew that to move deeper into the Citadel he had to focus on the far door and not be tempted by distractions.

  The second chamber was not entirely different. One name for it might be the chamber of insight, but like the first it was essentially about distractions.

  Here, however, the distracting element was some sort of insight into one of his personal interests. Furthermore, the specific insights were often both relevant and useful, sometimes even deep.

  Nevertheless, to move forward, Raistlin had to dismiss those insights, but without using much force. When he used much force, he found himself getting attached to pushing away the insights, leading to a process of having insights into how to dismiss insights.

  High-intensity force produced high-intensity reactions that were able to distract him because the application of such force implied to his mind that there was an important struggle going on that he had to invest himself in fully. But this struggle was itself a distraction. Low-intensity insight dismissals were therefore the path ahead. Don’t make a big deal about distractions, because big deals are distracting.

  For the past few months he had been spending time in the chamber of memories, which he suspected was also basically about distractions. The difference was that Raistlin had many traumatic memories that distracted not only his mind but also his emotional state.

  For this reason, it seemed to him that he could not simply dismiss them and move on. Instead, he had to engage in a process of integration. This involved touching a traumatic memory, allow it to affect his emotions, and then just stay on the roller coaster, following the process with acceptance.

  He would be triggered – these were traumatic memories – but not triggered by being triggered. In this way, he relived the memory without adding anxiety to it and without pushing it away – these two reactions being basically the same thing.

  Each time he touched a difficult memory and accepted the way it triggered his emotions, it dried up a little and lost some of its stickiness. Eventually, the energy that had been trapped in this memory in the form of anxiety and trauma was released, and then it did not trigger his emotions anymore and he could move on.

  But it was a long process. Maybe it would take years before he reached the door on the far side of this chamber.

  ---

  It is a rainy afternoon, and Raistlin is on his way home from work at the generator. More precisely, he is on his way to his girlfriend Ykka Rogga, but she has insisted that they keep the relationship secret, so officially he is on his way home.

  He takes a different route every time he goes to her. Today he is hurrying, because something feels wrong. There is a knot in his stomach.

  As he gets closer to where Ykka lives, he hears signs of commotion. His anxiety increases.

  He rounds a corner and sees a group of people. Protector robes. Other people in ordinary clothes watch in silence.

  Ykka is in the center of it all, with some sort of dark cloud hanging over her. She looks straight at him for a moment, her face expressionless. Then she looks down, and they take her away. He never sees her again.

  His heart is pounding and the dread is almost overwhelming. But slightly less so than before. He accepts it.

  Chandrian Rothfuss, magister of magic theory, in his office in the style of Gustave Moreau, as interpreted by DALL-E in January 2025.