by Tina Daniell
“I was feeling it, touching it,” said Raist, once again holding his gaze level.
“Feeling it, touching it!” derided Morath.
“Yes,” said Raist, more confidently. “Touching it!”
“May I ask why?”
A pause. “I don’t know why,” Raistlin said at last. “I knew that you had set it aside for yourself and that I shouldn’t read it, but I wanted, at least, to feel it and touch it. I didn’t see the harm.”
“You had no business,” declared Morath.
Raist bit his lip, angry and overcome with frustration. After all the hard work and long hours, to fail at this, this unexpected test of restraint! It was all he could do to keep from breaking down and crying. But like his sister Kitiara, Raist would not cry, not in front of this hardhearted master mage. Raist wouldn’t give Morath the satisfaction.
“All right, boy, the day is done. Your father and sister are here. I’ll thank you not to waste any more of my time.”
“Yes, your son is gifted, but I question whether his constitution can withstand the rigors of our program here. Indeed, the boy was so exhausted after the lessons of the afternoon that he fell asleep at his books.”
Morath spoke firmly. He and Gilon were at the table in the library, which was now quite dark and lit only by the flickering globe in front of the master mage.
Gilon steeled himself. “He may not be strong in body,” Raistlin’s father replied steadfastly, “but he is strong-willed, and this is what he truly wants. In all honesty, the lad would not be fit for a vocation that demanded physical prowess. Yet for him, magic is no whim. If you do not accept him, we will go elsewhere and try to find someone who will tutor him. I have made inquiries, and I understand that a mage named Petroc runs an excellent school near Haven.”
This was half a bluff on Gilon’s part, but a shrewd one. He judged Morath would not want to turn his back on the possible reflected glory of training an exceptional pupil, even such a young one.
A rustle of turning pages interrupted the conversation. Raistlin was in a dark corner, sitting crosslegged on the floor in front of one of the bookshelves, with a slim volume on his lap. Morath started when he saw what Raistlin was doing.
He crossed the room quickly and snatched the book from Raist’s hands. “Young man, I thought you had learned a lesson about playing with books that were not given to you, especially spellbooks!”
Raistlin looked up at him coolly. “I wasn’t playing with it. I was reading it.”
A shocked silence filled the room.
“I was reading the ‘Spell for Changing Water Into Sand’,” the boy continued defiantly, satisfied at the look of amazement that crossed Morath’s face. “You can reject me as a pupil. But I won’t miss this opportunity to read one of your precious spellbooks!”
Morath flushed an angry shade. Gilon, in a rare display of temper, pointed toward the door. “That’s enough, Raist. Go wait outside with your sister.”
When Gilon turned back, the master mage had controlled his rage. Morath was leafing through a richly embroidered book, small in size, and scanning various hand-inked lists and schedules.
“He can start at the beginning of the new week,” said the master mage matter-of-factly, taking up a feather pen and formally inscribing Raistlin’s name on the roll of students.
Gilon’s mouth gaped. No matter Raistlin’s certain abilities, his father had come to think he wouldn’t be able to gain a place in this vaunted school. His jaws worked but no words came out.
“How will you pay?” asked Morath, scarcely noticing Gilon’s struggle to speak when he looked up after inscribing Raistlin’s name on the ledger.
Pay? This was something the woodsman could fathom.
“Well, your lordship,” said Gilon, not certain how to address a master mage, but certain he didn’t want to insult him. “I am a woodcutter by trade, as I mentioned earlier today. And our means are modest. I was hoping that I could keep up with any, er, tuition, by bringing you cut wood for use here at the school. Or I might provide other such services, in fair trade. People in town will tell you that I am honest with my barter, and my accounts are always paid.”
“Pah!” snorted Morath. “What do I want with bundles of firewood? I can snap my fingers like this—” he lifted his hands and demonstrated “—and have all the wood I need. Not just local wood, but rare and exotic varieties from all over Krynn. Wood!”
The master mage glared at Gilon, whose face was flushed. Once again the woodsman found that his mouth was not working very well while his arms felt useless dangling at his sides.
“Pah!” repeated Morath, turning back to his book and scribbling something further next to Raistlin’s name. “I will carry the boy on scholarship for a while,” added the master mage irritably. “And we will see if he is worth the bother.”
Before Gilon could think how to respond, Morath had swept out of the room, slipping behind a door that the woodcutter had not noticed before, behind one of the towering bookshelves. Because he had taken the flickering globe with him, instantly the library was plunged into gloomy darkness. A little dazed by everything that had transpired, Gilon backed toward the double doors that led to the long entrance corridor, bowing once or twice in the direction of the vanished mage, just in case.
Little Raist was so worn-out that Kit could not tell, from his drained expression, whether he at all understood what Gilon, bursting with smiles, told him. Indeed the aspiring mage could not walk and was fast asleep in his father’s arms before they had traveled several hundred yards away from Poolbottom toward Solace.
Home was more than an hour’s hike away, but Gilon carried his burden stoically, his heart light with relief. It was a clear night, a momentous occasion, and neither Kit nor Gilon felt like speaking and breaking the mood.
In truth, Kit was elated, too. Her bad temper had been whisked away by the news of Raist’s acceptance. As she trudged along, herself weary, her thoughts raced.
Raist never woke up that night, and Kit skipped the supper Rosamun had prepared and kept warm. Up in her niche, the young girl stayed awake, thinking. She knew now what she would do—catch up to Ursa and convince him to take her with him. Raist’s acceptance into the mage school meant that she did not have to worry about him as much any more. About Caramon, Kit was confident in his abilities as a warrior. In short, she was free to leave.
Kitiara decided to say nothing to Gilon or Rosamun about her planned departure, nor, after thinking it over, to Caramon either.
The next morning, talking over the previous day’s events, Kit told Raistlin where she was going. But she made him promise not to tell anyone, even after she had gone.
It was as if Raist knew before he was told. “Will you come back?” he asked. The six-year-old’s voice was steady, but Kit could see tears glistening in his eyes. She felt as if a hand were squeezing her heart.
“I imagine,” she said noncommittally, “I’ll have to come back and see how my little brothers are doing!” His eyes accused her. “I have to do this, Raist. I can’t spend my life in this cottage, this town. I won’t. You understand.”
Two nights later, with light from Solinari and Lunitari flooding the cottage, Kit crept quietly down the ladder from her loft. The usual night sounds greeted her as she surveyed the common room. Gilon’s gentle snoring and Rosamun’s occasional moan or sigh came from their chamber.
She tiptoed over to where the twins slept. Caramon, imitative of his father, snorted as he dreamed. Raist, his face almost serene in repose, lay quietly. Fighting her feelings, Kit tucked the bedclothes up under each twin’s chin.
Kitiara did not look back as she walked across the floor and opened the door into the shimmering, moonlit night.
Chapter 6
THE MERCENARIES
———
Kitiara caught up with the four men at their rendezvous point after midnight and easily followed them at a distance. They made camp an hour later, off the road. The next day Kit was ready for
them when they headed out, pursuing them at a steady interval.
Their two-sectioned caravan had been progressing like that for three days now.
By day the sun burned brightly in the sky, casting a glow of warm color on the trees and rocks and earth. After sundown everything turned black and forbidding, and there was nothing to see except the shadows cast by the twin sentinels of the night, Lunitari and Solinari. The third moon, Nuitari, was invisible to all but the foulest evil creatures.
Ursa and his little band were obviously skirting the main highway, avoiding all towns and settlements while following a northeast course that was taking them toward the Eastwall Mountains. The open fields gave way to a dark fir forest as the land ascended. Gradually the foliage and pitch of the terrain had increased so that they could not cover more than twenty-five miles in a day.
In any case, Ursa and his men did not seem to be in much of a rush. They rode as steadily as they could during the late morning and afternoon, but camped early and never hurried to rise and get moving at first light.
One of the men rode a mule laden with pots and assorted supplies. The one called Radisson rode a common bay. The third, whose features were cloaked by a cowl, sat on a striking white stallion with a black muzzle. Ursa straddled his familiar gray.
Kit soon realized they were heading in the general direction of Silverhole, a shanty town of dwarven miners and itinerant workers. Yet they were maintaining an eastward drift that would place them below the town, in open, low mountain country. She could think of nothing in that area, only the occasional fief or landed estate. What could they be after near Silverhole? Although it was a mining center, there were no riches there, for the dwarves who specialized in such arduous jobs were said to be cutting stone and clearing the way for a mountain road. At the Red Moon Fair, Kit had overheard the mercenaries debate the kidnapping of a nobleman’s son, but surely the miners counted no royalty among them.
Kitiara pondered what Ursa and his band were up to during the long hours she followed them. It was child’s play to do so without being found out. Kitiara was a skilled rider, and she had ridden bareback practically since she could walk. Cinnamon, the chestnut mare that had once belonged to Gregor, had been his final gift to her when he absconded. Though she was the only horse the family had, there had been no thought of selling Cinnamon even through all the hard times. She had always—since Gregor left—been Kit’s horse, and Kit rode her now.
Cinnamon was a veteran of forest trails and had an instinct for avoiding low branches, nickering a warning so that Kit might duck any that swung down across her path. Obviously, Kit thought, my quarry has no idea they are being tracked. They were as plain as a pack of gnomes, their passage littered with trampled foliage, discarded foodstuffs, and the dregs of their fires.
The mountain forest was different than the familiar landscape surrounding Solace. The smell here was unusually sweet, the air moist, the tapestry of colors dark and rich and mesmerizing. At first Kit had been intoxicated by the newness of everything, attentive to strange varieties of plants and flowers, curious about tracks and droppings, alert to the noises of insects and birds and the multitude of small, unseen creatures all around her. She took immense delight in the small things that she noticed: the blue frost on early morning leaves; a peculiar animal with a long snout and curled ears, staring at her from inside a bush, before it hopped away quickly on all fours; a pear-shaped fruit with prickly points whose juice was sour.
But after a while everything began to look the same in front of her as well as behind, one blurred blue-green vista. After a while Kit wished they would arrive at their mysterious destination. She began to wonder if she should risk coming out into the open and revealing herself.
Kitiara marked her route with notches cut in the trunks of trees, discreet ones below ordinary sight-lines. She was not afraid of getting lost. Gregor had taught her some essential survival skills, and she had made it her business to learn more in the years since he had left, gleaning knowledge from Gilon and even Bigardus, the well-intentioned healer. She knew enough so that she could find her way back to Solace on foot, without supplies, if necessary.
Kit knew how to forage for nuts and berries. She knew how to bank a fire to keep the wind out and the heat in. She knew how—for warmth and protection—to dig a shallow ditch at night and cover herself with leaves and branches. There was plenty of fresh water in the many streams that crisscrossed the mountainous terrain.
Her shoulder pack contained the only things she had chosen to bring along and the only things she might need: meatsticks, a length of rope, a bone whistle, warm under-woolens, and a small, heavy carving knife taken from Gilon’s workbench. That was the only weapon she had been able to put her hands on. The blanket Kit sat on when she rode came off at night to serve as her bedding.
At night she remembered the few times she had camped out with Gregor, staying up around the campfire. Her father’s eyes would hypnotize her as he spun tales of his and others’ exploits. His deep brown eyes glistened then, like water in the moonlight. It was at night, particularly, that Kit remembered things her father had said to her.
“The day can start out sunny and grand,” Gregor liked to say, “and betray you in an instant. Start out in the morning cheery as a friend, and turn out to be your enemy. The night is more constant—dangerous and dark, ’tis true, but constant. You can depend on danger in a way that you can never depend on a friend.
“Some people are one way by day, another by night. But night is the true form, for darkness illuminates a man better than sunshine, whose glare can fool the eyes.
“For instance, I knew a knight once who traveled with a young squire. By day this knight, whose name was Same, was one of the stalwarts of Krynn. A boon drinking companion and a fierce swordsman. Yet by night this very fellow turned pussycat, and his squire, just a jot of a boy called Winburn …”
Kitiara rarely heard the end of Gregor’s stories, which seemed to go on forever as she was falling asleep. Now, as she faced another lonely night on her first true adventure, she wondered what had become of her father. The solitude, the sounds and the darkness of this forest brought her not fear but strange comfort, as if somewhere Gregor Uth Matar was also awake in the night and thinking of her.
By the end of the third day she estimated they had traveled more than seventy-five miles, still weaving through the forest in the general direction of Silverhole. At first, Kitiara had remained several hours behind Ursa and his men, but by the fourth day she was growing impatient. Heedless of being discovered, she picked up her pace so that she was following them less than an hour behind.
Under cover of dark, Kit made the further mistake of creeping close to their campsite to eavesdrop in hopes of learning some new piece of information about their destination. She felt proud of herself as she picked her way slowly around rocks and trees toward their huddled shapes. Ursa and another of the men, both draped in blankets, had their backs to her. The short, weaselly man named Radisson faced her direction and was speaking vehemently; she recognized his voice from the fair. A fourth, tall and stooped with a sad face, stood at the smaller man’s shoulder, listening intently. Once in a while the sad-faced one said something indiscernible, apparently in assent.
Their tone was low and conspiratorial, and Kit had to inch closer than was wise to catch any of the words. The weaselly one was laying out some strategy. She could only hear occasional, garbled words such as “considerable fortune” and “the odds will be favorable.” These clues to their mission whetted Kit’s appetite for more. She crawled forward on hands and knees until she could almost jump up and spit on the them.
All of a sudden, something big and heavy dropped on Kit’s back, knocking her to the ground. For several seconds her breath was taken away. When her head cleared, she found herself hoisted off the ground, nose to nose with Ursa. The look on his glowering face was one of disgust mixed with astonishment.
“You again!” cried Ursa, holding her by the collar.
Kit was too dazed to do anything but feebly kick her feet in an effort to get down. As Ursa gripped her firmly, someone else yanked her hands and tightly roped them together behind her back. Kitiara managed to twist around to see the fourth man.
This one was somewhat taller than Ursa, more sinewy, with skin the color of obsidian. His hair was black, down to his shoulders and so curly that his skull appeared to be covered by writhing snakes. In the moonlight, Kit was struck by the gleaming whiteness of his fearsome grin and a single gold hoop that dangled from his right ear. The color of his skin and the billowing striped pants he wore made her think he must be from the far east island of Karnuth. That race boasted intriguing powers, she recalled hearing, and its denizens were rarely seen in these parts because they were said to be afraid of long sea voyages.
“Ouch!” Kit exclaimed, more to see what reaction that might get than because she was in very much pain.
“Aw, you’re hurting her,” said the Karnuthian, not unsympathetically. Kit remembered his voice from overhearing the conspirators at the Red Moon Fair—deep, mellow, but with a hint of menace.
“I don’t care,” responded Ursa, tightening his grip. He was not smiling in the slightest.
“Who is it, El-Navar?” asked another voice. “What’s the game?”
The other two mercenaries hurried over to gawk at Kit. The Karnuthian, the one whose name was El-Navar, had found the knife in her boot and now held it up to Ursa as if to say I-told-you-so, before nonchalantly guiding it into his belt. His grin was oddly beguiling for one with so fierce an aspect.
“Splendid performance, Radisson,” said El-Navar to the weaselly-faced one. “You learned a few things in your days as a stroller.”
“Who is she?” hissed Radisson. The look on his pale, creased face was plainly hostile.
“Didn’t I tell you someone was following us?” gloated El-Navar. Every time he moved, his gold ear hoop trembled in the moonlight. The others nodded their approval.