by Kevin Stein
Caramon looked once at his brother, to make certain he was all right, then the big man tried to spot Earwig in the gathering crowd of people. It was hopeless; the kender had disappeared. Caramon sighed, wondering how they were going to protect Earwig when half the time they couldn’t even find him. The warrior didn’t know what to expect—evil men in black hoods leaping out at them from under a table, perhaps. He cast his sharp-eyed gaze around the crowd. No one looked particularly dangerous. But long experience in inns told the warrior something was wrong here. Everyone was too … quiet.
Caramon walked over to the worn desk that ran most of the length of the left side of the room. He waited patiently for a few minutes, glancing back at his brother, still standing in front of the fire. Raistlin had not moved. He didn’t even seem to be breathing. Caramon looked back into the eating hall, listening for the sounds of hasty oaths and shattering pottery that usually heralded Earwig’s introduction into a crowd. But he heard nothing. The warrior began to drum his fingers against a large, leather-bound book sitting on the desk, its pages opened to reveal the names of patrons currently staying at the inn.
Caramon waited ten minutes without anybody coming to the desk. The warrior began to grow irritated. He had heard his twin begin to cough hoarsely, and he feared that Raistlin’s deficient strength might give out completely. Caramon started to move away from the desk to help his brother to a chair when a middle-aged man wearing a clean apron came out of the eating area.
The man’s head was bowed, as if he were thinking of something and was not fully aware of his surroundings. He walked to the rear of the desk, took a candle from a drawer, lit it, and went into a dark room behind the reception area without paying any heed to the huge warrior standing in the main hall.
Caramon, who had mutely watched the entrance and exit of the man, was almost ready to shout with frustration when the fellow came out again from the now-lit room. He jumped at the sight of the well-armed man and then gazed at the fighter morosely.
“We want a room,” Caramon demanded. “A room with three beds and”—looking back to Raistlin—“it’s got to have a fireplace.”
Caramon glared into the man’s brown eyes, daring him to say they didn’t have anything like that available. But the innkeeper simply slid the guest book in front of the fighter, handed him a quill, and said, “Sign here, please.”
Caramon looked again at his brother, and this time the innkeeper followed the big man’s gaze.
“A wizard!” said the man, shocked out of his preoccupation.
“Yeah. So?” said Caramon. “I’m his brother.”
“I’m sorry, sir. No offense. It’s just … we don’t see many wizards in these parts.”
Probably because they’re all murdered in the woods, Caramon thought but didn’t say. He took the quill and signed his name, adding a quick sketch of a rose with a shining star in the center of the blossom—his personal picture for the old, forgotten god, Majere, whom his late father had taken for his surname.
Caramon turned the book around for the other man to inspect, but instead of looking down, the innkeeper just said, “My name’s Yost. If you have any problems, please talk to me.” Handing Caramon a key, Yost pointed up the stairs. “Third room to the right.” He left the desk and quickly returned to the eating hall, his gaze darting to Raistlin.
Caramon frowned. He’d never been in an inn so curious. He looked at the key, which was attached to a small leather fob with the number 221 engraved on it. Shaking his head, the warrior walked over to his brother and started to put his arm around Raistlin’s thin shoulders to help him to their room.
“Shhh!” The mage held up a warning finger. “Sit down!” he hissed out of the corner of his mouth.
Puzzled, Caramon began, “When you’re ready, we can go up to our room. It’s got a fireplace and—”
“Yes, yes, I heard,” Raistlin snapped, cutting his brother off with a sweeping motion of one golden hand.
Caramon, shrugging, turned to obey and nearly fell over Earwig, who was coming out of the dining hall.
“Don’t bother going in,” said the kender. “It’s dull as a tomb in there. No one’s laughing or singing or anything. Hey, why do they say that, Caramon? ‘Dull as a tomb’? I’d think a tomb could be pretty lively—”
Raistlin snarled in irritation, then began to cough. The spasms seemed almost to be trying to tear him apart. He leaned on his staff, relying on its strength to hold him up until he could breathe easier again. This time, Caramon knew his brother wasn’t faking.
“Take me to my room,” gasped Raistlin, holding out his arm for the warrior.
Caramon gently helped his twin up the flight of stairs to the room on the second floor. Passing a small, open window, he saw that it was night. The two moons gracefully rose in the eastern sky, the silver and red crescents fuller now than they had been a few days ago.
When the twins reached room 221, Raistlin began to shake, coughing violently, his breath leaving his body and refusing to return. Caramon quickly opened the door and led his brother to a bed near the fireplace. There was a small stack of wood in the grate.
Moving quickly, Caramon began building a fire.
“Stop,” Raistlin ordered Caramon in a choked voice. “Go downstairs and fetch some boiling water. Quickly!” he added when he saw his brother hesitate, not willing to leave the mage alone with his pain.
Caramon ran out of the room and down the stairs to do as he was bid.
Raistlin sat, leaning forward over the floor, holding his staff in straining hands, watching stars sparkle and glimmer before him. Lack of air and muscle spasms caused his eyes to play tricks on him. Fumbling at the herbal bag, he held it to his mouth and breathed. He looked again deep within himself, deep within the dark where the stars truly shone in his own night sky, where the sun shone in the same sphere. He still ruled, his goals firm, his desires unwavering.
Hearing Caramon pounding back up the stairs, Raistlin stood the staff against the bed and began to take out the medicine he needed for his drink. Caramon carried a pot of water, curling steam rising from the top, in his hand. Raistlin motioned him over to the bed and held out a small bag filled with the leaves that suppressed the mage’s sickness, if only for a while.
Caramon hastily poured water into a cup, poking his finger into the scalding water, hoping to create the mixture before his brother started coughing again.
Raistlin, watching, said breathily, “Remember, Caramon, shaken, not stirred.”
The bitter smell of the tea filled the room. The twins’ mother had always said, “The worse medicine tastes, the better it works.” Caramon was surprised this stuff didn’t raise the dead.
Raistlin drank it and finally closed his eyes. Drawing a deep breath, he leaned back against the headboard.
“This is a strange place, Raist,” muttered Caramon. “I don’t like it. It’s too quiet.”
The mage took another deep breath. “Yes. But it’s not a den of assassins and thieves as I’d expected. Did you see the people, my brother? Peasants, simple working folk, middle-aged farmers.”
“Yeah,” said Caramon, running his fingers through his hair. “But it’s like Earwig said. Everyone sitting around talking in low voices. No singing or laughing. Maybe there’s a war,” he added hopefully. He’d like that. Plain and simple. Good old bashing the other’s guy’s brains out.
“No, I don’t think so. I was eavesdropping on the conversations in the other room before you came blundering over and distracted me.”
“Sorry. I thought you were sick. I didn’t know—”
Raistlin went on softly, as if he hadn’t heard the interruption, as if talking to himself. “The people are terrified, Caramon.”
“Yeah? What of? Assassins?”
“No. Their cats have disappeared.”
Chapter 3
The twins descended the stairs from their room on the second floor, Raistlin leaning on both his brother and the staff, the black wood resounding hol
lowly. Moving around the huge open fire in the main hall, they went to the dining room. But before Caramon could enter, Raistlin stopped him, drawing his hood back to expose one ear.
The fighter recognized this signal—a sign the twins had developed over the years—and quickly ducked back around the corner of the doorway before any of the patrons could notice him. He cocked his ear, listening, hoping to discover what his brother found so interesting. Voices wafted like mist from the room.
“Tis the work of evil, I say!”
“Aye, it’s true!”
“I’ve lived eighty years,” interjected an old man, “and I’ve seen nothing like it! Always we’ve taken care of the cats, as the legend says. And now they’ve left us! Doom will fall on our heads!”
“Probably the work of some foul wizard.”
“Never did trust them.”
“Yeah! Burn ’em all up, I say! Like in the old days.”
“What do you think will happen to Mereklar, then, old man?”
“Mereklar? I fear for the world!”
“I heard there’re no cats at all left in the city,” stated a man, wearing a farmer’s smock and broad-brimmed hat. “Is that true?”
“There are a few left, a hundred or so, perhaps,” said the old man.
“A hundred where there used to be a thousand,” added another.
“And their numbers dwindle daily.”
Everyone began to talk at once, adding rumors they’d heard. They were beginning to work themselves into a frenzy.
Caramon came out from his hiding place to join his brother. He plucked Raistlin’s sleeve.
“I think we’ve wandered into an asylum,” he whispered loudly. “These people are crazy! To get this worked up over a bunch of cats!”
“Hush, Caramon. You should take this matter seriously. I would guess that this has much to do with the job we are seeking.”
“We’re being hired to look for lost cats?” Caramon began to laugh, his booming baritone roaring through the inn. Everyone fell silent, glaring at the brothers with baleful looks.
“Remember, Caramon!” Raistlin closed his thin-fingered hand over his brother’s thick arm. “Someone tried to kill us over it, as well.”
Caramon’s laugh sobered quickly. The two entered the room. Their presence was not welcome. They were outsiders, intruding on a fear they could not understand. No one said a word, no one bade them sit down.
“Hey! Raistlin! Caramon! Over here!” Earwig’s shrill voice split the sullen silence.
The twins walked to the back of the room. The inn’s patrons cast furtive glances at the mage, and there was whispering and shaking of heads and glowering scowls. Raistlin ignored them all with a disdainful air and a slight sneering curl of his lips.
Caramon helped his brother sit down and get as comfortable as possible on the hard, wooden bench. The warrior beckoned to one of the barmaids, who—after a nod from Yost—came over to the table.
Caramon sniffed at the air and wrinkled his nose, not liking much what he smelled cooking.
“Rabbit stew,” said the woman. “Take it or leave it.”
“I’ll take it,” said Caramon, thinking regretfully of Otik’s spiced potatoes at the Inn of the Last Home. He looked at his brother. Raistlin covered his mouth with a cloth and shook his head.
“My brother will have some white wine. Do you want something, Earwig?”
“Oh, no, thanks, Caramon. I ate already. You see, there was this plate of stew, just sitting there. My mother always said it was a sin to waste food. ‘People in Solamnia are starving,’ she’d say. So, to help the starving people in Solamnia, I ate the stew. Although just how that helps them I’m not certain. Do you know, Caramon?”
Caramon didn’t. The barmaid hurried off and returned shortly with a plate of food and a mug of ale, which she slapped down in front of Caramon, and a goblet of wine for Raistlin.
Caramon plunged into his dinner with gusto, slurping and chewing and shoveling rapidly. Earwig observed him in round-eyed admiration. Raistlin was watching with disgust when suddenly the mage’s attention focused on Caramon’s half-empty plate.
“Let me see that!” he said, snatching it away.
“Hey! I wasn’t finished! I—”
“You are now,” said Raistlin coldly, scrapping the rest of the food onto the floor.
“What is it? Show me!” Earwig scrambled around to sit beside the mage.
“It’s a poem,” said Raistlin, gazing at the surface of the plate with interest.
“A poem!” Caramon growled. “You ruined my dinner for a poem!”
Raistlin read it to himself, then handed it over to his brother.
It is written, the land will know five ages,
but the last shall not come if darkness
succeeds, coming through the gate.
Darkness sends its agents, stealthy
and black, to find the gate, to
be there when the time arrives
The cats alive are the turning
stone, they decide the fate,
darkness or light, in the
city that stands before
the first gods.
“Well?” said Raistlin.
“Cats, again,” answered Caramon, handing the plate back.
“Yes,” Raistlin murmured, “cats again.”
“Do you understand it?”
“Not entirely. Up to now, there have been four ages—the Age of Dreams, the Age of Light, the Age of Might, and the Age of Darkness, which we are in now. A new age coming …”
“But not ‘if darkness succeeds,’ ” said Caramon, reading the plate upside down.
“Yes. And ‘the cats alive are the turning stone.’ Interesting, my brother. Very interesting.” Raistlin placed the plate carefully down on the table, his lips pressed together in thought.
“Wait a minute!” said Earwig. “I just remembered something.”
Leaping up, he ran across to another table, grabbed hold of an empty plate, and brought it to the mage. “Look! Another poem! I found it when I’d finished my dinner.”
He plunked the plate down in front of Caramon, and, seeing the fighter absorbed in reading it, appropriated his mug of ale.
It is written,
the Lord of Cats
will come, aiding his
dominion, leading only
for them, following no other
the agents for one and three.
The cats alive are the turning stone,
they decide the fate, darkness or light,
in the city that stands before the first gods.
“ ‘The city that stands before the first gods.’ ” Raistlin repeated, taking the plate from Caramon and reading it again and again. He was always interested in stories and rumors of the first gods, the gods he truly believed still existed. “In all our travels, my brother, we’ve never come across anything like this! Perhaps here I’ll find the answers I seek!”
“Uh, Raist!” Caramon said warningly.
The other patrons had fallen deathly silent and were staring at the brothers and the kender with dark and angry expressions. A few were rising to their feet.
“What do you strangers think you’re doing? Mocking the prophecy?” demanded one, his hand clenched into a fist.
“We’re just reading it, that’s all,” began Caramon, face flushing. “Is that a crime?”
“It could be. And you won’t like the punishment.”
Caramon rose to his feet. He was one against twenty, but the big warrior was undaunted by the odds. He could see, out of the corner of his eye, his brother’s hand glide swiftly to the pouch Raistlin carried at his side—a pouch whose contents were as magical and mysterious as the man who used them.
“A fight?” asked Earwig, jumping up and down. The kender grabbed his hoopak. “Is there going to be a barroom brawl? I’ve never been in a barroom brawl before! Boy, Cousin Tas was right about you guys!”
“There’s no fighting in my establishment,”
cried a stern voice. “Come now, Hamish and you, too, Bartoc, settle down.”
The innkeeper placed himself between Caramon and the crowd, making placating gestures with his hands. The men calmed down, resuming their seats and their gloomy conversation. Caramon, slowly and warily, returned to the table.
“I’m sorry, sirs,” Yost said to the twins. “We’re not usually this unfriendly, but there are some bad things happening in Mereklar.”
“What happened to the barroom brawl?” Earwig demanded.
“Shut up.” Caramon grabbed the kender and stuffed him into his seat.
“Bad things—such as the cats disappearing?” asked Raistlin.
Yost stared at the mage in awe. “How did you know, sir?”
Raistlin shrugged.
“But then, you’re a wizard, after all,” continued the innkeeper with a sidelong glance. “I guess you know a lot of things the rest of us don’t.”
“And that’s why everyone’s ready to leap down our throats?” asked Caramon, pointing over his shoulder with his right thumb at the others in the inn.
“It’s just that our cats mean as much to us as his word of honor means to a Knight of Solomnia.”
Thinking back to his friend Sturm, Caramon was impressed. The Knights of Solomnia would willingly die to uphold their honor.
“Sit down, sir—”
“Yost. Everyone just calls me Yost.”
“Sit down … um, Yost,” said Raistlin in his soft voice, “and tell us about the cats.”
Nervously, glancing back again at the other patrons, Yost took a seat opposite Earwig.
Caramon reached for his ale, only to discover that the kender had finished it.
“I’ll have the girl bring you something else to drink,” Yost said.
Caramon looked at his brother, who shook his head, reminding the warrior of the depleted state of their funds. The warrior heaved a sigh, “No, thanks. I’m not thirsty.”