The Soulforge

by Margaret Weis

  “For the murder of the priestess,” Sturm said, frowning, thinking Raistlin was being flippant.

  “He didn’t kill the Widow Judith, Sturm,” Caramon said quietly, calmly. “She was dead when we entered that room.”

  Troubled, Sturm looked from one twin to the other. “I have never known you to lie, Caramon. But I think you might if your brother’s life depended on it.”

  “I might,” Caramon agreed, “but I’m not lying now. I swear to you on the grave of my father that Raistlin is innocent of this murder.”

  Sturm gazed long at Caramon, then nodded once, convinced. They resumed walking.

  “Do you know who did kill her?” Sturm asked.

  The brothers exchanged glances.

  “No,” Caramon said and stared down at his boots, kicking up dust in the road.

  It was daylight by the time they reached the fairgrounds. The vendors were opening their stalls, preparing for the morning’s business. They received Raistlin as a hero, lauded his exploits, applauded as the companions walked to Flint’s shop. But no one spoke to them directly.

  Flint did not open his stall. Leaving the shutters closed, he began to move his wares to the wagon. When several of the other vendors, overcome by curiosity, did finally drop by to hear the tale, they were gruffly repulsed by the dwarf and went away, offended.

  There was one more visitor, one more scare. The High Sheriff himself appeared, looking for Raistlin. Kit drew her sword, told her brother to make himself scarce, and it seemed as if there was going to be yet another fight. Raistlin told her to put away her weapon.

  “I’m innocent,” he said, with a significant look for his sister.

  “You were nearly a crispy innocent,” Kit returned angrily, sheathing her sword with an impatient thrust. “Go on, then. And don’t expect me to save you this time.”

  But the sheriff had come to apologize. He did so, grudgingly and awkwardly. The young priestess had come forth to admit that she had seen Raistlin in company with his twin at the time the murder was committed. She had not told the truth before, she said, because she hated the wizard for what he had done to instigate Belzor’s downfall. She was horrified by the High Priest’s actions, wanted nothing more to do with any of them.

  “What will happen to her?” Caramon asked worriedly.

  “Nothing.” The sheriff shrugged. “The young ones were like the rest of us—fooled completely by the murdered woman and her husband. They’ll get over it. We all will, I suppose.”

  He fell silent, squinted into the sun that was just topping the trees, then said, not looking at them, “We don’t take kindly to mages in Haven. Lemuel, now—he’s different. He’s harmless. We don’t mind him. But we don’t need any more.”

  “He should have thanked you,” Caramon said, puzzled and hurt.

  “For what?” Raistlin asked with a bitter smile. “Destroying his career? If the sheriff didn’t know that Judith and the rest of Belzor’s followers were frauds, then he’s one of the biggest fools in Abanasinia. If he did know, then he was undoubtedly being paid well to leave them alone. Either way, he’s finished. You had better let me put some ointment on those burns, my brother. You are obviously in pain.”

  Once he had treated Caramon, cleaning the burns and covering them with the healing salve, Raistlin left the others to finish the packing, went to lie down in the wagon. He was completely and utterly exhausted, so tired he was almost sick. He was just about to climb inside when a stranger clad in brown robes approached him.

  Raistlin turned his back on him, hoping the man would take the hint and leave. The man had the look of a cleric, and Raistlin had seen clerics enough to last him a lifetime.

  “I want just a moment, young man,” the stranger said, plucking at Raistlin’s sleeve. “I know you have had a trying day. I want to thank you for bringing down the false god Belzor. My followers and I are eternally in your debt.”

  Raistlin grunted, pulled his arm away, and climbed into the wagon. The man hung on to the wagon’s sides, peered over them.

  “I am Hederick, the High Theocrat,” he announced with a self-important air. “I represent a new religious order. We hope to gain a foothold here in Haven now that the rogues of Belzor have been driven away. We are known as the Seekers, for we seek the true gods.”

  “Then I hope very much that you find them, sir,” Raistlin said.

  “We are certain of it!” The man had missed the sarcasm. “Perhaps you’d be interested—”

  Raistlin wasn’t. The tents and bedrolls had been stacked in one corner of the wagon. Unfolding a blanket, he spread it out over the pile of tenting, lay down.

  The cleric hung about, yammering about his god. Raistlin covered his head with the hood of his robe and, eventually, the cleric departed. Raistlin thought no more of him, soon forgot the man entirely.

  Lying in the wagon, Raistlin tried to sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the flames, felt the heat, smelled the smoke, and he was wide awake, awake and shivering.

  He recalled with terrifying clarity his feeling of helplessness. Resting his hand on the hilt of his new knife, he wrapped his fingers around the weapon, felt the blade, cold, sharp, reassuring. From now on, he would never be without it. His last measure of defense, even if it meant his life was his to take and not his enemy’s.

  His thoughts went from this knife to the other knife, the bloody knife he’d found lying beside the murdered woman. The knife he had recognized as belonging to Kitiara.

  Raistlin sighed deeply, and at last he was able to close his eyes, relax into slumber.

  Rosamun’s children had taken their revenge.

  BOOK 5

  The aspiring magus, Raistlin Majere, is hereby summoned to the Tower of High Sorcery at Wayreth to appear before the Conclave of Wizards on the seventh day of the seventh month at the seventh minute of the seventh hour. At this time, in this place, you will be tested by your superiors for inclusion into the ranks of those gifted by the three gods, Solinari, Lunitari, Nuitari.

  —The Conclave of Wizards

  1

  THAT WINTER WAS ONE OF THE MILDEST SOLACE HAD KNOWN, with rain and fog in place of snow and frost. The residents packed away their Yule decorations for another year, took down the pine boughs and the mistletoe, and congratulated themselves on having escaped the inconveniences of a hard winter. People were already talking of an early spring when a terrifying and most unwelcome visitor came to Solace. The visitor was Plague, and accompanying him was his ghastly mate, Death.

  No one was certain who invited this dread guest. The number of travelers had increased during the mild winter, anyone of them might have been a carrier. Blame was also ascribed to the standing bogs around Crystalmir Lake, bogs that had not frozen as they should have during the winter. The symptoms were the same in all cases, beginning with a high fever and extreme lethargy, followed by headache, vomiting, and diarrhea. The disease ran its course in a week or two; the strong and healthy survived it. The very young, the very old, or those in weak health did not.

  In the days before the Cataclysm, clerics had called upon the goddess Mishakal for aid. She had granted them healing powers, and the plague had been virtually unknown. Mishakal had left Krynn with the rest of the gods. Those who practiced the healing arts in these days had to rely on their own skill and knowledge. They could not cure the disease, but they could treat the symptoms, try to prevent the patient from becoming so weak that he or she developed pneumonia, which led inevitably to death.

  Weird Meggin worked tirelessly among the sick, administering her willow bark to break the fever, dosing the victims with a bitter concoction the consistency of paste, which seemed to help those who could be persuaded to choke it down.

  Many of Solace’s residents derided the old crone, terming her “cracked” or a witch. These very same people were among the first to ask for her the moment they felt the fever grip them. She never failed them. She would come at any time, day or night, and though her manner was a little stra
nge—she talked constantly to herself and insisted on the unusual practice of washing her hands continually and forced others in the sickroom to do so as well—she was always welcome.

  Raistlin began by accompanying Weird Meggin on her rounds. He assisted her in sponging the feverish bodies, helped persuade sick children to swallow the bad-tasting medicine. He learned how to ease the pain of the dying. But as the plague spread and more and more of Solace’s citizens were caught in its lethal grip, Raistlin was forced by sheer necessity to tend patients on his own.

  Caramon was among the first to catch the disease, a shock to the big man, who had never been sick in his life. He was terrified, certain he was going to die, and nearly wrecked the bedroom in his delirium, fighting snakes carrying torches, who were trying to set him on fire.

  His strong body threw off the contagion, however, and since he had already survived the disease, he was able to assist his brother in caring for others. Caramon worried constantly that Raistlin would catch the plague. Frail as he was, he would not survive it. Raistlin was deaf to his brother’s pleas to remain safely at home. Raistlin had discovered to his surprise that he gained a deep and abiding satisfaction in helping those stricken with the illness.

  He did not work among the sick out of compassion. In general, he cared nothing for his neighbors, considered them dull and boorish. He did not treat the sick for monetary gain; he would go to the poor as readily as the rich. He found that what he truly enjoyed was power—power he wielded over the living, who had come to regard the young mage with hope bordering on reverence. Power he was sometimes able to wield over his greatest, most dread foe, Death.

  He did not catch the plague, and he wondered why. Weird Meggin said it was because he made certain to wash his hands after tending to the sick. Raistlin smiled derisively, but he was too fond of the crazy old woman to contradict her.

  At length, Plague slowly opened his clenched skeletal fingers, released Solace from his deadly grip. Solace’s residents, acting under Weird Meggin’s instructions, burned the clothes and bedding of those who had been ill. The snow came at last, and when it did, it fell on many new graves in Solace’s burial ground.

  Among the dead was Anna Brightblade.

  It is written in the Measure that the duty of the lady wife of a knight is to feed the poor and tend to the sick of the manor. Though she was far from the land where the Measure was written and obeyed, Lady Brightblade was faithful to the law. She went to the aid of her sick neighbors, caught the disease herself. Even when she felt its first effects, she continued to nurse until she collapsed.

  Sturm carried his mother home and ran to fetch Raistlin, who treated the woman as best he could, all to no avail.

  “I’m dying, aren’t I, young man?” Anna Brightblade asked Raistlin one night. “Tell me the truth. I am the wife of a noble knight. I can bear it.”

  “Yes,” said Raistlin, who could hear the popping and crackling sounds of fluid gathering in the woman’s lungs. “Yes, you are dying.”

  “How long?” she asked calmly.

  “Not long now.”

  Sturm knelt at his mother’s bedside. He gave a sob and lowered his head to the blanket. Anna reached out her hand, a hand wasted from the fever, and stroked her son’s long hair.

  “Leave us,” she said to Raistlin with her customary imperiousness. Then, looking up at him, she smiled wanly, her stern expression softened. “Thank you for all you have done. I may have misjudged you, young man. I give you my blessing.”

  “Thank you, Lady Brightblade,” Raistlin said. “I honor your courage, madam. May Paladine receive you.” She looked at him darkly, frowned, thinking he blasphemed, and turned her face from him.

  In the morning, as Caramon fixed his twin a bowl of hot gruel to sustain him through the rigors of the day, there came a knock on the door. Caramon opened it to admit Sturm. The young man was haggard and deathly pale, his eyes red and swollen. He was composed, however, had control of himself.

  Caramon ushered his friend inside. Sturm sank into a chair, his legs collapsing beneath him. He had slept little since the first day of his mother’s illness.

  “Is Lady Brightblade …” Caramon began, but couldn’t finish.

  Sturm nodded his head.

  Caramon wiped his eyes. “I’m sorry, Sturm. She was a great lady.”

  “Yes,” said Sturm in a husky voice. He slumped in the chair. A tremor of a dry sob shuddered through his body.

  “How long has it been since you ate anything?” Raistlin demanded.

  Sturm sighed, waved an uncaring hand.

  “Caramon, bring another bowl,” Raistlin ordered. “Eat, Sir Knight, or you will shortly follow your mother to the grave.”

  Sturm’s dark eyes flashed in anger at Raistlin’s flippant tone. He started to refuse the food, but when he saw that Caramon had picked up the spoon, was intending to feed him like a baby, Sturm muttered that perhaps he could manage a mouthful. He ate the entire bowl, drank a glass of wine, and the color returned to his wan cheeks.

  Raistlin shoved aside his own bowl only half eaten. This was customary with him, however; Caramon knew better than to protest.

  “My mother and I talked near the end,” Sturm said in a low voice. “She spoke of Solamnia and my father. She told me that she had long ago ceased believing he was alive. She had kept up the pretense only for my sake.”

  He lowered his head, pressed his lips tightly together, but shed no tears. After a moment, his composure regained, he looked at Raistlin, who was gathering his medicines, preparing to set out.

  “Something strange happened at … the end. I thought I would tell you, to see if you had ever heard the like. Perhaps it is nothing but a manifestation of the disease.”

  Raistlin looked up with interest. He was making notes on the illness, recording symptoms and treatments in a small book for future reference.

  “My mother had fallen into a deep sleep, from which it seemed that nothing could rouse her.”

  “The sleep of death,” Raistlin said. “I have seen it often with this illness. Sometimes it can last for several days, but whenever it comes, the patient never wakes.”

  “Well, my mother did wake,” Sturm said abruptly.

  “Indeed? Tell me precisely what occurred.”

  “She opened her eyes and looked, not at me, but beyond me, to the door to her room. ‘I know you, sir, do I not?’ she said hesitantly, adding querulously, ‘Where have you been all this time? We’ve been expecting you for ages.’ Then she said, ‘Make haste, Son, bring the old gentleman a chair.’

  “I looked around, but there was no one there. ‘Ah,’ my mother said, ‘you cannot stay? I must come with you? But that will mean leaving my boy all alone.’ She seemed to listen, then she smiled. ‘True, he is a boy no longer. You will watch over him when I am gone?’ And then she smiled, as if reassured, and drew her last breath.

  “And this is the strangest part. I had just risen to go to her when I thought I saw, standing beside her, the figure of an old man. He was a disreputable old man, wearing gray robes with a shabby sort of pointed hat.” Sturm frowned. “He had the look of a magic-user. Well? What do you think?”

  “I think that you had gone a long time without food or sleep,” Raistlin replied.

  “Perhaps,” Sturm said, still frowning, puzzled. “But the vision seemed very real. Who could the old man have been? And why was my mother pleased to see him? She had no use for magic-users.”

  Raistlin headed for the door. He had been more than patient with the bereaved Sturm and he was tired of being insulted. Caramon cast him an apprehensive glance, fearing that his brother might lash out, make some sarcastic comment, but his twin departed without saying another word.

  Sturm left soon after, to arrange for his mother’s burial. Caramon heaved a doleful sigh and sat down to finish off the remainder of his brother’s uneaten breakfast.

  2

  SPRING PERFORMED ITS USUAL MIRACLE. GREEN LEAVES SPROUTED on the vallenwoods, wildfl
owers bloomed in the graveyard; the small vallenwoods planted on the graves grew at the rapid pace customary to the tree, bringing solace to the grief-stricken. The spirits of those who had died flourished, were renewed in the living tree.

  This spring brought another disease into Solace—a disease known to be carried by kender, a disease that is often contagious, especially among the young, who had just come to realize that life was short and very sweet and should be experienced to the fullest. The disease is called wanderlust.

  Sturm was the first to catch it, although his other friends had exhibited the same symptoms. His case had been coming on ever since the death of his mother. Bereft and alone, his thoughts and dreams looked northward, to his homeland.

  “I cannot give up the hope that my father still lives,” he confessed to Caramon one morning. It was now his custom to join the twins for breakfast. Eating alone, in his own empty house, was too much to bear. “Though I admit that my mother’s argument has some merit. If my father is alive, why did he never once try to contact us?”

  “There could be lots of reasons,” said Caramon stoutly. “Maybe he’s being held prisoner in a dungeon by a mad wizard. Oh, sorry, Raist. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

  Raistlin snorted. He was occupied in feeding his rabbits, paying scant attention to the conversation.

  “Whatever the case,” Sturm said, “I intend to find out the truth. When the roads are open, within the month, I plan to travel north to Solamnia.”

  “No! Name of the Abyss,” exclaimed Caramon, startled.

  Raistlin, too, was amazed. He turned from his work, cabbage leaves in his hand, to see if the young man was serious.

  Sturm nodded his head. “I have wanted to make such a journey for the past three years, but I was loath to leave my mother for an extended period of time. Now there is nothing to hold me. I go, and I go with her blessing. If, in fact, my father is dead, then I have my inheritance to claim. If he lives—”