Brothers in Arms

by Margaret Weis

  Caramon packed clothes and food for the trip. Raistlin packed his spell components, and the two made ready to leave. Lemuel was genuinely sorry to see them go and would have made Raistlin a present of every plant in the garden had Raistlin permitted it. The tavern Caramon frequented nearly shut down from sorrow, and the road out of Haven was literally paved with weeping women, or so it seemed to Raistlin.

  His health had improved over the winter, either that or he was learning to cope. He sat his horse with confidence and with ease, enjoying the soft spring air, which seemed better for his lungs to breathe than the sharp, cold air of winter. The knowledge that Caramon was keeping a watchful eye on his twin caused Raistlin to make light of any weakness he felt. He felt so well that they were soon able to ride almost ten leagues in a day.

  Much to Caramon’s dismay, they skirted Solace, taking a little-known animal trail discovered when they were children.

  “I can smell Otik’s potatoes,” said Caramon wistfully, sitting up in the saddle, sniffing. “We could stop at the Inn for dinner.”

  Raistlin could also smell the potatoes—or at least he imagined he could—and he was suddenly overwhelmed with homesickness. How easy it would be to return! How easy to relapse once more into that comfortable existence, to make his living tending colicky babies and treating old men’s rheumatism. How easy to sink into that cozy, warm feather bed of a life. He hesitated. His horse, sensing its rider’s indecision, slowed its pace. Caramon looked at his twin hopefully.

  “We could spend the night at the Inn,” he urged.

  The Inn of the Last Home. Where Raistlin had first met Antimodes. Where he had first heard the mage tell him of the forging of a soul. The Inn of the Last Home. Where people would stare at him, would whisper about him …

  Raistlin drove the heels of his boots hard into his horse’s flanks, causing the animal—unaccustomed to such treatment—to break into a trot.

  “Raist? The potatoes?” Caramon cried, his horse galloping to catch up.

  “We don’t have the money,” Raistlin returned shortly, coldly. “Fish in Crystalmir Lake are free to eat. The woods charge nothing for us to sleep in them.”

  Caramon knew very well that Otik would not ask them to pay, and he sighed deeply. He brought his horse to a halt, turned to look back longingly at Solace. He couldn’t see the town, which was hidden in the trees, except in his mind. The mental image was all the more vivid.

  Raistlin checked his horse. “Caramon, if we went back to Solace now, we would never leave. You know that, as well as I.”

  Caramon didn’t respond. His horse shuffled nervously.

  “Is that the life you want?” Raistlin demanded, his voice rising. “Do you want to work for farmers all your life? With hay in your hair and your hands steeped in cow dung? Or do you want to come back to Solace with your pockets filled with steel, with tales of your prowess on your lips, displaying scars of your battles to adoring barmaids?”

  “You’re right, Raist,” Caramon said, turning his horse’s head. “That’s what I want, of course. I felt a sort of tugging feeling, that’s all. Like I was being pulled back. But that’s silly. There’s no one left in Solace anymore. None of our old friends, I mean. Sturm’s gone north. Tanis is with the elves, Flint with the dwarves. And who knows where Tasslehoff is?”

  “Or cares,” Raistlin added caustically.

  “One person might be there, though,” Caramon said. He glanced sidelong at his twin. Raistlin understood the unspoken thought.

  “No,” said Raistlin. “Kitiara is not in Solace.”

  “How do you know?” Caramon asked, astonished. His brother had spoken with unshaken conviction. “You’re not … not having visions, are you? Like … well … like our mother.”

  “I am not suffering from second sight, my brother. Nor am I given to portents and premonitions. I base my statement on what I know of our sister. She will never come back to Solace,” Raistlin said firmly. “She has more important friends now. More important concerns.”

  The trail between the trees narrowed, forcing the two to ride single file. Caramon took front, Raistlin fell in behind. The two rode in silence. Sunlight filtered through the tree limbs, casting barred shadows across Caramon’s wide back, shadows that slid over him as he rode in and out of the sunshine. The scent of pine was sharp and crisp. The way was slow, the path overgrown.

  “Maybe it’s wrong to think this, Raist,” Caramon said after a very long silence. “I mean, Kit’s our sister and all. But … I don’t much care if I ever see her again.”

  “I doubt we ever will, Caramon,” Raistlin replied. “There is no reason why our paths should cross.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Still, I get a funny feeling about her sometimes.”

  “A ‘tugging’ feeling?” Raistlin asked.

  “No, more of a jabbing feeling.” Caramon shivered. “Like she was poking at me with a knife.”

  Raistlin snorted. “You are probably just hungry.”

  “Of course I am.” Caramon was complacent. “It’s nearly dinnertime. But that’s not the kind of feeling I mean. A hungry feeling is an empty feeling in the bottom of your stomach. It sort of gnaws at you. This other kind of feeling is like when all the hair on your arms stands up—”

  “I was being sarcastic!” Raistlin snapped, glaring out from beneath the rim of his red hood, which he wore pulled up over his head in case they happened across someone they knew.

  “Oh,” Caramon returned meekly. He was quiet a moment, fearing to further irritate his brother. The thought of food was too much. “Say, how are you going to cook the fish tonight, Raist? My favorite way is when you put onions and butter on it and wrap it in lettuce leaves and put it on a really hot rock. …”

  Raistlin let his twin ramble on about the various methods of cooking fish. He was quiet, thoughtful, and Caramon did not intrude on his thoughts. The two camped on the banks of Crystalmir Lake. Caramon caught the fish, fourteen or so small lake perch. Raistlin cooked the perch—not with lettuce leaves, the lettuce being mostly underground at this time of year. They shook out their bedrolls. Caramon, his stomach full, soon fell asleep, his face bathed in the warm, laughing light of the red moon, Lunitari.

  Raistlin lay awake, watching the red light of the moon play upon the water, dancing on the wavelets, teasing him to come join in their revels. He smiled to see them but kept to the comfort of his blanket.

  He truly believed what he had told Caramon. He would never see Kitiara again. The threads of their lives had once been a whole cloth, but the fabric of their youth had frayed, unraveled. Now he pictured the thread of his own life unwinding before him, running straight and true toward his goals.

  Little did he think that at this moment the weft of his sister’s life, advancing at right angles to his own, would cross the warp of his life and his brother’s to form a web, strange and deadly.

  4

  IT WAS SPRINGTIME IN SANCTION. OR RATHER, IT WAS SPRINGTIME IN the rest of Ansalon, almost a year to the date from the time the companions had come together in the Inn of the Last Home to say their good-byes and to pledge to meet again five years in the fall. Spring did not come to Sanction. Spring brought no budding trees, no daffodils yellow against the melting snow, no sweet breezes, no cheery birdsong.

  The trees had been cut down to feed Sanction’s forge-fires, the daffodils had died in the poisonous fumes of the belching mountains known as the Lords of Doom. And if there had ever been birds, they had long since been wrung, plucked, and eaten.

  Spring in Sanction was Campaign Season, celebrated for the fact that the roads were now open and ready for marching. The troops under the command of General Ariakas had spent the winter in Sanction huddled in their tents, half-frozen, fighting each other for scraps of food tossed to them by their commanders, who wanted a lean and hungry army. To the soldiers, spring meant the chance to raid and loot and kill, steal food enough to fill their shriveled bellies, and capture slaves enough to do the menial work and
warm their beds.

  Warriors made up the bulk of the population of Sanction, and they were in good spirits, roaming the town, bullying the inhabitants, who got their revenge by charging exorbitant prices for their wares, while the abused innkeepers served up rotgut wine, watered-down ale, and dwarf spirits made of toadstools.

  “What a god-awful place,” said Kitiara to her companion, as the two walked the crowded, filthy streets. “But it does sort of grow on you.”

  “Like scum on a pond,” said Balif with a laugh.

  Kitiara grinned. She had certainly been in prettier places, but what she’d said was true—she found herself liking Sanction. Rough, coarse, and crude, the city was also exciting, interesting, entertaining. Excitement appealed to Kitiara, who had been laid up for the past few months, forced to lie abed and do nothing except hear rumors of great events taking shape, and fret and fume and curse her ill luck that she could not be part of them. She had since rid herself of the minor inconvenience that had momentarily incapacitated her. Free of entanglements, she was free to pursue her ambitions.

  Before Kit was even out of the birthing bed, she had sent a message to a disreputable inn known as The Trough in Solace. The message was to a man named Balif, who passed through town every so often and who had been waiting months for a message from Kit.

  Her missive was short: How do I meet this general of yours?

  His reply was equally terse and to the point. Come to Sanction.

  When she was able to travel, Kitiara had done just that.

  “What is that foul smell?” she asked, wrinkling her nose. “Like rotten eggs!”

  “The sulfur pits. You get used to it,” Balif answered, shrugging. “After a day or two, you won’t notice it. The best part of Sanction is that no one comes here who doesn’t belong here. Or, if they do, they don’t stay long. Sanction’s safe, and it’s secret. That’s why the general chose it.”

  “The city is aptly named, though. Sanction—it’s a punishment to live here!”

  Kit was pleased with her own little joke. Balif laughed dutifully, glanced at her admiringly as she strode along the narrow streets at his side. She was thinner than she had been when he’d last seen her over a year ago, but her dark eyes were still as bright, her lips still as full, her body lithe and graceful. She wore her traveling clothes, for she’d only just arrived in Sanction—fine leather armor over a brown tunic, which came to mid-thigh, revealing shapely legs in green stockings, leather boots that came to her knees.

  Kitiara saw Balif look, understood the proposition, and—shaking her short, dark curls—she returned a veiled promise with her eyes. She was looking for diversion, amusement, and Balif was handsome in a cold, sharp-edged sort of way. What was equally important, he was a high-ranking officer in General Ariakas’s new-formed army, a most trusted spy and assassin. Balif had the general’s ear and access to his presence, an honor that Kit could not hope to achieve on her own, not without wasting valuable time, requiring resources she did not possess. Kitiara was flat broke.

  She’d been forced to pawn her sword to provide money enough to travel to Sanction, and most of that money had gone to pay her passage on the ship across New Sea. She had no money at all now and had been wondering where she would spend the night. That problem was now solved. Her smile, the crooked smile that she could make so charming, widened.

  Balif had his answer. He licked his lips and moved a step closer, put his hand on her arm to steer her around a drunken goblin, stumbling down the street.

  “I’ll take you to the inn where I’m staying,” Balif said, his grip on her tightening, his breath coming faster. “It’s the best in Sanction, though I admit that’s not saying a lot. Still, we can be alo—”

  “Hey, Balif.” A man wearing black leather armor halted in front of them, blocking their path along the cracked and broken street. Eyeing Kitiara, the man leered. “What have we here? A fine-looking wench. I trust you’ll share with your friends?” He reached out to grab hold of Kitiara. “Come here, sweetheart. Give us a kiss. Balif won’t mind. He and I have slept three to a bed before—ugh!”

  The man doubled over, groaning and clutching his crotch, his ardor deflated by the toe of Kitiara’s boot. A swift chop to the back of his neck drove him to the broken stones of the street, where he lay unmoving. Kit nursed a cut hand—the bastard had been wearing a spiked leather collar around his neck—and snatched her knife from her boot.

  “Come on,” she said to the man’s two friends, who had been about to back him up, but who were now reconsidering their options. “Come on. Who else wants to sleep three to a bed with me?”

  Balif, who had seen Kit’s work before, knew better than to interfere. He leaned against a crumbling wall, his arms folded, watching with amusement.

  Kitiara balanced lightly on the balls of her feet. She held the knife with easy, practiced skill. The two men facing her liked women who shrank from them in fear and terror. There was no fear in the dark eyes that watched their every move. Those eyes gleamed with keen anticipation of the fight. Kit darted forward, lashing out with the knife, moving so fast that the blade was a flashing blur in the few rays of weak sunlight that managed to struggle through the smoke-laden air. One of the men stared stupidly at a bloody slash across his upper arm.

  “I’d sooner bed a scorpion,” he snarled, and putting his hand over the cut to try to stanch the flow of blood, he gave Kit a vicious look and slouched away, accompanied by his friend. They left their third companion in the street, where the unconscious man was immediately set upon by goblins, who stripped him of every valuable he owned.

  Kit sheathed her knife in her boot and turned to Balif, regarded him with approval. “Thanks for not ‘helping.’ ”

  He applauded. “You’re a joy to watch, Kit. I wouldn’t have missed that for a bag of steel.”

  Kit put her wounded hand to her mouth.

  “Where’s this inn of yours?” she asked, slowly licking the blood from the cut, her eyes on Balif.

  “Near here,” he answered, his voice husky.

  “Good. You’re going to buy me dinner.” Kit slid her hand through his arm, pressed close to him. “And then you’re going to tell me all about General Ariakas.”

  “So where have you been all this time?” Balif asked. His pleasure sated, he lay next to her, tracing over the battle scars on her bare breast with his hand. “I expected to hear from you last summer or at least by fall. Nothing. Not a word.”

  “I had things to do,” said Kit lazily. “Important things.”

  “They said you went north to Solamnia, in company with a boy knight. Brightsword, or some such name.”

  “Brightblade. Yes.” Kitiara shrugged. “We traveled on the same errand, but we soon parted company. I could no longer stomach his prayers and vigils and sanctimonious prattling.”

  “He may have started on that trip a boy, but I’ll wager he was a man by the time you were finished with him,” Balif said with a salacious wink. “So where did you go after that?”

  “I wandered around Solamnia for a while, looking for my father’s family. They were landed noblemen, or so he always said. I figured they’d be glad to see their long-lost granddaughter. So glad they’d part with a few of the family jewels and a chest of steel. But I couldn’t find them.”

  “You don’t need some moldy old blue blood’s money, Kit. You’ll earn your own fortune. You’ve got brains and you’ve got talent. General Ariakas is looking for both. Who knows, someday you might rule Ansalon.” He fondled the scars on her right breast. “So you finally left that half-elf lover you were so taken with.”

  “Yes, I left him,” Kitiara said quietly. Drawing the sheet up around her, she rolled to the other side of the bed. “I’m sleepy,” she said, her voice cold. “Blow out the candle.”

  Balif shrugged and did what he was told. He had her body, he didn’t care what she did with her heart. He was soon fast asleep. Kitiara lay with her back to him, staring into the darkness. She hated Balif at that m
oment, hated him for reminding her of Tanis. She had worked hard to put the half-elf out her mind, and she had very nearly done so. She did not ache for his touch at night anymore. The touch of other men eased her longing, though she still saw his face whenever any other man loved her.

  Her seduction of the boy Brightblade had been out of frustration and anger with Tanis for leaving her; she meant to punish him by taking his friend for her lover. And when she’d laughed at the boy, ridiculed him, tormented him, she was, in her mind, tormenting Tanis. But in the end, she had been the one punished.

  Her tryst with Brightblade had left her with child, and too sick and weak to rid herself of the unwanted pregnancy. The labor was hard, she had very nearly died. In her pain, in her delirium, she had dreamed only of Tanis, dreamed of crawling to him, begging his forgiveness, dreamed of agreeing to be his wife, of finding peace and contentment in his arms. If only he had come to her then! How many times she had almost sent him a message!

  Almost. And then she would remind herself that he had rebuffed her, he had turned down her proposal to head north to join up with “certain people who knew what they wanted from life and weren’t afraid to take it.” He had, in essence, sent her packing. She would never forgive him.

  Love for Tanis was strong when she was weak and in low spirits. Anger returned with her strength. Anger and resolve. She’d be damned if she’d go crawling back to him. Let him stay with his pointed-eared kin. Let them snub him and make a mockery of him and sneer at him behind his back. Let him make love to some little elven bitch. He had mentioned a girl in Qualinesti. Kit could not recall her name, but the she-elf was welcome to him.

  Kitiara lay in the darkness, her back to Balif, as far from him as she could get without falling out of bed, and cursed Tanis Half-Elven bitterly and with vehemence until she fell asleep. But in the morning, when she was only half-awake, drowsy with sleep, it was Tanis’s shoulder that she caressed.