The Inn was so crowded on this night that the three were continually forced to stand aside on the stairs to let men, women, and children pass them. Tanis noticed that people glanced at him and his companions with suspicion-not with the welcoming looks they would have given five years ago.
Tanis's face grew grim. This was not the homecoming he had dreamed about. Never in the fifty years he had lived in Solace had he felt such tension. The rumors he had heard about the malignant corruption of the Seekers must be true.
Five years ago, the men calling themselves «seekers» ("we seek the new gods") had been a loose-knit organization of clerics practicing their new religion in the towns of Haven, Solace, and Gateway. These clerics had been misguided, Tanis believed, but at least they had been honest and sincere. In the intervening years, however, the clerics had gained more and more status as their religion flourished. Soon they became concerned not so much with glory in the afterlife as with power on Krynn. They took over the governing of the towns with the people's blessing.
A touch on Tanis's arm interrupted his thoughts. He turned and saw Flint silently pointing below. Looking down, Tanis saw guards marching past, walking in parties of four. Armed to the teeth, they strutted with an air of self-importance.
"At least they're human-not goblin," Tas said.
"That goblin sneered when I mentioned the High Theocrat," Tanis mused. "As if they were working for someone else. I wonder what's going on."
"Maybe our friends will know," Flint said.
"If they're here," Tasslehoff added. "A lot could have happened in five years."
"They'll be here-if they're alive," Flint added in an undertone. "It was a sacred oath we took-to meet again after five years had passed and report what we had found out about the evil spreading in the world. To think we should come home and find evil on our very doorsteps!"
"Hush! Shss!" Several passersby looked so alarmed at the dwarfs words that Tanis shook his head.
"Better not talk about it here," the half-elf advised.
Reaching the top of the stairs, Tas flung the door open wide.
A wave of light, noise, heat, and the familiar smell of Otik's spicy potatoes hit them full in the face. It engulfed them and washed over them soothingly. Otik, standing behind the bar as they always remembered him, hadn't changed, except maybe to grow stouter. The Inn didn't appear to have changed either, except to grow more comfortable.
Tasslehoff, his quick kender eyes sweeping the crowd, gave a yell and pointed across the room. Something else hadn't changed either-the firelight gleaming on a brightly polished, winged dragon helm.
"Who is it?" asked Flint, straining to see.
"Caramon," Tanis replied.
"Then Raistlin'll be here, too," Flint said without a great deal of warmth in his voice.
Tasslehoff was already sliding through the muttering knots of people, his small, lithe body barely noticed by those he passed. Tanis hoped fervently the kender wasn't «acquiring» any objects from the Inn's customers. Not that he stole things- Tasslehoff would have been deeply hurt if anyone had accused him of theft. But the kender had an insatiable curiosity, and various interesting items belonging to other people had a way of falling into Tas's possession. The last thing Tanis wanted tonight was trouble. He made a mental note to have a private word with the kender.
The half-elf and the dwarf made their way through the crowd with less ease than their little friend. Nearly every chair was taken, every table filled. Those who could not find room to sit down were standing, talking in low voices. People looked at Tanis and Flint darkly, suspiciously, or curiously. No one greeted Flint, although there were several who had been long-standing customers of the dwarven metalsmith. The people of Solace had their own problems, and it was apparent that Tanis and Flint were now considered outsiders.
A roar sounded from across the room, from the table where the dragon helm lay reflecting light from the firepit. Tanis's grim face relaxed into a smile as he saw the giant Caramon lift little Tas off the floor in a bear hug.
Flint, wading through a sea of belt buckles, could only imagine the sight as he listened to Caramon's booming voice answering Tasslehoff's piping greeting. "Caramon better look to his purse," Flint grumbled. "Or count his teeth."
The dwarf and the half-elf finally broke through the press of people in front of the long bar. The table where Caramon sat was shoved back against the tree trunk. In fact, it was sitting in an odd position. Tanis wondered why Otik had moved it when everything else remained exactly the same. But the thought was crushed out of him, for it was his turn to receive the big warrior's affectionate greeting. Tanis hastily removed the longbow and quiver of arrows from his back before Caramon hugged them into kindling.
"My friend!" Caramon's eyes were wet. He seemed about to say more but was overcome by emotion. Tanis was also momentarily unable to talk, but this was because he'd had his breath sqeezed out of him by Caramon's muscular arms.
"Where's Raistlin?" he asked when he could talk. The twins were never far apart.
"There." Caramon nodded toward the end of the table. Then he frowned. "He's changed," the warrior warned Tanis.
The half-elf looked into a corner formed by an irregularity of the vallenwood tree. The corner was shrouded in shadow, and for a moment he couldn't see anything after the glare of the fire-light. Then he saw a slight figure sitting huddled in red robes, even in the heat of the nearby fire. The figure had a hood cast over its face.
Tanis felt a sudden reluctance to speak to the young mage alone, but Tasslehoff had flitted away to find the barmaid and Flint was being lifted off his feet by Caramon. Tanis moved to the end of the table.
"Raistlin?" he said, feeling a strange sense of foreboding.
The robed figure looked up. "Tanis?" the man whispered as he slowly pulled the hood off his head.
The half-elf sucked in his breath and fell back a pace. He stared in horror.
The face that turned toward him from the shadows was a face out of a nightmare. Changed, Caramon had said! Tanis shuddered. «Change» wasn't the word! The mage's white skin had turned a golden color. It glistened in the firelight with a faintly metallic quality, looking like a gruesome mask. The flesh had melted from the face, leaving the cheekbones outlined in dreadful shadows. The lips were pulled tight in a dark straight line. But it was the man's eyes that arrested Tanis and held him pinned in their terrible gaze. For the eyes were no longer the eyes of any living human Tanis had ever seen. The black pupils were now the shape of hourglasses! The pale blue irises Tanis remembered now glittered gold!
"I see my appearance startles you," Raistlin whispered. There was a faint suggestion of a smile on his thin lips.
Sitting down across from the young man, Tanis swallowed.
"In the name of the true gods, Raistlin-"
Flint plopped into a seat next to Tanis. "I've been hoisted into the air more times today than-.Reorx" Flint's eyes widened.
"What evil's at work here? Are you cursed?" The dwarf gasped, staring at Raistlin.
Caramon took a seat next to his brother. He picked up his mug of ale and glanced at Raistlin. "Will you tell them, Raist?" he said in a low voice.
"Yes," Raistlin said, drawing the word out into a hiss that made Tanis shiver. The young man spoke in a soft, wheezing voice, barely above a whisper, as if it were all he could do to force the words out of his body His long, nervous hands, which were the same golden color as his face, toyed absently with uneaten food on a plate before him.