The hour was late—well after midnight. Raistlin could still hear the laughter and music from the celebration. He was angry with Caramon for abandoning him, going off to make merry with some girl—Tika Waylan most likely—leaving his ill twin to fend for himself.
Half suffocated, Raistlin tried to stand and almost collapsed. He grabbed hold of a chair, eased himself into it and crumpled over, laying his head on the rickety table Caramon had cobbled together from a packing crate.
“Raistlin?” cried a cheerful voice from outside. “Are you asleep? I have a question I need to ask you!”
“Tas!” Raistlin tried to call out the kender’s name, but another spasm of coughing interrupted him.
“Oh, good,” the cheery voice went on, hearing the coughing, “you’re still awake.” Tas—short for Tasslehoff—Burrfoot bounded into the cave.
The kender had been told repeatedly that, in polite society, one always knocked on the door (or, in this instance, the lattice-work screen of branches that covered the cave entrance) and waited to be invited inside before one entered. Tas had difficulty adapting to this custom, which was not the norm in kender society, where doors are shut against inclement weather and marauding bugbears (and sometimes not even the bugbears, if they are interesting bugbears). When Tas remembered to knock at all, he generally did so simultaneous with entering if the occupant was lucky. Otherwise, he entered first and then remembered to knock, which is what he did on this occasion.
Tas lifted the screen and slipped nimbly inside, bringing with him light flaring from a lantern.
“Hullo, Raistlin,” said Tas. He came to stand beside the young mage and thrust both a grubby hand and the lantern into Raistlin’s face. “What kind of a feather is this?” Kender are a diminutive race said to be distantly related to dwarves (by everyone except the dwarves). Kender are fearless, intensely curious, fond of bright-colored clothing, leather pouches, and collecting interesting objects to put in those pouches. Kender are a race of optimists and sadly a race that tends to be a bit light-fingered. To call a kender a thief is misnomer. Kender never mean to steal. They borrow, always with the best intentions of returning what they’ve picked up. It is hard to persuade a closed-minded person to understand this, however, particularly when he finds the kender’s hand in his purse.
Tasslehoff was representative of his race. He stood somewhere near four feet in height, depending on how high his topknot of hair was on any particular day. Tas was quite proud of his topknot and often decorated it as he’d done tonight, having adorned it with several red maple leaves. He faced Raistlin with a grin on his face, his slightly slanted eyes shining and his pointed ears quivering with excitement.
Raistlin glared at Tasslehoff with as much fury as he could muster, given that he was blinded by the sudden light and choking to death. He reached out his own hand and seized hold of the kender’s wrist and squeezed.
“Hot water!” Raistlin gasped. “Tea!”
“Tea?” said Tas, just catching the last word. “No, thanks, I just ate.” Raistlin coughed into the handkerchief. It came away from his lips stained red with blood. He glared at Tas again and this time the kender caught on.
“Oh, you want the tea! The tea Caramon always makes for your cough. Caramon’s not here to make it, and you can’t make it, because you’re coughing. Which means…” Tas hesitated. He didn’t want to get this wrong.
Raistlin pointed a trembling hand at the empty mug on the table.
“You want me to fetch the water!” Tas jumped to his feet. “I won’t be gone a minute!” The kender dashed outside, leaving the screen of branches open so that cold air blew in, causing Raistlin to shiver. He clutched the blanket around his shoulders and went into a another fit of coughing.
Tas was back in an instant.
“Forgot the mug.”
He grabbed the mug and ran off again.
“Shut the—” Raistlin tried, but he couldn’t manage to say it quickly enough. The kender was gone, the screen standing open.
Raistlin gazed out into the night. The sound of merriment was louder now. He could see firelight and the silhouettes of people dancing. The bride and groom, Riverwind and Goldmoon, would have gone to their wedding bed by now. They would be wrapped in each other’s arms; their love for each other, their trials, their sorrows and griefs, their long and dark journey together culminating in this moment of joy.
That’s all it will be, Raistlin thought—a moment—a spark that will flare for an instant then be stamped out by the doom that was fast approaching. He was the only one with the brains to see it. Even Tanis Half-Elven, who had more sense than most of this lot, had been lulled into a false sense of peace and security.
“The Queen of Darkness is not defeated,” Raistlin had told Tanis not so many hours ago.
“We may not have won the war,” Tanis had said in reply, “but we have won a major battle—” Raistlin had shaken his head at such stupidity.
“Do you see no hope?” Tanis had asked.
“Hope is the denial of reality,” Raistlin had said in return. “Hope is the carrot dangled before the draft horse to keep him plodding along in a vain attempt to reach it.”
He was rather proud of that imagery, and he smiled as he thought back on it. Another fit of coughing ended his smile and interrupted his thoughts. When he had recovered, he stared again out the door, trying to see the kender in the moonlight. Raistlin was leaning on a weak reed and he knew it. There was every possibility that the rattlebrained kender would get distracted by something and forget about him completely.
“In which case I’ll be dead by morning,” Raistlin muttered. His irritation at Caramon grew. His thoughts went back to his conversation with Tanis. “Are you saying we should just give up?” Tanis had asked him. “I’m saying we should remove the carrot and walk forward with our eyes open,” Raistlin had answered. “How will you fight the dragons, Tanis? For there will be more! More than you can imagine! Where now is Huma? Where now are the fabled dragonlances?” The half-elf had no answer. Tanis had been impressed with Raistlin’s remarks, though. He’d gone off to think about them, and now that this wedding was over, perhaps the people could be made to take a good hard look at the grim reality of their situation. Autumn was ending. The chill wind blowing into the door, coming from the mountains, presaged the winter months that lay ahead. Raistlin went into another fit of coughing. When he lifted his head, there was the kender.
“I’m back,” said Tasslehoff brightly and unnecessarily. “Sorry to be so slow, but I didn’t want to spill any.”
He gingerly set the steaming mug on the table and then looked about for the sack of herbs. Finding it lying nearby, he grabbed hold of it and yanked it open.
“Do I just dump this whole bag in here—”
Raistlin snatched the precious herbs away from the kender. Carefully, he shook out some of the leaves into the hot water and watched intently as they swirled about and then drifted to the bottom of the cup. When the color of the water had darkened and the pungent smell filled the air, Raistlin took the mug in his shaking hands and brought it to his lips.
The brew had been a gift from the archmage, Par-Salian—a gift to ease his guilty conscience, so Raistlin had always thought bitterly. The soothing concoction slid down Raistlin’s throat and almost immediately the spasms ceased. The smothering feeling, like cobwebs in his lungs, eased. He drew in a deep breath.
Tas wrinkled his nose. “That stuff smells like a gully dwarf picnic. Are you sure it makes you better?”
Raistlin sipped the tea, reveling in its warmth. “Now that you can talk,” Tas continued, “I have a question about this feather. Where did I put it—”
Tas began to search through the pockets of his jacket.