“Don’t treat me like this!” Raistlin heard himself screaming. “I don’t need you! I don’t want you around! Go ahead! Go play with those fools! You’re all a pack of fools together! I don’t need any of you!”
Caramon’s face crumbled. Raistlin had the feeling he’d just kicked a dog. The feeling only made him angrier. He turned away.
“Sure, Raist, if that’s what you want,” Caramon mumbled.
Glancing over his shoulder, Raistlin saw his twin run off after the others. With a sigh, trying to ignore the shouts of laughter and greeting, Raistlin sat down in a shady place and, drawing one of his spellbooks from his pack, began to study. Soon, the lure of the magic drew him away from the dirt and the laughter and the hurt eyes of his twin. It led him into an enchanted land where he commanded the elements, he controlled reality... .
The spellbook tumbled from his hands, landing in the dust at his feet. Raistlin looked up, startled. Two boys stood above him. One held a stick in his hand. He poked the book with it, then, lifting the stick, he poked Raistlin, hard, in the chest.
You are bugs, Raistlin told the boys silently. Insects. You mean nothing to me. Less than nothing. Ignoring the pain in his chest, ignoring the insect life standing before him, Raistlin reached out his hand for his book. The boy stepped on his fingers.
Frightened, but now more angry than afraid, Raistlin rose to his feet. His hands were his livelihood. With them, he manipulated the fragile spell components, with them he traced the delicate arcane symbols of his Art in the air.
“Leave me alone,” he said coldly, and such was the way he spoke and the look in his eye that, for an instant, the two boys were taken aback. But now a crowd had gathered. The other boys left their game, coming to watch the fun. Aware that others were watching, the boy with the stick refused to let this skinny, whining, sniveling bookworm have the better of him.
“What’re ya going to do?” the boy sneered. “Turn me into a frog?”
There was laughter. The words to a spell formed in Raistlin’s mind. It was not a spell he was supposed to have learned yet, it was an offensive spell, a hurting spell, a spell to use when true danger threatened. His Master would be furious. Raistlin smiled a thin-lipped smile. At the sight of that smile and the look in Raistlin’s eyes, one of the boys edged backward.
“Let’s go,” he muttered to his companion.
But the other boy stood his ground. Behind him, Raistlin could see his twin standing among the crowd, a look of anger on his face.
Raistlin began to speak the words—and then he froze. No! Something was wrong! He had forgotten! His magic wouldn’t work! Not here! The words came out as gibberish, they made no sense. Nothing happened! The boys laughed. The boy with the stick raised it and shoved it into Raistlin’s stomach, knocking him to the ground, driving the breath from his body.
He was on his hand and knees, gasping for air. Somebody kicked him. He felt the stick break over his back. Somebody else kicked him. He was rolling on the ground now, choking in the dust, his thin arms trying desperately to cover his head. Kicks and blows rained in on him.
“Caramon!” he cried. “Caramon, help me!”
But there was only a deep, stern voice in answer. “You don’t need me, remember.”
A rock struck him in the head, hurting him terribly. And he knew, although he couldn’t see, that it was Caramon who had thrown it. He was losing consciousness. Hands were dragging him along the dusty road, they were hauling him to a pit of vast darkness and cold, icy cold. They would hurl him down there and he would fall, endlessly, through the darkness and the cold and he would never, never hit the bottom, for there was no bottom...
Crysania stared around. Where was she? Where was Raistlin? He had been with her only moments before, leaning weakly on her arm. And then, suddenly, he had vanished and she had found herself alone, walking in a strange village.
Or was it strange? She seemed to recall having been here once, or at least someplace like this. Tall vallenwoods surrounded her. The houses of the town were built in the trees. There was an inn in a tree. She saw a signpost.
Solace.
How strange, she marveled, looking around. It was Solace, all right. She had been here recently, with Tanis Half-Elven, looking for Caramon. But this Solace was different. Everything seemed tinged with red and just a tiny bit distorted. She kept wanting to rub her eyes to clear them.
“Raistlin!” she called.
There was no answer. The people passing by acted as if they neither heard her nor saw her.
“Raistlin!” she cried, starting to panic. What had happened to him? Where had he gone? Had the Dark Queen...
She heard a commotion, children shouting and yelling and, above the noise, a thin, high-pitched scream for help.
Turning, Crysania saw a crowd of children gathered around a form huddled on the ground. She saw fists flailing and feet kicking, she saw a stick raised and then brought down, hard. Again, that high-pitched scream. Crysania glanced at the people around her, but they seemed unaware of anything unusual occurring.
Gathering her white robes in her hand, Crysania ran toward the children. She saw, as she drew nearer, that the figure in the center of the circle was a child! A young boy! They were killing him, she realized in sudden horror! Reaching the crowd, she grabbed hold of one of the children to pull him away. At the touch of her hand, the child whirled to face her. Crysania fell back, alarmed. The child’s face was white, cadaverous, skull-like. Its skin stretched taut over the bones, its lips were tinged with violet. It bared its teeth at her, and the teeth were black and rotting. The child lashed out at her with its hand. Long nails ripped her skin, sending a stinging, paralyzing pain through her. Gasping, she let go, and the child—with a grin of perverted pleasure on its face—turned back to torment the boy on the ground.
Staring at the bleeding marks upon her arm, dizzy and weak from the pain, Crysania heard the boy cry out again.
“Paladine, help me,” she prayed. “Give me strength.”
Resolutely, she grabbed hold of one of the demon children and hurled it aside, and then she grabbed another. Managing to reach the boy upon the ground, she shielded his bleeding, unconscious body with her own, trying desperately all the while to drive the children away. Again and again, she felt the long nails tear her skin, the poison course through her body. But soon she noticed that, once they touched her, the children drew back, in pain themselves. Finally, sullen expressions on their nightmarish faces, they withdrew, leaving her—bleeding and sick—alone with their victim.
Gently, she turned the bruised body of the young boy over. Smoothing back the brown hair, she looked at his face. Her hands began to shake. There was no mistaking that delicate facial structure, the fragile bones, the jutting chin.
“Raistlin!” she whispered, holding his small hand in her own.
The boy opened his eyes...
The man, dressed in black robes, sat up.
Crysania stared at him as he looked grimly around.
“What is happening?” she asked, shivering, feeling the effects of the poison spreading through her body.
Raistlin nodded to himself. “This is how she torments me,” he said softly. “This is how she fights me, striking at me where she knows I am weakest.” The golden, hourglass eyes turned to Crysania, the thin lips smiled. “You fought for me. You defeated her.” He drew her near, enfolding her in his black robes, holding her close. “There, rest a while. The pain will pass, and then we will travel on.”
Still shivering, Crysania laid her head on the archmage’s breast, hearing his breath wheeze and rattle in his lungs, smelling that sweet, faint fragrance of rose petals and death...
5
“And so this is what comes of his courageous words and promises,” said Kitiara in a low voice.