Caramon said nothing more. He dumped what remained of the eggs into a skillet and placed it over the fire. He heard Kit's booted footfalls sound hollowly on the wood, winced at a particularly loud and angry stomp. When the eggs were cooked, the two sat down to breakfast in silence.
Caramon risked a glance at his sister, saw her regarding him with an affable air, a charming smile.
"These eggs are really good," said Kit, spitting out small bits of shell. "Did I ever tell you about the time the bandit tried to stab me in my sleep? What you did reminded me of the story. We'd had a hard fight that day, and I was dead tired. Well, this bandit."
Caramon listened to this story and to many other exciting adventures during the day. He listened and enjoyed what he heard-Kit was an excellent storyteller. Every so often, Caramon would go to the bedroom to check on Raistlin and find him slumbering peacefully. When Caramon returned, he would hear yet another tale of valor, daring, battles fought, victory, and wealth won. He listened and laughed and gasped in all the right places. Caramon knew very well what his sister was trying to do. There could be only one answer. If Raistlin went, Caramon would go. If Raistlin stayed, so did Caramon.
That evening, Raistlin woke. He was weak, so weak that he couldn't lift his head from the pillow without help. But he was lucid and very much aware of his surroundings. He didn't appear all that surprised to see Kitiara.
"I had dreams about you," he said.
"Most men do," Kit returned with a grin and a wink. She sat down on the edge of the bed, and while Caramon fed his brother chicken broth, Kitiara made Raistlin the same proposition she'd made Caramon.
She wasn't quite as glib, talking to those keen blue, unblinking eyes that looked right through her and out the other side.
"Who is it you work for?" Raistlin asked when Kit had finished. Kitiara shrugged. "People," she said.
"And what temple is this where you would have me work? Dedicated to what god?" "It's not Belzor, that's for sure!" Kitiara said with a laugh.
When Caramon, spooning broth, tried to say something, Raistlin coldly shushed him. "Thank you, Sister," Raistlin said at last, "but I am not ready."
"Ready?" Kit couldn't figure out what he was talking about. "What do you mean, 'ready'? Ready for what? You can read, can't you? You can write, can't you? So you don't have any talent for magic. You gave it a good try. It's not important. There are other ways to gain power. I know. I've found them."
"That's enough, Caramon!" Raistlin pushed away the spoon. Wearily he lay back down on the pillows. "I need to rest."
Kit stood up. Hands on her hips, she glared at him. "That addle-pated mother of ours had you wrapped in cotton, for fear you'd break. It's time you got out, saw something of the world."
"I am not ready," Raistlin said again and closed his eyes.
Kitiara left Solace that night.
"I'm only making a short trip," she told Caramon, drawing on her leather gloves. "To Qualinesti. Do you know anything about that place?" she asked offhandedly. "Its defenses? How many people live there? That sort of thing?"
"I know elves live there," Caramon offered after a moment's profound thought.
"Everyone knows that!" Kit scoffed.
Putting on her cloak, she drew her hood over her head.
"When will you be back?" Caramon asked.
Kit shrugged. "I can't say. Maybe a year. Maybe a month. Maybe never. It depends on how things g°."
"You're not mad at me, are you, Kit?" Caramon asked wistfully. "I wouldn't want you to be mad."
"No, I'm not mad. Just disappointed. You'd have been a great warrior, Caramon. The people I know would have really made something of you. As for Raistlin, he's made a big mistake. He wants power, and I know where he could get it. If you both hang around here, you'll never be anything but a farmer, and he'll be-like that fellow Waylan-a coin-puking, rabbit-pulling conjurer who's the joke of half of Solace. It's such a waste."
She gave Caramon a slap on the cheek that was meant to be friendly but which left the red mark of her hand. Opening the door, Kit peered outside, looking in both directions. Caramon couldn't imagine what she was looking for. It was well past midnight. Most of Solace was in bed.
"Good-bye, Kit," he said.
"Good-bye, Baby Brother."
He massaged his stinging cheek and watched her walk off through the moonlit branches of the vallenwood, a black shadow against silver.
Chapter 6
Raistlin woke to the sound of rain pelting the roof. Thunder rumbled from sky to ground, the vallenwoods shuddered. The dawn was gray, tinged with pink lightning. Rain was falling on the newly dug graves, forming drowning pools around the vallenwood saplings planted at the head of each.
He lay on his bed and watched the gray gradually lighten as the storm passed. All was quiet now, except for the incessant drip of water falling on sodden leaves. He lay without moving. Movement took an effort, and he was too tired. His grief had emptied him. If he moved, the dull, aching pain of his loss would flood in on him, and though the emptiness was bad, it wasn't as bad as the pain.
He could not feel the bedclothes under him. He could not feel the blanket that covered him. He had no weight or substance. Was this what it was like in that coffin? In that grave? To feel nothing, ever again? To know nothing? Life, the world, the people in the world go on, and you know nothing, forever surrounded by a cold and empty, silent darkness?
Pain burst the levee, surged in to fill the void. Pain and fear, hot, burning, welled up inside him. Tears stung his eyelids. He closed his eyes, squeezed them shut and wept, wept for himself and for his mother and father, for all those who are born of the darkness, who lift their wondering eyes to the light, feel its warmth on their skin, and who must return again to darkness.
He wept silently, so as not to wake Caramon. He did this not so much out of consideration for his brother's weariness as for his own shame at his weakness.
The tears ended, leaving him with a bad taste of salt and iron in his mouth, a clogged nose, and a tightness in his throat, which came from muffling his sobs. The bedclothes were damp; his fever must have broken during the night. He had only the vaguest recollection of being sick, a recollection tinged with horror-in his fevered dreams, he had become entwined with Rosamun. He was his mother, a shrunken corpse. People stood around the bed, staring down at him.
Antimodes, Master Theobald, the Widow Judith, Caramon, the dwarf and the kender, Kitiara. He begged and pleaded with them to give him food and water, but they said he was dead and he didn't need it. He was in constant terror that they would dump him in a coffin and lower him into the ground, into a grave that was Master Theobald's laboratory.
Remembering the terrible dreams robbed them of some of their power. The horror lingered, but it was not overwhelming. The wool blanket covering him was rough and chafed his skin; beneath it, he was wearing nothing.
He tossed the blanket aside. Weak and tottering from his illness, he stood up. The air was chill and he shivered, groped hastily for his shirt, which had been flung over the back of a chair. Dragging the shirt on over his head, he thrust his arms into the sleeves, then stood in the middle of the small room and wondered bleakly, What now?
There were two wooden beds in the room, each bed built into a wall. Raistlin crossed the room to look down on the slumbering form of his twin. Caramon was a late sleeper, a heavy sleeper. Usually he lay easily and comfortably on his back, his big body spread all akimbo, arms flung wide, one leg hanging off the bed, the other bent at the knee, leaning against the wall. Raistlin, by contrast, slept in a tight, huddled ball, his knees drawn up to his chin, his arms hugging his chest.