"Down the middle!" yelled the kender, making an end sweep around the Master.
Caramon tossed the pouch. The kender caught it, amidst laughter and cheers from the crowd, who were finding the game even more entertaining than the magic. Raistlin stood on the stump, coolly watching the proceedings, a half-smile on his lips.
The kender reached up to throw a long pass back to Caramon when suddenly the pouch was plucked out of the kender's hand.
"What the-" The kender looked up in astonishment.
"I'll take that," said a stern voice.
A tall man in his early twenties, with eyes as blue as Solamnic skies, long hair worn in an old- fashioned single braid down his back, took hold of the pouch. His face was serious and stern, for he was raised to believe that life was serious and stern, bound with rules whose rigid iron bars could never be bent or dislodged. Sturm Brightblade closed the pouch's drawstrings, dusted off the pouch, and handed it, with a formal bow, to the furious mage.
"Thank you," said Master Theobald stiffly. Snatching back the pouch, he thrust it safely up his long, flowing sleeve. He cast a baleful gaze at the kender, and then, turning, he coldly regarded Raistlin.
"You will either leave this place or you will leave my school. Which is it to be, young man?"
Raistlin glanced at the wooden bowl. They had quite enough money for the time being, anyway. And in the future, what the master did not know would not hurt him. Raistlin would simply have to be circumspect.
With an appearance of humility, Raistlin stepped down from the stump. "I am sorry, Master," said Raistlin contritely. "It won't happen again."
"I should hope not," said Master Theobald stiffly. He departed in a state of high dudgeon that would only increase upon his return home to find that most of his spell components, to say nothing of his steel pieces, had disappeared-and not by magic.
The crowd began to drift away, most of them quite satisfied, having seen a show well worth a steel coin or two. Soon the only people remaining around the stump were Sturm, Caramon, Raistlin, and the kender.
"Ah, Sturm!" Caramon sighed. "You spoiled the fun."
"Fun?" Sturm frowned. "That was Raistlin's schoolmaster you were tormenting, wasn't it?" "Yes, but-"
"Excuse me," said the kender, shoving his way forward to talk to Raistlin. "Could you pull the rabbit out of the box again?"
"Raistlin should treat his master with more respect," Sturm was saying.
"Or make the coins come out of my nose?" the kender persisted. "I didn't know I had coins up my nose. You think I would have sneezed or something. Here, I'll shove this one up there, and-"
Raistlin removed the coin from the kender's hand. "Don't do that. You'll hurt yourself. Besides, this is our money."
"Is it? You must have dropped it." The kender held out his hand. "How do you do? My name is Tasslehoff Burrfoot. What's yours?"
Raistlin was prepared to coldly rebuff the kinder-no human in full possession of his sanity, who wanted to keep firm hold on such sanity, would ever willingly associate with a kender. Raistlin recalled the stupefied look on Master Theobald's face when he had seen his precious spell components in the hands of a kender. Smiling at the memory, feeling that he was in the kender's debt, Raistlin gravely accepted the proffered hand. Not only that, but he introduced the kender to the others.
"This is my brother, Caramon, and his friend, Sturm Brightblade."
Sturm appeared extremely reluctant to shake hands with a kender, but they had been formally introduced and he could not avoid the handshake without appearing impolite.
"Hi, there, Little Fella," Caramon said, good-naturedly shaking hands, his own large hand completely engulfing the kender's and causing Tasslehoff to wince slightly.
"I don't like to mention this, Caramon," said the kender solemnly, "since we've only just been introduced, but it is very rude to keep commenting on a person's size. For instance, you wouldn't like it very much if I called you Beer Barrel Belly, would you?"
The name was so funny and the scene was so ludicrous-a mosquito scolding a bear-that Raistlin began to laugh. He laughed until he was weak from the exertion and was forced to sit down on the stump. Pleased and amazed to see his brother in such a good humor, Caramon burst out in a loud guffaw and clapped the kender on the back, kindly picked him up afterward.
"Come, my brother," said Raistlin, "we should gather our belongings and start for home. The fairgrounds will be closing soon. It was very good meeting you, Tasslehoff Burrfoot," he added with sincerity.
"I'll help," offered Tasslehoff, darting eager glances at the many colored balls, the brightly painted box.
"Thanks, but we can manage," Caramon said hurriedly, retrieving the rabbit just as it was disappearing into one of the kender's pouches. Sturm removed several of the silk scarves from the tender's pocket.
"You should be more careful of your possessions," Tasslehoff felt called upon to point out. "It's a good thing I was here to find them. I'm glad I was. You really are a wonderful magician, Raistlin.
May I call you Raistlin? Thanks. And I'll call you Caramon, if you'll call me Tasslehoff, which is my name, only my friends call me Tas, which you can, too, if you like. And I'll call you Sturm. Are you a knight? I was in Solamnia once and saw lots of knights. They all had mustaches like yours, only more of it-the mustache, I mean. Yours is a bit scrawny right now, but I can see you're working on it."
"Thank you," Sturm said, stroking his new mustache self-consciously.
The brothers started moving through the crowd, heading toward the exit. Saying that he'd seen all he cared to see for the day, Tasslehoff accompanied them. Not caring to be seen in public in company with a kender, Sturm had been about to take his leave of them when the kender mentioned Solamnia.
"Have you truly been there?" he asked.
"I've been all over Ansalon," said Tas proudly. "Solamnia's a very nice place. I'll tell you about it if you'd like. Say, I have an idea. Why don't you come home with me for supper? All of you. Flint won't mind."
"Who's Flint? Your wife?" Caramon asked.
Tasslehoff hooted. "My wife! Wait till I tell him! No, Flint's a dwarf and my very best friend in all the world, and I'm his best friend, no matter what he says, except for maybe Tanis Half-Elven, who is another friend of mine, only he's not here right now, he's gone to Qualinesti where the elves live." Tas stopped talking at this juncture, but only because he'd run out of breath.
"I remember now!" exclaimed Raistlin, coming to a halt. "I knew you looked familiar. You were there when Gilon died. You and the dwarf and the half-elf." He paused a moment, eyeing the kender thoughtfully, then said, "Thank you, Tasslehoff. We accept your invitation to supper."
"We do?" Caramon looked startled.
"Yes, my brother," said Raistlin.
"You'll come, too, won't you?" Tasslehoff asked Sturm eagerly.
Sturm was stroking his mustache. "My mother's expecting me at home, but I don't believe she'll mind if I join my friends. I'll stop by and tell her where I'm going. What part of Solamnia did you visit?"
"I'll show you." Tasslehoff reached around to a pouch he wore on his back-the kender was festooned with pouches and bags. He pulled out a map. "I do love maps, don't you? Would you mind holding that corner? There's Tarsis by the Sea. I've never been there, but I hope to go someday, when Flint doesn't need my help so much, which he does dreadfully right now. You wouldn't believe the trouble he gets into if I'm not there to keep an eye on things. Yes, that's Solamnia. They have awfully fine jails there."
The two continued walking, the tall Sturm bent to study the map, Tasslehoff pointing out various places of interest.
"Sturm's taken leave of his senses," said Caramon. "That kender's probably never been anywhere near Solamnia. They all lie like. well, like kender. And now you've got us eating supper with one of them and a dwarf! It's. it's not proper. We should stick to our own kind. Father says-"