"What did she say?"
"She said that it was pay she'd earned for work she'd done up north. She said that there was lots more money where that came from and that I could earn my share and so could you, if you'd give up this foolery about magic and come with us. She said she wasn't ready to go north yet, that she was having too much fun here, and anyway I needed more training and you had to be convinced that you were." Caramon hesitated.
"I was what?" Raistlin prodded him.
"A failure in magic. That's what she said, Raist. Not me, so don't get mad." "I'm not mad. Why would she say such a thing?"
"It's because she's never seen you do any magic, Raist. I told her that you were real good, but she only laughed and said I was so gullible I'd swallow any bit of hocus-pocus. I'm not. You've taught me better than that," Caramon stated emphatically.
"I believe that I have taught you better than even I realized," Raistlin said, regarding his brother with a certain amount of admiration. "You knew all this and still kept quiet about it?"
"She told me not to say anything, not even to you, and I wasn't going to, but I don't like it that she lied about the money, Raist. Who knows where it came from? And I didn't like that money either." Caramon shivered. "It had a strange feel to it."
"She didn't lie to you," Raistlin said, thoughtful.
"Huh?" Caramon was amazed. "How do you know that?"
"Just a hunch," Raistlin said evasively. "She's talked about working for people in the north before now."
"I don't want to go up there, Raist," Caramon said. "I've made up my mind. I'd rather be a knight, like Sturm. Maybe they'd let you be a war wizard, like Magius."
"I would like to train as a warrior mage," Raistlin said. "The knights would not have me, nor do I think they would take you either. But we could work together, perhaps in the mercenary line, combining sorcery and steel. Warrior mages are not common, and people would pay well for such skills."
Caramon was radiant with pleasure. "That's a great idea, Raist! When do you think we should start?" He looked prepared to rush out the door at that very moment.
"Not for some time yet," Raistlin returned, controlling his brother's impatience. "I would have to leave the school. Master Theobald would have apoplexy if I even mentioned such a thing. In his mind, magic is to be used only in such dire situations as starting campfires if the wood is wet. But we must not rush into this, Brother," he admonished, seeing Caramon already starting to polish his sword. "We need money. You need experience. And I need more spells in my spellbook."
"Sure, Raist. I think it's a great idea, and I plan to be ready." Caramon ceased his work, looked up, his expression solemn and troubled. "What do we say to Kit?"
"Nothing. Not until the time comes," Raistlin said. He paused a moment, then added with a grim smile, "And let her keep thinking I have no talent for magic."
"Sure, Raist, if that's what you want." Caramon couldn't quite figure that one out, but, figuring that Raistlin knew best, he always obeyed his brother's wishes. "What do we do about Tanis?"
"Nothing," Raistlin said quietly. "There is nothing we can do. He wouldn't believe us if we said anything bad about Kit because he doesn't want to believe us. You would not have believed me if I had said anything bad about Miranda, would you?" Raistlin asked with a tinge of bitterness.
"No, I guess not." Caramon sighed massively. He still maintained his heart was broken, although he was now involved with three girls, at last count. "Isn't there anything we can do about Kit?"
"We watch her, my brother. We watch her very carefully."
Chapter 8
Summer days drifted by in a haze of smoke from cooking fires, dust kicked up by travelers along the Solace road, and the morning mists that wound like wraiths among the boles of the vallenwood trees.
Flint kept to his bed, a surprisingly docile patient, though he grumbled enough for thirty dwarves, as Tasslehoff said, and complained that he was missing out on all the fun. He had, in fact, a very easy life of it. The kender waited on him hand and foot. Caramon and Sturm took turns visiting him every afternoon after their sword practice to demonstrate their newfound skills. Raistlin came by daily to rub oil of wintergreen into the dwarf's tight muscles, and even Kit dropped by occasionally to entertain Flint with accounts of fighting goblins and ogres.
Flint was so comfortable that Tanis was beginning to worry that the dwarf was enjoying his leisure too much. The pain in his back and leg had nearly subsided, but it was beginning to look as if Flint might never walk again.
Tanis called his friends together, hatched a plot to cause the dwarf to leave his bed, "without the use of gnome powder," as the half-elf put it.
"I hear there's a new metalsmith moving to Solace," Tasslehoff Burrfoot announced one morning as he fluffed up the dwarf's pillows.
"What's that?" Flint looked startled.
"A new metalsmith," the kender repeated. "Well, it's only to be expected. Word has gone out that you've retired."
"I have not!" Flint said indignantly. "I'm only taking a bit of a rest. For my health." "I hear it's a dwarf. From Thorbardin."
Leaving this poisoned shaft inside the wound, guaranteed to rankle, Tasslehoff left on his daily tour of Solace to see who was new in town and, more important, what interesting objects might find their way into his pouches.
Sturm was next to arrive, with a pot of hot soup sent by his mother. In regard to the dwarf's anxious questions, Sturm replied that he had "heard something about a new metalsmith coming to town" but added that he rarely paid attention to gossip and couldn't provide any more details.
Raistlin was a good deal more forthcoming, providing a great many details about the Thorbardin metalsmith, down to his clan and the length and color of his beard, also adding that the main reason the Thorbardin dwarf had chosen Solace as a place to locate his business was that "he'd heard they'd had no good metalwork done here in a long, long while."
By the time Tanis arrived late that afternoon, he was pleased but not terribly surprised to find Flint in his workshop, firing up the forge that been cold all summer long. The dwarf still walked with a limp (when he remembered) and still complained of pain in his back (particularly when he had to go rescue Tasslehoff from any number of minor disasters). But he never took to his bed again.
As for the Thorbardin metalsmith, he found that the air of Solace didn't agree with him. At least that's what Tanis said.
The summer had been a long one and a prosperous one for the people of Solace. Large numbers of travelers, the most travelers anyone could remember, passed through the town. The roads were relatively safe. There were thieves and footpads, certainly, but that was a fact of life on the road and not considered to be more than a nuisance. War was the great disrupter of travel, and no wars were being fought anywhere on Ansalon at this time, nor were any expected. Ansalon had been at peace for three hundred years, and everyone in Solace assumed complacently that the peace would last for another three hundred.
Almost everyone, that is. Raistlin believed differently, and it was for this reason that he had decided to concentrate his area of study in the realm of magic on war wizardry. It was not a decision based on a young boy's idealized picture of battle as something glorious and exciting. Raistlin had never played the games of war, as had the other children. He was not enamored of a martial life, nor was he at all excited at the thought of entering into battle. His was a calculated decision, made after long deliberation, and it had to do with one object: money.
The overheard conversation of Kitiara and the stranger had a great deal to do with Raistlin's planning. He could repeat the conversation verbatim, and he went over the words in his mind almost nightly.