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.
But Caramon's sleep this day was as restless and uneasy as his twin's. Fatigue kept him manacled to his bed, he was so exhausted that not even the most terrifying dreams could jolt his body from sleep. He rolled and tossed, his head jerked back and forth. His pillow lay on the floor, along with the blankets. He had twisted the sheet so that it straggled around him like a winding cloth.
He muttered and mumbled and panted, tugged at the collar of his nightshirt. His skin was clammy, his hair damp with sweat. He looked so ill that Raistlin, concerned, placed his hand on his brother's forehead to feel if he were running a fever.
Caramon's skin was cool. Whatever troubled him was of the mind, not the body. He shuddered at Raistlin's touch and begged, "Don't make me go there, Raist! Don't make me go there!"
Raistlin brushed aside a lock of the curly, tousled hair that was falling into his brother's eyes and wondered if he should wake him. His brother must have been awake many long nights and he needed his rest, but this was more like torture than sleep. Raistlin put his hand on his twin's broad shoulder, shook it.
"Caramon!" he called peremptorily.
Caramon's eyes flared wide. He stared at Raistlin and cringed. "Don't leave me! Don't! Don't leave me! Please!" He whimpered and flung himself about on the bed with such violence that he nearly fell on the floor.
This was not dreaming. It was vaguely familiar to Raistlin, then suddenly frighteningly familiar. Rosamun. She had been much like this.
Perhaps this wasn't sleep. Perhaps this was a trance, similar to the trances into which Rosamun had stumbled, never to find her way back out.
Caramon had not previously evinced any signs that he had inherited his mother's fey talent. He was her son, however, and her blood-with all its strange fancies-ran in his veins. His body was weakened by nights of wakeful watching, tending his sick brother. His mind was upset by the tragic loss of his beloved father, then he had been forced to stand by helplessly and watch his mother dwindle away. With the body's defenses lowered, the mind's defenses confused and overwhelmed, his soul was laid bare and vulnerable. It might well retreat into dark regions never known to exist, there to find refuge from the battering armies of life.
What if I lose Caramon?
I would be alone. Alone without family or friend, for Raistlin could not count on Kitiara as family, nor did he want to. Her crudeness and her untamed animal nature disgusted him. That's what he told himself. In reality, he feared her. He foresaw that someday there would be a power struggle between them, and, alone, he was not certain that he was strong enough to withstand her. As for friends, on this point he could not delude himself. He had none. His friends were not his friends at all, they were Caramon's.
Caramon was often irritating, often annoying. His slow thought processes frustrated his quicker thinking twin, who was at times tempted to grab hold of Caramon and shake him on the faint hope that a sensible thought might accidentally tumble out. But now, faced with the possibility of losing his brother, Raistlin looked into the void where Caramon had been and realized how much he would miss him, and not for just companionship, or to have someone strong on which to lean. Mentally speaking, Caramon was not a brilliant swordsman, but he made a good fencing partner.
Besides, Caramon was the only person Raistlin had ever known who could come close to making him laugh. Shadow puppets on the wall, ridiculous rabbits…
"Caramon!" Raistlin shook his brother again."
Caramon only moaned and raised his hands, as if warding off some blow. "No, Raist! I don't have it! I swear I don't have it!"
Frightened, Raistlin wondered what to do. He left the bedroom, went in search of his sister, with some idea of sending Kit out to fetch Weird Meggin.
But Kitiara was gone. Her pack was gone; she must have left during the night.
Raistlin stood in the parlor of the silent house, the too-silent house. Kitiara had packed all Rosamun's clothes and possessions away in a wooden chest, stowed it under the bed. His mother's rocking chair remained, however, the only one of her possessions that Kit had not removed, mainly because there was a shortage of chairs in the house as it was. Rosamun's presence lingered like the fragrance of faded rose petals. The very emptiness, the lack of her, recalled his mother vividly to his mind.
Too vividly. Rosamun sat in the chair, rocking. She rocked leisurely back and forth, her dress rustling. The toes of her small feet, encased in soft leather shoes, lightly touched the floor and then slid beneath her dress when the chair rocked backward. Her head and her gaze remained level, her lips smiling at Raistlin.