Brothers in Arms

by Margaret Weis

  “I beg one moment, sir,” Raistlin said, his voice half-stifled by his excitement and his fear that someone else would see the book and announce the fact. “I would do honor to the Knight.”

  The baron raised his eyebrows, probably wondering why a wizard should honor a Solamnic Knight, but he nodded that Raistlin was to proceed.

  Reaching into one of his pouches, Raistlin drew out a handful of rose petals. He opened his palm, so that all could see what he held. The baron smiled and nodded.

  “Most appropriate,” he said, and looked upon Raistlin with approval and new respect.

  Raistlin lowered his hand into the tomb, to scatter the rose petals over the body of the Knight. When he withdrew his arm, he managed that the capacious sleeve of his red robe covered his hand, concealed his fingers, which had deftly taken hold of the slim leather volume. Keeping the precious book hidden in his sleeve, Raistlin stepped back from the tomb and stood with his head bowed.

  The baron looked to Commander Morgon, who ordered the officers to place their hands on the tomb’s covering. At a second command, the officers lifted the heavy lid. The baron came to attention, raised his hand in the Solamnic Knight’s salute.

  “Kiri-Jolith be with him,” the baron said.

  At another command from Morgon, the officers slid the marble top into place. The lid settled upon the sarcophagus with a soft sigh that bore with it the fragrance of dried rose petals.

  22

  RAISTLIN HAD HIS DUTIES TO ATTEND TO BEFORE HE COULD TAKE time to examine his prize. He secreted the book beneath Caramon’s mattress, not telling him of it, returning at every opportunity to make certain the book was still there, had not been discovered. Caramon was touched to find his brother so unusually attentive.

  Raistlin or Horkin usually sat up during the night with the patients, not keeping broad awake, like those on guard duty, but dozing in a chair, starting up at the sound of a moan of pain, assisting a patient to answer nature’s call. That night, Raistlin volunteered to take the first watch. The weary Horkin didn’t argue, but lay down on his own cot and was soon adding his snores to the cacophony of snores, grunts, groans, coughs, and wheezes of the rest.

  Raistlin made his rounds, dispensing doses of poppy syrup to those who were in pain, bathing the foreheads of the feverish, adding more blankets to those who chilled. His touch was gentle and his voice held a sympathy in which the wounded could believe. Not like the sympathy of the healthy, the robust, however well meaning.

  “I know what it is to suffer,” Raistlin seemed to say. “I know what it is to feel pain.”

  His fellow soldiers, who had never had much use for him, who had called him names behind his back and occasionally to his face (if his brother weren’t around), now begged him to stay by their beds “just a moment more,” gripped his arm when the pain was the worst, asked him to write letters to wives and loved ones. Raistlin would sit and he would write and he would tell stories to take their minds off their pain. After they were healed, those who had never liked him before he nursed them found that they didn’t like him any better afterward, the difference being that now they would knock the head off anyone who said a bad word against him.

  When the last patient had finally succumbed to the poppy juice and drifted off to sleep, Raistlin was free to examine his book. He slid it out from its hiding place carefully, although he did not particularly fear waking Caramon, who generally slept the deep sleep ascribed to dogs and the virtuous. Book in hand, concealed in the folds of his sleeves, Raistlin cast a sharp glance at Horkin. The mage slept lightly when he had wounded to tend, the slightest moan or restless tossing would wake him. As it was, he did open one eye, peered sleepily at Raistlin.

  “All is well, Master,” Raistlin said softly. “Go back to sleep.”

  Horkin smiled, rolled over, and was soon snoring lustily. Raistlin watched his superior a moment longer, determined at last that the man must be asleep. No one could fake such obstreperous snores, not without half-strangling himself.

  Horkin had built a fire in a brazier placed at the front of the temple where an altar might be found. He had not done so out of reverence, although he had taken care to be extremely respectful, but to warm the building against the night’s chill. Raistlin drew his chair close to the brazier of charcoal, which burned with a yellow-blue light. He’d added some sage and dried lavender to the fire to try to mask the smell of blood, urine, and vomit that was all-pervasive in the sick chamber, a smell he himself no longer noticed. Settling by the blaze, he cast a sharp look around the room. Everyone was asleep.

  Raistlin breathed in a deep sigh, leaned the Staff of Magius against the wall, and examined his prize.

  The book was made of sheets of parchment bound and stitched together. A leather cover shielded it from the elements. He found no markings on the outside, it was unlike a spellbook in that regard. It was an ordinary book of the type used by the quartermaster to mark down how many barrels of ale were drunk, how many casks of salt pork were left, how many baskets of apples he had remaining. Raistlin frowned, this was not a propitious omen.

  His spirits improved immensely when he opened the book to find a hand-drawn map on one page and some scrawled letters and numbers on another. This looked much more promising. He glanced hurriedly at the numerals, saw only that they were probably keeping count of something. Jewels? Money? Almost certainly. Now he was getting somewhere! He left the notation, went back to the map.

  The map had been drawn in haste, with the book resting on an uneven surface—as if the mapper had steadied it on a rock or perhaps his knee. Raistlin spent several moments puzzling out the crude drawings and the even cruder notations. At last he determined that he held in his hands a map showing a path that led to a hidden entrance into a mountain.

  Raistlin pored over the map, studying every detail, and came at last to the unwanted and frustrated conclusion that the map was worthless to him. The mapper had drawn a clear trail that would be easy to follow once one found the trail’s starting point. The mapper had marked the trail’s starting point—a stand of three pines—but had not given any indication of where these pines might be found in relation to the mountain. Were they on the north, the south? Were they halfway up the mountainside, in the foothills?

  One could presumably search the entire mountain for a stand of three pine trees, but that might take a lifetime. The mapper knew where to find the stand of pines. The mapper could return to the stand without difficulty, therefore the mapper had seen no need to add the route to the stands. A wise precaution in case the map fell into the wrong hands. The map was intended to refresh the mapper’s memory when he came to claim the treasure.

  Raistlin stared at the map gloomily, willing it to tell him something more, stared at it until the red lines began to swim in his vision. Irritably he flipped the page, returned to the notations, hoping that perhaps they would provide some clue.

  He studied them, intrigued, baffled, so intent upon his work that he did not hear footsteps approaching. He did not know someone was standing behind him until the person’s shadow fell across the book.

  Raistlin started, covered the book with the sleeve of his robe, and sprang to his feet.

  Caramon backed up a step, raised his hands as if to ward off a blow. “Uh, sorry, Raist! I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “What are you doing sneaking up on me like that!” Raistlin demanded.

  “I thought you might be asleep,” Caramon replied meekly. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “I wasn’t asleep,” Raistlin retorted. He sat back down, calmed his racing heart, half dizzy with the sudden rush of blood and adrenaline.

  “You’re studying your spells. I’ll leave you alone.” Caramon started to tiptoe away.

  “No, wait,” Raistlin said. “Come here. I want you to look at something. By the way, who told you you could take off the bandage?”

  “No one. But I can see fine, Raist. Even the blurriness is gone. And I’m sick of broth. That’s all th
ey feed a guy around here. There’s nothing wrong with my stomach.”

  “That much is obvious,” Raistlin said with a disparaging glance at his twin’s rotund belly.

  Caramon sat down on the floor beside his brother. “What have you got there?” he asked, eyeing the book with suspicion. He knew from sad experience that books his brother read were likely to be incomprehensible at best, downright dangerous at worst.

  “I found this book in the Knight’s tomb today,” Raistlin said in a smothered whisper.

  Caramon’s eyes widened, rounded. “You took it? From a tomb?”

  “Don’t look at me like that, Caramon,” Raistlin snapped. “I am not a grave robber! I think it was placed there on purpose. For me to find.”

  “The Knight wanted us to have it,” Caramon said in excitement. “It’s about the treasure, isn’t it! He wants us to find it—”

  “If he does, he’s making it damn difficult,” Raistlin remarked coldly. “Here, I want you to look at this word. Tell me what it says.”

  Raistlin opened the book to the page of notations. Caramon looked obediently at the word. There wasn’t much doubt.

  “Eggs,” he said promptly.

  “Are you certain?” Raistlin persisted.

  “E-g-g-s. Eggs. Yep, I’m sure.”

  Raistlin sighed deeply.

  Caramon gazed at him in sudden, stunned comprehension. “You’re not saying that the treasure is … is …”

  “I don’t know what the treasure is,” Raistlin said gloomily. “Nor, I’m thinking, did the person who wrote this down in the book. It appears that the Knight has given us his grocery list!”

  “Let me see that!” Caramon took the book from his twin, stared at it, pondered it, even tried turning it upside down. “These figures—where it says, ‘25 g. and 50 s.’ That could be twenty-five gold and fifty silver,” he argued hopefully.

  “Or twenty-five grapes and fifty sausages,” Raistlin returned sarcastically.

  “But there’s a map—”

  “—which is completely useless. Even if we knew where to find the starting point, which we don’t, the trail leads into tunnels in the mountain, tunnels we saw collapse.”

  He held out his hand for the book.

  Caramon was still staring at it. “You know, Raist, this handwriting looks familiar.”

  Raistlin snorted. “Give me back the book.”

  “It does, Raist! I swear!” Caramon’s brow furrowed, an aid to his mental process. “I’ve seen this writing before.”

  “And you said your eyesight was improved. Go back to bed. And put that bandage on.”

  “But, Raist—”

  “Go to bed, Caramon,” Raistlin ordered irritably. “I’m tired and my head aches. I’ll wake you in time to breakfast in the mess tent.”

  “Will you? That’ll be great, Raist, thanks.” Caramon cast one last lingering and puzzled glance at the book, then handed it back to his brother. His twin knew best, after all.

  Raistlin made his rounds. Finding that everyone was slumbering more or less peacefully, he left to use the privies that were located in a small outbuilding behind the temple. On his return, he tossed the leather book onto the rubbish heap, set for tomorrow’s burning.

  Entering the temple, Raistlin found Horkin wide awake, warming his hands by the glowing fire. The elder mage’s eyes were bright, quizzical in the firelight.

  “You know, Red,” Horkin said companionably, rubbing his hands in the comfortable warmth, “that red-robed wizard you talked about wasn’t in the battle. I know because I was on the watch for him. A powerful war wizard, from what you said. He might have made a difference in that fight. We might not have won if he’d been there, and that’s a fact. Strange, that Commander Kholos had a powerful war wizard on his side and didn’t use him in the final conflict. Very strange, that, Red.”

  Horkin shook his head. He shifted his eyes from the blaze to look directly at Raistlin. “You wouldn’t happen to know why that wizard wasn’t there, would you, Red?”

  He wasn’t there because I was fighting him, Raistlin could have said with blushing modesty. I defeated him. I don’t consider myself a hero. But if you insist on presenting me with that medal …

  The Staff of Magius stood against the altar. Raistlin reached out his hand to touch the staff, to feel the life inside the wood, magical life, warm and responsive to him now.

  “I have no idea what could have happened to the wizard, Master Horkin,” Raistlin said.

  “You weren’t in the battle, Red,” said Horkin. “And that wizard wasn’t in the battle. Seems odd, that it does.”

  “A coincidence, nothing more, sir,” Raistlin replied.

  “Humpf.” Horkin shook his head. Shrugging away his questions, he changed the subject. “Well, Red, you survived your first battle and I don’t mind telling you that you handled yourself well. For one, you didn’t get yourself killed, and that’s a plus. For two, you kept me from getting myself killed, and that’s a bigger plus. You’re a skilled healer, and who knows but that someday, with the proper training, you’ll be a skilled mage.”

  Horkin winked and Raistlin wisely chose not to be offended.

  “Thank you, sir,” he said, with a smile. “Your praise means a great deal to me.”

  “You deserve it, Red. What I guess I’m saying in my clumsy way is that I’m going to put you up for promotion. I’m going to recommend that you be made Master’s Assistant. With an increase in pay, of course. That is, if you intend to stick with us.”

  Promotion! Raistlin was amazed. Horkin rarely had a good word to say to him. Raistlin would not have been surprised to have been paid off and dismissed. He was beginning to understand his superior officer a bit better now, however. Quick to tell him what he was doing wrong, Horkin would never praise him for doing right. But he wouldn’t forget what Raistlin had done either.

  “Thank you for your faith in me, Master,” Raistlin said. “I was thinking of leaving the army. I have been thinking lately that it is wrong for one man to be paid for killing another, for taking another’s life.”

  “We did some good here, Red,” Horkin said. “We saved the people in this city from slavery and death. We were on the side of right.”

  “But we started out on the side of wrong,” Raistlin countered.

  “We switched to the correct side in time, though,” Horkin said comfortably.

  “By chance, by happenstance!” Raistlin shook his head.

  “Nothing ever happens by chance, Raistlin,” Horkin said quietly. “Everything happens for a reason. Your brain may not know the reason. Your brain may never figure it out. But your heart knows. Your heart always knows.

  “Now,” he added kindly, “go get some sleep.”

  Raistlin went to his bed, but not to sleep. He thought about Horkin’s words, thought about all that had happened to him. And then it occurred to him, hearing Horkin’s words again in his head, that the mage had called him by name. Raistlin. Not Red.

  Rising from his bed, Raistlin walked back outside. Solinari was full and bright, shining on the town as if he were pleased with the outcome. Raistlin searched the rubbish heap in the moonlight, found the book lying where he had tossed it.

  “Everything happens for a reason,” Raistlin repeated, opening the book. He looked at the worthless map, its red lines stark and clear in the silver moonlight. Perhaps I’ll never know what that reason is. But if I can make nothing out of this book, maybe others can.

  Returning to his bed, he did not lie down, but sat up the rest of the night, writing a letter detailing his encounters—both encounters—with Immolatus. When the missive was complete, he folded the letter over the small book, recited an incantation over both book and letter, and wrapped it up in a parcel addressed to Par-Salian, Head of the Conclave, Tower of High Sorcery, Wayreth.

  The next morning, he would ask if the baron had any messengers riding in the direction of Flotsam. He placed another spell upon the package, to keep it safe from prying eyes, then
wrote on the outside, “Antimodes of Flotsam” along with the name of the street where his mentor resided. By the time Raistlin was finished, night had departed. The sun’s rays crept softly into the temple to gently waken the sleeping.

  Caramon was the first one up.

  “Come with me, Raist,” he said. “You should eat something.”

  Raistlin was surprised to find that he was hungry, unusually hungry. He and his twin left the temple, were on their way to the mess tent, when they were joined by Horkin.

  “You don’t mind if I tag along, do you, Red?” Horkin asked. “The wounded are getting along so well I figured I’d have a proper breakfast this morning myself. I hear cook’s preparing a special treat. Besides, we have something to celebrate. Your brother’s been promoted, Majere.”

  “Have you? That’s great!” Caramon paused, the implication of this suddenly occurring to him. “Does this mean that we’re staying with the baron’s army?”

  “We’re staying,” Raistlin said.

  “Hurrah!” Caramon gave a shout that woke up half the town. “There goes Scrounger. Wait till he hears. Scrounger!” Caramon bellowed, waking the other half of the town. “Scrounger, hey! Come here!”

  Scrounger was pleased to hear of Raistlin’s promotion, especially pleased when he heard this meant that the twins would be staying with the army.

  “What are we having for breakfast?” Caramon asked. “You said it was special, sir?”

  “A gift from the grateful people of Hope’s End,” said Horkin, adding, with a suspicious quiver in his voice, “a real treasure, you might say.”

  “What do you mean, sir?” Raistlin asked, casting the mage a sharp glance.

  “Eggs,” said Horkin with a grin and a wink.

  23

  FOR YOU, ARCHMAGUS,” SAID AN APPRENTICE, STANDING DEFERENTIALLY in the door leading to Par-Salian’s study. “Just arrived by messenger from Flotsam.” He placed a parcel on the table and departed with a bow.