THE SOULFORGE dtrc-1

by Margaret Weis

  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.

  He stared, willing with an aching heart for this to be true, even as a part of him knew it wasn't.

  Rosamun ceased rocking, rose from the chair with grace and ease. He was conscious of sweet fragrance as she passed near him, a fragrance of roses.

  In the next room, his brother gave a fearful yell, a horrible scream, as though he were being burned alive.

  The scent of roses in his nostrils, Raistlin searched the room, found what he sought. A dish of dried and withered rose petals had been placed on a table to sweeten the sickness-tainted air. He dipped his hand into the dish, and carried the rose petals into the bedroom.

  Caramon clutched the sides of the bed, his hands white-knuckled. The bed shook beneath him. His eyes were wide open, staring at some horror visible only to himself.

  Raistlin had no need to refer to his primer for the wording of the spell. The words were etched into his brain with fire, and like a wildfire racing across parched grass, so the magic raced from his brain down his spine, burned through every nerve, en-flamed him.

  He crushed the rose petals, strewed them over his brother's tormented form.

  "Ast tasarak sinuralan kyrnawi."

  Caramon's eyelids fluttered. He gave a great sigh, shuddered, then his eyes closed. He lay for a moment, flattened on the bed, not breathing, and Raistlin knew a fear unlike any he'd ever previously experienced. He thought his twin was dead.

  "Caramon!" Raistlin whispered. "Don't leave me, Caramon! Don't!"

  His hands gently brushed the rose petals from Caramon's still face.

  Caramon drew a breath, long, deep, and easy. He let that breath go and then drew another, his chest rising and falling. His face smoothed, the dreams had not cut too deep, had not left their chisel mark upon him. The lines of weariness, grief, and sorrow would soon fade away, ripples on the surface of his customary genial tranquillity.

  Weak with relief, Raistlin sank down beside his brother's bed, rested his head in his hands. It was only then, his eyes closed, seeing nothing but darkness, that Raistlin realized what he had done.

  Caramon was asleep.

  I cast the spell, Raistlin said inwardly. The magic worked for me.

  The fire of the spellcasting flickered and died out, leaving him weak and shaking so that he could not stand, yet Raistlin knew such joy as he had never known in his life.

  "Thank you!" Raistlin whispered, his fists clenched, his nails digging into his flesh. He saw again the eye, white, red, black, regarding him with satisfaction. "I won't fail you!" he repeated over and over. "I won't fail!"

  The eye blinked.

  A tiny pinprick of concern, of jealous doubt, jabbed him.

  Had Caramon fallen into a trance? Was it possible that he had likewise inherited the magic?

  Raistlin opened his eyes, stared hard and long at his slumbering brother. Caramon lay on his back, one arm flopped over the edge of the bed, the other across his forehead. His mouth was open, he gave a prodigious snore. He had never looked more foolish.

  "I was mistaken," Raistlin said, and he pushed himself to his feet. "It was a bad dream, nothing more." He smiled scornfully at himself. "How could I have ever imagined that this great oaf would inherit the magic?"

  Raistlin left the room on tiptoe, moving quietly so as not to disturb his brother, and shut the door to their room softly behind him. Entering the parlor, Raistlin sat down in his mother's rocking chair, and, rocking gently back and forth, he reveled fully in his triumph.

  Chapter 7

  Caramon slept that day through and on into the night, The next day he woke, recalled nothing of his dreams, was amused and even skeptical to hear his twin describe them.

  "Pooh, Raist!" Caramon said. "You know I never dream."

  Raistlin did not argue. He himself was gaining strength rapidly, was strong enough to sit at the kitchen table that morning with his brother. The day was warm; a soft breeze carried sounds of women's voices, calling and laughing. It was laundry day, and the women were hanging their wet clothes among the leaves to dry. The early autumn sunshine filtered through the changing leaves, casting shadows that flitted around the kitchen like birds. The twins ate breakfast in silence. There was much they had to talk about, much they needed to discuss and settle, but that could wait.

  Raistlin touched each moment that passed, held each moment cupped in his mind until it slipped away through his fingers, to be replaced by another. The past and all its sorrow was behind him; he would never turn around to look back. The future, with its promise and its fears, lay ahead of him, shone warm on his face like the sunshine, darkened his face like the shadows. At this moment, he was suspended between past and future, floating free.

  Outside, a bird whistled, another answered. Two young women let fall a wet sheet onto one of the town's guardsmen, who was walking his beat on the ground below. The sheet enveloped him, to judge by his muffled, good-natured cursing. The young women giggled and protested that it was an accident. They ran down the stairs to reclaim their linen and spend a few pleasant moments flirting with the handsome guard.

  "Raistlin," said Caramon, speaking reluctantly, as if he, too, were under the spell of the sun, the breeze, the laughter, and loath to break it. "We have to decide what to do."

  Raistlin couldn't see his brother's face for the sunshine. He was sensible of Caramon's presence, sitting in the chair opposite. Strong and solid and reassuring. Raistlin remembered the fear he'd experienced when he had thought Caramon was dead. Affection for his brother welled up inside him, stung his eyelids. Raistlin drew back out of the sun, blinking rapidly to clear his vision. The moments had begun to slide by fa
ster and faster, no longer his to touch.

  "What are our options?" Raistlin asked.

  Caramon shifted his bulk in his chair. "Well, we turned down going with Kit." He let that hang a moment, silently asking if his twin might reconsider.

  "Yes," Raistlin said, a note of finality.

  Caramon cleared his throat, went on. "Lady Brightblade offered to take us in, give us a home."

  "Lady Brightblade," said Raistlin with a snicker.

  "She is the wife of a Solamnic knight," Caramon pointed out defensively.

  "So she claims."

  "C'mon, Raist!" Caramon was fond of Anna Brightblade, who had always been very kind to him. "She showed me a book with their family coat-of-arms. And she acts like a noble lady, Raist."

  "How would you know how a noble lady acts, my brother?"

  Caramon thought this over. "Well, she acts like what I imagine a noble lady would act like. Like the noble ladies in those stories…"

  He fell silent, left his sentence unfinished, except in the minds of both twins. Like those stories Mother used to tell us. To speak of her aloud was to invoke her ghost, which remained inside the house.

  Gilon, on the other hand, had departed. He had never been there much in the first place, and all he left behind was a vague, pleasant memory. Caramon missed his father, but already Raistlin was having to work to remember that Gilon was gone.

  "I do care to have Sturm Brightblade as a brother," Raistlin commented. "Master My-Honor-Is-My- Life. He's so smug and arrogant, parading his virtue up and down the streets, making a show of righteousness. It's enough to make one puke."

  "Ah, Sturm's not so bad," Caramon said. "He's had a rough time of it. At least we know how our father died," he added somberly. "Sturm doesn't even know if his father's dead or alive."

  "If he's that worried, why doesn't he go back and find out the truth?" Raistlin said impatiently. "He's certainly old enough."

  "He can't leave his mother. He promised his father, the night they fled, that he'd take care of his mother, and he's bound by that promise."

  "When the mob attacked their castle-"

  "Castle!" Raistlin snorted.

  "-they barely escaped with their lives. Sturm's father sent him and his mother out into the night with an escort of retainers. He told them to travel to Solace, where he would join them when he could. That was the last they heard of him."

  "The knights must have done something to provoke the attack. People just don't suddenly take it into their heads to storm a well-fortified keep."

  "Sturm says that there are strange people moving into the north, into Solamnia. Evil people, who want only to foment trouble for the knights, drive them out so that they can move in and seize control."

  "And who are these unknown evil-doers?" Raistlin asked caustically.

  "He doesn't know, but he thinks they have something to do with the old gods," Caramon replied, shrugging.

  "Indeed?" Raistlin was suddenly thoughtful, recalling Kitiara's offer, her talk of powerful gods. He was also thinking back to his own experience with the gods, an experience he had wondered about since. Had it really happened? Or had it happened because he wanted it so much?

  Caramon had spilled some water on the table, and now he was damming it up with his knife and fork, trying to divert the course of the tiny river so that it wouldn't drip onto the floor. He was busy with this as he spoke and did not look at his brother. "I said no. She wouldn't have let you go on with your schooling."

  "What are you talking about?" Raistlin asked sharply, looking up. "Who wouldn't let me go on with my schooling?"

  "Lady Brightblade."

  "She said that, did she?"

  "Yeah," Caramon answered. He added a spoon to the dam. "It's nothing against you, Raist," he added, looking up to see his brother's thin face grow hard and cold. "The Solamnic knights think that magic-users are outside the natural order of things. They never use wizards in battle, according to what Sturm says. Wizards lack discipline and they're too independent."

  "We like to think for ourselves," said Raistlin, "and not blindly obey some fool commander who may or not have a brain in his head. Yet they say," he added, "that Magius fought at the side of Huma and that he was Huma's dearest friend."

  "I know about Huma," Caramon said, glad to change the subject. "Sturm told me stories about him and how, long ago, he fought the Queen of Darkness and banished all the dragons. But I never heard of this Magius."

  "No doubt the knights would like to forget that part of the tale. Just as Huma was one of the greatest warriors of all time, so Magius was one of the greatest wizards. During a battle fought against the forces of Takhisis, Magius was separated from Huma's side. The wizard fought on alone, surrounded by the enemy, until, wounded and exhausted, he could no longer summon the strength to cast his magic. That was in the days when wizards were not allowed to carry any weapon other than their magic. Magius was captured alive and dragged back to the Dark Queen's camp.

  "They tortured him for three days and three nights, trying to force him to reveal the location of Huma's encampment so they could send assassins to kill the knight. Magius died, never revealing the truth. It was said that when Huma received the news of Magius's death and learned how he had died, he grieved so for his friend that his men thought they might lose him as well.

  "Huma ordered that, from then on, wizards would be permitted to carry one small, bladed weapon, to be used as a last defense if their magic failed them. This we do in the name of Magius to this day."

  "That's a great story," Caramon said, so impressed he let his river overflow. He went to fetch a cloth to wipe up the water. "I'll have to tell that to Sturm."

  "You do that," Raistlin said wryly. "I'll be interested to hear what he has to say." He watched Caramon clean the floor, then said, "We have chosen not to join forces with our sister. We have decided that we do not want to be taken under the wing of a noble Solamnic lady. What do you suggest we do?"

  "I say we live here, Raist," Caramon answered steadily. He stood up from his mopping. Hands on his hips, he surveyed the house as if he were a potential buyer. "The house is ours free and clear. Father built it himself. He didn't leave any debts. We don't owe anybody anything. Your school's paid for. We don't have to worry about that. I earn enough working for Farmer Sedge to keep us in food and clothes."

  "It will be lonely for you when I am gone in the winter," Raistlin observed.

  Caramon shrugged. "I can always stay with the Sedges. I do sometimes anyway if the snow blocks the road. Or I can stay with Sturm or some of our other friends."

  Raistlin sat silent, brooding, frowning.

  "What's the matter, Raist?" Caramon asked uneasily. "Don't you think it's a good plan" "I think it's an excellent plan, my brother. I don't feel right about you supporting me, however."

  Caramon's worried expression eased. "What does it matter? What's mine is yours, Raist, you know that."

  "It does matter to me," Raistlin returned. "Very much. I must do something to pay my share."

  Caramon gave the matter serious thought for about three minutes, but apparently that process hurt, for he began rubbing his head and said that he thought it must be about time for lunch.

  He left to go rummage in the larder while Raistlin considered what he might do to add to their upkeep. He was not strong enough for farm labor, nor did he have the time for any other job, with his studies. His schooling now meant more than anything, was doubly important. Every spell he learned added to his knowledge. and to his power.

  Power over others. He remembered Caramon, strong and muscular, falling into a deep slumber, lying comatose at the command of his weaker brother. Raistlin smiled.

  Returning with a loaf of bread and a crock of honey, Caramon placed an empty vial down in front of his brother. "This belongs to that old crone, Weird Meggin. It had some sort of tree juice in it. Kit gave it to you to bring your fever down. I should probably return that to her," he said reluctantly, adding in an awed tone, "D
o you know, Raist? She's got a wolf that sleeps on her door stoop and a human head sitting right smack on her kitchen table!"

  Weird Meggin. An idea stirred in Raistlin's mind. He lifted the vial, opened it, sniffed. Elixir of willow bark. He could make that easily enough. Other herbs in his garden could be used for cures as well. He now had the power to cast minor magicks. People would pay good steel if he could ease a colicky baby into sleep, bring down a man's fever, or cause an itchy rash to disappear.

  Raistlin fingered the vial. "I'll return this myself. You needn't come if you don't want to."

  "I'm coming," Caramon said firmly. "Where did she get that skull, huh? Just ask yourself that. I wouldn't want to walk in and see your head in her dining room. You and me, Raist. From now on, we stick together. We're all each other's got."

  "Not quite all, my dear brother," Raistlin said softly. His hand went to the small leather bag he wore at his waist, a bag containing his spell components. It held only dried rose petals now, but soon it would hold more. Much more.

  "Not quite all."

  Book 4

  Who wants or needs any gods at all? I certainly don't. No divine force controls my life, and that's the way I like it. I choose my own destiny. I am slave to no man. Why should I be a slave to a god and let some priest or cleric tell me how to live?

  -Kitiara uth Matar

  Chapter 1

  Two years passed. Spring's gentle rains and summer's sunshine caused the vallenwood saplings on the grave site to straighten, sending forth green shoots. Raistlin spent winters at the school. He added another elementary spell-a spell he could use to determine if an object might be magical- to his spellbook. Caramon spent the winters working in the stables, the summers working at Farmer Sedge's. Caramon wasn't home much during the winter. The house was lonely without his brother and "gave him the creeps." When Raistlin returned, however, the two lived there almost contentedly.