Dragonlance 12 - Raistlin Chronicles - Soulforge (22 page)

Eventually it was determined that if the hill dwarf would apologize to the mountain dwarves and the mountain dwarves would apologize to Otik, the entire incident would be forgotten. The leader of the Thorbardin dwarves, wiping blood from his nose, stated in surly tones that the ale was "drinkable."

The hill dwarf, massaging a bruised jaw, mumbled that a mountain dwarf might indeed know something of ale, having spent enough nights on the barroom floor lying face first in it. The Thorbardin dwarf didn't like the sound of that, thought it might be another insult. At this juncture, Otik hastily offered a free round to everyone in the bar to celebrate their newfound friendship.

No dwarf alive has ever turned down free ale. Both sides went back to their seats, each group convinced that their side had won. Otik gathered up the broken chairs, the barmaids picked up the broken crockery, the guards drank a glass in honor of the innkeeper, the elves looked down their long noses at the lot of them, and the incident ended.

Raistlin and Caramon heard about the fight the next day as they shoved their way through the crowds milling among the booths and tents.

"I wished I'd been there." Caramon gave a gusty sigh and clenched his large fist.

Raistlin said nothing, he hadn't been paying attention. He was studying the flow of the crowds, trying to determine where would be the most advantageous place to establish himself. At length he settled on a spot located at the convergence of two aisles. A lace-maker from Haven was across from him on one side and a wine merchant from Pax Tharkas on the other.

Placing a large wooden bowl in front of a nearby stump, Raistlin gave Caramon his instructions.

"Walk to the end of this row, turn around, and stroll back. You're a farmer's son in town for the day, remember. When you come to me, stop and stare and point and create a commotion. Once the crowd begins to form around me, move to the outside of the circle and catch people as they walk past, urge them to take a look. Got that?"

"You bet!" said Caramon, grinning. He was enjoying himself immensely.

"And when I ask for a volunteer from the crowd, you know what you must do."

Caramon nodded. "Say I've never seen you before in my life and that there's nothing at all inside that box."

"Don't overact," Raistlin cautioned.

"No, no. I won't. You can count on me," Caramon promised.

Raistlin had his doubts, but there was nothing more he could do to alleviate them. He had rehearsed Caramon the night before, and he could only hope his twin would remember his lines.

Caramon departed, heading for the end of the row as he'd been directed. He was almost immediately waylaid by a stout little man in a garish red waistcoat, who drew Caramon toward a tent, promising that inside the tent Caramon could see the epitome of female beauty, a woman renowned from here to the Blood Sea, who was going to perform the ritual mating dance of the Northern Ergothians, a dance that was said to drive men into a frenzy. Caramon could witness this fabulous sight for only two steel pieces.

"Really?" Caramon craned his neck, trying to sneak a peek through the tent flap.

"Caramon!" His brother's voice snapped across the back of his neck.

Caramon jumped guiltily and veered off, much to the chagrin of the stout little man, who cast Raistlin a baleful look before catching hold of another yokel and resuming his spiel.

Raistlin positioned the wooden bowl so that it showed to best advantage, dropped a steel piece inside to "prime the pump," then laid out his equipment at his feet. He had balls for juggling, coins that would appear inside people's ears, a remarkable length of rope that could be cut and made perfectly whole again in an instant, silken scarves that would flow wondrously from his mouth, and a brightly painted box from which would emerge a peeved and disheveled rabbit.

He wore white robes, which he had laboriously sewn himself out of an old bed sheet. The worn spots were covered with stars and moon faces: red and black. No true wizard would have been caught dead wearing such an outlandish getup, but the general public didn't know any better and the bright colors attracted attention.

The juggling balls in his hands, Raistlin mounted the stump and began to perform. The multicolored balls—toys from his and Caramon's childhood—spun in his deft fingers, flashed through the air.

Immediately several children ran over to watch, dragging their parents with them.

Caramon arrived, to loudly exclaim over the wonders he was witnessing. More people came to watch and to marvel. Coins clinked in the wooden bowl.

Raistlin began to enjoy himself. Although he was not performing real magic, he was casting a spell over these people. The enchantment was helped by the fact that they wanted to believe in him, were ready to believe in him. He liked the admiration of the children especially, perhaps because he remembered himself at that age, remembered his own awe and wonder, remembered where that awe and wonder had led.

"Wow! Would you look at that!" cried a shrill voice from the crowd. "Did you really swallow all those scarves? Doesn't it tickle when they come out?"

At first Raistlin thought the voice belonged to a child, then he noticed the kender. Dressed in bright green pants, a yellow shirt, and an orange vest, with an extremely long topknot of hair, the kender surged forward to the front of the crowd, which parted nervously at his coming, everyone clutching his purse. The kender stood in front of Raistlin, regarding him with open-mouthed admiration.

Raistlin cast an alarmed glance at Caramon, who hurried over to stand protectively beside the wooden bowl that held their money.

The kender seemed familiar to Raistlin, but then kender are so appallingly different from normal people that they all look alike to the untrained eye.

Raistlin thought it wise to distract the kender from the wooden bowl. He did this by first extracting one of his juggling balls from the kender's pouch, then causing a shower of coins to fall from the kender's nose, much to the diminutive spectator's wild delight and mystification. The audience—

quite a large audience now—applauded. Coins clinked into the bowl.

Raistlin was taking a bow when, "For shame!" a voice cried.

Raistlin rose from his bow to look directly into the face—the blotchy, vein-popping, infuriated face

—of his schoolmaster.

"For shame!" Master Theobald cried again. He leveled a quivering, accusing finger at his pupil.

"Making an exhibition of yourself before the masses!"

Conscious of the watching crowd, Raistlin tried to maintain his composure, though hot blood rushed to his face. "I know that you disapprove, Master, but I must earn my living the best way I know how."

"Excuse me, Master sir, but you're blocking my view," said the kender politely, and he reached up to tug at the sleeve of the man's white robe to gain his attention.

The kender was short and Master Theobald was shouting and waving his arms, which undoubtedly explains how the kender missed the sleeve and ended up tugging on the pouch of spell components hanging from the master's belt.

"I've heard how you've been earning your living!" Master Theobald countered. "Consorting with that witch woman! Using weeds to fool the gullible into thinking they've been healed. I came here on purpose to see for myself because I could not believe the stories were true!"

"Do you really know a witch?" asked the kender eagerly, looking up from the pouch of spell components.

"Would you have me starve, Master?" Raistlin demanded.

"You should beg in the streets before you prostitute your art and make a mockery of me and my school!" Master Theobald cried.

He reached out his hand to drag Raistlin down from the stump.

"Touch me, sir"—Raistlin spoke with quiet menace—"and you will regret it."

Theobald glowered. "Do you dare to threaten—"

"Hey, Little Fella!" Caramon cried, lumbering in between the two. "Toss that pouch over here!"

"Goblin Ball!" shouted the kender. "You're the goblin," he informed Master Theobald and sent the pouch whizzing over the mage's head.

"This yours, huh, wizard?" Caramon teased, capering and waving the pouch in front of Theobald's face. "Is it?"

Master Theobald recognized the pouch, clapped his hand to his belt where the pouch should be hanging. Blue veins popped out on his forehead, his face flushed a deeper red.

"Give that to me, you hooligan!" he cried.

"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.