Dragonlance 12 - Raistlin Chronicles - Soulforge (32 page)

By the end of the first day, Sturm's hand was cramped from gripping his sword hilt, and Caramon had developed a splitting headache from keeping his jaw thrust forward at an unnatural angle.

Kitiara's ribs ached from suppressed laughter, for Tanis would not allow her to openly ridicule the young men.

"They have to learn," he said. It was shortly after lunch, and Kit was riding on the wagon's seat between Tanis and Raistlin. "It doesn't hurt them to develop habits of watchfulness and caution on the road, even if they are overdoing it a bit. I remember when I was young. I was the exact opposite.

I set off from Qualinesti without a care in the world or a brain in my head. I took everyone I met for a friend. It was a wonder I didn't end up in a ditch with my silly skull bashed in."

"When you were young," Kit scoffed. She squeezed his hand. "You talk like an old man. You are still young, my friend."

"In elven terms, perhaps," Tanis said. "Not in human. Don't you ever think about that, Kit?"

"Think about what?" she asked carelessly. In truth, she was not really paying attention. Having recently purchased a knife from Flint, a fine steel blade, she was engrossed in wrapping the handle with braided strips of leather.

Tanis persisted. "About the fact that I have lived well over a hundred of your human years. And that I will live hundreds more."

"Bah!" Kit bent over her work, her fingers quick at their task but not particularly efficient. The braided leather provided a better grip, but it wouldn't be much to look at. Kit didn't care how it looked. Finishing her task, she tucked the knife into the top of her boot. "You're only part elf."

"But I have an expanded life span compared to—"

"Hey, Caramon!" Kit yelled in mock alarm. "I think I saw something move over in that bush! Look at that great idiot. If anything did jump out at him, he'd pee in his pants… What were you saying?"

"Nothing," Tanis said, smiling at her. "It wasn't important."

Shrugging, Kit jumped off the wagon to go tease Sturm by hinting that she was certain they were being followed by goblins.

Raistlin glanced at Tanis. The half-elf's smooth, unlined face—a face that would not be lined or wrinkled with age for perhaps another hundred years—was shadowed with unhappiness. He would be still a young man when Kitiara was an old, old woman. He would watch her age and die, while he remained relatively untouched by time.

The bards sang songs of the tragic love of elf for human. What would it be like? Raistlin pondered.

To watch beauty and youth wither in those you love. To see them in their old age, in their dotage, while you are still young and vibrant. And yet, Raistlin considered, if the half-elf should fall in love with an elven woman, he would suffer a like fate, except that in this case he would be the one to age.

Raistlin regarded Tanis with new understanding and some compassion. He is doomed, the young mage reflected. He was doomed from birth. In neither world can he ever be truly happy. Talk of the gods playing a cruel joke on someone!

This brought to mind the three ancient gods of magic. Raistlin felt a twinge of conscience. He had not fulfilled his promise to them. If he truly believed in them, as he had professed to them so long ago, why was he constantly questioning and doubting his belief? He was reminded of the three gods yet again when, late in the day, the companions came upon a group of priests walking down the road.

The priests—twenty of them, men and women—walked down the center of the road in two files.

They walked slowly, their expressions as solemn as if they were accompanying a body to the burial ground. They looked neither to the right nor the left, but kept their faces forward, their eyes lowered.

The slow-moving column traveling down the middle of the road had the effect—intentional or not

—of seriously impeding the flow of traffic.

A great many people were on the Haven road this day. Flint was just one of several merchants traveling in that direction, transporting their stock in horse-driven carts or pushcarts or lugging bundles on their backs and heads. The wagons could not pass the priests, slowed to a funereal pace.

Those traveling by foot were luckier, or so it seemed at first. They would start to circle around the double lines of the priests, walk about halfway, then suddenly stop in the road, fearful of moving, or fall hastily back.

Those on horseback who attempted to ride around the group failed when their animals shied nervously, dancing sideways into the brush, or balked completely, refusing to even come near the priests.

"What is it? What's going on?" Flint grumbled, waking from a refreshing nap in the warm autumn sun. He stood up inside the wagon, clumped his way forward. "What's the delay? At this rate, we'll arrive in Haven in time to do the May dance."

"Those priests up ahead," said Tanis. "They won't move off the road and no one can get around them."

"Maybe they don't know we're back here," Flint suggested. "Someone should tell them."

The driver of the lead wagon was attempting to do just that. He was shouting—politely shouting—

for the priests to move to the side of the roadway. The priests paid no attention. They might have been deaf, every one of them. They continued walking down the center.

"This is ridiculous!" said Kit. "I'll go talk to them."

She strode forward, her cape whipping around her, her sword rattling. Tasslehoff dashed after her.

"No, Tas, Kit! Wait— Blast!" Tanis swore softly.

Tossing the reins to the startled Raistlin, the half-elf hastily climbed out of the wagon and hurried after the two. Raistlin grappled uncertainly with the reins; he'd never driven a wagon before in his life. Fortunately Caramon jumped up on the wagon. He brought the cart to a halt, watching.

Few creatures on Krynn can move as fast as an excited kender. By the time Tanis caught up with Kitiara, Tasslehoff was far ahead of them both. Tanis shouted for Tas to stop, but few creatures on Krynn are as deaf as an excited kender. Before Tanis could reach him, Tas was alongside one of the priests, a bald man, the tallest in line, who was bringing up the rear of the file on the right-hand side.

Tas reached out his hand in order to introduce himself, and then the kender performed an extremely remarkable feat, jumping two feet in the air straight up and three feet back simultaneously, to land in a confusion of bags and pouches in the middle of a hedgerow.

Tanis and Kit reached the kender as he was extricating himself and his pouches from the clinging branches of the hedge.

"He has a snake, Tanis!" Tasslehoff cried, brushing leaves and twigs from his best orange-and-green plaid trousers. "Each one of the priests is carrying a snake wrapped around his arm!"

"Snakes?" Kit wrinkled her nose, gazed after the priests in disgust. "What are they doing with snakes?"

"It was very exciting," Tas reported. "I went up to the first priest, and I was going to introduce myself, which is only polite, you know, except that he wouldn't look at me or talk to me. I reached out my hand to pluck at his sleeve, figuring he hadn't seen me, and the snake reared up its head and hissed at me," Tasslehoff said, thrilled almost past the ability to speak. Almost.

"I was just about to ask him if I could pet it—snakes have such wonderful dry skin—when it darted out its head at me, and that's when I jumped backward. I was bitten by a snake once when I was a little kender, and while being snake-bit is certainly an interesting experience, it's not one that should be repeated too often. As you say, Tanis, it's not conducive to one's health. Especially because I think this snake was of the poisonous sort. It had a hood over its head and a forked tongue and little beady eyes. Could one of you help me get this pouch loose? It's stuck on that branch."

Tanis untangled the straps of the pouch. By this time, Flint and Raistlin and Sturm had joined them, leaving a disgruntled Caramon to guard the wagon.

"From your description, the snake would appear to be a viper," Raistlin observed. "But I've never heard of vipers being found anywhere outside the Plains of Dust."

"If so, the viper must have had its fangs drawn," said Sturm. "I cannot imagine any sane person would walk along the road carrying a poisonous snake!"

"Then you have very limited imagination, brother," said a peddler, coming up level with them.

"Though I'm not saying you're right when it comes to sanity. Their god takes the form of a viper.

The snake is their symbol and a test of their faith. Their god gives them power over the viper so that it won't harm them."

"In other words, they're snake charmers," said Raistlin, his lip curling.

"Don't let them hear you call them that, brother," the peddler advised, casting the line of priests an uneasy sidelong glance. He kept his voice low. "They don't tolerate any disrespect. They don't tolerate much of anything, if it comes to that. This could be a real poor Harvest Home if they have their way."

"Why? What have they done?" Kit asked, grinning. "Shut down the alehouses?"

"What was that you said?" Flint could only hear part of the conversation, which was being carried on above his head. He crowded close to hear better. "What did she say? Shut down the alehouses?"

"No, nothing like that, though the priests don't touch the stuff themselves," the peddler returned.

"They know they'd never get away with anything so drastic. But they might as well. I'm sorry to see them here. I'll be surprised now if anyone even shows up at the fair. They'll all be going to temple to see the 'miracles.' I've a mind to turn around and go back home."

"What is the name of their god?" Raistlin asked.

"Belzor, or some such thing. Well, good day to all of you, if that's possible anymore." The peddler trudged gloomily off, heading back down the road the way he'd come.

"Hey! What's going on?" Caramon bellowed from the wagon.

"Belzor," Raistlin repeated grimly.

"That was the name of that god the widow woman talked about, wasn't it?" Flint said, tugging at his beard.

"The Widow Judith. Yes, Belzor was the god. She was from Haven as well. I had forgotten that."

Raistlin was thoughtful. He would not have imagined he could have ever forgotten the Widow Judith, but other events in his life had crowded her out. Now the memory returned, returned in force. "I wonder if we will find her here."

"We won't," said Tanis firmly, "because we're not going anywhere near those priests. We're going to the fair, concentrate on the business at hand. I don't want any trouble." Reaching out his hand, he caught hold of the kender's shirt collar.

"Oh, please, Tanis! I just want to go have another look at the snakes."

"Caramon!" Tanis shouted, hanging onto the wriggling kender with difficulty. "Drive the wagon off the road. We're stopping for the night."

Flint seemed inclined to argue, but when Tanis spoke in that tone, even Kitiara held her tongue. She shook her head, but she said nothing aloud.

Coming level with Raistlin, Kit said offhandedly, "Judith. Was that the woman who was responsible for our mother's death?"

"Our mother?" Raistlin repeated, regarding Kit in astonishment. When Kitiara mentioned Rosamun at all, which was seldom, she was referred to as "your" mother—spoken to the twins in a scathing tone. This was the first time Raistlin had ever heard Kit acknowledge a relationship.

"Yes, Judith is the woman," he said when he had recovered from his shock sufficiently to reply.

Kit nodded. With a glance at Tanis, she leaned near to Raistlin to whisper, "If you know how to hold your tongue, we might have some fun on this trip after all, little brother."

Sturm and Caramon insisted on setting a watch on their camp that night, though Kit asked, laughing, "Where do you think we are? Sanction?"

They built a fire, spread their blanket rolls near it. Other fires flared not far away. More than one traveler had decided to let Belzor's priests get a long head start.

Flint was in charge of cooking and prepared his famous traveler's stew, a dwarven recipe made from dried venison and berries, simmered in ale. Raistlin added some herbs he had found along the road, herbs which the dwarf regarded with suspicion but was eventually persuaded to add. He would not admit that they added to the flavor; dwarven recipes needed no alteration. But he consumed four helpings, just to make certain.

They kept the fire burning to ward off the night's chill. Seated around it, they passed the ale jug and told stories until the fire burned low.

Flint took a last swallow, called it a night. He planned to sleep in the wagon, to guard his wares from thieves. Kit and Tanis moved off into the shadows, where they could be heard laughing softly and whispering together. Caramon and Sturm argued over who should keep watch first and tossed a coin. Caramon won. Raistlin wrapped himself in his blanket, prepared to spend his first night outdoors, lying on the ground beneath the stars.

Sleeping on the ground was every bit as uncomfortable as he'd imagined it would be.

Silhouetted against the dying embers of the fire, Caramon whistled softly to himself, whittling a stick as he kept watch. Raistlin's last glimpse, before he drifted off into an uneasy slumber, was of Caramon's large body blotting out the starlight.

The kender kept an eager lookout the next day for the priests of Belzor, but they must have walked all night— either that or they turned off the road—because the companions did not run into them that day or the next.

The peddler may have held a pessimistic view as to the probable success of the Harvest Home Fair, but this was not the view of the general populace of Abanasinia. The road became more and more crowded, providing enough interesting subjects that Tasslehoff soon forgot all about the snakes, much to Tanis's relief.

Wealthy merchants, whose servants had been sent ahead with their wares, traveled along the road in ornate litters, borne on the shoulders of stout bearers. A noble family passed, accompanied by their retainers, the lord riding at the head on a large war-horse, the wife and daughter and the daughter's duenna following on smaller ponies. The horses were decorated in bright colored trappings, while that of the daughter was adorned with small silver bells on the bridle and silk ribbons braided into the mane.