Margaret Weis - The Second Generation

“Raist! Help!” Caramon shouted from below. Though he had laid three opponents low, he was locked in a vicious battle with a fourth, his movements decidedly hampered by a gully dwarf, who had crawled up his back and was beating him over the head with a pan.

But Raistlin was not able to go to his brother’s rescue. The girl, weak and dizzy from her struggles, missed her step upon the stairs.

Letting go of his staff—which remained perfectly upright, standing next to him as though he were holding it—Raistlin caught the girl before she fell.

“Thank you,” she murmured, keeping her head down. Her scarf had come undone in her struggles and she tried to wrap it around her face again. But Raistlin, with a sardonic smile and a deft movement of his skilled hands, snatched the scarf from the girl’s head.

“You dropped this,” he said coolly, holding the scarf out to her, all the while his keen eyes looking to see why this young woman hid her face from the sun. He gasped.

The girl kept her head down, even after losing the scarf, but, hearing the man’s swift intake of breath, she knew it was too late. He had seen her.

She checked the movement, therefore, looking up at the mage with a small sigh. What she saw in his face shocked her almost as much as what he saw in hers.

“Who . . . what kind of human are you?” she cried, shrinking away from him.

“What kind are you?” the mage demanded, holding on to the girl with his slender hands that were, nevertheless, unbelievably strong.

“I—I am... ordinary,” the girl faltered, staring at Raistlin with wide eyes.

“Ordinary!” Raistlin gripped her more tightly as she made a halfhearted attempt to break free. His eyes gazed in disbelief at the fine-boned, delicate face; the mass of hair that was the brilliance and color of silver starlight; the eyes that were as dark and soft and velvet-black as the night sky. “Ordinary! In my hands I hold the most beautiful woman I have seen in all my twenty-one years. What is more, I hold in my hands a woman who does not age!” He laughed mirthlessly. “And she calls herself 'ordinary!' ”

“What about you?” Trembling, the girl’s hand reached up to touch Raistlin’s golden-skinned face. “And what do you mean—I do not age?”

The mage saw fear in the girl’s eyes as she asked this question, and his own eyes narrowed, studying her intently. “My golden skin is my sacrifice for my magic, as is my shattered body. As for you not aging, I mean you do not age in my sight. You see, my eyes are different from the eyes of other men...” He paused, staring at the girl, who began to shiver beneath the unwavering scrutiny. “My eyes see time as it passes, they see the death of all living things. In my vision, human flesh wastes and withers, spring trees lose their leaves, rocks crumble to dust. Only the young among the long-lived elves would appear normal to me and even then I would see them as flowers about to lose their bloom. But you—”

“Raist!” Caramon boomed from below. There was a crash.

Endeavoring to shake off the gully dwarf—who was holding his hands firmly over the big man’s eyes, blinding him—Caramon landed headlong on a table, smashing it to splinters.

The mage did not move, nor did the girl. “You do not age at all! You are not elven,” Raistlin said.

“No,” the girl murmured. Her eyes still fixed on the mage, she tried unsuccessfully to free herself from his grasp. “You—you’re hurting me ..."

“What are you?” he demanded.

She shrugged, squirming and pushing at his hands. “Human, like yourself,” she protested, looking up into the strange eyes. “And I thank you for saving me, but—”

Suddenly she froze, her efforts to free herself ceased. Her gaze was locked with Raistlin’s, the mage’s gaze fixed on hers. “No!” she moaned helplessly. “No!” Her moan became a shriek, echoing above the howling of the storm winds outside the inn.

Raistlin reeled backward, slamming into the wall as though she had driven a sword into his body. Yet she had not harmed him, she had done nothing but look at him.

With a wild cry, the girl scrambled to her feet and ran up the stairs, leaving the mage slumped against the wall, staring with stunned, unseeing eyes at where she had crouched before him on the staircase.

“Well, I took care of the scum, small thanks to you,” Caramon announced, coming up beside his brother. Wiping blood from a cut on the mouth, the big warrior looked over the railing in satisfaction. Four men lay on the floor, not counting the one his brother had stabbed, whose inert body huddled at the foot of the staircase. The gully dwarf was sticking out of a barrel, upside down, his feet waving pathetically in the air, his ear-splitting screams likely to cause serious breakage of the glassware.

“What about damages?” Slegart demanded, coming over to survey the ruin.

“Collect it from them,” Caramon growled, gesturing to the groaning members of the “hunting” party. “Here’s your dagger, Raist,” the warrior said, holding out a small silver knife. “I cleaned it as best I could. Guess you didn’t want to waste your magic on those wretches, huh? Anyway—hey, Raist—you all right?”

“I’m ... not injured ” Raistlin said softly, reaching out his hand to catch hold of his brother.

“Then what’s the matter?” Caramon asked, puzzled. “You look like you’ve seen a spirit. Say, where’s the girl?” He glanced around. “Didn’t she even stay to thank us?”

“I—I sent her to her room,” Raistlin said, blinking in confusion and looking at Caramon as though wondering who he was. After a moment, he seemed more himself. Taking the dagger from his brother’s hand, the mage replaced it on the cunningly made thong he had attached around his wrist. “And we should be going to our rooms, my brother,” he said firmly, seeing Caramon’s gaze drift longingly to the pitcher of ale still on their table.

“Lend me your arm,” the mage added, taking hold of his staff. “My exertions have exhausted me.”

“Oh, uh, sure, Raist,” Caramon said, his thirst forgotten in his concern for his brother.

“Number thirteen,” grunted Slegart, helping the ruffians drag their wounded comrade off into a corner.

“It figures,” Caramon muttered, assisting his brother up the stairs.

“Hey, you got a good look at that girl? Was she pretty?”

“Why ask me, my brother?” Raistlin replied softly. Pulling his hood down low over his face again, he evaded his brother’s question. “You know what these eyes of mine see!”

“Yeah, sorry, Raist.” Caramon flushed. “I keep forgetting. Damn! That one bastard broke a chair over my back end when I was bending over. I know I got splinters....”

“Yes, my brother,” Raistlin murmured, not listening. His gaze went to the door at the end of the hall, a door marked with the number sixteen.

Behind that door, Amberyl paced restlessly, clasping and unclasping her hands and occasionally making that low, moaning cry.

“How could this happen?” she asked feverishly, walking back and forth, back and forth, in the small chamber. The room was chill and dark. In her preoccupation, Amberyl had allowed the fire to go out. “Why did this happen? How could it happen? Why didn’t any of the wise foresee this?” Over and over again she repeated these words, her feet tracing the circular path of her thoughts out upon the grime-encrusted wooden floor.

“I must see him,” she said to herself suddenly. “He is magi, after all. He may know some way ... some way to... help.... Yes! I’ll see him.”

Grabbing up her scarf, she wound it around her face again and cautiously opened the door. The hallway was empty and she started to creep out when she realized she had no idea which room was his.