Margaret Weis - Love and War

That last, more than any of Tas's assurances, decided Keli. He grasped the rope, silver and gold, woven of magic and light. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, sucked in a lungful of air, and left the ledge.

Tas followed.

Behind them Tigo raged, a beast whose prey had flown, wingless, from his reach, abandoning him to his impotent anger.

The air was cool and shivery by the night-dark lake. Far over the water's black surface stars reflected and, Keli thought, as he hunched closer to the fire, something else did too. Ghostly light and shimmer, faintly rainbowed and silver. A residue of Raistlin's magic? The boy thought so.

None sat waking now in night's darkest hour but Keli and Tas, the half-elf Tanis, and the dwarf Flint. The young mage had been the first asleep. Keli knew nothing of magicor its tolls, but it was clear to him that Raistlin's light weaving had left him drained. It seemed to Keli that the thin young man was hardly strong enough to exert such effort often. Or, the boy thought as he stole a covert glance at the sleeping mage, maybe he is. Even in exhaustion something of power and strength had lighted the mage's eyes.

The mage's brother was Caramon, warrior big, with mischief dancing in his brown eyes, a kind of magic of his own. He slept so soon after his brother that the difference could hardly be measured. His snoring was like low thunder.

"Asleep between one bite of rabbit and the next," Flint had growled. "We could be witnessing the dawn of a new age of miracles." Keli had wanted to laugh at that, but he didn't. The old dwarf bore a forbidding look in his eyes, scowled easily and grumbled often. Here was one who would need a wide berth.

For a time it looked as though Sturm would stay awake long enough to make good his claim on the first watch of the night. He didn't. Likely, Keli realized, his friends knew him well enough not to argue the point. And well enough to know that Sturm's exertions in the lake would put him quickly to sleep.

Tanis — his red hair the color of copper in the firelight, his long elven eyes sometimes the gray-green of leaves turned to an approaching storm, more often emerald bright — divided his time between smoothing Flint's grumbling and listening to the endless stream of Tas's chatter. This he did with the air of one who knows that a storm will not end until all the thunder has rolled and all the rain has fallen.

These, then, were Tas's friends of whom he'd been so certain. Of all of them only Tanis and Flint remained awake to hear the tale of capture and escape told in odd tandem by Keli and Tas. Though neither, Keli thought indignantly, seemed to want to credit Tas with the heroics Keli stoutly attributed to him. His back propped against a rock, his feet as close to the fire as he dared put them, Keli now looked first at Flint, then at Tanis.

"If it hadn't been for Tas, Tigo would have killed me. He's a real hero."

"Hero!" Flint laughed. "That one? Aye, lad, and I'm Reorx's forgemaster!"

"He IS," Keli declared stoutly.

Tanis tried, for the sake of Keli's rising anger, to swallow his own laughter. He glanced at Tas crouched before the fire. The kenders dignity was not in the least disturbed by Flint's customary derision.

"He saved my life," Keli insisted. "He got those two good and lost, found the caves behind the falls, and the stairs that led up to the top. I'D never have known about the caves or the stairs or the bridge."

Flint shook his head. "I don't suppose Tanis's tracking or Raistlin's light-weaving had anything to do with the fact that you're here and safe, lad?"

Keli did not quail before the dwarf's gruff question, but defended his friend. "They did, and I thank you all for what you've done. But — but you were almost too late. And — " Keli foundered, looking from one to the other. They were still amused, and Keli could not understand what was so funny. "And — Tas did save my life."

"Risked your neck about a half a dozen more times than you remember or know about is more like it," Flint growled. "It's lucky you are that you're here to tell us the tale.

"Look at you, lad, you're half-starved despite eating a rabbit and a half, and dead tired. Get some sleep now, you'll see the right of the matter in the morning."

"I know the right of it," Keli maintained. He looked to Tas, who only shrugged.

"They're a little slow," the kender drawled. He grinned then, suddenly, and that grin was like the flash of a comet across a midnight sky. "But they always manage to catch up." He stretched and yawned hugely. He shot one quick look at Flint and then winked at Keli. That wink, always trouble for someone, sparked Keli's smile.

Flint started to protest, but Tas only grinned again. He waved an off-hand goodnight and went to find a place to sleep. As tired as he was, Keli knew he wouldn't be able to sleep yet. He settled down more comfortably near the fire and sighed.

After a moment Tanis said, "We'll have to get you home somehow, Keli."

"Just back to Seven Wells would be fine," Keli murmured. "I'm sure my horse is still there and there is the message to be delivered to my father's friend."

"Oh, no," Flint rumbled. "If we let you out of our sight now, who knows what you'll get yourself into next? Home, lad, and the message can be delivered along the way." He reached into his pack, pulled out a block of wood, and applied his dagger's blade silently for a time. Keli would have offered his thanks, but Tanis caught his eye and stilled him with a smile and a shake of his head.

When Flint looked up again, he spoke not to Keli but to Tanis.

"If we've any sense at all, we'll make for home ourselves after we've delivered this lad and his message."

That was not what the half-elf had expected to hear. "Back to Solace this early in the summer?"

Flint was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke at last his voice was rough. Almost cold, Keli thought.

"I thought he was dead," Flint said, and Keli knew it was Tas of whom he spoke. "I really did. I didn't fear it. Fear still allows you to slip hope in behind it. I thought he was dead from the minute I saw my mark 6n that rock, and I didn't expect to find anything else.

"It is a bad thing to be without hope." He cleared his throat softly and went on. "And Caramon. When he didn't come up from the lake, when Sturm had to dive to find him, I thought, between the first time and the last, that he was dead, too."

Keli felt that fear, and heard it in the dwarf's voice. His eyes were not so hard now, his expression not nearly as forbidding as it had been. An odd look graced his rough features, but Keli could not put a name to it. He'd seen the look before on his father's face.

Tanis poked up the fire and by its flare Keli saw that he, too, had thought his friends dead. When he spoke, though, it was not to reassure himself but Flint. "They're all right now."

The old dwarf drew a long breath and let it out in a heavy sigh. He looked at his young friends sleeping around the fire: Caramon, his scabbarded sword lying near to hand; Sturm, who slept deep and looked as though he could wake fast at need; Raistlin, likely walking in dreams only he could understand; and Tas, curled like an exhausted pup against Caramon's back. When the dwarf spoke again, Keli sensed that some decision was being made. He sat forward and listened.

"Aye, Tanis, they are. But the lands are changing, lad. I feel it in my bones that things are shifting, growing darker. At first it was good to have them along on these trips for their company. Lately, it's been good having them along because I could not ply my trade, such as it is these days, along the old routes without them. Look at what happened to the lad here! Goblins and bandits! And rumors of worse and stranger things haunt the roads now."

Tanis reached out absently to ruffle Keli's hair. "You'll not keep them safe in Solace by wishing it so, old friend."