Kevin Stein: Brothers Majere

Hearing Caramon pounding back up the stairs, Raistlin stood the staff against the bed and began to take out the medicine he needed for his drink. Caramon carried a pot of water, curling steam rising from the top, in his hand. Raistlin motioned him over to the bed and held out a small bag filled with the leaves that suppressed the mage's sickness, if only for a while.

Caramon hastily poured water into a cup, poking his finger into the scalding water, hoping to create the mixture before his brother started coughing again.

Raistlin, watching, said breathily, "Remember, Cara-mon, shaken, not stirred."

The bitter smell of the tea filled the room. The twins' mother had always said, "The worse medicine tastes, the better it works." Caramon was surprised this stuff didn't raise the dead.

Raistlin drank it and finally closed his eyes. Drawing a deep breath, he leaned back against the headboard.

"This is a strange place, Raist," muttered Caramon. "I don't like it. It's too quiet."

The mage took another deep breath. "Yes. But it's not a den of assassins and thieves as I'd expected. Did you see the people, my brother? Peasants, simple working folk, middle-aged farmers."

"Yeah," said Caramon, running his fingers through his hair. "But it's like Earwig said. Everyone sitting around talking in low voices. No singing or laughing. Maybe there's a war," he added hopefully. He'd like that. Plain and simple. Good old bashing the other's guy's brains out.

"No, I don't think so. I was eavesdropping on the conversations in the other room before you came blundering over and distracted me."

"Sorry. I thought you were sick. I didn't know – "

Raistlin went on softly, as if he hadn't heard the interruption, as if talking to himself. "The people are terrified, Caramon."

"Yeah? What of? Assassins?"

"No. Their cats have disappeared."

Twins descended the stairs from their room on the second floor, Raistlin leaning on both his brother and the staff, the black wood resounding hollowly. Moving around the huge open fire in the main hall, they went to the dining room. But before Caramon could enter, Raistlin stopped him, drawing his hood back to expose one ear.

The fighter recognized this signal – a sign the twins had developed over the years – and quickly ducked back around the corner of the doorway before any of the patrons could notice him. He cocked his ear, listening, hoping to discover what his brother found so interesting.

Voices wafted like mist from the room.

"Tis the work of evil, I say!"

"Aye, it's true!"

"I've lived eighty years," interjected an old man, "and I've seen nothing like it! Always we've taken care of the cats, as the legend says. And now they've left us! Doom will fall on our heads!"

"Probably the work of some foul wizard."

"Never did trust them."

"Yeah! Burn 'em all up, I say! Like in the old days."

"What do you think will happen to Mereklar, then, old man?"

"Mereklar? I fear for the world!"

"I heard there're no cats at all left in the city," stated a man, wearing a farmer's smock and broad-brimmed hat. "Is that true?"

'There are a few left, a hundred or so, perhaps," said the old man.

"A hundred where there used to be a thousand," added another.

"And their numbers dwindle daily."

Everyone began to talk at once, adding rumors they'd heard. They were beginning to work themselves into a frenzy.

Caramon came out from his hiding place to join his brother. He plucked Raistlin's sleeve.

"I think we've wandered into an asylum," he whispered loudly. "These people are crazy! To get this worked up over a bunch of cats!"

"Hush, Caramon. You should take this matter seriously. I would guess that this has much to do with the job we are seeking."

"We're being hired to look for lost cats?" Caramon began to laugh, his booming baritone roaring through the inn. Everyone fell silent, glaring at the brothers with baleful looks.

"Remember, Caramon!" Raistlin closed his thin-fingered hand over his brother's thick arm. "Someone tried to kill us over it, as well."

Caramon's laugh sobered quickly. The two entered the room. Their presence was not welcome. They were outsiders, intruding on a fear they could not understand. No one said a word, no one bade them sit down.

"Hey! Raistlin! Caramon! Over here!" Earwig's shrill voice split the sullen silence.

The twins walked to the back of the room. The inn's patrons cast furtive glances at the mage, and there was whispering and shaking of heads and glowering scowls. Raistlin ignored them all with a disdainful air and a slight sneering curl of his lips.

Caramon helped his brother sit down and get as comfortable as possible on the hard, wooden bench. The warrior beckoned to one of the barmaids, who – after a nod from Yost – came over to the table.

Caramon sniffed at the air and wrinkled his nose, not liking much what he smelled cooking.

"Rabbit stew," said the woman. "Take it or leave it."

"I'll take it," said Caramon, thinking regretfully of Otik's spiced potatoes at the Inn of the Last Home. He looked at his brother. Raistlin covered his mouth with a cloth and shook his head.

"My brother will have some white wine. Do you want something. Earwig?"

"Oh, no, thanks, Caramon. I ate already. You see, there was this plate of stew, just sitting there. My mother always said it was a sin to waste food. 'People in Solam-nia are starving,' she'd say. So, to help the starving people in Solamnia, I ate the stew. Although just how that helps them I'm not certain. Do you know, Caramon?"

Caramon didn't. The barmaid hurried off and returned shortly with a plate of food and a mug of ale, which she slapped down in front of Caramon, and a goblet of wine for Raistlin.

Caramon plunged into his dinner with gusto, slurping and chewing and shoveling rapidly. Earwig observed him in round-eyed admiration. Raistlin was watching with disgust when suddenly the mage's attention focused on Caramon's half-empty plate.

"Let me see that!" he said, snatching it away.

"Hey! I wasn't finished! I – "

"You are now," said Raistlin coldly, scrapping the rest of the food onto the floor.

"What is it? Show me!" Earwig scrambled around to sit beside the mage.

"It's a poem," said Raistlin, gazing at the surface of the plate with interest.

"A poem!" Caramon growled. "You ruined my dinner for a poem!"

Raistlin read it to himself, then handed it over to his brother.

/(is written, the land will know five ages, but the last shall not come if darkness succeeds, coming through the gate.

Darkness sends its agents, stealthy and black, to find the gate, to be there when the time arrives.

The cats alive are the turning stone, they decide the fate, darkness or light, in the city that stands before the first gods.

"Well?" said Raistlin.

"Cats, again," answered Caramon, handing the plate back.

"Yes," Raistlin murmured, "cats again."

"Do you understand it?"

"Not entirely. Up to now, there have been four ages – the Age of Dreams, the Age of Light, the Age of Might, and the Age of Darkness, which we are in now. A new age coming…"

"But not 'if darkness succeeds,' " said Caramon, reading the plate upside down.

"Yes. And 'the cats alive are the turning stone.' Interesting, my brother. Very interesting." Raistlin placed the plate carefully down on the table, his lips pressed together in thought.

"Wait a minute!" said Earwig. "I just remembered something."

Leaping up, he ran across to another table, grabbed hold of an empty plate, and brought it to the mage. "Look! Another poem! I found it when I'd finished my dinner."

He plunked the plate down in front of Caramon, and, seeing the fighter absorbed in reading it, appropriated his mug of ale.