“Nonsense!”
The mage gasped for breath. He barely glanced at the walls. His strength was failing fast. It always did, with the coming of night. He had been leaning on his brother’s strong arm for the last few miles.
“Hurry up, Earwig!” snapped Caramon, anxious to get his brother to a place where he could rest.
“I’m coming,” murmured the kender, moving along slowly, feet dragging. “I wonder why these walls are blank. … I know! I’ll bet they’re waiting—waiting for great deeds of the future to be recorded on them. Maybe”—he heaved an ecstatic sigh—”maybe I’ll be up there someday!”
Each pass of his fingers over the slate sent thrilling chills down his arms and back. He could almost see himself, immortalized in stone, joining the rest of Krynn’s famous and heroic.
“Earwig!” Caramon called irritably.
The kender paused, glancing back at the wall. The wizard certainly did resemble Raistlin. But how could the mage be here and be bad in the past at the same time? He’d have to remember to ask.
“Kender!” Caramon shouted in a voice that meant no nonsense. “Get up here now, or we’ll leave you behind!”
94
DRA(JONLANCE Pneluoes
Earwig hurried to catch up. He might have a chance, in this wondrous city, to be a hero and have his picture on the wall. Imagining his adventures, he forgot all about asking Raistlin how he could be master of the past and the present.
“Wait a moment, Caramon!” Raistlin clutched his chest. “Let me … catch my breath.”
“Sure, Raist.”
Caramon stopped walking. Raistlin, gripping the staff to support himself, stood before the city walls. He wasn’t coughing, however. Looking closer, the fighter saw that his brother was staring down at the ground, intently, concentrating. Raistlin’s face could not be seen behind the red cowl, hiding from the silver moonlight.
Caramon experienced a feeling he often had around his brother, the sense that nobody in the entire world could ever intrude upon the young mage’s thoughts, that no force in the world would ever shake Raistlin’s ambition. Caramon found himself wondering, with a feeling of uneasiness, just what Raistlin’s ambitions were.
Raistlin glanced up, turning to face his brother. Red moonlight filled the mage’s hood, making his gold skin blaze with fire — a brazier of inner strength, indomitable, unquenchable. The hourglass eyes were filled with crimson, unscarred by the silver of the other moon. Caramon gaped, wondering if the apparition before him was truly his twin.
Raistlin smiled slightly, seeing his brother’s obvious discomfort.
“Aren’t we going in?” Earwig was looking at them anxiously.
Caramon suddenly wanted to shout, “No!” turn around, and walk straight back to the inn. He knew with the intuitive sense that made the brothers nearer twins on the inside than they were on the outside that Raistlin believed great danger lay ahead of them.
Bnotrjens Majene
Great danger, but also great reward.
“Come on! You were the ones who told me to hurry!” Earwig urged, his shrill voice sounding too loud in the night stillness.
“Magic,” Caramon muttered beneath his breath. “He’ll risk his life for the magic!” And mine, too, the warrior added in silence.
Raistlin held out his left arm, sweeping it toward the open gate that led into Mereklar. His right hand clutched the Staff of Magius near the top, a black line in red and silver moonlight.
“Shall we enter, my brother?”
The huge gate leading into Mereklar was easily large enough to fit five horses riding comfortably abreast, with three more standing on each others’ shoulders. It was raised and lowered by an unseen mechanism, hidden deep within the walls, out of sight. No chains or ropes were visible. Running grooves, one on either side, were used as guides to keep the barrier sliding smoothly. Though the city was old, the iron bars of the portcullis did not show any signs of age or wear. Metal plates, apparently for decorative use, embellished the bars. On each plate was inscribed the head of a cat.
The city wall was five feet thick, and perfectly smooth and unblemished. Even the slots cut into the sides of the portal and ceiling had no imperfections. Not the smallest chip scarred the surface of the stone near the grooves, where anyone who had ever seen a castle’s gate knew that rock began to disintegrate most quickly at those high stress points.