Pain seized Raistlin, Agony ran through his body like fiery darts. The motes of light left the streets and came to
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dance in his vision. The mage doubled over, the pain twisting his body into grotesque forms, squeezing the breath from his lungs, cutting off even his bubbling cry of torment.
Raistlin collapsed, unconscious. The staff clattered to the street. Lifting his brother, who was like a rag puppet in the big man’s arms, the warrior looked frantically around for aid.
“There’s the inn!” cried Earwig. “But it’s all dark!”
“These people must go to bed at sunset! Go get help!” Caramon ordered.
Dashing down the road, the kender reached the door to Barnstoke Hall and began pounding on it.
“Help! Fire! Thieves! Man overboard!” he yelled, adding any other rousing alarm he thought suitable.
Lights flared. Heads poked out of upstairs windows.
“What is it?” demanded a man in a pointed nightcap, coming out on a second-floor balcony.
“Open up!” shouted Caramon.
“It’s past hours. I’m locked up for the night. Come back in the morning — ”
Caramon’s lips pressed together grimly. Getting a firm grip on the limp and seemingly lifeless body of his brother, the warrior kicked the door to the lodging-house. Wood splintered, but the door held. Caramon kicked it again. There was a tearing and rending sound as the door shattered beneath the blow. The man on the balcony shrieked in anger and disappeared inside.
Caramon stalked through the wreckage. Looking around, he found a sofa and gently laid his brother down. The scrollcase that Raistlin had placed in the sleeve of his robes clattered to the floor. Caramon paid no attention to it. His brother’s face was pinched, the lips blue. Raistlin had ceased breathing.
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“I’ll call the guard!” The innkeeper came clattering down the stairs, shaking his fist. “You’ll pay—”
Caramon glanced at him.
“Hot water! Quickly!” the warrior ordered.
The innkeeper swelled up with fury, then his gaze fell on the scrolkase. He turned pale.
“Well, what are you doing, standing around, you lout?” the proprietor shouted at a sleepy servant. “Didn’t you hear the gentleman? Fetch hot water! And be quick about it!”
The servant raced out and returned with a pot of boiling water, originally used for the evening tea.
Caramon poured steaming water into a cup and shook the contents of one of Raistlin’s pouches inside. The herbs and barks bubbled and snapped. Propping up his brother’s lifeless form, Caramon held the concoction to Raistlin’s lips. The fumes seeped into the mage’s nose and mouth. Raistlin’s breathing began again, though the mage remained unconscious.
Sighing heavily, wiping his sweaty forehead with the back of his right hand, Caramon gently lifted his brother.
“Your rooms are ready, sir,” said the proprietor, bobbing up and down. ‘This way. I’ll show you myself.”
“Sorry about the door,” Caramon grunted.
“Oh, think nothing of it,” said the innkeeper airily, as if he replaced heavy wooden doors every day. “Will you be needing anything else? Food? Drink?”
The procession wound its way up the stairs. Earwig, forgotten in the excitement, started to follow, when he remembered something.
“Raistlin’s staff! He left it in the street. I’m certain he’d want me to go get it!”
Turning, the kender dashed back outside. There was the staff, lying in the middle of the road. Earwig gazed down at it in awe. The crystal orb, held fast in the drag-
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on’s claw, was as dark and lifeless, it seemed, as its master.
“Maybe I can make it light up,” said the kender, reaching out a trembling hand to take hold of the staff. Of all the interesting things that had happened to him in his life, this was going to be the most wonderful. Carrying a wizard’s staff —
“Hey!” Earwig cried out angrily. “What the — ?”
The kender looked up into the air and down at his feet. He glanced around in all directions.
The staff was gone.
“Oops,” said Earwig Lockpicker.
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CanaMON watcfteO oves RaistliN tfynouGtjout tfte night, never moving from the mage’s side, never taking his eyes from the steadily rising and falling rhythm of his brother’s breathing. The fighter had witnessed Raistlin this sick only once before, when they were being pursued in a forest by the Cleric of Larnish’s men. The mage had expended most of his energies fending off spear and arrow, creating a glowing shield that could not be penetrated by missiles, protecting the twins from attack until eventually they found safety in a hidden cave.