Brothers Majere by Weis, Margaret

Breathing slowly, Raistlin forced himself to relax. His eyes closed. He imagined the many and varied lines of power running through his life—the glowing, golden weave of threads of his magic, his mind, his soul. He held his life in his hands. He was the master of his own destiny.

Raistlin listened to the pipes again. They did not play the eerie, unnatural music he thought he had heard upon waking—the music of the dark elf, the music he dreamed about in his worst nightmares since his indoctrination

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into the higher orders of sorcery. Instead it was the shrill, lively music of an inconsiderate kender.

Throwing off the heavy blankets piled on top of him, Raistlin shivered in the cold evening air. He clutched his staff with hands eager to feel the smooth wood once again safely in their grip, and pulled himself upright.

“Shirak” Raistlin said softly.

Power flowed from his spirit into the staff, mingling with the magic already housed in the black-wood symbol of the mage’s victory. A soft white light beamed from the crystal clutched in a dragon’s claw atop the staff.

As soon as the light flooded the grove, the music stopped abruptly. Earwig looked up in surprise to see the red-hooded figure of the magician looming over him.

“Oh, hi, Raistlin!” The kender grinned.

“Earwig,” said the mage softly, “I’m trying to sleep.”

“Well, of course, you are, Raistlin,” answered the kender. “It’s the middle of the night.”

“But I can’t sleep, Earwig, because of the noise.”

“What noise?” The kender looked around the campsite with interest.

Raistlin reached out his gold-skinned hand and snatched the pipe from Earwig’s grasp. He held it up in front of the kender ‘s nose.

“Oh,” said Earwig meekly. ‘That noise.”

Raistlin tucked the pipes into the sleeve of his robes, turned, and started back to his bed.

“I can play you a lullaby,” suggested Earwig, leaping to his feet and trotting along behind the mage. “If you give me back my pipes, that is. Or I could sing one for you — ”

Raistlin turned and stared at the kender. The firelight flickered in the hourglass eyes.

“Or maybe not,” said Earwig, slightly daunted.

But a kender never stayed daunted for long. “It’s really

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boring around here,” he added, keeping up with the mage. “I thought being on night watch would be fun, and it was for a while, because I kept expecting something to jump out of the woods^and attack us since Caramon said that was why we had to keep watch, but nothing has jumped out and attacked us and it’s really getting boring.”

“Dulak” Raistlin whispered, starting to cough again. The light from the globe dimmed and died. The mage sank down onto his sleeping mat, his tired legs barely supporting him.

“Here, Raistlin, let me help you,” offered Earwig, spreading out the blankets. The kender stood, gazing down at the mage hopefully. “Would you make the staff light up again, Raistlin?”

The mage hunched his thin body beneath the heavy quilt.

“Could I have my pipes back?”

Raistlin closed his eyes.

Earwig heaved a gusty sigh, his gaze going to the sleeve of the mage’s robes into which he’d seen his pipes disappear.

“Good night, Raistlin. I hope you feel better in the morning.”

The mage felt a small hand pat his arm solicitously. The kender trotted away, small feet making little noise in the dew-wet grass.

Just as Raistlin was finally drifting off to sleep, he heard, once again, the shrill sound of the pipes.

Caramon awoke hours before the dawn, just in time for his watch. The companions had agreed to set two guards. Earwig taking the first watch, Caramon the second. Caramon preferred to take the last watch of the night, known as “the dead man’s watch” because it was a

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time when there was the greatest possibility of trouble.

“Earwig, turn in,” said Caramon, only to find his order had already been obeyed.

The kender lay fast asleep, a set of pipes clutched tightly in his hand.

Caramon shook his head. What could you expect from a kender? By nature, kender were not afraid of anything, living or dead. It was extremely difficult, therefore, to impress upon a kender the need to set a guard on the campsite.

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