Panic-stricken, she ducked back into the shadows. The
mage headed toward the stairs, his brother standing behind
him, hands spread helplessly.
“This has to do with that girl, doesn’t it?” Caramon
shouted. “Name of the Abyss, answer me! I – He’s gone.”
Left alone in the hall, the big warrior scratched his head.
“Well, he won’t get far without me. I’ll go after him.
Women!” he muttered, hurrying back into the room and
reappearing, struggling to lift a pack to his back. “Just after
we got out of that damn magic forest, too. Now, I suppose
we’ll end up right back in it.”
Amberyl saw Caramon look down the hall toward her
room and, once more, ducked back.
“I’d like to know what’s going on, my lady,” the big
man said in her general direction. Then, shaking his head,
Caramon shouldered the pack and clumped hastily down the
stairs.
Amberyl stood for a moment in the darkness of her
room, waiting until her breathing calmed and she could
think clearly. Then, grabbing her scarf, she wound it tightly
around her face. Pulling a fur cloak from her own pack, she
cautiously crept down the hall after Caramon.
Amberyl could recall no worse storm in her life and she
had lived many years in the world, though she was young
yet by the standards of her kind. The snow was blinding.
Blown by a fierce wind, it blotted out all traces of any
object from her sight – even her own hands held out before
her were swallowed up by the stinging, blinding white
darkness. There was no possible way she could have
tracked Raistlin and his brother – no way except the way she
did it – by the bond that had been accidentally created
between her self and the mage.
Accidental. Yes, it must have been accidental, she
thought as she trudged along. Though the snow had been
falling only a matter of hours, it was already knee-deep.
Strong as she was, she was having some difficulty plowing
her way through the steep drifts and she could imagine the
magic-user … in his long robes…
Shaking her head, Amberyl sighed. Well, the two
humans would stop soon. That much was certain. Wrapping
her scarf tighter about her face, covering her skin from the
biting snow, she asked herself what she intended to do when
they did stop. Would she tell the mage?
What choice do I have? she argued with herself bitterly
and, even as she asked the question, she slipped and
stumbled. There! she thought, a sickening wave of fear
convulsing her. It’s beginning already, the weakness that
came from the bond. And if it was happening to her, it must
be happening to him also! Would it be worse in a human?
she wondered in sudden alarm. What if he died!
No, she would tell him tonight, she decided firmly.
Then, stopping to lean against a tree and catch her breath,
she closed her eyes.
And after you’ve told – then what?
“I don’t know . . .” she murmured to herself brokenly.
“The gods help me. I don’t know!”
So lost in her fear and inner turmoil was Amberyl that,
for a moment, she did not notice that the snow had suddenly
ceased falling, the cutting, biting wind had lessened. When
she became aware of the fact, she looked around. There
were stars, she saw, and even moonlight! Solinari shone
brightly, turning the snow silver and the white-covered
woods into a wondrous realm of the most fantastic beauty.
The woods. . . . She had crossed the boundary.
Amberyl laid her hand gently upon the trunk of the tree
against which she leaned. She could feel the life pulsing in
the bark, the magic pulsing within that life.
She was in the magical Forest of Wayreth. Though the
blizzard might rage unabated not one foot away from her,
here, within the shelter of these trees, it could be summer if
the wizards commanded it. But it wasn’t. The wind, though
it had ceased its inhuman howl, still bit the flesh with teeth
of ice. The snow was piled thigh-deep in places. But at least
the storm was not permitted to vent its full fury inside the