Dragonlance Tales, Vol. 3 – Love and War

meant. Now he was certain. Keli dragged up every bit of

strength he had and lurched hard against the wall. He

pressed his face to the wet, black stone, shuddering. “Now

where?”

Tas attacked the answer obliquely. “We can’t go back,

but he’s not coming on, either.”

“What, then?”

“We can always wait.”

Out over the lake the jeweled and dazzling mists of

sunset were gone. On the far shore twilight’s purple

shadows gathered, the outriders of the night.

“It would be nice,” Keli said tightly, “if we could fly.”

“Sure would,” Tas agreed, “and a lot better than being

stuck up here”

Keli wanted to wail. He clamped his back teeth hard

and whispered, “Then – but – why are we out here? I thought

you knew a way OUT of this mess!”

Tas shrugged. “I didn’t think he’d follow us. I thought

he was drowned in the lake. Twice.”

Across the arch Tigo sat, his back against the stone,

patient as inevitable doom. Keli couldn’t look at him

without feeling sick, without feeling, in imagination, the rip

of his grapnel hand and the long, shattering fall to the water

below.

Light, the faint and fading gold of sunset, the silver of

approaching twilight, danced up from the black surface of

the lake and came together, shining in the gloaming like

hope promised.

Far below, the red-haired bowman Tas called Tanis and

one of the young men who had been in the lake stood on the

shore. The other was in the water again and swimming hard

toward the falls. The dwarf and the slim young man moved

quickly to the north.

“Tas, what are they doing?”

“Something, they’re up to something. Look! Tanis sees

us! He’s pointing.” The kender leaned so far out to see that

Keli had to catch him back by his belt.

“Don’t DO that!”

Clearly the fact that he’d almost tumbled to his death

didn’t bother the kender at all. He laughed, and the sound of

his glee skirled high above the roar of the falls.

“Look, Keli! Raistlin’s doing something to the air!” Tas

thumped the boy’s shoulder joyfully, nearly knocking him

from his tenuous perch. “I don’t know what he’s up to, I

usually don’t, hardly anyone ever does. But it’s always

magic, and it’s always worth waiting for.”

Clinging like a soaked bat to the wall, Keli swallowed

his nausea. Whether or not what the mage was up to was

indeed worth waiting for the boy couldn’t say, but he didn’t

see that they had much choice.

Raistlin’s hands moved, deft and certain, in magic’s

dance. He gathered translucent rainbows and gemmed mist,

separated their shimmering strands, and wove them swiftly,

one around the other, into a rope of gleaming enchantment.

It grew quickly, the magic rope, and leaped away from

the young mage’s hands, directed and sped upon its way by

will and spell. Out across the black surface of the water it

flew, with the grace of a hawk rising, with the certainty of

one of Tanis’s well-drawn arrows speeding to its mark.

Sturm leaped into the lake, cutting through the icy

water with powerful strokes. By the time he reached

Caramon, the shining line had passed well over their heads,

flying toward the arch and Tas’s outstretched hand. On the

shore Flint shouted, his voice rising high in triumph, ending

on an oddly broken note, a cry of warning.

Tigo was halfway across the bridge, the hook that passed

for a hand glittering balefully in the fading light.

Tas stepped in front of Keli and wound the shimmering

rope around the boy’s hands. “We’ll go together. It’ll hold, I

swear it. Just slide right down. It won’t burn your hands –

you can hardly feel it.”

Keli eyed the water, then Tigo advancing slowly across

the arch. “Tas, it’s not a rope – it’s LIGHT AND AIR! It can’t

hold us!”

“Oh, sure it will. It’s Raistlin’s magic.” Tas cocked his

head as though he’d had a sudden thought. “You’re worrying

again, are you?”

“Worrying?” Keli gasped. “Tas, I’m so afraid I can’t even

think!”

“But it’ll hold. I TOLD you: it’s magic. And Raistlin

does the best magic I’ve ever seen. He’d never let you fall.”

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