decayed stumps.
"You are never to mention that incident to me or to anyone else, my brother, so long as you live. Do you
understand?"
"Sure, Raist," Caramon said softly, "I understand." He turned back to his task. "Your tea's almost ready."
Raistlin closed the book he had been reading. His eyes burned from the strain of trying to decipher the scribe's
old-fashioned handwriting, he was weary from the effort involved in translating the mixture of archaic Common
and the military slang spoken among soldiers and mercenaries.
Flexing his hand, which ached from gripping the pen, Raistlin slid the volume about Magius into his belt for
perusal during their long journey north. They were not returning to Solace. Antimodes had given the twins the
name of a nobleman who was hiring warriors and who would, Antimodes said, be glad to hire a war mage as
well. Antimodes was heading in that direction. He would be glad to have the young men ride with him.
Raistlin had readily agreed. He planned to learn all he could from the archmagus before they parted. He had
hoped that Antimodes would apprentice him, and had even been bold enough to make the request. Antimodes
had refused, however. He never took apprentices, or so he said. He lacked the patience. He added that there was
little opportunity in the way of apprenticeships open these days. Raistlin would be far better studying on his own.
This was a prevarication (one could not say t hat a White
Robe lied). The other mages who had taken the Tests had all been apprenticed. Raistlin wondered why he was
the exception. He decided, after considerable thought, that it must have something to do with Caramon.
His brother was rattling the teapot, making a most ungodly racket, slopping boiling water all over the floor
and spilling the herbs.
Would I go back to the days of my youth?
Then my body had seemed frail, but it was strong in comparison to this fragile assembly of bones and flesh
that I now inhabit, held together only by my will. Would I go back?
Then I looked on beauty and I saw beauty. Now I look on beauty and I see it drowned, bloated, and disfigured,
carried downstream by the river of time. Would I go back?
Then we were twins. Together in the womb, together after birth, still together but now separate. The silken
cords of brotherhood, cut, dangle between us, never to be restrung. Would I go back?
Closing the volume of his precious notations, Raistlin picked up a pen and wrote on the cover:
I, Magus.
And, with a swift, firm stroke, he underlined it.
Coda
One evening, while I was absorbed in my usual task of chronicling the history of the world, Bertram, my loyal but
occasionally inept assistant, crept into my study and
begged leave to interrupt my work.
"Whatever is the matter, Bertram?" I demanded, for the man was as pale as if he'd encountered a gnome bringing
an incendiary device into the Great Library.
"This, Master!" he said, his voice quavering. He held in his trembling hands a small scroll of parchment, tied with
a black ribbon and sealed with black ink. Stamped upon the ink was the imprint of an eye.
"Where did this come from?" I demanded, though I knew immediately who must have sent it.
"That's just it, Master, " Bertram said, holding the scroll balanced on the tips of his fingers. "I don't know! One
minute it wasn't there. And the next minute it was."
Knowing I would get nothing more intelligent from Bertram than this, I told him to place the scroll on the desk
and to leave. I would peruse it at my leisure. He was clearly reluctant to leave the missive, thinking no doubt that it
would burst into flame or some other such nonsense. He did as I requested, however, and left with many a backward
glance. Even then, he waited, hovering outside my door with-as I learned later-a bucket of water nearby, intending,
no doubt, to fling it on me at the first puff of smoke.
Breaking the seal and untying the ribbon, I found this letter, of which I have included a portion.
To Astinus,
may be that I am about to undertake a daring enterprise.1 It
It