High Sorcery and there takes a test. And, yes, sometimes the mage dies. The power a

mage wields is very great. Any who are not able to control it or to commit their very

lives to it would not be wanted in our order."

The boy looked very solemn, his eyes wide and pale. Antimodes gave the hands a

squeeze, the boy a reassuring smile. "But that will be a long, long time from now,

Raistlin. A long, long time. I don't want to frighten you. I just want you to know what

you face."

"Yes, sir," said Raistlin quietly. "I understand."

Antimodes released the boy's hands. Raistlin took an involuntary step backward and,

probably unconsciously, put his hands behind his back.

"And now, Raistlin," said Antimodes, "I have a question for you. Why do you want to

become a mage?"

Raistlin's blue eyes flared. "I like the feeling of the magic inside me. And"- he glanced

at Otik, bustling about the counter; Raistlin's thin lips parted in a pallid smile "and

someday fat innkeepers will bow to me."

Antimodes, taken aback, looked at the child to see if he were joking.

Raistlin was not.

The hand of the god on Antimodes's shoulder suddenly trembled.

A month later to the night, Antimodes was comfortably ensconced in the

elegant chambers of Par-Salian of the White Robes, head of the Conclave

of Wizards.

The two men were very different and probably would not have been

friends under ordinary circumstances. Both were about the same age, in

their fifties. Antimodes was a man of the world, however. Par-Salian was

a man of books. Antimodes liked to travel, he had a head for business,

he was fond of good ale, pretty women, comfortable inns. He was nosy

and inquisitive, fussy in his dress and his habits.

Par-Salian was a scholar, whose knowledge of the art of magic was

undeniably the most extensive of any wizard then living upon Krynn. He

abhorred travel, had little use for other people, and was known to have

loved only one woman, a misguided affair that he regretted to this day.

He took little care of his personal appearance or physical comfort. If

absorbed in his studies, he often forgot to come to meals.

It was the responsibility of some of the apprentice magic-users to see to

it that their master took sustenance, which they did by surreptitiously

sliding a loaf of bread beneath his arm as he read. He would then

absentmindedly munch on it. The apprentices often joked among

themselves that they could have substituted a loaf of sawdust for the

bread and Par-Salian would have never known the difference. They held

him in such awe and reverence, however, that none dared try the

experiment.

This night, Par-Salian was entertaining his old friend, and therefore he

had left poring over his books, though not without a pang of regret.

Antimodes had brought as a gift several scrolls of dark magic, which the

archmage had acquired by chance on

his travels. One of their black-robed sisters, an evil wizardess, had been slain by a mob.

Antimodes had arrived too late to save the wizardess, which he would have at least made

a halfhearted attempt to do, all mages being bound together by their magic, no matter to

which god or goddess they pledged their allegiance.

He was, however, able to persuade the townspeople, a set of superstitious louts, to