her performance, had been placed on a small wooden table.

Judith no longer had need of food. Her performances were ended. The wizardess lay on the floor beneath the

table. Blood covered the stone floor. Her throat had been slashed with such violence that the killer had almost

severed the head from the neck.

At the horrible sight, Caramon retched, covered his eyes with his hands.

"Oh, Raist! I didn't mean it!" he mumbled, sickened. "About the Abyss! I didn't mean it!"

"Nevertheless, my brother," Raistlin said, regarding the corpse with terrible calm, "we may safely assume that

the Abyss is where the Widow Judith is now residing. Come, we should leave immediately. No one must find us

here."

As he started to turn away, he caught a flash out of the corner of his eye-torchlight glinting off metal. Looking

closely, he saw a knife lying on the floor near the body. Raistlin knew that knife, he'd seen it before. He hesitated

a split second, then, bending down, he snatched up the knife, slipped it into the sleeve of his robe.

"Quickly, my brother! Someone's coming!"

Outside, booted feet clattered; the girl was shrilly guiding the town guard to the High Priestess's chambers.

Raistlin reached the door just as the captain of the guard entered, accompanied by several of his men. They

stopped short at the sight of the body, alarmed and amazed. One guard turned away to be quietly sick in a corner.

The captain was an old soldier who'd seen death in many hideous aspects and was not unduly shocked by this

one. He stared first at Judith, whom he had come to question about

bilking money out of the good citizens of Haven, then he turned a stern gaze to the two young men. He

recognized them both immediately as the two who had precipitated the evening's dis astrous events.

Caramon, nearly as pale as the blood -drained corpse, said brokenly, "I-I didn't mean it."

Raistlin kept quiet, thinking quickly. The situation was desperate, circumstances were against them.

"What's this?" The captain pointed to a smear of blood on Raistlin's white robes.

"I have some small reputation as a healer. I bent down to examine her." Raistlin started to add, "to see if there

were any signs of life." Glancing at the body, he realized how ludicrous that statement would sound. He clamped

his mouth shut.

He was acutely aware of the knife clutched tightly in his hand. The blood on the hilt was sticky, was gumming

his fingers. He was repulsed, would have given anything to have been able to wash it off.

Taking that knife had been an act of unbelievable stupidity Raistlin cursed himself for his folly, couldn't

imagine what had prompted him to do something so ill-judged. Some vague and instinctive desire to protect her,

he supposed. She would have never done as much for him.

"The weapon's not here," said the captain after another glance at Raistlin's bloodstained robes and a cursory

look around the room. "Search them both."

One of the guardsman seized hold of Raistlin, grabbed him roughly, pinned his arms. Another guard rolled up

Raistlin's long sleeves, revealing the bloody knife, held fast in his blood-covered hand.

The captain smiled, grimly triumphant.

"First a giant kender, and now murder," he said. "You've had a busy night, young man."

The Haven jail was not a particularly nice jail, as Tasslehoff

had complained. Located near the sheriff's house, the jail

had once been a horse barn. It was drafty and cold, the dirt floors were strewn with refuse. The place stank

of both horse and human piss and dung, mingled with vomit from those who had indulged too freely in dwarf

spirits at the fair.

Raistlin didn't notice the smell, at least not after the first few seconds. He was too tired to notice. They could

have hanged him-hanging being the penalty for murder in Haven-and he would not have protested. He sank

down on a filthy straw mattress and fell into a sleep so deep that he didn't feel the rats skitter over his legs.

His dreamless, untroubled sleep provided much conversation among the jail's two guards. One held that such

sleep was indicative of a mind innocent of murder, for all knew that a guilty conscience could never slumber

peacefully. The other guard, older, scoffed at this notion. It proved the young man to be a hardened criminal,

since he could sleep that soundly with the blood of his victim still on his hands.

Raistlin did not hear their arguments, nor did he hear the noisy voices of his fellow prisoners, mostly kender.