robes.

"You clumsy oaf! Give me that!" Master Theobald cuffed Gordo, snatched the dipper from him. The master

knelt down beside Raistlin, very gently dabbed the child's lips with water.

"Raistlin," he said in a soft, whining whisper. "Raistlin, can you hear me?"

Laughter bubbled up inside Raistlin. He was forced to exert an extraordinary amount of self-control to contain

it. He lay still one more minute. Then, just as he could feel the master's hand starting to tremble in anxiety,

Raistlin moved his head from side to side and made a small moaning sound.

"Good!" said Master Theobald, sighing in relief. "He's coming around. You boys back off. Give him air. I'll

take him to my private quarters."

The master's flabby arms lifted Raistlin, who let his head loll, his legs dangle. He kept his eyes closed,

moaning now and then as he was carried in state to the master's quarters, all the boys traipsing along after them,

though Theobald ordered them angrily several times to remain in the schoolroom.

The master laid Raistlin down upon a couch. He drove the other boys back to the classroom with threats, not

the willow branch, Raistlin noted, peering through a slit in his closed eyelids. Theobald shouted for one of the

servants.

Raistlin allowed his eyes to flicker open. He kept them deliberately unfocused for a moment, then permitted

his eyes to find Master Theobald.

"What ... what happened?" Raistlin asked weakly. He glanced vaguely around, tried to lift himself. "Where am

l?"

The exertion proved too much. He fell back upon the couch, gasping for breath.

Master Theobald hovered over him. "You ... um ... had a bad fall," he said, not looking directly at Raistlin, but

darting nervous glances at him from the corner of his eyes. "You fell off your stool."

Raistlin glanced down at his arm, where an ugly red we lt was visible against his pale skin. He looked back at

Master Theobald. "My arm stings," he said softly.

The master lowered his gaze, sought the floor, looked up gladly when the servant, a middle-aged woman who did

the cooking and cleaning and took care o f the boys, entered the room. She was extremely ugly, with a scarred face,

missing the hair on one side of her head. It had been burned off, purportedly because she'd been struck by lightning.

This perhaps accounted for the fact that she was quite slow mentally.

Marco, as she was known, kept the place clean, and she'd never yet poisoned anyone with her cooking. That was

about all that could be said of her. The boys whispered that she was the result of one of Master Theobald's spells

gone awry, and that he kept her in his household out of guilt.

"The boy had a bad fall, Marm," said Master Theobald. "See to him, will you? I must return to my class."

He cast a final anxious glance backward at Raistlin, then swept out of the room, inflating himself with what was

left of his pride.

Marm brought a cold, wet cloth that she slapped over Raistlin's forehead and a cookie. The cloth was too wet and

dripped greasy water into Raistlin's eyes, the cookie was burnt on the bottom and tasted like charcoal. Grunting,

Mann left him to recover on his own and went back to whatever it was she had been doing. Judging from the greasy

water, she was washing dishes.

When she was gone, Raistlin removed the cloth and cast it aside in disgust. He threw the cookie into the fireplace

with its ever-present fire. Then he lay back comfortably on the couch, snuggled into the soft cushions, and listened to

the master's voice, which could be heard droning, in a somewhat subdued tone, through the open door.

"The letter u is pronounced 'uh.' Repeat after me."

" 'Uh,' " said Raistlin complacently to himself. He watched the flames consume the log and he smiled.

Master Theobald would never strike him again.

The lesson another day was penmanship.

Not only did a mage have to be able to pronounce the t words of magic correctly, but the mage must also be

able to write them down, form each letter into its proper shape. Words of the arcane must be penned with precision,

exactness, neatness, and care on the scroll, else they would not work. Write the spell wordshirak,for example, with a

wobble in theaand a scrunch in the k, and the mage who wants light will be left in the dark.

Most of Master Theobald's students, true to the naturally clumsy characteristics of small boys, were fumble-fisted.