Caramon jumped guiltily and veered off, much to the chagrin of the stout little man, who cast Raistlin a

baleful look before catching hold of another yokel and resuming his spiel.

Raistlin positioned the wooden bowl so that it showed to best advantage, dropped a steel piece inside to

"prime the pump," then laid out his equipment at his feet. He had balls for juggling, coins that would appear

inside people's ears, a remarkable length of rope that could be cut and made perfectly whole again in an instant,

silken scarves that would flow wondrously from his mouth, and a brightly painted box from which would emerge

a peeved and disheveled rabbit.

He wore white robes, which he had laboriously sewn himself out of an old bed sheet. The worn spots were

covered with stars and moon faces: red and black. No true wizard would have been caught dead wearing such an

outlandish getup, but the general public didn't know any better and the bright colors attracted attention.

The juggling balls in his hands, Raistlin mounted the stump and began to perform. The multicolored balls -toys

from his and Caramon's childhood-spun in his deft fingers, flashed through the air. Immediately several children

ran over to watch, dragging their parents with them.

Caramon arrived, to loudly exclaim over the wonders he was witnessing. More people came to watch and to

marvel. Coins clinked in the wooden bowl.

Raistlin began to enjoy himself. Although he was not performing real magic, he was casting a spell over these

people. The enchantment was helped by the fact that they wanted to believe in him, were ready to believe in him.

He liked the admiration of the children especially, perhaps because he remembered himself at that age,

remembered his own awe and wonder, remembered where that awe and wonder had led.

"Wow! Would you look at that!" cried a shrill voice from the crowd. "Did you really swallow all those

scarves? Doesn't it tickle when they come out?"

At first Raistlin thought the voice belonged to a child, then he noticed the kender. Dressed in bright green

pants, a yellow shirt, and an orange vest, with an extremely long topknot of hair, the kender surged forward to

the front of the crowd, which parted nervously at his coming, everyone clutching his purse. The kender stood in

front of Rais tlin, regarding him with openmouthed admiration.

Raistlin cast an alarmed glance at Caramon, who hurried

over to stand protectively beside the wooden bowl that held their money.

The kender seemed familiar to Raistlin, but then kender are so appallingly different from normal people that

they all look alike to the untrained eye.

Raistlin thought it wise to distract the kender from the wooden bowl. He did this by first extracting one of his

juggling balls from the kender's pouch, then causing a shower of coins to fall from the kender's nose, much to the

diminutive spectator's wild delight and mystification. The audience quite a large audience now-applauded. Coins

clinked into the bowl.

Raistlin was taking a bow when, "For shame!" a voice cried.

Raistlin rose from his bow to look directly into the face-the blotchy, vein-popping, infuriated face of his

schoolmaster.

"For shame!" Master Theobald cried again. He leveled a quivering, accusing finger at his pupil. "Making an

exhibition of yourself before the masses!"

Conscious of the watching crowd, Raistlin tried to maintain his composure, though hot blood rushed to his

face. "I know that you disapprove, Master, but I must earn my living the best way I know how."

"Excuse me, Master sir, but you're blocking my view," said the kender politely, and he reached up to tug at the

sleeve of the man's white robe to gain his attention.

The kender was short and Master Theobald was shouting and waving his arms, which undoubtedly explains

how the kender missed the sleeve and ended up tugging on the pouch of spell components hanging from the

master's belt.

"I've heard how you've been earning your living!" Master Theobald countered. "Consorting with that witch

woman! Using weeds to fool the gullible into thinking they've been healed. I came here on purpose tosee for

myself because I could not believe the stories were true!"

"Do you really know a witch?" asked the kender eagerly, looking up from the pouch of spell components.

"Would you have me starve, Master?" Raistlin demanded.