would bring out what was good in Raistlin, drive away those perverse demons-jealousy, ambition, pride-who

were always plaguing him. He and Miranda would live above the clothier shop. He didn't know anything at all

about running a business, but he would learn, for her sake.

For her sake, he would even give up his magic, if she asked him.

The laughter of children jolted Raistlin from his sweet reverie. He was now very late for school and would

receive a severe scolding from Master Theobald.

A scolding which Raistlin accepted so meekly, gazing at Theobald with what might almost be termed an

affectionate smile, that the master was more than half convinced his strangest and most difficult pupil had, at

long last, gone quite mad.

That night-for the first time since he had started school, not counting those times when he was ill Raistlin did

not study his spellcasting. He forgot to water his herbs, left the mice and the rabbit to scrabble frantically in their

cages, hungry for the food he neglected to give them. He tried to eat but couldn't swallow a mouthful. He dined

on love, a dish far sweeter and more succulent than any served at the feast of an emperor.

Raistlin's one fear was that his brother would return before nightfall, for thenhe would have to waste time

answering all sorts of stupid questions. Raistlin had his lie prepared, a lie brought to mind by Miranda herself.

He had been called out to tend to a sick child. No, he did not need Caramon as an escort.

Fortunately Caramon did not return home. This was not unusual during planting season, when he and Farmer

Sedge would

stay out working in the fields by the light of the bright moon. Raistlin left their house, walking the boardwalks. In his

fancy, he walked on moonlit clouds.

He went to Miranda's house, but he was not going to visit her. Visiting a young unmarried woman after dark

would not have been proper. He would speak to her father first, obtain his permission to court his daughter. Raistlin

went only to gaze at the place where she lived, hoping perhaps to catch a glimpse of her through the window. He

imagined her sitting before the fire, bent over her evening's sewing. She was dreaming of him, perhaps, as he was

dreaming of her.

The clothier's business was on the lower level of his house, one of the largest in Solace. The lower level was dark,

for the business was shut up for the night. Lights gleamed in the upper level, though, shining through gabled

windows. Raistlin stood quietly on the boardwalk in the soft spring evening gazing up at the windows, waiting,

hoping for nothing more than the sight of the light shining on her red-gold curls. He was standing thus when he

heard a noise.

The sound came from down below, from a shed on the ground beneath the clothier's. Probably a storage shed. The

thought came immediately to Raistlin's mind that some thief had broken into the shed. If he could catch the thief, or

at least halt the robbery, he would, in his fevered, impossibly romantic condition, have a chance to prove himself

worthy of Miranda's love.

Not stopping to think that what he was doing was extremely dangerous, that he had no means of protecting

himself if he did come upon a thief, Raistlin ran down the stairs. He could see hisway easily enough. Lunitari, the

red moon, was full this night and cast a lurid glow along his path.

Reaching the ground, he glided forward silently, stealthily toward the shed. The lock on the door hung loose, the

door was shut. The shed had no windows, but a soft light, just barely visible, gleamed out of a knothole on one side.

Someone was definitely inside. Raistlin had been about to burst in the door, but common sense prevailed, even over

love. He first would look through the knothole, see what was going on. He would be witness to the thief's activities.

This done, he would raise the alarm, prevent the thief's escape.

Raistlin put his eye to the knothole.

Bundles of cloth had been stacked on one side of the shed, leaving a cleared place in the center. A blanket was

spread on that cleared place. A candle stood on a box in a comer. On the

blanket, indistinct in the shadows cast by the candle's wavering flame, two people writhed and panted and squirmed.

They rolled into the candle's light. Red curls fell across a bare white breast. A man's hand squeezed the breast and

groaned. Miranda giggled and gasped. Her white hand raked across the man's naked back.

A broad, muscular back. Brown hair, brown curly hair, shone in the candlelight. Caramon's naked back,

Caramon's sweat-damp hair.