Maybe they'd let you be a war wizard, like Magius."

"I would like to train as a warrior mage," Raistlin said. "The knights would not have me, nor do I think they

would take you either. But we could work together, perhaps in the mercenary line, combining sorcery and steel.

Warrior mages are not common, and people would pay well for such skills."

Caramon was radiant with pleasure. "That's a great idea, Raist! When do you think we should start?" He

looked prepared to rush out the door at that very moment.

"Not for some time yet," Raistlin returned, controlling his brother's impatience. "I would have to leave the

school. Master Theobald would have apoplexy if I even mentioned such a thing. In his mind, magic is to be used

only in such dire situations as starting campfires if the wood is wet. But we must not rush into this, Brother," he

admonished, seeing Caramon already starting to polish his sword. "We need money. You need experience. And I

need more spells in my spellbook."

"Sure, Raist. I think it's a great idea, and I plan to be ready." Caramon ceased his work, looked up, his

expression solemn and troubled. "What do we say to Kit?"

"Nothing. Not until the time comes," Raistlin said. He paused a moment, then added with a grim smile, "And

let her keep thinking I have no talent for magic."

"Sure, Raist, if that's what you want." Caramon couldn't quite figure that one out, but, figuring that Raistlin

knew best, he always obeyed his brother's wishes. "What do we do about Tanis?"

"Nothing," Raistlin said quietly. "There is nothing we can do. He wouldn't believe us if we said anything bad

about Kit becausehe doesn't want to believe us. You would not have believed me if I had said anything bad

about Miranda, would you?" Raistlin asked with a tinge of bitterness.

"No, I guess not." Caramon sighed massively. He still

maintained his heart was broken, although he was now involved with three girls, at last count. "Isn't there

anything we can do about Kit?"

"We watch her, my brother. We watch her very carefully."

Summer days drifted by in a haze of smoke from cooking fires, dust kicked up by travelers along the Solace

road, and the morning mists that wound like wraiths among the boles of the vallenwood trees.

Flint kept to his bed, a surprisingly docile patient, though he grumbled enough for thirty dwarves, as Tasslehoff

said, and complained that he was missing out on all the fun. He had, in fact, a very easy life of it. The kender waited

on him hand and foot. Caramon and Sturm took turns visiting him every afternoon after their sword practice to

demonstrate their newfound skills. Raistlin came by daily to rub oil of wintergreen into the dwarf's tight muscles, and

even Kit dropped by occasionally to entertain Flint with accounts of fighting goblins and ogres.

Flint was so comfortable that Tanis was beginning to worry that the dwarf was enjoying his leisure too much. The

pain in his back and leg had nearly subsided, but it was beginning to look as if Flint might never walk again.

Tanis called his friends together, hatched a plot to cause the dwarf to leave his bed, "without the use of gnome

powder," as the half-elf put it.

"I hear there's a new metalsmith moving to Solace," Tasslehoff Burrfoot announced one morning as he fluffed up

the dwarf's pillows.

"What's that?" Flint looked startled.

"A new metalsmith," the kender repeated. "Well, it's only to be expected. Word has gone out that you've retired."

"I have not!" Flint said indignantly. "I'm only taking a bit of a rest. For my health."

"I hear it's a dwarf. From Thorbardin."

Leaving this poisoned shaft inside the wound, guaranteed to

rankle, Tasslehoff left on his daily tour of Solace to see who was new in town and, more important, what interesting

objects might find their way into his pouches.

Sturm was next to arrive, with a pot of hot soup sent by his mother. In regard to the dwarf's anxious questions,

Sturm replied that he had "heard something about a new metalsmith coming to town" but added that he rarely paid

attention to gossip and couldn't provide any more details.

Raistlin was a good deal more forthcoming, providing a great many details about the Thorbardin metalsmith,

down to his clan and the length and color of his beard, also adding that the main reason the Thorbardin dwarf had

chosen Solace as a place to locate his business was that "he'd heard they'd had no good metalwork done here in a