weather to come. In fact, she was stretched out luxuriously across her straw mattress. Her feet hung over the end of it, an indication that she was outgrowing her little nook. Her face in repose was childish, almost gentle, quite unlike the cool, practiced expression she had already adopted, if not always convincingly, as part of her armor against the world.
The softness evaporated as something blunt and unwelcome poked her in the side.
Out of Kit's mouth came some rather imaginative muttering, and, without opening her eyes, she turned on her side against the wall, pulling the quilted blanket tightly over her. After a pause, the poking resumed, this time in the small of her back.
'Go away, Caramon,' she murmured sullenly.
Poke, poke.
Slowly she faced the obnoxious intrusion, still more than half asleep, her eyes bleary.
Oh. Her eyes opened with mild surprise as she made out the diminutive form of, not Caramon, but Raistlin. Thin and pale, an oval face framed by wisps of light brown hair, the four-year-old was standing at the edge of the bed. He was smiling mysteriously. Smiling was out of the ordinary for Raistlin, an unusually preoccupied little boy.
'I woke up early…' he began reedily.
'Uh-huh.' By now Kitiara was unfortunately wide-eyed and knew she was not going to be able to steal any more sleep. She propped herself up on one elbow and regarded her odd little brother, whom she loved enough, yet would just as soon strangle breathless some days-no,
A glance downstairs told her that his more high-spirited brother, Caramon, was still fast asleep, lying on his back, his toes pointed in the air, snoring lightly. The twins had small beds alongside each other, but Caramon was usually sprawled at an angle over both of them. Kit knew Caramon had been up late the night before, practicing, under Gilon's tutelage, how to whittle. He was applying his newfound expertise to creating his first wooden dagger.
As was his wont, Raistlin had gone to bed shortly after supper, and Kitiara must have fallen asleep in front of the smoldering fire. Good, reliable Gilon would have lifted her up the ladder and into bed.
Kitiara sighed. How early was it anyway?
Poke, poke.
'Will you stop that, Raist?'
He still had that vague smile. What was he so smiley about today?
'I was saying,' he said unnecessarily, now that he had renewed her attention, 'a bird was talking to me…'
Kitiara lifted one eyebrow suspiciously. The story did not seem very likely-but with Raistlin, you never could be sure. The child had a peculiarity about him, a singularity. Since he didn't talk much to other children, he might as well talk to birds. But did birds talk back to him? What birds were there anyway, this time of year, in Solace?
'What kind of bird?' she asked in exasperation.
'Brown bird,' replied Raistlin, shrugging as if this was unimportant information. 'Wings got white tips,' he said, almost as an afterthought. 'Just passing through on its way somewhere else.'
'Well. What did the brown bird say?' persisted Kitiara, beginning to roll into a sitting position.
'Said it was going to be an extra-special day.'
'Oh,' she said, unimpressed. 'Extra-special good, or extra-special bad?'
'Hmm,' Raist said thoughtfully. 'Probably good. He sounded happy.' His older sister began to pull on her boots. 'Of course with brown birds,' he added authoritatively,
'you never know. They think every day's special. It doesn't take much to convince them.'
'Optimists,' Kit said drily.
'Uh-huh,' Raist agreed.
She stopped and gave him an appraising look. His expression was certainly ingenuous, almost angelic. Well, Raistlin was the imaginative twin.
She yawned as she grabbed a tunic and pulled it over her head. Caramon-he was the predictable one. If he saw a brown bird, he wouldn't try to talk to it; he'd try to catch it with a net or whack it with a stone. Listen for the rowdy mischief, there was Caramon.
Weary to the bone after almost five years of trailing after the twins, of taking care of them and worrying about them, of teaching them as best she could-of being their mother, practically-Kitiara felt as if she could sleep for an entire month. Her body ached and her mind often felt dulled. She hated the thought of what she would feel like after five more years of such duty.
Her mother had never really recovered from the trauma of the twins' birth. Nothing seemed to be actually wrong with Rosamun, not physically at least, but she was more often in her bed than out of it. For five years she had eaten little and had wasted away to gauntness. Her pale blond hair had turned a ghostly white. In Rosamun's shrunken face, her gray eyes were immense, spooky, and pegged be-yond the horizon. Beyond this world.
For a short time after the twins were born, Yarly had tended to Rosamun. But Yarly was even less skilled and less accommodating than her sister, Minna. It wasn't long before she was counted a nuisance even in Gilon's eyes. They sti1l owed the two midwife sisters a pile of money, and not a week went by that Minna didn't stop by to mention it. Good-hearted Gilon was paying the debt a little at a time.
Yarly had been unable to do much to alleviate Rosamun's mysterious malady, in any case. So for a long time now, the family had made do with the resources of the local healer, a fat, well-intentioned man with appalling horsebreath, name of Bigardus.
Bigardus had known Rosamun for many years and seemed to have a genuine fondness for her. A simple-Kit would be tempted to say simple-minded-healer, he had none of Minna's airs or 'never-fail' pretensions. He admitted he did not have the slightest idea what was wrong with Rosamun, and he did not boast about cures. But he kept the Majere family stocked with various pouches and vials of exotic medicines that were arranged on a small stand next to Rosamun's bed. They seemed to ease her recurring pains. Bigardus came periodically now, to check on Rosamun or to observe one of her spells. Kit liked him. She could almost say she looked forward to his jolly visits.
Rosamun would drift in and out of a half-sleep for months at a stretch. At times, she seemed almost serene, watching everything so quietly with her big eyes that one almost forgot she was nearby. Sometimes she would surprise everyone by suddenly sitting up in bed and calling the twins to her to hear a story. This usually marked the start of one of those rare periods during which Rosamun appeared almost normal. She might get up to bake her special sunflower seed muffins that Caramon and Raistlin loved. Sometimes she even ventured out to go shopping, or for a walk in the woods, as long as Gilon was by her side.
During these normal-seeming periods, Rosamun devoted most of her precious energy to the twins and Gilon. Rarely-Kitiara felt certain she could count the times on one hand-did Rosamun make any effort to spend time with her daughter. It was as if she were uncertain how to act toward this self-sufficient girl who most of the time functioned as the surrogate mother of the household. At first Kit had been hurt by what she took to be her mother's indifference, but no longer.
Rosamun's interludes of normalcy would disintegrate without warning. Kitiara or Gilon or one of the boys would find her crumpled on the floor and endeavor to help her into bed. Then, for brief minutes or weeks on end, Rosamun went into one of her spells, suffering agonizing and horrifying visions that mystified everyone.
In fact, only Bigardus called them 'visions.' What they consisted of, what her mother actually envisioned, Kit could hardly guess. The spells came upon her without warning. All of a sudden Rosamun's face would twist and contort, her arms would begin to flail. She might even leap out of bed with astonishing energy and roam about the room, knocking down furniture and breaking objects in a strange fury. The words that poured from her mouth were jumbled, without meaning. Warnings screamed at Gregor, at the twins, at Kitiara herself. Nonsense warnings.
Once, in her befuddlement, Rosamun had seen Kitiara brandishing her wooden sword and mistaken her daughter for the girl's father. She had bolted upright, stretched out her hands, and cried out in pathetic joy, 'Gregor, you have come back to me!'
Kitiara scoffed to herself in thinking it over. Gregor had been gone without any word for six winters.
If Rosamun grew too agitated, they might have to tie her down to the bed. And when her mother came out of one of her spells-after hours, days or weeks-she would have no recollection of what had transpired. She would lay
