explains it,' he said. 'You were able to move when the amethyst fell into your hand, yes?'
The light dawned on her.
'That's right. I was wearing it over my blouse and under my mail — '
'When it touched your skin, the paralysis spell was broken. The dissipation of the spell bled all the color from the stone. It's just an arrowhead-shaped piece of quartz now.' Kitiara slipped the loop over her head. 'I'll keep it, just the same.
Tirolan probably never realized he was saving our lives when he gave me the stone.'
Their baggage recovered, Sturm began to gather dead wood from the circle of oaks and heaped it on the fire. The flames leaped up.
'Why are you doing that?' asked Kitiara.
'I'm making a pyre,' said Sturm. 'We can't leave these corpses lying about.'
'Let the vultures have them.'
'It's not out of respect that I do this. Evil magicians, even one as lowly as this one, have the unhappy habit of returning undead to prey on the living. Help me put them on: he pyre, and their menace will truly be over.'
She agreed, and the goblins and their master were consigned to the flames. Sturm flung dirt on the embers, then he and Kit mounted their horses.
'How do you know so much about magic?' asked Kitiara.
'I thought you despised it in all forms.'
'I do,' Sturm replied. 'Magic is the greatest underminer of order in the world. It's difficult enough to live with virtue and honor without the temptation of magical power. But magic exists, and we all must learn to deal with it. For myself, 1 have had many talks with your brother, and I've learned some things I've needed to defend myself.'
'You mean Raistlin?' she asked, and Sturm nodded. 'His lectures on magic always put me to sleep,' she said.
'I know,' said Sturm. 'You go to sleep awfully easily.'
They turned the horses toward the new morning's sun and rode away.
Chapter 5
The day after the robbers' attack was oppressively humid. Tallfox and Pira needed frequent watering, for their heads would sag and their gait falter. They entered a district of orchards and farms, with a good view from the road on all sides. Kitiara and Sturm discarded their mail for shirtsleeves, and by noon Kitiara had pulled her blouse loose and tied the tails together around her waist. Thus cooled, they paused in a fig grove for lunch.
'Too bad they're green,' said Kitiara, pinching an immature fig between her thumb and forefinger. 'I like figs.'
'I doubt that the orchard's keeper would share your enthusiasm unless you paid for what you ate,' said Sturm. He hollowed a large biscuit and filled the hole with chopped, dried fruit and cheese.
'Oh, come on. Haven't you ever snitched apples or pears? Stolen a chicken and roasted it over a bark fire, while the farmer hunted for you with a pitchfork?'
'No, never.'
'I have. And few things in life taste as sweet as the food you season with wit.' She dropped the fig branch and joined Sturm under the tree.
'You never considered what your witty little thefts might do to the farmer, did you, Kit? That he or his family might go hungry for a night because of your filched meal?'
She bristled. 'A fine one you are to talk, Master Brightblade. Since when did you ever work for the food that went into your belly? It's very easy for a lord's son to speak of justice for the poor, never having been poor himself.'
Sturm counted silently until his anger subsided. 'I worked,' he said simply. 'When my mother, her handmaid Carin, and I first arrived in Solace twelve years ago, we had some money that we'd brought with us. But soon it ran out, and we were in dire straits. My mother was an intensely proud woman and would not take charity. Mistress Carin and I did odd jobs around Solace to put food on the table. We never told my mother.'
Kitiara's prickly demeanor softened.
'What did you do?'
He shrugged. 'Because I was able to read and write, I got a job with Derimius the Scribe, copying scrolls and manuscripts. Not only was I able to earn five silver pieces a week, but I got to read all sorts of things.'
— I never knew that
'In fact, I met Tanis at Derimius's shop. He brought in a ledger that he kept for Flint. Tanis had spilled some ink on the last pages and wanted Derimius to replace them with new parchment. Tanis saw a sixteen-year-old boy scribbling away with a gray goose quill and inquired about me. We talked and became friends.'
This statement was punctuated by a roll of far-off thunder. The sultry air had collected in a mass of blue- black thunderheads piling up in the western sky. They were moving quickly eastward, so Sturm crammed the last of his lunch in his mouth and jumped to his feet. He mumbled something through bread and cheese.
'What?' said Kitiara.
'— horses. Must secure the horses!' Lightning lanced down from the clouds to the hills where the robbers had been vanquished. Wind blew out of the upper air, swirling dust into Sturm and Kitiara's eyes. They tied Tallfox and Pira to a fig tree, and hastily rigged their blankets as a shelter to keep the rain off. Down the road Kitiara could see a wall of rain advancing toward them.
'Here it comes!' she said.
The storm broke over the fig grove with all its fury. Rain hammered the skimpy screen of blankets down on their heads. In seconds, Sturm and Kitiara were completely soaked. Rain collected between the rows of trees and filled the low places. Water climbed over Kitiara's toes. Tallfox couldn't bear it. A nervous beast by nature, he reared and neighed as the storm played around him. His terror infected the usually stolid Pira, and both horses started straining against their tethers. A bolt of lightning hit the tallest tree in the orchard and blasted it into a million burning fragments. The horses, driven beyond terror, tore free and galloped away, Tallfox fleeing east and Pira veering north.
'After them!' Sturm cried above the din. He and Kitiara splashed off after their respective mounts. Tallfox was a long-legged sprinter, and he galloped in a straight line. Pira was a hard-cornering dodger. She wove among the leafy fig trees, changing direction a dozen times in twenty places. Kitiara stumbled after her, cursing her favorite's agility. The orchard ended in a gully. Kitiara slid down the muddy bank and into calf-deep water.
'Pira!' she called. 'Pira, you pea-brained nag, where are you?'
All she got for her shouting was a mouth full of water. She scanned both sides of the gully for tracks. In the lightning's glare Kitiara saw a strange thing. An angular black shape, like a warrior's shield, was silhouetted against the clouds, some forty feet overhead. The dazzling glow faded, but not before she saw a long line trailing below the shield to the ground. Kitiara slogged forward, not knowing what she would find. Tallfox easily outran his master, but Sturm was able to follow the chestnut's prints in the mud. A wall of closely growing cedar saplings blocked the end of the orchard. There was only one gap wide enough for a horse to pass through, and sure enough, Sturm found Tallfox's trail there. He plunged into the dense tangle of evergreen. Broken saplings told well which way his horse had gone. The lightning was unusually active overhead. It crackled and pulsed from cloud to cloud. One prolonged stroke illuminated a wonder to Sturm's eyes: an enormous bird fluttered in the storm wind. The bird wobbled from side to side, but never flew off. Another bolt of lightning crackled, and he saw why. Someone had tied cords to the bird's feet. Kitiara climbed a hill of solid mud. Her hair was plastered to her head, and her clothing felt as if it had absorbed a ton of water. At the top of the hill, she could see down into a wide clearing. There was no sign of Pira. There was, however, plenty to see. In the center of the clearing was a thing such as Kitiara had never seen. It was like a huge boat with large leather sails furled along each side. There were no masts, but the prow was long and pointed, like a bird's beak, and there were wheels on the underside of the hull. Above the boat, tied to it by a rope
