Amber and Blood - Margaret Weis [118]
But the dragons had not been the fire-breathing red or the lightning-crackling blue dragons people had feared. The dragons had been gleaming silver. They had not come to attack Palanthas. The silver dragons had come to defend her, to fight for her.
Or so they claimed.
The Lord of Palanthas assured the citizens that these new dragons were on the side of Light, that they worshipped Paladine and Mishakal and the rest of the gods of Light, that they had agreed to assist the Knights of Solamnia, protectors of the city.
The people wanted to believe their lord and some did. Some didn’t. Some argued that dragons were not to be trusted and that they were here simply to lull the people into a state of complacency and that they would attack when their backs were turned and the people would all be devoured in their beds.
“Fools!” Raistlin muttered more than once as he shoved his way through the crowds in the streets.
If he had been wearing his red robes, the robes that marked him a wizard, he would not have been trampled and pushed and trod upon. People would have eyed him askance, left him alone, gone out of their way to avoid him.
Palanthians were not fond of wizards, even those of the red robes and the white. Red-robed wizards were neutral in the war between Light and Darkness and white-robed wizards were dedicated the side of Light. Both had done much to bring about the return of the metallic dragons to Krynn, a return that boded ill for Queen Takhisis and her forces of Darkness. The people of Palanthas did not know this, however, and would not have believed it if they did.
To their minds, the only good wizard was a wizard who lived somewhere else besides Palanthas.
Raistlin Majere was carrying his red robes in a bundle under his arm, not wearing them. He was dressed in the robes of the Aesthetics, the monks who serve Astinus of Palanthas in the Great Library of Palanthas. Raistlin had “borrowed” the robes this morning.
Borrowed. Raistlin’s thin lips pressed together grimly. The word made him think of Tasslehoff. The light-hearted and lighter-fingered kender never stole anything. When found with purloined goods upon his person, the kender would claim to have “borrowed” the sugar basin, “stumbled across” the silver candlesticks, and “was just coming back to return” the emerald necklace. Raistlin had “stumbled upon” the Anesthetic’s robes lying folded neatly on a bed this morning. He had every intention of returning the plain, gray robes in a day or two.
If he had been wearing his wizard’s robes, no one would have come near him. Taken for one of the Aesthetics, he was either completely ignored or accidentally trod upon. Though occasionally some citizen would stop him to ask him what Astinus thought about the arrival of the metallic dragons, the dragons of Light.
Raistlin didn’t know and he didn’t care. Keeping his cowl pulled low, to conceal the fact that his skin shimmered gold in the sunlight and that the pupils of his eyes were shape of hourglasses, he would mutter an excuse and hurry on. He hoped sourly that someone was working today, that everyone was not out gossiping in the street.
He regretted deeply bringing Tasslehoff to mind. Thinking of the kender made him think of his friends and that made him think of his twin brother. Perhaps he should say late friends, late brother. His friend were almost certainly dead by now. As was his brother. Drowned in the Maelstrom, gone down in the ship, the Perechon. Left behind to die by Raistlin Majere, who had escaped by means of the magical dragon orb. He might have taken them with him. He might have saved them. He could be sure, though, and so he had saved himself.
Himself and the other