Dragonlance 12 - Raistlin Chronicles - Soulforge (45 page)

Kit patted him on the arm, as if he 'were a good child who had eaten all his porridge. Shoving past him, she strode out the tent, yelling Tanis's name as she walked.

Caramon was heading for the booth to wake up Flint when he heard a loud voice shouting, echoing through the fairgrounds.

"There's going to a wizard-burning! Come and see! They're going to burn the wizard!"

Raistlin started to wakefulness, a sense of danger bursting like lightning on his sleep, jolting him out of terrifying dreams. Instinctively he kept still, shivering beneath a thin blanket, until his mind was awake and active and he had located the source of the danger.

He smelled the smoke of burning torches, heard the voices outside the prison, and lay immobilized, listening fearfully.

"And I tell you men," the guard was saying, "the wizard's trial'll be held tomorrow. Today, that is.

You'll have your say then before the High Sheriff."

"The High Sheriff has no jurisdiction in this case!" a deep voice responded. "The wizard murdered my wife, our priestess! He will burn this night, as all witches must burn for their heinous crimes!

Stand aside, jailer. There's only two of you and more than thirty of us. We don't want innocent people to get hurt."

In the adjacent cells, the kender were chattering with excitement, shoving benches over to the windows in order to see and lamenting the fact that they were locked up in prison and would miss the wizard's roasting. At this, someone suggested they once again pick the lock. Unfortunately, following the theft of their keys, the guards had added a chain and padlock to the kenders' cell door, which considerably raised the level of difficulty. Nothing daunted, the kender set to work.

"Rankin! Go fetch the captain," the jailkeep ordered.

There came the sound of a scuffle outside, shouts, cursings, and a cry of pain.

"Here are the keys," said the same deep voice. "Two of you, enter the jail and bring him out."

"What about the captain of the guard and the sheriff?" a voice asked. "Won't they try to interfere?"

"Some of our brethren have already dealt with them. They will not trouble us this night. Go fetch the wizard."

Raistlin jumped to his feet, trying desperately to quell his panic and think what to do. His few magic spells came to mind, but the jailer had taken away the pouches containing his spell components. Between his extreme weariness and his fright, he doubted if he had strength or wit enough to cast them anyway.

And what good would they do me? he reflected bitterly. I could not send thirty people to sleep. I might be able to cast a spell that would hold the cell door shut, but as weak as I am, I could not maintain it for long. I have no other weapons. I am helpless! Completely at their mercy!

The priests in their sky-blue robes appeared, holding their torches high, searching one cell after another. Raistlin fought the wild, panicked urge to hide in a shadowy corner. He pictured them finding him, dragging him out ignominiously. He forced himself to wait in stoic calm for them to reach him. Dignity and pride were all he had left. He would maintain them to the end.

He thought fleetingly, hopefully, of Caramon, but then dismissed the hope as being unrealistic. The fairgrounds were far from the prison. Caramon had no way of knowing what was going on. He would not return until morning, and by then it would be too late.

One of the priests stood in front of Raistlin's cell.

"Here he is! In here!"

Raistlin clasped his hands together tightly to keep from revealing how he trembled. He faced them defiantly, his face a cold, proud mask to conceal his fear.

The priests had keys to the cell; the jailer had not put up much of a fight. Ignoring the pleadings and wailings of the kender, who were having a difficult time removing the padlock, the priests opened Raistlin's cell. They seized hold of him, bound his hands with a length of rope.

"You'll not work any more of your foul magic on us," said one.

"It's not my magic you fear," Raistlin told them, speaking proudly, pleased that his voice did not crack. "It is my words. That is why you want to kill me before I can stand trial. You know that if I have a chance to speak, I will denounce you
for
the thieves and charlatans that you are."

One of the priests struck Raistlin across the face. The blow rocked him backward, knocked loose a tooth and split open his lip. He tasted blood. The cell and the priests wavered in his sight.

"Don't knock him unconscious!" scolded the other priest. "We want him wide awake to feel the flames licking him!"

They took hold of Raistlin by the arms, hustled him out of the cell, moving so rapidly that they nearly swept him off his feet. He stumbled after them, forced to almost run to keep from falling.

Whenever he slowed, they jerked him forward, gripping his arms painfully.

The jailkeep stood huddled by the door, head down and eyes lowered. The young guard, who had apparently made some attempt to defend the prisoner, lay unconscious on the ground, blood forming a pool beneath his head.

The priests gave a cheer when Raistlin was brought forth. The cheer ceased immediately, at a sharp command from the High Priest. Quietly, with deadly intent, they surrounded Raistlin, looked to their leader for orders.

"We will take him back to the temple and execute him there. His death will serve as an example to others who may have it in mind to cross us.

"After the wizard's dead, we will claim that none of us saw the giant kender. We will send out our claque to make the same pronouncements. Soon those who did see it will begin to doubt their senses. We will maintain that the wizard, frightened of the power of Belzor, started a riot in order that he might slip away unnoticed and murder our priestess."

"Will that work?" asked someone dubiously. "People saw what they saw."

"They'll soon change their minds. Seeing the charred body of the wizard in front of the temple will help them reach the right decision. Those who don't will face the same fate."

"What about the wizard's friends? The dwarf and the half-elf and the rest of them?"

"Judith knew them, told me all about them. We have nothing to fear. The sister's a whore. The dwarf's a drunken sot who cares only for his ale mug. The half-elf's a mongrel, a sniveling coward like all elves. They won't cause any trouble. They'll be only too happy to slink out of town. Start chanting, someone," the High Priest snapped. "It will look better if we do this in the name of Belzor."

Raistlin managed a bleak smile, though it reopened the wound on his split lip. At the thought of his friends, his despair lessened and he grew hopeful. The priests didn't want him dead nearly as much as they needed the drama of his death, needed it to instill the fear of Belzor in the minds of the populace. This delay could work to his advantage. The noise and the light and the uproar in the town must be noticed, even as far away as the fairgrounds.

Taking up the chant, shouting praise to Belzor, the priests dragged Raistlin through the streets of Haven. The sound of loud chanting and the light of flaring torches brought people from their beds to the windows. Seeing the spectacle, they hastily donned their clothes, hurried out to watch. The ne'r-do-wells in the taverns left their drinking to see what all the commotion was about. They were quick to join the mob, and fell in behind the priests. Drunken shouts now punctuated the priests' chanting.

The pain of his swelling jaw made Raistlin's head ache unbearably. The ropes cut into his flesh, the priests pinched his arms. He struggled to remain on his feet, lest he fall and be trampled. It was all so unreal, he felt no fear.

Fear would come later. For now, he was in a nightmare existence, a dreamworld from which there would be no awakening.

The torchlight blinded him. He could see nothing but an occasional face—mouth leering, eyes gleefully staring—illuminated in the light, vanishing swiftly in the darkness, only to be replaced by another. He caught a glimpse of the young woman who had lost the child, saw her face, grieved, pitying, afraid. She reached out her hand to him as if she would have helped, but the priests shoved her brutally back.

The Temple of Belzor loomed in the distance. The stone structure had not been damaged in the fire, apparently, only portions of the interior. A crowd had gathered on the broad expanse of grass in front of the temple to watch a man in blue robes drive a large wooden pole into the ground. Other priests tossed faggots of wood around the stake.

Many of Haven's citizens were assisting the priests to build the pyre. Some of the very same citizens, who had only hours before jeered the priests, laughed at him and mocked him. Raistlin was not surprised. Here again was evidence of the ugliness of mankind. Let them be subjugated, robbed, and hoodwinked by Belzor. He and his followers deserved each other.

The priests and the mob hauled Raistlin down the street leading to the temple. They were very close to the stake now, and where was Caramon? Where were Kit and Tanis? Suppose the priests had managed to intercept them, waylay them? Suppose they were battling for their lives inside the fairgrounds, with no way to reach him? Suppose—chilling thought—they had seen that rescue was hopeless, had given up?

The mob picked up the chant, shouting,."Belzor! Belzor!" in an insane litany. Raistlin's hopes died, his fear sprang horribly to life. Then a voice rang out over the wild chanting and the shrieks and laughter.

"Halt! What is the meaning of this?"

Raistlin lifted his head.

Sturm Brightblade stood in the center of the street, blocking the priests' way, standing between the stake and its victim. Illuminated by the light of many torches, Sturm was an impressive sight. He stood tall and unafraid, his long mustaches bristling. His stern face was older than its years. He held naked steel in his hand; torchlight flared along the blade as if the metal had caught fire. He was proud and fierce, calm and dignified, a fixed point in the center of swirling turmoil.

The crowd hushed, from awe and respect. The priests in the vanguard halted, daunted by this young man who was not a knight but who was made knightly by his demeanor, his stance, and his courage.

Sturm seemed an apparition, sprung from the legendary time of Huma. Uncertain and uneasy, the priests in front looked to the High Priest in the back for orders.

"You fools!" the High Priest shouted at them in fury. "He's one man and alone! Knock him aside and keep going!"

A rock sailed out from the midst of the watching mob, struck Sturm in the forehead. He clapped his hand over the wound, staggered where he stood. Yet he did not leave his place in the road, nor did he drop his sword. Blood poured from his face, obliterating his vision in one eye. Lifting his sword, he advanced grimly on the priests.

The mob had tasted blood, they were eager for more, so long as it wasn't their own. Several ruffians ran from the crowd, jumped on Sturm from from behind. Yelling and cursing, kicking and pummeling, the men bore him to the ground.

The priests hustled their captive to the stake. Raistlin cast a glance at his friend. Sturm lay groaning in the road, blood covered his torn clothing. And then the mob surged around Raistlin and he could see his friend no more.

He had quite given up hope. Caramon and the others were not coming. The knowledge came to Raistlin that he was going to die, die most horribly and painfully.

The wooden post thrust up from the center of the pile of wood, dry wood that snapped underfoot.

The jutting branches caught on Raistlin's robes, tearing the cloth as the priests shoved him near the stake. Roughly they turned him around, so that he faced the crowd, which was all gleaming eyes and gaping, hungry mouths. The dry wood was being doused with liquid— dwarf spirits, by the smell of it. This was not the priests' doing, but some of the more drunken revelers.

The priests tied Raistlin's wrists together behind the stake, then they wound coils of rope around his chest and torso, binding him tightly. He was held fast, and though he struggled with all his remaining strength, he could not free himself. The High Priest had been going to make a speech, but some eager drunk flung a torch on the wood before the priests had finished tying up their prisoner, nearly setting the High Priest himself on fire. He and the others were forced to jump and skip with unseemly haste away from the pyre. The liquor-soaked wood caught quickly. Tongues of flame licked the tinder, began to devour it.

Smoke stung Raistlin's eyes, filled them with tears. He closed them against the flames and the smoke and cursed his feebleness and helplessness. He braced himself to endure the agonizing torment when the flames reached his skin.

"Hullo, Raistlin!" chimed a voice directly behind him. "Isn't this exciting? I've never seen anyone burned at the stake before. 'Course, I would much rather it wasn't you—"

All the while that Tasslehoff prattled, his knife cut rapidly through the knots on the rope that bound Raistlin's wrists.

"The kender!" came hoarse, angry shouts. "Stop him!"

"Here, I thought this might help!" Tas said hurriedly.

Raistlin felt the hilt of a knife shoved into his hand.

"It's from your friend, Lemuel. He says to—"

Raistlin was never to know what Lemuel said, because at that moment an enormous bellow broke over the crowd. People screamed and shouted in alarm. Steel flared in the torchlight. Caramon loomed suddenly in front of Raistlin, who could have broken down and wept with joy at the sight of his brother's face. Oblivious to the pain, Caramon snatched up whole bundles of burning wood and flung them aside.

Tanis had placed his back to Caramon's, swung the flat of his blade, knocking away torches and clubs. Kitiara fought at her lover's side. She was not using the flat of her blade. One priest lay bleeding at her feet. Kit fought with a smile on her lips,
her
dark eyes bright with the fun of it all.

Flint was there, wrestling with the priests who had hold of Tasslehoff and were trying to drag him into the temple. The dwarf attacked them with such roaring ferocity that they soon let loose of the kender and fled. Sturm appeared, wielding his sword with dispatch, the blood forming a mask on his face.