The Second Generation

A chair flung from the back of the crowd caught Caramon on the shoulder of his sword arm. Two men in front jumped him, one grabbing his wrist and trying to knock the sword free, the other flailing away with his fists.

The mob—seeing the warrior apparently falling—surged forward.

“Get the girl, Raist! I’ll take care of these!” Caramon shouted in muffled tones from beneath a sea of bodies. “Everything’s... under... contr—”

“As usual, my brother,” said the mage wryly. Ignoring the grunts and yells, the cracking of furniture and bone, Raistlin leaned on his staff and began climbing the stairs.

Though the girl was fighting her attacker with her fists, she apparently had no other weapon, and it was easy to see she must soon lose. The man’s attention was fixed on dragging his struggling victim up the stairs, so he never noticed the red-robed mage moving swiftly behind him.

There was a flash of silver, a quick thrust of the mage’s hand, and the ruffian, letting loose of the girl, clutched his ribs. Blood welled out from between his fingers. For an instant he stared at Raistlin in astonishment, then tumbled past him, falling headlong down the stairs, the mage’s dagger protruding from his side.

“Raist! Help!” Caramon shouted from below. Though he had laid three opponents low, he was locked in a vicious battle with a fourth, his movements decidedly hampered by a gully dwarf, who had crawled up his back and was beating him over the head with a pan.

But Raistlin was not able to go to his brother’s rescue. The girl, weak and dizzy from her struggles, missed her step upon the stairs.

Letting go of his staff—which remained perfectly upright, standing next to him as though he were holding it—Raistlin caught the girl before she fell.

“Thank you,” she murmured, keeping her head down. Her scarf had come undone in her struggles and she tried to wrap it around her face again. But Raistlin, with a sardonic smile and a deft movement of his skilled hands, snatched the scarf from the girl’s head.

“You dropped this,” he said coolly, holding the scarf out to her, all the while his keen eyes looking to see why this young woman hid her face from the sun. He gasped.

The girl kept her head down, even after losing the scarf, but, hearing the man’s swift intake of breath, she knew it was too late. He had seen her.

She checked the movement, therefore, looking up at the mage with a small sigh. What she saw in his face shocked her almost as much as what he saw in hers.

“Who . . . what kind of human are you?” she cried, shrinking away from him.

“What kind are you?” the mage demanded, holding on to the girl with his slender hands that were, nevertheless, unbelievably strong.

“I—I am... ordinary,” the girl faltered, staring at Raistlin with wide eyes.

“Ordinary!” Raistlin gripped her more tightly as she made a halfhearted attempt to break free. His eyes gazed in disbelief at the fine-boned, delicate face; the mass of hair that was the brilliance and color of silver starlight; the eyes that were as dark and soft and velvet-black as the night sky. “Ordinary! In my hands I hold the most beautiful woman I have seen in all my twenty-one years. What is more, I hold in my hands a woman who does not age!” He laughed mirthlessly. “And she calls herself 'ordinary!' ”

“What about you?” Trembling, the girl’s hand reached up to touch Raistlin’s golden-skinned face. “And what do you mean—I do not age?”

The mage saw fear in the girl’s eyes as she asked this question, and his own eyes narrowed, studying her intently. “My golden skin is my sacrifice for my magic, as is my shattered body. As for you not aging, I mean you do not age in my sight. You see, my eyes are different from the eyes of other men...” He paused, staring at the girl, who began to shiver beneath the unwavering scrutiny. “My eyes see time as it passes, they see the death of all living things. In my vision, human flesh wastes and withers, spring trees lose their leaves, rocks crumble to dust. Only the young among the long-lived elves would appear normal to me and even then I would see them as flowers about to lose their bloom. But you—”

“Raist!” Caramon boomed from below. There was a crash.

Endeavoring to shake off the gully dwarf—who was holding his hands firmly over the big man’s eyes, blinding him—Caramon landed headlong on a table, smashing it to splinters.

The mage did not move, nor did the girl. “You do not age at all! You are not elven,” Raistlin said.

“No,” the girl murmured. Her eyes still fixed on the mage, she tried unsuccessfully to free herself from his grasp. “You—you’re hurting me ..."

“What are you?” he demanded.

She shrugged, squirming and pushing at his hands. “Human, like yourself,” she protested, looking up into the strange eyes. “And I thank you for saving me, but—”