Kitiara rose to her feet. "All the more reason not to waste what time we have left. Good-bye, little brothers," she said, not looking at them. "Happy Day of Life Gift."
"Yes, best wishes," Tanis said, turning to Raistlin with a warm smile. He patted the snoring Caramon on the shoulder.
Kitiara put her arm around the half-elf's waist, leaned into him. He placed his arm affectionately on her shoulder. Walking side by side, so closely that they almost tripped over each other's feet, the two left the inn.
Flint sighed and shook his head. "More ale," he called gruffly.
"Did you see me, Flint? Did you see me?" Tasslehoff, his face bright red, skipped back to the table. "I stood on my head! And I didn't fall off the face of Krynn. My head stuck to the floor just like my feet do. I guess you'd have to not have any part of you touching. Do you suppose if I jumped off the roof of the inn?…"
"Yes, yes, go ahead," Flint muttered, preoccupied. The kender dashed away.
"I'll go stop him," Sturm offered and left in hasty pursuit. Raistlin poked his brother, prodded him awake.
"Uh? What?" Caramon grunted, sitting up and peering around, bleary-eyed. He'd been dreaming of Miranda.
Raistlin raised his half-empty wineglass. "A toast, my brother. To love." "To love," Caramon mumbled, sloshing ale on the table.
Chapter 7
As it turned out, Tanis and Flint did not leave Solace that summer.
Caramon had already departed for work in the early morning dawn and Raistlin was putting his books together, preparatory to going to his school, when there was a knock on the door. Simultaneous with the knock, the door flew open and Tasslehoff Burrfoot jumped in.
Flint had been trying to teach the kender that a knock on the door was generally conceded among civilized peoples as an announcement of one's presence and a request to be admitted. One waited patiently at the door until the knock was answered and the door was opened by the person residing in the household.
Tasslehoff simply could not grasp the concept. Knocking on doors was not much practiced in the kender homelands. It wasn't necessary. Kender doors usually stood wide open. The only reason to shut them was during inclement weather.
If a visiting kender walked in on his hosts and found that they were engaged in some pursuit in which he was not particularly welcome, the visitor could either sit in the parlor and wait until his hosts showed themselves or he was free to leave-after ransacking the dwelling for anything interesting, of course.
Some uninformed people on Ansalon maintained that this custom was followed because kender had no locks on their doors. This was not true. All doors to kender dwellings had locks, generally a great many locks of differing types. The locks were only used when a party was in progress. There was no door knocking at these times. The guests were expected to pick the locks to obtain entry, this being the major form of entertainment for the evening.
Thus far, Flint had trained Tasslehoff to at least knock on the door, which he did, generally knocking on the door as he opened it, or else opening it and then knocking on it, as a way to loudly announce his presence in case no one noticed him.
Raistlin was prepared for Tasslehoffs arrival, having heard the kender shouting his name breathlessly six doors down and having heard the neighbors shout back to ask if he knew what time of the morning it was. He also heard Tas stop to inform them of the correct time.
"Well, they were the ones who asked," Tasslehoff said indignantly, swinging inside with the door. "If they didn't want to know, why were they shouting like that? I tell you" -he fetched a sigh as he settled himself down at the kitchen table- "I don't understand humans sometime."
"Good morning," said Raistlin, removing the teapot from the kender's hand. "I will be late for my classes. Was there something you wanted?" he asked severely as Tasslehoff was reaching for the bread and the toasting fork.
"Oh, yes!" The kender dropped the fork with a clatter and jumped to his feet. "I almost forgot! It's a good thing you reminded me, Raistlin. I'm extremely worried. No, thank you, I couldn't eat a thing. I'm too upset. Well, maybe a biscuit. Do you have any jam? I-"
"What do you want?" Raistlin demanded.
"It's Flint," said the kender, eating the jam out of the crock with a spoon. "He can't stand up. He can't lie down either, or sit down for that matter. He's in extremely bad shape, and I'm really worried about him. Truly worried."
The kender was obviously upset, because he shoved the jam pot away even though it still had some jam inside. He did put the spoon in his pocket, but that was only to be expected.
Raistlin retrieved the spoon and asked more about the dwarf's symptoms.
"It happened this morning. Flint got out of bed. and I heard him give a yell, which sometimes he does in the morning, but that's usually after I've gone into his room to say good morning when he wasn't exactly ready for it to be morning yet. But I wasn't in his room at all, and he still yelled. So I went into his room to see what was the matter, and there he was, bent double like an elf in a high wind. I thought he was looking at something on the floor, so I went over to look at whatever he was looking at, but then I found out he wasn't, or if he was he wasn't meaning to. He was looking at the floor because he couldn't do anything else.
" 'I'm stuck this way, you miserable kender!' That's what he said. I was miserable for him, so that was pretty accurate. I asked him what happened.
" 'I bent down to lace my boots and my back gave out.' I said I'd help him straighten up, but he threatened to hit me with the poker if I came near him, so-while it might have been interesting, being hit with a poker, something that's never happened to me before-I decided that hitting me wasn't going to help Flint much, so I better come to you and see if you could suggest anything."
Tasslehoff regarded Raistlin with anxious expectancy. The young man had put his books down and was searching among jars containing unguents and potions that he'd concocted from his herb garden.
"Do you know what's wrong?" Tas asked. "Has he been troubled with back pain before?"
"Oh, yes," said Tas cheerfully. "He said that his back has been hurting him ever since Caramon tried to drown him in the boat. His back and his left leg."
"I see. That's what I thought. It sounds to me as if Flint is suffering from a defluxion of rheum," Raistlin replied.
"A defluxion of rheum," Tas repeated the words slowly, savoring them. He was awed. "How wonderful! Is it catching?" he asked hopefully.
"No, it is not catching. It is an inflammation of the joints. It can also be known as lumbago. Although," Raistlin said, frowning, "the pain in the left leg might mean something more serious. I was going to send some oil of wintergreen home with you to rub into the afflicted area, but now I think I had better come take a look myself."
"Flint, you have an influx of runes!" Tasslehoff cried excitedly, racing through the door, which he had neglected to shut on his way out and which the dwarf, in his misery, could not manage to reach.
Flint had scarcely moved from the place where the kender had left him. He was bent almost double, his beard brushing the floor. Any attempt to straighten brought beads of sweat to his forehead and gasps of agony to his lips. His boots remained unlaced. He stood hunched over, alternately swearing and groaning.
"Runes?" the dwarf yelled. "What has this got to do with runes?"
"Rheum," Raistlin clarified. "An inflammation of the joints caused by prolonged exposure to cold or dampness."
"I knew it! That damn boat!" Flint said with bitter triumph. "I say it again: I'll never set foot in one of those foul contraptions again so long as I live, I swear it, Reorx." He would have stamped his foot upon the vow, this being considered proper among dwarves, but the movement caused him to cry out in pain and clutch the back of his left leg.