"What will happen to her?" Caramon asked worriedly.

"Nothing." The sheriff shrugged. "The young ones were like the rest of us-fooled completely by the murdered woman and her husband. They'll get over it. We all will, I suppose."

He fell silent, squinted into the sun that was just topping the trees, then said, not looking at them, "We don't take kindly to mages in Haven. Lemuel, now-he's different. He's harmless. We don't mind him. But we don't need any more."

"He should have thanked you," Caramon said, puzzled and hurt.

"For what?" Raistlin asked with a bitter smile. "Destroying his career? If the sheriff didn't know that Judith and the rest of Belzor's followers were frauds, then he's one of the biggest fools in Abanasinia. If he did know, then he was undoubtedly being paid well to leave them alone. Either way, he's finished. You had better let me put some ointment on those burns, my brother. You are obviously in pain."

Once he had treated Caramon, cleaning the burns and covering them with the healing salve, Raistlin left the others to finish the packing, went to lie down in the wagon. He was completely and utterly exhausted, so tired he was almost sick, He was just about to climb inside when a stranger clad in brown robes approached him.

Raistlin turned his back on him, hoping the man would take the hint and leave. The man had the look of a cleric, and Raistlin had seen clerics enough to last him a lifetime.

"I want just a moment, young man," the stranger said, plucking at Raistlin's sleeve. "I know you have had a trying day. I want to thank you for bringing down the false god Belzor. My followers and I are eternally in your debt."

Raistlin grunted, pulled his arm away, and climbed into the wagon. The man hung on to the wagon's sides, peered over them.

"I am Hederick, the High Theocrat," he announced with a self-important air. "I represent a new religious order. We hope to gain a foothold here in Haven now that the rogues of Belzor have been driven away. We are known as the Seekers, for we seek the true gods."

"Then I hope very much that you find them, sir," Raistlin said.

"We are certain of it!" The man had missed the sarcasm. "Perhaps you'd be interested-"

Raistlin wasn't. The tents and bedrolls had been stacked in one corner of the wagon. Unfolding a blanket, he spread it out over the pile of tenting, lay down.

The cleric hung about, yammering about his god. Raistlin covered his head with the hood of his robe and, eventually, the cleric departed. Raistlin thought no more of him, soon forgot the man entirely.

Lying in the wagon, Raistlin tried to sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the flames, felt the heat, smelled the smoke, and he was wide awake, awake and shivering.

He recalled with terrifying clarity his feeling of helplessness. Resting his hand on the hilt of his new knife, he wrapped his fingers around the weapon, felt the blade, cold, sharp, reassuring. From now on, he would never be without it. His last measure of defense, even if it meant his life was his to take and not his enemy's.

His thoughts went from this knife to the other knife, the bloody knife he'd found lying beside the murdered woman. The knife he had recognized as belonging to Kitiara.

Raistlin sighed deeply, and at last he was able to close his eyes, relax into slumber.

Rosamun's children had taken their revenge.

That winter was one of the mildest Solace had known, with rain and fog in place of snow and frost. The residents packed away their Yule decorations for another year, took down the pine boughs and the mistletoe, and congratulated themselves on having escaped the inconveniences of a hard winter. People were already talking of an early spring when a terrifying and most unwelcome visitor came to Solace. The visitor was Plague, and accompanying him was his ghastly mate, Death.

No one was certain who invited this dread guest. The number of travelers had increased during the mild winter, any one of them might have been a carrier. Blame was also ascribed to the standing bogs around Crystalmir Lake, bogs that had not frozen as they should have during the winter. The symptoms were the same in all cases, beginning with a high fever and extreme lethargy, followed by headache, vomiting, and diarrhea. The disease ran its course in a week or two; the strong and healthy survived it. The very young, the very old, or those in weak health did not.

In the days before the Cataclysm, clerics had called upon the goddess Mishakal for aid. She had granted them healing powers, and the plague had been virtually unknown, Mishakal had left Krynn with the rest of the gods. Those who practiced the healing arts in these days had to rely on their own skill and knowledge. They could not cure the disease, but they could treat the symptoms, try to prevent the patient from becoming so weak that he or she developed pneumonia, which led inevitably to death.

Weird Meggin worked tirelessly among the sick, administering her willow bark to break the fever, dosing the victims with a bitter concoction the consistency of paste, which seemed to help those who could be persuaded to choke it down.

Many of Solace's residents derided the old crone, terming her "cracked" or a witch. These very same people were among the first to ask for her the moment they felt the fever grip them. She never failed them. She would come at any time, day or night, and though her manner was a little strange -she talked constantly to herself and insisted on the unusual practice of washing her hands continually and forced others in the sickroom to do so as well-she was always welcome.

Raistlin began by accompanying Weird Meggin on her rounds. He assisted her in sponging the feverish bodies, helped persuade sick children to swallow the bad-tasting medicine. He learned how to ease the pain of the dying. But as the plague spread and more and more of Solace's citizens were caught in its lethal grip, Raistlin was forced by sheer necessity to tend patients on his own.

Caramon was among the first to catch the disease, a shock to the big man, who had never been sick in his life. He was terrified, certain he was going to die, and nearly wrecked the bedroom in his delirium, fighting snakes carrying torches, who were trying to set him on fire.

His strong body threw off the contagion, however, and since he had already survived the disease, he was able to assist his brother in caring for others. Caramon worried constantly that Raistlin would catch the plague. Frail as he was, he would not survive it. Raistlin was deaf to his brother's pleas to remain safely at home. Raistlin had discovered to his surprise that he gained a deep and abiding satisfaction in helping those stricken with the illness.

He did not work among the sick out of compassion. In general, he cared nothing for his neighbors, considered them dull and boorish. He did not treat the sick for monetary gain; he would go to the poor as readily as the rich. He found that what he truly enjoyed was power-power he wielded over the living, who had come to regard the young mage with hope bordering on reverence. Power he was sometimes able to wield over his greatest, most dread foe, Death.

He did not catch the plague, and he wondered why. Weird Meggin said it was because he made certain to wash his hands after tending to the sick. Raistlin smiled derisively, but he was too fond of the crazy old woman to contradict her.