Dragonlance 09 - Dragons of the Hourglass Mage Read Online Free PDF Page A

old friends. The two had watched him grow up, him and Caramon. Raistlin had wondered frequently if they were still alive, Flint and Tas and Sturm. They had been parted in the attack on Tarsis. He now wondered, astonished, how they had come to be in Palanthas. What adventures had brought them to that place? He was curious and he was, surprisingly, glad to see them.
    Drawing back his cowl, he rose from the bench with the intention of making himself known to them. He would ask about Sturm and about Laurana, the golden-haired Laurana …
    “If the Sly One’s dead, good riddance,” Flint said grimly. “He made my skin crawl.”
    Raistlin sat back down on the bench and pulled the cowl over his face.
    “You don’t mean that—” Tas began.
    “I do so too mean it!” Flint roared. “How do you know what I mean and don’t mean? I said so yesterday, and I’ll say it today. Raistlin was always looking down that gold nose of his at us. And he turned Caramon into his slave. ‘Caramon, make my tea!’ ‘Caramon, carry my pack.’ ‘Caramon, clean my boots!’ It’s a good thing Raistlin never told his brother to jump off a cliff. Caramon would be lying at the bottom of a ravine by now.”
    “Ah, I kind of liked Raistlin,” said Tas. “He magicked me into a duck pond once. I know that sometimes he wasn’t very nice, Flint, but he didn’t feel good, what with that cough of his, and he did help you when you had the rheumatism—”
    “I never had rheumatism a day in my life! Rheumatism is for old people,” said Flint, glowering.
    “Now where do you think you’re going?” he demanded, seizing hold of Tasslehoff, who was about to cross the street.
    “I thought I’d go up to the library and knock on the door and I would ask the monks, very politely, if Raistlin was there.”
    “Wherever Raistlin is, you can be sure he’s up to no good. Andyou can just put the thought of knocking on the library door out of your rattle-brained mind. You heard what they said yesterday: no kender allowed.”
    “I figured I’d ask them about that, too,” Tas said. “Why won’t they allow kender into the library?”
    “Because there wouldn’t be a book left on the shelves, that’s why. You’d rob them blind.”
    “We don’t rob people!” Tasslehoff said indignantly. “Kender are very honest. And I think that’s a disgrace, kender not being allowed! I’ll just go give them a piece of my mind—”
    He twisted out of Flint’s grasp and started to run across the street. Flint glared after him; then, with a sudden gleam in his eye, he called out, “You can go if you want to, but you might want to listen to what I came to tell you. Laurana sent me. She said something about you riding a dragon …”
    Tasslehoff turned around so fast that he tripped himself and tumbled over his own feet, sprawling flat on his face on the street and spilling half the contents of his pouches.
    “Me? Tasslehoff Burrfoot? Ride a dragon? Oh, Flint!” Tasslehoff picked up himself and his pouches. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
    “No,” Flint said glumly.
    “Hurry up!” Tasslehoff said, tugging on Flint’s shirt. “We don’t want to miss the battle.”
    “It’s not happening right this minute,” Flint said, batting away the kender’s hands. “You go on. I’ll be along.”
    Tas didn’t wait to be told twice. He dashed off down the street, pausing at intervals to tell everyone he met that he, Tasslehoff Burrfoot, was going to be riding a dragon with the Golden General.
    Flint stood long moments after the kender had left, staring at the Great Library. The old dwarf’s face grew grave and solemn. He was about to cross the street, but then he paused. His heavy, gray brows came together. He thrust his hands in his pockets and shook his head.
    “Good riddance,” he muttered, and he turned and followed Tas.
    Raistlin remained sitting on the bench a long time after they had gone. He sat there until the sun had gone down behind the buildings of