Chapter 1

Gilon had arrived home to a, rather unpleasant, sight that he never expected to see.

First, he wondered why Judith was flapping her arms about so wildly, crying for a "Belzor" person to help them.

Gilon then proceeded to question why Caramon was howling and shaking his wife about like a wet rag.

Next was the delirious smile on Rosamum's lips, as she stared down obsessively at the head in her lap while stroking her hands through the mane of bloody black hair.

Finally, he came to see the source of the disturbance. There was a young, beaten, and black haired boy on his wife's lap.

How odd.

"Dad! She won't snap out of it!" Caramon blubbered senselessly, drawing Gilon from his dazed state. Snapping to attention, he pulled his son away from his wife and gripped her shoulders with strong hands, albeit shaky ones, and called to his wife gently, pleading her to come back to him.

He could barely hear himself over the screeching of the Widow Judith and he turned to Caramon hoping he would silence her, but he was too panicked and confused to do a thing. For the first time in a while Gilon truly wished Raistlin were home.

Finally, as the strange boy began to move whilst silently starting to weep, his wife came back to him. She stared with awe and amazement at the child before, then look up to him.

"Look at my new baby, he's so beautiful, isn't he?"

Unnerved, Gilon quietly reassured her that, yes, he was very handsome and took after her so very much. Whilst prying her hands away from the boy he began to see just how damaged the child was.

Neither a soldier nor a healer, Gilon had been lucky to go through life seeing nothing more gruesome then the slit throats of sheep and chickens on his father's farm and the occasional bar brawl in his youth. This left him wholly unprepared for the gashed forehead, welt kissed back and purpling form draped across his wife's knees. As he stared, he also realized that the thin rags that hung off him would hardly keep the child safe from the cold and hurriedly stormed off to grab the first blanket he could find to cover the child.

Caramon, on the other hand, was just now discovering the stranger in their home and watched warily as his mother cooed at the likely delusional if not still half unconscious boy. When his father returned from the back room he asked, "Who is he?"

Before Gilon could answer Judith did so for him.

"It's evil."

Turning his head to stare at the woman who had so kindly been taking care of his family for a year, he was startled by the hatred that rolled off her tongue.

"She fell into evil and she brought back a demon!" Judith hissed, frustrated that Gilon did not seem to understand her.

"He's just a child—."

"Devil Spawn!" Judith snarled and pointed cruelly at the bloody boy. "An abomination! You have to burn him, quickly! Or the Good Lord Belzor will take it as a grave offense!"

Biting the inside of his cheek uncomfortably, Gilon tried reasoning with her. "He can't be, and I truly am sorry Madam but I don't know who this Belzor is—."

"Belzor is the Lord, with his kindness and graciousness."

Gilon rubbed his eyes. He was far too exhausted to deal with all of what was happening and shut both his eyes and ears to the Widow Judith and the dying boy in front of him. He did not understand anything coming out of Judith's mouth and had little patience to sort it out whilst a boy was bleeding to death in his home. He would help the child first and listen to Judith later.

Anything that Rosamum looked at it with such tenderness could never be evil. Not even Raistlin's intense stare was dangerous.

Trying not to jostle the black haired boy too much, Gilon wrapped him in a thin blanket and lifted him into his arms. He was as light as Raistlin was when he was a child, leaving Gilon a sense of nostalgia as he hurried into his youngest son's bedroom. How many times had Raistlin collapsed with an unexpected fever, leaving him to sweep the boy up? He'd lost count long ago, but Raistlin had never remembered curling and shivering in his father's arms. He would always have forgotten those moments of weakness by the time he was better.

The shudder that wracked the black haired boy's body brought him back to reality as he carefully laid him on the bed, and proceeded to yell for Caramon to get some water and bandages. He wasn't terribly sure as to what he should do, all he could conceive was that he needed to do something.

Caramon lumbered in with a pale of water, sloshing it on the floor as his shock addled min left him more of a hindrance than a help. Using the cloth often kept tucked under the bed for Raistlin's fevers, Gilon dipped it into the water and shakily tried to clean up the wounds. The child whimpered and shied away when the cloth touch the jagged head wound and Gilon found it difficult to swallow.

"Caramon, why don't you keep your mother company, you know how she gets after her…naps."

The gaping boy nodded dumbly and stumbled out of the room, leaving his father only a little less pressured than he had been with him watching his every move. Gilon continued to pat at the wounds littering the small body and once he's managed to wipe off the dried blood on his forehead he discovered the oddest scar he'd ever seen.

It was a lightening bolt, thin and precise as though purposefully carved into the flesh of the boy's brow. It felt wrong, very wrong, and a small voice in the back of his head began to wonder if Judith had been a little correct after all and that this child was dangerous. He forced himself to toss the idea aside and began to wrap the yellowed bandages around the head, fumbling a time or two before tying it off.

Most of the other wounds had stopped bleeding and were simply too numerous to bandage them all.

Gilon rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands and let his head hang limply. He was so tired…Caramon, who had returned from his mother, was looking down at the boy, fear gone and replaced with wary curiosity. "Go to bed Caramon," Gilon told his son. Not wanting him to wake the child up, which he most certainly would if he stuck around.

"But we haven't even had dinner yet!" His oldest cried in horror but was silenced by the stern look Gilon sent him. "You won't die from a missed meal, boy, now get going." Caramon could only droop miserably and stumble to bed; he knew better than to try to argue with his father when he had that tone of voice.

Turning back to the matter at hand, Gilon began o search the sleeping child for some sign of identification, papers or perhaps a family insignia. Though unlikely, there was still the slightest possibility that the boy had been taken from rich family for ransom until his kidnappers finally decided he wasn't worth the money, or his parents wouldn't pay up.

His search was wasted however, as there was no such link to a family or place of origin, just a set of oversized, shredded rags hardly fit for a pauper.

Unable to come up with anything else to do, he left the boy to rest and entered the kitchen. The candle that had previously lit the room had gone out, leaving his wife to rock in her chair whilst knitting the gods knew what. The cold had settled into house and Gilon wondered if it were truly the weather or if the nights events had something to do with it, perhaps if Raistlin were home he would know.

Giving his shaggy head a shake, Gilon turned to fire place to burn some of the slow burning oak he'd been bringing back from work the entire summer. His fatigued and aching muscles welcomed the warms and he felt the tenseness in his shoulders melt away. Once the fire was roaring in the pit, he move to his wife's side.

Rosamum hummed softly as she mended what seemed to be one of Caramon's oldest and most damaged shirts. He hadn't worn it since the sleeves tore during his twelfth year. He hadn't known Rosamum had kept it.

"Rose," he started softy, kneeling down in front of her. "Are you alright?" She looked up at him and smiled so brightly it was almost infectious. "Of course dear, I am so happy!" She hadn't stopped her sewing and she continued talking, "Now I have my Harry, he is such a sweet child and he's mine now!"

Gilon felt his heart rushing. "Where did he come from Rose, dear?" Rosamum looked at him lovingly and patted his head.

"Don't be so silly Gilon. He came from the other place, of course." She returned to her humming and Gilon stood up, head reeling. Where was this other place? Was it wherever she…visited…in her visions? But how could 'Harry' have gotten here, in his home?" Perhaps this would require a trip to Master Theobald, surely the man would be able to make sense of it. He was a wizard was he not? It was his area of expertise.

But the thought of that particular trek disturbed him. He wasn't intolerant, merely concerned. Magic was still new to him, despite his youngest attending a school dedicated to it for years. Though he hadn't allowed his fear to overrule him when he first went to Master Theobald to inquire about Raistlin's attendance, he had been terrified about what would happen. He had been most surprised to find a man so…well, it wasn't in his nature to take first impressions to heart.

If he was unable to extract any more information from his wife he would visit the school. Perhaps the boy, 'Harry,' would be able to explain what had happened and how exactly he wound up in his home. However, the child would need a while to rest and heal, something that could take anywhere from a week to a month. He would need to be patient.

Luckily, patience was one of Gilon's strong points.