Raistlin is in a worse pickle. Now he's on a ship full of tinker gnomes! And we also get to see, for once, a really, really really pissed off Raistlin...

Thank you to my reviewers. For awhile I was not sure if anyone was reading it (yeah, I know, I'm a bit on the paranoid side...). Lord Terrence is working on the research end of this (namely, re-reading the books in question...)

In answer to Dalamar Nightson's question: Yes. The end of Dragons of Summer Flame is going to be different than originally– it bothered me too! How? Well, you're going to have to wait for that, lol.

For fans of Ektatrina, she is going to be playing a bigger role.

Chapter Three
A New Journey
The first thing Raistlin came aware of was that he was on another ship. He opened his eyes a slit and immediately regretted it as the light drove little painful daggers into his head. He closed them again and groaned. "Palin?" came Sturm's voice. "Are you okay?"

Raistlin, at the sound that seemed like it was shouting even though it was only a whisper, groaned again. "He's not all right you boob, he's hung-over," answered Tanin sharply.

"Both of you– shut up!" ordered Raistlin. "The sound of you hurts my ears right now."

He was rewarded with silence, except for the strange whooshing sound he heard every so often. He lay there, just breathing. After awhile the sound was not so painful and he slowly opened his eyes. Oh yes, he was on yet another damn ship. And... to top it all off... he was tied to the bed. Looking around, he saw that he wasn't the only one. Both Tanin and Sturm were similarly tied to their bunks. "How long have we been here?" asked Raistlin softly.

"Well, Sturm woke up first, and he says it was a few hours before I did," said Tanin. "The sun rose then. You, however just woke and it's past midday. How long Sturm was out, I have no idea."

Raistlin closed his eyes again and thought on this, as much as he could think without the gnomes in his head clattering unbearably. He was never, ever, in his life how ever long it could be, going to ever drink dwarf spirits again. Finally he took a breath and began chanting a quick little spell. Thankfully, it was only one of his many cantrips and the ropes slid from his arms and ankles. Once he was free, he sat up slowly, but that didn't work and he found himself bending over and retching into a conveniently placed bucket.

When he had no more to throw up, he still gave in to the dry heaves until they passed. Looking at Sturm as he wiped his lips off with a rag, he said, "The next time, let me do the talking."

"Okay..." said Sturm. "So long as I never see that again. You scared us. You were lying there so still and so pale we thought we had killed you."

Raistlin smiled a little at this, "Remember that, because the next time you actually might. Ever hear of alcohol poisoning? Your... our father... was nearly killed by it."

I would really hate to see it happen again, this time with me, he added silently. He walked over and twitched a muscle in his right arm as the Dagger of Magius slipped into his hand. He cut their bonds and they both slowly sat up and rubbed their arms. While they didn't look near as bad as he did, they didn't look all that healthy either. "I am going to kill Dougan," muttered Raistlin, who added just under his breath. "Not that it would do much good. He'd probably just regenerate whatever I hack off anyway."

Tanin tried the door and said despondently, "We're locked in."

Raistlin, who already was in no mood for humor, went over to the door, tried it, frowned, then knelt down and checked his pockets for... ah ha. Funny how they never seemed to search wizards for those particular items. He was beginning to thank his elder sister for kicking his rear into learning all sorts of interesting skills. Pulling out a long thin wire and a file, he set to work.

Sturm looked at Tanin, "Uh, can he..."

He was cut off by a satisfying click as Raistlin successfully picked the locked door and it swung open. Sturm whispered to Tanin, "Where in the Abyss did he learn to do that?"

Tanin had watched in mute disbelief as his Uncle had picked the lock. Up until now, much of what Raistlin was capable of had been somewhat predictable. Seeing his Uncle pick a lock was beginning to push the limits of what he had even heard of Raistlin doing. The two brothers looked at Raistlin, as he motioned for them to precede him. Sturm took up the rear and they walked up onto the deck.

Once there, they were regarded in shock by the gnomes, as Dougan looked up, saw the three of them on deck and lifted an eyebrow. The two brothers then watched as Raistlin's face grew grim and he stalked up to the gaudy dwarf and demanded, "Why in the Abyss did you have to resort to kidnapping to get me to help you?"

"I didn't think you would come otherwise," answered Dougan. "And it does interest you. I was not sure if your nephews would come as well while you fulfill your duty as Miiro."

"What are you gabbering on now?" demanded Raistlin.

Sturm leaned over to Tanin, "Did that dwarf just refer to us as his nephew's?"

Tanin nodded, thinking, The dwarf knows... how could he? "Okay, so if we're his nephews, that would mean he's Uncle Rais..." Sturm went white. "Oh by all the Gods of Krynn, Dad is going to have a fit."

"We're not going to tell him..." Tanin whispered back, watching the fight between his Uncle and the dwarf."

"... I could blast you to your damnable forge for stealing me! Me! And you got me drunk and hung over!" Raistlin held his hands to his head.

"Now, Raistlin...." began Dougan. "Hear me out! It's about the..."

Sturm sat down where he was and put his head in his hands. "He's Uncle Raistlin. The Raistlin Majere. Father's twin. He's supposed to be dead... at least twenty-five years dead...."

Tanin put a hand on his shoulder in consolation.

"I could care less on what it's about!" Raistlin threw his hands up in the air. "Okay, you have one chance to explain before I teleport my nephews and I out of here."

"Well, it's about the Greygem," said Dougan and was rewarded by a lift of an eyebrow from Raistlin. "It got away on me."

Raistlin leaned on the rail. "Oh no. You just didn't say that."

"Aye, I'm afraid I did, Guardian," said Dougan. "The Miracle is on a heading to Gargath's Isle. There, we will find Lord Gargath and the Greygem. Your task is to get the Graygem and return to me."

"And what makes you think we can?" asked Tanin. "Why don't you do it yourself?"

For a moment Dougan was silent. "Aye, a good question that is," said Dougan. "A very good question... You see... I can't. It would know me and make an effort to escape. You however, it does not know... well..." he looked at Raistlin. "Except for one of you, anyhow. So, will you do it?"

"You leave me with little, choice, dwarf," growled Raistlin. "When you dangle the heavy responsibility in front of me. Enough. I'm going to bed and try and sleep off this hang over you gave me."

"I gave you!" came Dougan's indignant bark. "You didn't have to drink with me!"

Raistlin didn't seem to want to dignify that with an answer and so he didn't. Tanin watched his Uncle walk away, and back down below likely to the quarters they had found themselves in. With a sigh, Tanin turned to Dougan, "Where is our weapons and armor? Our gear. You can't expect us to help you with nothing with which to defend ourselves."

"I'll show you where it is," then the dwarf began to grumble. "Damnable Guardian. Why'd she have to make him her successor. I could have found a suitable Guardian for that damn ring..."

Tanin filed that away as he and Sturm followed the dwarf to a storeroom just down from their quarters. Once he had opened the door, Sturm and Tanin recovered not only their belongings, but also Raistlin's. At first, he was rather amused at Sturm's hesitance at taking the Staff of Magius or even Raistlin's pack and belts for his spell components, but after Tanin lifted a brow, Sturm bravely grabbed all and they carted across the hall and to their quarters.

They watched as the dwarf locked the storeroom again, and walked back up on deck, grumbling about some Guardian or another. They entered as quietly as they could and sorted out their belongings. Tanin thoughtfully placed all of Raistlin's gear in the footlocker at the foot of his bunk and leaned the Staff against the bed within easy reach.

His Uncle appeared to sleep through the sorting and the putting away, but he was entirely too still and too quiet. "Uncle Raistlin?" asked Sturm quietly, picking up on Tanin's unease. "Are... you sleeping?"

"No," came the quiet answer. "It was the only thing I could think of doing at the time to allow time for me to think."

"Oh. Sorry," Sturm blushed, then asked the question that had been burning inside since he found out that this tiny man was actually his Uncle. "Uncle Raistlin? Um... I don't know how to ask this and I don't want to upset you... but how'd you survive the Abyss?"

Raistlin opened one pale sky blue eye and stared at Sturm. Sturm blushed deeper and in a low tone, "Sorry. See, I still upset you."

With a sigh, Raistlin swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up, leaned forward a bit and put his elbows on his knees, leaning on his arms as he did so. "You didn't upset me. If I were in your position, I would want to know the same thing," he answered gently. "I wasn't in the Abyss. I was... well, I don't know. I was asleep for twenty years until Lunitari woke me last year. Anything else?"

Sturm looked at Raistlin, "Where's Palin?"

Raistlin looked down at the ground sadly and said, "Sturm, I... I'm sorry. In a way it was my fault, so there is no easy way to tell you this. Your brother died during his Test. Lunitari woke me and I tried to save him but in the end, I guess I just was not fast enough. For some reason, I guess, that act broke my curse and I would up here with everyone thinking I was your brother. I didn't have the heart to tell anyone the truth, and for that I am deeply sorry. I guess I'm just as much the coward everyone thought me..."

With that a deep silence descended on the room. "A coward? You?" Sturm sputtered. "No!"

Even Tanin was shocked at the admission of his Uncle. "Uncle Raistlin, if half the tales told about you have a grain of truth to them, you by far are not a coward. Maybe you were... are... a bit power hungry... ambitious... but never a coward."

"Yeah, don't say that," said Sturm.

Raistlin smiled wearily, and Tanin asked, "You do look pale, though."

"I'm still hung over," came his dry response, then he sighed as he lay back down. "Maybe I might actually take that nap..."

Sturm and Tanin tried to make as little noise as possible as they slipped out into the hallway and made their way on deck of the gnome ship. Once they were out of earshot and relatively insured of some privacy, Sturm took Tanin's shoulder and asked, "How long have you known?"

"Since the bandit attack after he was inducted into the Order of the White Robes," answered Tanin. "He was too good at magic for him to be Palin, so I suspected he might be someone else. Then I put two and two together. The way Dalamar deferred to him, brought him the Staff of Magius. His skill with magic, and his resemblance. Did you ever see how much he looks like Palin? No wonder Dad was always so... nervous."

"Yeah, I noticed that, right after I noticed all the little differences too," agreed Sturm. "Why didn't you tell anyone?"

"He told me not to," said Tanin sheepishly. "And trust me, it was so hard sometimes. I wanted to scream it to the world that my Uncle walked Krynn again, that I was gifted enough to meet him. At the same time I wanted to scream my grief that it was not Palin... that my brother lay dead."

Sturm looked towards their quarters, "I have to admit, I have the same strange double edged feeling as you. I want to cry my eyes out at losing my brother... but at the same time I want to run in there and hug my Uncle with all my might for the gift of seeing him, of meeting him. You know, he's not like anything the others say. He's nicer. Sadder, but nicer..."

He seemed to realize something, "Uh... you know that night we barged in on him and Lady Crysania... we kinda bust in on a personal moment... you suppose she knows about him?"

"Yeah, she does," answered Tanin, scratching his head at the same time. "Although, if you hugged Uncle Raistlin with all your might, you would likely break something."

Crysania walked back on board the ship and asked, "Where are the Majere's?"

"They haven't shown up yet. Perhaps they found a different ship, my lady," answered the captain, with a bit of a sneer. "I thought I saw the wizard with a dwarf and a bunch of gnomes, but he was being carried by them."

"Carried by them?" Crysania stared in horror. "Are you telling me they were kidnapped?"

"Matters little to me. The wizard gave me the willies, he did," admitted the Captain. "Zeboim take that one. We'll all be better off."

"I'll trust you to not invoke that name on this voyage, Captain, or I will be forced to find another ship to take me to Palanthas!" she used every ounce of her noble upbringing for her arch reply and was rewarded with a slight bow from the man.

"I beg your pardon milady, I meant no disrespect to you, or your God. But the Lady of the Sea is one all sailors must follow lest we wind up on the bottom," answered the Captain, as he walked off to see to his crew and his cargo.

Crysania looked off into the distance she could no longer see, and murmured, "Paladine walk with you, my old friend, even if no one else will..."

Raistlin woke with a whispering feeling of being watched. Opening his eyes, he sensed the strange woman before he could see her fully. He sat up, now that he had the strength to. "We meet again," he said and she looked at him sadly. "Who, or what, are you?"

"I forgot what it felt like to sail," she said. "It was so dark all the time. I wished and wished for the day where I would feel fresh air and see daylight again. Sometimes, the heavy drapes moved enough for a sliver of light to come through, but more often than not, I saw only the heat of the sun as it beat upon them, but never the full sun."

He sighed. If she wasn't going to answer him, it was likely she never would. She touched his cheek, "But I was always kept warm of how you always cared for me and carried me with you. How you always never considered yourself complete unless you carried me."

"You're the Blue Star..." he said in awe. "You're the true Miiro, the Greater Balance..."

She smiled then, "No, you never consider yourself complete with that. Just a heavy burden you bear."

She kissed him lightly, "But you are close."

A knock sounded and she disappeared again. Raistlin got up, as his nephews slowly woke from their sleep, and opened the door. Dougan Redhammer was on the other side, "Gargath Isle will be in sight near the afternoon."

He walked away afterwards, and Raistlin noticed that the sun was just rising. His head didn't hurt so badly, but it had been a few days since the drinking contest. This was only the second appearance of the red-robed woman, and it was a bit unnerving at times. She knew him well, that was for sure. And his lab. But what item of his spent years upon years in the dark of his lab...

His eye strayed to the Staff of Magius, how it felt warm to the touch, so smooth like a woman's skin... He gasped and could almost see the dark-haired Tarsian woman wink in the corner of his room.

The bloody Staff was one of those truly rare items that were intelligent. And what an intelligence! The image of her faded, and Raistlin decided that more study was required, if study would be the right word for it. His thumb played over a set of runes that he had never been able to decipher with a slight smile on his face.

The nephews looked at their Uncle, and Tanin wondered what his Uncle was thinking. What he could be thinking, then remembered something the dwarf had said earlier, "Uncle, he called you a Guardian before. What did he mean?"

Sturm looked up in interest, and the slight half smile fell off of Raistlin's face. Raistlin sighed and walked over to the small port hole as he looked out over the sea. "Another failure. Only this time it will not let me walk away and calls me to my duty, mind you, one I never asked for, but my duty nonetheless. I am Guardian to an item that if it were lost all existence would be lost. Only a few are called, or able to even be called. And I am one of those very few," he turned, and as he did so, he slowly turned into the form he was rather famous for; the golden skinned, golden eyed, and silver white haired Raistlin Majere.

Only minus the hourglass eyes, although, at the present moment, he was at a loss on how he had broken Reylanna's curse. "This is my calling, my mark, my curse should I fail. Which, I guess I did before because I could never look normal if I wanted to," he answered as the gold tinge faded until he was as he had been before his own Test. He also ignored Sturm's shocked look... "When I tried to save Palin... I think I may have called on the power of the item. I don't know. I can't remember what happened other than Lunitari waking me and calling me to my duty. I went to save Palin in the Abyss, failed, then woke on the floor of my lab. From there I passed out and woke to Laura and Dezra waking me. The rest you know because I have been with you since. Beyond that I have no explanation."

Sturm recovered and said, "You seem to have your magic."

Raistlin turned the rest of the way around and smiled wanly, "Yes, so it would seem. I'm surprised at that. I would have thought the Gods would have feared what I might do should I return to the land of the living. Enough of this. Now, Sturm, you cannot tell your father I'm still alive. Remember, at all times, I am Palin. Unless, of course, you would see me judged by the Conclave and likely executed for my crimes?"

Sturm shook his head vigorously, "No Uncle Raistlin! I don't want that. I miss Palin, but there's no bringing him back, and I don't want to lose you now that we have you back." He turned silent for a moment. "Uncle Raistlin, was Palin... did the Dark Queen...?"

"She did not torture him," answered Raistlin sadly. "He died bravely, never once begging for his life or even for mercy. He never once compromised his beliefs. I grieve for the loss of such a talented wizard with so much potential, as I grieve the loss of my brave nephew. He is in Paladine's hands, of that I have no doubt. I think I at least saw to that... before the Dark Queen could devour his soul. I know she's rather upset at me over something beyond trying to take over her domain, anyway."

Sturm looked down at the deck flooring in their shared quarters. Raistlin walked over and knelt down so that he was at the same height as Sturm from where he sat. Putting one hand on his shoulder, he said, "I would grieve the same if anything happened to you or Tanin, so, on this mission and any others we happen to get roped into, keep that in mind and be careful, agreed?"

Sturm nodded and Raistlin looked up at Tanin, who said, "Agreed, Uncle."

"Good, remember that," said Raistlin. "Now, I know with your silly idea of honor, and I mean no disrespect by this, that you won't run from a battle. Don't be surprised if I force us to. Because if see that we're in a situation that we're not going to win, I'm teleporting all of us out, got me?"

"Yes, Uncle Raistlin," came two voiced.

Raistlin nodded, "I mean to start now. Now, we have to plan our next plan of action. I'm going to find Dougan and see what I can learn about this Isle of Gargath. I would suggest resting up, sharpening swords, whatever you Knights do. I'll be back."

The two younger men watched as Raistlin left, and Sturm turned to Tanin, "He may be nicer than what everyone says he is, but he sure is as bossy as they say he is..."