"Nonsense!" said Kitiara. She slapped a coin on the bar. Caramon wiped the tears of laughter from his eyes and stared. It was a gold coin, one of the few he'd ever seen.

"That will ease your temper, eh, Otik?" Kitiara said.

A tall, well-favored man stool up from his table and approached the bar. His motion was oddly graceful, and his high cheekbones and golden eyes eloquently proclaimed his elven heritage. He picked up the coin.

"What's the matter, Tanis?" Kitiara asked. "Haven't you ever seen gold before?"

"Not as large a coin as this," Tanis Half-Elven replied. He flipped it over. "Where was it struck?"

Kitiara lifted her mug from the bar and drank. "I don't know," she said. "It's part of my wages. Why do you ask?"

"The inscription is Elvish. I would say it was minted in Silvanesti."

Sturm and Flint came over to examine the coin. The deli cate script was definitely Elvish, Flint said. Far-off Silvanesti had practically no contact with the rest of Ansalon, and there was much curiosity as to how an elvish coin managed to drift so far west.

"Plunder," said a voice from the corner of the room.

"What did you say, Raist?" asked Caramon. In a corner of the inn's common room a pallid figure could be seen. Raistlin, Caramon's twin brother. As usual, he was immersed in the study of a dusty scroll. He rose and moved toward the group; the colored light filtering through the inn's stainedglass windows gave his pale skin odd tints.

"Plunder," he repeated. "Robbery, rapine, booty."

"We know what the word means," said Flint sharply.

"He means the coin was probably stolen in Silvanesti and later turned up in the coffers of Kit's mercenary captain," said Tanis.

They passed the coin from hand to hand, turning it around and feeling the heft of it. More than its crude monetary value, the elven coin spoke of far-off places and distant, magical people.

"Let me see," said an insistent voice from below the bar. A small, lean arm thrust between Caramon and Sturm.