“What do you see to the south?" Tanis asked abruptly.Raistilin glanced at him. "What do I ever see with these eyes of mine Half-Elf?" the mage whispered bitterly. "I see death, death and destruction. I see war." He gestured up above. "The constellations have not returned. The Queen of Darkness is not defeated." "We may have not won the war," Tanis began, "but surely we have won a major battle---"Raistlin coughed and shook his head sadly. "Do you see no hope?" "Hope is the denial of reality. It is the carrot dangled before the draft horse to keep him plodding along in the vain attempt to reach it." "Are you saying we should just give up?" Tanis asked, irritably tossing the bark away. "I'm saying we should remove the carrot and walk forward with our eyes open," Raistin answered. Coughing he drew his robes more closely around him.”

“Hope is the denial of reality. It is the carrot dangled before the draft horse to keep him plodding along in a vain attempt to reach it." "Are you saying we shouldn't hope?""I'm saying we should remove the carrot and walk forward with our eyes open!”

“Shuddering Tanis stepped back. Raistlin gave the drawstring on the top of the bag a quick jerk, snapping it shut. Then, glancing at them distrustfully, he slipped the bag within his robes, secreting it in one of his numerous hidden pockets, and begun to turn away. But Tanis stopped him."Things can never again be the same between us, can they?" the half-elf asked quietly.Raistlin looked at him for a moment, and Tanis saw a brief flicker of regret in the young mage's eyes, a longing for trust and friendship and return to the days of youth."No," Raistilin whispered. "But such was the price I paid.”

“How do you know they're magic and not some mechanical device of the dwarves?" Tanis asked, sensing that Tas was hiding something.Tas gulped. He had been hoping Tanis wouldn't ask him that question."Uh," Tas stammered, "I---I guess I did sort of happened to, uh, mention them to Raistilin one night when you were all busy doing something else. He told me they might be magic. To find out, he said one of those weird spells of his and they--uh--began to glow. That meant they were enchanted. He asked me what they did and I demonstated and he said they were 'glasses of true seeing.' The dwarven magic-users of old made them to read books written in other languages and--" Tas stopped."And?" Tanis pursued."And--uh--magic spellbooks." Tas's voice was a whisper."And what else did Raistlin say?""That if I touched his spellbooks or even looked at them sideways, he'd turn me into a cricket and s-swallow m-me whole," Tasselhoff stammered. He looked up at Tanis with his wide eyed. "I belived him, too."Tanis shook his head. Trust Raistlin to come up with a threat awful enough to quensh the curiosity of a kender.”

“And my eyes! I see through hourglass pupils and therefore I see time-as it affects all things. Even as I look at you now, Tanis," the mage whispered, "I see you dying, slowly, by inches. And so I see every living thing.”

“How certain are you that this forest is Darken Wood, Raistin?" "How certain is one of anything, Half-Elven?" the mage replied. "I am not certain of drawing my next breath. But go ahead. Walk into the wood that no living man has ever walked out. Death is life's one great certainty, Tanis."The half-elf felt a sudden urge to throw Raistlin off the side of the mountain.”