Dragonlance 16 - Dragons Of A Lost Star (29 page)

22

Reunion Of Old Friends

A kender is never out of sorts for long, not even after encountering his own ghost. True, the sight had been a considerable shock, and Tasslehoff still experienced unpleasant qualms whenever he thought about it, but he knew how to handle a qualm. You held your breath and drank five sips of water, and the qualm would go away. This done, his next decision was that he had to leave this terrible place where ghosts went around giving one qualms. He had to leave it, leave it fast, and never, never come back.

Moss and his father proved to be of little help, since as far as Tas could see, moss had the bad habit of growing on all sides of rocks and trees, with apparently no regard for the fact that someone might be trying to use it to find north. Tasslehoff decided to turn instead to the time-honored techniques that have been developed by kender over centuries of Wanderlust, techniques guaranteed to find one’s self after losing one’s self. The best known and most favored of these involves the use of the body compass.

The theory behind the body compass is as follows. It is well-known that the body is made up of various elements, among these being iron. The reason that we know the body has iron in it is because we can taste the iron in our blood. Therefore, it stands to reason that the iron in our blood will be drawn to the north, just as the iron needle on the compass is drawn to the north. (Kender go so far to state that we would, all of us, be congregated at the north end of the world if we let our blood have its way. We fight a constant battle with our blood, otherwise we would all collect at the top of the world, thereby causing it to tip over.)

In order to make the body compass work, you must shut your eyes, so as not to confuse things, extend the right arm with the index finger pointing, then spin around three times to the left. When you stop, open your eyes, and you will discover that you are facing north.

Kender who use this technique almost never arrive at where they’re going, but they will tell you that they always arrive at where they need to be. Thus it was that Tasslehoff wandered about in the forests of Nightlund for a good many hours (he was not lost), without finding either Solanthus or the way out, and he was just about to try the body compass one last time when he heard voices, real, live voices, not the tickling whispers of the poor souls.

Tasslehoff’s natural instinct was to introduce himself to the voices, who were perhaps lost, and offer to show them which way was north. However, at this juncture, he heard yet another voice. This voice was inside his head and belonged to Tanis Half-Elven. Tasslehoff often heard Tanis’s voice on occasions such as this, reminding him to stop and think if what he was doing was “conducive to self-preservation.” Sometimes Tas listened to Tanis’s voice in his head, and sometimes he did not, which was pretty much how their relationship had worked when Tanis had been alive.

This time, Tasslehoff recalled that he was running away from Dalamar and Palin, both of whom wanted to murder him, and that they might either be out hunting for him themselves or they might have sent out minions. Wizards, Tas recalled, were forever sending out minions. Tas wasn’t sure what a minion was—he thought it some sort of small fish—but he decided that it would be conducive to his self-preservation if he climbed a tree and hid in the branches.

Tasslehoff climbed nimbly and swiftly and was soon settled comfortably high up amidst the pine needles. The three voices, with bodies attached, walked right underneath him.

Seeing that they were Knights of Takhisis or Neraka or whatever it was they were calling themselves these days, Tas congratulated himself on having listened to Tanis. An entire army, Knights and foot soldiers, marched beneath Tas’s tree. They marched swiftly and did not appear to be in very good spirits. Some darted nervous glances left and right, as if searching for something, while others traveled with eyes facing forward, fearful that if they looked they might find it. There was little talking in the ranks. If they did speak, they kept their voices low. The tail end of the line of soldiers was just moving underneath Tassle-hoff’s tree, and he was just congratulating himself on having successfully avoided detection when the front of the line came to a halt, which meant the back of the line had to come to a halt, too.

The soldiers stopped, standing beneath Tas. They breathed heavily and looked tired to the point of dropping, but when the word came down the line that there was to be a fifteen-minute rest, none of them looked happy. A few squatted down on the ground, but they did not leave the trail, they did not throw off their packs.

“Let’s get on with it, I say,” said one. “I don’t want to spend another night in this death’s den.”

“You’re right, there,” said another. “Let’s march on Solanthus. This minute. I’d welcome a fight with an enemy who’s got flesh and blood in him.”

“Two hundred of us, and we’re going to take Solanthus,” said a third. “Rot! If there were two hundred thousand we couldn’t take that city, even with the help of the One God. It’s got walls the size of Mt. Nevermind. Infernal devices, too, or so I’ve heard. Giant ballista that can shoot dragons out of the skies.”

“Like you said we’d never take the elf city,” said one of his comrades irritably. “Remember, boys? ‘It’ll take two hundred thousand of us to whip those pointy-ears.’ “

The others laughed, but it was nervous laughter, and no one laughed too long or too loudly.

“We’re off again,” said one, rising to his feet.

The others stood up, moved back into formation. Those in front turned to say something to those in back.

“Keep watch for the kender. Pass it on.” The word came down the line. “Keep watch for the kender.”

The soldiers in back waited impatiently for those in front to start moving. Finally, with a sluggish lurch, the line of men began to advance, and they were soon lost to Tasslehoff’s eyes and ears.

“ ‘Keep watch for the kender,’ “ Tas repeated. “Hah! Those must be Dalamar’s minions. I was wrong about the fish part. I’ll just wait here until I’m sure they’re gone. I wonder who this One God is? It must very dull, to have only one god. Unless, of course, it was Fizban, but then there probably wouldn’t be any world, because he’d keep misplacing it, just like he misplaces his hat.

“Uh, oh!” The kender gave a stifled groan, noting that the troops were heading in the identical direction his finger had pointed. “They’re going north. That means I have to go some other direction. The opposite direction, in fact.”

Which was how Tasslehoff came at last to find his way out of Nightlund and on the road leading to Solanthus—proving yet again that the kender body compass works.

Arriving at the great walled fortress city of Solanthus, Tasslehoff walked around the walls until he came to the front entrance. There he stopped to rest himself a bit and to watch with interest the crowds of people coming and going. Those entering the city stood in a long line that moved very slowly. People stood in the road, fanning themselves and talking to their neighbors. Farmers dozed on their carts, their horses knowing enough to move forward as the line inched along. Soldiers posted outside the walls kept watch to make certain that the line continued to move, that no one grew impatient and attempted to shove his way to the front. No one seemed too upset by the delay but appeared to expect it and to take in stride.

Every person who entered the city was being questioned by the guards. Pouches were searched. Wagons were searched. If the wagon carried goods, the goods were examined by the guards, who loosened bags, pried up the tops of crates, and poked pitchforks into loads of hay. Once he was familiar with the rules, fully intending to comply with them, Tasslehoff took his place at the very end of the line.

“Hullo, how are you?” he said to a large matronly woman carrying an enormous basket of apples, who was gossiping with another large woman, carrying a basket of eggs. “My name is Tasslehoff Burrfoot. My, this is a long line. Is there any other way in?”

The two turned around to look at him. Both scowled at him fiercely, and one actually shook her fist at him.

“Keep away from me, you little vermin. You’re wasting your time. Kender aren’t allowed inside the city.”

“What a very unfriendly place,” Tasslehoff observed and walked off.

He did not go far, however, but sat down in the shade of a tree near the front entrance to enjoy his apple. As he ate, he observed that while no kender could be seen entering the city, two were seen leaving it, accompanied by city guards.

Tas waited until the kender had picked themselves up, dusted themselves off, and gathered up their pouches. Then he began to wave and shout. Pleased as always to see a fellow kender, the two came running over to greet him.

“Leafwort Thumbfloggin,” said one, extending his hand.

“Merribell Hartshorn,” said the other, extending her hand.

“Tasslehoff Burrfoot,” said Tas.

“No, really?” said Merribell, highly pleased. “Why I met you just last week. You don’t look the same though. Are you doing something different with your hair?”

“What have you got in your pouches?” asked Leafwort.

In the ensuing excitement of answering that interesting question, followed by Tas’s asking them what they had in their pouches and a general round of pouch-dumping and object-trading, Tas explained that he wasn’t one of the innumerable Tassle-hoffs wandering about Ansalon, he was the original. He was particularly proud to show off the pieces of the Device of Time Journeying, complete with the story of how he and Caramon had used it to travel back to the past and how it had taken him inadvertently to the Abyss and how it had brought him forward to a future that wasn’t this future but some other.

The two kender were impressed and quite happy to trade their most valuable objects for pieces of the device. Tas watched the pieces vanish into their pouches without much hope that they would stay there. Still it was worth a shot. Finally, when everything had been traded that could possibly be traded and all the stories told that could possibly be told, he told them why he was in Solanthus.

“I’m on a quest,” Tas announced, and the other two kender appeared quite respectful. “I’m searching for a Solamnic Knight.”

“You’ve come to the right place,” said Leafwort, jerking a thumb behind him at the city walls. “There’re more Knights in there than you can shake a stick at.”

“What do you plan on doing once you’ve got one?” Merribell wondered. “They don’t look like they’d be much fun to me.”

“I’m searching for a specific Knight,” Tas explained. “I had him once, you see, but I lost him, and I was hoping he might have come here, this being a place where Knights tend to congregate, or so I’ve heard. He’s about so high”—Tas jumped to his feet, stood on his tiptoes and raised his arm—”and he’s extremely ugly, even for a human, and he has hair the color of Tika’s corn bread muffins.”

The two kender shook their heads. They’d seen lots of Knights—they described several—but Tas didn’t have any use for them.

“I have to find my own,” he said, squatting down comfortably again. “He and I are great friends. I guess I’ll just go look for myself. These ladies told me— I say, would anyone care for an apple? Anyhow two ladies told me that kender aren’t allowed inside Solanthus.”

“That’s not true. They’re really quite fond of kender in Solanthus,” Merribell assured him.

“They just have to say that to keep up appearances,” added Leafwort.

“They don’t put kender in jail in Solanthus,” Merribell continued enthusiastically. “Imagine that! The moment they catch—er— find you, they give you an armed escort through the town—”

“—so that you can see all the sights—”

“—and they throw you out the front gate. Just like a regular person.”

Tasslehoff agreed that Solanthus sounded like a wonderful place. All he had to do was to find a way inside. His new friends provided him with several entrances that were not known to the general public, adding that it was best to have an alternate route in case the first he tried happened to have been shut down by the guards.

Bidding good-bye to his new friends, Tas went off to try his luck. The number-two location worked extraordinarily well (we have been asked not to reveal it) and after only an hour’s work, Tasslehoff entered the city of Solanthus. He was hot and sweaty, grimy and torn, but all his pouches were intact and that, of course, was of paramount importance.

Fascinated by the immensity of the city, as well as by the large numbers of people, he wandered the streets until his feet were sore and the apples he’d had for lunch were just a distant memory. He saw lots of Knights, but none who resembled Gerard. Tas might have stopped to question a few, but he was afraid that they might treat him in the friendly fashion the other two kender had described, and while he would have liked to have been shown the sights of the city by armed guards and nothing would have made him happier than to be tossed bodily out the front gate, he was forced to put aside such pleasures in the more serious pursuit of his quest.

It was about sunset when Tas began to grow seriously annoyed with Gerard. Having decided that the Knight should be in Solanthus, the fact that he was not where he was supposed to be was highly provoking. Tired of tramping up and down the streets in search of him, weary of dodging city guards (fun at the beginning but old after awhile), Tas decided grumpily that he would sit down and let Gerard find him for a change. Tas planted himself in the shadows of a large statue near a fountain close to the main entrance on the main street, figuring that he would watch everyone coming in and out and that Gerard would be bound to find him eventually.