War of the Twins (46 page)

“So—you
are
from the Abyss!” Kharas said sternly. “You admit it! Apparitions from the Realms of Darkness! The black-robed wizard conjured you, and you came at his bidding.”

This startling accusation actually rendered the kender speechless.

“Wh-wh”—Tas sputtered for a moment incoherently, then found his voice—“I’ve never been so insulted! Except perhaps when the guard in Istar referred to me as a—a cut-cutpur—well, never mind. To say nothing of the fact that if Raistlin was going to conjure up anything, I certainly don’t think it would be us. Which reminds me!” Tas glared back sternly at Kharas. “Why did you go and kill him like that? I mean, maybe he
wasn’t
what you might call a really nice person. And maybe he
did
try to kill me by making me break the magical device and then leaving me behind in Istar for the gods to drop a fiery mountain on. But”—Tas sighed wistfully—“he was certainly one of the most
interesting
people I’ve ever known.”

“Your wizard isn’t dead, as you well know, apparition!” Duncan growled.

“Look, I’m not an appari—Not dead?” Tas’s face lit up. “Truly? Even after you stabbed him like that and all the blood and everything and—Oh! I know how! Crysania! Of course! Lady Crysania!”

“Ah, the witch!” Kharas said softly, almost to himself as the thanes began to mutter among themselves.

“Well, she is kind of cold and impersonal sometimes,” Tas said, shocked, “but I certainly don’t think that gives you any right to call her names! She’s a cleric of Paladine, after all.”

“Cleric!” The thanes began to laugh.

“There’s your answer,” Duncan said to Kharas, ignoring the kender. “Witchcraft.”

“You are right, of course, Thane,” Kharas said, frowning, “but—”

“Look,” Tas begged, “if you’d just let me go! I keep trying to tell you dwarves. This is all a dreadful mistake! I’ve got to get to Caramon!”

That caused a reaction. The thanes immediately hushed.

“You know General Caramon?” Kharas asked dubiously.

“General?” Tas repeated. “Wow! Won’t Tanis be surprised to hear that? General Caramon! Tika would laugh.… Uh, of course I know Cara—General Caramon,” Tas continued hurriedly, seeing Duncan’s eyebrows coming together again. “He’s my best friend. And if you’ll only listen to what I’m trying to tell you, Gnimsh and I came here with the magical device to find Caramon and take him home. He doesn’t want to be here, I’m sure. You see, Gnimsh fixed the device so that it will take more than one person—”

“Take him home where?” Duncan growled. “The Abyss? Perhaps the wizard conjured him up, too!”

“No!” Tas snapped, beginning to lose patience. “Take him home to Solace, of course. And Raistlin, too, if he wants to go. I can’t imagine what they’re doing here, in fact. Raistlin couldn’t stand Thorbardin the last time we were here, which will be in about two hundred years. He spent the whole time coughing and complaining about the damp. Flint said—Flint Fireforge, that is, an old friend of mine—”

“Fireforge!” Duncan actually jumped up from his throne, glaring at the kender. “You’re a friend of Fireforge?”

“Well, you needn’t get so worked up,” Tas said, somewhat startled. “Flint had his faults, of course—always grumbling and accusing people of stealing things when I was
truly
intending to put that bracelet right back where I found it, but that doesn’t mean you—”

“Fireforge,” Duncan said grimly, “is the leader of our enemies. Or didn’t you know that?”

“No,” said Tas with interest, “I didn’t. Oh, but I’m sure it couldn’t be the same Fireforge,” he added after some thought. “Flint won’t be born for at least another fifty years. Maybe it’s his father. Raistlin says—”

“Raistlin? Who is this Raistlin?” Duncan demanded.

Tasslehoff fixed the dwarf with a stern eye. “You’re not paying attention. Raistlin is the wizard. The one you killed—Er, the one you didn’t kill. The one you thought you killed but didn’t.”

“His name isn’t Raistlin. It’s Fistandantilus!” Duncan snorted. Then, his face grim, the dwarven king resumed his seat. “So,” he said, looking at the kender from beneath his bushy eyebrows, “you’re planning to take this wizard who was healed by a cleric when there are no clerics in this world and a general you claim is your best friend back to a place that doesn’t exist to meet our enemy who hasn’t been born yet using a device, built by a gnome, which actually works?”

“Right!” cried Tas triumphantly. “You see there! Look what you can learn when you just listen!”

Gnimsh nodded emphatically.

“Guards! Take them away!” Duncan snarled. Spinning around on his heel, he looked at Kharas coldly. “You gave me your word. I’ll expect to see you in the War Council room in ten minutes.”

“But, Thane! If he truly knows General Caramon—”

“Enough!” Duncan was in a rage. “War is coming, Kharas. All your honor and all your noble yammering about slaying kinsmen can’t stop it! And you will be out there on the field of battle or you can take your face that shames us all and hide it in the dungeons along with the rest of the traitors to our people—the Dewar! Which will it be?”

“I serve you, of course, Thane,” Kharas said, his face rigid. “I have pledged my life.”

“See you remember that!” Duncan snapped. “And to keep your thoughts from wandering, I am ordering that you be confined to your quarters except to attend the War Council
meetings and that, further, these two”—he waved at Tas and Gnimsh—“are to be imprisoned and their whereabouts kept secret until after the war has ended. Death come upon the head of any who defy this command.”

The thanes glanced at each other, nodding approvingly, though one muttered that it was too late. The guards grabbed hold of Gnimsh and Tas, the kender still protesting volubly as they led him away.

“I was telling the truth,” he wailed. “You’ve got to believe me! I know it sounds funny, but, you see, I—I’m not quite used to—uh—telling the truth! But give me a while. I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it someday.…”

Tasslehoff wouldn’t have believed it was possible to go down so far beneath the surface of the world as the guards were taking them if his own feet hadn’t walked it. He remembered once Flint telling him once that Reorx lived down here, forging the world with his great hammer.

“A nice, cheerful sort of person
he
must be,” Tas grumbled, shivering in the cold until his teeth chattered. “At least if Reorx was forging the world, you’d think it’d be warmer.”

“Trustdwarves,” muttered Gnimsh.

“What?” It seemed to the kender that he’d spent the last half of his life beginning every sentence he spoke to the gnome with “what?”

“I said trust dwarves!” Gnimsh returned loudly. “Instead of building their homes in active volcanoes, which, though slightly unstable, provide an excellent source of heat, they build theirs in old dead mountains.” He shook his wispy-haired head. “Hard to believe we’re cousins.”

Tas didn’t answer, being preoccupied with other matters—like how do we get out of this one, where do we go if we do get out, and when are they likely to serve dinner? There seeming to be no immediate answers to any of these (including dinner), the kender lapsed into a gloomy silence.

Oh, there was one rather exciting moment—when they were lowered down a narrow rocky tunnel that had been bored straight down into the mountain. The device they used
to lower people down this tunnel was called a “lift” by the gnomes, according to Gnimsh. (“Isn’t ‘lift’ an inappropriate name for it when it’s going
down?”
Tas pointed out, but the gnome ignored him.)

Since no immediate solution to his problems appeared forthcoming, Tas decided not to waste his time in this interesting place moping about. He therefore enjoyed the journey in the lift thoroughly, though it was rather uncomfortable in spots when the rickety, wooden device—operated by muscular dwarves pulling on huge lengths of rope—bumped against the side of the rocky tunnel as it was being lowered, jouncing the occupants about and inflicting numerous cuts and bruises on those inside.

This proved highly entertaining, especially as the dwarven guards accompanying Tas and Gnimsh shook their fists, swearing roundly in dwarven at the operators up above them.

As for the gnome, Gnimsh was plunged into a state of excitement impossible to believe. Whipping out a stub of charcoal and borrowing one of Tas’s handkerchiefs, he plopped himself down on the floor of the lift and immediately began to draw plans for a New Improved Lift.

“Pulleyscablessteam,” he yammered to himself happily, busily sketching what looked to Tas like a giant lobster trap on wheels. “Updownupdown. Whatfloor? Steptotherear. Capacity:thirtytwo. Stuck? Alarms! Bellswhistleshorns.”

When they eventually reached ground level, Tas tried to watch carefully to see where they were going (so that they could leave, even if he didn’t have a map), but Gnimsh was hanging onto him, pointing to his sketch and explaining it to him in detail.

“Yes, Gnimsh. Isn’t that interesting?” Tas said, only half-listening to the gnome as his heart sank even lower than where they were standing. “Soothing music by a piper in the corner? Yes, Gnimsh, that’s a great idea.”

Gazing around as their guards prodded them forward, Tas sighed. Not only did this place look as boring as the Abyss, it had the added disadvantage of smelling even worse. Row after row of large, crude prison cells lined the rocky walls. Lit
by torches that smoked in the foul, thin air, the cells were filled to capacity with dwarves.

Tas gazed at them in growing confusion as they walked down the narrow aisle between cell blocks. These dwarves didn’t look like criminals. There were males, females, even children crammed inside the cells. Crouched on filthy blankets, huddled on battered stools, they stared glumly out from behind the bars.

“Hey!” Tas said, tugging at the sleeve of a guard. The kender spoke some dwarven, having picked it up from Flint. “What is all this?” he asked, waving his hand. “Why are all these people in here?” (At least that’s what he hoped he said. There was every possibility he might have inadvertently asked the way to the nearest alehouse.)

But the guard, glowering at him, only said, “Dewar.”

“Dewar?” Tas repeated blankly.

The guard, however, refused to elaborate but prodded Tas on ahead with a vicious shove. Tas stumbled, then kept walking, glancing about, trying to figure out what was going on. Gnimsh, meanwhile, apparently seized by another fit of inspiration, was going on about “hydraulics.”

Tas pondered. Dewar, he thought, trying to remember where he’d heard that word. Suddenly, he came up with the answer.

“The dark dwarves!” he said. “Of course! I remember! They fought for the Dragon Highlord. But, they didn’t live down here the last time—or I suppose it will be the next time—we were here. Or will come here. Drat, what a muddle. Surely they don’t live in prison cells, though. Hey”—Tas tapped the dwarf again—“what did they do! I mean, to get thrown in jail?”

“Traitors!” the dwarf snapped. Reaching a cell at the far end of the aisle, he drew out a key, inserted it into the lock, and swung the door open.

Peering inside, Tas saw about twenty or thirty Dewar crowded into the cell. Some lay lethargically on the floor, others sat against the wall, sleeping. One group, crouched together off in a corner, were talking in low voices when the guard arrived. They quit immediately as soon as the cell door opened. There were no women or children in this cell, only males; and they regarded Tas, the gnome, and the guard with dark, hate-filled eyes.

Tas grabbed Gnimsh just as the gnome—still yammering about people getting stuck between floors—was just about to walk absentmindedly into the cell.

“Well, well,” Tas said to the dwarven guard as he dragged Gnimsh back to stand beside him, “this tour was quite—er—entertaining. Now, if you’ll just take us back to our cells, which were, I must say,
very nice
cells—so light and airy and roomy—I think I can safely promise that my partner and I won’t be taking any more unauthorized excursions into your city, though it
is
an extremely interesting place and I’d like to see more of it. I—”

But the dwarf, with a rough shove of his hand, pushed the kender into the cell, sending him sprawling.

“I wish you’d make up your mind,” Gnimsh snapped irritably, stumbling inside after Tas. “Are we going in or out?”

“I guess we’re in,” Tas said ruefully, sitting up and looking doubtfully at the Dewar, who were staring back in silence. The guards’ heavy boots could be heard stumping back up the corridor, accompanied by shouted obscenities and threats from the surrounding cells.

“Hello,” Tas said, smiling in friendly fashion, but
not
offering to shake hands. “I’m Tasslehoff Burrfoot and this is my friend, Gnimsh, and it looks like we’re going to be cellmates, doesn’t it now? So, what’s your names? Er, now, I say, that isn’t very nice.…”

Tas drew himself up, glaring sternly at one of the Dewar, who had risen to his feet and was approaching them.

A tall dwarf, his face was nearly invisible beneath a thick matting of tangled hair and beard. He grinned suddenly. There was a flash of steel and a large knife appeared in his
hand. Shuffling forward, he advanced upon the kender, who retreated as far as possible into a corner, dragging Gnimsh with him.