Dragonlance 08 - Dragons of the Highlord Skies (24 page)

“What’s happening, my good man?” Aran asked, stopping to talk to a shopkeeper gloomily watching his customers stream out of his store. “Has the sea come back?”

“Very funny,” the shopkeeper growled. “Seems there’s some sort of riot going on over by the Red Dragon Inn. A Solamnic Knight made the mistake of showing his insignia in our city. The guards tried to haul him off to the Hall of Justice, but they may not get that far. We don’t take kindly to his kind in Tarsis. He’ll get justice, all right.”

Aran raised his hand to make sure the scarf he had wound around his nose and mouth had not slipped. “A pox on all Solamnic Knights, I say. I think we’ll go have a look. Good day to you, sir.”

“Here,” said the shopkeeper, handing Aran a rotting tomato. “I can’t leave the store, but throw this at him for me.”

“I’ll do that, sir, thank you,” said Aran.

The three ran off, joining the throng of people heading in one direction. They found their way blocked by people yelling insults and tossing the occasional rock. Judging by the craning heads, the prisoners were coming in their direction. Brian peered over the shoulders of those in front of him and saw the small procession come into view. The Tarsian guards had their prisoners surrounded. The crowds fell back and grew quiet at the sight of the guards.

“There’s Brightblade, all right,” Aran announced. He was the tallest of them and had the best view. “And to judge by his ears, that man with him is the half-elf. There’s a true elf and a dwarf, and
that
must be Lillith’s prize kender.”

“Where’s the diversion?” Brian wondered.

“We can at least get closer,” said Derek, and they shoved their way through the mob that was milling about indecisively. The crowd had grown bored yelling at the knight and it seemed they might disperse when, suddenly, the kender lifted his shrill voice and yelled at one of the guards, “Hey, you! Adle-pated pignut! What happened to your muzzle?”

The guard went red in the face. Brian had no idea what an adle-pated pignut was, but apparently the guard did, for he lunged at the kender, who dodged nimbly out of the guard’s grasp and swatted him over the head with his hoopak. Some in the crowd jeered, others applauded, while others began throwing whatever came to hand—vegetables, rocks, shoes. No one was particular about his aim, and the Tarsian guards found themselves under fire. The kender continued to taunt anyone who caught his fancy, with the result that several in the crowd tried to break through the guards’ defenses to get to him.

The commander of the guard started yelling at the top of his lungs. The elf was knocked off his feet. Brian saw Sturm halt and bend protectively over the fallen elf, fending off people with his hands. The dwarf was kicking someone and punching with his fists, while the half-elf was trying desperately to make his way to the kender.

“Now!” said Derek. He commandeered a gunny sack he found lying in front of a vegetable stand and shouldered his way through the crowd. Brian and Aran followed in his wake.

The half-elf was about to grab hold of the kender. Not knowing what else to do, Aran tossed his tomato and struck the half-elf full in the face, momentarily blinding him.

“Sorry about that,” Aran said ruefully.

Derek swooped down on the kender and clamped his hand over his mouth. Brian and Aran grabbed the kender’s feet. Derek popped the sack over his head and carried him, wriggling and squeaking, down the street.

Someone yelled to stop them, but the knights had acted so rapidly that by the time those watching realized what had happened, they were gone.

“You take him!” Derek shouted to Aran, who was the strongest among them.

Aran tossed the kender over his shoulder, keeping one arm clamped over his legs. The kender’s topknot had fallen out of the sack and straggled down Aran’s back. Derek ran down an empty side street. Brian came last, keeping an eye on their backs. With only a vague idea of where they were, they feared getting lost and they made their way back to the main road as quickly as possible.

The bagged kender was emitting muffled howls and wriggling like an eel. Aran was having difficultly hanging onto him and people were stopping to stare.

“Keep quiet, little friend,” Aran advised the kender, “and quit kicking. We’re on your side.”

“I don’t believe it!” shrieked the kender.

“We’re friends of Sturm Brightblade,” said Brian.

The kender ceased to howl.

“Are you knights like Sturm?” he asked excitedly.

Derek cast Aran a stony glance and seemed about to launch into one of his tirades. Aran shook his head at him.

“Yes,” he said, “we’re knights like Sturm, but we’re in hiding. You can’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t, I promise,’ said the kender, then he added, “Can you take me out of the sack? It was fun, at first, but now it’s starting to smell of onion.”

Derek shook his head. “Once we reach the library. Not before. I’ve no mind to go chasing a kender through the streets of Tarsis.”

“Not just yet,” Aran said conspiratorially. “It’s too dangerous. You’d be recognized.”

“You’re probably right. I’m one of the heroes of the battle of Pax Tharkas, and I helped find the Hammer of Kharas. When are we going to rescue the others?”

The three knights looked at each other.

“Later,” said Aran. “We … uh … have to think up a plan.”

“I can help,” the kender offered eagerly. “I’m an expert at plan-thinking. Would it be possible for you to open a small hole so that I could breath a little better? And maybe you could not jounce me around quite so much. I ate a big breakfast and I think it’s starting to turn on me. Have you ever wondered why the same food that tastes so good going down tastes really horrible when it comes back up—”

Aran dropped the kender on the ground. “I’m not going to have him puke on me,” he told Derek.

“Keep a firm grip on him,” ordered Derek. “He’s your responsibility.”

Aran removed the bag. The kender emerged, red in the face from being dangled upside-down and out-of-breath. He was short and slender, like most of his race, and his face was bright, inquisitive, alert, and smiling. He twitched a fur-lined vest and garishly colored clothes into place, felt to make sure his topknot of hair was still on top of his head and checked to see that all his pouches had come with him. This done, he held out his small hand.

“I’m Tasslehoff Burrfoot,” he said. “My friends call me Tas.”

“Aran Tallbow,” said Aran, and he gravely shook hands, then offered his flask. “To make up for the onion.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” said Tas, and he took a drink and almost took the flask, quite by accident, of course, as he told Aran in apology.

“Brian Donner,” said Brian, extending his hand.

Tas looked expectantly at Derek.

“Keep moving,” said Derek impatiently, and he walked off.

“Funny sort of name,” muttered the kender with a mischievous gleam in his eye. “Sir Keep Moving.”

“He’s Derek Crownguard,” said Aran, getting a tight grip on the kender’s collar.

“Humph,” said Tas. “Are you sure he’s a knight?”

“Yes, of course, he is,” said Aran, grinning at Brian and winking. “Why do you ask?”

“Sturm says knights are always polite, and they treat people with respect. Sturm is always polite to me,” said Tas in solemn tones.

“It’s the danger, you see,” Brian explained. “Derek’s worried about us. That’s all.”

“Sturm worries about us a lot, too.” Tas sighed and looked back over his shoulder. “I hope he and the rest of my friends are all right. They always get into trouble if I’m not with them. Of course,” he added on second thought, “my friends get into lots of trouble when I
am
with them, but then I’m there to help them out of it, so I think I should go back—”

The kender made a sudden jerk, gave a twist and a wriggle, and before Aran knew what was happening the knight was holding an empty fur vest, and the kender was dashing off down the street.

Brian leaped after him and was finally able to catch him. Fortunately, Derek was far ahead of them and hadn’t seen what had happened.

“How did he escape like that?” Aran demanded of his friend.

“He’s a kender,” said Brian, unable to help laughing at the bewildered expression on Aran’s face. “It’s what they do.”

He assisted Tas in putting his fur vest back on, then, said, “I know you’re worried about your friends. So are we, but we’ve been sent on a very important mission to find you.”

“Me?” Tas said, astonished. “An important mission to find me—Tasslehoff Burrfoot?”

“There’s someone who wants to meet you. I promise,” Brian added gravely, “on my honor as a knight that when I have taken you to talk to our friend, I will help you rescue your friends.”

“Derek’s not going to like that,” Aran predicted with a grin.

Brian shrugged.

“An important mission!” breathed Tasslehoff. “Wait until I tell Flint. Yes, sure, I’ll come with you. I wouldn’t want to disappoint your friend. Who is your friend anyway? Why does he want to see me? Where are we going? Will he be there when we arrive? How did you know where to find me?”

“We’ll explain everything later,” said Aran. “We have to hurry.”

Aran took hold of Tas by one arm, Brian grabbed him by the other, and they hustled him down the street.

5

Magical glasses. The word

“chromatic”. Love amid the dust.

illith was waiting for them at the entrance to the library. Her face brightened when Aran and Brian deposited the kender on the ground in front of her.

“You found him! I’m so glad,” Lillith said, relieved. “Tasslehoff Burrfoot,” said the kender, reaching out his hand.

“Lillith Hallmark,” she returned, taking his hand in hers and pressing it warmly. “I am so very honored to meet you, Master Burrfoot.”

Tas flushed with pleasure at this.

“We should not be standing out in the open,” Derek warned. “Take him into the library.”

“Yes, you’re right. Come inside.” Lillith led the way. The kender followed her, delighted with the wonder of this unexpected adventure.

“A library! I love libraries. I’m not usually permitted inside them, however. I tried to visit the Great Library of Palanthas once, but I was told they don’t allow kender. Why is that, Lillith, do you know? I thought maybe they had made a mistake and what they meant to say was that they didn’t allow ogres, which I can understand, and I tried to crawl in through a window, so as not to bother anyone at the door, but I got stuck, and the Pathetics had to come help me—”

“Aesthetics,” Lillith corrected, smiling.

“Yes, them, too,” said Tas. “Anyway, I found out the rule doesn’t say anything about ogres, but it does say ‘no kender’. I’m very glad
you
admit kender.”

“We don’t as a general policy,” said Lillith, “but in your case, we’ll make an exception.”

By this time, they’d descended the stairs into the library proper. Tasslehoff stood quite still, staring around in awe. Lillith kept her hand on his shoulder.

“Thank you very much, gentlemen, for bringing him, and now, if you could excuse us, I must speak with Master Burrfoot in private.” Lillith added in apologetic tones, “As I told you, this is not my secret.”

“Secret?” said Tas eagerly.

“Of course, Mistress,” said Derek. He hesitated then added, “You mentioned something about Burrfoot being able to assist us—”

“I will let you know if he can or not,” Lillith assured him. “That’s part of the secret.”

“I’m extremely good at keeping secrets,” Tas announced. “What secret am I keeping?”

Derek bowed in acknowledgement, then headed for the back of the library. Aran and Brian accompanied him, and Lillith soon lost sight of them among the shelves. The sound of their footfalls grew muffled and faint, though she could still hear Aran’s laughter, resounding through the building, shaking the dust from the books.

“Come, sit down,” said Lillith, guiding Tas to a chair. She sat down beside him and drew her chair close to his. “I have a very important question to ask you. The answer is very important to me and to many other people, Tasslehoff, so I want you to think very carefully before you reply. I want to know—do you have with you the Glasses of Arcanist?”

“The what of who?” Tasslehoff asked, puzzled.

“The Glasses of Arcanist.”

“Did this Arcanist say I took them?” Tas demanded, indignant at the accusation. “Because I didn’t! I never take anything that’s not mine.”

“I have a friend, a very good friend named Evenstar, who says that you
found
the glasses in the floating tomb of King Duncan in Thorbardin. He says you dropped them, and he picked them up and gave them back to you—”

“Oh!” Tas leaped up in excitement. “You mean my Special Magical Glasses for Reading Stuff! Why didn’t you say so in the first place? Yes, I think I have them somewhere. Would you like me to look?”

“Yes, please,” said Lillith, alarmed at the kender’s cavalier attitude, but she reminded herself, he
is
a kender, and the gold dragon knew that when he allowed him to keep the glasses.

“I hope you haven’t told anyone about Evenstar,” said Lillith, watching in growing concern as Tas started upending his pouches and dumping their contents onto the floor. She knew kender picked up all manner of various and assorted trinkets and treasures, ranging from the valuable to the ridiculous and everything in between. But she hadn’t quite realized the vast extent of a kender’s holdings until she saw it piling up on the floor. “Our friend could get into a lot of trouble if anyone knew he was helping us.”

“I haven’t said a word about meeting a golden … woolly mammoth,” Tasslehoff replied. “You see, we were in Duncan’s tomb—my friend, Flint, and I and there was this dwarf who said he was Kharas, only then we found the real Kharas and he was dead—extremely dead. So we wondered who the dwarf was really and I’d found these glasses inside the tomb and I put them on and when I looked through the lenses at the dwarf, he wasn’t a dwarf, he was a golden … woolly mammoth.”

He gave her a pitiful glance. “You see how it is? When I tried to tell anyone that I met a golden … woolly mammoth … it always comes out … woolly mammoth. I can’t say … woolly mammoth.”

“Ah, I see,” said Lillith in understanding.

The golden dragon had apparently found a way to keep even a kender’s lips sealed on his secret, a secret he had since revealed, but only to the Aesthetics.

Many years ago, the good dragons had awakened to find their eggs had been stolen away from them by the dragons of Queen Takhisis. Using their eggs as hostages, the Queen forced the good dragons to promise they would not take part in the upcoming war. Fearing for the fate of their young, the good dragons agreed, though there were some among their number who advocated strongly that this was the wrong course. Evenstar had been one of these. He had spoken out forcefully against such appeasement and had vowed that he would not feel bound by any such oath. He had been punished for his rebellion. He had been banished to the Floating Tomb of King Duncan in Thorbardin, there to guard the Hammer of Kharas.

Two dwarves, Flint Fireforge and Arman Kharas, accompanied by Tasslehoff, had recently discovered the sacred hammer and restored it to the dwarves, freeing Evenstar from his prison. While in the tomb, Tasslehoff had encountered Evenstar, who questioned the kender about the situation in the world. What he heard greatly disturbed Evenstar, especially when he learned that an evil new race known as draconians had appeared on Krynn. A terrible suspicion was growing in his mind as to the fate of the young metallic dragons. Evenstar did not yet dare reveal himself. If the forces of darkness knew that a golden dragon was awake and watching the doings of the dark Queen, she would send her evil dragons after him, and, because he was isolated and alone, he would be no match for them. Thus he had found this magical method to make a kender keep a secret.

“The next time I looked through the glasses we were in a great big hall I can’t recall the name of and the dwarves were fighting Dragon Highlord Verminaard, only he was supposed to be dead, so I looked at him through the glasses and he wasn’t Verminaard at all. He was a draconian!”

Tas had plopped himself down on the floor and was sorting through his valuable possessions as he talked, searching for the glasses. Lillith realized in dismay that this search could take a considerable amount of time, since the kender could not pick up anything without examining it and showing it to her and telling her all about how he’d come by it and what it did and what he planned to do with it.

“Tas,” said Lillith, “there are some very dangerous people in the city who would give a great deal to find these magical glasses. If you think you might have left them back in the inn—”

“Ah! I know!” Tasslehoff smacked himself in the forehead. “I’m such a doorknob, as Flint is always telling me.” Tas reached his hand into one of the pockets in his bright colored trousers. He pulled out an assortment of objects—a prune pit, a petrified beetle, a bent spoon which he said was to be used for turning any undead he might be lucky enough to encounter, and finally, wrapped in a handkerchief embroidered with the name C. Majere, was a pair of spectacles made of clear glass with wire rim frames.

“They’re truly remarkable.” Tas regarded them with fond pride. “That’s why I’m so careful of them.”

“Uh, yes,” said Lillith, vastly relieved.

“Does your friend want them back?” Tas asked wistfully.

Lillith didn’t know how to answer. Evenstar had told Astinus, the Master of the Great Library, to seek out the kender and make certain Tas had the glasses in his possession. The dragon had said nothing about taking the glasses away from the kender, nor had he said anything about the kender using them to help the knights or anyone seeking knowledge.

As the follower of a neutral god, one who maintained the balance between the gods of Light and those of darkness, Lillith was not supposed to take sides in any war. Her assigned task was to guard the knowledge. If this was done, if the knowledge of the ages was preserved, then no matter whether good or evil prevailed, wisdom’s flame would continue to light the way for future generations.

The Kingpriest, though he had revered Paladine, God of Light, had feared knowledge. He feared that if people were permitted to learn about gods other than Paladine and the gods of Light, they would cease to worship those gods and turn to others. That was why Paladine and the other gods of Light had turned against him.

Now Takhisis, Queen of Darkness, was trying to conquer the world. She also feared knowledge, knowing that those who live in ignorance will not ask questions, but will slavishly do what they are told. Takhisis was trying to stamp out knowledge, and Gilean and his followers were determined to oppose her.

Where were the gods of Light in this battle? Had they returned with Gilean? Did Paladine and the other gods of Light have their champions, and if so, would they be like the Kingpriest? Would they want to destroy the books? If they did, Lillith would fight them as she would fight draconians or anyone else who threatened her library.

Perhaps this was the reason Evenstar had turned to Astinus for help and not to Paladine, assuming Paladine was around. Evenstar distrusted Takhisis and her minions, yet he was not certain he could trust the gods of Light.

Now Lillith was confronted with the kender, and although she considered herself open-minded and free from prejudice, she couldn’t help but think the dragon might have chosen a more responsible guardian for such a valuable artifact. She considered it a major miracle the kender had kept hold of the glasses all during the long journey from Thorbardin to Tarsis. It was not her place to judge, however, especially when she didn’t know all the facts. She had been told to find the kender and ascertain that he had the spectacles on him. She could report back that he did. Her job was done, but should she allow him to help the knights?

“No, Evenstar doesn’t want them back,” Lillith said to Tas. “You can keep them.”

“I can?” Tas was thrilled. “That’s wonderful! Thank you!”

“You can thank your friend the golden woolly mammoth,” said Lillith, smiling. She took out a small book and began to take notes. “Now, tell me what you see this time when you look through the lenses …”

In the back portion of the library, the knights had not resumed their search but were embroiled in an argument.

“You did
what?”
Derek demanded, scowling at Brian.

“I gave the kender my word of honor as a knight that I would help rescue Sturm and the others,” Brian repeated calmly.

“You had no right to make such a promise!” Derek returned angrily. “You know the importance of our mission to recover this dragon orb and take it back to Solamnia! You could put it all in peril—”

“I didn’t say anything about
you
assisting them, Derek,” Brian told him. “You and Aran can continue with your search for the dragon orb. Brightblade is a fellow Solamnic, and though I only knew him a short time, I consider him a friend. Even if I didn’t know him, I would do everything in my power to keep him and his companions from falling into the hands of the enemy. Besides,” he added stubbornly, “I have now given my word.”

“The Measure says it’s our duty to thwart and confound our foes,” Aran pointed out, tilting his flask to his mouth, then wiping his lips with the back of his hand.

“Tell me how we confound our foes by rescuing a half-elf and a dwarf and a counterfeit knight?” Derek retorted, but Brian could see that his argument was having some effect. Derek was at least considering his proposal.